Reasonable doubts

In the dead of night, only the distant crackling of flames could be heard for a while.

“I can’t take it anymore!”, erupted Helia, holding her head with both hands as her tears dropped silently on the earth beneath her. “Shadows, Spirits, Gods, the Moon, the Sun, the Solarists, all of it, I don’t want any of it!”

The scene in front of her eyes was one she had already lived through. Every day, she tried to ignore the pain, work through it, live despite it. But this, it was too much. Something inside her broke.

“All I wanted was to sing! For my parents and my friends, living in our tiny village without bothering anyone, we weren’t doing anything wrong!”, she continued her tirade while Arthem and Ceres listened, dumbfounded. “Who are the Solarists to decide what is right, and what is wrong? Or that I will bring the end of the world? Leave me alone, I’m no one, that has nothing to do with me!”

Ceres lowered his neck and tried to comfort her using one of his wings, but she pushed it away violently.

“You too!”, she spat at him, her eyes filled with uncharacteristic anger. The doubts she had previously waved away, too afraid to confront them, to regret asking, spilled out of her. “What do you know that you’re not telling me? Did you know about the Shadows? Did you know about the Solarists? Have you and your God enjoyed watching me suffer? Are you entertained?”

He recoiled, hurt by the venom in her words. “Helia, wait- “

“TELL ME!”, Helia screamed, shaking, a torrent of tears streaming down her face.

Ceres hadn’t shrunk, and yet, he felt really, really small at that moment. “I, just, He told me to make you His Priestess and teach you Handling…”

As she watched him respond, Helia knew. She knew that Ceres, the other half of her Soul, was lying to her. Scolding rage consumed everything within her heart and mind.

“Liar”, she stated, her voice low, but full of certainty.

“Helia…”, he tried to touch her once more, but she rejected him, again.

“Are you going to tell me the truth?”, she asked him. Ceres averted his gaze. “Then leave me alone.”

“Please, Helia, calm down. I understand how you feel, but right now, we should leave”, Arthem tried to interject.

“Oh, you do? Do you understand how I feel, Solarist?”, she retorted, putting as much poison as possible in that last word. “Are you lying to me, too? Did you do that? Did you call your friends while we were away?”, she pointed towards the flames engulfing the nearby village.

Hurt and confusion appeared on Arthem’s face as Helia spoke. She couldn’t bear to look at his expression any longer, knowing she was the cause, so she turned around and sat down on the ground, holding her knees and burying her face in her arms as she sobbed.

Arthem let her be for a few seconds, recomposing himself. “When we heard about Aruka from the townspeople, I suspected this could happen”, he said, cautiously. “The way she came to be, with no Handler, yet tied to the village, it felt similar to the Sun and Moon Gods. Any Solarist that came across that would probably come to the same conclusion, and, well… Deal with the problem.”

“But why now!”, she despaired, knowing the answer already deep within her heart, yet unable to bear its weight.

“Helia…”, he hesitated.

“Answer me!”, Helia demanded, looking up at the sky.

“They’re looking for you, Helia. They’re probably on our tails”, he continued, gently. “But that doesn’t mean this was your fault.”

She cried and screamed, cursing herself and everything that kept happening because she was alive. Even if they told her, it wasn’t her fault, that didn’t mean she suddenly stopped feeling responsible.

She felt arms embracing her. Arthem had dropped to his knees behind her, and held her. She tried to fight it, but he didn’t let go.

“It’s not your fault”, he repeated. “Aruka, your village, the Shadows, none of it is your fault. Blame the Solarists, blame the Sun, the Moon, even me if you want, but please, stop blaming yourself.”

He turned her around and forced her to look into his eyes. Suddenly, a new wave of tears took over her, and she let it go. She cried and cried into his arms, and he held her, waiting patiently for her to be the one to let him go, first.

Eventually, she calmed down, and separated herself from him slightly. “But”, he started to say, the dreaded word resonating with Helia’s doubts. “That doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do about it all. I promise you, we will find a solution, all of us, together.”

She nodded, feeling extremely exhausted all of a sudden. She had finally ran out of tears to shed. The two of them stood up, Helia helping Arthem to stand with his hurt leg. He used his polearm as a makeshift cane.

Helia faced Ceres once again, this time, with a clearer head. “You have told me, numerous times, that you are not my enemy. You are my partner. This is something I can feel, deep in my heart. You have my Soul, so I can’t help but love you. But”, she stopped, clutching her chest. “Can I trust you?”

She held her breath, waiting for his answer. Ceres looked up at the sky and emitted a melancholic caw. “I’m sorry, Helia”, he answered, looking at her with painful eyes. “What I said is all I can tell you.”

His words felt like a stab, a dagger he had planted directly into her heart. “However,”, he continued, and Helia looked up at his face with desperate longing. “You should talk to Him directly, during the next Full Moon. All your rage, all your questions, throw them all at Him. Make Him listen. I can’t give you the answers you seek, but I will support you, no matter what.”

