“What I’m trying to get at is this—the worlds as we know them right now are directly tied to Typhon and his magic. If we end him once and for all, the worlds you know will no longer exist. However, if we leave him alive, we run the risk of eventually running into this cycle again. Typhon’s secret networks have been exposed this time, and we know that he’s quietly been planning to take over all worlds for centuries at least.” Vada took a breath.
“We’ve seen uprisings like his throughout history. I can personally point to humans, Fae, Demons, Gods, and all other factions where this has been the case. I believe that any discussions we have need to be around these facts. I also understand this is potentially life-changing news once again, but we must decide, and unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of time on this one. The Oneiroi are strong, but they aren’t going to be able to hold him in stasis forever,” she finished.
Curiosity and horror painted the faces of the troops surrounding us. I checked in with myself, too. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, but I was mostly numb to it. I was used to change and I adapted well. But many of these people weren’t part of thePax. They’d just had their lives flipped upside down. The Gods all had their heads together, discussing something I couldn’t hear. We needed Janus, or Neith, or even Mahakali so we could be guided toward a decision.
Ganesha called on Kali and Shiva, who came at their son’s behest. Though Ganesha was born of Parvati, Kali and Shiva were needed at this moment. Ganesha would always protect Parvati, and therefore, the danger of this situation kept him from calling on his mother. We needed guidance. Kali was fearsome in her love of her people, yet I was still a little concerned about her presence here when Vada was still with us, since she was known to slay Demons. Vada assured me, with reverence, that she and Mahakali had met previously, and that if she practiced any religion, it would’ve been Mahakali she worshipped. I felt better at that admission, though it didn’t exactly make me warm and fuzzy either.
Kali was our best bet here. Fae didn’t exactly have religion or Gods as humans did, especially based on their creations, but I obviously believed that Gods were real, and their worship was the reason any of these planes existed.
Upon Kali’s arrival, the Gods bowed in reverence, and I followed along, giving them both their due. We told them of the situation, of our concerns, and asked for guidance about how to move forward. Kali, known for her tremendous rage, and according to tradition, believed that the best bet would be to tear down what no longer served anyone and to rebuild from scratch. She and Shiva both agreed to help us rebuild a more equitable world.
The final belief was that we could remove the barrier, Typhon, then stop time to rebuild the same worlds that existed now. They were there for a reason, and the Gods all agreed. This wouldn’t just be on Kali or Shiva’s shoulders, but the Gods would all bear the weight of responsibility. Such was the world.
It was decided that the destruction and subsequent remaking of the worlds would be done by the Gods, but since I was the one who the prophecy indicated, I would be the one to end Typhon’s life. I had been the cog in the wheel that startedthis systematic making and unmaking of the world, and it laid on my shoulders to begin and end it.
Vada stood with me every step of the way. I found the Stag standing with Poe, Baba Yaga, Loki, Daedalus, Valen, Gon, Ma’at, and Maren. I spoke with them for a few minutes, making sure everyone agreed before I made my way toward Typhon. My heart was beating erratically, and one wrong step here could still end everything. No pressure. But it was almost over. The life I’d built for myself, for my friends, and for the people I didn’t even know within thePaxmeant something to me.
We made our way to Typhon together. Once the Oneiroi pulled Typhon out of his sleep, we’d have seconds to enact the plan. When Typhon gasped awake, I pulled the same maneuver that I had on Marung. I pushed my shadows, along with the ball the Stag and I had created together, into Typhon’s throat. He swallowed it in order to breathe air, and it took mere seconds before he was ripped to shreds. His remains scattered across this part of the world, and where they landed, new life grew. Such was the way of the world. His death would feed the world for us to survive another several millennia.
Kali and Shiva worked together to stop the passage of time before the worlds collapsed. As they focused their energy on an entire world, the other Gods around us worked together to rebuild. While it was lost in space and time, I held Vada in my arms, daydreaming about the rest of our very long lives.
St. Louis
100 years later
We’d built something that went beyond wealth, or religion, or power dynamics. We learned true, radical love, and how constraints put upon people for being who they were halted the advancements of society. There would always be bad actors out there. There would always be beings who reached for power. But there would also always be beings who transcended this, and it was by love that we would prevail. It was through community that meant we would always, always win. And I hoped beyond anything that we could find a way to show all beings that there were other options. Some called it enlightenment. I called it community.
The beings of thePaxspent much of their time helping one another, whether that was through the businesses they built, or the healing centers they created, or by various other means, it was truly up to them. Sometimes, it was just simply existing and being happy in the world, and that was all they could manage. We didn’t judge. They had what they needed to be fulfilled, and that fulfillment came in waves, especially when we lived long lives.
