100 Words: As Moon is my Witness

The gaps in the clouds looked like giant bats ready to swoop; the branches great webs, their masters hidden; and, between them, Moon shone- a spotlight following me, an eye watching, staring into my soul and reviewing my sin.

I stumbled, felt the spiders, sprung from their hiding places, crawling over me; felt the air from the bats as they swooped, waiting for the command to strike; saw Moon’s glare as he accused me, made me view what I’d done again and again.


I was found in the morning a quivering wreck and confessed to my crime before being asked.

---

Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt:

 

PHOTO PROMPT -© Madison Woods

An InLinkz Link-up

Myths of our Solar System (22): The Six Dwarf Children of Mother and Moon

After the First World had pulled apart and This World had formed, its people were clueless
as to how to continue. Before them was a land of earth and rock, plants, trees and
animals. All of which they knew nothing at all. They had seen some of it in the gardens
around the Tree of Life but had never taken the time to learn about it all. That had been
the domain of the servants, who were all now either deceased or transformed. Some
wizards knew but they were aloof creatures and spent their time furthering their studies
rather than teaching at the start of This World. In short, the people had lived in a world
without worries or concerns and now they had to learn how to live. The Six came and
showed them how.

The sextuplet dwarves had been the darling of the First World when they were first born,
seen as a sign of Mother and Moon’s great love. As they grew, however, people could see
they weren’t normal (particularly when also given the behaviour of Eris and Makemake)
and they were shunned, their parents keeping them away from the rest of the population.

Soon they became forgotten by most but not by Saturn who had seen what they would do
long before they were born. And thus, as with Jupiter, he kept them (apart from Eris) safe
from The Chaos that existed after the First World began to tear apart.

And so The Six, long drifted from memory, seemed to come from nowhere. Many
speculated about where they had come from and where they had been. Upon emerging
from their shelter, five of The Six saw their mother walking aimlessly, seeing nothing, her
brain a fuzz of shock and sadness.

Together they tried to catch up with Mother, seeking to help her. But it was difficult to do
so whilst also trying to get through the crowds and avoiding falling rocks and so before
they could do so she transformed before their very eyes.

They all stopped in unison, staring at the earth spread out before them like a rug. Until
Ceres stepped forward and laid down on her front, the others following her example. They
each put out their arms in an attempt to hug their mother, grasping handfuls of earth with
their fingers, their tears intermingling with the soil and muddying their faces.

There they remained for hours, the grass forming around them, leaving them in a perfect
circle of earth. And they did nothing but weep for their loss. Until suddenly they each
thought they heard the voice of Mother. Frowning they looked at one another before
putting their ears to the ground and finding that they had not been mistaken.

And they each listened, then whispered. Listened. Whispered. And Mother Earth
imparted the secrets of This World that she was still shaping around them so that they
could help build its society alongside their brother, Jupiter.

Myths of our Solar System (11): The Lycanthropic Rites

He didn’t see it as a curse. No, to him it was, or had once been, the Holy Grail. For years
he had sought out this life, searching one to turn him so that when the sun went down he
could let his bloodlust run rampage.

He was perfectly respectable during the day, working a perfectly respectable job with
a perfectly respectable firm, living a perfectly respectable life, keeping within all the
boundaries set up by the state. His night time lawlessness, however, knew no bounds. As
his flesh turned and he gained his animal muscles and will he fled his safe spot looking for
raw meat to feast upon.

All day he would sit in his office staring at the sky and the clock tapping his fingers,
his human heart beating steadily faster as he got his work done, sweat building on his
forehead, his mouth dry, his skin itching, his hair on end. Until the time came to go to
that spot, remove his clothes and wait for the change that should have hurt every time but
never did because of his excitement for the crimes he would be able to commit and never
be committed for.

Tearing through gardens, splintering doors, ripping flesh clean from bones, tasting blood.
And nothing could touch him in that form, he was virtually invincible- blades broke, bullets
deflected.

The rites performed nightly for himself and for his God of pure evil. His debt being paid off
in blood and never the very human feeling of remorse.

Myths of our Solar System (10): Moon, the changeable and repentant former man

As The Chaos that existed in between the First World and This World whirled about him,
Moon, wracked with guilt at what he done and not understanding at all why or how it had
happened, soon began to go mad.

