cw: child death

Tzymir's Daughter

When the Three felled Tzymir, though they were caught in the act they took his body with them as they fled, certain that their work was too important to be denied. They let him bleed out and caught his blood as it crystallized in the air. Once he was bled dry, they took his body and cut it in two. Together they had enough magic to raise two great islands in the ocean that Kaana couldn't touch with all her rage, that were shielded against the magic of their parents. They planned to create their own civilization and raise up the humans their parents treated so badly.

The first time they cut into the soil of the land that would be Lemuria, they found her. The plow turned up a hand the color of loamy soil, and then another the color of clay, then feet and limbs in all shades of earth, before the brothers noticed the carnage behind them. They rushed back to dig the rest of her out, and quick-fingered Wehaz sewed her together like a child's doll, and clever Wodanaz wove magic to restore her, and Wiljon smiled as she opened her eyes and welcomed her.

Her eyes were the green of fresh grass, and her hair hung the pale brown of wheat. She sat up and looked at her hands.

"Who are you?" Wodanaz asked her.

"I am Tzymir's daughter," she told them, and all three tried to hide their shudder. "But I appreciate what you have built."

Wehaz recovered first. "What should we call you?"

"Mara will do."

And they took her among them and told her what they were doing and how they believed. She spent some time with them, helping build the infrastructure of their island projects, but it was not long before she chose to go out into the rest of the world to offer farming and building to those who wished to learn away from the protection of the Three.

Lessons

When she tired of her brothers' plot of land, Mara snuck away to see the rest of the world she'd been born to.

In some lands she was more welcome than in others. Not every tribe was interested in planting and giving up a wandering lifestyle, and the lessons of planting did not work as well everywhere. Some of the spirits of fields and forest hounded her away, while others learned from her and were transformed. She met her uncle Chenek and barely escaped to the west, where she found a river spirit married to the valley and they cared for her. She met the Iron-Hearted Woman, who asked only how quickly she could leave.

In the far north, the big spirits of the land finally showed themselves to her. These were old mountains and dark forests, spirits that remembered upheaval. Mara bowed as the river had taught her, and while the forest laughed at the formalities, she did not tear Mara's throat.

"I have known your brothers," the Forest Mother said, showing a mouth full of sharp teeth. "You are far more polite."

"I was born from death, and my father never whispered greatness in my ear," Mara told her.

The Forest Mother nodded. "Stay, if you want. The land here will not answer to you, but we can be gracious hosts when it suits us."

"That is more than generous," the younger god answered.

From the Forest Mother, Mara learned the importance of the Wild and the language of monsters. She became enamored with one of the Forest Mother's children, and sie with her. She called hir Vala, and they ran together thick as thieves. Often she would think of leaving and ask hir to come with her, and always Vala would answer "I cannot." Mara believed that sie lacked her mother's permission, until one day when Vala disappeared.

She asked the Forest Mother about hir, and the Mother would only say that sie had entered the labyrinth.

Mara didn't understand.

"You have been dead and then alive. There are mysteries in that cycle, and in humanity, that my Serpent has resisted. You have asked hir to walk with you, though, and sie has decided to do that by following the crooked path into life and death."

Mara bowed to the Forest Mother. "Then I will take special care of hir people." And from that day to this she has done so, such that the lines between her and her Vala have long been blurred. She would not have it any other way.

Refusing the Call

The sky was blue where Mara sat on the river bank, her head in Vala's lap as their lover Perend sat beside them. It was a terrible day for mourning.

Nonetheless, Vala announced the presence of another spirit in the river just before Danec rose out of the water.

"My father is dead," the river spirit said. "My sister and I call on you to join us in avenging him."

Mara froze briefly at the request. "I'm sorry, Danec," she stood to face her niece. "I am not interested in fighting further." Danec would not take that for an answer, and she argued, invoking family and honor and vengeance, balance and order, and Mara barely spoke in reply. But she had lived with, and listened to, her brothers. She knew the way they spoke when dwelling on the wrongs that had been done them, and she heard their echoes in everything her niece said.

"But he was your brother!" Danec finally shouted. "And they killed him!"

"And our parents pursue him and our brothers because they killed my father," Mara said, her voice as even as she could make it. Perend and Vala stayed back, melting into the forest's edge to give them space, but they watched like hawk and serpent. Rivers are dangerous when riled. But now Danec was silent, and then Mara realized that her face was not only wet with spray.

"Come here, child," Mara said, stepping into the river. She wrapped her arms around Danec's shoulders and held the younger spirit tightly. "I didn't know my father, but I know how hard it is to wear the mantle left behind." Danec broke down sobbing on her aunt's shoulder, and the river foamed around them.

In the end Mara sent the river spirit on her way, but before she could so much as turn around, she felt another presence.

