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Her dress billowed in the sandy desert wind, her body shook with fear as she watched red tendrils spiral out from another girl’s body. The darkness always made her body quiver, and Luna was shaking too.
“Vora… I always thought… the darkness was the one thing you hated the most.” Io called above the blowing wind, Vora bore a red glare into the eyes of the goddess.
“Maybe it would stay that way to a fool who believed you were protecting us. The darkness was hated by those who thought they were covered in your light, when you were the darkest being to live.” Vora spat, her voice a dark hiss as she watched Io’s face contort into sorrow.
“I always was! I wanted to meet you all… to see your beautiful faces, but the threat of the darkness always withheld me, who was to say I wouldn’t fall to the darkness a second time?” Io tried to withhold her tears, she always carried the burden of letting darkness overrule, and she never forgave herself for it.
“Beautiful faces spared not a second of your oh-so-precious time.” Vora stood attentive, her stance was lowered as she knew Io would not randomly attack, she was too composed and afraid to do so.
“I promise that seeing you all was the one thing I wished I could have done, but my own fears kept me back, I was afraid darkness would take me again, and I would never wish for people as loyal and amazing as my own to see me in such a pitiful and broken state.” Io let a single soundless tear run down her cheek, quickly blown off by the desert wind.
“You never spared a single moment to think that we would fight alongside you? Were we so miniscule to you that you didn’t believe we were capable enough to help you?” Vora kept her gaze controlled to the sandy floor, not sparing a moment to watch the goddess’ broken face.
“No! I just never wanted to force my people to fight something so dangerous!” Io’s legs shook, about to buckle under herself and fall on Luna, but she held as strong as she could.
“So you never came instead? Bravo. Do you know how many people fled to Ascension Peak? How many wounded souls fled to the embrace of a god that cared for them with his own hands?”
“I know… I know… yet he does not despise me for it. His forgiving embrace was all that saved the few that retreated from my light, and I do not blame them for what they chose to do. My own guilt and hurt kept me from making the right choice, and I carry that regret with me.”
Io kneeled down, laying her bow on the floor, she sat stationary in the crisp sand watching Vora avert her disgusted gaze.
“You may not forgive me for what I did then, but… please… let me atone for my sins, with what I can do now.” Io felt her restrained tears slip from her hold and run down her cheeks.
Raising a hand to the sky, a solid wide moonbeam fell from the broken moon, enveloping Vora in its surrounding light.
The light was warm, it was as if Vora had an embrace with a fire spirit, she felt love for one of the first times in her life. But she couldn’t just feel warmth and love, she could feet sorrow.
Vora could feel sorrow and sadness wash over her body, guilt and hurt fill her heart. Were these Io’s true feelings? A broken moon, a broken goddess with a broken heart and broken soul. Vora could not withhold response to the overwhelming feelings that ran through her heart and darkened soul.
She has never cried before, at least not in a long time. But she could feel soundless tears welling hot in her eyes. She never had understood Io’s feelings before, brushed her off as selfish, unloving and distant. But all she could feel in the moonlight that wrapped around her skin, was regret, sorrow and guilt, the wish to go back and fix the mistakes she made, the need to bring back the lost souls wishing to be brought back into the light.
Vora gripped her own shoulders, overwhelmed with the feelings that coursed through her veins.
“I know you may not forgive me now, but I know that within you is a lost piece of yourself that is still waiting, still waiting and wishing for my moonlight to find her.” Io stood up from the sand, striding over to the quivering girl.
Extending her arms out in front of her, she offered a space against her body as she approached Vora, who stood shaking in the sandy wind. As If her body was uncontrolled, Vora let herself fall forward into Io’s embrace, she leaned her head over the goddess’ shoulder.
The silent tears that fell on Vora’s face gained sound, small whimpers slipping past her lips as she let her body be embraced in Io’s warm love. The whimpers turned to cries and the cries turned to wails. Her voice uncontrolled and freed from the restraints she tried to hold on her own voice.
Io pat a soothing hand on the back of Vora’s head, comforting her fallen disciple with the moonlight she had been searching for. The whipping sandy winds subdued and fell to the floor, only the broken wailing of a forgotten girl echoed through the ruins and rocks of the desert.
“I didn’t save you then Vora, so let me save you now.” Io pulled Vora in close to her chest, gripping the girl tight against herself with all the will in her hands, as if she would slip through her hands once again. Her own tears spilled out onto her cheeks, her ears going flat against her head, her tail subconsciously curled around Vora’s leg, keeping her from leaving the goddess’ arms.
“I would hate to ask, but please Io, I beg of you, let me back in now, and never let me go again.”
“Then stay by me, and my light will hold you for eternity.”