Conversion

Ancient beyond ancient, she sits in her temple at the pinnacle of the highest mountain, preaching her wisdom. No one can remember a time when she didn’t exist. She holds on to life and the hope she brings to the masses. But her hold weakens. She remembers how once she was beautiful, loved and admired. Now her beauty is gone. Her shining blue eyes have been blinded by time. Her smooth golden hair is white and tangled; her attendants have long dissapeared. Her skin is creased with the deep fissures of age. And where once her voice was as heavenly as the song of a bird, it is now harsh and pained. To her, beauty does not matter, but to those who follow, she is no longer lovely enough.

And once she was admired. If she said a word, fifty million followers would leap to do her bidding. She held the rapt attention of those around her, and she reveled in it. Now the few followers that are left practice their worship in secret, knowing the penalty of being caught. Her temple crumbles around her, while the temple of the Other grows taller and stronger each day. Her wisdom is not heard by any but those few, and they can not aknowledge it. The wisdom of the Other, the wisdom that she knows will cause more pain than she would ever cause, that is what they must hear.

And she can not give up. The few that still listen need her, and no matter how much pain she feels, for those who were once her followers, and even the selfish pain she feels for herself is not enough. So she will wait in the dark and silence, her old bones paining her, waiting for the light to return.

For even as she sits she grows younger, and the Other grows older. As she waits, a child finds his faith betraying him, and returns to her. A mother, loosing the fight for her newborn child’s life, sees that her only hope rests in faith, but not the faith she was taught as a child. The Other’s temple starts to crumble, as brick by brick it is being taken apart to build hers back. Slowly her followers return to her, and she revels in their worship. The Other glares from a distance, for he is young, and she is ancient, and he does not understand how she could have waited so long. He will fight back, but she will win. And perhaps, if he does not kill himself with bitter anger, one day his followers will return to him, as the cycle begins again.

But for now that does not matter. She closes her eyes to the dark, and opens them to the light. And her song-bird voice sends her believers to redemption, without causing them the pain the Other forced on them. And the Other hides away with his few diciples, and she smiles.

And the cycle begins again.