2- AN EYE FOR AN EYE, FROM A MONSTER TO OTHERS

What is brighter than the sun in the grand-blue oasis up there? What is more benevolent than the earth that the mortals walk over? The mother of nurturing, of sustenance that people forget to thank? What’s grander than the banquets held by pot-bellied nobles within gleaming structures that caressed Oronos? What’s more alluring than the slim-pale beauty that breathes roses that skipped through the meadows that mirrored her wide smile? What’s more holy than the holy messengers draped in white robes that preach in sermons and caress the heads of the populace with white lies?

Those bound by the earth’s gravity have pondered over them for aeons, hounding over the truths linked to those idealistic thoughts that the children dressed like adults had in their heads.

Praying, begging, chanting, praising.

Lying, thieving, hurting, abusing.

The children of Dharma said that the unification of mortals borne from gods gave life the gift of wandering the earth.

The children of the Fates proposed that life was born from clay, the craftsman, punished for eternity; yet life was allowed to thrive.

The children of the sun decreed life to erupt from the union of gods in the heavens.

The children of the tablets postulated life to breathe through the hands of wisdom and fertility.

Each tale, each tongue… all chasing the same glimmer, the same unreachable star. And yet mortals war over whose flame is purer, whose altar is higher, whose god bleeds more golden. Hands clasped in prayer, lips cracked by chants— but hearts… oh, hearts still clutch daggers, thirst for power.

Fighting over ideas of divinity. Ideas that took form, gifting themselves to mortals deemed worthy, the mortals being vessels for eternity. Gods hosted by women, Goddesses hosted by men or vice versa, but the ideals these pure concepts created by life across the Kaladrin cycles—or some know it as yugas—remain.

The heavens above remain silent.

The earth below, patient.

And between them, mankind screams into the void, weaving myths like bandages for wounds they will not heal.

—-

The dawn greeted mortals with brilliance, signalling the dawn of a new morning. He always embraced the world, his arms shaped like rays, soothing and caressing the earth with his soft touch. Yet it wasn’t the same for those who lived beyond the skies.

It wasn’t the same for him.

The tanned skin of his body gleamed porcelain from the scars that told aeons of stories.

Those sharp amber eyes had no longer the vibrance of the hearth but the anger of the flame.

He exhaled, lying on the bed, still rubbing his dark-circled eyes as he was roused by another nightmare. Yet, before he could close his eyes, they regarded the sunlight peeking through the white-curtained windows.

“Ugh…annoying…”

He pulled up the covers, pursing his eyes shut, curling into something small, almost in a fetal position.

“Can’t he just…switch himself off or something?

“Time waits for no one, child,” the familiar voice of the headless Goddess rang in his mind, soothing yet chiding. “Arise.”

He groaned, “I know, Chinnamasta… But these nightmares…they never leave me, even after being alive for so long, I forgot how old I even am.”

The Goddess let out an understanding hum, the sound like a soothing balm. The man let out a shaky exhale as he sat up on the queen-sized bed, his eyes narrowing as a familiar dark-haired figure sat across from him on the floor, tending to the hearth as always.

“Hestia…”

She hummed a tune, not responding to the soft way he said her name. Their friendship stretched across time. The Goddess, who was always forgotten, always docile, and the God, always remembered, not for his kindness but his falsely implied, cruel demeanour.

“Abby is fine, Adithya.”

She wore a long dress, reminiscent of the bygone times of England in the 1800s, the linen pressing against and emphasising her thin, curved frame. Her long, braided hair stretched downward until it touched the floor and dragged toward his bedside.

“Daphne tried to visit you earlier today.”

The man softened at the mention of Daphne, another one of the few who bothered to stay.

“I was busy.”

“Doing nothing but shut your eyes to the voices who want you with them?”

Adithya rolled his eyes, “For what, chaos? Ares wants to fight me, Hera loathes me; well, Hera loathes everyone. Why does Ershikigal even bother with me?”

“Daphne sees in you a friend, and her Goddess, Ershikigal, feels understood, heard. You think being stuck with the authority over Kur is easy, Chinnamasta?

Adithya bristled under her gaze, those red eyes that stared into his soul, “Don’t you call me that name. You and I both know I’m not worthy of it.”

Abby rose, sighing and going to the kitchen. Slowly and meticulously, she served a chunk of cooked lasagna and set it on the table. “The Goddess chose you, so you are,” she shook her head ”Brush your teeth, call centre,” she teased.

Adithya’s distraught look shifted to one of mock offence, desperately trying to hide a smile “Shut up, coloniser.”

He rose, covering his scarred chest with a plain white shirt, adjusting the baggy khaki pants, “Has Ershkigal been here for long?”

Hestia sighed, “Told her I’d send you her way. But she wanted to see you herself.”

Adithya sighed, “Attached as always.”

