From one came two, from two twenty-seven, and from twenty-seven all. By modern sensibilities, perhaps we would condemn the love of Adam’s children, and the children sired of their love. But it was a different time, a different place. They lived by their father’s law and loved, and from that love came life, pure and beautiful. Their children grew and discovered, just as they did. Paths were forged and shattered. It was a difficult time for the children of Adam, a crash course in the cruelties of the human condition. Formerly untouched by the miseries of mortal life, they became the first to walk the tightrope of existence, desperately balancing love and loss over yawning void. Life does its best to wear down the spirits of the living, but there is always love. And where there is love, there is life.
Hestia sobbed into Micheals arms as flames engulfed the small body in front of them. The sun shone overhead, far too bright for an occasion such as this. Its rays fell into the assembled crowd, and in them Micheal could feel his fathers love. He scoffed, lifting his gaze to the heavens and lowering it back to the burning body of his first son.
Love indeed.
His other children, along with the children of his siblings gathered around, most too young to understand what was happening.
Arjan had been the best of them, closer to the heavens than to the earth. When Micheal had sent him away, he had expected him to return triumphant.
He had upheld that expectation till the day Artemis had found his body in the middle of a mountain of beast corpses.
He still remembered his hands trembling as he tossed aside corpses like they were feathers. His son’s determined face stared back, jaw clenched with effort, even in death. He had issued a command at that very moment.
The lives of all the beasts that participated in the slaying of Arjan were forfeit.
He remembered feeling hollow as his command rushed across the land, slaying all that had survived his son’s carnage.
But it was worthless.
His son’s corpse burned before him.
The world pressed down on him, trying to drive him down to his knees. Trying to steal the breath from his lungs. Only Hestia’s presence beside him stopped him from lashing out at the feelings that dared try to suppress him.
The noon sun bathed him in light. The love in that light, normally so comforting, cut him to the bone, a reminder of what he’d lost.
He was too hot. Too hot. Too hot. Too HO-
A cold hand on his shoulder shook him out of his spiral and he didn't need to turn to sense Artemis at his back. Suddenly, he was ashamed. She had lost Orion, but carried on. How could he not?
Then he was angry. Why should a king feel ashamed?
He was still fighting himself as Artemis gently led them away.
—-----------------------------------------------
A week later found Micheal and Hestia at the top of the mountain of Adam, looking out over their kingdom. The sun had barely risen, the blackish-purple of night still at their backs.
“You know” Micheal said, “This is where I fell in love with you.”
Hestia was silent.
“When we first left home. I was ready to give a rousing speech atop this mountain. But you all rushed ahead. I tackled you, I remember, intent on getting revenge. I did get my revenge, I suppose. But''---He smiled down at Hestia as she sank into his chest—”the thing I remember most was how careful you were with your elbows. I had just tackled you, yet all you were focused on was making sure you didn’t somehow hurt me. I fell in love that moment, though it took me years to understand what that meant.”
He raised his gaze back to the rosy dawn.
“My love for you has only grown with time, and from that love came children, living manifestations of our love.” he hesitated. “So what does it mean when one of them leaves for destinations inconceivable?”
Hestia remained silent.
“It's strangely fitting, isn't it?” Micheal whispered, “Darkness in the land of our birth. Light in the land of our children.” He closed his eyes. “But darkness is comforting. And light burns. Love burns”
He opened his eyes and sighed, “What are we going to do?”
Hestia stirred, drawing herself away from his chest and quietly gazing at the sunrise. Sitting beside him in a simple white gown, she seemed to become the dawn herself. A dawn of his own, shining beside him. And like the dawn, she shed illumination on his plight.
“Remember when we found out father and mother were gone?”
He did in fact remember. The ground seemed jolt, unanchored with the passing of the one constant. They had been unmoored, adrift in a sea of everything.
Hestia held out a tan hand, a pure white flame emerging from it. The flame seemed to contain everything positive in the universe, from the beauty of a sunlit waterfall, sending rainbow diffraction in every direction to Hestia’s own boundless love.
“It hurt.” she whispered, gazing into the flame as if to suck up all its warmth. “It felt like the world was ending. It was, in a way. But after each day, we were still there, and so was the world…”
Micheal sat quietly, waiting for her to express her thoughts.
“And life went on.”
She turned to gaze into his eyes, and spoke with conviction she rarely showed.
“Life goes on.”
—---------------------------------------------
The pain was sharper than when his parents or Orion had died. They had been matured, beings of comprehensive paths. Arjan had been but a boy, a boy whose father had not been there when he was needed.
Still, life went on.
For most of his and his siblings' children, life continued as normal. It would be years still before they understood the magnitude of what they had just lost.
As for Micheal, he was a king, and kings are used to bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. Still, as he added that weight to the growing pile, the world seemed to grow a shade darker.
Life went on.
—------------------------------------
Micheal looked silently on as another of his children burned.
Maria had been so bright, so beautiful. She had illuminated his days, helping bear the weight of his rule. The weight of the deaths. He wanted desperately to tear the beasts down, but with practice he pushed the destructive impulses down and examined them from a distance.
