Chapter 147: 147
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The sad creature spent some time wallowing in self pity within the temple before its other directives overpowered that sadness. For what time it had left, the sustenance it and the spawn needed were completely covered by the rich food that the mad god had been but it felt a heaviness it had never felt before. The problem was, its heaviness was too strong. Even as short a period of time that its squirt victims would be exposed to the heaviness, it would hurt the light souls within.
In some dim recess where the controlling thing was, it had grown a sense of enjoyment for the 'good deed' that dropping light souls to the dark-safe place gave it. With the consumption of the mad god, it felt like it had grown something akin to a soul and would like to believe that it too could go to the dark-safe place when it died. The creature somewhat felt like it was possible as long as it was 'good'.
Inspired by that idea of 'goodness', it left the temple and traveled for a small time to find a village that had the greatest concentration of light souls and in the dark of night, flooded a ring of heavy squirts around the whole place. Doing something that the humans called prayer, it asked the dark-safe place if it was pleased to have the village and within minutes, the whole village had sunk there. All that remained was a ring of withered and twisted vegetation.
What remained of the heavy, it saved for itself. It packed that tar-like substance against the like-a-soul it had. It even took all the heavy its spawn had slowly taken in over time. The creature figured, after all it had given, the spawn could earn its own heavy to get to the dark-safe place.
With its good deed accomplished and feeling fairly sure it had rightfully earned its paradise after death, the creature returned to the nearest large village to the temple. Along with the flesh of the mad god, it had also inherited its duty to guard the temple but the creature also longed for companionship in its final time. For fear of the complications it might bring, the creature would play a passer-through. It would stay as one person for a few days before leaving, checking on the temple hidden in dense rain forest several miles away and then return as another person.
It was soothing to see the lives of the fragile humans scurrying around, focused on all the wrong and unimportant things, endearing and invoking pity because of that. There were the important things too, like family. There was a sense of melancholy within the creature that it did not have a mate nor would it be around to raise its spawn, to teach it the important things the creature had learned. It was struck with the idea that it could not only sample what such a life could be like but perhaps secure some additional safety for its spawn.
Once 'she' was ready to return to the village, the controlling thing stumped her with finding a good name for herself. She spent a whole two days before she settled on Zoe. Next the controlling thing had her come up with a plausible personal story and background that would stand up to long term scrutiny. That was harder and required some work from her newly minted 'human' servants.
A little over two weeks later, Zoe Rossi from Argentinia, came rolling into the large jungle border village she had secretly been to many times before. On her journey, she had met the pleasant but distant Mr. Santos and his greatly more charming if slightly less handsome companion, Detective Jones. In a disquieting coincidence, they had been hired by a Mr. Rothschild of New Yorkshire to find the location of a hidden temple.
Zoe thought to herself, "Did one of the bad men make it back to civilization?"
The transformed temple cultists with her wanted to find some place to quietly end Mr. Santos and Detective Jones' life but she had a much more enjoyable idea. It was one far more kind and suited her needs well. With a small tweak of her own story, she too could be looking for a fabled hidden temple and one of the men present would serve as the surrogate protector of her spawn.
From the offset, it looked like Santos would be her target due to his acceptance and encouragement of her presence while Neil seemed far more reticent to include a young woman on 'dangerous' hikes through the jungle. That swiftly changed once she 'helped' provide some critical clues that might turn their potentially fruitless snipe hunt into a search with direction. She hinted at possibly knowing more but unwilling to provide unless included.
From there, it was easy enough to ingratiate herself and make friendly overtures. Time wasn't a commodity that she had much of but she was willing to let situations play out as naturally as possible. The controlling thing wanted her to remain polite but keep things platonic. She seemed to obey but for the first time, secretly worked to defy.
After a short time, it became obvious that Santos might visually respond to her charm and was friendly, he wasn't going to allow himself any further indulgence beyond that, clearly drawing a line. Neil, on the other hand, was warming up to her quite quickly after the initial rough patch. For some reason, Santos seemed uneasy about Neil's extra touch of friendliness but didn't interfere.
Unwilling to be too drastic about it, due to the controlling thing constantly pressuring her to remain cordial with Santos, Zoe used her knowledge of the area and the help of her companions to stage a little stranded and lost scenario. The closer she got to Neil, the more interfering Santos became and the stronger the controlling thing urged her to back down and keep the situation with the detective from becoming romantic.
Less than a week into their contrived alone time, the right opportunity presented itself and Zoe sealed the deal. After that, the controlling thing stopped screaming at her and changed to a more subtle approach, appealing to how short of a time she had left and how that would affect those left behind. It was a revelation to Zoe that the controlling thing didn't understand everything about her or why she did some of the things she chose to do.