It wasn’t what Helia had wanted to hear, but it was still hope. She nodded, staring into the Moon rising above the horizon with determined eyes. It was almost full.

Several months had passed since Arthem had joined them, and Helia had performed the Full Moon Ritual every time, as usual. However, he hadn’t yet seen it. Every time, she had left to go deeper into whatever forest they were camping in, and she had forced Ceres to stay back and make sure he didn't follow her to watch in secret.

It’s not that she thought he posed a danger, though. She just felt way too embarrassed to let him see. Ceres hadn’t been happy about it, he also loved watching her perform for the Moon, but he had done it nonetheless. Ceres wasn’t a hundred percent sure Helia would actually be able to do it properly if Arthem was watching, and it wasn’t worth the risk.

And, despite her fears, she hadn’t summoned the Moon to their plane during those rituals, either. Helia supposed it was because Ceres wasn’t there with her, but whatever the reason, she was glad He hadn’t showed up. She had no idea how she would face Him on her own. What does one talk about with a God? The weather? The state of the economy?

And so, they kept journeying towards the East. From what Arthem had told them, that was where the Solarists’ headquarters were. A city, hidden in a mountain, half underground and half on a cliff only visible from the ocean, overseeing the horizon, to ensure the Sun rose every morning.

“So, what will you say to the Moon once you see Him?”, asked Arthem. The Full Moon would be later that night, so they had set up camp in a forest clearing.

She had been wondering about it for a few days. “I don’t know. Probably just, why? Why me? Also, what’s up with the Shadows and the end of the world?”

“What would you do, if you were me?”, she asked her companion. He probably had a different perspective, and valuable insights, she thought.

“First of all, I would punch Him”, he declared, shrugging. Ceres looked at him as if he had just said he was going to pluck him and roast him for dinner.

Helia snorted. “Yeah, I guess that’s also an option.”

Ceres turned around towards her with big, wide eyes. She stuck out her tongue at him.

“And then, I guess you can ask any important questions, if you want”, he continued, nodding, but it was clear that to him, the punching part was more important than the questions.

She laughed, then became pensive. “I do wonder if I will be able to summon Him tonight, though. But I guess it won’t be a problem if Ceres is around.”

“Me? What am I supposed to do?”, asked the aforementioned Spirit.

“Well, the past months I haven’t been able to, because you weren’t with me during the rituals”, she told him with a shrug.

Ceres looked at her with confusion. “But I have nothing to do with that. That’s all you, Helia”, he paused, thinking. “You probably convinced yourself that you needed me there, and that’s why you weren’t able to do it.”

Helia looked at him, dumbfounded. “Huh. I do that sometimes, don’t I.”

“It’s basically all you do!”, retorted Ceres with an exasperated caw.

“And then, you tell me I’m being dumb, or unreasonable, or something of the sort, which makes me feel capable, and suddenly I feel capable, and I do the thing. So, I guess I’m right, then, I did need you there for it to work”, she finished her illogical rant with a wink.

Ceres sighed, and flew up to her head to nest in her hair, as revenge. Surprised, she let him do without a word.

The past few days, ever since Aruka, there had been an unspoken distance between them. Even if she loved Ceres with all her heart, the voice inside Helia’s head kept reminding her that he was lying to her. It had taken him years to earn her trust, and in just a single sentence, it was gone.

She hoped that, whatever the Moon’s answers to her questions were, it would somehow magically exonerate Ceres. She was also aware this was just wishful thinking, and reality was usually much more complex than that. Still, she couldn't help it. 

While they waited for nightfall, Helia worked frantically on her song. Usually, she gave herself at least a few weeks, even months, to work on each of them before using it for a ritual. But this time, there was a flame in her heart. For the past days, she had embraced it, and used it to shape a melody.

Arthem cooked them dinner, and they ate together in silence at sunset. Helia kept rewriting and rehearsing, which neither Ceres nor Arthem wanted to interrupt.

She then ushered Arthem away into the trees, with Ceres to keep an eye out, and got changed into her performance outfit. She hadn’t even bothered with that for the past months, not having to perform for anyone other than the Moon. It was less protective than her travel clothes, but somehow, it felt like the most powerful battle armor to her right now. After a while, she called Arthem and Ceres back, feeling ready.

When Arthem walked back into the clearing and saw her, he stared at her with stunned eyes. “What’s wrong?”, she asked. “Is anything dirty, or not in place?”, she examined her clothes closely.

He laughed softly. “No, you look great. I was just thinking that, if I didn’t know the Moon was a God already, I would believe you are a Goddess made of moonlight.”

Helia stopped, feeling her cheeks redden, suddenly aware of how her outfit actually looked. How short it was. How it embraced her body to accentuate her dancing.

The awkward silence between them was cut by Ceres’ voice resonating into their minds. “Let’s punch the Moon”, he declared.