It is a strange thing indeed when one finds eternity is not enough, when for some it is and will always be the answer to their everything. But as they so often say, 'he who has everything, truly has nothing'; and so it was. Yet that he was a She, and that She was possibly the loneliest soul to ever know endlessness...
Some say there was once a time when the moons of the worlds stayed full and ripe all year long. Those were violent times, both wild and exquisite, a time where man and beast alike knew infinite joys. It was a time that day never truly ended, for as soon as the suns set, the moons rose and blanketed the dark hours in a shimmering light that never faded or revolved to black. The moons were powerful then, beacons of all knowing and all encompassing splendor. Existence knew not a single unhappy moment whilst they slept, for each night held a dream beyond all conception of beauty, and a promise that when waking came, they would find nothing but solution to any of their worldly misfortunes. There was a single god for this task, a single goddess vessel that kept and kindled all the mortal flames during their sleep. She was beautiful and strong, a figure of the utmost selflessness and serenity that'd been compacted down into the soft, supple body of a maiden blessed with an ever-long youth. Wrapped in a velvety cloak of night sky and shod in slippers woven from the very fabric of eternity itself, She carried a stave of knowledge and power, a singular symbol of her status as sovereign. With these items three, She kept all in a everlasting rotation. She wanted for nothing. After all, how could one with such seamless perpetuity before them?
Her name was not a single one, but many, for it is not the nature of gods to choose names, not often anyway. That is more often something in a mortal's nature, for their time alive is finite and oh so precious; they must capture and know all they can before their period of life is over. Without names, without these many words and sounds that mortals attach to the things around them and the emotions within them, they cannot grasp it as real. They cannot dominate and know it; without a name, it is beyond them. And so it was, so She was, the nameless mother of old, moon goddess and dream keeper, had become known throughout time as many a woman; Aega, Dae-Soon, Selene, Luna, Zirna, Hina Hine, Diana, Hekate. Whichever lips of whatever culture uttered a name in reverence to her, She was there, ever watchful and ever gentle. Where dreams turned dark, she was there, ever the candle in the light to guide and to keep, and leave the waker with a sense of purpose even during the most frightful of sleeps. Even nightmares, as the dreamers have come to call them, have meaning. Yes....So there She was.
Ruler of the moons and all their revolutions, ruler of the minds of her sleeping souls, yet as time passed and passed, the desire for company grew stronger and stronger. But She was without heir, without lover, and ruled very much alone in her pristine castle high up within the interlocking realm of unconscious thought that made up her ethereal domain. There was no pain there, no suffering or anguish, only the endless honeycomb of dreams and the minds they bubbled from. She saw exclusively through the eyes of her foggy minded dreamers; saw the bloodshed and the tears, the gentle touches and the beauteous faces, the laughter, the love, the passion both wanted and unbidden. Eternity could not give her these, nor the seed of a consort, for She had no earthly impulses or passionate yearnings of her own, not a one, the serenity of her duties saw to that. Yet with time She began to crave, to need-no, longed even, ever wanting for a dream of her own to kindle. A child, She thought:
'I wish for myself a child, just one, if only one....A child to call my own. A smile to mirror mine, eyes like the dusk where day meets night, skin so fair it makes the moons pine, locks so endless and frothed not even the clouds themselves could match their milk.'
'Just one child....One baby. For that.' She vowed.
'For that I would sacrifice my eternity.' And so it was for years, endless centuries of wanting came and went; nothing changed save the intensity of her dream that could never be.
Then there came a night when She became tired, oh so very tired. In fact, in all her years, this was the one and only time She could remember ever having the urge to sleep. The urge was great, so great in fact that it could not be denied. The moon goddess fell that night, and for the first time since the beginning, her bright eyes closed, and the realm of dreamers fell into darkness.
Moons across the known worlds had waned and dwindled down to the black. Her stave dropped, her shawl drifted off, and those darling little shoes fell from the sky, bursting to jagged, mismatched pieces that shot and scattered across all time and space to litter the sky alight in the deity's unconscious absence. The pieces of those shoes that hadn't reached the dark of the sky remained deeply rooted within the realm of dreams where it's keeper slept her intensely deep sleep; pulsing, waiting. The biggest piece of all had lodged itself between the space of the dream keeper's head and the soft, cush ground on which she laid. As She lay, that single, sweet dream She craved began to unravel, sweeping out and touching each little piece of the honeycomb that made up her sleeper's realm, illuminating the many minds her own unconsciousness had left adrift in the dark.
