Chapter 143 - Ilio part 10

At that point in time, I had only just awakened from the ice. If you recall from the first volume of my memoirs, I had cast my body into a glacial crevasse, trying to end my immortal suffering. I had outlived my wives and children. My descendants had abandoned the valley that had been our home from time immemorial, fleeing before the advancing cold. In my loneliness, I was seduced by Death, and so I had climbed atop the largest of the icy floes clawing their way into the valley, and I had thrown myself into the deepest, darkest fissure I could find. My last thought had been a declaration of satisfaction and relief as massive planes of jagged ice crushed me to a pulp.

But I had not perished. I lay in the womb of the glacier, locked in dreamless slumber, preserved by the Strix until the ice retreated once again, several thousand years later. Cast out, crushed and senseless, I was a stillborn thing awakening in the middle of a desolate tundra.

For me, only a year or two had passed from the time that I cast myself into the maw of the glacier to that night, talking to Ilio about the complications of marriage for our kind. I was still haunted by the loneliness which had caused me to throw myself headlong into the void. I had Ilio, and if it weren't for him I might have tried to find some other way to end myself, but he was just a boy—my adopted son, yes-- but his company could only go so far in filling the emptiness in my soul.

To have a female companion again… someone to provide for, someone to comfort me as only a woman can comfort. And sex… let's not forget about that! I no longer had the need for sex that mortal men are driven by, but my encounter with Priss's fiery older sister had awakened a new desire for the act. The overwhelming pleasure of our coupling still sizzled in my memory.

Still, I could not put the dangers of such an adventure completely out of my thoughts. Ilio was young. Inexperienced. He still thought only of his own wants, his own needs. I was much too old for such selfish self-deception.

Put it out of your thoughts, I advised myself.

But still, it remained: the ache.

I remembered my days as a young bachelor, living with my tent-mate Brulde. The era of my mortal life had been a time of plenty, a brief period of warmth before the final glaciation of Europe. Our lives were easy, and we had lived in relative peace with our neighbors. By day we fished or hunted small game in the valley forest. By night we dreamed moonily of all the young women in our village, debating who was prettiest, who would make the best wife, and who we'd just as soon club in the head.

My people had practiced fertility magic. Sex for our tribe was a sacred duty. It was used to heal, to strengthen the bonds of our community. For the River People, every occasion was an excuse for a ritual orgy! I had never lacked for sexual partners when I was a mortal man, and if I did come up deficient, I could always depend on Brulde. The men of our village coupled much like the Spartans or the Greeks.

But to have a wife! To have that special bond, to become one with another and bring forth new life-- that was the holiest of holy to my people… not the petty rules and regulations of your uptight modern deities!

I suppose I should end this monologue before I offend you unnecessarily. I know how you modern folk cling to your new myths, your rigid rules and customs, preferring the comfort of fairy tales to the unflinching stare of reality, the tranquility of imprisonment to the fearful prospect of freedom. You've become timid pets, kept so long in confinement that the grass beneath your feet, the open sky above, even your own instinctive desires, freeze your hearts with terror.

Sometimes I think this willful ignorance, this fear of liberty, is a symptom of another type of loneliness. Racial loneliness. You are a solitary race on a tiny, remote world, circling a massive black hole that is careening through an infinite freezing void at two million kilometers an hour. A single race, a silent galaxy, a vast and hostile universe. It should come as no surprise that so many of you seek refuge in fantasy. It must be comforting to believe some omnipotent Papa is watching your every thought and deed, guarding you from the big scary universe-- so long as you follow His rules.

Here is the ultimate, terrifying truth: your mother and your father are your Creator, and you are free to do as you will.

I'm sorry if that upsets you.

But I digress...