Once I was a god.
I had worshipers and power beyond imagining; I had women and men alike throwing themselves at my feet, begging for my benevolence, prostrating themselves before me, and beseeching me to bless their milk cows, give them good weather, and a good harvest. And all I asked for was their first-born sons. Not such a bad rap, considering everything that I did for them. I only wanted the boys, it should be noted. Never the girls. I never had anything against girls"well, nothing they didn't already want against them, if you catch my drift. It just seemed rather stupid to take away my source for sacrifice. If I took the girls, who would give me the next generation of strong warrior blood, splashed across the crest of my hill in Eirin"
But then that sodding Roman slave came along and drove out the old gods, replacing them with a benevolent peace-loving hippie. Yeah, I went there. I called your shepherd a peacenik. I much prefer your Old Testament God. The whole "eye for an eye' thing really appeals to me. It's a philosophy that I can get behind. Turning your other cheek and loving your neighbor is for the weak; if you follow this philosophy, you deserve to be conquered and wiped off the face of the Earth. It is not a warrior's way. And it's disgraceful that this weak-willed, peace-loving slave who wasn't even from Eirin but Albion instead, toppled my center of worship and all but erased me from history. Believe me, I never lived that one down. 'Course, I got off much better than poor Lugh Samild"nach; he was turned into a little green-skinned protector of pots of gold. I was just forgotten.
I've been languishing for 1,500 years in the recesses of the collective unconscious, which if you're curious is like that cupboard under the stairs where you stash your Christmas and Hallowe'en decorations and that hideous piss-yellow vase your Great Aunt Maggie gave you, the one that only comes out when the old bat comes a' visiting. The collective unconscious is dark and dusty and filled with all sorts of wonderful things. There's these demons who were driven out by the peacenik"they go by the name Legion, by the way"who are just itching to get their hooks into the hippie's followers. There's entire pantheons of gods and goddesses who were around long before you knuckle-dragging monkeys ever figured out fire. Leviathan, Cthulhu, Baal, and hell, even the Morrighan and her sisters Babdh and Nemain are here, too. It's like a never-ending high school reunion sometimes, only without the annoying touch football games and insipid mixers.
It was okay, you know, as existences go. I got to swap stories with the Old Ones and learned some pretty cool tips and tricks on how to sow terror and destruction from the Morrighan, if only I could somehow break out and become real again. That was the worst part of the whole time I was trapped; I had all these ideas and urges and well, needs, but I couldn't act on any of them. Where was I gonna find a virgin or a cute little puppy dog in the hidden cupboard of humanity's mind"
And then one day, it happened. One of you knuckle-dragging monkeys spoke my name, but it wasn't just dropped in casual conversation or in a history class in one of your liberal arts colleges. Oh, no. It was whispered like a lover's name, spoken like a prayer. It was an invocation. Someone wanted me, wanted me in a bad way, too.
Do you have any idea what it's like to waste away, completely forgotten and ignored for f*cking millennia, yearning with your entire being to break out of your prison, wishing day after day to be important again, to matter to someone once more" Yeah, I guess some of you do. You 50-year-old housewives married to Wall Street execs, lawyers, and politicians probably feel me, don't you?
It was disturbing, hearing my name spoken like that again, after so long. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't sure if I could break out of my prison and hang out on Earth again. There aren't really any rules to being trapped in the collective unconscious, you know" It's not like Heaven or Hell, or even the dining room of the Waldorf-Astoria, where someone meets you at the door, hands you a menu, and points you in the direction of a plumb table...or your afterlife. No, it's more of a catch as catch can kind of thing. You sort of make up your own rules on the fly. And my newest rule was now that someone had at long last remembered me, I was getting the hell out of Dodge.
But how" After 1,500 years of nothing, how did I make something" I'd completely forgotten what I looked like, what I sounded like, what kind of food I liked. I had a vague memory of bloody heads, but I couldn't remember if that was my preferred form or if it had something to do with my sacrifices. I needed to figure out a body, a vessel you know? I kinda dug Cthulhu's whole tentacle-head thing, but that's His signature and I didn't want to rip it off. Then the Morrighan suggested I take a look at the dude who had invoked me. I was stunned. I could do that' Sure, she said. Make it a rule.
So I looked...well, I guess it was down at the dude, but honestly, it could have been sideways or even up for all the spatial relations the collective unconscious has. He was tall for a man, nearing six and a half feet, but the Morrighan and her sisters assured me that men nowadays were much taller than I remembered. They explained that it had something to do with nutrition. Whatever that means. He was broad chested, muscular, with raven's wing black hair and eyes as green as the grass that covered my hill. Hell, if I was a chick, I'd do him. He was that hot.
