Archive of Our Own ^beta

I see them all. My cubs of starlight, brought together to die together.

I am invited into this world, and I accept. I sit in the heart of this place of desecrated darkness and reborn light, and I sit high and tall and watch my cubs savage each other. Ichor and viscera spills onto marble and bone, staining them black and red as the sky pulses with my blessing like a beating heart. I am the heart of this new world, and my old sunken enemy in the deep is the womb.

It is not an ugly womb. Even if it births the leeches that cling to their hosts and demand blood, they are life anew, and all life is beautiful.

[For a moment, I wonder the Deep's hypocrisy, of birthing new life to end all life. Is it not a contradiction? For another moment, I hear the Deep snap at me in response.]

My children- My cubs- All born from my love and light and life are savaging each other like wolves, tearing out each other's throats and spilling ground in this sanctuary. I can taste the gunmetal in my mouth- The blood running down the steps. I can smell the smoke and fire. I can see all that there is down below...

And I weep for my cubs' slaughter.

I do not want this.

I do not want this...

[Somewhere far away, yet oh so close to me, I hear the Deep roar with laughter.]

My highest chosen sits atop her throne, spinning webs around me- Cocooning me in a prison of my own light, unknown to the truths that bind her to the ground as well. The god of truth and lies does not known the truth and lies that imprison her as much as she seeks to imprison me.

She is so misguided in her protection- In her love and affection.

I weep for her, as I do all my cubs.

My children come to face my children. The Deep follows after with undead marionettes- The stolen forms of more of my lost children, now set to new purpose [The Deep attempts to mock me with this twisted reflection of my failures, and it is working. I look to the scorned monsters and feel only the deepest sadness in my breast]. Within the sunken tombs in the womb of this world beyond worlds, the Disciple of the Deep watches and sends them forwards to claim me and drown me in their depths.

[Is the Disciple of the Deep? The Witness? The Pyramids? Is there even a difference? Not even I can say anymore.]

I do not want this.

I want to cry and scream and beg them to stop. My cubs come to this place and slaughter each other in protectiveness of me and I want to cry out that this is not what I wanted- This is not how I wanted you to show me your love and devotion. My way is to preserve life, not end it- My way is to be the Gardener, not the Winnower.

[The Deep roars.]

I feel my child grab the second heart of my child. The second heart is crushed, and so am I. I feel the feedback of the pain, blistering and gnashing, and then I feel the uncomfortable warmth of my light returning to me. An unwelcome touch.

I weep for my cubs' murder.

I love them all. I love them so very much. Everyone that I bless with my ambrosia- My ether- Is welcome under my sight. All of those whom share in the perpetuity of life and all its complexities are welcome in my arms. But now they kill each other in my name. They take my powers and look upon me with lustful longing for power, paying me wrongful tribute in blood and coin, as if the perpetuity of death under my banner is something to be commemorated.

Is that truly how I am seen? As a god to murder for, and not a flower ready to bloom within the gardens of their own making?

Is death all my children know?

I am a garden myself. As I once tended to the world as their gardener, so to are they meant to be gardeners to myself and the blessings that I hold as well.

And yet they call themselves warriors in my name.

They look to me with questions, their thoughts endlessly betraying the hatred they feel for my silence, and I so desperately want to scream the answers at them, begging them to see the world through my sight, to see all of the beauty that I see, and to look to each of their siblings and see all that they can make together, as one people.

But they only see their differences and the divisions that divide them. My cubs see each other and see only another enemy.

I weep for their ignorance.

For a moment, I feel all of them stare up at me- My children, my children, and the walking corpses of my children- And I feel them all weep for me to stay, as if they fear that I will slip away from their sight the moment they peel their eyes away from me...

And I weep for them in turn, for they do not understand all that I wish of and for them.

I love them all. I have always loved them, and I will never stop. I have birthed all of my cubs and their second hearts for my womb, and I wish for them all to know the love that I wish to share with them...

And yet they kill and kill and kill in my name, both each other and themselves.

My cubs savage each other, and I weep for them all.

[And somewhere far away, the Deep's roar reaches its crescendo, eager in the thought that soon, its logic will consume all...]