How can I say this without breaking?
The sacrifice I thought most painful, only felt like a pinprick but the one I thought the least, nearly killed me.
-Lazyredragon
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She had loved him.
Though a mortal.
Though a human.
She had loved him.
Celeste trudged forward the weight of her sleeping sister on her back, their story singing in her head, like it was being played by a minstrel, but what if it was?
He would dance in a circle around a bright fire coloured green and blue with faerie dust, fingers plucking a lute he'd sing their story;
"There was once a man who fell in love with a god, she was a wonder, new a breath of fresh air in a world that had long suffocated him.
She was divine, arms that glittered red in the morning light like bloodied diamonds, wings that folded into a long train like that of a bride's the eyes that gleamed like fiery embers, all-knowing yet innocent, she was a daughter of the sun, he was sure of it.
There was once a goddess who fell in love with a man, a human none the less.
he was bright, he was kind, he was new to the endless void that had been her existence..."
That much would be true, how long had she simply existed never feeling, never knowing, never wondering at the world all around her, and how different would their story have been if written by the minstrel's words,
She laughed quietly, it would have probably rhymed.
"Bright as the sun, in a meadow of yellow roses the two met to play, the man brought his lyre and sang to the goddess to stay,
She could not! She would say for her role was too great, if she dared stay, the world would be in a sorry state,"
She laughed aloud now, Starlight's breathing steadily on her back she could feel the younger's heartbeat slowly rising and from the scales on the arms wrapped around her neck, the cold blue was shifting to red she would recover.
It would be long and it would be hard but she would recover.
Looking back at the story, at what point did it fall to the flames?
They were happy and then they were not.
But why?
Was it her refusal to stay with him?
Was it his pigheadedness, never listening when she spoke treating her as he would a common woman when she herself was the embodiment of this worlds warmth.
She was indeed a daughter of the sun but her domain was in the light these mortals held within themselves.
The light that could be shared, with the amount of time she was gone a war had surely begun, the ice in men's hearts had surely spread to their very cores.
Bitter frost would now rule these times; at least until she could return to her perch but even then, did she want to?
Could she bear the looks and whispers of her fellow sisters?
The shame at falling so low...
She laughed.
These thoughts were too much like a mortal's, she truly had fallen,
so much so that she no longer felt the warmth she was meant to give.
The hollow in her chest ached at this bitter truth, Celeste was empty, she had lost her gift.
A goddess of the sun whose core was covered in frost,
She should cry but why bother...none hear the pleas of the fallen, even if they come from a god.
Their story had cracks in it from the very beginning she realized, though blinded by the thrill and first loves light, she never paid them any mind and so the cracks spread like a spindly web wrapping an wrapping around her lover's bed.
"Why can't you stay with me forever?"
He had asked.
" Your a god can't you do whatever you want?" he had yelled.
She had returned after a month, she did not notice at the time but the days she spent apart from him were growing longer and longer, the man thought she was distancing herself from him and though he stood by the worlds sun he still felt cold.
Still, it was no fault of hers, she was an immortal she really had no clue of mortal time.
"That is not how this world works and you know it, my love," she had said again and again,
"Are you tired of me?"
"Never," she answered, how could she when he was everything she never knew she had, The Goddess of warmth had found her light.
The man thought she was playing a ruse,
That was fall.
Orange leaves fell to wet earth on the day she bid him goodbye.
She took to the sky in a beam of red and yellow flames,
Her wings fanned out in a delicate design, golden hair shining in the sunlight like stars were caught in it, eyes blazing with life.
She was a part of this world, she truly was and he realized watching her wings glimmer in the orange sky, as the flaming trails that followed her grew fainter and fainter, that she could never really belong to him much as he wanted her to.
Much as he needed her to be his, she belonged to this world and if he wanted to keep her,
he would have to break her.
It was a cold thought, it was a cruel wish.
But a mind swimming in wine draws up the worst fantasies.
He took to the bottle in bitterness and a feeling he could not describe was it loss or despair?
What was that feeling when a lover feels unloved?
And how long does the seed need to bud into a snake, coiling around the mind of a man?
Not long apparently,
it only took a winters turn and a springs pass.
She had stayed longer than she had intended but surely that would allow her a longer time with her human.