"We haven't met," Mara said, turning slowly, but the woman had much in common with Chenek and the Iron-Hearted Woman, so she could guess.

"I am Oc Ha, your brother's sister," she said. Her words were beautiful and fleeting as her flames, as she tried to persuade Mara that she really ought to be avenging her father, working alongside the Lady of Fire.

"There is a seat at the table for you," Oc Ha finished. "Your father's place is empty. You would help restore balance."

"I have heard a great deal about balance today," Mara answered. "And while I appreciate your offer, I have met the Lord of Air and I do not think I would be welcome at your table."

"Oh, Chenek would do as I told him," Oc Ha answered, a little too quickly.

Mara shook her head. "As I told Danec, I am not interested in taking sides. My loyalty is to the world itself, my mother, if it is to anyone."

Oc Ha's facade cracked, and sparks flashed in her anger. "Come with me or so help me I will burn your pretty forests to a cinder and take your blood as your father was bled, child. I care nothing for this world, but I will offer one more time - let me show you a greater one." She had intended the offer to sound persuasive on the heels of her threat, but Oc Ha's voice cracked as she saw two huge figures rising up behind Mara. A great Serpent hissed and poised to strike, while a huge Hawk spread its wings wide enough to darken the sun, and for a moment Oc Ha felt very much like a mouse.

"Play with monsters if you like," she told Mara. "You will regret refusing my help." Then Oc Ha sputtered like a flame and went out. Mara let out a great breath she didn't know she was holding, and in a moment, Vala was at her left side and Perend her right. They held her as she sat down beside the river, beneath a blue sky and bright sun that still seemed much too beautiful for what it witnessed.

Midsummer

"Sister," Mara called her, though their parents were siblings themselves. "I need your help."

Brhenti laughed in her face. "I am tired of people asking me for things. Go away." And who could blame her, with Wodanaz always trying to wheedle some weapon out of her and Wehaz trying to talk his way into her skirts?

But Mara saw how her sister-spirit was with her followers, her gentle hand with them in the autumn as she showed them how to make their homes fast against the winter and to preserve the harvest against starvation.

Since Brhenti would not answer to her, she went to those who could hear her and told them, this spirit is my sister, call on her when you smoke your meats, call on her when you put up your grains. They called and made offerings, and Brhenti answered them. Mara turned away knowing they were in good hands.

Winter came, and the Winter Mara ran through the forests, warming herself with the blood of her victims. More than once she saw Wodanaz running bloody as well, with an entourage at his back of howling spirits. She wondered at that, but she kept her distance and he did the same.

In spring, she watched her people thank Brhenti for keeping them from starvation. They ploughed and planted, singing of the balance of metal and earth, and Mara stood beside her sister again.

"If I were feeling uncharitable, I would say you are more clever still than our brothers," Brhenti said. "And yet I can hardly complain that you spread my name and increase my reputation."

"I only want what's best for them," Mara said, looking at the farmers.

"Then it's a miracle you haven't been taken advantage of already."

"I have more strength than you think," Mara answered.

She and her sister were often called together as the planting season continued. As the sun grew hotter and the summer came in, however, Brhenti answered fewer calls and left small offerings uncollected. Finally at midsummer, Mara went to see her sister again and saw why.

Despite the heat, forges were white hot and Brhenti's smith-priests were hard at work. Sweat poured off them as they hammered magic and metal into swords and pikes. Brhenti herself was standing behind a tall, powerfully built young man, whispering into his ear of reputation, of his name, of the spoils of war against Wodanaz's tribes. He repeated her words to his men, and they cheered.

Then they left, and Brhenti with them. Mara almost left, but she noticed a woman making offerings to an empty shrine.

"I don't know who might hear or help," the woman said, "but please do not let my son go into the ground alone in some foreign land."

Mara went out after the raiding party then, and watched them from afar. Fighting between men is part of nature just as fighting between animals is, and at first she was hesitant to interfere even as Brhenti's men and Wodanaz's went into the ground. Several times she saw Vala as sie collected hir dead from the fields, and she watched and waited as others took their due as well.

After several weeks, the remaining soldiers were exhausted, but Brhenti and her chosen were still trying to whip them up again. Mara finally chose to confront her sister. Brhenti drew her own sword on Mara and ordered her sister away, but Mara would have none of it.

"I accepted a charge from his mother, that he would not die alone here," Mara told her. "His men are exhausted and there is nothing left nearby. Let them return home." Brhenti swung her sword, and though Mara dodged, she felt the metal cut into her side and draw away her energy.

"He's mine," Brhenti argued, looking down on him - just in time to see a small group of his exhausted men turning on him. She held him as he struggled to breathe and then looked at Mara.

