The Day We Stood Still

For us, it came without preamble. A surprise, shock and awe, for we knew nought the full breadth of what had happened until far later. It happened as we went about our lives, living day to day as we waited to hear from The Quartet about the odd things that had been happening. The strange shifts in reality, the odd illnesses that came about with no obvious sources, the way the skies cracked in the night.

For me, I had been living in the Citadel near the coastline of the southern peninsula. The temple of Vilorlith our Great Mother, may the stars bless her, when we were all struck with the same instance. I, personally, thought we had been attacked by the newly introduced races to us. We were told of the others, Faeries, Giants and Fae, alien to us at the time, were other creations of the Siblings to our goddess.

I thought we had been lied to, that they meant to conquer us. However, I was wrong. The bright daylight that had graced my eyes as I walked to steps to the Temple had been extinguished. I stood in an endless void, no, that's not right. An endless sky without stars, infinite as the weight of its scale swung heavy on my mind. It was only after I had composed myself, that I began to see the things around me, feel that this was no empty place.

I stood in a perfectly smooth, placid sea, reflecting the lights in the sky as they began to appear. One by one, the dark night filled with lights I had become so accustomed to. I began to walk, the warm water beneath my feet the only sound, the endless song of our Great Mother having gone silent. Sojourned I did, witness to the birth of newborn skies. An experience that I couldn't explain.

A sadness suffused my mind, subtle yet potent. I knew, I knew then what this place was. It was Mother's mind, she had called us all to her own mind. Each star in the night, a new soul to join me here, the souls she had made for us. I felt a calling in my chest, an inexrible call that one would feel basking in the disorienting fog in the dead of night. A sound that echoed from vast canyons that repeat to create new voices that never were. I sang for the silent void, as my mother would have done for me, so to I did for her.

We all did, a question to her. In unison across time and space we asked. "Mother, are you alright?"

...
...
... ... ......

She appeared before me, face like mine. Her hair all the way down, ears drooping with melancholy. Her eyes swam with yet unshed tears, where she would have wrapped her tail around me, an embrace from Mother to child. I embraced her before she could, my heart broke to see her like this. "What happened?" Asked in a thousand voices, near and far, between here and now, from never and always.

She said nothing at first, only returning the gesture we gave her. Wrapping us in tight with her tail, like she was unwilling to ever let us go again. I remember brushing her hair with my fingers, humming softly. "M'Ma, what happened? What made you bring us all here, to this place?"

... Still she was quiet.
...Peaceful in the arms of her children.
...A calm with the acknowledgement that we had answered her call.

"You are drifting away, a breeze we cannot see. Following a song we cannot hear. With these words we call to you, to come back to skies that you gave us. We will be here, waiting for when you can stand. We will hold you until that time passes. With words spoke between here and now."

She tightened her embrace on us, threatening to crush us with the steadfast effort she put in. As we felt her shoulders begin to shake, stars dripped from her eyes ...When she spoke, it was a song we had never known. A new song steeped in the winds of change.

"Never again, I will give you everything. All, everything I am." I felt a burning in my chest, a warmth I didn't understand. "With my actions, with my being, you will become what you were always meant to be." Eyes like beacons on stormy shores, she looked back at us.

She said something we couldn't hear, a discordant note. A scale off key, a sour thing played on broken strings. We awoke where we fell, something changed. We looked around to see we had the eyes of the Great Mother, gently burning in our sockets. Skin like hers, an echo of the night skies, constellations dancing slowly across our bodies. Our tails had grown longer, stronger. When we spoke, it was effortless, magic weaved into every sound. The world responded to our wills.

While we had thought ourselves beings of air, graced by the Mother. It was only here, after this now that we had realized how foolish it was. With what we are, we are one. Some claim to be masters of the arcane in your time, they are but mere children toying with the sand. Where some would claim in your time to be friends with the forces around them, we are those forces. Lovers to a world that responds to our breathing, where you need to scream for it to notice you. Our Mother had given us the final piece of her gift. We had become what she always intended.

Eons passed, while we grew. Time meant nothing to us, as we basked in the glory of our children, and our children's children. As they grew, we grew with them. It was only when we felt those strange things again. Odd diseases appearing on distant worlds. Cracks in the night skies, stranger shifts in reality did we hear the words she said that we were not ready to hear.

I remember being back in that place. Her tearful face looked back up to me. "Ungrateful soul I am, to have nought the power to right the wrong. An Er-cursed Shadow, the life of a child, their blood to forever stain my hands. Never again, I will give you everything. All, everything I am." I felt a burning in my chest, a warmth I didn't understand. "With my actions, with my being, you will become what you were always meant to be." Eyes like beacons on stormy shores, she looked back at us.

That's where we found it. That's where we knew. That's where we stood by her side.

Historical Context:

In the moment where Vilorlith had discovered The Original Shadow, she was unable to heal the Brownie that the Shadow had toyed with. Though he had done so without ill intention, he could not fix what he had done. When Vilorlith flew into a rage at him for being unable to undo the damage, she ripped him apart. Cast his body into eight dark places where the universe had yet to form.
She could not heal what he had done either, her child's soul had been damaged in a way that was alien to the goddess. It reached up to her begging her to make the pain stop, begging her to make it stop. Though she could do nothing. Everything she did to fix the broken form, the shattered mind, the poisoned soul, evaporated like rain on desert winds. Vilorlith changed as she took the child's life, trying to convince herself it was mercy. Never able to shake the hesitation, the worry that she may have been able to fix it.
In the aftermath of this instance, she hid what had happened from The Quartet. Despite that, they were there mere moments after the event, never wanting them to know she was capable of doing so. Hands stained by an evil act, stained by the blood of the Shadow, stained by the horror of it. She appeared before all her children in a single moment, and promised to never let her children be so vulnerable again.
She tried to convince herself that this was the best course of action, against the will of the others, she poured her power into the Divine Sparks of her children and accelerated their ascension far faster than the other Children of the gods.