The Dark Side of the Moon (Keeper/Creator 1/1)
I can’t actually compete in LotS LAS because I’m moderating it, but I loved the Round 2 prompt so much I wrote something for it anyway. The prompt was “Look for me by moonlight. Watch for me by moonlight. I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!” from the poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.
Title: The Dark Side of the Moon
Author: pristineungift
Rating: PG
Warnings: Fairy tale/legend narrative style.
Summary: There are many legends surrounding the Keeper and Creator, and how the Midlands came to be. There are many tales of the love of gods, and the misunderstanding of mortals. This is one tale of many, but perhaps it is the one that is true. Keeper/Creator
The Dark Side of the Moon
Long ago, and not so long, the world was torn apart. When man was new and magic raw, two beings, some say gods, rent the heavens - and their hearts.
One stayed in the world above, the spirit of light and life. The other descended to the world below, the embodiment of death and darkness. The world remade, two halves in twain, they stitched it up anew - separating life and death with a veil spun of tears.
They did not know, when first it happened, how far apart far could be. They did not see, in their folly, how long eternity was.
They had never before known what it was to be incomplete.
The world of mortals, man and beast, moved on throughout the years. And the gods of life and death moved through their children, the full meaning of the great divide lost on mortal ears. Every life claimed in green fire brought solace to the dark. Every soul touched by death whispered love to the light.
Life and death were in love and at war, their natures made it so. Yet they could never be together, only gaze across time and shadow, sundered forever by the jealousy and pride of youth.
But then there came the moon, with its beams of light and dark. It was both and neither, of one and the other, a torch that guided and a herald of death’s jaws.
And so every thousand years, on the hundredth day , in winter’s peak, when the moon shined bright blue, when all the world held still and the veil separating life and death was thin - the god of death left his realm of darkness and green fire, and the god of life awaited him on the dark side of the moon.
Over the realm of mortals, through the veil he’d fly, clinging to waves of blue moonlight, his bridge through the sky. To the dark side of the moon, where she waited, the love he’d thought he lost - she, the Creator waited, a spot of light in the dark.
These days come too far apart, the dark god would say when they met.
And she would throw herself into his arms, sighing to be reunited with death. The veil is too fragile, our children too precious -
I know, he’d stop her with a kiss. But I can still wish, even gods can wish, can dream of a world without this torment.
We do not have to be parted, if only you’d repent, she returned his kiss with a passion she could not quell.
It is too late for that, he pulled away, I think you know this well. You belong in heaven, my love. And I? I am the Keeper of Hell.
If only we’d known before.
Yes, if only we’d known.
We are no better than our mortal children, with their world of flesh and stone.
And it was over too soon, as it always was, the sun creeping beyond the hill. The Keeper turned on his path of moonlight, though the Creator clung to him still.
I’m sorry, she said, as she always did, for what we did on that day.
And meeting her eyes, the Keeper replied,
Look for me by moonlight. Watch for me by moonlight. I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way!
Title: The Dark Side of the Moon
Author: pristineungift
Rating: PG
Warnings: Fairy tale/legend narrative style.
Summary: There are many legends surrounding the Keeper and Creator, and how the Midlands came to be. There are many tales of the love of gods, and the misunderstanding of mortals. This is one tale of many, but perhaps it is the one that is true. Keeper/Creator
The Dark Side of the Moon
Long ago, and not so long, the world was torn apart. When man was new and magic raw, two beings, some say gods, rent the heavens - and their hearts.
One stayed in the world above, the spirit of light and life. The other descended to the world below, the embodiment of death and darkness. The world remade, two halves in twain, they stitched it up anew - separating life and death with a veil spun of tears.
They did not know, when first it happened, how far apart far could be. They did not see, in their folly, how long eternity was.
They had never before known what it was to be incomplete.
The world of mortals, man and beast, moved on throughout the years. And the gods of life and death moved through their children, the full meaning of the great divide lost on mortal ears. Every life claimed in green fire brought solace to the dark. Every soul touched by death whispered love to the light.
Life and death were in love and at war, their natures made it so. Yet they could never be together, only gaze across time and shadow, sundered forever by the jealousy and pride of youth.
But then there came the moon, with its beams of light and dark. It was both and neither, of one and the other, a torch that guided and a herald of death’s jaws.
And so every thousand years, on the hundredth day , in winter’s peak, when the moon shined bright blue, when all the world held still and the veil separating life and death was thin - the god of death left his realm of darkness and green fire, and the god of life awaited him on the dark side of the moon.
Over the realm of mortals, through the veil he’d fly, clinging to waves of blue moonlight, his bridge through the sky. To the dark side of the moon, where she waited, the love he’d thought he lost - she, the Creator waited, a spot of light in the dark.
These days come too far apart, the dark god would say when they met.
And she would throw herself into his arms, sighing to be reunited with death. The veil is too fragile, our children too precious -
I know, he’d stop her with a kiss. But I can still wish, even gods can wish, can dream of a world without this torment.
We do not have to be parted, if only you’d repent, she returned his kiss with a passion she could not quell.
It is too late for that, he pulled away, I think you know this well. You belong in heaven, my love. And I? I am the Keeper of Hell.
If only we’d known before.
Yes, if only we’d known.
We are no better than our mortal children, with their world of flesh and stone.
And it was over too soon, as it always was, the sun creeping beyond the hill. The Keeper turned on his path of moonlight, though the Creator clung to him still.
I’m sorry, she said, as she always did, for what we did on that day.
And meeting her eyes, the Keeper replied,
Look for me by moonlight. Watch for me by moonlight. I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way!