But just as every soul must sleep, they must also awake. And so it was that the goddess rose, feeling the weak cling of fatigue that lingered with the newly woken. Nude and new, the moons across the known worlds rose again with their keeper. As She moved to take up her trio of belongings, her fingers faltered, for She saw on the barest rounds of her sweetheart knuckles that age lines had begun to set in. Curious, but not fearful, She looked past the change in her hands to eye the plump mound that'd grown beneath her while She'd slept. Stroking the soft, swollen floor of the realm, She marveled at how much like a womb it seemed, and no sooner had the thought crossed her intensely wise mind did the surface of it fracture with a great, sharp snap. The recently re-illuminated world of dreams heaved a great, collective sigh in time with She, their keeper, for from that great, jagged fault erupted a most arresting blossom; a single bloom of unparalleled beauty.
'My child....My sweet dream, how I longed for you.' She whispered gently, her voice no louder than the whisper of rain across heated skin.
Never mind that the heavy blossom held no flesh or form, never mind it was not a babe with which She could cradle or hold; for her, that flower was the single most glorious creation She could ever hope to make. Leaning down, She bestowed the glorious bit of flora with a kiss, and with that kiss flowed all the love a being such as herself could dare to hold....But if the wise teacher that is time has taught us anything, it is that such love is always enough, regardless of the rewards we might find tangible. It just so happened, however, that this reward was tangible.
The pregnant ovule beneath the plant's lovely petals burst, baring the last of it's fruit in the form of flesh and bone and wing and blood. It was small, no bigger than the space of a hollowed palm, yet She held it between both palms, and cupped it with the utmost gentility against her bosom, whispering further words of love she all thought but lost in a prize-less hope. Such a mortal gesture, such a mortal feeling, was that all encompassing swell of emotion, that in a moment of pure rightness did She call her 'it' by name. A true name. A sweet, whimsical little name that hit all corners of her immortal being.
'Shang...' Came that calm, cooling whisper again.
The first breath came with the name She had given her child, and up Shang stretched, then up further, further until those damsel wings unfurled in a most glorious display of color and form, taking her smallness aloft. They were symbols you see; symbols to attest to the lift that could come from even the loneliest of hearts. As Shang flew, She, the goddess, marveled at the milk in her frothy hair, the dusk in her eyes, and the oh so familiar reflection she caught in her dear one's smile. Her own smile. From hence forth, She was no longer only mother to the moons and keeper of the mortal dreams, but a mother in every sense of the word. Little Shang was only the first wonder, for the smaller fragments not stuck in the night sky beget more bursts of life as time wheeled on; though none quite as special as the first, her dream child.
Though She had lost her shoes of eternity, and in turn her gift of agelessness with it, the humble deity had been granted a far greater gift; one even beyond that of her children. The aging She had seen set in more fiercely, so fierce, in fact, that when her skin crinkled it's finest and her limbs waned their thinnest, so too did the moon suffer and pitched to it's darkest. The stave kept her grounded with the knowledge of time and how it wheeled, and with that knowledge came her maiden's form once more through the power granted to her by the dreamer's realm. From maiden She ripened to matron, then withered once more to the wise, barren crone. With each painful cycle of living came a grave understanding of what it meant to be mortal, of what it meant to die from the moment you were born; or at least, as close as any god could hope to know what it was to be mortal. Yet her reward for each passing Cycle was another child, and a firmer understanding for her dreamers on how to cherish the good times and the bad. Just as She let slip her resolve and dare to dream a mortal dream, so too did She attain a greater understanding of those She holds kindle to.
So let it be known, this story of She, of the moon mother, the dream keeper, the moon-child maker. She with her power and the wide, encompassing reach of her children, rule the cyclic world of the moons and the dreamers asleep beneath the ever changing glow. For now and ever more, She and her children keep the realms safe and strong, keeping the balance between terror and triumph; helping the soul understand how leaden wings feel so their flights sore all the straighter...
