Chapter Text
Everyone has a limit.
There’s only so much pain the mortal mind can take, only so much stress the complex yet nonetheless feeble body of a person can have inflicted onto it -- before it all breaks... falls apart like it was never meant to be one whole at all, like the pieces had been stitched together merely by accident than by a grander design.
But they had been together once. They had come united as one to form something absolutely beautiful, something precious that should have been protected for all time. Someone that she should have protected.
Now the boy lay in a pool of his own blood, the magical blade that had pierced the flesh of his abdomen dissipating in a flash of light as its caster was slain by the boy’s uncle. They would not find him until it was too late, the raiders had come to the village swiftly and they had been defeated just as swiftly, but they will have died taking one soul with them... the one soul they should never have gotten their hands on.
She watched and pleaded -- begged any of her fellow gods to intervene, to witness the cruel injustice happening before their eyes and save the poor soul from death’s cold clutches. None responded. Selfish cowards, the lot of them. Staring down from their safety blanket of omnipotence and refusing to lend even a shred of their power, to send guidance to the villagers, warn them that their beloved boy was bleeding out right under their noses.
The boy had been so very brave, chasing after the fleeing raider to stop him and take back the valuables that had been stolen from their vault. He didn’t see the dagger coming until it was inches away from his stomach, nor did he see the raider’s eyes glow an icy blue as a small sinkhole cracked the ground open underneath his feet.
As the boy lays there, staring up from the bottom of a hole at least five times his own height while blood spills freely from his wound, tears start running down his cheeks. If gods have a heart, hers is crumbling apart as she speaks.
Everyone has a limit, and she reaches hers when she hears him call out her name in a broken sob.
She does not know how he discovered her existence. She had gone to great lengths to destroy any and all traces of herself from mortal memory centuries ago. She hated being worshipped, despised the idea of being seen as above any other soul. Mortals had once flocked to the kind rule of Great Goddess Amera, she who loves like no other.
She had expected them to love her back the way she loved them, with kindness and compassion. Instead they killed and sacrificed in the name of her glory. It revolted her, it destroyed her how easily mortals became cruel and hurtful because her fellow gods had taught them to show their devotion that way, she did not want any part of it. So she hid, she erased herself from history as if she had never been involved at all. Or so she’d thought.
The boy was always curious, eager to learn something new whenever he got the chance. She had learned that about the mortal as she watched over him, unwilling to look away since the moment he had first caught her attention by whispering her name late at night in his room, practising how her name felt on his tongue.
“A-Ame... ra? Ah... Amer... Amera...”
And now he was whispering her name again, only he wasn’t doing it to practice the new word he had just learnt. He was begging his goddess to do something, he was begging her to save his life.
She had promised herself nearly half a millennium ago to never interfere in mortal affairs again, lest she risk more carnage and bloodshed being caused in her name. She’d never wished to hear someone call her that word... goddess... ever again. But she refused to stand by and watch as this innocent boy died, bleeding out all alone in a hole in the ground as tears streamed down his face and no one came to help him.
For the first time in over 500 years, Amera stepped foot into the realm of the living and cradled the boy in her arms, whispering gentle words into his ear as her touch healed his wound and soothed his sore body, the boy clinging to her like she was the only thing in his world, small sobs escaping his lips while she held him close. She will cherish his faith in her like nothing she has ever known.
Amera will not let his story end here, and heavens help anything or anyone, mortal or god, who dares to object.