Ikselam/SevenSisters
The Tale of the Appreciative Guest</i>
<i>After Maresuki finished his dinner, he bowed to his host and said, "Your cooking is as remarkable as your garden, Grandfather! Your generosity shames me, for it is far more than a simple pilgrim such as myself deserves. The tale I told you was meager payment for even a ball of rice and a night in your barn, and yet you take me into your house as though I was one of your own kin. I must find some way to make the difference up to you."
The old farmer began to speak, but Maresuki forestalled him with a raised hand. "I could not live with the thought that I received all of this without offering adequate payment. To simply take advantage of your hospitality while giving nothing in return would be a sin against the Way of Virtue."
"Ye cert'nly do like hearin' yerself talk, don' ye?" the farmer asked mildly, but Maresuki seemed not to hear him.
"I will make you another bargain, Grandfather," said the Dawn swordsman. "In return for my partaking of your food and your roof, I will present to you another story. If you find it pleasing, I shall consider my debt paid. If you do not, I shall put up my swords, cut off my topknot, and serve you for a year and a day, tending your extraordinary garden."
"Don' be makin' an idjit of yerself, sonny," replied the old man.
"I insist," said Maresuki. "Besides, I have only told you part of the story of the Sky King's seven daughters. Long eons after they were born, the Seven Sisters' destinies would lead them to become the Five Maidens we know today, the tale of which I shall now relate."
The Tale of Seven Sisters</i>
<i>I speak of the time before the First Age. My tale is one of sorrow.
It is a time of war, the gods rising up against their masters the Primordials. They use as their weapons men and women, Exalted with divine essence through arts taught by the Great Maker Autochthon.
Though bound by ancient oaths to never harm their creators, the gods do not sit idly while their Chosen do battle. They fight against the Primordials' myriad lesser servants, so that the Exalted may save their strength for greater foes.
Mars stands alone, the eye in the hurricane of battle surrounding her. One hundred demons assail her, and one hundred demons are repulsed by her impenetrable shield. One thousand men raise their swords against her, and one thousand men die by the blade of her mighty daiklave. The battle ends, the Titans' minions put to flight. Mars sheaths her weapon and surveys the field. Her eyes behold an unhappy sight: her sister Venus stands on a hilltop, tears staining her cheeks.
"Do not weep for this bloodshed, sister," the Maiden of Battles tells her, "for when this conflict is ended, the contentment and peace we know shall surely be greater than it could ever be beneath the heel of the Primordials."
"It is not for the dead I weep," replies the Maiden of Serenity, "but rather for the living. I weep for you, sister."
"What reason do you have to grieve for me?" asks Mars, perplexed.
Venus shakes her head sadly. "I am sorry," she replies, "but I have made an oath to the Maiden of Secrets, that I would not tell you this thing."
Mars frowns. "Then I shall seek our younger sister out, and have it from her myself," she says, and her voice is full of wrath towards Jupiter, whom she has always loved the least of all her sisters.
"I beg of you," pleads Venus, "do not do this thing, for it can only lead to greater sorrow."
Mars takes Venus' hands in hers. "You are truly the gentlest of us all," she tells her, "and your compassion never fails to move me. But this thing you ask is not in my nature; I must go, and know what it is that has made you so sad." She lays a soft kiss on her sister's hand, and is gone, a flaming arrow racing toward Heaven.
Mars alights at the door to Jupiter's house, and throws it open. "What secret are you keeping from me," she demands of the Maiden of Secrets, "which I cannot know lest it bring me greater sorrow?"
"I see you have spoken with our sister the Maiden of Serenity," Jupiter says, her voice mild.
"Indeed I have," Mars replies angrily. "Tell me, what thing did you tell her, which makes her weep for me?"
Jupiter smiles her mysterious smile. "Do you truly wish me to reveal this to you?" she asks.
"Do not make me ask you a third time, sister," says Mars, her hand on her sword. "Tell me now."
