Hope
The Ancient of Hope, they called her. Daughter of Ancients, they sang. World cleaver, they praised.
For she was made by all the Ancients of that time. She was made from their best parts, all gifted and a gift for all.
She would be called Pandora.
She saw the evils of the world, the dangers that would spread to weaker places, and she trapped them. She saw the way the veil between worlds, thinned in places, and she passed between worlds freely doing her duty.
She was a protector, a warrior, a guardian.
And she found herself settling in an fascinating space, a place of cults and magic, one of the thinnest spots the human realm had at the time. Nafplio, Hellens. It would be called Greece.
She learned their customs, and their language, and continued to every time she returned. And with each new appearance came new tales.
Her name had not yet been Pandora; so they had given her a hundred epithets, a hundred tales, and she would not have been able to tell you which were hers.
She came with her box, and she travelled far and wide, and she trapped every too-harsh thing in the world away. And every time she returned, she’d rest, and learn, and see.
She’d live. She’d love. But she was not always loved in turn.
Greece was not kind to women then.
They saw the warrior and thought her monstrous. They saw her lure their own into a realm of death, a temptress of Greek fire. They heard her stories and saw her box and thought, ‘she must have been made to punish us.’
They heard her admirers whisper of hope. ‘She must be evil’, they thought. A wild thing conjured to let loose evils upon them. ‘But humanity will alway have hope.’ They told themselves, slandering her name, and using her as a tool for their bigotry.
Still, Pandora locked away their evils, and smothered her ire, taking away deserving humans to spend their lives in paradise forever. A place that would keep the best of that culture. A place that would be a meeting place for humans and ghosts, until humans outside of the realm forgot it. A place they would call Elysium.
