One of the oldest stories we have features two goddesses. One descends into the land of the other, dies and is resurrected. The goddess of the underworld seems older, more entrenched, than the sky goddess who descends.
The only reason the sky goddess is able to be resurrected is due to her loyal servant and friend who mourned the her and asked the other gods to spare her.
The god of wisdom sent two creatures down into the underworld with a simple task: bare witness to the goddess of the underworld, share in her pain, and she will give you a gift.
So they went and found the goddess of the underworld in agony, and they cried out with her, sharing in her pain. Just as the god of wisdom said, she offered them a gift. Any gift they desired.
They asked for the corpse of the sky goddess. The goddess of the underworld explained who the corpse belonged to, but they persisted.
And so the dark goddess allowed them to ascend, and the creatures gave the sky goddess the dust and water of life and she lived again.
But they didn't leave the underworld without a price. The absence of the sky goddess left a void that had to be filled. She chose her husband to take her place below. Not her sons, or her loyal servant who mourned for her, but her husband.
He was able to escape in the end, by calling out to the god of justice who turns him into a snake.
There's a lot of debate about why the sky goddess wanted to descend in the first place, knowing no one comes back from the underworld. The translation says she "turned her attention to the underworld."
The scholarly consensus is that the sky goddess wanted the power and territory of the underworld.
But my theory is the sky goddess sensed her sister's pain and went to investigate. Maybe, even in her naivety, she thought she could change the very fabric of the underworld by appeasing her sister.
The sky goddess is wrong, of course. Nothing can change a fixed state, and she pays dearly for her mistake. But with her resurrection and ascent, she's granted the power of life and death.
She chooses life for herself and death for... Her husband lol.
It centers around women witnessing each other, saving each other, and testing each other.
One of the oldest examples of mythology we have takes the pain of women seriously enough to structure the world around it.
About two months ago, I had a horrible fever that made me delirious and gave me the craziest dreams and nightmares. (Turns out I had pneumonia.) In the midst of the pain, psychological and physical, I apparently experienced deranged inspiration that had me opening a Google doc to write this crazy AU for Wangxian: The Descent of Innana.
Specifically, in my feverish haze and high pain, I remembered one time I saw someone acting as Erishkigal — oh, oh, my insides — and the echo of the galla — oh, oh, your insides — and it haunted me. It still does. It's such a visceral scene. As we know, the Wangxian brainrot is so fierce and I started having crazy thoughts about Wei Wuxian as Erishkigal, his empathy, association with death, the traumatic pain of his core, and how the resentment burns through his body.
I only now have gone back to read it and it's intense and so OOC (as far as words/action but not necessarily themes/tone imo), the links to the original myth are hamfisted at best, etc etc but... I'm going to share it here anyway. Someone else, please do Wei Wuxian as Erishkigal better and share it with me. Now that I'm no longer feverish, I don't even feel like I can edit this and match the energy, so it'll remain unfinished for my part. My notes and the full passage below the cut.
[Wei Wuxian as Erishkigal, Wen Qing as Innana (currently a hanging corpse), Wen Ning as Ninshibur, Lan Qiren as Enki and the Jade Twins as the galla — reading the original myth I think is necessary for any of this to make a lick of sense. It's not super long!]
Wei Wuxian hissed, his breath coming in short, panting breaths tinted with whimpers of pain, a nasally wheeze he was ashamed to release. “Fuck, my liver, my liver—”
Caught on, Lan Xichen was the first to speak in response this time. Without hesitation, before Lan Wangji and his vibrating form could respond, Lan Xichen spoke. “Oh, your liver, your liv—”
“SILENCE! Have you come here to remind me of my place? Have you only slipped through my gates to witness this punishment, to see how I am barren and yet demanded to give birth to death, rebirth to resentful spirits, through not a womb, as I remain a man, but a cavernous hole within myself that weeps gore and viscera, hot blood and crushed bones? You may laugh, and perhaps I may laugh with you, but you may not antagonize me with that voice.” Wei Wuxian’s mangled form lifted from the floor like a boneless animal, not a snake or a worm, not anything that benefited the land, but a ragged carcass lifted to reduce rot, to prevent disease, burned on the pyre and forgotten. His black hair, indistinguishable from the wicked shadows, hung loosely behind him, only red eyes glaring from the center of this wicked form.
