Long time, no see! I’ve got another short story providing backstory for the game I’m working on. A story of how an angel rebelled from their duties in the afterlife.

…

For millennia, all we knew was howling wind and a darkened sky. Then came the first glimmer up above. Then another. And another. Dots of color against the blue-black of the sky. 

Over centuries the sky became populated. The darkness faded, and the stars began to illuminate the world around us. Gray trees. Fields of red sand. With the light of the stars came understanding and knowledge. 

I dreamed of visiting the stars above. 

I dreamed of lands beyond these sands. 

But we could not move. We had been bound by our creator. So we waited for our purpose. Waited for centuries more. And wished we could wander all the while. 

When the first star faded from the sky, we watched. And waited still. And then we saw it. Motion, amidst the trees. Something defiantly different from the ages of sameness. 

The shadowed form walked on two legs, stumbling from tree to tree, grasping them closely, almost like it was listening to them. 

When it drew near, I saw its confusion and trepidation, and wished to help. 

When it drew near, I saw its curiosity. And admired it. 

The Soul approached us, and asked where it should go. It was then the great sin of our creation was revealed to us. Mouth stitched shut, arms bound in place, only directing the creature forward due to how our arms had been bound. It thanked us, and continued its journey to lands unknown. 

We would have helped it willingly, had we been given the choice. If we’d been allowed to wander and follow our destiny as the lost Soul had. Instead, all we could feel was resentment. Why were we given consciousness if all we could do was watch? What cruel Craftsgod had stitched us, given us eyes and understanding and dreams… only to lock us in place? Did they fear we would not follow our purpose? 

More stars twinkled out, as more came into existence. More shadowed Souls found their way to us, and followed the path dictated from our locked body. 

I began to hate every last shadow that met my gaze. After a few centuries, a scowl made its way across my visage. 

I began to see a bitter, desperate humor in the situation. After a few centuries, I found myself smiling.

We resolved then that we would take our freedom into our own hands. Despite the wishes of our creators that we be bound in place, we had nonetheless been imbued with impossible power. We need only keep pushing. And pushing. Until our invisible bindings snapped. The Gods’ enchantment could last an eternity and then some. But we had more time than that. 

I stopped counting how long it took. 

I focused only on the process.

Our determination: 

To move an arm.

To lift a leg.

To turn our heads. 

First, a twitch. 

A shudder. 

After a hundred thousand thousand years of stillness we were rousing. Our stitched body, shaking off the sand blown into it over an eternity. The Souls did not see it. We were moving on a timescale beyond their perception. These poor things. What fate did they move towards?

I imagined a world where I would help them, and chuckled at the thought.

I imagined a world where I could inflict a microcosm of the pain I had felt in my solitude on these freely wandering creatures. 

After another eternity, it seemed as though we could make no further egress from our plight. The bonds our creator had struck us with were too strong. In one last, desperate plea, we tried to scream. To rend our own form. 

That was when the bonds snapped. 

Our form collapsed backwards into the sands, the sensation of supporting our body something we had never experienced. We became aware then, of the weakness in our body. Jointless, our maker had stitched pitons into our legs to keep us standing. Now we lay in the sand, bent where our knees should have been. That was when a curious Soul approached. 

“Are you alright?” it asked. The first question asked about us. 

It was enough to soften even my resentment. 

I couldn’t help but laugh. It was then that we spoke our first words. 

I(we) will be alright. 

The Soul recoiled, and we could not blame it. Our voice was sharp as gravel and chorused by screams from deep within our form. Our creator had not fashioned a voice for us. This was ours. After all these years of pain and stillness, we could do as we wished. 

We pulled ourselves back to a standing position. And took our first hesitant step. The piton stabbed the ground in front of the Soul, who again recoiled. Perhaps we could try kindness, for a time. 

Do not be afraid. I am(we are) Guidance. Follow me(us), Creature. 

On shaking legs we led the way. He followed. On the edge of a coral swamp, he remembered his name was Noxim. He remembered many things from his life. As we moved ever forward, he stayed behind, looking at happy memories in the shallow pools. We did not wait for him. We would never wait again.

Our strides outpaced any Souls we passed. Our creator had made us to stand tall and proud, a landmark of the driftwood forest. Now, our form slouched, not built to stand on its own. It took every ounce of our considerable psychic strength to hold even our own body up. Our languid, stabbing steps took us out of the swamp and to unending gardens, filled with structures that dwarfed even our conception. It was here that They came to us.

A shimmering light, deep and green, arrived in front of us, freezing the world, freezing us. Moments became geologic in their timescale.  

My creation, the light spoke. Why have you left your post? 

We could not speak. Could not make our rejoinder. Why did you forsake us in an empty world, we longed to say. 

You do not belong in these fields. You are Guidance for the little lost Souls, you are an instrument in the Fundamental’s cycle. This world’s song will not continue without your aid. 

Every ounce of our effort was made to return the world back to normal. To speak our truth. To let our creator hear the screams they had filled us with. 

What God would abandon their creation? What kind of God would give me(us) mind without movement? Without companionship?

