Fear

Lyrea didn't notice when Koel appeared by her side, she was too consumed in the vision before her.

One that forced her to retch and stagger even now.

"You knew all along didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me? Warn me… why did you let me suffer?"

"Because you would not believe. Some things are impossible for us to acknowledge. Especially for beings such as ourselves."

Pushing Koel's dark words aside Lyrea shed a silent tear for what was once her home, a long, long time ago.

"When did it become this?," sweeping her arms forward Lyrea encompassed all that she could see, "When will it end?"

Before Lyrea was a cavern, so vast that it expanded without end into sprawling darkness. Inside this darkness knelt a sea of figures, of both the living and the dead, human and inhuman. All still in prostration, facing the ground above, all offering homage towards the temple that Vena resided in, where her world of faith lay.

Resting a hand on Lyrea's shoulder, Koel guided her away, his words deep, almost sorrowful as he spoke.

"This is a consequence of faith. Vena sought it so strongly that she took everything else. Hopes, dreams, love. Even their reasons to live were replaced with pure devotion, before and beyond the grave."

Lyrea didn't understand, what would drive a Goddess, a being of such power to do this to her own world, what was she hoping to gain?

"But what drove her to this?"

"Me."

Stunned Lyrea stopped her steps as she watched Koel's necrotic figure continue his ascent up the stone steps that led to the temple above.

"All beings fear. Whether it be in regards to their end, their purpose or their lack of it. Fear will and can consume us all, subverting what it is we choose to do or become. Vena feared from her actions, she feared the ascent of myself. She feared what I have become."

"You killed her."

"No," Koel paused here, at the top of the stone steps, illuminated by timid sunlight that cast his figure into a long shadow over Lyrea, "I refused to give her what she wished."

"I denied her forgiveness."

"I denied her love."

"I denied her release."

"And I denied her death."

"So what have you done?"

"I gave her the faith she so strongly craved."

Not knowing how Lyrea found herself once more in Koel's arms as he flew high above the temple.

She could see the army of dead that stretched out and blanketed the world, the defenders on the walls torn and forgotten, like broken puppets with their strings cut as they lay useless.

All beings, all dead, crouched low and knelt, facing the temple, honouring the Goddess that had taken everything from them, providing her the faith that she so strongly craved.

Lyrea was disgusted.

"Such a world should not exist."

"Is that Lyrea speaking or perfection?"

"I don't know."

Hesitant to speak Lyrea struggled to but whisper the next few words.

"So what has become of her?"

"She is stuck in a world of her own making. Fuelled by the faith of those that she has stolen all from, as she wanders alone, free to create at will but forever unable to sustain life or obtain true faith."

"Does she truly deserve such a fate?"

"Look around and seek that answer for yourself. I do not need it."

With a bony talon Koel plucked Lyrea's eye from his socket as he clenched his fist and struck out, striking the sky once more as he sought an entrance to the next world.

To ascend the singular path of stars again.

Lyrea, speechless, did not know what to say. This was the second world in a journey of unknown length, already a strand of her hair and an eye had been the price to pay.

Was there enough of her to last throughout? Did she want to last throughout?

Did every question have an answer?