I was?always surprised at how warm fresh blood was. It thrummed alive, every part of me a thin quiver reaching?out and fading into the air. Its deep, shifting hues, the way it clung and cooled, the way it flaked away like ash. All of it was a language, ancient and raw, that spoke straight to my soul. With reverence, I drew the sigils; each motion?was deliberate, and I carved each line like a silent prayer in crimson.


    With each passing moment, as I worked, I felt the air shift, charged by Her approach. The tiniest breeze stirred and, in that instant, cooled the blood spread upon my body. I didn''t stop. I let my fingers dance in the inked patterns of scars below the fresh carmine offering. The white lines rose through the red like shadows through mist.


    And then She came.


    Her arrival was not heralded with sound, but by sudden stillness; a presence so immense that silenced the world. She stepped right into my offering circle, and everything I was, thoughts, breathing, heartbeat, merged into Her, like spilling a cup of water into the depths of an unmeasurable ocean.


    She was beautiful in ways beyond mere words. The blood coating Her body shone, a dark patina that never dried, glistening like the river at midnight, living and flowing like a silk dress in a light breeze. Her shape, as I stood there staring at Her, was protean, impossible and yet still terribly human, so achingly familiar that my own voice shook. And Her eyes, or the voids in that perfect face where eyes should be, emptied themselves into infinity. Void and overflowing in equal measure, black yet glimmering with all the light that had ever been, both the sparkling nebulae and the dark and empty night sky. To look into them was to feel the weight of existence pressing down, to see the fragile thread of what I was stretched against the vast tapestry of what lay beyond.


    I dropped onto my knees, shaking beneath the weight of Her gaze. Still, I could not look away. I didn’t want to.


    Her voice came, not as sound, but as truth carved into my very essence.


    YOU HAVE DONE WELL


    YOUR OFFERINGS HAVE PLEASED ME


    AND YOU DID WHAT I ASKED TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITES.


    YOUR RESULTS WERE NOTHING SHORT OF PERFECTION


    AND AS A REWARD, I WILL GIVE YOU ONE GIFT.


    ASK, AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE


    Smitten, my heart was bursting with emotion too big to hold inside. I had always given all to Her, never expecting anything in return. My worship was not born of desire for reward but of awe, of the privilege to exist even as a shadow in Her radiance. Yet She offered. She offered! And I could not squander such a sacred moment.


    "My Lady," I whispered, my voice shaking, "I am unworthy of your kindness. To serve you is the only gift I have ever sought. But if I must ask, then I ask this: a single kiss, to feel your touch, or, if such a request offends you, to stay in your presence a little longer, so that I may gaze into your eyes and lose myself in you. That’s all I could ever want."


    She was silent for a moment that stretched into eternity, and I felt the weight of her gaze deepen. The void within her eyes opened, drawing me closer, and I felt myself unraveling, thread by thread, until all that remained was my raw, unguarded soul.


    YOU SERVE, AND ASK FOR NOTHING


    AND YOUR FAITH IN ME HAS NOT WAVERED ONCE


    YOU THINK OF YOURSELF AS UNDESERVING


    YET I HAVE CHOSEN YOU FOR A REASON


    SO THIS IS WHAT I OFFER TO YOU;Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    I OFFER YOU MY HAND IN UNION, SO THAT YOU MAY NEVER BE FAR FROM ME, INTERTWINED


    I’LL BE YOURS, SAME AS YOU ARE MINE.


    DO YOU ACCEPT?


    I saw Her for the first time. Not the god I had worshiped from afar, not the untouchable deity I had kept on a pedestal, but a presence vast and eternal, now lowering Herself to meet me. I saw the size of what she decided, the burden of what she was offering. I felt the enormous weight of what She offered.


    I spoke through tears streaming down my bloody face.


    "My Lady, I would give my life and more. I accept. I accept with all that I am, all that I will ever be."