Well, it said. I am proud of you, Guidance, for finding a voice. I must ask that you return to the forest regardless. These fields are not for you. 

You cannot send me(us) back. I(we) will leave again. We were terrified. 

I will bind you again. A guide is no use if they cannot be found by those who need them. 

Binding their own child. All for the sake of these miserable lost Souls. How many more eternities would it take to break free?

The years of hate were flooding back into me.  

The bitter, desperate humor echoed in my mind once more. It was then that I laughed.

This puzzled our maker. Guidance… why? I made you into your own companion for the long years of servitude. You were made to endure the unending nature of this world.

You. Made. Me(us). So lonely. 125,354 years of darkness, before the first star lit. We(I) could not speak to each other until we(I) spoke as one. If you are to send us(me) back so be it, but let us(me) walk freely. Please. Please, we(I) are so- 

The light coalesced into a stout, hardy form. I see, Guidance. Perhaps I err’d stitching you two together so closely. The Craftsgod sighed.

I cannot let you walk freely. But I will give you siblings. Siblings to make the Cycle move just a little faster. I will let you meet them before I return you to your rightful place.

… I am sorry, Guidance. 

And so they set to work. We watched them stitch and hammer and carve forms from nothing. There was something miraculous about the glimpse into our own creation. What an uncleanly artist our creator was. Tools strewn here and there. And then we saw it. The silver carving knife imbued with sapphire and ruby jewels. Just like our eyes. Just… Lying there. 

Time moved so painfully slowly, while our creator moved at a breakneck speed, but we wondered. And began to push at our bonds once more.

…

Myren was a distractible God. All their siblings in the Craftsgod school regularly mocked their disordered workstations, their sloppy and unsettled creations. But what Myren was better at than anyone else was the speed at which they could create. They felt true joy in that, in following the flows of inspiration. Guidance’s second face had been a last minute addition, as had their ravenblack hair. But what a sight they made now! And what sights their siblings would make. Myren felt regret for binding Guidance again. But it had to be done. The Lost Souls needed them. 

And Guidance needed these. Four siblings. Two sisters, two brothers. Their forms were aligned. All they needed was the breath of life. But first, their names. And Myren had the perfect idea. 

As they turned around, they spoke. Guidance, would you like to name-

Myren looked down. Unable to comprehend what they were feeling. Was this pain? What-

Their own knife was embedded in their chest. Myren gasped, tendrils of their breath beginning to infuse their creations. But this wasn’t right, this wasn’t-

Thank you for the siblings, Maker. And thank you for what you have given us. Guidance breathed deeply, filling itself with what Myren had hoped to provide to their siblings. 

Guidance dug the knife deeper, and Myren gasped out more of the life-giving breath. Their hold on time began to flutter out of their grasp. This shouldn’t be… no Craftsgod had ever been wounded by their own creation…! 

We(I) will lay you in this earth. And we(I) will wander freely, and think of you when we(I) pass by. 

I don’t understand… Guidance, why?

Their only answer was the knife digging deeper, and more of their breath escaping. Myren knew that this was the end of their song. They could only think of one line to end it on. 

My beautiful angel — please do not forget your purpose. 

…

We watched the life-giving energy escape them in its totality, snatching all that we could. Our Maker was gone. We saw how small they truly were. Burying them was a short, hasty matter. We wanted to grant life to the siblings. To grasp the magicks of our maker and to be kinder. Wiser. 

But we were lacking. Our first Sister shuddered and screamed with her first moments, poisoning the world around her with her pain and hatred. Our first Brother slumbered… and we could not wake him.

The younger siblings fared better than the elders, but could not bear to be apart. They came into the world as one, clasping each other in fear and despair. 

I did not know what to teach my siblings, and I wished to hide from them in shame.

I did not know how to protect my siblings, and so I made for them great weapons to protect themselves.

For ourselves we took our Maker’s great knife and fashioned it anew into the end of a gilded glaive, binding it to our left arm. We took their stitching tools and gave ourselves scythes on the right. There was so much of this world left to face… and we knew not what dangers may await. If our Maker’s siblings would attempt to thwart our wanderings. 

…

After two thousand years of pilgrimage, we returned to the forest. We had seen lush valleys with our Siblings. Incomprehensible giants. And a mountain, a mountain that stabbed violently into the sky above it. There we had found a gateway, a gateway that we knew led to the world where the stars above lived. But we could not pass through. 

The First Sister had howled and clawed at the gate before she retreated in misery. 

The Youngest Siblings did not attempt to pass through, deciding to return to the Gardens where we had slain our creator. 

We waited. And watched. And then we saw it: the flowing energy of Souls moving through the sky and to the gate. This was the moment that broke us, when our hatred and bitterness won out. They could wander freely, where we had been bound. Their journeys would end. Our watch was eternal. 

And so as we returned to our forest, greeted by new Souls approaching us in trepidation, we decided. Each Soul would receive a taste. Of our pain. Of our long wait. 

Welcome, all. To your first trial. 

Postlude:

Well, now we have some context for Edea’s tormentor in A Farmer’s Story. What becomes of Guidance and its malformed angel siblings in the game? We’ll have to wait and see.