Minutes passed by as I repeated the lines I had carefully learned ever since I was a small child. Cilia was a generous goddess and cared little for etiquette or fancy words, but dedicating a proper prayer to her was the least I could do, especially as I was about to confront her with my worries and all the discoveries I had made today.
She would listen, as she always had, but I was neither a priestess, royalty, or saint. I couldn’t possibly hope to receive an answer, at least not today, as I had done nothing worth catching her attention. Only once had she revealed herself to me, back when I was barely sixteen years old, to gift me with my second tail after an especially successful dungeon delve.
As for the claims the girl had made, I couldn’t possibly believe most of them, as she only had a single tail. What great deeds could someone like her possibly have performed to catch our heavenly mother’s attention? Especially when she had originally been human?! And why would she give me a second chance in life? Just so I could serve that traitor?!
I forced that thought out of my head. Kiomi was too young to have been involved in any of it and she was neither a soldier nor a noble or royalty to begin with. She didn’t have the strength or the power to change anything. And if what she had claimed was at least somewhat true, the war had happened ages ago, which meant it was impossible for her to have been around back then, especially as a human, who was likely to live even shorter lives than your common one-tailed foxkin.
Still, all of this left me with many unanswered questions, all of them coming down to a single word: why?
I swallowed down a sigh as I moved on to tell Cilia what I had experienced since escaping my supposed eternal rest, and what the dungeon looked like to me. This naturally brought me to the first of many questions weighing down on my mind: why would she choose to revive me as a monster bound to a dungeon? She had never touched dungeons or monsters before!
A sudden wave of warmth washed through my body, immediately making me forget about the question. Cilia was listening! I knew this feeling, I remembered it as if it happened just yesterday!
Sure enough, it took barely a second before I was hit by a familiar feeling of heavy sleepiness, and before long, I had already dropped onto the soft blanket the girl had provided me with. It had really come in handy.
- - -
A soft touch woke me up from my sleep. Cilia’s hand was gently caressing me behind my ears. Almost immediately tears of happiness welled up in my eyes and a rumble could be heard coming from my chest. Even my tails grew uncontrolable.
The heavenly mother laughed about my reaction, but she continued showering me with her affection regardless. It had been too long since I had met her like this, and I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by emotions, unable to even form a single coherent thought, let alone muster the courage and will to lift myself up and start unloading all of my questions and worries onto her.
It took me about a minute to finally come to my senses, and Cilia happily gave me all of this time. She helped me rise when I was finally ready, and readily embraced me into a hug before I could even ask for one.
“There, there~” She whispered in my ears. “Everything is good now. I’m here for you.”
That was everything I needed to know or hear. I was perfectly content with just this, still, I forced myself to press for answers. So I reluctantly ended the hug with a gentle touch, before looking at Cilia for the first time in literal ages.
She had changed. While her long, white hair still seemed to be the same, her tails were much longer and softer looking now and her bust more developed. Her face was slightly different as well, now almost perfectly matching that of Kiomi, meaning Cilia had really taken on the shape of the statue that had been built by that girl. Or had she built the statue after meeting her? I couldn’t say.
“Kiomi has gifted me with this appearance,” she answered my question before I had even thought about asking it out aloud. “She wanted me to look like her mother. It is thanks to her that I can meet you like this.”
A shiver ran down my back. That girl had just decided to make a statue of our heavenly mother and she had just accepted the changes to her appearance? What about all of those paintings, statues, and carvings done in her image? What about the stories told about her? What about my, no, all of our memories?! There were so many of us who had received our blessings the same way I had! We had all seen her with our own eyes! What made her more important than us?!
Something in Cilia’s eyes changed, and a single tear soon rolled down her skin, leaving me in utter shock.
“All of those things are gone, Myra,” she said with a voice that seemed to have lost any hope. “You were gone. All of my children were,” she revealed while staring into the distance, right through the long, white curtains that surrounded us to all sides. “There is only so much a mother’s heart can handle before it breaks. And I… I simply didn’t have the strength left to pick up the shards.”
I didn’t know what to say; I didn’t even know what to think. I knew how much Cilia loved us. Everyone knew this. For her to be forced to watch us all being slaughtered without sense and reason... that would destroy any mother's heart!
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“That girl,” she continued. “She reminded me so much of my children. She was so desperate to live, so desperate to be loved, yet she was betrayed by the man she looked up to the most. I couldn’t let that happen...”
“What did you do?”
“I accepted the blood sacrifice her father had set up, using the strength it gave me to gift her a new body and revive myself,” she answered with a sad smile.
An icy cold assaulted me as I realized what all of this meant. That beast has tried to kill his own daughter?! He has tried to sacrifice her soul?! For what?! What could possibly be worth walking the path of demons and fiends?! And our heavenly mother was dying?! What about all of the believers she should have? What about the temples and churches dedicated to her?!
