The Flight Of The Dea Praxidike
I stood in the cavern with a lit torch. Warm orange, red, and purple light flickered and bounced off of the brown, grey, and black stones. Another mortal had died. Another mortal needed to be guided down. The same thing, over again, just like it had been when I first took up this position.
I had often read what my sister brought back from other planes. Legal codes, music theory, biographies of people who had lived and died far from where I would ever reach even if I did planeswalk using the family spark. Things that used to exist. But it was in the stories she brought of other planes’ divines that I found the term “psychopomp”, which I supposed was the closest word to describe my duties.
I met the soul of the dead. Thankfully, unlike the last time, this one was a Thyrsian. The centaur was cradling her arm, as though expecting it to still be broken. She was faded and washed out as all newly-dead souls were. I kept my torch raised in my right hand and offered my left to her. She took my hand after a moment when she realized where she was. Together, we set off further down into the cave and towards the House of Endings.
My mind wandered as it always did during this part of the journey. This was repetitive, known, familiar. I was happy with my duties. But at the same time, I felt a yearning coiling within me, where the family spark would be if I were the one to have it. Even without the spark, I felt too restless. Was this how Lily felt all the time?
I soothed myself by going through the same spiel I did every time I guided a soul down. “We are heading to the House of Endings. Once we are there, you will go through all you saw in life and make amends for any cruelties you have done and then be cleansed. Then you can choose to return to the mortal realm as a guardian spirit, to reincarnate, or to simply rest.”
The souls of the dead did not speak. At least, they didn’t speak to me. Ending could get an answer from them, but as the eldest daughter of the Dea Xenia, Ending could get words out of anything. It was ancient in the same way the rest of our plane was. Everything respected it.
I went quiet again. My mind wandered back to one of my early judgments. The one that made me less confident about how I reacted to when mortals would hurt each other.
I was six or seven years old. Not that it mattered much; Bralla, Lily and I did not grow or change over the years. We looked the same as we always had, and anything we did to change how we looked faded faster than it did on mortals. Lily regularly dyed the streaks in her hair but didn’t bother with cutting it off. Bralla and I helped each other take knives to our own hair to keep it short and manageable. We had no guidance other than our titles. I hadn’t even named myself then.
There was a satyr man who wanted to clear land and create a feast hall. He had an axe and was going to cut down a sacred tree containing an ancient nymph. Galateia. She was an Epimêlis, a protector of sheep flocks and a living fruit tree. She was one of the first to turn her tree into something that the mortals could eat from. And now one of those very mortals threatened her tree. She prayed for protection, for the weapon to be laid down. It was a prayer more befitting my sister, the Dea Soteira.
I had lied slightly when I told this tale to other demons I had met through the communications network that the Dea Pronoia showed me. Like my sisters, I could intervene even without prayer. The goddesses did what they wanted, and I was no different.
The axe swung. I landed and grabbed the shaft, keeping the blade from biting the bark. The satyr stumbled over himself in apology. I hadn’t heard it. All I heard, all I saw, was someone who had only been thinking of themself against all of the teachings that the mortals had received over the years. So I passed my judgment well before its due time.
His hunger never waned after that. Not even when he turned against his own body.
And when he died, the Dea Telos handled it. The soul was cleansed and then sent on to reincarnate, the satyr’s memories lost in the darkness on the way back to the light.
I took a deep breath and loosened my tight grip on my torch. My knuckles had gone white, my muscles cramped, my grip clammy. Part of me still felt angry. Most of what I felt now was guilt. I should have done something differently. I should have waited before passing judgment. I should have just settled for scaring him off.
We made it down to the House of Endings proper. My contribution, a wall of flame, parted smoothly in front of us to allow the two of us to step through. As the centaur stepped over the threshold, color returned to her features and she gasped.
The House of Endings was both underneath Thyrsus and stood alone as its own realm, just as the divine realm did. All tunnels lead to the same singular entrance. The cavern was lit by balls of fire that did not require fuel and the river of flames, water, and light that encircled it all; the River Katharízo, which cleansed the dead on the way in. Fields of asphodel and poppies, the comforters of the deceased, stretched out so far that it would take a mortal soul several decades to find a wall beyond the sole entrance. In the distance, the places of rest could be seen, comforting areas that reflected the mortal realm in architecture or layout. The souls of nymphai and lotus eaters had chosen to recreate forests by picking their preferred locations. In the far distance lay a lake that spanned like an underwater ocean, the home of telkhine souls.