Dargonth was too mighty to slay without unacceptable casualties.
He chuckled darkly. Once he had thought that after enough losses, he would grow numb to them. But had only got better at controlling himself.
It still hurt like nothing he had ever known.
He exhaled sadly as another burden laid itself upon him, dimming the world further. Bearing these burdens was his duty, the duty of a king, but at times, he found himself wanting to shed them, to return to a simpler time when he didn't have to attend the funerals of his children and niblings.
Those thoughts scared him. He was a king, it was his path, the road he had painstakingly forged for himself out of the shreds of truth scattered around this dim world. To betray it would be to betray himself, to go against his essence.
And yet…
He sighed. He had wanted to reign in his children, confine them to the city where he could protect them. But Hestia and his siblings had stopped him.
With sorrowful faces, they reminded him that this was the price of actualization. This was the risk of creating something unique for oneself. He knew they were right, and reluctantly he stepped back and watched his family throw themselves into the crucible, some perishing and some emerging stronger for it.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and with every death, it only gets heavier.
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Duty as heavy as a mountain, growing in layers of ash.
The sun burned on his bare back, but he bore it as he did everything else.
But he would not yield.
It was his duty, and he would carry it till he broke.
—-----------------------------
Time wore on, wearing him down like an eternal grindstone, ever spinning despite his effort against it.
Children became less and less common as Micheal withdrew his love into himself, favoring the unyielding will of kinghood instead, and the children that were born were… lesser somehow, their spark dimmer. His siblings seemed to unconsciously follow his example, withdrawing into their paths, leaving their children lesser for it.
Even as toddlers it showed. Life was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, with weakness leading to death, and death leading to withdrawal, and withdrawal leading to weakness.
All the children of Adam felt the looming shadow. All felt the erosion of their paths. But the death of one's children is not so easy to bear and in the shadow of the future they saw ever increasing death.
Night was descending onto the dawn of man.
—------------------------------
Twenty-three of the twenty-seven thrones were occupied by powerful presences. From the conception of the sun to the glory of might, Micheals siblings shone with inner light that defined imagination. The inside of the marble temple Hephas had built as their council warped under the strain of the competing presences, only to be stabilized by a frown from Hepahs himself.
They were unmatched, a council of demigods looking down on the world with impunity.
But Micheal knew the truth.
His siblings were reeling, struggling with struggles they could have never imagined. They were terrified, the mere fact they were here was enough to make that clear.
And they looked to him for guidance.
He wished he had the answers. It was his duty, as both eldest and king. And yet… he didn’t. The encroaching night seemed inevitable, a black darker than even Sol’s light could illuminate. It had all seemed so simple when they left home.
A new world to explore.
Paths to forge.
Goals to achieve.
But they never could have reckoned this. The weight of it all. Of watching children and siblings die, knowing if only you’d been a bit faster it could have all been avoided. Of knowing the beasts were expanding and being able to do nothing about it.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder why the children of Adam struggled so much with the human condition. It was a truth that most of their descendants readily accepted and toiled under. But looking back, it makes sense.
They were the first, and while their descendants had the framework built for them, the children of Adam started without such a convenient framework upon which to place their burdens.
They only had themselves.
And they were mighty. Used to conquering all challenges in their way. Used to the reflections of paradise, unbound by the mortal world.
Perhaps that’s why reality struck them so hard.
Sometimes the knowledge that something can be done is worse than knowing nothing can be done.
But regardless, as I watched Micheal preach of withdrawal and fortification, I knew something must change.
I would not let humanity be strangled in its cradle.
—-----------------------------
The world was greyscale, devoid of the beautiful colors that had once filled it. Hestia’s beautiful eyes were the last remaining bastion of color, and even they were fading.
She was at his side, watching the sunrise.
It was dull.
Hestia looked into his eyes, and growing, summoned her brilliant white flame to hand. It at least, radiating love and comfort, restored some semblance of light to the world.
“Micheal, my love, you cannot continue like this.”
Illuminated by her light, Micheal seemed to come awake, emerging from beneath the mountain of his duties, to face her.
“But I must. It is my path, and it is my duty. I am the eldest and I must guide us through these challenges.”
“But where are you guiding us? I know you can see the result of your guidance, the disaster we’re plummeting to.” Hestia replied gently.
Micheal flinched back.
Micheal'' she continued, “This is new to us, this grief, this newfound understanding of the cruelties of the world. Of the cruelties of life. I have tried to let you grieve, but it has become apparent some sort of intervention is required.”
Micheal closed his eyes. “And what gave you the right to intervene?”
Hestia ignored his accusatory tone. “My path. Just as you walk the path of kings, I walk the path of life. Of home. Of peace. Of healing. I am the embodiment of the hearth, and it is my nature to warm us in these cold times”
Micheal said nothing.