    She drew closer, and her form shimmered with light even beneath the mantle of blood. She held out a hand; as I clasped it, the world appeared to break down around us. Her touch branded itself into me, not in pain, but in power, a flood of understanding and connection so profound that I felt myself dissolve into Her.


    Then, our lips met, and I blacked out.


    …


    Death is Change,


    even if exempt from it.


    same as water is exempt from getting wet,


    same as fire is safe from scorching itself,


    Death is exempt from Change,


    And nothing else is.


    …


    I awoke sprawled on the hardwood floor, the lazy morning sun stabbing in through the window and straight into my eyes. My skin was stuck to the floorboards with dried blood, and its adhesive grip gave way with a sickly pull as I shifted. The sound was soft, visceral, bringing back all the memories of last night. I sat up then, working kinks out of stiff limbs; sleeping on the floor had pulled my muscles tight.


    The mirror in the bathroom greeted me with the ghost of another life. And in an instant, as I caught my reflection, I saw her, completely submerged, deep inside the brown of my eyes, like a leviathan resting beneath an ocean of calm. Her presence made tears spill, trailing warmth over my cheeks. They weren''t the tears of sorrow but something stranger, closer to reverence.


    The shower hissed alive, and scalding water cascaded over me, washing off the blood that clung to me like a second skin. It swirled, red and dark, down the drain, revealing the intricate lattice of white ink etched across my body. I traced the delicate linework with my fingers, following the art like one would follow threads in a spider''s web, each line a prayer, a promise. Only my back remained untouched, an unfinished canvas waiting for completion. No matter how much I had tried, I never managed to reach my back with the needle, which now seemed obvious, but in that moment in my life I was blinded by submission, not enlightened by union.


    "Someday soon," I whispered to myself, knowing right then and there that I would find someone worthy to finish what I had started what felt like so many years ago.


    Dressed, I returned to the scene of my awakening. The floor wore my bloody silhouette, a grotesque outline of my form. Droplets traced a path to where I had lain. Evidence of the Lady in Red, when I was but a fragment, not rejoined to the whole I had become.


    Mopping was too slow, too mundane for this ritual. Instead, I jabbed a needle into my finger and watched the bright sting explode. One droplet of blood beaded on my skin, shiny and scarlet.


    All blood was mine. It always had been.


    I willed it silently, and the congealed residue on the floor stirred and coursed, heeding my command. The shape melted away into nothing, sucked back inside me. A little smile played on my lips, a simple thing, yet so satisfactory.


    I had not eaten that morning, a conscious act of fasting to frame what had occurred the night before. My body felt lighter, sharper, as if I carried less but had infinitely more. There was no need for excess, no need for spare clothes, for everything I might need could be asked for, haggled for. I carried offerings inside me now, an endless currency of blood.


    The platform was abuzz with the inane hum of travelers at the train station.


    My destination: Seovecurt, Aedland.


    Not my first journey abroad, but this mission was unlike anything I had undertaken before. Absolutes did not wander lightly, and their proximity was both summon and warning.


    Even I, an Old Daughter of Change, was but a whisper in the presence of an Absolute. My parent was a being whose nature overshadowed mine, and to be in its shadow was both a proud thing and a humiliation.


    An assistant interrupted my reverie with a question, his voice curt but courteous. "Ma''am, I need your name and contact information in case of any sign of Hemotaxial Disorder present within the train."


    The words hung in the air, a relic of a pandemic whose scars still lingered. Hemotaxial Disorder. My masterpiece. A malady so intricate in its design, so simple in its execution, that even now theories of its origin spiraled into oblivion. It had run its course, its purpose fulfilled, and I remained quietly proud of the chaos it had sown.


    “Ophelia Morelis” I smiled and met his gaze with calm authority.


    …


    I spent the entire journey in a wordless prayer, both worshipper and Sacrifice, mortal and immortal.


    In Aedland the air was fresher, though it would be a lie if I said that I could smell the sea. I had to go to the beach some day soon, before too many things were set in motion. I could feel that it would be some time before I stumbled upon the people I had to find, but I had all the time in the world.