Every soul, regardless of whether my creator or my sisters made their species, had a place in the House of Endings at the end of their lives. If a mortal wished to reincarnate, they would disappear into the shadows that somehow still remained. If they wished to return as a spirit to guide and guard the living, Ending would lead them back over the River Katharízo, cleansing them a second time and sending them up. Elsewise, the souls of the dead remained to rest. Some were still here from when the second souls taught the first souls the laws of hospitality post-mortem. Others were scared of losing themselves.
I had lived here for most of my existence, carving my own cavern into a wall that mortal souls did not notice. It was the closest I had to privacy. Deities could visit each other’s divine realms and often did so, but I didn’t enjoy the company of most other goddesses, so I just stayed in the House of Endings. Ending itself never complained or...well, said anything at all about it, so I assumed there wasn’t a problem.
I felt the pulse of power as it built before us on the other side of the river. Darkness, decay, and the soothing calmness of death itself took form. I bowed low as Ending appeared in its preferred guise of a minotaur a few feet taller than I was. The mortal soul followed my example.
River Katharízo did not impede Ending at all. As the host of the realm, Ending could walk across the river as though it were stone. Its hooves didn’t even sink into the magical waters as it approached us. It had chosen to appear with brown fur of the same shade as our shared creator’s skin. Its hands were slightly lighter than its fur, and its hooves were a shiny black that matched its curved, ram-like horns. While we weren’t particularly bothered about our mortal forms, it preferred to appear wearing the same clothing every time – a simple royal purple chiton held up with brooches depicting dragons, with a black hooded cloak layered on top. Ending was naturally beautiful in any form it took on in a way that none of us could ever match.
Her voice was soft in the same way that rotting wood was soft. “Thank you, Dea Praxidike. I will handle this one.”
I kept my expression the same despite the guilt and shame. “Of course, Dea Telos.” I offer the mortal soul a smile and step away, almost fading out of view as Ending takes over and leads her into the river.
It had been like this for the past seventeen or eighteen years now. I was always the assistant, not allowed to make calls or pass judgment on mortal souls, not since my last mistake. I tried to soothe myself by imagining that Ending might not have realized how many years had gone by, but even that lie fell flat. I certainly tried to make my job sound more interesting when I explained it, but I was ultimately just my sister’s secretary for managing the dead.
Pull yourself together, Cinderblaze, I finally hissed at myself. Just panicking isn’t going to change anything. I extinguished my torch with just a thought and plunged myself into the darkness. I watched Ending walk through the fields with the centaur woman for a few minutes. Then I turned and disappeared towards the mortal realm.
I emerged from the cave and breathed in the harsh, salty air. There’s only one cave entrance even remotely close to where I wanted to be right now, which actually meant that it was a few miles away and up in a cliff. There was a light wind that carried the promise of harsher ones to come. I took a deep breath, shook out my wings, and flung myself into the air. I caught the wind beneath the fingers and membrane of my wings and allowed myself to glide for a few moments. Then I began to beat my wings to stay aloft so I could actually reach my destination.
The port village of Actalia was one of my sister Lily’s few holdings in the mortal realm. Wooden buildings and wooden docks with stone foundations. Wood was a strange choice for a port town, but before Actalia had a goddess guarding it, they simply had to make do. It was exactly the sort of thing that tugged at my sister’s heartstrings and led to her becoming a trickster goddess.
I painted a smile across my face while landing outside of Actalia. I pulled my wings close to my back and made sure my three tails only curled lazily behind me. I needed to act the part of an older brother who was still in control of his duty. Whether or not Lily saw through it didn’t matter. I had to keep it together for the mortals.
My hooves were quiet as I stepped across the stone pathways. Mortals greeted me like one of their own, and I greeted them in turn, though I couldn’t keep up with who all spoke to me or not. I sought out my sister’s temple. All I had to do was follow the well of water magic wrapped in the same cycle of life and death as my own brazier of fire and Bralla’s beacon of light. I ascended the stone steps and passed the lit fires of the brazier outside. So long as it burned, the doors would remain open, and the chill in the air remained at bay once I made it across the threshold. Luckily, my younger sister was in this temple and turned to greet me, as though had already known that I was on my way.
