CYRENE
mother, why do fireflies die so young?
T
he doors to Tempus stood open, the darkness beyond swirling like a rip in the fabric of time. She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all; a dry, bitter laugh coated with sand and disbelief. Divine intervention. Such a strange, fathomless thing for Cyrene to grasp. The power of the gods had always been arranged like flowers into poetic myths and heroic hymns, sung to the beat of drums. Toasted with blood red wine.
Her gods had been bedtime stories, tales of ancient worlds and crumbling relics brought to life by her mother's melodic, grecian voice. Her gods had never returned to the mortal world.
She ran her tongue over red-hot lips, her blood pulsing a frantic, staccato beat. She was not afraid. She had never been afraid.
You will learn to be afraid, a voice in her head promised, and Cyrene shuddered at the sobering prophecy. And what if it is too late to learn?
Their hooves thudded against the earth like rain sent from the heavens. And one by one, court by court, they stepped into the jaws of divine will. Day, Dawn, Dusk, Night.
Crimson skin slid silkily against gold as she bumped shoulders with the fae queen as the path drew to a needle's point. Florentine was a beacon in the darkness eternal, a naiad's pool of strength and vitality. She wielded time like a metalsmith and his ores, bending it to her will, shaping it until it was just the color, just the shape. Florentine was a goddess clothed in a mortal's skin.
But Cyrene... mortality was sewn into the very fabric of her being. She knew death like an old friend, pain like a fresh memory — but nothing, nothing had prepared her for this.
The pillars stood like frozen sentinels, loyal until the end of time. She looked to the glowing statue and felt like a child again, and realized how far she was from home.
Until she remembered, with sharp melancholy, that her home was as lost as her childhood gods.
"speaks" | notes: -shoves cyrene in-