And then, after he had seen Mother turn to earth and scatter herself, Moon knew his place
was not in this new world. So as The Chaos continued, Moon, just as Mother had, saw
what must do. His final act in This World was to help bring balance to it by becoming one
with the a nearby mountain and withdrawing from it forever.

Now Moon sits staring at his sweet love and he moves the sea water to try and gently
caress her extremities twice a day as he once did to her whole body with his own fingers.
But, knowing little about her new form, he barely touches Mother Earth: only doing so
along the banks of tidal rivers, an action Mother takes for the unwanted attentions of her
cousin, the Sea Hydros, anyway.

Shrouded both in light and darkness Moon still flits between moods that help alter the
course of events taking place on the front of his former lover. When his rage is at its fullest
and most blind he brings werewolves to stalk and curse his children. When his love is at
the same peak he transfers it to the ground in the form of Cupid’s arrows.

But mostly he hides on his dark side and looks back at the mistakes he made in the Old
World while still in his old form. Ignorant of the poisons he took, Moon ruminates as to
how, fermenting his regret like the madmen who stare at him and the dogs who howl at
him. And Moon curls into a ball deep inside himself to try and forget the woman he lost
and who he watches at night as she stares back, each blind to the other’s attentions.

And he plays in his head those final scenes in the First World, when the last angry words
were spoken, those words of awful power that came before the final separation from
Mother.

And he hopes for the day when he and Mother might be joined anew, destroying the world
of their children so that they can start again.

Myths of our Solar System (7): Mother and Moon, leaders of the First World

At the start of the First World the people all ruled together. In time, however, many grew
tired of this and two people were chosen to rule, a husband and his wife, and a council
was formed to assist and advise them, each representing different parts of the First
World’s society.

Mother and Moon were the two selected. Brought together by Mother’s twin sister, Venus,
they were seen as the great lovers of the First World and were beloved by all so that no
one sought to replace them. Although there was one man, the husband of Venus and
close friend of Moon, who had been passed over for rule because there was something
about him that people distrusted: he was not even selected for the council.

His jealousy and desire for power would cause him to force Mother and Moon apart, an
event that would destroy the First World. For what he did not know was that as their rule
went on, the pair, without knowing it, had become increasingly linked to the structure of the
First World so that its very existence became dependent on their love.

The end started when that man, who would wreak much havoc in the following years,
had begun to poison Moon’s food with a substance that made the man changeable. His
behaviour began to move in phases, the periods of which were as erratic as his moods.
One day, hour or moment, he might love Mother still but it never lasted and eventually
he would become a ball of hate or indifferent even: sometimes barely recognising her
existence, sometimes not knowing who she was. Such was the cloud that the poison
brought to his mind. This new character pained Mother deep within. Her Moon had
become someone else.

*

The arguments between Mother and Moon begun before The Betrayal and, as they
went on, the servants noticed the stones of the First World begin to move just a little, the
intensity of the movement depending on the ferocity of the argument. Although sometimes
they noticed that the arguments they overheard had no effect at all.

In the meantime Moon’s mind became more addled and he began to be unable to
distinguish between Mother and her twin sister, Venus. Now Venus had noticed this and,
having become estranged from her husband, the man seeking to separate Mother and
Moon for his own ends, and having over time become jealous of the love between Mother
and Moon, Venus saw that she could use these moods in order to destroy their love.

In order to do so she started to dress in Mother’s clothes and enter Moon’s chambers
to visit him when no one else was around so that her identity could not be pointed out.
Quickly the plan began to work and despite having to sometimes bear the brunt of Moon’s
temper, Venus also felt his love on his better days and, unlike her sister, went to bed with
him, with the hope of one day being caught.

And one day she was. Though Moon was confused at the sight of two Mothers before
him, the resulting argument with the angry one was sharp and short and shook the entire
First World, such was the depth and pain of the feeling Mother held within her bosom.
Before she left her naked husband and sister, Mother slapped Moon with such ferocity that
the poison’s hold left him and Moon saw what he had done. And that there was no going
back.

That is when Mother and Moon drew away from one another forever and tore the First
World apart, bringing it to its end.