"Take him," she said. "I would not make a liar of you."

Unhappy, Mara took the bleeding man. It was not trivial to carry him back home in mere moments, and the look on his mother's face when she presented him to her made her think that perhaps she was not meant to work with humans after all. But she busied herself making her son comfortable, and so far from her home and her own power exhausted from following Brhenti, Mara couldn't do much.

She noticed, however, that her wound had crusted over with red crystals, bloodstones. She tore the scab away and let the wound bleed freely, dripping to the floor where it crystalized. She picked one of the larger crystals up and handed it to the woman, who had just finished cleaning and dressing her son's wounds. It glowed at the woman's touch.

Behind her, Mara felt the energy shift as Brhenti appeared, but her sister spirit didn't move or intervene. The young man's breathing became easier as his mother guided the energy from the stone into him, and by the time it crumbled to dust, he was no longer pale as death.

"I was rash," Brhenti said. "I owed him better than that." If the woman could hear the goddesses, she gave no sign.

"It's done," Mara answered, and there was a moment of quiet between them.

"So about that favor of yours…" Brhenti began.

Bluebird

this is not a happy myth

Mara and Vala created two children together. The younger, nicknamed Sini, was a joy to all who knew her. She particularly loved travelling with her mother in the spring, when she would run ahead to each village that waited for her mother's return. As she grew older, people mistook her for her mother's attendant. When she arrived ahead of her mother, celebrations would be held for her as a harbinger, or even as the one responsible for her mother's return.

It made Sini uncomfortable, but she enjoyed being the center of attention and the way people cheered to see her. In some areas, there were whole feast days just for her, in anticipation of her mother's arrival.

One spring as they journeyed, Sini went ahead to a village that always welcomed her thus, and she expected her mother would be arriving the next day. The villagers cheered her and toasted her long into the night, and this year they had added a bonfire to the celebration. The food was good, the mead was good, the company was good. In the morning, Sini waited with the villagers for her mother to arrive, but unknown to her, Mara had been delayed by an attack by her father's sister, Oc Ha.

As the day wore on, Sini did her best to keep their spirits up, and for a while, it worked. As the third day dawned, however, the villagers were beginning to whisper.

On the fourth morning, the headwoman of the village and a few others greeted Sini outside of the room she'd been given.

"Is the Mara arriving today?"

Sini could only shrug. "I hope so. I'm worried."

"I was afraid you'd say that," the headwoman said. Several larger villagers pushed past her and grabbed Sini, dragging her out into the square. The young spirit was too confused to fight back. There was a small crowd waiting there, and an old woman who was shouting about how spring demanded blood and sacrifice, how they had to order the Mara to return their spring.

The old woman began to tie Sini up, and she could tell the ropes were magic because they held her fast. She was laid across a stone and the old woman began to cut her open. Sini writhed in pain, trying to escape the blade, to no avail. She screamed for her mother, but it was hours before Mara arrived.

The Mara was still dressed for the fight she'd been dragged into in the forest. Her clothing was badly burned and stiff with drying blood. Her hair hung wild. The villagers shook in fear as Mara cut her daughter loose from the stone and then turned to the old woman.

"Shed your lies," Mara demanded, and the old woman shifted, standing up straight and then straighter until she was much too tall to be human, her hair now black and smooth, her skin smooth and moonlike, her eyes narrow with hate.

"Oc Ha, how dare you?" Mara growled. "I had no quarrel with you and your siblings until you took arms against me."

"Your existence pains us," Oc Ha answered, her voice sounding as if she was on the verge of laughter. "Your humans and your children are nothing but playthings. And her, she was bred with one of these local spirits! How can you expect us to ignore that?"

Mara screamed and dove at Oc Ha, her bloodstone sword trailing energy behind it. Oc Ha tried to parry with her knife, but Mara's fury won, driving the older spirit back until she landed a deep cut with her blade. Cursing, Oc Ha fled, and Mara returned to her daughter's body.

Sini was still alive, though faded. Mara took what was left of her energy and reshaped her as a small blue songbird. Bluebird fluttered up and then returned to sit on her mother's shoulder.

Mara looked at the villagers, who cowered. "We were mislead! We're sorry!" they cried. "And she didn't even die! Please, spare us your wrath! We were afraid you would not come!"

"And so you thought to bully me? We work as partners to plant and harvest! You do not control everything, you cannot. The thaw comes when it comes. The vegetables ripen when they choose."

The people nodded.

"Henceforth, you must sacrifice one of your own children to me each year in repayment," Mara told them.

The cry was instant. "But-!"

"My daughter did not die, and I will not always take your children either. But you have asked for a way to call me in, and I will give you what you asked for."

With that, Mara returned to the forest, Bluebird flying beside her.