“My love,”---Hestia reached out with a flame drenched hand, stroking warmth into his cheek.---”You are not just guiding us. You are taking responsibility, more responsibility than you should. You’re wrapping yourself in that responsibility, using it as a blanket, cold as it may be, to ward off the legions of pain. And in that wrapping you are losing touch, losing the awareness that you need to guide us.”
Her flames brightened.
“But it's not just the pain you’re warding off. It's everything.”
She let her words sit for a few minutes, massaging more of that glorious warmth into him.
“I know it hurts love. I’m hurting too. We all are. Love is more painful than we could have imagined and loss more so. This is a new world, one more savage than we could have imagined. But it is still beautiful. More beautiful than we could have imagined. And we are stronger than we could have imagined”
Hestia snaked out her other hand, and catching Micheals face in two hands, forced him to meet her gaze.
“Trust us. It is not the place of a leader to carry his people's burdens. It is a leader's role to guide people through their burdens. So shed yours. Emerge from that blanket of pain and face the night with us at your side. Trust us to carry our burdens, and at last unburden yourself and shatter the encroaching night.”
She pulled his forehead to hers, brown hair mixing with black, alive in the rising sun.
“Please Michael” she whispered, “I miss you.”
They sat silently for hours, riding out the surging tides of emotions, before Micheal finally replied.
“I don’t know how,” he whispered. “The mountain has become my crown, the blanket my skin. I’ve forgotten the light. I’ve forgotten love.” He looked at his hands in dawning horror. “Oh light. What have I done to myself? What have I do-”
A pair of soft lips silenced him, and warmth became him. Light became him. Love became him. And him it. White flame bubbled off of Hestia’s form, raging through his body and soul. The flame was the bane of all things negative, but instead destroying, it refined. It found the spark of light within the darkness, and gently guided it till the darkness fell before its light.
As her body moved against his, her soul scored his soul. He felt the mountain above his head disappearing, chunks of grief-ridden rock evaporating to reveal veins of love-filled minerals. His scratchy blanket likewise began to burn, leaving refined golden strands in its wake.
At first Micheal resisted, almost instinctively. His crown and his blanket were his regalia and his path. To give them up was to give up himself. But as Hestai grew more and more insistent, the shred of flame he couldn't stop revealed the truth.
In his ignorance, in his pain, he had allowed his regalia to be corrupted. He had allowed his path to be corrupted. Shame filled him, and he gladly surrendered to the cleansing fire. The noon sun overhead joined in, weaving threads of loving light through their hair, and into their souls.
Seeing the purification was freeing and tragic all at once. The veins of gold were numerous now, the brilliant streak of love buried in a mountain of grief, now revealed and empowered. But the rock, the responsibilities he had assumed and the weight he had carried would not go nowhere. Another would have to carry them.
Forgive me he whispered in his soul's voice for returning your burdens to you.
At Hestia’s urging, he added another plea.
And forgive me, for taking so long to do so.
Insight struck him like a bolt of lightning. To take responsibility for another’s failures, one also took responsibility for their successes. That was the difference between a king like himself, and a tyrant like Dargonth.
A king let the people bear their own weights, successes and failures both.
A tyrant took them, depriving their people of both the empowerment of success and the lessons of failure.
Shame struck him again, this time as heavy as the rapidly dissolving mountain above his head. How had he strayed so far?
But alight in the blaze of redemption, he refused to back down.
His iron will seized the mountain overhead and ripped it asunder, gently collecting the veins of gold and forging them into something greater. Likewise, his will tore the blanket of isolation to shreds, weaving the remaining azure golden into a mantle that quietly faded from view.
It hurt like nothing he had ever known and in his mind's eyes the deceased danced in an eternal loop. But this time, he would not cower.
White flame turned into a blistering inferno, and from it Micheal pulled a crown. It was simple, made of black rock that decorated the mountain top he and Hestia sat on, but if one truly looked past its bleak outer layer, they would see the gold within it, a promise of greater things.
Micheal lifted it to the dancing deceased in a salute, feeling his heart tear as he did. But he resolutely faced them, recognizing and sinking into how they had lived rather than how they had died.
When he finally spoke, It was a release. “I return your deaths to you. May you rest well.”
And there, basking in the halo of the sun, Micheal, son of Adam, crowned himself the first true king of man. A ripple burst out of him, a proclamation of majesty and power.
But Micheal only had eyes for Hestia. The world was bright now, and for the first time in months, perhaps years, he could see her clearly.
And she was beautiful.
Long brown hair contrasted her pure white dress, the white flame flickering through it only adding to the allure. Her eyes shone with joy in the noon sun.
Micheals love was overflowing now and he struggled to find the words to express himself. “I… I love y- No, I’m sor- wait i”
She rolled her eyes, and stepping forward, brought his forehead to hers, white fire roiling between them to dance around his crown and run fingers through his hair.
“Just don't leave me again, okay?”
He nodded against her forehead.
She brought her lips to his.
And the world became light.
—---------------------------------------
Far above I watched the light of love swell between Hestai and Micheal, giving birth to a new being, one as bright as any that had come before him.
They named him Gilded, one born from gold.
And I rejoiced.
Humanity was far from done.