"How can I refuse my elder sister," says Jupiter, "when she asks me so politely?" Mars' eyes smolder with rage, and the Maiden of Secrets hastily continues. "Our sister, the Maiden of Balance, has found the secret to the Primordials' undoing. It lies in the very geasa which forbid us from assailing our makers directly. Even now, she prepares the rite which will expose the Titans' weakness and allow our Chosen to slay them."
"Why should this news bring me sorrow?" Mars asks with suspicion.
"In order for the Primordials to die," says Jupiter, "so must she."
"What!?" screams the Maiden of Battles. "How can this be? Why must she do this thing? Why was I not told of this?" Her hands are about Jupiter's neck, shaking her like a rag doll. She drops her sister to the floor and clutches her head, eyes wide and frantic. "Why did she not tell me?"
"The Maiden of Balance knows that you love her above all others," gasps Jupiter, pulling herself to her knees, "and she knew that you would try to stop her if you divined her plan. She herself told us that we must keep it secret from you until it was too late for you to intervene."
"This must not be!" cries Mars.
"It must," wheezes Jupiter, "for otherwise, the Primordials will crush the Exalted and you, and me, and our sisters and all the other gods. Saturn does this thing because she loves you more than she does her own life, and she cannot bear to see you cast into the eternity of torment our father Ouranos will devise for you if he and his kin are not defeated!"
Mars closes her eyes and bows her head. "This must not be," she says quietly, and she is gone, a bolt of red lightning streaking along the path to Saturn's tower.
The Maiden of Battles comes to a crossroads, and the Maiden of Journeys stands before her. "Well met, sister," she greets her warlike sibling. "Whither away with such haste?"
"I go to see our sister the Maiden of Balance," replies Mars, "for she is about to commit a grave error. Stand aside, sister, and let me pass."
"I see," says Mercury. "If that is so, I am afraid I cannot let you pass."
"I say to you again, sister, stand aside," says Mars.
"If you continue," says Mercury, "I will turn the roads against you. Your feet will lead you down the wrong path, and you will not reach your destination. I say to you, reconsider your intent."
"My course is set," replies Mars, "and as you well know, all paths are one to one whose heart is resolute. I shall reach my destination, whether you will it or no. So I say to you a third time, sister: Stand aside."
Mercury shakes her head in sadness. "The path you have chosen can lead only to grief, sister, but I cannot fight you." She moves aside, and Mars continues down the road, a falcon diving toward its prey.
Mars comes to the foot of Saturn's tower, and before her stands the Maiden of Dreams. In her left hand is a trident of crystal and flowing water, and in her right hand is a paper mask bearing the likeness of a great warrior.
"Hello there, elder sister," Neptune greets the Maiden of Battles. "What brings you here on this fine day?"
"You know full well what brings me here, sister," says Mars, "and the day is not fine. Stand aside, and let me pass."
"Last night I dreamed that you said just such a thing to me," smiles Neptune, "and in that dream, I said to you, 'You shall not pass.'"
"A dream is only a dream," says Mars. "I say to you again, sister, stand aside."
Neptune's smile grows wider. "In my dream, you said just such a thing, and I replied 'If you wish to pass, you must first overcome me.'"
"You are a fool, sister," says Mars. "You are the weakest of all of us, for you have been profligate with your favor, Exalting as many mortals as our cousin the Sun, although you have not one-tenth his power. I do not wish to harm you, so I say to you a third time: Stand aside."
"In my dream," says Neptune, "you said this thing, and we fought. In my dream, you were defeated. I wonder -- was it a true dream?" She dons her warrior mask, and levels her trident at the Maiden of Battles' breast.
Mars leaves her sister lying before Saturn's gates, the shards of her broken trident scattered about her. She passes within the tower, and makes her way to the place in which she knows the Maiden of Balance to be.
She reaches the door to Saturn's chamber, and before it stands the Maiden of Endings, pale and solemn, her sickle of flint and iron held in her hand. Pluto bows respectfully to her elder sister, but does not move aside.
"Stand aside," Mars tells her. "Or I will strike you down as I struck down the Maiden of Dreams."