When you looked at me, you saw the Odithian demons I was patterned after; the fire that I was made from colored my eyes. When you looked at Bralla, you saw the Odithian angels and the light in her eyes. But when you looked at Lily, you saw our mother, and even her eyes were the exact same.
I think that's what always pissed Lily off the most.
Bralla and I were consciously designed, made to be similar yet different, but Lily had once lamented to me that she felt as though our mother took too many shortcuts. She was shorter than us, she had no Odithian features beyond those our mother bore, and to hear her tell it, our mother had even forgotten to grant her blood or ichor and certain anatomy that mortals pretty standardly had.
Even still, her smile belonged to her alone, and I was thankful to see it when she saw me. “Cinder! Come in, I was just putting away some new notes,” she said as she beckoned me further into the library-like interior of her temple.
I gratefully picked a cushion to sink down on while she scurried up a ladder to place another tome on the shelves lining every wall. I let my tails curl around the cushion and readjusted so that I could stretch my hooves in front of me. I still had my torch, but it remained unlit, so I dismissed it into the core of my being just so I wouldn’t keep holding it.
Lily plopped down on a cushion next to me. I could feel a small thrumming from her, a sign that our mother had given her the family spark when she returned recently. “Hey big bro. What brings you up to the surface?”
My smile fell a little before I quickly caught it and put it back. “Figured I should get my head out of the dirt like you tease me about.” No need to mention another dismissal, another job I couldn’t do despite my designated duty.
She saw the slip. Of course she did. We were the closest to each other. “Alright, Cinder. You can stay here as long as you want, of course. Let me know if you want anything.”
A lump suddenly appeared in my throat. I swallowed it down. My voice came out smaller than I meant for it to. “Thanks, sis.”
“Any time. And I mean that.” She got up. “You want some tea? I picked up a blend from Kamigawa that Koda recommended.”
I snorted softly. “Are you sure you’re not in love with him, Lily? You talk about him a lot.” As soon as that left my mouth, I was worried that she’d take it the wrong way.
To my relief, she didn’t. “Ha! No, I’m pretty sure I don’t experience those emotions. It’s just nice to have a mortal friend. I recommend you find one too, it does wonders.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “I don’t think I’m sociable enough for that...”
“Neither am I. I met Koda because he beat me to a kill.” She held out a hand towards me. I felt the family spark pulse. “If you want to travel again, I can give you the spark.”
I hesitated. I could leave the House of Endings for a little while without issue. After all, Ending had appeared to lead the dead well before I was crafted. And I did enjoy my previous visits to other planes like Eldraine, Lorwyn-Shadowmoor, New Capenna, and Theros. Especially New Capenna, what with the Riveteers who had no issue with me observing their worksites.
I turned slightly to look out of the doors of my sister’s temple and towards the ocean. Omenpaths to our plane opened up above the waters. I knew there was one out there that led to New Capenna, one that the Obscura and Riveteer families shared from what Lily had told me previously.
“...What if...I travel without the spark?” I said softly, putting words to the yearning in my chest.
Lily leaned back on the cushion, propping herself up with her hands. “I mean, now’s the prime time to do it, since Mother hasn’t closed any of the Omenpaths that Ending and Beginning agreed to let open,” she reasoned. “And you have wings. You don’t need a ship like I would.”
“Does...does receiving sacrifices still work even when we’re on other planes without sparks? Or do I need to worry about food?” I knew that Lily had recently left without her spark, though I didn’t know the details. “...Do we even starve?” I knew that we couldn’t die, but starving was far different from dying.
“I didn’t have any issues, but I still ate mortal food anyway. I recommend you do the same unless you want to help me research this.”
I shuddered. “Nope, not this time, sorry adelfí.”
Lily pretended to pout for a moment, but I could tell that she was already thinking of something else. “Which plane do you think you’ll go to? Do you have clothing to fit in there already?”
“New Capenna. And...sis, we can materialize clothing. It’s practically the only thing we can change about ourselves.” I hadn’t intended to say that. Not aloud.
She grimaced slightly. “Right. Yeah.”
I shrunk a little at her tone. We fell quiet for a few minutes.
Finally, she spoke again. “Keep your communicator with you, adelfós. Please. I want to be able to contact you.” Her hand found mine and squeezed. “And vice-versa, just in case.”
“Fisika, adelfí.” I had given up on planar common immediately. I took a deep breath and moved my hand to give hers a gentle squeeze back. “Look out for Bralla while I’m gone?”