It was summer when golden wings folded under the light of a meadow, she had returned and she came with another, her sister another daughter of the sun.
She had wanted to meet the man who had won her sisters beautiful, heart and give them their blessing on her family's behalf.
Starlight, the goddess of rage though she was meant to be there for only a short while lest her presence destroy the balance so carefully cultivated.
Starlight was meant to act as a witness, she would surprise her human with their mortal customs.
She had thought long and hard of a way to ease his mind of her devotion to him and had concluded on a marriage.
Surely if they were married it would put him at ease?
Then her sister would send word home allowing her a few precious days with her husband, the light in her heart was so bright that day and Starlight though unclear on the custom was happy to help her excited sister.
So the meadow became their church, setting up an altar and collecting a bouquet the goddesses busied themselves making what they believed was a suitable stage before lighting up the sky in colours of flame, a calling to her beloved.
The man saw the colours and knew his goddess had returned after so long she had come back to him, a final swig of bitter wine he left the bar for the meadows and he found her.
Waiting under the light of the setting sun a flower crown in her hair, bouquet in hand.
Innocent
Resplendent.
Beautiful.
Unmatched.
"You've returned." there was a slur in his voice, a sway in his step.
"Barius are you alright?" she asked concerned, her voice usually calmed him but now it only seemed to make him more restless, red eyes glowered at her and for the first time since she came to the mortal realm, she felt afraid.
Was her beloved ill?
"Barius, I wasn't gone for too long, was I?" she took a step closer he matched and stepped back.
She was confused.
"Are you alright, love?"
Her words had made him livid, the wine made him mad and Starlight just by being around her turned him into a beast.
It all happened so fast at the time but now she could slow everything, the moment he grabbed a satchel, dumping green glittery powder into his palm; she and her sister shared a look believing it was part of the wedding,
Didn't they throw rice to bless the happy couple? Perhaps this was it.
Oh, how stupid she was.
In her mind, the minstrel sang a song,
"There was once a goddess who fell in love with a man,
not a dragon nor a fae but a human man
and from this love grew many blissful days
till the man cast a cloud of green and spun a song of says
and so slept as a goddess who awoke as a slave"
Tears stung her eyes but she wouldn't cry, how could one such as she cry for a mortal,
No tear would fall not a single one!
The gods do not weep for man.
They rule them,
They rear them
They hunt them for sacrifice and revel in their hopeless pleas for assistance,
pleas that she would turn a deaf ear to.
The cold settled in her veins as a comfort.
Gods do not shed tears for mortals but mortals will shed blood for Gods.
Barius would shed blood for her.
The scales on her arms were recovering though they now grew in an icy shade of blue, in a few years so would her wings her tail was gone forever but her horns would grow back as well, perhaps a few weeks she would recover.
She would never be whole again but she would recover.
She glanced at her nails the had grown well in the days since the old witches home it hadn't even been a week soon they would be claws again.
She picked up a pebble.
Scritch!
She ran her nails over a smooth stone they needed to be shaped properly while they were still short or they wouldn't be proper blades later on.
Scratch!
Longer claws would dig deeper into the man's chest, wrapping around a beating heart.
Scritch!
Would it be warm, the red soft muscle pulsating in her palm? Would he still be screaming as she had for the many days she had suffered under the witch?
Scratch!
Or would he accept the pain as she had, eventually growing used to the torturous sting, the painful jabs?
Scritch!
It would be slow for sure, she'd drag it out for days, he wasn't weak he wouldn't die so easily.
Scratch!
She would find him soon enough, the winds would guide her the stars would show her and her legs would take her.
Scritch!
In her mind, the minstrel sang
"Oh, man who bore the suns heart,
cast it aside and broke her apart.
Why do you weep? why do you cry?
and in the begging and pleading,
why do you lie?"
Starlight awoke to the sounds of scratching, her scales redder now than blue,
"Celeste, your claws grow well."
"And your red returns just as well little sister."
The minstrel sang a song unheard to all but the maiden sharpening her claws,
"Oh, man who bore the suns heart,
cast it aside and broke her apart.
Why do you weep? why do you cry?
and in the begging and pleading why do you lie?
Why?
Oh, why do you keep asking, why?"