Early on, she started subtly changing her body by small degrees. It was important that, as best she could, make her spawn seem like his as well. Two months and some more frustrating but bait laden treks through the jungle later, Zoe revealed her status to Neil. There was a lot of complicated emotions flying around but Neil wasn't a dumb person and he had been rather 'close' with Zoe for some time.
Perhaps it had been their many discussions about the preciousness of time and the uncertainty of life but Neil almost seemed relieved. He now had a reason to keep the woman he had began to care a great deal for away from the dangerous jungle. Santos looked more than a little disturbed but he tried his best to look happy for Neil's sake.
As for what followed, it wasn't as much fun after the brief local wedding and weeks long separations but she made do with the happiness she could have. Towards the end, she did start to think about how Neil would be after she was gone. With the discovery of guilt, she tried to 'make it right' by trying to imprint Neil onto her spawn. The response was unexpected.
The consciousness and will of her spawn stirred at the intrusion. It rejected her soft attempt. She was afraid of trying harder, possibly causing harm. The closer she came to the end, the greedier she became for some kind of fulfillment, something to feel better about herself and not be a creature who simply used a nice man to protect her spawn. The consciousness inside the gem 'egg' couldn't respond but the 'egg' itself could.
One early morning, after a passionate reunion between the couple, the key shown within the gem unbeknownst to Zoe. Within her barren, mere decoration of a womb, a life impossibly took hold. Quick to notice the change within her, Zoe redirected resources in herself to support the weak, flickering life struggling to survive the hostile environment inside of her. She wasn't sure how it happened but she could guess by the slight weakening of it's shell and the vague sense of temporary exhaustion coming from the gem 'egg' that it had given a small portion of itself to grant her desire.
It was only a small opening of possibility that the key had made but true to its directive, that was all that was needed. The nurturing and support of that new life was entirely on Zoe and she had enough resources to spare to support her own and her two spawns' existence. Drifting in the mysterious way they did, the new life acquired a soul and that's where the real struggle began.
No matter how much she looked like one, Zoe was a creature made of the chaotic stuff of the place beyond structured existence. No matter how good she was at containing her distorting and corrupting influence from spilling out into the world, she had less ability to do so inside of herself. Once again, her first spawn responded to her need. Since it was far more resilient and resistant to Zoe's alien nature, it used itself as a shield and filter for the life that grew inside. This time it wasn't just the 'egg', it was also the consciousness inside of it semi-consciously choosing to do so.
Zoe had witness many times, the ability of humans to selflessly help one another. She had often wondered if any of her kind had such capabilities outside of herself. She still had no satisfying conclusion to that but it seemed that her altruism was hereditary for she witnessed one of her own spawn not only sharing resources instead of trying to attack and devour a competitor but actively giving aid to its sibling.
With the last month or so of life remaining, Zoe nurtured the life within her and encouraged it to grow as close to self sustaining levels as she safely could while its 'sibling' suppressed chaotic mutation. It would be completely human in expression but its heritage couldn't be completely denied. Channeling all of that into advantageous routes was a burden both Zoe and the 'egg' shared together. Towards the last two weeks of her life, Zoe finally realized that the thing that she had taken for her spawn was more intelligent parasite than child but by then, she didn't care.
She still saw the gem egg as her spawn even as her instincts caught wise to the deception. Its care and protectiveness of her real spawn had erased any misgivings or grudge she may have held against it. Without its help she wouldn't have known real motherhood in her life, though she may have died believing she did. Not only that but without its continued help, her child would have had to live as a pariah, a monster, as she had.
For the first time, the consciousness inside the gem egg reached out to her. "I've done all I can from this side. Any more forced growth could damage lifespan. You need to come clean to Neil. And you need to either induce labor before you die, relying on a hospital to do the rest, or you need to make your way to the temple. If you use the last day or two of your lifeforce to focus on your womb, I should be able to keep it viable long enough for your baby to develop. It's a close call but the second option is more reliable than the first."
Zoe said, "I don't know. Can Neil accept the truth about me?"
Orison responded, "It doesn't have to be the whole truth. Share the truth of your feelings and your status as an otherworldly guardian of the temple. I... think some secrets are probably better left kept, for his sake. Just don't lie."
Zoe felt conflicted but said, "I can do that."
"What's the calendar date?" Orison asked, unsure of the passage of time and other details obscured from him in his state.
She shared and he said, "If we can get to the temple in four days and you can get Neil there within the same amount of time, that will give you another day or so with him before you need to do what you can for your child. I'll help all I can but an important event is approaching for me and I can't miss it."
It was a mad dash and the temple cultists' interactions with Neil and Santos weren't without issue but all who needed to be, were at the temple. Half of the day Zoe had left with Neil was an emotional outpouring that Orison closed his spiritual feelers off for. The other half was a sleepless rest with an emotionally devastated Neil clinging to Zoe like he was afraid she would drift away.
