A Real Goddess Would Let Nobody Die

Of all the things that made Izena feel like a fossil, returning to the Site of the Sacrifice was at the top of the list.

Once, this had been an undeveloped savannah far enough from Rokesha to be suitable for a climactic ambush and battle. It had been a field surrounded by hills, a few scattered trees and shrubs, and ocean cliffs to the west.

It had long ago been swallowed by Rokesha's suburbs. Today, on the 9000th anniversary of Izena's death, it was a well-tended memorial park surrounded by a prestigious residential neighborhood on the northern side, a shopping area centered on a grocery store to the east, and a school for ages nine to twelve on the south. The only building in the park itself was the small Temple Dome, but there were walking paths, picnic tables, groves of trees, flower beds, and of course the memorial monuments themselves.

At Menelyn's instruction, the west was left open to the ocean cliffs, so that the sightline to the Island of the Goddesses beyond the ocean horizon remained clear. The tops of the towers of Rokesha could be seen on the northwestern horizon across the ocean on a clear day, but this being the tropics, it was usually too hazy to make out anything but a vague indication of city lights in the distance.

Izena could remember the entire battle, including dying at the end, as if it had just happened. She clenched Her left hand into a fist, to keep Herself from frantically preparing a parrying spell. She breathed deeply and slowly, to force Her subconscious to accept that She was not in life-threatening mana exhaustion. She tapped Their stomach with Her fist, to scold Menelyn discreetly for the guilt roiling there. At least She wasn't hallucinating. She still never had, since Izena had been alive again.

Izenakee walked over, pried Izena's hand open, and interlocked Their fingers. They may as well start including this sequence on the official schedule for this ceremony: Goddesses arrive, Justice tries to work through Her anxiety attack, Salvation irrationally blames Herself, Empathy provides perfectly calibrated emotional support.

Having the Goddess of Empathy as a Sister kind of felt like cheating at life sometimes.

Izena stared out at the park.

A plain on which a battle for the fate of the world had been fought, a Goddess and Her father slain in battle and Her Sister Goddess driven from the world in traumatized grief, was now a park that children walked across to and from school, a place families went for picnics, a place where parents played outdoors with their kids.

As weird as it all felt, Izena wouldn't have it any other way. She had come here 9000 years ago fully intending to die if necessary for the sake of this future.

The ceremony would begin in earnest later, but the Goddesses had come early to greet the many pilgrims who would be here.

Some were praying at the statues placed at Menelyn and Izena's best estimate of Their positions at the time of Oscanion's last spell. Izenakee had pulled the scene directly from Their memories and shown the artisans, millennia ago. The Sisters' statues were staring at each Other, a perfect recreation.

There was also a statue of Azenum opposite Izena's. Neither Izena nor Menelyn knew for sure what he had done in his very last moment, since They had been looking at each Other, but Izena had seen him a moment earlier. He had been turning toward Menelyn, mirroring Izena, most likely for the same reason She had turned after Her shield suddenly dropped: terrified that Menelyn may have killed Herself by providing too little power to Her Own shield in an attempt to keep Her family safe. That is how he was depicted. Pilgrims had covered his statue in various black and white items, mostly flowers, that would be collected by the Temple Helpers later. Azenum was not much remembered today as the Unifier. Instead, he was the only man who had been a parent to two Goddesses, and a paragon of mortal virtue. He had helped those who needed help, without expectation of reward, and volunteered for a battle against an enemy so terrible that a Goddess was slain alongside him, an evil he had wounded and driven to desperation.

Oscanion's position was marked only by a plaque on a pedestal, recounting the history of the scene. He was rehabilitated to the extent that he was seen as a tragic figure, but not to the extent that he would receive a statue at a memorial to the Corzas.

Most of the pilgrims present had noticed the Goddesses' arrival; they had plenty of warning from Izenakee's strengthening aura. Some collapsed to their knees immediately--even if they would not normally have been so inclined, the Goddess of Love made people unsteady at this proximity. Others approached as if to offer condolences at a funeral.

In the modern world, this event was mostly about Izena's Sacrifice, a literal Goddess sacrificing Her life on behalf of people whom She had no obligation to help. The Anastasis was cause for celebration, but it did not change the fact that the Black Goddess had originally given all of Herself with no expectation of reward, spent 944 years dead, and lost Her body permanently. Izena knew the pilgrims were here mostly for Her, they always were. There were many murals and statues and ceremonies and holidays celebrating the White Goddess' Return, but all of those analogous feelings for the Black Goddess were concentrated into this one event.

Izena had decided well before She died never to deny people whatever comfort they obtained from literally deifying Her. So, She released Herself from Izenakee, and walked toward Her statue, intending to sit nearby and thus make it psychologically easier to approach Her. It would be a slow journey, since there were many worshippers to meet along the way.

When She reached the first kneeling man, She knelt next to him.

"Thank You," was all he said, without opening his eyes.

