Goddess

Part One: The Light

A time without darkness engulfs the land of Mortirla. Those who survive under the now ever-present white star only know its sweltering suffering.
The constant starlight has made the plants greener, those who consume them healthier — extending their lives for thousands of years. Longer lives and healthier bones have led to heightened adaptation making humans an entirely different species from one generation to the next.

Sojian has been alive for three thousand years, and in that time she had not slept one day. The day, the shortest unit of time in Mortirla. Never finding sleep, constant fatigue and dreariness for thousands of years.
That is life in Mortirla.

Learned a hundred generations ago after its inhabitants banished darkness. It was promised that without darkness there would be no hardship, but it became evident that as their bodies became stronger and changed, their minds stayed the same. Now the seven tribes live in torment far greater than they ever knew before they altered their world.

There has always been hope, dreams, and whispers of the return of darkness. An evil that will sweep over the land and become its savior. To fear or welcome this coming? The answer to that question has been the most significant source of torture for millenniums.

Part Three: The Woods of Aavarth

Sojian, born of the womb of Lyriav, from the village of Pemgor faces the greatest challenge of her life: certain death. She has not yet given birth until she does, she cannot die, or her families existence will be for forgotten. The legacy of their bones lost. If she does not pass her bones on, for what then was she born?

To survive she must pass through the forest of Aavarth, a task no one has yet attempted. Although it was known what was inside. The forest is where the darkness, stolen from the night’s sky, had been imprisoned. That’s what they said, yet no one had ever been inside. Three million
years of the light and the tribes were still afraid to enter.

Some called that misery, Sojian called it cowardice. Since there was no misery worse than cowardice, they were half right. She smiled before her next thought. If they were half right, they were also half-wrong, and the danger might not be wholly absolute. They being the female elders in her tribe who shunned her for not having given birth.

How could she give birth if she was afraid of this place, what it contained and the secrets it held? She would have to suffer for two, her and her child. After thousands of years it was time for that to end. She would not bring more suffering and cowardice into this land only to repeat the mistakes of the elders. She must pass through the forest of Avarth. She would not let her bones be forgotten.

Part Four: The Dark

It smelled and looked like any other forest in Mortirla. The white light from the star above fell upon the highest branches of the forest. After passing through the thick purple foliage overhead and reaching the forest floor, the light t was a beautiful light violet haze. Specs of pollen, dust, and leaves danced in the wisteria twilight luring Sojian towards it. She stepped, gained speed, tightened her fists, passed through the veil of purple light.
Everything was gone. Sojian froze, all she saw was black; it was the evil.

That’s all she could think: this was evil, everything gone. She epiphanied. If there was nothing, could she still know pain? She stepped forward again, the air that moved across her skin was cold, there was no cold in Mortirla. She reveled as it caressed her skin. It Flowed over her like a… she remembered. Something she had not recalled for thousands of years. She was a baby. Her mother wrapping her in a soft, smooth blanket. When she knew soft and smooth. She had forgotten most positive sensations
after a hundred years. Still blind she continued onwards, the darkness massaged life back into her as she picked up her pace. She no longer suffered. She ran harder. She didn’t know what to expect, but she was no longer afraid, no longer a coward. She heard a loud, rolling echo pass over her and seemingly throughout the whole of the darkness. Her instincts kicked and she ran faster.

The instincts that she had been honed to be able to react to the slightest movement of a flid-worm, the smallest known species in Mortirla, and to be vicious and deadly enough to rival any of the men of her tribe. That is why she had not given birth. She would show them. When she brought back darkness and evil, they would know their misjudgments.

They being her entire tribe. Sojian grew tired for the first time, she was winded. She breathed hard. She sucked in breath clinging to the life force for the first time. She fell: to her knees, to her hind-quarters, to her stomach. Her eyes closed. She slept, suffered no more.

Part Two: Soul-Puerperal

It was the day of soul-puerperal, Sojian was the eldest of the un-birthed women; therefore, she was first to be presented to the men. By orders of the male council she and the rest of the child bearing women had spent the last ten-thousand days being prepared for this ceremony.

They were forced into hours of praying and chanting to the tribe chiefs. The men doused them with burning oils to be sure nothing impure was exchanged during mating. Hot irons of intha mineral were used to
heal skin impurities. The women tested for a thousand days on their obedience with one slip-up sending them back to the start.

Sojian was put in a glass globe and hung above a bonfire with flames a thousand feet tall. She sat nude enduring the flames below that would randomly shoot up around her. She watched the thousands
of men decorated in fertility paint dance and study her through the glass.

She was not chosen. Her people would be killed for the good of the tribe. She had to find a way to keep her bones alive. She would enter the woods of Aavarth. This meant certain doom as much as being struck down by the chiefs, but something inside her told her to take the risk. She would wager her life to see if their oldest legend was true.

Part Five: The Dark Woman

Sojian awoke, she was scared, what had happened to her? She had seen other images, places, strange things where she felt calm. Standing she looked through the darkness, took a deep breath. She did not breath air into her lungs; instead, the night flowed into her, and she was strong. With every breath of darkness her suffering faded, her strength grew. Through the darkness, she was reborn from the inside out.

She breathed the darkness till the forest of Aavarth re-appeared. It was untouched, un-scarred by its use as a prison. Footsteps, then she saw the thousands of faces of her tribe come out of the foliage. Their eyes peeled back unblinking she could see, taste their suffering. She was immune to their petty whims. She could dole out their freedom or take it back at her own will. She could mate with whomever she chose or didn’t choose and re-create this land in her image. She was darkness and light.

They were half of what she was, and that brought them to their knees.
She held her head back, looked to the sun and opened her mouth. The sun and all its light was sucked into her mouth, and the sky grew black with night. Her tribe danced and shouted in celebration.

Sojian felt the power of light and dark inside her — she was everything, they were nothing. She opened her mouth, the day returned. She spoke: I can give you night. What will you do for me? Evil had
returned Mortirla.