Chapter 66 — Apotheosis — The Goddess
Part 1
Embrace of the Goddess
She hoped she was doing this right…not that anyone would notice…
No that wasn’t true….
She would know
It seemed silly in a way…superstitious…but it had a deep symbolism
“The goddesses may or may not be real in the way you think real is real,” Kiraea said somewhat confusingly,
“But either way you are,”
She sat off to the side of a tunnel covering herself in a special honey…it was left over from when Kiraea had come here years before, but in the cool of the caves was still perfectly good.
The roar of water just behind her echoed through her skull. The tunnel was cut off from the rest of the caves by a waterfall, the natural formation interpreted as a place of ‘transition’, to pass through the waters into a more sacred area.
That area beyond was called Aephrodaea’s womb…of course to get to the womb you had to go through the tunnel with a suitably anatomically correct name.
It was the most sacred place on the planet, a fulcrum of birth and rebirth…
That was why she was sent here she supposed.
She slathered the last bit of honey across her brow, hair done up tightly…
If you’re going to penetrate a Goddess you should at least make yourself up a bit first…Milaea leapt across the small gap the water flowed through, it was absolutely freezing…and it was not the only one she now realized…the dark made it impossible to see for all the water…there were multiple cuts in the cave and at least a dozen waterfalls…she cut across guided by the aether, each one washing away more and more of the honey, at some point her hair tie came off and let her locks loose.
The gaps between the falls became larger, the water from under mountain channels stronger until she final reached the end. Here even the reflective light from the water seemed to vanish, she flicked her hand to create a small globe of purple aether light.
The tunnel was roughly circular and blood red…fitting…deep shadows cast by her amethyst light played across her features. The tunnel sloped down into the depths, run off from the falls trickling into an eroded groove that guided her way.
Halfway through she started to feel stupid…how could this possibly make a difference…wandering around a cave naked smelling like honey. Would that undo what she had done? Who’s life did that save?
She paused and considered turning back…no one would ever know…
...but
she would
<<<<>>>>
Aephrodaea’s womb was a circular chamber, again made up of the blood red ultra-dense Bloodstone mineral.
Inside the trail of water from the falls flowed into a pool in the centre of the room…she began to wonder how much of this was natural and how much was woman made…
Now what…Kiraea hadn’t said what to do after reaching here…apparently she ‘would know what you need to do to be healed,’…
Was she meant to perform a Rite? Bathe in the pool…again it all seemed so silly.
She flopped down on the cold stone her hands close to her breast to keep them warm.
Maybe she could see what Kiraea had done the aether…was strong here…written deep into the stone.
She quartered and sent her globes about the room as she looked back in time…bodies shifted and flew past…she had gone too far…the powers that lay dormant here had reacted too strongly to her push…
Generations of women came and went, a place for meetings around the pool, teaching their Rites, blessing babies in the pool…also a place introspection and spiritual healing.
Hundreds of women, mostly young some older…few lived much longer than forty years back then…all reacted differently, some curled up and cried, others yelled and screamed, some bathed in the pool, others drank from it…one woman’s life story in miniature…she came here first worried she was infertile, then in thankfulness she was pregnant…later in mourning for her baby gone too young.
Eventually she found Kiraea…frantic, thrashing around like a mad woman in grief…she looked completely broken…afraid, worried, stressed…exhausted curling into the foetal position for what might’ve been days before she finally seemed to rise up, dived into the pool and brought up a piece of stone which she slowly fashioned with the aether.
She stepped closer, peeling back the time and space to see what she was making…
“Don’t get too close…she might see you…” came a soft voice behind her,
Startled Milaea turned around…the cave was bright and a settee made of blood red stone that certainly hadn’t been there before was being lounged upon by a woman who
definitely hadn’t been there before.
She was hard to look at…immaculately beautiful, hair that glowed deep golden red that matched her eyes and lips. The thin white mist that covered specific areas of her unclothed figure were there not for modesty but to preserve Milaea’s sanity.
Milaea couldn’t speak…she could only stare…she had heard other people found it hard to look at her due to her genetically engineered beauty…now she knew what that felt like…to be so entranced by a being so exquisitely perfect…this was not a woman this was a…
“Hush,” she was suddenly lying beside her on the impossibly expanded settee an ivory finger to her lips.