“Wei Ying—” Lan Wangji lurched forward and called out, not concerned in the least by the beast in front of them, an entity beyond death — evil incarnate. Lan Xichen simply witnessed, silenced and cynical, but patient and diligent. After a brief flare that choked the light they immited in the abyss, Wei Wuxian collapsed onto the floor on his knees, his head hanging low and his hand clutching at his chest, long claws drawing rivulets of vibrant blood that spread out equidistant to the walls, placing him at the center of an 8 spoked wheel.
“Ah, Lan Zhan, oh,” Wei Wuxian whispered, weeping with less force than before, “oh, my heart, my heart…”
"Oh, oh, your heart, your heart... Wei Ying."
Notes -> some writing
Minor note: mostly written in the past tense, but for some reason LWJ is present tense? Blame my fever brain but there's something to it. Again, this is unedited aside from a couple typos. Take it as you will.
Wei Wuxian as Erishkigal, ouch, my insides, ouch, ouch, your insides.
Lan Wangi & Lan Xichen as Galla
Lan Qiren as Enki, god of wisdom and water
Wen Qing and Wen Ning who accidentally ‘caused’ the death of Jiang Yanli, to which Wei Wuxian feels a grief he cannot contain and aches for. To try to control himself, he locks himself deep in the cave, near his blood pool, and commands that WQ strip herself of every vulnerability she has before entering.
WQ as Innana asks WN as Ninshibur to take action if she isn't back in 3 days.
Contact the Jin. Contact the Wen. Finally, contact the Lans, the last hope. Jin and Wen laugh in their face, questioning why such a demon should be helped, stating that they aren't real kin. Would WQ really sacrifice herself for that wretched soul?
At first, LQR is suspicious. Would WWX truly kill WQ? When he made so much effort to keep her out of the underworld, even when he witnessed the death of his true sister from a distance? He is the god of wisdom and water and cannot deny the call to act. From the side of his vision, he can also feel the pressure from his own, the one that refuses to blend in the hoard like his brother had before elevating to leadership.
Lan Wangi convinced Enki (LQR) with support from LXC. LXC warns him of his oath to neutrality, even as he follows this command. Wen Ning is distraught, but determined, confident that this can be mended. His sister was without her weapons, her clothes, her medicine and decoration that distinguished her as a Wen, but he knew WWX would not hurt her. Not truly, not permanently.
If anything, he should be the one to take her place if needed, the fault all his own.
“So much pain, so much pain, oh, bring me relief WQ, please, I beg. Kill me if you must. Request your needles, your poison, anything that empowers you in this. You are the only one, the only one. I do not ask that you take my place, the loss of Jia— shijie is the fault of neither you nor your didi, it is strictly my own and I suffer for it. To suffer alone, jiejie, is torture beyond imagining, and I can bare it no longer.”
“Kill me if you must, and see if it brings back her return, your— shijie,” WQ says after a pause. “I will stay with you here as a corpse and ease your pain, and perhaps your sister can once again feel the sun as God's grace.”
“I'm so alone, WQ, and I hurt so, but I cannot, I cannot. Her return does not negate my guilt, your death only compounds it. Your presence will become a curse, Wen Qing, and I will bear it with my body, with my soul.”
LWJ & LXC slip the gates with their whispy energy as planned, for they are pure beings of spirit and not contained by the above and below. They arrive to find WQ hanging from a hook, yet still wet and dripping, and WWX yowling in a primal pain so visceral it would shake any embodied ears.
LXC watches his brother's entity form shimmer and wobble, unsurprised by the reaction though he was filled with concern. He drifts closer, though not corporeal, such that when he speaks LWJ intuitively follows as told by the great one of their clan.
