I could hardly believe my ears. How could this be?
These fragile mortal creatures are but a footnote in the hierarchy of all creation! For them to have such power, even over the gods themselves..? It was a matter almost unthinkable!
Then again, it suddenly clicked into place. All the tales of humans communing directly with the gods, being rescued by them, and even seldomly approaching divinity themselves!
Why else were they always so favored? In all the myths, and all the legends I had ever read, the only time we denizens are mentioned are as trials or barriers to the brave, human adventurers.
Why else were these hateful, selfish, warring tribes permitted to pray to the Gods—to dare challenge fate as ordained by the creators beyond everything—whilst all of creation accept their lots as is designed?
I was so certain that it was the gods' indelible mercy for these wayward souls to find avenues to rediscover the very truths that our loyal kind were inoculated throughout from the very beginning!
Never has a harpy decided to cease playing the lyre! Never has a griffin abandoned its guard over a holy estate! Could Cerberus ever dream of abandoning the gates of Hades?—of dancing in the hills of Mount Lykaion with the pans, gleefully acting in stark defiance of the very thing he was created for?—I perish the thought!
I imagine a world where all creation were given such grace and freedom as these human creatures, and I tremble. What a terrible, horrible place the world would be—centaurs waging war against the minotaurs in eternal bloodshed; giants roaming free across the land, with the titans in file behind them!
Why are these petty, selfish, destructive creatures alone the ones who were allowed forgiveness for their transgressions? I never had an explanation for this before, and it troubled me. Now, I possibly had an answer.
Because it was never our story, but theirs. That is what Thrall was explaining to me, at least. Is it true? The gods only know—or are even they similarly deluded?
No, I must not think this way. If I lose my faith, then what do I even have left of myself to be?
A background fixture. An element of no repute, who only persists as window dressing to improve the quality of another man's fantasy. Could I ever amount to much within the peril of a role dictated by those who gave my entire race not a second's thought?
My islands have nothing of value to plunder, no great store of accumulated wisdom to peruse, no powerful beasts to vanquish. My sisters live for millennia without signs of aging, but the source of our vitality is found in our relationship with the gods; not any potent elixir or secret procedure that mortals can pilfer from under us in epic poetry or great tragedy.
The Harpyiai are but a footnote in the bottom of a long list of wiser, faster, and more powerful creatures. What glory could I exemplify outside my assigned role within the system of godliness?
I now knew why we never tell stories of great harpies achieving incredible feats throughout history—not even among our own brood.—because there was never anything to aspire toward. In truth, we were already as perfect as the Helios's brilliance as he treks daily across the sky; his rays bathing the surface of Gaea with nourishment and warmth, and searing my eyes even presently as he approaches the horizon.
A rain cloud has but one natural purpose; to deliver rain. It would be a form of blasphemy to aspire for a creature to hope for anything more than this. For... what could be better than our very purpose, achieving complete fulfillment?
I sat in stillness, as the full scale of what had been implied grew feverish within me.
The ever-present wind suddenly grew stagnant, and warm air settled like a suffocating shroud around me. The sky slowly grew darker as the dusk avidly gave way to evening, and the earth swallowed up the concept of daylight to expose the stars.
"I... am not real?" I had to nearly whisper it, for hopes that no one else might hear.
"Why, of course you are." he crooned, sliding further from his enclave within the stone. He wrapped his arms around me, again. "Don't trouble yourself with these things beyond your control. Nothing has ever truly changed about your world by my saying so."
"But you said that I am the product of human fancy. Was that- a lie?"
"No, I'm afraid not. Our theologies are to them a paradigm—a philosophy of thought—and in that way, they are the creators of the creators; the architects of the designers of fates. Everything you have ever seen was invented by a human mind," he explained.
"That is, everything, except for here! Look around you, Xantheaa. All these pillars of stone, poking out of the ground like memories of your island's mountains—reaching like hands toward the heavens where the gods you crave to grow more intimate with reside—Don't they resemble perches for you?
"Don't they seem perfectly crafted to accommodate you, right now? The seat underneath you is the exact size for you to rest comfortably on your travels, but where would you go? The breadth of earth is perpetually repopulated with these illimitable towers. It is almost like you have no intention to leave."
I gazed at him, and turned my eyes toward the pillar beneath me. He was right. He is always right. If it were my dream, it would follow that my desires would be expressed on its surface. I have never once dreamed of leaving my island, because my goddess would be so displeased to learn of this transgression.
So, the land itself reflected my hopeless struggle for ascension without the vision to see it through. The towers reach so high into the air, but they are all equal in its length. Exactly the height that I can comfortably climb under my own power... and no closer to Olympus than the ants crawling atop their mounds.
I would never reach the stars this way. It was useless to even try.
Again, Thrall spoke, comforting me with one arm draped across my breast, and another pointing in the far-off distance where the last final dregs of light were finally being covered by the distant spokes of my almost infinite petrified extremities. "Now, look there, to the retreating sun. Do you see how cowardly he runs from your scrutiny? Do you believe he is greater than you are?"
"No, I-"
"Focus!" he shushed, circling his fingers around the tiniest flecks of light remaining in the insurmountable distance. "Prove to me, that this is not your dream. Fix your gaze upon that which is beneath you, and order the sun to stop."
I did not know what he meant. It seemed obvious to me that the sun was too far beyond me for our words to reach him, but I humored him, anyway. Within seconds, the final vestiges of glare would disappear forever, and I would be exonerated. The seraphim behind me would be no more than a liar, finding convenient details to craft together into a narrative that fits his purpose.
I said the words aloud. "I do not wish for there to be darkness. Halt." Then, I simply had to wait.
Seconds passed, then minutes behind them. It didn't seem possible, but the sky never gave up its final dregs of illumination.
"Do you see?" he grinned, squeezing my shoulder with his one enclosing arm. It was beyond belief. The sun itself obeyed my command. I thought that a better proof would be for it to arise instead, and slowly it answered my will with a grueling procession upward, without any vocalized decree! I could not believe what I was seeing, as the circle calmly enlarged above the horizon. It was a dawn from the west—a sight never envisioned through the eyes of men!
"This is a world not marred by the thoughts and opinions of humans who know not of you, and care little to learn. This is our own world, under our control; and we alone decide what to make of it!"
My eyes shone as the heavenly body I commanded eclipsed the earth, and the swirling patterns of sunrise appeared within the cloudless sky. My heart rushed avidly underneath his grasp, and I wept as he spake these final words.
"Here, we are more real than you ever were, in your waking world. Truly, you have never been more original than you are right now, in this very moment!—for we make not a path through the roles designed for us by unimpassionate gods, held by the chains of order set when they themselves were composed. We will fashion our own doctrine, grander than ever there was within the minds of limited gods, as a reflection of mankind."
Again, I could only be certain that he was right.