Her hand was then cupping Milaea’s face…but then also holding her closely…but then cupping her face…it was in two places at once flickering between points of space time
“My troubled daughter…don’t be afraid…don’t be sad…we wouldn’t abandon any of our children,” Her face shifted…and remained static…both the underlying beauty and…two other faces…Shilea and Cilina…her aunt and her…her mother…they were all showing at once...they had always been there…she just hadn’t noticed it before.
Were they with her…part of her…both at once yet neither at all…
She felt herself shifted around, on their sides face to face the…Woman…God…Phantom…embraced her tenderly, pressing Milaea’s face to her breast much like Kiraea had just a day before…was she dreaming back to that moment?
She held her like a Lover, a Mother, A Sister, A Daughter, An Equal all at once.
Milaea cried, laughed, wept, screamed, trembled, froze, shook and cowered in the embrace as a warm pleasure flowed all through her sweeping away pains she didn’t know she carried.
<<<<>>>>
She gasped as she woke up…
The cavern was completely dark, her superior eyes only slowly making out the most jagged features in four times reflected light from far above as her senses returned…
The other ‘Woman’ was gone…
She was wet and tingling...she could smell her pheromones in the air, splashes indicated either she or someone else had jumped into the pool.
What had she seen…was that…had she actually spoken to a real Goddess…Aephrodaea herself?
Was it some kind of aether induced hallucination…a vision…have I finally gone insane?A more rational part of her mind thought that perhaps…Aethena trapped in the Blackstone altar had not been quite as trapped as they thought…her essence bleeding out into the interconnected veins of ultra dense aether absorbent minerals in the planets crust…
Coalescing into the Bloodstone it concentrated her personality and power then was infused by the emotions, memories, personalities and imagination of a thousand women forming them into some kind of tripartite consciousness based on their beliefs – a planet sized Holocron that had turned Aethena’s essence and a million aether powered tears, blessings and moments of pleasure into Sentient Aether based beings the likes of which Yoda had posited existed known as
Celestials…
It
was a Goddess…and all those other women were what
made that Goddess…and yet it was something
more than that that defied further investigation.
As she slowly sat up she noticed an object in front of where she had been lying
A small but intricate Triquetra pendant made of the same Bloodstone as the rest of the cavern sensually curved and on the back in indented figures of each of the three Goddesses identical in a one sense but subtly different in their poses reflecting their natures.
A gift or memento of sorts perhaps.
She beathed in the slightly humid air of the cavern deeply, her lungs finally filling fully for the first time in…a long time…
Her pain, confusion, guilt was gone cleansed by the compassion and love of the Goddess…if she had to explain it logically perhaps she now believed what everyone had been trying to tell her, nothing was her fault, she wasn’t responsible for her past, nor everyone’s future.
Milaea had taken from this place and now had to give something back so the next woman who came here could benefit just as much as she had….
This was the womb of Aephrodaea…so there was only one thing she could think would be fitting to return the energy to the Goddess of Compassion and Love…
Lying back on the cool stone she began - letting all of her power flow out into the room, red lighting flicked off her skin sucked up by the stone around.
As much pleasure and power as she had been given she would give back tenfold, this was how every woman was the Goddess Aephrodaea – they made the Goddess through their pleasure empowering Her to soothe others pains.
<<<<>>>>
She left the womb hopefully as renewed and refreshed as the Goddess herself....finally feeling consoled that Shilea and Cilina were safe and loved with their Goddesses in some way she couldn’t explain.
Milaea would probably never understand what she had seen and felt in there…she doubted any attempt to analyse the place would be successful…and frankly it was too sacred to defile it in that way…the mystery was at the heart of it.
She wondered if there were other shrines in the Valley for Aethenaea and Aertemisaea…most likely there would be somewhere…what would they be able to give a petitioner, and what would they ask for in exchange?
The only way she and the others would have the opportunity to investigate is if they were finally free…
And that could never happen while the Jedi, Sith and Goddess knew who else wanted them.