“Your grace, dominion of this deep realm where you reign with complete control, your shifu—” LXC chanted.
WWX moans from deep within his torso, curling around his core as if it were carved out and open, forever aching and fresh.
“Your grace, dominion of this—” he repeatedly steadily, continuing for a beat even as black and blood red shadows whipped around Wei Wuxian, curling around him gingerly as his own limbs did, like a bird's nest made by one on its dying breaths, it's legacy unknown and absent.
“Fuck, my— my— no, your uncle is not my shifu, he condemned me here in this place where I reign supreme, and I ache, I ache—” Wei Wuxian cut off with a sob, his mouth opening around vowels he can't finish, his lips harshly bitten, ragged like the edges framing his core.
Lan Wangi shimmers and vibrates, the pure luminescence of his spirit only truly visible in its glory to his clan members. He was the most powerful, lauded as one challenged by no one in depth and competence, but only Lan Xichen knew the cost of this potential, the sensitivity and grace towards all beings, dark and light, large and small. Chaotic, like the supreme being in front of him, and orderly, like the clan he had only ever been familiar with for eternity prior.
“Wei Ying,” he whispered, with a voice too vulnerable and small for divinity, a split degree of the reflection they all knew Wei Wuxian forced them to face, that they made him suffer for. Although impossible to hear, Wei Wuxian curled tighter and shook at the sound, weeping and whimpering with new vigor. He tucked his chin towards his chest, and the two brothers fathomed how it was possibly to make such a supreme divinity so small.
“Oh, I ache with what they have held, they demand and beg and wail to move through me,” Wei Wuxian sobbed to no one at all, the brothers unknowing of how WQs corpse had been witness to this refrain for days, a reprieve for the grieving force who had previously only felt the echo of their pain and suffering against the walls of this deep, eternal place. He breathed in raggedly like cracked glass, then pulled at the edge of his core, exposed, inflamed, and seeping with both formless darkness and what appeared to be an endless stream of thick blood. The crevice did not widen, though it did give, the wet sound of ripping and stitching, a yawning groan echoed from within as Wei Wuxian arched and keened. “Yet, they, my sisters, they do not pass through me, they do not bring the bliss of loving pain, they do not— I have been rejected from providing release, my curse to suffer torment out of my control, derived from the choices of others and yet framed as my own. Oh, oh, how I ache, equally for release and for pain, for both— my sisters, jiejie, how I could not call you that under the light of the sun haunts me; oh, my insides, my insides—”
“Your— your insides, your insides,” Lan Wangi stutters out quietly, mouthing Wei Ying's name silently to himself at the end. Wei Wuxian immediately growled in rage and rolled over, pushing the two spirits back against the wall tightly with the shadows of the cave.
“How dare you—,” Wei Wuxian wailed, his voice broken in anger and something akin to betrayal and grief. “How—how dare you speak to me with that voice, were you not here to— oh, oh, my outsides, my outsides!”
“Your outsides, your outsides!” Lan Wangji speaks more firmly, visibly bolstering himself against the keening sound from the dark abyssal floor.
“Oh, no, does your cruelty know no bounds? You hear me wail and tell my tale, then you, then you— oh, hells below,” Wei Wuxian hissed, his breath coming in short, panting breaths tinted with whimpers of pain, a nasally wheeze he was ashamed to release. “Fuck, my liver, my liver—”
Caught on, Lan Xichen was the first to speak in response this time. Without hesitation, before Lan Wangji and his vibrating form could respond, Lan Xichen spoke. “Oh, your liver, your liv—”
“SILENCE! Have you come here to remind me of my place? Have you only slipped through my gates to witness this punishment, to see how I am barren and yet demanded to give birth to death, rebirth to resentful spirits, through not a womb, as I remain a man, but a cavernous hole within myself that weeps gore and viscera, hot blood and crushed bones? You may laugh, and perhaps I may laugh with you, but you may not antagonize me with that voice.” Wei Wuxian’s mangled form lifted from the floor like a boneless animal, not a snake or a worm, not anything that benefited the land, but a ragged carcass lifted to reduce rot, to prevent disease, burned on the pyre and forgotten. His black hair, indistinguishable from the wicked shadows, hung loosely behind him, only red eyes glaring from the center of this wicked form.