She snorted. The tension disappeared between us. “Like our baby sister needs backup, as though she’s not the one who usually saves us. But I’ll make sure to tell her what you’re off doing.”
I offered Lily a grateful smile. After a few more moments, I took a deep breath and stood up to leave. She stood up as well. I didn’t know what to say. What could I? I had already fumbled enough of this conversation.
Before I could say anything else, Lily dragged me down into a tight hug. “Come back home eventually,” she said softly.
I hugged her back. “I’ll try.” That’s all I would promise. Or maybe it’s all I could promise.
I took off into the air as soon as I left the temple, my clothes already shifted into the very same ones I had chosen when I first visited New Capenna. I had wound up in the lowest level, the Caldaia, and it had been the most comfortable place in the entire city while I was there. And that was, in theory, where the Omenpath to New Capenna led.
I swooped down low over the water, allowing my momentum to carry me a few yards before I flapped my wings again and regained some height. Flying was a workout that I desperately needed after remaining in the caverns leading to the House of Ending for so long. I even did a roll through the air just to make sure I could. I laughed once I pulled it off; I realized that I hadn’t felt this free in a long time.
There were scattered islands in the waters and the air that acted like the continent’s honor guard. I landed on one that I didn’t remember the name of to take a break before I continued to the Omenpath. The island was decently large, but I stayed away from whatever village was on it. I wasn’t tired, not even close, but I wanted to feel the sand under my hooves. So I landed and plopped down into the sand.
The sun was setting, taking the little bit of warmth it granted in winter with it. Ending was in charge of making sure the sun moved as it was supposed to, just like Beginning commanded our moon. The goddesses of the stars and constellations would be emerging from hiding soon.
A breeze kicked up. I tensed when I realized that it carried a warning and climbed back to my hooves.
It was a bit harder to identify the other goddesses, the ones that weren’t directly my sisters or my creator. But I realized that the harpy who landed nearby was another god. One who typically appeared as a telkhine like he was before he became immortal, but who could freely shift in the exact way that Lily, Bralla, and I couldn’t. But there was a green tint to his feathers that made it immediately clear who they were, he bore a nose and lips like a siren rather than a harpy, and the fine blue chiton with a sea monster brooch to hold it in place that they wore made it obvious.
“Sea-Roamer,” I greeted, keeping my tone level and professional. I refused to be prone to bouts of anger and frustration. Not anymore.
“Exactor,” the Dea Haliplanktos greeted with a smile on his face that didn’t even attempt to reach his eyes. “Odd to see you out here.” I didn’t like the way he was looking at me, how his eyes took in the Capennan clothing I wore. “And dressed so...strangely, even.”
Every step he took made me more tense. I shrugged my shoulders, spreading my wings slightly. I was trying to keep my posture calm and relaxed. I didn’t want him to see how much I didn’t want to talk to him. “I’m traveling again,” I said simply.
“Without praying to a fellow goddess when you’re over the water?” He pressed a hand to his chest. I didn’t know if he was genuinely offended or just playing it up.
I tried not to make my irritation obvious. “That’s not how it works, Sea-Roamer.” Goddesses did not pray to each other. Not on Thyrsus. We worked together of course, but that didn’t require prayers from one to another.
“It’s a joke, Exactor.” He was only a few paces away now. I hoped he stopped there. “You’re quite tense.”
I did not rise to the bait. I had heard Lily haul him and the other goddesses down a list of their most recent exploits at the last meeting that our mother held. I didn’t like him much well before he decided to cause an upset in the mortal realm by creating a new monster species that had caused my workload to triple overnight before Lily got the help of that extraplanar draconic demon to study them and gave the information on how to take them down to Bralla.
So instead, I offered a closed-mouth smile that was dangerously close to baring my teeth. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Another step closer. I willed myself to not tense up more. The Dea Haliplanktos offered me a smile that I saw nothing but a threat in. Even still, I scowled when he reached out to touch my shoulder. His smile must have seemed charming in his own mind. “You are gorgeous, Exactor. But high tension is not a good look on you.”
I took a step back. “Do not touch me, Sea-Roamer,” I growled. I fed my anger and resentment and disgust into my flames until they flickered off of my body. A warning. He was a much older goddess than I was. More powerful, especially here, surrounded by the ocean.
I needed to get away fast.
“Come now, Exactor.” He took another step towards me. “There’s no need to be hostile. I am merely paying you a compliment.” His gaze was leering.
I thought back to one of the phrases I had picked up from those Riveteers who had helped me learn about New Capenna. “You can take your ‘compliment’ and shove it up your ass.” Before he could respond, I spread my wings and beat them to force myself up into the air. Being made from fire meant that I could always make my own thermal to get height quickly. Then I took off through the air towards the New Capenna Omenpath.
It was low, partially submerged in the ocean, and apparently connected to a “canal” on the other side. I swooped down to it and felt its shield’s resistance falter as I whispered the password. Once I could push fully through, I flew through the tunnel and emerged in the Caldaia. The family symbols around this Omenpath were twofold: Obscura and Riveteers. I let out a small sigh of relief and landed on the solid walkway next to the canal.
I took a moment to brush myself off, smooth down my shirt, and readjust my suspenders. I hated trying to put on shoes with my hooves, so I had skipped that annoying part. The pants I had chosen were cropped just below the knee for the same reason. I had hooves, two wings, three tails, and four horns. If anyone had an issue with the demons I resembled, they’d have to deal with it on their own time.
I knew that someone was approaching and finally turned when she approached. She was a cephalid woman, maybe around my visible age but most likely younger. She was well-dressed in a three-piece suit under a trench coat. Her head tentacles were arranged to look like a boyish haircut favored by the sapphics of New Capenna. The bioluminescent patterns across her skin were shifting in what was clearly a nervous display and occasionally brightened before dimming again. She offered me a smile but didn’t meet my eyes. “Hello, uh...sir, ma’am, or mir? I am Vanah of the Obscura, I’m...supposed to speak with you and make sure that you’re...”
“Supposed to be here and not a threat?” I guessed, taking a little pity on the woman. She must have been new, and, well...it wasn’t like I told anyone on this side that I was coming through. “I’m Cinderblaze of Thyrsus.”
She nodded nervously and whispered into something in her trench coat. I tried not to listen in, but I could overhear someone giving instructions to Vanah. I just waited patiently until she was done. She nodded once and turned back to me. “We’ll have to ask you some questions regarding your intent on traveling here.” Her patterns lit up for a moment as she cast a spell that settled into the area.
“Of course, Miss Vanah,” I said with a nod.
“O-okay! So, first question, what brings you to New Capenna?” As she asked that, she found a notepad and a pen in another pocket of her trench coat and prepared to write.
“Traveling. I did a lot in the past, figured I’d retread familiar ground.”
She scribbled down that answer. “Desparked planeswalker?” she guessed aloud. She realized what she had said, and her patterns collected towards her cheeks and lit up softly. “I-I mean, um-”
“It’s alright,” I soothed. “I, uh...I am.” It was a long story to explain to someone and technically the truth – sometimes I had the spark, but most of the time I didn’t, ergo, desparked.
Vanah nodded and kept her eyes on her notepad instead of on me. “Retreading familiar ground means that you’ve been to New Capenna before. Do you have any connections or enemies here?”
“I used to know some Riveteers, but I do not believe they survived the invasion.” I had planeswalked back two years ago to try and find them, but knowing who all was dead was alarmingly easy for my magic in this city. I made sure that they had received the proper last rites before I headed back to Thyrsus to give Lily the spark back. “No enemies that I’m aware of just yet.”
She nodded again and kept writing. “And what organizations are you aligned with back in...” She hesitated for a moment before trying to pronounce my home plane like I had. “Thuh-er-suss?”
“Thur-suhs,” I corrected. “I’m the Dea Praxidike aligned with the House of Endings.” She had grown flustered at my correction, but blinked owlishly when I had continued. I amended my statement. “I’m part of the pantheon. I help to look after the dead.”
“Oh! Okay, I think that makes sense.” Vanah wrote some more things down. “Um...I don’t think there’s anything else I need to ask you, but let me check.” She spoke into the thing in her coat again. She nodded again after a few moments and dismissed the magic that had sunk into the area. “Okay, that’s all! Thank you for your patience, Mx. Cinderblaze.”
I didn’t quite like that title, but I offered her a smile. “And thank you, Miss Vanah. I hope you have a lovely day.”
I watched her leave, then took a moment to figure out my next move. Lily had recommended that I make sure I eat mortal food just to be sure that I would be fine. It would probably also be wise to figure out where I could stay even though I didn’t actually sleep.
I took a deep breath, chose a direction, and started walking. I’d figure things out as I walked.