When the mana explosion subsided, the area was barely recognizable. I fell several meters to the ground but the newly churned earth broke my fall, not that my strengthened body would’ve had an issue with that distance. Assessing the damage to my body, I was pleased to find that my barrier had soaked most of the force leaving my vessel with only minor injuries.

My gaze swept across the area to assess any further threats but found none. A few meters away, Enlil laid in the dirt. He was missing half of his right arm and leg and the rest of his body had sustained severe bruising from the concussive force. His breath came in shallow rasps, almost inaudible to my ringing ears. Another pang of admiration hit me; I had expected him to perish in the blast given his position in the epicenter of the explosion.

A thin trickle of mana drew my position to another body some distance away.

I walked over to find Enki, barely holding onto consciousness. Like Enlil, his body looked horrendous, black and blue from extensive bruising, yet he was still whole likely due to taking less of the explosion head-on. The thread of mana coming from him wove itself into magic as I approached. The soil at my feet became muddy causing my footsteps to sink a few centimeters then it flowed over them before hardening. The power behind the technique was so weak that the soil only achieved the hardness of clay.

“I won’t let you trample on her dream,” Enki choked out, a gasp in between each word.

I stared at the mortal who claimed godhood. I recalled my first interaction with him and how haughty he’d seemed. Yet, he’d displayed the same tenacity in defeat even back then. That will was a distinctly human feature; one I had considered nonsensical in those days.

Since then, my opinion had changed, and staring into Enki’s swollen eyes, I came to a revelation.

Years of interactions with great men and women had taught me something important. Those of truly extraordinary capability and intent did not follow convention or logic. Sargon, the son of a gardener, couldn’t have become the first emperor of the Akkadians, even with my aid, had his dream been reasonable. The illogical drive to gaze into the unknown, to raise one’s head in defiance of the absolute, to fight against unwinnable odds: that drive afflicted humanity with madness, a madness capable of elevating mankind beyond what they were.

Perhaps, like Icarus, they would crash to their demise as a species for aspiring to heights greater than their ken but perhaps, they wouldn’t. They were still young, after all, and the young would never succeed if not given a chance.

I pulled my feet from his meager restraints and knelt next to him. For a time, I watched his hand tremble as he futilely tried to summon more mana. I reached out taking his hand.

“If you hadn’t protected your nephew, you might’ve been in fighting condition still,” I said. My eyes flicked to Utu who was the least injured of all. He was mostly buried under a few layers of crumbled earth; only his head was visible. Enki merely glared at me as I continued. “Though you’re a fool, you’ve earned my praise, child.”

“I…,” Enki said but his lungs faltered resulting in a coughing fit. His face twisted in pain all the while. The tight feeling coiling in my being had built to nearly unbearable levels of pressure.

“Rest,” I declared injecting mana into my words. In his weakened state, Enki couldn’t resist. His body relaxed and his eyes closed.

Using physical contact with his hand as a bridge for my mana, I pushed my mana into his body. His soul resisted as was natural; however, even at full strength, it couldn’t have successfully ward me off. With the connection established, I enacted an alternative use for Fleshcrafter.

I forced his body to regenerate setting a mild pace fueled by a small kernel of concentrated mana that I anchored to his soul. The bruises covering his body lightened. It’d take several hours for him to recover adequately enough to move but recover he would.

I spared one glance at Utu before I made my way back to Enlil and repeated the process. Unlike Enki, Enlil’s soul didn’t resist which was odd since I was certain it’d recognize my mana as foreign. I checked his soul for damage and found none leading to further confusion.

“She was… right about you.”

The words could hardly be called a whisper. I looked at Enlil’s face to find one bloody yet focused blue eye staring at me. His other eye was too swollen to open.

“You continue to impress, firstborn,” I said. My curiosity peaked its head out from the whirl of emotions in my mind and I asked, “Why did your soul not resist my mana?”

