-Orion wiped the silver sleet from his silvery eyes, alarmed, yet giving no further ground nor movement.

  “Who, in the name of the Gleaming Goddess, are you,” he inquired.

  Orion was visibly alert and vaguely aroused by the sight of the magnanimous maiden before him (Mayhaps, more vaguely alert and more visibly aroused). His hair & eyes grayed, momentarily, only to sheen back into their standard shiny mane & iris hues.

  “I am the Northern Star and the Full Moon Maiden!”

  The pair of deities which she’d evoked were as contradictory to one another as ice & fire, light & shadow, or love & war.

  “I am the Womb of the World and the Mother of Rainbows,” she professed.

  Again, the two gods whom she’d invoked were as diametrical & antithetical to each other as summer & snow.

  “I am the Gleaming Goddess! The Mass Murdering Mother of Mercy!”

  Thrice she’d declared an impossibly contradictory claim. Unbeknownst to the masses, the Mass Murdering Mother of Mercy is incidentally the Goddess of Birth and Bloodshed, Fear and Fertility, Wisdom and War (All across the 7 planes of Kundra).

  “If no gods can speak lies, then how is it that you are all you’ve claimed to be,” said Orion.

  It was a fair & equitable question, to be sure, given the long & storied history of Mother World mythology.

  “The ages are long, indeed! Yet the rings of my own tree are far beyond the scope of their living memory or experience,” she said to the unicorn eunuch.

  The massive manse motioned more gently this time; yet & still, it moaned & moved, from its foundations to its rooftops.

  “Are you learned in the tales of how I earned that moniker, Disciple? […] The Mass Murdering Mother of Mercy!”

  He shook his head from side to side, for a brief moment, uncertain if he could or should answer.

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  “The First Ring was preceded by the Age of Aeons, when my kind ran amok your 7 Planes. Consequently, I was the first of the Ageless to make contact with Thrankind.”

  When she closed her eyes, the world went darker and the stars shone brighter until she reopened them (Preceded directly by a lavender lightning strike). The mood was altered like the world and the weather had been, and just as quickly as it had been, too.

  “I was not successful, initially,” the Mother of Rainbows confessed.

  Her eyes finally opened up to him, and her attention became refocused as well. She looked into his eyes and trekked him through the bloody tale of how she spoke civilization into the Mother World.

  … … …

  The Grand Gleaming Goddess mutilated & murdered a dozen indigenous Thran in the Age of Aeons. The voices of the Aeonic caused stars to shrink & shiver, local lakes & rivers all but dried up, as grass & trees alike shriveled or shattered. Eyes & ears bloodied & boiled up with Rubicon tears, searing flesh and staining the earth below. The first half dozen unfortunate souls were reduced to blood soups and bone broths; at which point, the Mother of Rainbows began altering and uplifting the children of Kundra into a stronger and more deified Thrankind. This led to the belief systems on Kundra, to heed the makers as manied, warring, and somewhat vengeful in nature. Traditions were formed, where the greatest heroes & champions of the 7 Planes, volunteered to face the many-faced & faceted Aeons; as the prize of worthy survivors was greater than any Thrankind could foster or afford its own. Even still, six more souls were reduced to ash & marrow. It was the 13th warrior, a cunning yet clueless adolescent, whom climbed to the top of the highest tree in the realms, dropping down through the endless skies, to mount the mighty Izmadi (The most beloved Aeonic creature of the Ageless Ring; clear up until the time of the Unicorn). The Barbarossa boy wrestled the grand avian to the earth, that Aeons had long tread to treat with the kindred of Kundra. He cut the titanic peacock’s throat and bathed beneath it in its overflowing blood, screaming to any Ageless whom heard his beckon and war cry.

  “May I have such a death! Strewn atop mountains of the bloodied, bruised and broken bodies of those who slew me!” Barbarossa screamed into the heavens.

  The glowing goddess had arisen (Like the sun) as aroused as her disciple would one day become (Much like her future N’Ved-Ra apostle), without the assistance of any member (Save the waking loins of the boyish barbarian before her). The spirit of the earth entered into the slain creature’s corpse, and it stood erect, and spoke the Oath of Order to the strapping, burly & brutish barbarian. His cornea and cochlea still ran red, as did his nose and the drying, cracked lips. His skin turned from copper to burned teak, yet he did not falter in her perfect presence.

  … … …

  “I raised your ancestors on high; to lead the whole of the world’s reach into the promised paradise. From which you’ve received perpetual benefaction from,” she said.

  Orion scoffed at the history lesson he’d been bombarded with & force-fed, arms crossed, defiantly.

  “What proof can you offer to such a preposterous claim, Aeon?”

  The polychromatic divinity chuckled so loudly that it echoed across the whole world before fading from earshot.

  “However, do you propose we accomplish this, acolyte?”

  She asked an inquiry which she must’ve fully known the answer to before inquiring. The two caste system of the N’Ved-Ra is split into Quadrupedal Mages & Bipedal Warriors; thus, her words were an open challenge of his prowess & station, more than anything else. Orion immediately attacked the brilliant, blinding beauty with an ancient First School spell, which the Mother of Rainbows easily blocked with her dauntless & impregnable barrier. Violet & violent waves of fire & pitch black smoke erupted all around the iridescent shield before revealing its luminosity and the Lady of Light’s luminous smile.

  “Reveal to me more of this! I swear not to use any such defenses again,” she said, gleefully.

  He’d already turned his back in vain, only to spin about in dismay, before frowning deeply at her vocal jab. Ashen soot and smoke billowed off from her unflawed frame as the Horse Lord leaped high into the open skies, with his open hands raised above him.

  “Adê Barathrum,” he screamed out.

  A dark cloud formed high above and hurled a black & white bolt of lightning into his cupped hands. Orion chucked the bolt at the celestial maiden, and she swallowed it whole before wiping her chin and smiling gleefully.

  “Again,” she jeered, elated and clapped.