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Lost to Love
Inuart's Story
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"You're a funny one," Alesha laughed. She took two steps forward and two steps back, setting her cloak aflutter in the breeze. Her next words danced on her lips. The entire world seemed to grow silent and still. Her voice did not reach Inuart, but Inuart knew what she had said,
"of course you know."
---
A mountain, far in the north, swathed in snow. The steep cliffs and deep valleys hid ruins of ancient civilizations, two thousand, four thousand, six thousand, eight thousand years old. A living god lay sleeping at the peak hidden in the clouds. It's name was Crosis. Every two thousand years, he awoke and cleansed the world, Ypris. This mountain was the center of it all, the beginning, the end, the home, and the grave.
Away from the shadowy figure of the God-Judge Crosis was an endless plain of dead pilgrims, each bowed in reverence and exhaustion at the journey to the holy mountains. There were men and women, the elderly and the young. All had fallen to attrition.
The God awoke and the land shook under its might. Rolling storms of fire and lightning washed away people and cities alike, leaving nothing but ruin.
As the firestorm roared across the world, a single girl reached the God on the mountain above. Her thin emancipated body looked to be on the verge of breaking against the force of the bitter winds. She reached out with her hands, pleading for Crosis to hand her salvation, to give her the reward she had crossed the world to receive.
The God looked down and saw the girl. It was curious how she had survived for so long, as weak as she was, and how she had reached it.
Her answer was inaudible. But from the God's reaction, it was satisfactory. The God gifted her a piece of itself, a emerald gem that she swallowed. This girl was worthy to see the next world. To see the God's next beautiful experiment.
The girl fell into a deep sleep.
When the girl woke up, she was in a field of green grass next to a lake. She was bare, but the wind was not cold. She stood up, alone in the world, and then she began to cry. She had been blessed, but the world she knew was gone, buried beneath a layer of ash two thousand years thick.
The girl stood up and began to walk. Where she would go, prosperity followed. At first it was flowers that bloomed as she passed, but soon it became the birthing of creeks and the sprouting of forests. Gold and silver bled from the earth where she slept, and soon after that, the first cities rose from the stone.
And those cities became the home to people. Then came agriculture, then came invention. Then soon, war broke. The humans fought each other bitterly for the resources of Ypris. The girl was horrified and gave herself to the humans to quell their thirst for resources. The humans took her greedily.
Where she walked, the harvests were plentiful. Where she bathed the waters grew sweet. Where she laid, the mineral veins would run deep. And where she bled, the earth itself would bloom with life.
But soon the humans grew greedy. They told stories of how to best make use of the girl.
Cut her up! One man said. Scatter her innards across the fields to grow a forest with game eternal!
Bind her in a prison! Another proposed. Stuff her deep in the earth so that we can mine riches!
A man in black proposed something else. Let us partake of her flesh, so that we also may live lives eternal.
The humans captures the girl as she was hopping between two borders one day. They drank of her blood and consumed her flesh in vain hopes of gaining immortality. The man in black simply watched from afar as the humans fell into their destructive vices.
For a small while it seemed that their plan worked. Their fields grew with frenzy and their mines ran with minerals as a river runs with water. And they themselves grew young and strong. The girl, however, did not die. She did not begrudge them either, for she had done much the same two thousand years before. But the girl could not die.
Another two thousand years passed and Crosis awoke, spewing ash, fire, and lightning over the entire world. In the cleansing, none but the girl survived again.
When the girl woke up, she was in a field of green grass next to a lake. She was bare, but the wind was not cold. She stood up, alone in the world,. She had been blessed, but the world she knew was gone, buried beneath a layer of ash two thousand years thick. From there she began to walk again.
And the same thing happened again.
And again.
And again.
The same man-in-black would herald the end of an age, the end of mankind, and the waking of the god.
The cycle repeated a thousand times, ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times. Then one day, the girl stood at the peak of Crosis and addressed the God as he awoke.
Bless these children, for they cannot know the wayward nature of their own hearts. The girl pleaded to the God. The God listened and thought on the subject. It was unsure, but in the end, it allowed the girl to change the experiment. This time, the righteous humans would survive the cataclysm.
The girl was overjoyed. For finally she had companions in her journeys.
These people called the girl mother. And she provided for them. Her harvests filled their storehouses with plenty. Her blood and milk cured the infirm, and her presence soothed the mind. Life was good for her followers. After two thousand years, the man-in-black appeared again. He bid the girl's followers to take greedily from their mother. Their simple hearts were swayed by greed, and they attacked her.
Soon Crosis awoke again and his fires cleansed the world.
But half of the humans survived. Those that did not fall to the man-in-black's temptations. The girl had prevailed. Her followers, though few in number, survived. After more cycles their numbers bolstered. The true believers grew in strength until even Crosis' fire and fury did not cull their numbers.
The girl who was their mother grew ever so distant as invention superseded her. No longer did the people need her stone buildings or simple harvests, or plentiful game. They irrigated and farmed, and domesticated the animals of which they ate. And soon in the cycles, she started to wane in power. Though she was once a mother to all humans, a martyr for their salvation, she became and idol, and then from there fell to a priest, and then from their fell further until all she was known was by her name, "the Daughter." She was someone that the people looked after, but did not need. Of this fate, the girl was content.
But then the cycles happened again, and the people neither blessed by the girl nor tainted by the man-in-black died in the rolling thunderstorms.
Those that survived grew to see the girl not as a person, but a tool. A thing to use to survive the wrath of Crosis. Those in her presence would be spared come the storms of the apocalypse. So she turned from "the Daughter" to "the Gem." And the world fought wars over her, to hold her favor and her protection come the end of time.
But cycles and cycles after that, even that reason was forgotten.
Now the people fought over the girl without remembering the reason at all. Even the girl herself had forgotten the reason why. She began to believe that she was indeed just a tool for bringing good harvests and good fortunes. She could not remember why it was so important for the kingdoms of man to possess her.
And neither did the kingdoms of man remember.
But Ypris remembered. Ypris remembers each tear that stained the face of its daughter. Each anguished second of her lonely wanderings. Though all other forget, Ypris does not forget. That high on mount Crosis, where the God of the same name lay slumbering in a dreamless sleep, that two thousand years of good fortune had come and gone. The cycles would continue.
To the ears of those born of it, Ypris is silent. Too imperceptible to notice. But to those who are foreign, like the man-in-black, and are still sensitive to the pleas of the world, the land itself speaks.
---
"Crosis is the city where the temple is!" she laughed,
"Of course it's not taboo! No matter where someone is from, they know that the blessing of the Priestesses of Ypris are quite a big deal." She motioned to herself,
"Our very presence blesses the earth to give good harvests and the people good fortune. A priestess is something quite valuable, to Crior especially, but even the Farren to some extent."
Alesha gripped Inuart's hand tightly,
"Don't be so tense! As long as I'm by your side, then nothing bad can happen. Just take a confident step forward with an objective in mind, and I'm sure you'll be able to accomplish it, Mr. Hero."