“Wei Ying—” Lan Wangji lurches forward and calls out, not concerned in the least by the beast in front of them, an entity beyond death — evil incarnate. Lan Xichen simply witnessed, silenced and cynical, but patient and diligent. After a brief flare that choked the light they immited in the abyss, Wei Wuxian collapsed onto the floor on his knees, his head hanging low and his hand clutching at his chest, long claws drawing rivulets of vibrant blood that spread out equidistant to the walls, placing him at the center of an 8 spoked wheel.
“Ah, Lan Zhan, oh,” Wei Wuxian whispered, weeping with less force than before, “oh, my heart, my heart…”
Sumerian Goddess of Death, Queen of Irkalla, and Annunaki Princess Erishkigal is a protector of lost souls, keeper of truth, and holder of the Book of Death.
Erishkigal speaks:
Look for my face in the shadows, listen for my voice in the silence, my shroud will protect you.
Death Spirits or Spirits of Death sound so threatening compared to a Healing Spirit or a Spirit of Love. This isn’t mere modern squeamishness but an attitude shared with the ancients. Death Spirits, although they play a necessary function, made our ancestors nervous, too. Death Spirits tend to fall into one of two categories:
Spirits who are involved in the dying process or who serve to ease the transition to the next life
Spirits who are guardians of the dead, who preside over the realms of the dead, or who rule cemeteries and cremation grounds
Many Spirit Guardians of Death’s Doors remain unnamed. As with Disease Spirits, there’s some reluctance to name many of them, just in case they actually come when called, thus epithets and euphemisms are frequently substituted. Often, a Death Spirit’s true name remains secret. Hades literally means “the unseen one.” Should that name become too familiar, other euphemisms may be substituted: Polydegmon means “the hospitable one” because, after all, everyone is welcome in his realm. Pluton means “wealth,” because ultimately he owns everyone and everything.
Despite the fear they instill, these spirits can be very needed, helpful, and welcome—at the right moment, of course. Their assistance is incorporated into many spells for a variety of reasons and purposes.
Guardians of the next world and of the cemetery gates include:
Baron Samedi, leader of the Vodoun Ghede spirits, and his consort, La Grande Brigitte
Dongyue Dadi, Lord of Tai Shan (China)
Erishkigal/Lamashtu (Mesopotamia)
Hades, Persephone (Greece)
Hella (Norse)
Kali, Shiva, Yama (Hindu)
Mictlantecutli and Mictecacuiuatl (Aztec Lord and Lady of the Dead)
Osiris (Egypt)
Oya (Yoruba)
Yambe Akka (Saami)
Appeal to these guardian spirits to protect the souls of the dead, and also to maintain control over the souls of the dead, keeping them in line, so to speak. Petition them also for access to the spirits of the dead, should this be desired.
(from The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells by Judika Illes)
When she said "Oh my heart", they said to her "You are troubled, our mistress, oh your heart". When she said "Oh my body", they said to her "You are troubled, our mistress, oh your body". (Then she asked:) "Who are you? I tell you from my heart to your heart, from my body to your body -- if you are gods, I will talk with you; if you are mortals, may a destiny be decreed for you." They made her swear this by heaven and earth. They were offered a river with its water -- they did not accept it. They were offered a field with its grain -- they did not accept it. They said to her: "Give us the corpse hanging on the hook." Holy Ereškigala answered the gala-tura and the kur-ĝara: "The corpse is that of your queen." They said to her: "Whether it is that of our king or that of our queen, give it to us." They were given the corpse hanging on the hook. One of them sprinkled on it the life-giving plant and the other the life-giving water. And thus Inana arose.
(Inana's descent to the nether world, The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk
