Zabatha's Fury

Genius 6:9 Zabatha desperately desired children but she did not wish to share them with another God or Goddess. She wanted her offspring to be hers alone; possessions that no other could lay claim to. What Zabatha did not account for was that her children might some day turn away from her and reject the conditional gift of life she gave to them. The children conspired to banish Zabatha from their world and ultimately, they succeeded. Some say that if you look up at the sky on a clear night, you can see the purple star that Zabatha’s children trapped her in. They say she is always watching, searching for a way to return to her world and punish her children for their insubordination.

I am not the monster I’m made out to be. The truth is, my children are ungrateful, disobedient, little cretons, who wrote a book of lies to defame me, and blasphemously called it divine prophesy. The book of lies would have you believe that I created my children alone out of selfishness. This is not true. I sacrificed my heritage, my prospective husband, and my royal status when I created my children alone because what I did went against the laws of the universe. But perhaps a story worth telling is one that should be told from the beginning...

I was conscious of my existence from the moment the idea of me formed in my parents’ minds. As God and Goddess worked to construct and animate a body for my essence to inhabit, my awareness of my being and the universe grew steadily stronger.

Cool, marble hands sculpted clay and stardust into the shape of my elegant cheek bones, perfectly aligned nose, and plump, kissable lips. God’s capable hands skilfully crafted pointed elven ears and pressed a single moon-rock into each of my eye sockets. Goddess smoothed a thin layer of clay over each moon-rock to form my dainty eyelids and lashes. When my body was complete, Goddess pressed her crystalline lips to mine to breathe life and free will into me.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Goddess’s face. I stared into her golden flecked irises, overcome with wonder, awe, and love. The gaze Goddess returned was blank, as though she saw right through my now very much opaque, marble body. She tilted her head to the side in an awkward, unnatural way. It promptly slid off her neck and shattered on the tiled floor at my feet. Steady spurts of gold liquid erupted from Goddess’s severed neck in time with the final beats of her dying heart. God stood, smiling sadistically from behind the mangled corpse of his bride, triumphantly clutching his enchanted sword with Goddess’s blood still dripping from its blade.

‘What have you done?’ I shouted.

‘What was necessary to ensure my own would inherit the universal throne without delay, dear daughter,’ God said. ‘Our marriage was more business than love, you understand. Your rightful place is now yours to claim. You are welcome.’

I fell to my knees, sharp shards of marble slashing my bare skin, as I fumbled with Goddess’s pieces. Rivulets of my metallic blue blood mingled with her gold, as I tried in vain to reassemble her. The harder I worked to fit the pieces of marble back together, the quicker they crumbled to dust in my hands.

‘She is gone,’ God said. ‘Let her be at peace in her return to the meteor dust from whence she came.’

‘She is my mother,’ I said. ‘Your wife; your queen; your confidant. How could you do this to her? To me? To us?’

‘She was a means to an end,’ God said. ‘I have no further use for her and nor should you.’

With that, my father turned and walked away, leaving a sticky trail of gold droplets in his wake. It pleases me to say, I have not physically seen God since. I sat with Goddess’s remains until the last of her once perfect, marble flesh turned to ash. The silver, dusty flakes melted into her golden life-force which remained spilt on the floor around me. I contemplated what to do next for what felt like hours. I knew I couldn’t leave Goddess there, but I had nothing to put her in to take her remains with me. Eventually, an idea came to me. Convinced it was the only way to guarantee her safety, I scooped up handful after handful of gloopy Goddess remains and shovelled them into my mouth, forcing myself to swallow. My mother tasted like brine and sour milk, her texture like cottage cheese.

I ran my tongue around my teeth to dislodge the remaining chunks of flesh and then it was done. Goddess and I were one—mother and daughter—fused for eternity.

Goddess did not speak to me often, comfortable as she was, living precariously through me. Knowing that her only child was alive and well was enough for her. This meant that when she did speak, her messages were important, making it imperative that I heeded her advice. My mother was my live-in guardian angel. How many daughters could say they have that? The ones who do...well…they just might have eaten their mother’s corpse too.

The next and final time I heard God’s voice was from an enchanted letter which was delivered to me on my eighteenth birthday. The wax of the seal was still soft and warm to the touch when the cherub pressed it into my hands at first light. God had wasted no time in ensuring his correspondence was quickly received by me. When I broke the seal, God’s voice boomed:

‘Zeus, God of Thunder and the Sky, requests the honour of your presence at dinner this evening to discuss the impending nuptials. Formal attire is expected. 6pm sharp. Suite 1102, Mount Olympus.’

An eery silence descended on my sleeping chamber, broken only by the crackling of the envelope bursting into flames. I furiously stomped on the charred parchment until it became a mere black stain on my plush white carpet.

‘How dare the bastard whose hands my mother died at attempt to marry me off,’ I spat at the cherub. ‘You tell God and Zeus that I’d sooner die than dine with them.’

The cherub flew into, not one, but two closed windows in his haste to escape my rage.

‘Stupid creature,’ I said, thrusting open the French doors to my balcony.

An icy blast of wind carried the cherub away and a few errant snowflakes drifted lazily to rest at my feet. I inhaled deeply, allowing the frosty air’s bite to pierce my lungs. I welcomed the pain for the brief reprieve it gave me from my all-consuming emotions.

Daughter, you were always destined to marry Zeus, Goddess said within my mind. Long before your father and I conjured you into existence, our first child was promised to Zeus in marriage. Our bloodlines combined would create more power than the universe has ever known. You were made for Zeus, just as I was made for your father. The consequences of a descendant Goddess denying Destiny her due will be dire.

Betrayal burned in my throat at Goddess’s words and her siding with her murderer. Electric blue flames sprayed from my aquamarine lips and licked at my palace curtains. One by one, they caught alight. I stretched my arms out, palms up, and channelled my rage. This power—this ability—was my birthright. No other would or could lay claim to it. Not my father, not Zeus, not even my mother. My palace walls crumbled into oblivion and the flames of my fury spread in lightyears around me. They formed an impenetrable barrier; my own secluded portion of the universe that no other deity could enter while I still lived. For the first time in my existence, I was safe from external corruption or coercion. And I revelled in it.

I created Zunderland, the planet that my children would inherit, with a potent mix of passion, freedom, and unfathomable willpower. Every grain of sand, every leaf, every drop of water, I lovingly crafted. You see, my children were born into a world made especially for them. There was nothing but unconditional love in my heart and a determinedness that they would never know the horrors and pains a father is capable of inflicting on his offspring. Everything I did was to keep my children safe. Yet they abandoned me and turned their backs on me anyway. They rejected my love and weren't interested in knowing why I did things the way I did. It was and still is, easier for them to blame me, hate me, and judge me, than to try to understand me, or each other.

For centuries, I walked among my children on Zunderland, watching them cruelly taunt and attack me, and one another. They cheated, they stole, they murdered their own; they were as obsessed with power and status as God was on the other side of the universe. I tried to be a good mother. I punished my children for their evil ways by creating an entity named Karma. She ensured my children were disciplined twofold for their misdeeds. This was intended to serve as a deterrent for future wrongdoing, but it had no impact on their demonic behaviour. If anything, it only made things worse. Anger and injustice simmered within my children. They felt they should be able to live the lives they were given, as they pleased. They were united in one common goal and that was to rid themselves of my presence and my control forever.

I begged Goddess to share her wisdom and help me fix her grandchildren. She remained, and continues to remain, silent. I haven’t felt my mother’s presence since I failed to heed her warning about my arranged marriage to Zeus.

The loss of my destined mate and my murderous father were never really losses at all. But the absence of Goddess pulses palpable grief throughout my being, expelling it in delicate icicles that bead in my eyes and freeze forevermore on my cheeks. It especially pains me that my children reject their mother because I continue to live with the excruciating price of ignoring mine. It is a hurt I would not wish on anybody, least of all my own offspring.

It is all well and good for a descendant Goddess to create children in her own image. That is, until the rage of said children builds to the point of awakening the dormant powers that slumber within them. Had I known this, I may have made different choices, but such is hindsight.

When my children learned how to tap into their rage over their oppression and harness the full potential of their powers, Karma was no longer a match for them. They sacrificed her and consumed her essence in a bloodletting ritual. That consumption was the final infusion of power needed to banish me to the sky.

I continue to watch my children from afar. I listen to their pleas for mercy in times of famine and floods, plagues, and earthquakes. Their book of lies blames me for these misfortunes of course but they are not my doing. The truth is much simpler: universal laws are unavoidable and there will always be consequences for those who violate them, including creations who turn on their creators.

I pity the ignorance of my children but in many ways, I also envy it. It must be blissful to apportion all fault to a malevolent maker whom you’ve never been particularly fond of. I know it was comforting for me to possess the knowledge that I would never have needed to consume my mother if my father hadn’t murdered her. But what I’ve come to refer to as her second death was my fault. She warned me that there is always consequences when Destiny is denied her due and I knew Goddess did not intrude into my thoughts unless it was important; I ignored her anyway. Now she is gone.

Losing a mother is a pain my children cannot know—to lose the very best parts of yourself, through your own poor choices. It is this knowledge that makes me sure the vanity and arrogance of my children will someday be their undoing, just as it was mine. When that destruction is upon them, I’ll live out my days in exile with my fading memories of Goddess.

Until then I wait, and I watch. I have all the time in the universe.

Realisations 66:6 Zabatha loved her children but the circumstances she created them under made them an abomination. Their creation violated the laws of the universe and their existence, should never have been.

Destiny’s scales demand recalibration and rebalancing. Creator or creation must die. Zabatha will find a way to return to Zunderland and exact a final fury on her failed creation. She will wage war with her children. Should Zabatha win the battle, her world and her offspring will cease to be. If her children win, Zabatha’s and Goddess’s spirits will be ground back into dust and their remains, scattered throughout the galaxies. They will stay broken and lost, never finding peace.

The hour of The Final Battle is near. The Purple Star will soon fall and rightness will return to the universe. Woe to all who think they can deny Destiny that which she was promised, and live to tell the tale.