Thoughts of a hidden insight into the human soul flitted through my mind. After all, one of my known flaws was my inability to truly understand the soul without one of my own. I had considered creating one for myself but I had no idea how to begin even as the most powerful entity in the Old World. Additionally, a soul came with several weaknesses that I saw no reason to take on as an astral being. All that said, insights into the nature of souls helped improve my power over those who had them so I found it hard to resist the lure of such information.

“Because I trusted you,” Enlil said. A few coughs followed though to my ears, it sounded like he was chuckling.

“You’d place your trust in someone who had the intent to kill you? Perhaps too much of my companion’s foolishness rubbed off on you.”

“You lie,” he rasped. “You had plenty of power to spare. We wouldn’t have survived if you willed it so.”

“I was merely being efficient,” I replied. I almost believed it too.

“I’m glad I was wrong about you.” He cough-chuckled again. “Be gentle with her.”

“Sleep,” I said adding more mana than was necessary and speaking a bit more forcefully than the situation warranted.

As I left Enlil's unconscious body behind, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d lost the confrontation with the three sons. Like so many other nuanced and difficult emotions back then, I pushed the feeling aside and ran toward the stone circle.

***

I sped through the stone circle, a construction of titanic stones that stretched over a little less than a kilometer. I marveled at the circle as I passed the massive stones. I could sense the ambient mana in the air, not only from the ritual but from the stones themselves. The megaliths stood in parallel sets of two set deep into the earth and capped with slightly thinner stones. The effect created several archways and a few passages. Smaller stones sat on the ground at seemingly random intervals. Despite the wonder of its magnitude, what surprised me most was its age. I sensed the latent mana in the stones and it was old dating back nearly two millennia.

I balked at this revelation.

Did she do this so long ago? How long has she been planning this? I slowed to a walk as I considered the ramifications of this megalithic structure’s age and arrangement. The stones weren’t arranged in any random manner. They mirrored the early version of my modified Bridge or my Astral Gate as I’d taken to calling it. I scowled remembering our argument long ago in Ur. That was the first time she saw my modifications to the structure and… the timeline matches roughly.

These weren’t the only correlations I discovered. In the center of the stone circle, I sensed several individuals with minor mana signatures. These humans bore the distinct mark of my fleshcraft on their souls and more distressingly, their mana felt similar to my oldest surviving fleshwarped, the very same one whose memories had led me here. The fluctuations in their mana revealed their current use of magic likely as a part of the ritual. I’d known about the historied relationship between my companion and my oldest fleshwarped; however, feeling her offspring participating drove home how deep the rabbit hole went.

Aside from my oldest, how many of my creations had my companion interacted with over the millennia, and to what ends?

I reached the inner circle and laid eyes upon her. She laid upon a slanted stone with her feet partially buried in the earth. Her nude body had been covered from head to toe in mud drawings that to most would look like a chaotic mess of lines and swirls. To my eyes, I recognized them as two-dimensional versions of complex structures from her astral body. Around the stone bearing her body, the earth had been hardened in a circle and carved with hundreds of patterns similar to those on her body.

Kneeling at the edges of the circle of hard earth, nine of my fleshwarped’s brood pressed their mana through their hands. Their faces were pale and their brows dripping with sweat from the strain.

At the sound of my approach, one of the nine, a young girl with otherworldly features, looked up and her eyes widened with horror.

“You’re— no! Stay back!” she practically screamed.

In her defense, I looked like a monster with my bulging muscles, burned exoskeleton, and clawed hands and feet. She looked down at the circle then back up at me as I continued to approach. At this point, the others had noticed and displayed the same horror and indecision at my presence. Several of them had begun to stand before a calm voice broke the tension.

“Be calm, children. He has not come to harm me or the ritual,” my companion said. Her head turned to face me. The smile on her face pained me beyond what I thought possible. “Look how easily you scare your grandchildren. Brigantī hoped to one day introduce you.”

I knew from her memories that Brigantī was the name chosen by my oldest fleshwarped. Hearing the tenderness in my companion’s voice when she spoke of her pushed the tight feeling to the forefront once again but this time, I couldn’t suppress it. My “grandchildren” watched as I stepped into the circle of hardened earth. Some of them exclaimed in distress but nothing came of my entering the ritual circle.

