Chapter 139 - The Ultimate Choice
[Rosalynd].
Falling. I don’t know how long it is that I fell. Time flows differently as you face your death. I don’t feel it when I stop, I don’t feel anything. Everything just goes dark.
So this is death.
“You are not dead,” a familiar voice calls to me from the void, I recognized this voice when it first spoke to me in the forest, and again when it spoke to me through the oracle. It is the Universe, the one that controls the ebb and flow of all energy in the cosmos, the sustaining force of life here on Terra and Tara, the tether that keeps the worlds connected.
“But you are also not alive.” Another voice calls to me, this one is darker. I have never heard this voice before, but I know it as well as I know the first. It is the void, the devouring one, the end of all things.
“I am also the beginning of all things,” he adds. “My seed made the universe fertile. Without one the other cannot exist. Without death, there cannot be new life. Such is the order of things.”
“But you, Rosalynd, are outside the order.” The Universe confesses. “As long as you walk the Earth, you will be a temptation and a threat to all those who want to control universal powers because you are not merely mortal you are something else.”
“Or you will be,” Void adds. “As soon as you learn to embrace and accept all of who you were meant to be.”
“And what, exactly, am I meant to be?” I demand of the two entities playing with my heart and mind, holding my soul in limbo.
“You are neither here nor there,” The Universe implies both herself and her brother-husband. “You belong to neither The Void nor myself, and yet you are a part of us.”
“Are you saying I am something in between the two of you?” I feel so confused and lost.
“No,” The Void replies. “You are The In Between.”
“The In Between, you make me sound like I’m an entire universe onto myself.”
“You could be,” The Universe remarks. “If you wanted to be. But maybe not for a century or twelve. Who knows. Evolving into a celestial doesn’t always work out the way one might expect.
“Are you saying I’m some kind of goddess?”
“Of a sort, in the way that mortals mark these things. But in truth, only you can define what you are,” The Void explains. “ You need to manifest your truth. This is your life. You are alive. You can choose how much of your power you want to use, and how much you wish to lock away.”
“But please, my dear, choose wisely.” The Universe warns. “You are needed in this moment to restore balance between us, but if you cross a line into trying to take either of our places, either as a creature of pure soul, or a creature of the void, we may need to take measures to neutralize the imbalance. As it is now, with your inability to control what and who you are, you are already putting all of our realities at risk. No matter what, you need to keep Victor Vex from harvesting your abilities. He doesn’t have the right kind of soul to bear the powers that you contain.”
“We manifested you into being, Rosalynd.” The void interrupts. “You are our child as much as you are the child of all those souls that contributed to your making. We crafted your unique soul from the soul of those who fell. Victor merely crafted the vessel. You were created for a purpose, Rosalynd.”
“I didn’t want to be made of souls!” I shout at them both. “Why would you create me from so much pain and death?”
“Would it help to know they gave their lives willingly,” The Universe offers. “Would you like to speak to the souls themselves? They are all a part of you, of what makes you who you are. But if you want to see them separately, it is within you to try.”
“How do I…where would I start?” I ask, feeling lost. “If I want to communicate with the lives that made me possible, who would I start with and how…?”
“Me,” Willow comes out of the shadows. My beautiful wolf, her white fur blowing moving in the breeze.
“You are one of the souls?” I ask. “You had a life of your own once?”
“I have always been tethered to another soul, as a wolf spirit needs a human host, but yes, I had my own life,” she confirms. “I was a young guardian of the forest once, much like your handsome mate, Axel. When the warlocks came for me, I wasn’t prepared. I fought back as hard as I could, but they killed me anyway and burned my forest to the ground.”
“Oh Willow,” I want to weep for her but I don’t seem to have much of a solid form in this realm. The act of crying seems a bit beyond what I can do. “I am so sorry.”
“I’m not.” She smiles wolfishly. “Yes, I loved my previous life, my human life, and my wolf life, but as I lay dying, I had a similar choice to make as the one you are making right now,” she explains. “The Universe showed me a vision of the girl who would be born from my gift, the child who might save the world. I chose to be a part of you, Rosie. I wanted to be with you.”
“We all chose you, Rosalynd,” a beautiful woman with a voice that pierces the heart steps forward, her long red hair glowing. She must be a siren, I realize from the way her voice calls to me. “We could have chosen oblivion and peace instead, but we wanted to be a part of you.”
“We saw the spark of light that was at the core of who you are, the love your soul had the potential for, and the contribution it wanted to make to everything and we decided to give you our blessings and our gifts,” an older soul, one of a powerful witch speaks up, standing next to my wolf and the siren. “Please know that while there may have been dark magic at work in your creation, you were made in love.”
“We all love you, Rosalynd. Please choose life. For you and your babies, our only living descendants.”
“I was the last of my kind,” a voice like tingling bells rings through the dark. It is a beast, larger than the others, made of a jumble of animals that seems to change the longer I watch. “But now I am not. You and your babies carry what is left of me. I am so glad to know that part of me will live on.”
One by one the parts of my soul came forward to say they wanted me. One by one I got to meet those who died by the hand of the warlock who calls himself my father.
And they are beautiful. Each and every one.
“Have you made your choice,” The Universe asks me as the last of my soul fragments disappear into the darkness.
“Yes,” I speak up, answering them both. “I have.”