It was strange, judging by the directions she was giving me, we were well on the way to the motel I had in mind anyway. “Wow, are we sharing the same braincell right now or what?” I asked.
“Yes and no. Just take a left here, you’ll see Hailey.” She smiled cryptically. Damn if that smile didn’t just make me melt whenever I saw it. I recalled thinking about how I’d love to keep seeing it forever. As fate would have it, Luna was leading me someplace where just that would come to pass.
I had to concentrate on the road more and more as the trip went on as the weather that night suddenly took a turn for the worse. Out of nowhere a bank of some of the densest fog I’d ever encountered. Within moments it went from clear skies and trees and phone polls on either side of the road, to nothing but mist in any direction. Luna seemed un phased though, she must be really calm under pressure I assumed.
“I can hardly see the road ahead…” I said, flicking my high beams. “Sorry Luna, but I’ve got to pull over, this is absurd out there.”
“Oh no, don’t press on for me, best we’re sitting still for what’s coming.” Luna replied.
It struck me as an odd way to phrase it in the moment, but I was mostly concerned with just getting off the road in that moment. When the car crept to a stop in the gravel, I leaned back, and huffed as the fog swirled around the vehicle. Then just as I’d turned to check on Luna in the passenger seat, I noticed that the mist was now in the car with us. Further it seemed that Luna was… glowing.
“Worry not, the spell is almost complete.” Luna’s voice was familiar, yet also possessed of a distinct echoing quality, like she stood in the center of an amphitheater. The fog became too great for me to see my hand in front of my face and then all at once, everything was gone. The fog? Gone. The road? Gone. My car? Gone! I was standing on a white marble floor streaked with black and gold. Above my head was a massive, domed temple roof. Every inch of surface was given over to an elaborate mural of myths. Gods and monsters, heroes and voyages, forbidden loves and passionate dalliances. I could stare up for hours and have not taken in every single detail. Around the central fane I was standing in, there were twenty niches in the circular wall, an altar placed in each of them. I noticed that all but one was left much more barren than the rest of the sumptuous temple. The walls were bare, and each altar presented a single object - a hammer, a pair of antlers, a lyre, an ornate brass key, and more besides.
Only one was different. The granite altar was undamaged, the walls of the alcove behind were painted with frescoes of the same care and detail as the ceiling. Lit white candles illuminated the space, and I was hit by the scent of incense burning in a small cone on the altar. What was most striking was what the painting depicted. Painted on the wall could only be Luna herself. She was clad in a sheer white robe that enticingly draped over her curves. Her red hair had multiple braids and was crowned with a tasteful silver coronet, it reached her back and billowed in the air about her, tumbling down her shoulders and twisting around her lap. In her delicate hands, she cradled a silver scepter with an eclipsed full moon for a head piece.
“Welcome to my temple, a pity you come to see it in this state, once this place would be filled by the hundreds of devotees of mine and my kindred-gods’ worshippers. Alas, it is mine alone now, for my kin are dead and gone.” Luna materialized beside me, hovering casually a few inches off the ground. Sure enough, her hair, her dress were all just like the artist’s depiction. I flushed as my eye could not help but draw to the cut of that robe’s top and how it displayed her godly cleavage, how good it made her long legs look. No art could do Justice to the reality I was seeing.
“You’re- you’re not human are you? Or am I trippimg or something?” I stammered. “No, there’s nothing in your system, though realm travel can be disorienting for mortal senses. You weathered it marvelously though.” Luna’s feet gently touched the ground.
“Hailey, this is the house of my pantheon, or it used to be. Where my nineteen kindred gods and I once reigned over myriad planes beyond your universe. We were many once, so too were the loyal followers we once directed. That was, until a power from beyond mortal comprehension, and barely comprehensible by the divine came to us. The Dark Tapestry hit us like a tidal wave, it swept away all but myself. As goddess of the moon and eclipse, I was apparently outside of its notice.”
I looked Luna in the eye. For a being that was so well… divine… she also seemed so vulnerable in that moment, so human. I saw not a towering being of power and magic and might, but lonely and deeply melancholy soul. I reached out tentatively, to offer the goddess a hand to hold. “Luna, I had no idea. I mean, how could I have guessed? Can I ask you a question though? Why show me this?”
She wiped a tear from her eyes. “I’ve been charting the Dark Tapestry for centuries, it is turning away, moving on like a colossal storm cloud. I believe it is a sign, that I must rebuild the pantheon, return to the realms, find survivors… to try not to be alone anymore. I saw something in you, Luna, a spark I saw only in my fellow goddesses in my past… I believe you could join me, if you but took up one of the symbols of my previous kith.”
My eyes widened. “Me? A goddess? That’s a lot to take in, but you’re not kidding, are you?”
“Not in the slightest. In theory, you would have but to take up one of the relics here, and claim a portfolio.” Luna made a sweeping gesture to the empty alcoves. “But you are not compelled to either, the Dark Tapestry could well return to harvest these realms again. Just say the word, and I’ll send you back.”
I turned to the possibilities before me, and I decided…