I had already read the composition of the ritual with my mana tendrils and shrouded my body in a veil of neutrally-aligned mana so that my presence wouldn’t cause a disruption.

“You presume much,” I said with no conviction. How could I have any? I had seen the ritual and its function with my senses. I understood what it meant.

Her smile never wavered. She extended a hand toward me. “Come here.”

I took her hand and the act nearly broke me. Once we touched, she hid nothing from my astral senses. The walls in the Astral disappeared and I looked over her astral body. The tight feeling within burst outward consuming my senses. I lost control of my body which collapsed to its knees against the rock on which she laid.

Heartbreak, misery, anguish: call the feeling whatever you desire. It ruined me there. The closest comparison I can make is to imagine going to the hospital to visit a sick loved one, then seeing their body withered and frail with disease while they smiled at you as though everything would be alright.

Her astral body looked like a skeleton of its former glory. Emptiness took the place of areas once densely packed with beautiful and intricate structures. I had known what to expect when I had inspected the ritual a moment ago. Yet, the reality of it shattered the fragile facade I’d maintained.

You are dying. I had no other way to put it. Her body in the Astral was breaking down and becoming something else. Her consciousness wouldn’t survive the process. It was the closest thing I could imagine to death for our kind. Why did you do this?

The pain in my astral communication made her smile falter. She stroked the side of my face, her fingers lingering on the burnt bone protrusion near the cheek. I dreamt of ruin for our home. I saw my children scream and wither. I had to act, to prevent it. But… this was not my first choice. I did not wish to cause you so much pain. I’m sorry.

If I had been capable of sobbing, I would have. Her communication came across fuzzy like a radio signal filled with static— a symptom of her astral body’s condition and further proof of her fate. Still, her meaning reached me with a clarity that spoke of her willpower and desire. That meaning wreaked havoc on my already shambled mind.

She had apologized to me. She apologized even though it had been my hardline dismissal of her connection to humanity that pushed her away. It had been my selfishness and stubbornness that isolated her. It had been my pride in my power and denial of my attachment to humans that had ruined any chances of repairing our relationship after the argument so long ago. It had been my arrogance that stopped me from seeing this outcome.

While I played puppeteer with the lives of mortals hiding behind a thin veil of separation to fuel my denial, she built intimate connections to humans and laid the groundwork for her plan. While I gained power in the Astral, she prepared to change who and what she was on a fundamental level, all for the sake of those she wished to protect, most of whom would never know of her sacrifice.

And to make matters worse, her communication revealed that the ritual was causing her great pain as it slowly deconstructed her very being and integrated it with the Old World. It was a horribly slow process due to the mana constraints of my companion; I estimated it would take another few weeks for the ritual to finish and it had been going since her walls appeared a few months prior. My grandchildren weren’t aiding with the ritual. They were using their pitiful amount of mana to ease the transition for her.

All of this and she had apologized to me.

I am sorry, I sent. My mana slid smoothly into the ritual framework and dwarfed the contribution of the nine young humans around me. My companion’s eyes cleared and she gasped, her pain vanishing with the assistance of my power. I failed you.

You didn’t. she said. I shouldn’t have tried to push my desires onto you. It has been a joy to watch you thrive. This way, you can grow unburdened and my children have a chance. I will be the earth from which their growth will spring. The water, the air, the plants: my essence will permeate it all making them stronger, body and soul, over time. They are…. Ambitious. I will be the wind which bears them aloft to whatever heights they must reach.

You are too kind to me, I responded pathetically. I couldn’t take her candor in my current state. She placed no blame on me. Her determination carried her to this point and she was simply glad I was here with her. I do not deserve such sentiment.

She laughed, a few tears sliding down her cheeks. That’s not how love works, my dearest companion. I love you. You are as much a part of me as my children. You are the sky that gives me hope. You are who you are and that is all you need to be deserving of my love.

I think… I love you too.

I understood love in a clinical sense; it would’ve been impossible not to after interacting with humanity as much as I had. However, I hadn’t ever felt it myself and hadn’t known what it would be like for an astral being like myself. Thankfully, her communication made it clear and I sensed the texture and depth of the emotion in the Astral.

