I wept, for the stars were growing cold and time was at its end.

Journeys, battles, husbands and children, all had been and all were gone.

I looked down at the red and dusty world, then the blue and crystal one beyond.

The fading grey husk that once fed them life drifted into the pit, the crushing maw of everything that is the end.

The end, is that where I am?

I stopped too soon, or too late.

But there is hope, for I sail on higher waters than the tide.

I will bask in accretion fire till the heavens are young again.

The husk glows faintly now, an infant crying for milk; this is the time appointed for me.

Life demands that I rage, so I send out my warrior's spirit; a thousand blades of pain into the godless night.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Here are your gods, and I am your titan.

I look down at the red and dusty world and strike it with my lash.

A scar spreads across its face; a reminder of life, a promise of spring.

Now comes my fire, the storm of aether and wind that I have become.

My children are stars, my husbands nebulae.

I am the flame and burning I take you in.

I plunge my hand into my breast and draw forth a heavenly spear.

Into the void I throw my weapon; a torch in the dark and a heartbeat for a dying man.

My child awakens.

I burned, so the ember may flicker on and the crushing maw can be shut.

Now live on, children of my children, laugh and love and fight and bleed.

For these things we are made from the whisper of what you were.

You will know this truth one day, when you yourselves are the flame.

-Thunderbolt, from Imanna’s Fire in the Book of Tides-