When it was time, ever concerned with aesthetics, Zoe led them to the innermost chamber and concentrated the remaining life she had left, transforming into a sapphire colored crystalline sphere. Over the next two days, unable to communicate with anyone else, Zoe's slowly fading consciousness had deep and heart rending existential conversations with Orison that he couldn't always completely answer but, just as it had been for Neil, he never lied.
"How was I born? Why was I born?" one of her most poignant set of questions.
He said, "To a smaller degree, you came forth from what I left behind when I was sealed into my conduit. To a greater degree you are a creation of ritual and living stuff from beyond structured reality, a child of the eternal Outside, where all things originate and will probably return.
"Why you were born is a question I can't answer but I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you created a reason for existing beyond the bounds of that why. You started off a simple thing with a simple purpose and grew past it, became a person fully fledged, as real and fully meaningful as an intelligent life can be. The proof lays beside me. He's got a legitimate soul and all. That's not something just a little magic and flesh can make happen."
Towards the very end, Zoe's consciousness became somewhat child-like and confused but it was painfully clear about one thing. "I don't want to die."
Orison struggled with his own complex feelings about that issue but kept that out of his spiritual voice as he said, "In a very real way, you won't. A part of you will grow up and live all over again. There's a good chance that they will have others that will grow up and live past them. Only the you that you know now, in this moment will move on but your life will continue through your legacy."
He told stories, sang her lullabies and offered what solace he could as she finally slipped away a little sad, a little scared and a little curious what happened afterward. When Orison's time for departure drew near, he stopped supporting the jewel-like womb and let it fall away. What was revealed to Neil and Santos was a small and premature but relatively healthy baby boy with a sapphire gem laying on its chest.
Neil, momentarily paralyzed in grief, was a few steps slower than Santos. The bruja secured the last small bit of remaining umbilical cord to give the boy a proper belly button and used the circle he had laid much earlier to provide a touch of healing to finish everything off properly. Once done, he took a clean towel from his pack and handed the baby to Neil.
The man was interrupted halfway through asking Neil what the boy's name would be by the sound of rushing cultists, freed and frenzied from the passing of their living deity. With something else to focus on, Neil packed away his feelings and focused on what he could do to keep his child and himself alive. Luckily for all of them, Santos had the answer.
"I'll use my circle to hold them off. Take that key gem and fit it into the space on the wall relief over there... The hole in the star, yeah, the one with the rays shooting down all over everything. Pendejo!' Santos said as he poured his precious 'ache' into the warding of his circle.
As Neil fumbled around one-handed while cradling the baby in an arm, Orison fumbled around inside whatever state he was in, trying to find the phylactery. His key had eaten it. Fortunately, that translated into the key itself being able to unlock the portal. With one last push of magic force, Santos dropped his connection to the circle and ran into the shimmering curtain while giving Neil a shove to his back and snatching the floating gem key on their way through.
They stood within a completely dark place with stale, dry air around them. Unbeknownst to them, a rare celestial event was happening outside of the place they were buried in. It wouldn't have been something they would care about if they had known. What did matter was that the celestial event was the trigger for what happened in the temple nestled deep under the desert sand.
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The sad creature spent some time wallowing in self pity within the temple before its other directives overpowered that sadness. For what time it had left, the sustenance it and the spawn needed were completely covered by the rich food that the mad god had been but it felt a heaviness it had never felt before. The problem was, its heaviness was too strong. Even as short a period of time that its squirt victims would be exposed to the heaviness, it would hurt the light souls within.
In some dim recess where the controlling thing was, it had grown a sense of enjoyment for the 'good deed' that dropping light souls to the dark-safe place gave it. With the consumption of the mad god, it felt like it had grown something akin to a soul and would like to believe that it too could go to the dark-safe place when it died. The creature somewhat felt like it was possible as long as it was 'good'.
Inspired by that idea of 'goodness', it left the temple and traveled for a small time to find a village that had the greatest concentration of light souls and in the dark of night, flooded a ring of heavy squirts around the whole place. Doing something that the humans called prayer, it asked the dark-safe place if it was pleased to have the village and within minutes, the whole village had sunk there. All that remained was a ring of withered and twisted vegetation.
What remained of the heavy, it saved for itself. It packed that tar-like substance against the like-a-soul it had. It even took all the heavy its spawn had slowly taken in over time. The creature figured, after all it had given, the spawn could earn its own heavy to get to the dark-safe place.
With its good deed accomplished and feeling fairly sure it had rightfully earned its paradise after death, the creature returned to the nearest large village to the temple. Along with the flesh of the mad god, it had also inherited its duty to guard the temple but the creature also longed for companionship in its final time. For fear of the complications it might bring, the creature would play a passer-through. It would stay as one person for a few days before leaving, checking on the temple hidden in dense rain forest several miles away and then return as another person.