“Yet I don’t see you complaining.”

“I’m not. Never about her.”

Hestia shrugged, “Good.”

Shadows moulded upon shadows, the room was wrapped in black with a scent of death that would make a mortal lose breath. The world fell silent, the birds mum as if afraid to chirp, the flowers drooping like a sad widow mourning her husband. Even the light of Surya faltered.

After all, nothing could overpower death. Nothing is greater in the eyes of death, nothing is lesser either.

All are equal in its eyes, her eyes.

And Adi, with a toothbrush stuck in his mouth, only stood still as the cat-like, slim, small figure wrapped her tail around his wrist, pulling him into a hug and purring as she nuzzled onto his hand. Adi only groaned, especially after hearing a subtle giggle from Abby’s end.

“Bestie!” the feline purred, “You’ve not been talking to me for days…" she pouted, "Did you forget me?”

Adi sighed, “No, you werecat… I was just…busy…”

“Busy for lil ol’ Daphne?” her lips wound into a red-faced pout, sharply turning her head away, but her twitching ears and the tightly wrapped tail told another story.

Adi sighed, “Good morning, furball…” he looked at her slit eyes, those innocent brown irises staring back. “And you too, Ershkigal.”

The shadowy hands that crept up the floorboard reached up to his head but faltered under the bright sunlight. Adi knelt, letting his hands caress his head. “Honestly, Ereshkigal, I’m not a child”

“Ehe~ she’s saying that you’re the only one who’d let her do this, so she’s indulging in your permissiveness.”

Adi sat on the floor, brushing his teeth as the smoke hands plate with his hair, “Wasn’t she supposed to be morally grey and indifferent?”

“To most,” Abby said, “At least that’s what the myths say.” She tended to the coals again, humming her sweet tune once more. “Mortals fail to understand that Gods are very similar to them. After all, they were created in the Gods’ image. Plus, the Gods' natures bleed into us vessels, and our personalities to them.”

The room fell silent, the only sound being that of the chipping birds and the crackling fireplace. The sun stayed shining, unaware of the tide that the discussion turned.

“Incidentally…” Daphne added, taking a sweet from the pantry, “There are Gods who think like mortals, too, about how Gods are all perfect pieces of existence.”

“Tch…!” Adi spat the last of his toothpaste onto the sink, which sank to his level, “Indra…” he gargled water and spat it down, rising as Daphne’s four-foot-tall frame slung on his shoulder. She let out a growl, the shadowy hands shaking with the sound. “Ugh… He thinks he’s so…so…” she hurrumphed, stomping, yet forgetting that she was being carried. “Ugh!” She pulled at Adithya’s long hair gently to ease her frustration.

Adi’s gaze softened as he caressed her head, her ears perking up as she let a satisfied hum, his arms readjusting her figure while ignoring the soft laughter from Abby. “You don’t need to get pissed off in my expense. And Ershkigal, stop fueling her frustration. I can’t hear you, but I know your ass. And don't screw up my hair!”

The shadowy hands withdrew into the abyss with those words, and Adithya swore he heard a "It's bed hair, it's already screwed up.” Daphne stuck out her tongue before going back to wrapping his hair around her head. Abby sighed again. “Didn’t he try to blame you for destroying Pan's garden?”

Adi froze, his eyes growing sharper, “Yeah… I remember. I’ve caused Kae a lot of trouble. I don’t want to trouble her further.”

Daphne snickered, “She might turn you into a tree as she threatened to do two hundred years ago.”

Adi shivered at the thought. The God of the wild was respected, but frankly, his vessel, Kaeda, was much more terrifying. His head throbbed still from the last time she’d pierced him with thorned vine for setting a forest ablaze by mistake.

“I’m sure she’d love to… Like what Odin did to Mimir.” his amber eyes dropped, staring at the cloud-coloured tiles. 

Daphne laughed, "But then again, Kaeda hates that control freak." She chuckled, but noticing no usual laughter, she tilted her head, her eyes softening further, “Adi?”

Abby walked toward them, her hair dragging across the room, her scent carrying memories all too fond for the other two. The Goddess of the Hearth carried memories of homes far and wide, soothing all she encountered without second thought. She placed a small, long-fingered hand on his shoulder, “She doesn’t hate you, you know?”

“She might as well,” he shrugged, hiding his sadness with nonchalance. “Every tree I destroy hurts her like a needle. Every forest I raze sears into her soul like burns. And yet…”

“And yet,” Abby continued, “She offers you solace in her garden. Because you were willing to repent. You promised in the name of the Styx to plant ten for every one you destroy.”

“And you think that’d be enough?! You think that is enough for all the pain I’ve caused her? Pan offers me solace, but he only wants to watch me, to neutralise me if I ever kill too many. Kronos laughs at me, and his vessel, Noboru, watches me with an indifferent gaze. But I know he’s waiting for me to slip, waiting for me to hurt Kae more than I usually do—”

“You know that’s not the case!”