Cilia didn’t answer my questions. Maybe talking about this part of her past would hurt her even more, or she simply had no answer to begin with, as there was no way for her to know without listening to the prayers of her believers. And who would pray to her but her own kin? Humans had their own god to pray to, and so had the dwarves, elves, and any other race you could think of. Even goblins were known to pray, although only a few of them did. Had she really been forgotten, just like that?
She gently embraced me, before I could even find the strength to press for a single answer. “That girl saved me, in more ways than one. And I am fully intent on giving her the family she deserves.”
“Family…”
“I know it is hard for you to accept her after all the humans have done to us. But know that not all of them are bad, in fact, most of them are just living their lives, and some of them are even easy to fall in love with.”
Another shiver ran over my skin as I noticed the implication and the change in her voice as she uttered those last few words. It was a widely accepted fact that, while Cilia was without question our heavenly mother, our bloodline had started with a mortal man at her side and a human to boot. I was told that it was her love alone that had made her consider taking a beastkin-like shape in order to chase after our ancestor, but hearing all of this confirmed by the goddess herself was a rough wake-up call.
If Cilia herself didn’t hate humans, and likely never had, and had even left behind her own past to be able to better love them, who was I to decide all of those men, women and children were evil just because of the decisions those in charge had made?
“Then, the blessing…”
“Things changed since then, Myra,” she explained. “Father has decided we are no longer to influence the mortal world outside of dungeons and champions. He doesn’t want history to ever repeat again. As such, in order to regain those I have lost, I can only rely on Kiomi’s help.”
It finally clicked. “So you make her kill delvers so you can revive them as foxkin with the help of the blessing?”
“Yes…”
After confirming the conclusion I had come to was indeed correct, Cilia reluctantly let go of me. She stood up, before helping me to my feet.
“They won’t be the same as our family…” I heard myself whisper.
Cilia gave me a soft smile. “It will be enough if they fall in love and have families on their own.”
“You mean-”
“Consider it their punishment if doing so helps you overcome your grief. After receiving the blessing, their next offspring will bring back part of our family, even if little by little. I won’t take more than that.”
After revealing her ploy, Cilia slowly walked over to the side, towards the curtains separating us from the rest of her home - or so I thought. Instead, when she pushed them to the side, I was greeted by a sheer endless, lush meadow that had flowers of all colors growing everywhere I looked. But that wasn’t what caught my attention, neither were the trees in the distance. Instead, my eyes were glued on the countless little spirit-like beings I could see floating about everywhere, every single one of them seemingly bursting with holy magic, if their color was anything to go by. There were far too many of them to even hope you could count them all.
The beings didn’t seem to notice us, nor did it look like they were really aware of their surroundings, but with their fox-like ears and tails, every single one of them reminded me of my family, thus almost immediately forcing fresh tears into my eyes.
Cilia slowly went on her knees, before reaching out for one of the spirits. She touched it gently, seemingly trying to do something, only to let it go after a few moments. The fox-like being didn’t even react to all of that happening, which seemed to weigh down heavily on my heavenly mother’s heart.
“Her name is Aiko,” she explained while watching the being slowly float away. “She used to be a tree carer in Meda. There wasn’t much going on in her life as it was a very small settlement in the middle of nowhere, but she still prayed to me almost every single day, telling me about her unrequited love and all the little worries she had. I can still remember when she told me about expecting their first child. I was so happy for her…”
“Then all of these…”
“They are the souls of those I could save with the strength I had. It took quite a toll on me to bring them all here, and it hurts my heart whenever I see them, knowing what lives all of them had once led. Still, I will never regret the decision I made back then.”
“Then… my parents? What about Clio?!”
“They are safe,” she answered with a soft smile. “It will take me a while to find them, but you will surely meet them again. I promise.”
“You will really bring them back?!”
“Every single one of them,” she readily confirmed. “I will have to choose carefully on who can best support the growth of our family. But once things have settled, all of them will get their chance.”
“Does this mean you have chosen me the same way?!”
“You know exactly what Kiomi needs to become a proper dungeon,” Cilia explained her decision, before placing her hand on the side of my head, gently scratching me behind my ears, where I liked it the most. “Please be a good sister to her. Do it for all of us.”
“I will…”
Almost as soon as I had made this promise, an overwhelming feeling of sleepiness took hold of me, making me yawn. Cilia smiled sadly upon seeing this reaction, but soon enough she embraced me in a hug.
“Looks like we have to finish our chat another time,” she said, before gently placing my rapidly weakening body on the ground. “This is all the strength I have for today.”
A shiver ran down my back as she once again reminded me of the weak state she had ended up in. After using all of her strength to save our family, and with thousands of years having gone by, she was surely at the end of her wisdom, meaning that the blood sacrifice had really been the reason and cause for her to regain her strength and hope.
I tried to reply, tried to tell her that I would make her name known once again and protect our family for sure this time, but before I could do any of that, my sleepiness won over. Cilia’s gentle hands were the last thing I felt before I fell asleep.