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http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs15/f/2007/106/9/e/Fairy_Queen_by_armawolf.jpg
Some say there was once a time when the moons of the worlds stayed full and ripe all year long. Those were violent times, both wild and exquisite, a time where man and beast alike knew infinite joys. It was a time that day never truly ended, for as soon as the suns set, the moons rose and blanketed the dark hours in a shimmering light that never faded or revolved to black. The moons were powerful then, beacons of all knowing and all encompassing splendor. Existence knew not a single unhappy moment whilst they slept, for each night held a dream beyond all conception of beauty, and a promise that when waking came, they would find nothing but solution to any of their worldly misfortunes. There was a single god for this task, a single goddess vessel that kept and kindled all the mortal flames during their sleep. She was beautiful and strong, a figure of the utmost selflessness and serenity that'd been compacted down into the soft, supple body of a maiden blessed with an ever-long youth. Wrapped in a velvety cloak of night sky and shod in slippers woven from the very fabric of eternity itself, She carried a stave of knowledge and power, a singular symbol of her status as sovereign. With these items three, She kept all in a everlasting rotation. She wanted for nothing. After all, how could one with such seamless perpetuity before them?
Her name was not a single one, but many, for it is not the nature of gods to choose names, not often anyway. That is more often something in a mortal's nature, for their time alive is finite and oh so precious; they must capture and know all they can before their period of life is over. Without names, without these many words and sounds that mortals attach to the things around them and the emotions within them, they cannot grasp it as real. They cannot dominate and know it; without a name, it is beyond them. And so it was, so She was, the nameless mother of old, moon goddess and dream keeper, had become known throughout time as many a woman; Aega, Dae-Soon, Selene, Luna, Zirna, Hina Hine, Diana, Hekate. Whichever lips of whatever culture uttered a name in reverence to her, She was there, ever watchful and ever gentle. Where dreams turned dark, she was there, ever the candle in the light to guide and to keep, and leave the waker with a sense of purpose even during the most frightful of sleeps. Even nightmares, as the dreamers have come to call them, have meaning. Yes....So there She was.
Ruler of the moons and all their revolutions, ruler of the minds of her sleeping souls, yet as time passed and passed, the desire for company grew stronger and stronger. But She was without heir, without lover, and ruled very much alone in her pristine castle high up within the interlocking realm of unconscious thought that made up her ethereal domain. There was no pain there, no suffering or anguish, only the endless honeycomb of dreams and the minds they bubbled from. She saw exclusively through the eyes of her foggy minded dreamers; saw the bloodshed and the tears, the gentle touches and the beauteous faces, the laughter, the love, the passion both wanted and unbidden. Eternity could not give her these, nor the seed of a consort, for She had no earthly impulses or passionate yearnings of her own, not a one, the serenity of her duties saw to that. Yet with time She began to crave, to need-no, longed even, ever wanting for a dream of her own to kindle. A child, She thought:
'I wish for myself a child, just one, if only one....A child to call my own. A smile to mirror mine, eyes like the dusk where day meets night, skin so fair it makes the moons pine, locks so endless and frothed not even the clouds themselves could match their milk.'
'Just one child....One baby. For that.' She vowed.
'For that I would sacrifice my eternity.' And so it was for years, endless centuries of wanting came and went; nothing changed save the intensity of her dream that could never be.
Then there came a night when She became tired, oh so very tired. In fact, in all her years, this was the one and only time She could remember ever having the urge to sleep. The urge was great, so great in fact that it could not be denied. The moon goddess fell that night, and for the first time since the beginning, her bright eyes closed, and the realm of dreamers fell into darkness.
Moons across the known worlds had waned and dwindled down to the black. Her stave dropped, her shawl drifted off, and those darling little shoes fell from the sky, bursting to jagged, mismatched pieces that shot and scattered across all time and space to litter the sky alight in the deity's unconscious absence. The pieces of those shoes that hadn't reached the dark of the sky remained deeply rooted within the realm of dreams where it's keeper slept her intensely deep sleep; pulsing, waiting. The biggest piece of all had lodged itself between the space of the dream keeper's head and the soft, cush ground on which she laid. As She lay, that single, sweet dream She craved began to unravel, sweeping out and touching each little piece of the honeycomb that made up her sleeper's realm, illuminating the many minds her own unconsciousness had left adrift in the dark.