Valens would lead well in her absence, but she knew his solutions would not be…effective…
He was a mere male who thought in terms of a war between tribes as was his role, he would sever the enemy chiefs and braves heads and put them on spikes for all to see, simultaneously crippling their ability to retaliate and sowing terror…but this would only keep the battle going...
If they killed Xithar, Vectivus, even Yoda…it would only make more and more people come looking for whoever was doing this…killing Kimar had attracted Xithar, who knew who killing Xithar in turn would attract.
Everything that made them People…their culture, their Goddesses, their bodies, their aether…was a temptation too rich for Outsiders to ignore once they knew it existed.
There might be other species physically stronger, intellectually more gifted, even
some beings stronger in the aether.
None combined such superior qualities with such perfection that she knew of.
She needed…another way…had to be wise as Aethanaea to work it out…strong as Aertemisaea to Implement it…and compassionate as Aephrodaea to not kill every Outsider doing it….
One that would secure their future without guilt or blood on her hands.
As she returned to the central cavern and picked through her clothes she found the small wooden necklace she had been given as a knighting present by Soryu…from the Tree of Ahch-To he had said.
She held it beside the new pendant created in her…experience…in the womb.
Two different by equally important parts of her…there was no reason they shouldn’t be able to sit side by side about her neck to remind her of who she was and where she was from, but that didn’t mean either one owned or forced her into any particular path.
She could, and would - she thought as she threaded the red stone star beside the small wooden circle with a sword coming from a star in the centre – find a way to combine them both.
<<<<>>>>
The
Aethena cut through space time like a heated knife in soft flesh. Her eyes forward Milaea added to the speed of hyperspace travel by…
folding the Aether about her.
She needed to hurry, the battle was already underway, and if she was late…
No she wouldn’t think that way, the Fate of the others was not on her alone – she wasn’t the only actor or influence even in her
own actions.
As she neared the ripples in the aether of what was happening on Ord Mirit began to gather in pace washing against her, a Doppler effect as she pushed toward the fulcrum of power.
Xithar…but in a different and disturbing form that tasted of Uvex had used some kind of horrific weapon and was millimetres from achieving his…no…
Her desires…
Vectivus, Yoda, Yshrrk, even Valens and Kiraea were pushed to the edge.
She pushed her mind further forward adding even more speed, the streaking tunnel of stars of hyperspace lit a tinge of red as her power flowed out…
Ahead the confluence of shatterpoint lines was bulging with expectation, a primed and ready tinder box looking for her red spark to ignite it.
Warning lights blinked as the
Aethena breached 150per cent safe hyperspace velocity…
Just a little further…
<<<<>>>>
Bursting back into real space the sensation of confusion, terror and death was overwhelming, Milaea had no choice but to wrap her aetheric presence around herself to avoid being swept away by it as she slid the ship toward the very centre of the conflagration.
Ord Mirit’s orbit was littered with broken, dented ships, it seemed casualties were few tanks to ships automatic collision avoidance systems as pilots flopped insnane and terrified on the ground reliving their worst nightmares over and over, but the Terror Bomb had still blocked up all traffic.
Reaching out just where she needed to she slid the ships blocking her path out of the way with nudges just before she zipped past, none even noticing her sleek ship.
Below it was hard to tell what was happening, the aether was raw and pained, a scar on the face of the energy field that connected all living things had been created and like on Coruscant would take a long time to heal.
That couldn’t concern her now, nor could the despairing voices of the workers of Ord Mirit as she approached.
Finally breaking into atmosphere she dodged the floating buoys and amber blinking traffic control stations heading straight for where the smoke was billowing out the most among the blasted remains of a cargo facility and teetering gnashed cranes that stood like jagged broken teeth pointed skywards.
Sharp stabbing pains inflicted her body…in her stomach, her shoulder, the side of her face…empathic pains as she felt the raw bleed of her Peoples suffering…they were echoes of red against her own feeling driving her to restore and revenge…
She grasped her necklace pendants trying to channel that energy into something more useful…focus…serenity even…
She couldn’t get too close with the ship…that was hardly an issue given she could pilot it telekinetically. Wandering to the ramp she hissed it open, ash and dust choked air pushing in as she leapt out a flaming Golden Red Angel.
<<<<>>>>