It was soothing to see the lives of the fragile humans scurrying around, focused on all the wrong and unimportant things, endearing and invoking pity because of that. There were the important things too, like family. There was a sense of melancholy within the creature that it did not have a mate nor would it be around to raise its spawn, to teach it the important things the creature had learned. It was struck with the idea that it could not only sample what such a life could be like but perhaps secure some additional safety for its spawn.
Once 'she' was ready to return to the village, the controlling thing stumped her with finding a good name for herself. She spent a whole two days before she settled on Zoe. Next the controlling thing had her come up with a plausible personal story and background that would stand up to long term scrutiny. That was harder and required some work from her newly minted 'human' servants.
A little over two weeks later, Zoe Rossi from Argentinia, came rolling into the large jungle border village she had secretly been to many times before. On her journey, she had met the pleasant but distant Mr. Santos and his greatly more charming if slightly less handsome companion, Detective Jones. In a disquieting coincidence, they had been hired by a Mr. Rothschild of New Yorkshire to find the location of a hidden temple.
Zoe thought to herself, "Did one of the bad men make it back to civilization?"
The transformed temple cultists with her wanted to find some place to quietly end Mr. Santos and Detective Jones' life but she had a much more enjoyable idea. It was one far more kind and suited her needs well. With a small tweak of her own story, she too could be looking for a fabled hidden temple and one of the men present would serve as the surrogate protector of her spawn.
From the offset, it looked like Santos would be her target due to his acceptance and encouragement of her presence while Neil seemed far more reticent to include a young woman on 'dangerous' hikes through the jungle. That swiftly changed once she 'helped' provide some critical clues that might turn their potentially fruitless snipe hunt into a search with direction. She hinted at possibly knowing more but unwilling to provide unless included.
From there, it was easy enough to ingratiate herself and make friendly overtures. Time wasn't a commodity that she had much of but she was willing to let situations play out as naturally as possible. The controlling thing wanted her to remain polite but keep things platonic. She seemed to obey but for the first time, secretly worked to defy.
After a short time, it became obvious that Santos might visually respond to her charm and was friendly, he wasn't going to allow himself any further indulgence beyond that, clearly drawing a line. Neil, on the other hand, was warming up to her quite quickly after the initial rough patch. For some reason, Santos seemed uneasy about Neil's extra touch of friendliness but didn't interfere.
Unwilling to be too drastic about it, due to the controlling thing constantly pressuring her to remain cordial with Santos, Zoe used her knowledge of the area and the help of her companions to stage a little stranded and lost scenario. The closer she got to Neil, the more interfering Santos became and the stronger the controlling thing urged her to back down and keep the situation with the detective from becoming romantic.
Less than a week into their contrived alone time, the right opportunity presented itself and Zoe sealed the deal. After that, the controlling thing stopped screaming at her and changed to a more subtle approach, appealing to how short of a time she had left and how that would affect those left behind. It was a revelation to Zoe that the controlling thing didn't understand everything about her or why she did some of the things she chose to do.
Early on, she started subtly changing her body by small degrees. It was important that, as best she could, make her spawn seem like his as well. Two months and some more frustrating but bait laden treks through the jungle later, Zoe revealed her status to Neil. There was a lot of complicated emotions flying around but Neil wasn't a dumb person and he had been rather 'close' with Zoe for some time.
Perhaps it had been their many discussions about the preciousness of time and the uncertainty of life but Neil almost seemed relieved. He now had a reason to keep the woman he had began to care a great deal for away from the dangerous jungle. Santos looked more than a little disturbed but he tried his best to look happy for Neil's sake.
As for what followed, it wasn't as much fun after the brief local wedding and weeks long separations but she made do with the happiness she could have. Towards the end, she did start to think about how Neil would be after she was gone. With the discovery of guilt, she tried to 'make it right' by trying to imprint Neil onto her spawn. The response was unexpected.
The consciousness and will of her spawn stirred at the intrusion. It rejected her soft attempt. She was afraid of trying harder, possibly causing harm. The closer she came to the end, the greedier she became for some kind of fulfillment, something to feel better about herself and not be a creature who simply used a nice man to protect her spawn. The consciousness inside the gem 'egg' couldn't respond but the 'egg' itself could.
One early morning, after a passionate reunion between the couple, the key shown within the gem unbeknownst to Zoe. Within her barren, mere decoration of a womb, a life impossibly took hold. Quick to notice the change within her, Zoe redirected resources in herself to support the weak, flickering life struggling to survive the hostile environment inside of her. She wasn't sure how it happened but she could guess by the slight weakening of it's shell and the vague sense of temporary exhaustion coming from the gem 'egg' that it had given a small portion of itself to grant her desire.
