425. Histoire bleue, 9

(Rose)

What she calls the third sun or third city of the sun, is an echo to one of the last political unrest of humanity, from the last century.

It’s like Waterloo. It’s as if she told me to seek the battlefield and its monument, from a different century.

Something more miserable to humanity than the last Napoleonic wars ever were though.

A time worse than the great war.

She’s not the first one to hint at it.

There’s history, of very human war and atrocities.

And there were tales, evocative as well. They’re weaving together something real and unreal.

War is war...

So I prefer to think about the part that’s unreal.

And it starts with the death of the sun.

When Apophis ate the sun, and darkness followed. When Jörmungandr ate the world.

Tales about the end of the world.

I recall that scary witch claiming she had worked to bring the Ragnarök. Her vision of it at least. Of the end of times.

Some of these tales and wishes, collide here. In the past, and in the future, we stood at the very place where it happens, once upon a time at least.

~

In the land where the sun was to die, someday.

Over the icy fields of the Rus, an old prophecy foretold.

Witches cursed the world of men to doom, and their gods would fall along trying to prevent it.

The gods of old came to fight them and their curse turned into snake, with all their power and might.

The witches were vanquished, but their summoned world eating snake had already begun to swallow the stars, the sun and the Earth.

The end of time was coming as the valiant gods died one after another, trying to prevent it.

The snake would not be stopped before the old world would die.

And the dream of witches prevailed.

All the gods died. Everyone died. The maw of time swallowed everything and the darkest of nights was set upon everything. It was the bitter end of those gods era.

Night of death, darkest one, lasting for ever. Or so it felt.

For upon the now quiet lands of men, a new dawn rose. The snake spat the worlds it had eaten, like the shells of an egg, allowing a new sunrise to occur over lands now void of gods and men.

Or so it thought.

Among the silent ruins and forests, new gods and new men would come and rise.

A new era of history and deities begun over the ruins of the past. A new era of life following the twilight of the old gods.

As ruins of the men still held some of their powers, so did the ruins of the north, where the gods had fought against their fate.

Where the snake now slept, also lied the weapons once wielded by the gods themselves.

But guarding that sanctuary or rather surrounding it, was the sleeping world and gods eater, the snake created by now long gone witches and renegades.

And as a new era begun, the new gods and men began seeking the powers left behind at the previous end of times.

The family of Aïssh, reached first the sunken Olympos. They ventured into the ruins of the gods, the last palace of the sun civilisation, now resting between the hundred circles of the sleeping world snake.

The Aïssh, luckily enough, did not come to claim the powers of the old gods for themselves, but to make sure the snake would continue sleeping forever, sparing the new childish civilisations.

What they understood was that if anyone were one day to claim and use the power of the old gods, the snake would reawaken. It a new god was to rise, the one all whom brought the end of gods and time before, would return, consuming the world again.

If a new god was to rise, or attempt to, history would be falling into oblivion again, and this time maybe for good.

The next time the Earth would be swallowed, the snake would not spit it back, and that would be the true end of times, not a passing and changing of eras.

So the Aïssh decided to guard the place, so that no men nor god would ever come to claim the old powers recklessly and unleash the end.

That was their original plan.

As time and years passed, a sinister truth was unveiled to them.

The old powers were unstable. Unrest was naturally growing in the sanctuary.

The old powers would eventually erupt by themselves someday, awakening the snake again. Oblivion was not the lasting solution anymore. What they needed was a hero, whether it was man or god.

Someone who would be able either to destroy this power growing unstable before it exploded; or someone able to control it, and keep it calm forever.

And in any case, a quiet hero able to save the world by avoiding awakening the snake.

The Aïssh split over the choice to make, the solution to choose and the hero to achieve it.

Some looked for priests, others for warriors, some even for gods to be.

Years of unrest followed, among men, non-humans, and the descendants of Aïssh.

It came to the brink of war between all, in the shades of the greatest threat to be.

Some warriors marched toward the sanctuary with the intent of destroying everything.

And as they fought the ambitious new gods on their way, the hero no one expected made her way forward.

The child or heir, of the witches.

The witches of old, whom brought the snake to cleanse the world, they were also long gone, killed by their enemies and their own creation, all sacrificed to their wish.

But someway, somehow, somewhere...

A new witch was alive.

Just a child.

A smart, innocent child. Idealistic and kind.

A girl who loved the world, empathetic of everyone and everything.

The kind of girl that adults laugh at, or shrug at.

But she saw beyond the ordinary limits what lied beneath the world. She saw the reality of the world beyond her time.

She saw the true nature of the old power, and the true nature of reality around her. She saw the knowledge of old witches floating around her.

She saw the true meaning of life.

She saw what history had truly been.

And she saw, the eyes of the snake.

After discovering it, she knew what she had to do.

What as the only witch in the world, only her could do.

She rashly went beyond the battlefields, reaching the sanctuary of the Aïssh.

To the surprise of all, she claimed the power of the old gods.

And the great snake awoke in front of the world.

~

The witch with the power of the old gods in her hands, threw herself against the snake.

It was a new fight of the twilight. However she was more than human and more than god, altogether. She also carried the soul of a kind witch.

However it was a fight she could not win, for the snake was far too great.

She knew that, but also that it was fight she could stall for ever.

She left the world. She went in the infinite void of space, the snake leaving Earth behind to pursue her.

They flew away in the void of the solar system.

All gods were gone. The snake now disappeared in the infinite sky, following a little thing too small to become a star.

For years, the snake could be seen in the sky by astronomers, getting farther and farther away.

Until it could no longer be seen by any eye.

Until they were both lost forever in the universe and infinite void of space; the little witch luring the snake away.

When she was sure they were far enough, so far away that the snake could never return to Earth, she faced it once more.

She would surely die, and even if she somehow prevailed, she would be wandering forever lost in space.

It didn’t matter. The world was saved. She had saved it from the old powers and the time eating snake.

The world may never know she was the hero nor how she would end, but it didn’t matter either.

She had done the only thing to do in order to protect the new era from destruction.

Now was her fight beyond the causes and reasons to fight. It was for herself only, for her life only.

She faced the giant snake in the void between solar systems. They were lost too far away from the sun of Earth to be seen by history.

No one would ever know what happened.

Good luck little witch...

~