Love is a double-edged sword. A quality I have ample experience with. To love someone is to let them into your heart. To give them a clear shot at the core of yourself. To love everyone is pain, for someone is always hurting. Adam and Eve understood this, understood the plight of the lovers. They lived for love and died with it. Their power was love. And so is mine.

That day was the last I ever spoke to Adam. In the creation of the child they had confirmed their path, and in doing so cast aside the last shreds of their divinity. Adam and Eve were content with this. Their son, Michael, grew up not knowing where his parents came from. But he was content, frolicking in the fields with the rest of his numerous siblings. They grew up in peace and quiet. Basking in the love and affection of their parents, and the beauty of the land they called home.

It was beautiful to watch.

For so long I had looked at things on the grand scale of eons. The way the eternal reign of time inevitably stripped even singularities to nothing, the endless dance of stars and gravity, but here was something even more beautiful. The way love held them all together was stronger than gravity could ever be and shone with a light greater than any star. It was intoxicating. They grew in peace, knowing nothing but love and each other. But It couldn't last. Adam called them to him. All twenty-seven children gathered in front of the main house, led by Micheal.

Adam looked upon them with a faint sense of sadness. He loved every one of his children with all of his heart. They were his life and they would be his death. He didn’t want to do it but he knew it was necessary. They would never become who they were destined to be otherwise. He sighed, and spoke,

“My children. Your time in this house has come to an end”

Michael, ever the first to act, replied “What do you mean?”

“It's time for you to seek out your own paths in the world. When Eve and I were young our father cast us out so that we could find our paths. Now it's time for you to find yours”

“Path?” Micheal questioned.

Adam smiled. “There is more to this life than mere existence. Higher things to embody. Greater things to become. Outside”---he spread his arms and threw his head back to the sky before looking back—”you can find those things. Become them.”

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Orion, one of the more impetus children stepped forward. “And what's your path? All you do is farm.”

Adam’s smile deepened at that, “You all are my path. You all carry my legacy.”

Even Orion was silenced by that, and for a time there was quiet as everyone processed that.

“And what is that legacy?” Michael questioned.

Adam’s smile deepened, taking on a distant quality, “Love. I don’t know much of the world, but I know everything of love. And I taught you all I know. Love is the force by which the impossible becomes impossible, it is the force by which the greatest of creations are born”

“And what are those creations?”

“Children. You were all born of Eve and I’s love, and soon children will be born of your love. The cycle will continue till love consumes all”

There was silence again as they mulled over those words. They didn't want to leave their parents, but at the same time they felt the tugging.

The call to adventure that all men feel at one time or another.

The longing to find something more.

Michael was the first to express their thoughts, “Very well. I have been feeling stifled here lately. Come, my brothers and sisters. It is time to discover our paths.”

With those words, Micheal turned around and began to walk away from the little farm. Slowly one by one the rest of the children followed.

Finally, only Hestia remained, looking between her father and her siblings with a torn expression.

“Go on, my love.” Adam encouraged with a gentle smile, even as his heart broke.

She reached over and hugged him, before charging after her sibling with reckless abandon.

Adam watched, his heart straining a little more with every step they took. He smiled wider than ever before, a expression both devastated and exultant,

“Our path had been walked” he whispered “It's time for them to walk theirs”

Soon all that was left was Adam and Eve, just like in the beginning.

Later that night Adam and Eve died in each other's arms, their paths complete and their purpose fulfilled.

I watched as their souls rose somewhere beyond even me, and gathering the last residual traces of their paths I pressed them into the sun.

They had given birth to humanity and they would nurture them for an eternity more.

The cycle would never end.