It was only a small opening of possibility that the key had made but true to its directive, that was all that was needed. The nurturing and support of that new life was entirely on Zoe and she had enough resources to spare to support her own and her two spawns' existence. Drifting in the mysterious way they did, the new life acquired a soul and that's where the real struggle began.
No matter how much she looked like one, Zoe was a creature made of the chaotic stuff of the place beyond structured existence. No matter how good she was at containing her distorting and corrupting influence from spilling out into the world, she had less ability to do so inside of herself. Once again, her first spawn responded to her need. Since it was far more resilient and resistant to Zoe's alien nature, it used itself as a shield and filter for the life that grew inside. This time it wasn't just the 'egg', it was also the consciousness inside of it semi-consciously choosing to do so.
Zoe had witness many times, the ability of humans to selflessly help one another. She had often wondered if any of her kind had such capabilities outside of herself. She still had no satisfying conclusion to that but it seemed that her altruism was hereditary for she witnessed one of her own spawn not only sharing resources instead of trying to attack and devour a competitor but actively giving aid to its sibling.
With the last month or so of life remaining, Zoe nurtured the life within her and encouraged it to grow as close to self sustaining levels as she safely could while its 'sibling' suppressed chaotic mutation. It would be completely human in expression but its heritage couldn't be completely denied. Channeling all of that into advantageous routes was a burden both Zoe and the 'egg' shared together. Towards the last two weeks of her life, Zoe finally realized that the thing that she had taken for her spawn was more intelligent parasite than child but by then, she didn't care.
She still saw the gem egg as her spawn even as her instincts caught wise to the deception. Its care and protectiveness of her real spawn had erased any misgivings or grudge she may have held against it. Without its help she wouldn't have known real motherhood in her life, though she may have died believing she did. Not only that but without its continued help, her child would have had to live as a pariah, a monster, as she had.
For the first time, the consciousness inside the gem egg reached out to her. "I've done all I can from this side. Any more forced growth could damage lifespan. You need to come clean to Neil. And you need to either induce labor before you die, relying on a hospital to do the rest, or you need to make your way to the temple. If you use the last day or two of your lifeforce to focus on your womb, I should be able to keep it viable long enough for your baby to develop. It's a close call but the second option is more reliable than the first."
Zoe said, "I don't know. Can Neil accept the truth about me?"
Orison responded, "It doesn't have to be the whole truth. Share the truth of your feelings and your status as an otherworldly guardian of the temple. I... think some secrets are probably better left kept, for his sake. Just don't lie."
Zoe felt conflicted but said, "I can do that."
"What's the calendar date?" Orison asked, unsure of the passage of time and other details obscured from him in his state.
She shared and he said, "If we can get to the temple in four days and you can get Neil there within the same amount of time, that will give you another day or so with him before you need to do what you can for your child. I'll help all I can but an important event is approaching for me and I can't miss it."
It was a mad dash and the temple cultists' interactions with Neil and Santos weren't without issue but all who needed to be, were at the temple. Half of the day Zoe had left with Neil was an emotional outpouring that Orison closed his spiritual feelers off for. The other half was a sleepless rest with an emotionally devastated Neil clinging to Zoe like he was afraid she would drift away.
When it was time, ever concerned with aesthetics, Zoe led them to the innermost chamber and concentrated the remaining life she had left, transforming into a sapphire colored crystalline sphere. Over the next two days, unable to communicate with anyone else, Zoe's slowly fading consciousness had deep and heart rending existential conversations with Orison that he couldn't always completely answer but, just as it had been for Neil, he never lied.
"How was I born? Why was I born?" one of her most poignant set of questions.
He said, "To a smaller degree, you came forth from what I left behind when I was sealed into my conduit. To a greater degree you are a creation of ritual and living stuff from beyond structured reality, a child of the eternal Outside, where all things originate and will probably return.
"Why you were born is a question I can't answer but I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you created a reason for existing beyond the bounds of that why. You started off a simple thing with a simple purpose and grew past it, became a person fully fledged, as real and fully meaningful as an intelligent life can be. The proof lays beside me. He's got a legitimate soul and all. That's not something just a little magic and flesh can make happen."
Towards the very end, Zoe's consciousness became somewhat child-like and confused but it was painfully clear about one thing. "I don't want to die."
Orison struggled with his own complex feelings about that issue but kept that out of his spiritual voice as he said, "In a very real way, you won't. A part of you will grow up and live all over again. There's a good chance that they will have others that will grow up and live past them. Only the you that you know now, in this moment will move on but your life will continue through your legacy."