"You are welcome. I wish it had not been necessary, but even equipped with hindsight, I see no better alternative. I would do it the same way again."

Except She would have a much longer talk with Menelyn first.

"We know You would," he wheezed, overwhelmed.

Izena leaned towards him, to speak more intimately.

"I was willing to die, because I love everyone who rejects evil," Izena replied, and tapped his shoulder twice. "Everyone."

Viewing Herself objectively, Izena understood why speaking to Her made people feel this way. What could anyone do to prove Herself to be a benevolent Goddess more definitively than what Izena had done? She had repeatedly opposed a godlike Monster of Corruption on behalf of humanity, sacrificing everything and receiving no reward. Her Essence had been too holy for the vaporization of Her body by that evil to damage it; She had transcended mortality through a combination of raw power and love. Then, reviving after 944 years in a manner possible only for one Goddess loved by Another, She had descended into the abyssal depths to vanquish that same enemy with literal Sunfire ignited by Her bare hand, asking nothing in return for any of it. Afterward, despite that hand wielding the power to destroy anything, everything, to make civilization beg for mercy, prostrate itself before Her and grovel for the opportunity to pay any ransom She demanded, it instead braided hair in glorified hotel suites for millennia while She intimidated war and exploitation into extinction by existing.

This man was speaking to that Goddess, right now. Her voice seemed to suck the blackness from His closed eyelids. It was natural that he could barely speak. She understood.

Izena rose, and walked to the next pilgrim.

This one was crying.

"I, I cannot even imagine, what it was like," she said. "Evil that could hurt You."

"Good," Izena replied, grasping both of her shoulders. "That is Our intent. That is the nature of total peace. That you cannot imagine anathema means everything was worth it. It makes Me glad. Know that none will ever return, because I have two new Sisters Who make it impossible for evil to hide or escape from My Justice."

<She would not be upset if You hugged her, and her daughter.>

So Izena did, then shot a little lightning bolt at the girl's request. Izena's bolts could incorporate Menelyn's mana, giving them the sunlit glow strongly associated with divinity by the public, so they looked more like rays of divine judgment than the spells of other black mages. The bolts would utterly annihilate anything they actually hit, but passively clean and heal the surroundings. The grass that this one passed over now looked a little healthier than it had been.

Izena rose, and walked to the next pilgrim.

----

When Izena finally reached Her statue, She stared up at Her old body, depicted in its last moment. Her diminutive little Sister had only reached Her chest. Belying Her eight-millennia braiding hobby, Her hair was fanning behind Her. It had been as perfectly straight as Menelyn's, but unreflective black to the same extent that Her Sister's was gleaming silver. She had worn it in the long and unadorned style traditional for Corza daughters, the same style that Menelyn had immediately and enthusiastically copied after being adopted. She still categorically refused anything else.

Kennalaria spoke suddenly.

"You look so...athletic. The Dome statues don't show it well, since You are only crouching and up on a platform, but here, it's very visible."

"You cannot even imagine," Menelyn said wistfully. "She did backflips and handsprings in the middle of Our sword fights while I flailed My little arms around, and could do it all in a way that kept Her hair from flopping in Her face. It always fanned out behind Her like this, like a little cape to the middle of Her back. It was ridiculously unfair, and She looked so...supernatural? Like humans shouldn't be able to be so effortlessly elegant so consistently. I swear it's part of why people started to believe She was a Goddess, and Me by extension. The rules were different for Her."

Kennalaria stared at the statue for a little while. Eventually, the time was right.

"Am I hard-coded to believe that Izena's original form is the embodiment of everything that is cool, and the feminine ideal? Because wow, I need to sit down."

Izenakee giggled, and Izena swelled with pride. She had raised little Kenna well. A prodigy had grown into a master.

She raised one of Their eyebrows. No need for more.

"..." Menelyn swallowed, shifted Her weight back and forth, and wasn't sure what to look at. One Sister shared Her body, the Other could read minds, and Her Daughter...This was so unfair. "...You were...really tall, and You could...be assertive, and people listened to You. I would have looked ridiculous if I tried to be like that, but it was natural for You, and all Your features were so dark, especially to mage-sight, not all bleached," it had not taken long to transition from hesitant to gushing, "and You were so charismatic and fit and so graceful and You could go from laughing to terrifying in no time an-and maybe I'm cute but only cute, You know? You were alluring. And mysterious, like You always knew some secret no one else did, or were smiling at something funny no one else had noticed. It's way--"

A few onlookers were chuckling. The Sisters' mutual love was well-known. The world would be fine, because this was the nature of its omnipotent Goddesses.

Menelyn felt a little awkward when She belatedly realized where She was, but extolling Izena's virtues was never something She would regret doing.

Izena just smiled. "Sometimes, I do miss being taller and more imposing. But like I said when You brought Me back: We are bound, permanently and irreversibly, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Still are. Still wouldn't."

No need to reply. Group hug time.