“Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged”
Orual entered a great cavern, different
from the one she stood before to accuse the gods. The sides and roof of the
caves were indistinguishable, while she had vision of the surrounding area
blackness hid everything in the distance.
Orual looked down and noticed that she was now standing on a circular
pillar, any floor below was now encompassed by darkness. She had not noticed
when the floor she walked in on had disappeared, but Orual was left little time
to wonder. Before her a great ethereal visage arose, its head appeared to be in
the shape of a bird, at times a raven and an instance it looked more like an
owl. While Orual could not make out any facial features, she could tell it did
not have eyes on its face. Upon
further gazing at this creature, she noticed appendages hanging around the
creature, they appeared to be ethereal wings cloaked in shadow. Once more she
noted that the wings seemed to be covered in un-blinking eyes, nothing seemed
to escape the God’s watch.
“Orual,
who has accused treachery of the Gods.” The voice was deep and cold; the sound
seemed to come from every direction and the voice echoed in her head, as if it carved
every syllabi into her mind. “In return the Gods have found fault in you, this
shall be your trial, judgment will be rendered this day.” Orual moved to speak,
but found she could not, as if the ability of pronunciation escaped her. “We,
the Gods, have watch you, mortal, from your birth, as we do with all humans. We
saw your mother die, when we received her back into our midst, we then sent a
child for you to care for. We allowed you to teach, guide and love this child.
We then gave the child all her happiness, in return for all the Gods kindness
and charity, you curse our name and then brought your accusatory scroll to
belittle us.” Upon speaking this, the God opened the scroll Orual had read at
her trial, and let it suspended in the air in front of him.
“You
claim that you loved Psyche, that you only hated us when we took her from you.
The gods of rendered judgment that you do not know love, you only know how to
devour individuals. You ask why Psyche was not devoured by a shadow brute? She
was, by you. As for Psyche’s happiness, she described all her life of a palace;
we gave it to her. When she was lonely she asked for your company, we led you
to her. You do not think the placement of the ruby was an accident? You asked
for a sign to see if it was real, we warped the fog to let you’re mortal eye handle
the godly presence. We even bore into your mind that it was perhaps a god. You
wanted to return to Psyche, we sent lions in the opposite side of the country
to have the king leave on a hunt.”
“For
all the signs we gave you, you still asked for more. It would be as if a blind
man asked to prove we were in the room, so we spoke to him, but he would not
have that as proof, he would only believe if his eyes were cured. You then
claim we took Psyche from you, first all belong to the gods, mortals own
nothing, you are only lent time. Second we allowed you to meet her and we would
have continued this meeting at her palace, but that was not enough, in your
jealously you caused Psyche to loose everything. You then accuse us of lying in
the story you heard from the priest.”
“
That myth was not the story of the haughty Orual. It was the Myth of the
Goddess Istra. The Myth is there to explain to humans the origins of the
Goddess and as a warning of the dangers of jealously. Yes both you and Redival
caused the sadness of Psyche because of your jealousy. Redival was jealous of
her beauty caused the priest to take notice of her, which led to her sacrifice
to the Gods. Your jealously was much worse, you saw her happiness and tore it
away from her for only one reason, she loved some one else. You could not even
allow the love of Psyche to be granted to the fox, do you not think we know how
you cursed him the night in the tower when Psyche was going to be executed? The
myth is not a tale of reality, but a story of truth.”
“Now
you have felt slighted and hated the gods because of what they dealt to you,
but look what we did give to you. We made you ugly, this kept you from being
sent off to become a common prince’s wife. We made your voice beautiful, so
that men would be enchanted by your presence. We made you first born, so when
we took your father you would become Queen. That’s right we have given you such
gifts to make you a ruler and if your jealousy did not destroy Psyche you would
have had a life relationship with her.”
“The
charges have been stated , we shall now have your judgment.” After a brief
pause the avian god then spoke. “We have found you guilty of blasphemy against
the gods and the cause of the destruction of Istra. Your punishment is that
your past will be changed, a third daughter will never be born to the King of
Glome, it shall have died in child birth. Istra the Goddesses shall exists and
her story shall be known, but her mortal life will disappear from memory. The
dread in these seconds before the memory is taken away is the God’s
Retribution.
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