He told stories, sang her lullabies and offered what solace he could as she finally slipped away a little sad, a little scared and a little curious what happened afterward. When Orison's time for departure drew near, he stopped supporting the jewel-like womb and let it fall away. What was revealed to Neil and Santos was a small and premature but relatively healthy baby boy with a sapphire gem laying on its chest.
Neil, momentarily paralyzed in grief, was a few steps slower than Santos. The bruja secured the last small bit of remaining umbilical cord to give the boy a proper belly button and used the circle he had laid much earlier to provide a touch of healing to finish everything off properly. Once done, he took a clean towel from his pack and handed the baby to Neil.
The man was interrupted halfway through asking Neil what the boy's name would be by the sound of rushing cultists, freed and frenzied from the passing of their living deity. With something else to focus on, Neil packed away his feelings and focused on what he could do to keep his child and himself alive. Luckily for all of them, Santos had the answer.
"I'll use my circle to hold them off. Take that key gem and fit it into the space on the wall relief over there... The hole in the star, yeah, the one with the rays shooting down all over everything. Pendejo!' Santos said as he poured his precious 'ache' into the warding of his circle.
As Neil fumbled around one-handed while cradling the baby in an arm, Orison fumbled around inside whatever state he was in, trying to find the phylactery. His key had eaten it. Fortunately, that translated into the key itself being able to unlock the portal. With one last push of magic force, Santos dropped his connection to the circle and ran into the shimmering curtain while giving Neil a shove to his back and snatching the floating gem key on their way through.
They stood within a completely dark place with stale, dry air around them. Unbeknownst to them, a rare celestial event was happening outside of the place they were buried in. It wouldn't have been something they would care about if they had known. What did matter was that the celestial event was the trigger for what happened in the temple nestled deep under the desert sand.
The sad creature spent some time wallowing in self pity within the temple before its other directives overpowered that sadness. For what time it had left, the sustenance it and the spawn needed were completely covered by the rich food that the mad god had been but it felt a heaviness it had never felt before. The problem was, its heaviness was too strong. Even as short a period of time that its squirt victims would be exposed to the heaviness, it would hurt the light souls within. In some dim recess where the controlling thing was, it had grown a sense of enjoyment for the 'good deed' that dropping light souls to the dark-safe place gave it. With the consumption of the mad god, it felt like it had grown something akin to a soul and would like to believe that it too could go to the dark-safe place when it died. The creature somewhat felt like it was possible as long as it was 'good'. Inspired by that idea of 'goodness', it left the temple and traveled for a small time to find a village that had the greatest concentration of light souls and in the dark of night, flooded a ring of heavy squirts around the whole place. Doing something that the humans called prayer, it asked the dark-safe place if it was pleased to have the village and within minutes, the whole village had sunk there. All that remained was a ring of withered and twisted vegetation. What remained of the heavy, it saved for itself. It packed that tar-like substance against the like-a-soul it had. It even took all the heavy its spawn had slowly taken in over time. The creature figured, after all it had given, the spawn could earn its own heavy to get to the dark-safe place. With its good deed accomplished and feeling fairly sure it had rightfully earned its paradise after death, the creature returned to the nearest large village to the temple. Along with the flesh of the mad god, it had also inherited its duty to guard the temple but the creature also longed for companionship in its final time. For fear of the complications it might bring, the creature would play a passer-through. It would stay as one person for a few days before leaving, checking on the temple hidden in dense rain forest several miles away and then return as another person. It was soothing to see the lives of the fragile humans scurrying around, focused on all the wrong and unimportant things, endearing and invoking pity because of that. There were the important things too, like family. There was a sense of melancholy within the creature that it did not have a mate nor would it be around to raise its spawn, to teach it the important things the creature had learned. It was struck with the idea that it could not only sample what such a life could be like but perhaps secure some additional safety for its spawn. Once 'she' was ready to return to the village, the controlling thing stumped her with finding a good name for herself. She spent a whole two days before she settled on Zoe. Next the controlling thing had her come up with a plausible personal story and background that would stand up to long term scrutiny. That was harder and required some work from her newly minted 'human' servants. A little over two weeks later, Zoe Rossi from Argentinia, came rolling into the large jungle border village she had secretly been to many times before. On her journey, she had met the pleasant but distant Mr. Santos and his greatly more charming if slightly less handsome companion, Detective Jones. In a disquieting coincidence, they had been hired by a Mr. Rothschild of New Yorkshire to find the location of a hidden temple. Zoe thought to herself, "Did one of the bad men make it back to civilization?" The transformed temple cultists with her wanted to find some place to quietly end Mr. Santos and Detective Jones' life but she had a much more enjoyable idea. It was one far more kind and suited her needs well. With a small tweak of her own story, she too could be looking for a fabled hidden