“What’re you thinking about over there, sweet girl?” Vada asked me.
I stretched out on the couch, resting my feet atop Vada’s legs. We were mostly nude, lounging at the home we had created together over the years. The house I’d called home since the very beginning was now ours. It had changed a lot over time, making it as much mine as it was hers.
“Just reminiscing about the past and how far we’ve come,” I replied.
Vada dropped the game controller she’d been holding and began to rub my feet. I groaned in contentment. We sat in comfortable silence for a while after that, learning early on from moving in together that silence was its own language. Our love was the quiet, deep passion that wasn’t necessarily outward in appearance unless we were putting on a kink event. We loved each other through hard times and easy ones, too.
When the two of us got back from Cennet and Cehennem, we both decided to step down from leadership roles in thePax. We focused on ourselves, and on learning how to grow with one another. We traveled the worlds as tourists and stewards of the earth. We both gave talks about how to build intentional communities that focused on the needs of all rather than the needs of a few. We’d even convinced some smaller factions to grow in the Human Realm and beyond.
Once it was understood that the worlds needed to work together, to not focus so much on hyperindividualism, we were able to help establish a new normal across the realms. Underhill was able to thrive without me at the helm of the Autumn Court, and I wasn’t forced to live in a space that held so much trauma for me. The Gods and Goddesses from every pantheon began working together to help uphold the world they all created together, and their ability to learn how to work within theirown frameworks and outside of them convinced the humans who worshipped them to do the same.
As for Vada and myself, we’d finally settled back in our home after a decade’s hiatus. We were done with our travels, with leading, and we were practically old women ready for retirement. We’d spent time deepening our own connection to the point where we became the annoying couple who finished each other’s sentences. We anticipated needs, and our mutual love for acts of service became a game between us. But we couldn’t rest for long. That just wasn’t in our nature.
It was our grand opening for our next venture, taking over a building in a former hot spot called The Landing. Now, it was becoming more of a tourist spot again with its proximity to the Arch. It housed a massive university which fed into the human and supernatural hospital systems, and we encouraged enrollment. There were twenty-four-hour diners and cafés, nightlife, and restaurants throughout the buildings. We kept the cobblestone streets here and did not have parking spaces for vehicles, though the technology had changed significantly from the cars I owned over a century prior. This was a place to congregate, and it was the busiest area in St. Louis by far.
Vada and I quietly opened our shop with no fanfare. We knew we’d have customers. Our shop, called Parrhesia, made up an entire six-floor building. One floor was a bookstore that carried some of my favorite books, along with the books that I’d probably never read again. Another floor was a food hall where you could get food from anywhere in the realms. It wasn’t quitea food court, but there were various kitchens throughout the floor to make sure that each food was cooked as authentically as possible. We had a floor for our feeders, too. It was basically a sex dungeon, and one that I was sure Vada and I would play on in the years to come. We still played frequently, sometimes letting others join us.
We invited our community to love one another through learning, through food, through sex or worship. Parrhesia was about living one’s truth, and our goal was to embody that as much as possible through everything we’d learned on our travels. I had thought I understood the worlds around me through the creation of thePax, but what I’d learned was that I knew nothing. It didn’t matter how old you were, there was always something new to learn, to focus on, and to protect.
Vada and I finally found our why. It was through stewardship, through community, through loving one another and the depth of understanding and anticipating needs where we found the most joy.
I had a big-ass goofy grin on my face as all our friends joined us for the opening. They were all peeved at us for not making a big deal out of it, but we’d quietly posted online about the new space opening, and we waited for folks to begin trickling in. Our friends hadn’t seen the building yet in its new form, and we were excited to show them around.
“I’m so happy for you, bitch!” Poe yelled over the music in the club on the fourth floor.
I smiled at her as we danced as if we were many yearsyounger, though I was still atrocious at dancing. I would’ve thought I’d learn how at some point, but alas, I couldn’t move my body like that. This space wasn’t for me, and Poe knew it, but she’d take any chance she could to put me in embarrassing situations. Too bad for her that I no longer got embarrassed.
About fifty years ago, I’d had the colostomy reversed. My body had healed long before that, but the concern was that they weren’t sure how that surgery would hold up over time for someone who lived as long as I had. Something about necrotizing organs. I still spent time at hospitals with patients who were getting one, talking about my experiences as the first Fae to ever receive one. It changed my views on healthcare, and I worked with the humans throughout the worlds to help reframe their systems. It was a patient-first job that often needed more than just surgeons and doctors, but advocates, social workers, therapists, and other doctors than just humans to get a well-rounded perspective on how to care for patients.