I know you do. She smiled, her eyes dancing with joy. We have been one since the beginning.

She pulled on my face and I surrendered to her control. Our lips met and she poured a thick tide of emotion into my astral body, enough to make my physical form with the human vessel quiver. It was the most intimate interaction we’d ever had.

I’d like to say that the kiss inspired me to save her, to pioneer a way to reverse the ritual but it didn’t. All it did was add to my emotional disarray and add bitterness to the mix. The bitterness emerged from the realization that I kissed her with the lips of a puppet. My real physical form was an ooze for all intents and purposes because I had never seen the point of making my true form humanoid in any manner when I could just puppet the body of an appropriate specimen. I considered forming a human body then and there but I saw no point with her death fast approaching; the moment had passed. If I wanted it back, I would have to make another.

I resolved then to do something I never imagined myself doing.

The weeks passed with us holding each other. I watched her die as the ritual continued and tried to take solace in easing her suffering. I wracked my mind for ways to undo the ritual or circumvent it but my mastery of mana failed me for the first time in my existence. If I attempted to interfere with the ritual, the magic would stop yet the damage to her astral body would remain crippling her permanently as her astral form buckled, unable to support itself. Meanwhile, most of the expended mana would be wasted or become locked impotently in the earth without all of the necessary structures to perform its function.

So, instead of interfering with the ritual, I dedicated my efforts to improve it. I wanted to make her sacrifice as meaningful as possible. I spent vast amounts of mana, nearly draining my astral self, to maximize the efficiency of the ritual. I carved channels for her mana into the tectonic plates. I forged her mana into the heart of the Old World and threaded layers of earth surrounding it with her structures adapting those that didn’t fit the transition to the Physical so they could.

My companion lost more and more cognizance as the process continued. Her body began to age rapidly before my eyes. Her astral form became a husk of intermittent structures suspended impossibly in the Astral like disembodied limbs. Still, she held my hand throughout the entire process.

When nothing but her core structures, the very first basic structures she’d made for her body so long ago, remained, I sacrificed something of my own. Her core structures couldn’t make the journey to the Physical, no matter what I did. As the center of an astral being, they were fundamentally incompatible with such a conversion. I wouldn’t let them be converted into mana by the ritual.

I forfeited several hundred structures in my astral body and converted them into mana. From there, I built a bridge between our bodies giving form to our longtime connection. I ignore the pain and moved most of her core structures into my astral body. My companion’s eyes widened for a second as the solidified connection to me gave her a bit of clarity. I leaned my head against hers.

To her, I sent, I will find a way to bring you back. Rest now. Let your heart join mine. When you next wake, we will be together again.

In response, she whispered something in my ear and the anguish pulled tighter.

I used the last of my available mana to push the ritual to completion. One would expect such a grand ritual to have a momentous conclusion or spectacular finale. This did not.

My companion’s presence just vanished from the Astral and her eyes lost focus as her body went limp. I let the withered hand fall from my grasp. She wasn’t there anymore. I was alone.

I turned to face those who had gathered. Her children, my “grandchildren”, Brigantī who had found her way to the site in the weeks since our meeting, and even some of my bound mortals who wandered to me after feeling my mana pulse through the Old World.

“It is done,” I said.

Enlil who stood stoically at the head of my companion, no, my Libbu’s children approached me. He and the others had said their goodbyes to her in the weeks prior while I worked. He bowed his head to me and the others followed suit although some seemed reluctant.

“Thank you for making the journey easy for her,” he said.

I ignored him and walked past. Once I left the stone circle, I couldn’t be bothered to maintain my physical form any longer. I didn’t want to be in the Physical anymore. It hurt too much. So, like a puppet cut from its strings, my vessel collapsed and my real form became lifeless pudding oozing from the former vessel's nose and mouth.

In the Astral, I lamented my solitude and cursed my inadequacies. Libbu’s last words played over and over in my mind as I tenderly generated mana to sustain her core structures within my body.

Live a long life, my beloved, and look after our children.