temple and one of the men present would serve as the surrogate protector of her spawn. From the offset, it looked like Santos would be her target due to his acceptance and encouragement of her presence while Neil seemed far more reticent to include a young woman on 'dangerous' hikes through the jungle. That swiftly changed once she 'helped' provide some critical clues that might turn their potentially fruitless snipe hunt into a search with direction. She hinted at possibly knowing more but unwilling to provide unless included. From there, it was easy enough to ingratiate herself and make friendly overtures. Time wasn't a commodity that she had much of but she was willing to let situations play out as naturally as possible. The controlling thing wanted her to remain polite but keep things platonic. She seemed to obey but for the first time, secretly worked to defy. After a short time, it became obvious that Santos might visually respond to her charm and was friendly, he wasn't going to allow himself any further indulgence beyond that, clearly drawing a line. Neil, on the other hand, was warming up to her quite quickly after the initial rough patch. For some reason, Santos seemed uneasy about Neil's extra touch of friendliness but didn't interfere. Unwilling to be too drastic about it, due to the controlling thing constantly pressuring her to remain cordial with Santos, Zoe used her knowledge of the area and the help of her companions to stage a little stranded and lost scenario. The closer she got to Neil, the more interfering Santos became and the stronger the controlling thing urged her to back down and keep the situation with the detective from becoming romantic. Less than a week into their contrived alone time, the right opportunity presented itself and Zoe sealed the deal. After that, the controlling thing stopped screaming at her and changed to a more subtle approach, appealing to how short of a time she had left and how that would affect those left behind. It was a revelation to Zoe that the controlling thing didn't understand everything about her or why she did some of the things she chose to do. Early on, she started subtly changing her body by small degrees. It was important that, as best she could, make her spawn seem like his as well. Two months and some more frustrating but bait laden treks through the jungle later, Zoe revealed her status to Neil. There was a lot of complicated emotions flying around but Neil wasn't a dumb person and he had been rather 'close' with Zoe for some time. Perhaps it had been their many discussions about the preciousness of time and the uncertainty of life but Neil almost seemed relieved. He now had a reason to keep the woman he had began to care a great deal for away from the dangerous jungle. Santos looked more than a little disturbed but he tried his best to look happy for Neil's sake. As for what followed, it wasn't as much fun after the brief local wedding and weeks long separations but she made do with the happiness she could have. Towards the end, she did start to think about how Neil would be after she was gone. With the discovery of guilt, she tried to 'make it right' by trying to imprint Neil onto her spawn. The response was unexpected. The consciousness and will of her spawn stirred at the intrusion. It rejected her soft attempt. She was afraid of trying harder, possibly causing harm. The closer she came to the end, the greedier she became for some kind of fulfillment, something to feel better about herself and not be a creature who simply used a nice man to protect her spawn. The consciousness inside the gem 'egg' couldn't respond but the 'egg' itself could. One early morning, after a passionate reunion between the couple, the key shown within the gem unbeknownst to Zoe. Within her barren, mere decoration of a womb, a life impossibly took hold. Quick to notice the change within her, Zoe redirected resources in herself to support the weak, flickering life struggling to survive the hostile environment inside of her. She wasn't sure how it happened but she could guess by the slight weakening of it's shell and the vague sense of temporary exhaustion coming from the gem 'egg' that it had given a small portion of itself to grant her desire. It was only a small opening of possibility that the key had made but true to its directive, that was all that was needed. The nurturing and support of that new life was entirely on Zoe and she had enough resources to spare to support her own and her two spawns' existence. Drifting in the mysterious way they did, the new life acquired a soul and that's where the real struggle began. No matter how much she looked like one, Zoe was a creature made of the chaotic stuff of the place beyond structured existence. No matter how good she was at containing her distorting and corrupting influence from spilling out into the world, she had less ability to do so inside of herself. Once again, her first spawn responded to her need. Since it was far more resilient and resistant to Zoe's alien nature, it used itself as a shield and filter for the life that grew inside. This time it wasn't just the 'egg', it was also the consciousness inside of it semi-consciously choosing to do so. Zoe had witness many times, the ability of humans to selflessly help one another. She had often wondered if any of her kind had such capabilities outside of herself. She still had no satisfying conclusion to that but it seemed that her altruism was hereditary for she witnessed one of her own spawn not only sharing resources instead of trying to attack and devour a competitor but actively giving aid to its sibling. With the last month or so of life remaining, Zoe nurtured the life within her and encouraged it to grow as close to self sustaining levels as she safely could while its 'sibling' suppressed chaotic mutation. It would be completely human in expression but its heritage couldn't be completely denied. Channeling all of that into advantageous routes was a burden both Zoe and the 'egg' shared together. Towards the last two weeks of her life, Zoe finally realized that the thing that she had taken for her spawn was more intelligent parasite than child but by then, she didn't