“I know,” Adi shot back, his amber irises glowing a tinge of blue, “That I should’ve died in that cold house instead of her. That I should’ve taken a trip down to Tartarus aeons ago. That chechi should’ve been the one who lived instead of me.”

“And what, let her go through the same suffering, if not worse?”

Adi froze.

He couldn’t say anything.

After all, he could never deny the truth.

Yet, his sin was also a truth.

—-

The sky stretched across the expanse of the city, bathed in dust and smoke, with glass-windowed, stone-grey hands so tall that they dared to reach for the heavens. The waters that graced the ashen earth were not blue as in fiction, but as dark and murky as the beasts in the depths that threatened its sanctity. Blue flames danced on the black-branched projections that took root in the soil, twirling and curling, licking the bark as if mocking these survivors of destruction with a sense of survivor’s guilt.

After all, the restored garden of plenty, there were but a few of them left still standing, unharmed, but for how long?

He sat atop a peak, three eyes glowing the colour of Monarch butterflies, the sunset-coloured gaze of the headless goddess spoke through him as rage-filled azure filtered along his hands like a lover’s caress.

Yet his face, the Goddess’s face, reflected the same disappointment he felt.

“You took once again, Adithya Naicker.”

“I know,” the man spoke from within. “As always.”

“Yet, we haven’t gotten to our aimed target.”

The eye on his forehead raged like flame, the same that enveloped the world below.

The right eye burned like the sun, tricking people, and even him, thinking there was warmth in a God that only knew fire.

The left, faded like the moon, the same moon that the man hated, reminding him of the night he had lost everything.

“To think Eri has a place in this hell.”

“The Greek Goddess of the Moon isn’t here to chide you. The girl with an eye that can see nothing yet see more than us, isn’t here to soothe you.”

The Goddess retracted inside, giving Adi control of her power. “Alone, as usual then.”

“All of creation is alone after their last moments, sun child.”

“Yet, I’m alive.”

“Are you really? Or are you merely a husk who’s lost his way, rejecting his roots and seeking escape within me?”

Adithya’s eyes scanned the expanse of water below the peak’s cliff. He shook his head wearily, noticing the murky-metallic shadow with blood eyes that never looked back.

He jumped.

Came the quick drawing of air, the downward force pulling him down like a chain, the winds pushing him down, reminding him of how he was still bound to earth’s gravity. And then the explosion of water as it shot up from his body weight.

His vision, clouded, riddled with blue.

Yet the red of the Bogborn Strangler, serpentine whale as vast as a mountain’s shadow, whose vine-like limbs protruded thorns akin to roses, eyes red like the broken moon above. Its roar was a pressure in his bones, a shudder that nearly tore the sword from his grasp. It coiled, snapped, and dragged him deeper.

Water crushed his ears, trying to smother the flame, but Adithya did not yield. His fire licked upward through the water, steam exploding, bubbles rushing toward the dim sky above.

The beast smelled him, barbed tendril whipping its way to him underwater, but Adithya’s khanda deflected the tentacles first. The Goddess breathed through him, her strength letting him breathe, but only for so long. The murky waters slowed him down, weighing on his limbs, a tentacle narrowly grazing his cheek as he twisted sluggishly to the side. Adi willed his azure to match the beast’s tempo, khanda plunging and slashing through the barbed tentacles. Each strike against metal spurred him on to attack more, yet his lungs burned with need for air, an inescapable instinct clawing at his chest.

“How did Heracles kill the hydra again?”

“Fire.”

“In the lake?!”

“Burn. Rage.”

“And if I take more away again?”

“You won’t. You’ll be stopped.”

He nodded. A blue searing aura burned through the water, tendrils faltering at the melting, penetrating inferno surrounding it. The lake itself bubbled from his fire as he roared in rage, clouded by a deep insanity. Waves carried the monster’s swan song to the heavens as it writhed and squirmed, yet did not give up ground. Spirals upon spirals, like a hypnotist uses to command, he swam, water reeking of metal as he wrapped its own tendrils around it. The beast writhed in torture, teeth meeting Adithya’s hand as his azure seared its eye.

It howled as Adithya tightened the thorned vines further, ignoring the pain throbbing in his arm with a bite in his tongue, swinging the vines beast round and throwing it into the clouds, and following with the sand as a sloppy springboard. The beast flailed mid-air, screaming from the unending pain, letting out a strangled sound as Adithya ascended, the three eyes flowing with wrath and a black-blooded grin on his face as the flames shone as a torch in the sky.

The blood made him forget the pain, the blade made him forget his weakness, and the swan song of the beast thrilled him as he felled it.

And yet, the presence behind him told him the battle was yet to begin.