Anira Part 2

“Luna, isn’t it?” I ask, bringing my hands together.
“Yes.”
“As you must know, I’m furious to discover that Auror was condemned for something he was betrayed for. What kind of punishment is this that never gets paid, that never ends? It’s cruel and inhumane,” I say, unable to hide my feelings from her, since she surely knows everything I think.
“Auror was destined for eternity; the Moon Goddess never errs.”
“That’s a pretty annoying point. Everyone dies. Are you going to leave him wandering alone? It’s still cruel.”
“He will not wander alone; like him, we are immortal.”
“And from what I know, you live in a sacred place far from here.”
“Did you hear what I said, child?” She raises an eyebrow. “I said ‘we,’ you are included in that.”
“He even told me that, but I don’t trust it. I’ve been aging for years; it might not show, but I wasn’t born this size.”
“When has anyone given you more than eighteen years?” I swallow her words.
“Well, it’s...”
“Exactly, you grew up, matured, and stopped aging. Your mother didn’t appear to be the age she was, and you know that well.”
She’s right. Damn it!
“Look, all of this is already too much for me. I feel his pain; guilt consumes him. You, as an elder, should know this,” I say, but she just smiles.
“You remind me a lot of myself when I lived in the celestial houses.” The angelics beside her sigh as if they miss those times. “I fell in love with him from up there; I saw him be born, grow up, become a strong and coveted man. His smile was my greatest joy.”
“How?”
“I am the one who gave life to the férnus. Because of my love for the humans' love, I was condemned even before being sentenced; love imprisoned me.”
Wow! This story is going to be a good one.
I listen intently and don’t say anything. I think I’m even holding my breath in anticipation.
“We angelics lived by coveting the lives that humans led, but that was all that was enough for us, celestial beings. Until thousands of years later, he was born, and I desired him, desired to touch him, to have him for myself and hide him from everyone. One day, restless to see that there was a woman on earth for him, I descended secretly and went to meet him. We spent hours talking about everything and nothing. Magnor was my vibrant life, the Moon Goddess surely knew everything; she always does.” She smiles again with an unprecedented calm. “Until I was called to return, and I rebelled. Magnor had asked me to marry him, with a dress and flowers, and I accepted. On that very day, I was condemned with the cruelest sentence: I would live forever, and Magnor would become a férnus as punishment for desiring a celestial being.”
“What kind of Goddess is that?” I say, covering my mouth when I see the startled looks from the angelics, but Luna’s expression remains calm.
“My punishment was to bear from my womb the mate of the now férnus Magnor. When he became a beast, he forgot me; I never had his loving, passionate gaze again. All the laws were engraved in me, the Stone of Law, which would maintain order and create each of the mates for the férnus leaders for eternity. I would see them love and have what I could not. More celestial beings made their way to Earth because I cried day and night from loneliness, and like me, they were punished and cast out of the celestial abodes. They would only return if they surrendered to sleep, if they met a férnus, and became his destined. Those they loved, humans like I loved, became férnus, and more mates were born from me—not angelics, but female férnus. I only gave birth to angelics destined for the férnus leaders.”
Damn! This keeps getting worse.
“Never has an original angelic fallen in love with or even looked at a férnus; perhaps it’s the Goddess’s punishment or what we might call fear. They would live with me for desiring the same as I did.” The angelics look at each other and share a knowing smile. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t angelic mates for the férnus within the temple; they simply don’t want to leave there and risk going outside the protection of the tower. There are many of us; in fact, there are countless angelics in the sacred tower who, like me, have fallen, being company for one another.”
She continues with her serene smile, as if lost in memories.
“The férnus concentrated all here in this territory, but it became impossible to keep so many together; there were too many. Until greed and envy destroyed the harmony of the place, and I was fragmented into four beings. The clan that once encompassed everyone is now four: North, South, East, and West. The war ended, and the férnus grew, spreading across the world. With each new clan, a new leader took charge, and a new destined angelic was born, and a new fragmentation of mine emerged. We needed to maintain the expansion of the species, and that’s how the Moon Goddess made it.”
“Wait, you were fragmented, you exist everywhere?”
“Yes, I am in all the clans.”
“Holy shit!” I cover my mouth, and they smile again.
“I came to teach you our laws and rules, to share our past and future.”
“This will take an eternity, but what does it matter? I’m immortal.” I shrug.
Luna rises, glowing like a beacon, and walks toward me.
“Child, just a touch, and everything you need will be unlocked. You were born with the information; you just don’t know how to access it.”
A touch to my forehead, and thousands of years of history begin to surge in my mind, everything passes crazily as if an incredibly powerful software is downloading into my brain. I feel my body jolt as all the memories converge and bring me to this moment.
“What the hell was that?”
“That is your story, the one you would know if you had been born from me.”
“Wow! Holy shit!”
“A great threat will arise. Don’t worry, everything is properly written in the pages of the future. This winter, you won’t conceive; the férnus child will come with the next soft snow. Auror will remain who he is, but, child, you will never be who you were.”
“I just need to understand why I was born so far from home?”
“Interesting question, but irrelevant. He could not die, and Cristaly could not live.”
“Did she have to sleep?”
“Yes.”
I begin to understand some things, and when I am about to question her again, I am alone in the kitchen.
“Ann, what are you doing here in the dark?” Auror appears, just when I was about to ask more.
“I came to drink water.”
I go to the bottle and the glass, drink my water, and as I start to walk back to our room, he picks me up in his arms and carries me there.