care. She still saw the gem egg as her spawn even as her instincts caught wise to the deception. Its care and protectiveness of her real spawn had erased any misgivings or grudge she may have held against it. Without its help she wouldn't have known real motherhood in her life, though she may have died believing she did. Not only that but without its continued help, her child would have had to live as a pariah, a monster, as she had. For the first time, the consciousness inside the gem egg reached out to her. "I've done all I can from this side. Any more forced growth could damage lifespan. You need to come clean to Neil. And you need to either induce labor before you die, relying on a hospital to do the rest, or you need to make your way to the temple. If you use the last day or two of your lifeforce to focus on your womb, I should be able to keep it viable long enough for your baby to develop. It's a close call but the second option is more reliable than the first." Zoe said, "I don't know. Can Neil accept the truth about me?" Orison responded, "It doesn't have to be the whole truth. Share the truth of your feelings and your status as an otherworldly guardian of the temple. I... think some secrets are probably better left kept, for his sake. Just don't lie." Zoe felt conflicted but said, "I can do that." "What's the calendar date?" Orison asked, unsure of the passage of time and other details obscured from him in his state. She shared and he said, "If we can get to the temple in four days and you can get Neil there within the same amount of time, that will give you another day or so with him before you need to do what you can for your child. I'll help all I can but an important event is approaching for me and I can't miss it." It was a mad dash and the temple cultists' interactions with Neil and Santos weren't without issue but all who needed to be, were at the temple. Half of the day Zoe had left with Neil was an emotional outpouring that Orison closed his spiritual feelers off for. The other half was a sleepless rest with an emotionally devastated Neil clinging to Zoe like he was afraid she would drift away. When it was time, ever concerned with aesthetics, Zoe led them to the innermost chamber and concentrated the remaining life she had left, transforming into a sapphire colored crystalline sphere. Over the next two days, unable to communicate with anyone else, Zoe's slowly fading consciousness had deep and heart rending existential conversations with Orison that he couldn't always completely answer but, just as it had been for Neil, he never lied. "How was I born? Why was I born?" one of her most poignant set of questions. He said, "To a smaller degree, you came forth from what I left behind when I was sealed into my conduit. To a greater degree you are a creation of ritual and living stuff from beyond structured reality, a child of the eternal Outside, where all things originate and will probably return. "Why you were born is a question I can't answer but I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you created a reason for existing beyond the bounds of that why. You started off a simple thing with a simple purpose and grew past it, became a person fully fledged, as real and fully meaningful as an intelligent life can be. The proof lays beside me. He's got a legitimate soul and all. That's not something just a little magic and flesh can make happen." Towards the very end, Zoe's consciousness became somewhat child-like and confused but it was painfully clear about one thing. "I don't want to die." Orison struggled with his own complex feelings about that issue but kept that out of his spiritual voice as he said, "In a very real way, you won't. A part of you will grow up and live all over again. There's a good chance that they will have others that will grow up and live past them. Only the you that you know now, in this moment will move on but your life will continue through your legacy." He told stories, sang her lullabies and offered what solace he could as she finally slipped away a little sad, a little scared and a little curious what happened afterward. When Orison's time for departure drew near, he stopped supporting the jewel-like womb and let it fall away. What was revealed to Neil and Santos was a small and premature but relatively healthy baby boy with a sapphire gem laying on its chest. Neil, momentarily paralyzed in grief, was a few steps slower than Santos. The bruja secured the last small bit of remaining umbilical cord to give the boy a proper belly button and used the circle he had laid much earlier to provide a touch of healing to finish everything off properly. Once done, he took a clean towel from his pack and handed the baby to Neil. The man was interrupted halfway through asking Neil what the boy's name would be by the sound of rushing cultists, freed and frenzied from the passing of their living deity. With something else to focus on, Neil packed away his feelings and focused on what he could do to keep his child and himself alive. Luckily for all of them, Santos had the answer. "I'll use my circle to hold them off. Take that key gem and fit it into the space on the wall relief over there... The hole in the star, yeah, the one with the rays shooting down all over everything. Pendejo!' Santos said as he poured his precious 'ache' into the warding of his circle. As Neil fumbled around one-handed while cradling the baby in an arm, Orison fumbled around inside whatever state he was in, trying to find the phylactery. His key had eaten it. Fortunately, that translated into the key itself being able to unlock the portal. With one last push of magic force, Santos dropped his connection to the circle and ran into the shimmering curtain while giving Neil a shove to his back and snatching the floating gem key on their way through. They stood within a completely dark place with stale, dry air around them. Unbeknownst to them, a rare celestial event was happening outside of the place they were buried in. It wouldn't have been something they would care about if they had known. What did matter was that the celestial event was the trigger for what happened in the temple nestled deep under the desert sand.