But just as every soul must sleep, they must also awake. And so it was that the goddess rose, feeling the weak cling of fatigue that lingered with the newly woken. Nude and new, the moons across the known worlds rose again with their keeper. As She moved to take up her trio of belongings, her fingers faltered, for She saw on the barest rounds of her sweetheart knuckles that age lines had begun to set in. Curious, but not fearful, She looked past the change in her hands to eye the plump mound that'd grown beneath her while She'd slept. Stroking the soft, swollen floor of the realm, She marveled at how much like a womb it seemed, and no sooner had the thought crossed her intensely wise mind did the surface of it fracture with a great, sharp snap. The recently re-illuminated world of dreams heaved a great, collective sigh in time with She, their keeper, for from that great, jagged fault erupted a most arresting blossom; a single bloom of unparalleled beauty.
'My child....My sweet dream, how I longed for you.' She whispered gently, her voice no louder than the whisper of rain across heated skin.
Never mind that the heavy blossom held no flesh or form, never mind it was not a babe with which She could cradle or hold; for her, that flower was the single most glorious creation She could ever hope to make. Leaning down, She bestowed the glorious bit of flora with a kiss, and with that kiss flowed all the love a being such as herself could dare to hold....But if the wise teacher that is time has taught us anything, it is that such love is always enough, regardless of the rewards we might find tangible. It just so happened, however, that this reward was tangible.
The pregnant ovule beneath the plant's lovely petals burst, baring the last of it's fruit in the form of flesh and bone and wing and blood. It was small, no bigger than the space of a hollowed palm, yet She held it between both palms, and cupped it with the utmost gentility against her bosom, whispering further words of love she all thought but lost in a prize-less hope. Such a mortal gesture, such a mortal feeling, was that all encompassing swell of emotion, that in a moment of pure rightness did She call her 'it' by name. A true name. A sweet, whimsical little name that hit all corners of her immortal being.
'Shang...' Came that calm, cooling whisper again.
The first breath came with the name She had given her child, and up Shang stretched, then up further, further until those damsel wings unfurled in a most glorious display of color and form, taking her smallness aloft. They were symbols you see; symbols to attest to the lift that could come from even the loneliest of hearts. As Shang flew, She, the goddess, marveled at the milk in her frothy hair, the dusk in her eyes, and the oh so familiar reflection she caught in her dear one's smile. Her own smile. From hence forth, She was no longer only mother to the moons and keeper of the mortal dreams, but a mother in every sense of the word. Little Shang was only the first wonder, for the smaller fragments not stuck in the night sky beget more bursts of life as time wheeled on; though none quite as special as the first, her dream child.
Though She had lost her shoes of eternity, and in turn her gift of agelessness with it, the humble deity had been granted a far greater gift; one even beyond that of her children. The aging She had seen set in more fiercely, so fierce, in fact, that when her skin crinkled it's finest and her limbs waned their thinnest, so too did the moon suffer and pitched to it's darkest. The stave kept her grounded with the knowledge of time and how it wheeled, and with that knowledge came her maiden's form once more through the power granted to her by the dreamer's realm. From maiden She ripened to matron, then withered once more to the wise, barren crone. With each painful cycle of living came a grave understanding of what it meant to be mortal, of what it meant to die from the moment you were born; or at least, as close as any god could hope to know what it was to be mortal. Yet her reward for each passing Cycle was another child, and a firmer understanding for her dreamers on how to cherish the good times and the bad. Just as She let slip her resolve and dare to dream a mortal dream, so too did She attain a greater understanding of those She holds kindle to.
So let it be known, this story of She, of the moon mother, the dream keeper, the moon-child maker. She with her power and the wide, encompassing reach of her children, rule the cyclic world of the moons and the dreamers asleep beneath the ever changing glow. For now and ever more, She and her children keep the realms safe and strong, keeping the balance between terror and triumph; helping the soul understand how leaden wings feel so their flights sore all the straighter...
_______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs15/f/2007/106/9/e/Fairy_Queen_by_armawolf.jpg