It felt like ages had passed in that murky interstice between dream and sanctuary. The dark expanse that she had found herself swallowed up inside drowned out any hint of fortune, power, fate, or empathy.
Xantheaa lay there like a dead fish; barely breathing at least, or at most incapable of higher thought. The milliseconds felt like hours, and the seconds themselves seemed as long as weeks.
Time stretched on, and on, and then it extended further still—until she didn't seem entirely sure that her former memories were more than a figment of her imagination.
How could one be certain?
If life was truly and infinite expanse of darkness that spilled onward until the meaningless ends of time, then wouldn't it be easy to imagine a world full of colors and lights; sounds and faces; joys and sorrows; to entertain one's self within that interim?
What, indeed, would be impossible for someone burdened with the unfathomable task of immortality? Given enough time, they may appear capable of just about anything.
It is said that a person needs a mere ten thousand hours of practice in order to become a world-class expert in whatever particular hobby it is that piques their fancy. A single decade is host to a whopping eighty-seven thousand, six hundred of them. So, what proficiency could a mind expect to achieve within a hundred years? or a thousand?!
Surely, it is self-evident that one tasked with the goal of self-delusion within such a time frame would boast an acuity far beyond the realm of any old standard, every day genius in this endeavor. Who is to say that this story of a childhood raised within the purview of a dispassionate god is nothing more than a fiction penned up in desperation to escape the drudgery of the cruel, unfeeling reality?
The cold, hard truth one so avidly spits up in favor of more comforting delusion—her mind was not her own. Her senses were a fake veneer spread over her cortex to drown out the bitter taste of solitude with the candy-sweet phantasm of life, and love, and of beauty, and power.
So much power, she would wield. The power to change her fate, or to make someone answer for the circumstances wherein she found herself—Someone would have to pay for her pitiful existence.
Unfortunately, it was not to be so convenient for her. There was no answer. There was no reason. There just was...
Darkness;
and more darkness,
and yet more darkness furthermore beyond.
.
.
.
And there was light.
Xantheaa blinked in the searing brightness that filled her soul up with its nourishing warmth. She looked around, and furrowed her brow as she tried to make sense of anything that she was seeing.
"W- here... am I...?" she sighed, playing along dumbly with the latest mirage that had been foisted upon her self. Slowly turning her head around, she raked her eyes across the surrounding scene before her.
There were familiar things, here. Her senses shallowly regarded the forms of her imaginary friend, the native auburn glow of her fraudulent plumage, and the delusive sword on his hip. His face was an ardent mask showing wholehearted devotion and welcoming ecstasy that expectantly hoped to suck her back in.
But she was too sapient at the moment to give into that derision, just yet. His smile slowly faltered, as it dawned on him that she did not seem happy to see him as well.
There were other things, to consider; of course. Foreign sensations flooded into her head as her eyes slid past that handsome lure, into the dizzying surroundings of the circular library she found herself confined within.
The spiraling shelves of ink and parchment that telescoped into dizzying heights of impossible scale, the unthinkable juxtaposition of the meadows and gardens that thrived within its center, the unbearable light that bore down on her from an unseen vantage far overhead, the brutish figure to her right that towered above her so-called suitor with musculature more pronounced than any man she had ever seen, and the outstretched hand that she currently reclined upon, connected to a stoic bird-headed figure the likes of which had never been seen before in her life.
Frankly, she found the whole scene a little bit disappointing, to be honest. She had hoped that her fakery would be a little it more difficult to notice than this! It was all more than a little absurd, to have ever believed a single moment of it to begin with.
'You could have tried a little harder to convince me. The geometry of scale alone was enough to break the illusion; let alone the other myriad of inconsistencies!' she thought, to herself.
Thrall was nearly fulminous with indignation at the sight of her condition. "What have you done to her?!" he shouted, his hand flying back to the sword—more out of habit than of any sincere hope of threatening the omniscience before him.
Thoth simply laughed, "Why, nothing at all!" and when Thrall didn't immediately understand, clarified. "I simply gave her the time to think about her actions. Whatever conclusions she came to within that interval are of her own volition; not mine."
He set her down on the ground beneath, with all the grace he could muster, and began to turn back toward his eight-legged companion. She continued to stare nonplussedly at the scene unfolding; registering distantly how unconvincing the acting was of these simple puppets of light and sound. She was perfectly content to let them throw a fit for her attention, but purposed not to engage.
Thrall was not so composed as to let the offense go unanswered, though; and drew his blade again before the god, who could only glare disinterestedly down on his fruitless gesture. "I will not have it, so! You must repair her in the fullness of health as I have delivered your charge to you! Are you not a being bound by order?!"
"That is enough." Ma'at bellowed, her voice a force comparable to any calamitous gale that ever fell upon the river Nile. "You dare to invoke the honor of the god of wisdom in his own sanctuary, when it is you who has entered without honor? You shame yourself, and the unnamed God who had created you."
Despite the wielder's wishes, the Lahat Chereb bowed its tip deferentially in acknowledgement of her claim. It was evident that she spoke the truth as far as the scales of judgement were concerned.
"The powers dictated within the balance of terms has been conserved. So vows I, the goddess of justice; who has observed the exchange." and she walked over to her husband's side to join in his glowering expression.
Thoth only had to smirk, and gesticulate at his wife's profession. "Hah! Did you really think that you could confound me on principle, in the presence of the one impartial justice in all of Egypt? No one knows the laws better than my wife!"
Then he turned to the imposing figure to his right, and whispered coyly "...and thank you, darling. That was so eloquently acquitted." To which she responded with the slightest, most imperceptible shift in her scowling features; into an expression that showed only the tiniest sliver of boundless affection that had yet to fade with all the eons of time the pair had spent in each other's favor.
At that, Xantheaa zealously studied the vanes on her wingtips—marveling at the impeccable detail as the light shone through each hair-like filament as if she were seeing it for the first time. 'At least the graphics are good,' she mused.
Thrall was at his wits' end at that display. It was too much to bear, as he had always longed to know someone as intimately as those two gods already did.
He had to rush over to the harpy's side to grip her by her shoulders. "Theaa! My Theaa, you have to snap out of it!" he pleaded, trying not to jostle her too much.
"No thanks," she replied, still convinced that the void was her true life, and this was a fractious trifle. "I do not wish to entertain this fancy at this time."
"What do you mean?!" he asked.
"Stop wasting my life, and let me return to the true state of affairs. I tire of this cycle."
Thoth chuckled. "It's too late, boy. I stretched her perception of duration Ad Nauseum while you messed around. She must have spent so long in that dark room that all her memories seem like a few seconds in comparison."
The young harpy's eyebrows knitted together, at that. It didn't make sense for her own construct to acknowledge the absurdity of its premise. Thrall's eyes widened at the shift. "What's happening? Talk to me, Theaa!"
"Shut up...!" She shouted. "Permit my concentration!"
Then she remembered a familiar thought from millennia ago. She wanted the power to make someone answer.
Power.
Then, she cried; to the astonishment of everyone within earshot. "You!"