I had worshipers and power beyond imagining; I had women and men alike throwing themselves at my feet, begging for my benevolence, prostrating themselves before me, and beseeching me to bless their milk cows, give them good weather, and a good harvest. And all I asked for was their first-born sons. Not such a bad rap, considering everything that I did for them. I only wanted the boys, it should be noted. Never the girls. I never had anything against girls"well, nothing they didn't already want against them, if you catch my drift. It just seemed rather stupid to take away my source for sacrifice. If I took the girls, who would give me the next generation of strong warrior blood, splashed across the crest of my hill in Eirin"
But then that sodding Roman slave came along and drove out the old gods, replacing them with a benevolent peace-loving hippie. Yeah, I went there. I called your shepherd a peacenik. I much prefer your Old Testament God. The whole "eye for an eye' thing really appeals to me. It's a philosophy that I can get behind. Turning your other cheek and loving your neighbor is for the weak; if you follow this philosophy, you deserve to be conquered and wiped off the face of the Earth. It is not a warrior's way. And it's disgraceful that this weak-willed, peace-loving slave who wasn't even from Eirin but Albion instead, toppled my center of worship and all but erased me from history. Believe me, I never lived that one down. 'Course, I got off much better than poor Lugh Samild"nach; he was turned into a little green-skinned protector of pots of gold. I was just forgotten.
I've been languishing for 1,500 years in the recesses of the collective unconscious, which if you're curious is like that cupboard under the stairs where you stash your Christmas and Hallowe'en decorations and that hideous piss-yellow vase your Great Aunt Maggie gave you, the one that only comes out when the old bat comes a' visiting. The collective unconscious is dark and dusty and filled with all sorts of wonderful things. There's these demons who were driven out by the peacenik"they go by the name Legion, by the way"who are just itching to get their hooks into the hippie's followers. There's entire pantheons of gods and goddesses who were around long before you knuckle-dragging monkeys ever figured out fire. Leviathan, Cthulhu, Baal, and hell, even the Morrighan and her sisters Babdh and Nemain are here, too. It's like a never-ending high school reunion sometimes, only without the annoying touch football games and insipid mixers.
It was okay, you know, as existences go. I got to swap stories with the Old Ones and learned some pretty cool tips and tricks on how to sow terror and destruction from the Morrighan, if only I could somehow break out and become real again. That was the worst part of the whole time I was trapped; I had all these ideas and urges and well, needs, but I couldn't act on any of them. Where was I gonna find a virgin or a cute little puppy dog in the hidden cupboard of humanity's mind"
And then one day, it happened. One of you knuckle-dragging monkeys spoke my name, but it wasn't just dropped in casual conversation or in a history class in one of your liberal arts colleges. Oh, no. It was whispered like a lover's name, spoken like a prayer. It was an invocation. Someone wanted me, wanted me in a bad way, too.
Do you have any idea what it's like to waste away, completely forgotten and ignored for f*cking millennia, yearning with your entire being to break out of your prison, wishing day after day to be important again, to matter to someone once more" Yeah, I guess some of you do. You 50-year-old housewives married to Wall Street execs, lawyers, and politicians probably feel me, don't you?
It was disturbing, hearing my name spoken like that again, after so long. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't sure if I could break out of my prison and hang out on Earth again. There aren't really any rules to being trapped in the collective unconscious, you know" It's not like Heaven or Hell, or even the dining room of the Waldorf-Astoria, where someone meets you at the door, hands you a menu, and points you in the direction of a plumb table...or your afterlife. No, it's more of a catch as catch can kind of thing. You sort of make up your own rules on the fly. And my newest rule was now that someone had at long last remembered me, I was getting the hell out of Dodge.
But how" After 1,500 years of nothing, how did I make something" I'd completely forgotten what I looked like, what I sounded like, what kind of food I liked. I had a vague memory of bloody heads, but I couldn't remember if that was my preferred form or if it had something to do with my sacrifices. I needed to figure out a body, a vessel you know? I kinda dug Cthulhu's whole tentacle-head thing, but that's His signature and I didn't want to rip it off. Then the Morrighan suggested I take a look at the dude who had invoked me. I was stunned. I could do that' Sure, she said. Make it a rule.
So I looked...well, I guess it was down at the dude, but honestly, it could have been sideways or even up for all the spatial relations the collective unconscious has. He was tall for a man, nearing six and a half feet, but the Morrighan and her sisters assured me that men nowadays were much taller than I remembered. They explained that it had something to do with nutrition. Whatever that means. He was broad chested, muscular, with raven's wing black hair and eyes as green as the grass that covered my hill. Hell, if I was a chick, I'd do him. He was that hot.