Stars talk all the time. Usually, only other stars listen, but it looks as if I can do whatever I want now.
“Can you?” I asked skeptically as I narrowed my eyes at the air before me.
Okay, no, not exactly, she grumbled. I need you to direct me—focus my light, if you will—but my power has been released by Fate. We aren't restricted anymore!
“Released by Fate? What does that mean?”
It means that Vainamoinen freed us! That rapist bastard actually gave us a gift when he pushed us away from his power.
“So, Al was right; Vainamoinen's soul tainted you.”
He says tainted, I say liberated.
“Vainamoinen was evil,” I growled. “There's no spinning that.”
Yeah, but he only touched us with a minuscule amount of it. We're just a little bit wicked. A teeny tiny bit naughty. That doesn't make us evil, just normal.
“We are not normal. This is not normal.” I waved a hand around me to indicate our conversation and the state of my living room.
Fair enough. She—it—giggled. Whatever. Fate doesn't control us anymore, Vervain. That evil freed us from destiny. Your path is now up to you. Walk wherever you want. Hell, cut down some bushes and make a new path.Explore the forest!
“But Faerie told me once that my destiny can't be changed; too many people are tied to it. Only the way to it can be altered.”
Faerie doesn't know everything. She didn't see this coming, did she?
“She didn't seem to know what this was. So, no; I guess she didn't.”
This is what you've always wanted, Vervain; to be free to make your own choices.
“But what about the people I'm connected to? What about their destinies?”
They're alive. We're not going back in time to change anything. They can choose their own fate too. Isn't that a good thing?
“I suppose so.” I frowned.
A strange lethargy crept over me. What was this feeling? Oh, wait; I knew what it was. I had felt it once before. Peace. I was relaxed. This is what it feels like to not worry about anything. Wow; it was nice. I took a deep breath and let it out with a smile, all of my muscles going liquid.
Yes; it is nice, the Star agreed. Nothing pulling us in a direction we don't want to go, demanding things of us that we don't want to give. The future is now a blank book; a journal to write upon. And we get to write whatever the fuck we want!
As she spoke, I grew more and more relaxed. I sank into an alpha state; that calm, meditative condition where the brain slows down and becomes more receptive, creative, and focused. It's the same powerful state I sink into when I cast a spell. But I wasn't trying to cast a spell. I didn't have to do that anymore. Everything was within my reach, even those things beyond the scope of my base magics. The Trinity Star was greater than the sum of its parts. With its connections to the Void and the Great Nine Magics, I could do anything.
I had a sneaking suspicion that the star was controlling me instead of the other way around. I would have worried about that if I could have felt worried but all I felt was calm. Once that calm settled in, another emotion started to blossom within it. One that should have felt at odds with the calm but didn't; excitement. The wild rush of possibility. The realization that I could truly have whatever I wanted. I could feel the old me sinking beneath these rising emotions. I clutched at her as she plummeted, but I couldn't hold on. Too slippery. Too tired. She wanted to lie at the bottom of the lake of our soul and just sleep. I needed to let her sleep.
So, what do you say? Star asked once the old me slumbered.
“I say; I want some breakfast. Eggs Benedict with crispy hashbrowns and coffee. It's been awhile since I've had coffee. I've been drinking a lot of tea lately, and I'm tired of it. I want coffee with lots of cream and sugar. In fact, make it a latte.”
One latte coming up!
Breakfast appeared on the table before me; hot and fragrant. I gathered up my notes and stacked them neatly aside, moved my laptop to the far end of the table, and then started to eat. My laptop woke up when I moved it and showed me a frozen picture of a dragon; a YouTube video. I lifted my brows in interest and hit Play.
The story of Tiamat, Babylonian Goddess, started to unfold. I watched in rapt fascination as I enjoyed every mouthful of my breakfast. It was a hell of a story. An inspirational tale.
The collected Pantheon of Mesopotamian Gods is a little jumbled, with gods having multiple names depending on the region and century, sort of like the Egyptians. To add to the confusion, the Pantheon not only includes several regions and cultures but also spans several time periods. The oldest of these civilizations were the Sumerians from the Sumer region of Southern Mesopotamia. They were pretty badass; they invented writing—cuneiform, to be exact—and the wheel. Ever hear of the Epic of Gilgamesh? That's from Sumeria.
Under the Mesopotamian umbrella are also Akkadian Gods, from the empire of the same name. They're a little younger than the Sumerians, and they ruled what is now Syria and Lebanon. Then there are the Gods of the Assyrian Empire, once a part of the Akkadian Empire. They ruled from Egypt and Cyprus in the West all the way to Persia—modern-day Iran—in the East. Finally, we have the Babylonian Gods. Babylon was a minor city-state until this guy named Hammurabi freed it from foreign rule and then went on to conquer the whole of Southern Mesopotamia. If you've been paying attention and happen to know your Middle Eastern geography (which I didn't until I watched the documentary), you'll realize that we've just