"I shall not move, nor shall you strike me down," says Pluto, and bows again. "My apologies."
"I shall pass through this door whether you oppose me or no," says Mars, "and I will turn our sister from her foolish course of action. I say to you again, sister, stand aside."
"I know of your love for the Maiden of Balance," replies Pluto, "and my love for her is just as great. But her course of action is not foolish. Her end is one with that of the Titans, as it has been since the day our father Ouranos made us." She bows once more, and says, "So I apologize, but what you wish is not to be."
"Stand aside, sister," snarls Mars, "or I will be your end."
"Perhaps," says the Maiden of Endings, and raises her sickle.
The two Maidens' weapons clash, but before they can strike a second time, they hear Saturn's voice through the door. "There is no need for you to fight one another, sisters," says the Maiden of Balance. "Come, put up your weapons and step inside my chamber."
The two sisters do as the third asks, and enter the room. Saturn sits cross-legged on the floor, playing cat's-cradle with the thirty-eight threads of the Primordials' geas, which forbids their creations from ever harming them.
"Welcome, sister," she addresses Mars with a smile. "I must regretfully inform you that you will be unable to do what you came here to do. My resolve is fixed, and in any case, it is too late for the rite to cease now. But I am happy that you and our youngest sibling Pluto, the two sisters who are most beloved to me, will be here in my final moments."
"Why have you done this thing?" asks Mars. "Surely we could have found another way."
"In this case," replies Saturn, "as in so many others, all paths are one. The Essence of the Primordials does not know death, for they existed before death, or birth, or time. That is why our Exalted cannot slay them, even though mortals are exempt from the oaths which prevent you and me and all our fellow gods from raising our hands against the Titans."
"You tell me nothing I do not already know," says Mars, frustrated, "and you do not tell me what I wish to know. Why must the end of the Primordials be that of yourself, sister?"
"In all things," says Saturn, "there must be a balance. Why else do you think they have allowed us to live, when we move openly against them? Each of we seven sisters sprang from one of the Sky King's eyes, and so part of him lives within us. If one of us meets her end, then that part of Ouranos will know death, and he will no longer be eternal. As will each of the Primordials, for these thirty-eight threads which I hold in my hands bind together the hearts of each Celestial God, and in the heart of each Celestial God there lives a fraction of a Primordial."
Mars looks at the cat's-cradle strung between Saturn's hands, and sees that it is in the shape of the word for death.
"Now," says Saturn, "since you are here, dear sisters, I have a last request for each of you." She turns to Pluto. "To you, youngest of my sisters, I bequeath my name and office. I ask that you take them for your own, that the balance between life and death, beginning and ending, may not falter in my absence."
Pluto nods solemnly. "All things must come to an end," she says, "but each ending is itself a beginning. Today will see the end of Pluto and Saturn, but from their end shall come a new Maiden of Endings, who also watches over the Balance. This I swear on my name, which shall soon be no more."
Saturn turns to Mars, and her eyes are gentle as she addresses the Maiden of Battles by her name. "I have nothing so grand to ask of you, Mars my sister," she says. "Simply remember me, for from the moment our father Ouranos lifted us into Heaven, I have seen the brightly-burning fire of your spirit, and I have loved you for it. You may not be the wisest of us, or the most learned, or the most clever, but your heart is the purest. Do not let my passing dampen it, for that I could not bear."
Mars puts aside her shield and her blade and kneels before the Maiden of Balance, touching her hands softly and calling her by her name. "Although your end comes today, Saturn my sister," she says, "you will live forever in my heart. You are the best of us all, and I have loved you for it. We shall all be less for your passing." She embraces her sister, and Saturn closes her eyes and is no more.
As the ten million eyes of Ouranos fall from the sky and descend into the Underworld, they are replaced by the tears of his daughters, weeping for their lost sister. None of their tears shine brighter than Mars', for none of their hearts know a sadness as great.
But what became of the Maiden of Dreams, struck down by her sister's blade?
- On to the Tale of the Seventh Sister.
- Back toIkselam/FanFiction.
