Painkiller

A long time ago – literally forever, in fact – the universe was ruled by gods

Not corporeal demigods, but true gods

Their power was nearly limitless and their souls boisterous, creating cataclysms for the sake of amusement and filling their cups with the intoxicating darkness of nebulae

They created things without conscience and destroyed them in much the same way

Or so the myths say

They didn’t have to take forms if they didn’t want to

However, some did

And of those, most shifted their shape to suit their mood, remaking their beings as they saw fit with whatever bodies were in reach

But there was one young spirit who was different

She took permanently the form of a great winged creature with four long legs and a gently pointed face

She wore a great head of hair, fashioned from black dust and the light of aging stars

Above her brow rested an enormous horn made of rock, which she used to focus her powers

Her eyes were the two brightest stars she could find

Even the oldest books contain little mention of this being and her kind

But when they do speak her name, they call her the Evermare

Or the Astral Empress

Or – in some very specific cases – Mother

She never changed, becoming a rare fixture in this tumultuous young plane ruled by chaos

She often clashed with the other gods, intervening in their petty squabbles and reprimanding them for their carelessness

She bore many scars from these altercations

Once, she scolded an old and bitter spirit

The contemptuous god struck her, wounding one eye and diminishing its light

That god was never seen or heard from again

The Empress could’ve easily found another bright star and fixed the blemish

But she refused to change herself on whims as they did

This was what made her special: she did not wish to treat the universe as a playground

She believed in the value of permanence, and wanted to create something that would last

So she left the gods to their frivolous devices, wandering incomprehensible distances over inconceivable amounts of time, past the edges of their sandbox and into the pitch black, where light and matter were scarce

When she finally found herself in complete darkness, she began

She sought to create another like herself, so that they might share the peace she had found

But in so trying, she finally encountered the limits of her powers

Only the unknown force which had spawned her could create other gods

Her first creation shared her image, but not her power, and it starved in the darkness

But she would not be deterred so easily, and she reached out into the near-emptiness, finding each fleck of dust and speck of light, drawing them together into a ball

A Foundation for her own private universe

Upon it, she placed her next creations, and while they struggled and mewled in the emptiness, they lived

When they grew cold, she opened her right eye, flooding the fledgling world with warm light

When the heat was too much, she would close it, letting the darkness fall again, the pale light of her left eye reassuring them that she was still there, and that the warmth would return when they needed it

Over time, she came to understand how much light and darkness they needed, and when a balance was achieved, her creatures thrived

They were lesser than she in some ways, but they were hers

The ones with whom she could share this quiet corner of existence

She made more of them – some in her own image, but most not – until they learned to create for themselves, and she could just watch

The Foundation and its inhabitants became her hearth, and for a long time, she was content to simply stand by and observe its goings-on

Her children made many things, and eventually, they fashioned words to describe both what they’d made and what had made them

She listened to these words with comprehension, for she had witnessed their beginnings

And what she heard troubled her

They spoke of her eyes and their power, giving each one its own name

They spoke of the Foundation, and what they’d built upon it

They spoke to each other, and wondered exactly how and why they were here

But they never spoke of her or to her, and she began to realize she was too great for them to recognize as another entity

Despite her success, she was still alone

So she decided to reveal herself

Her voice was infinitely loud, but she breathed the barest of whispers

“Hello”

Every dweller of the Foundation looked up in wonder as the two celestial orbs whose light they lived by blinked in unison and a smile formed beneath them

In many voices, they wondered who she was, and she told them

“I am the one who made you”

In a second cacophony they demanded to see her

“Come down,” they said, “and tell us why we’re here!”

Overjoyed by their interest, she tried to walk among them

Yet she was vast, and they could not help but fear her

But that fear paled in comparison to what they felt when those two orbs fell from on high to become part of a face they could finally see in its entirety

Leaving nothing but inky darkness above

Their cries sent her retreating to the sky, restoring the light and the world to normalcy

She tried speaking to them one by one

But to funnel her voice into a single mortal mind was to terrorize it, and she drove more than a few of them mad

She had made them, and she often knew their thoughts before they did

Even the ones strong enough to weather her words were still disturbed by her knowingness

She fell silent for a long time, blinking her eyes in the rhythm that the world required

Left, right, left, right

Every attempt to interact with her creations was met with unease at best, and panic at worst

Slowly, she realized that she could never be with them the way she was

That this was why the older gods played

To create was to be beholden

She understood how many other worlds like this one had been made by her kin, but then destroyed out of bitterness

The thought made her ache

She would not leave her children, but neither could she bear an eternity of lonely watching

So the Evermare did the one thing she’d always refused to do, and finally changed

But rather than remake herself, she unmade herself

She removed her jagged horn, planting it upon the Foundation with a crash that rattled the earth

It formed a great mountain, and imbued the world with her magic for all to use

She took out her eyes, and set them spinning above the world in an endless circle, creating a cycle of bright and pale light that would continue until the end of time

With a final sigh, she breathed the care she felt for her creations into them, so that they might feel it for one another

In her right hoof, she summoned all her light, and in the left, all her darkness

To one side, she gave everything about her that was good

Her virtues: empathy, morality, altruism, devotion, joy, and love

Her cunning mind and her knowingness, as well as her benevolent heart to temper them

In the other side, she sought to contain her flaws, along with those of her world

Apathy, deceitfulness, jealousy, treachery, sadness, and anger

And her frightening voice

But she vested in it one good thing she had

Her unyielding spirit

It was the strength with which she had defied greater gods, and the tool she’d used to forge all the noble qualities that the light half received

When at last they were perfectly separated, her diminished power flared one last time, and she split herself in two

The shards of her sundering salted the blackness with stars

Her two halves fell

One crashed to the Foundation first, and the second followed it

The Evermare was no more, but the Astral Empress lingered

In the mountain

In the stars

In the bright eye

In the pale eye

In the light half

And in the dark half

As long as these six pieces remain in harmony, the Foundation will not falter, and the hearth will endure

Or so say the myths