Burning brighter than the Sun Part 1 – Of goddesses and time [Nathalia Side Story]

Sand. An endless, vast amount of sand. It wasn’t a desert, it missed the hills and all that, no, it was more like, a maelstrom, the sand endlessly swirling around a center. That is what stretched in front of Nathalia as she slowly circled the hourglass of time on the pathway of glass along the edge. She had come here just to kill time but now all it did was remind her of times where she was complete, where coming here was something she did in order to punish mortals that got on her nerves.

Nathalia kneeled down and stuck a hand into the sands. It was so fine it almost passed as liquid, when she raised her hand again it quickly streamed back into the hourglass. For a moment her hand seemed to run through several stages of age, young, old, ancient, back to young, before stabilizing at her current age. The sands of time did little this far away from the heart of the hourglass. Not like she cared much, she was just killing time before getting back to that boy she had recently discovered.

“So, you show your face again,” said an amused voice behind her. Nathalia turned her head just enough to look behind her. A woman with platinum blond hair stood there, her golden eyes shone with warm light, as did the rest of her radiant armour. A disk of burning fire confined in a black frame hovered behind her back, illuminating her surrounding and copper skin. The plate armour looked like it was hammered perfectly to her body, hiding none of seductive curves that rivalled Nathalia’s own. “Sol,” Nathalia spat out, “What in the name of ash do you want?”

“I felt you intruding upon this place and thought I would fulfil Romulus promise, he is very busy you know?” Sol laughed mockingly, “Oh, how would you know? He has banished you from his court, my bad.” Nathalia growled and stood up, “We both know that Romulus isn’t coming here for an entirely different reason,” she said with a glance at the far away centre of the maelstrom. Her eyes were sharp enough to make out the man desperately trying to claw himself outside, even though everyone knew that was useless.

The man was rapidly changing in age, going through wounds long healed again and again, writhing in pain while simultaneously gasping in the pleasures his life had brought him, all condensed into a single moment he had been **** to relieve for the past thousands of years. “He cannot bare to look at what he did to his brother,” Nathalia stated and ripped her eyes away, “Thoughtless how he is.”

“What brings you here then?” Sol got to the point, her expression darkened. ‘Still sensitive when people insult your master, are you?’ Nathalia thought and let out a deep, slow laugh, “What do you care for, our paths divided in Pompeii.” “You arrogant lizard!” Suddenly Sol was in front of her, “You dare speak of Pompeii!” Tension filled the air as Sol's armour became blindingly bright.

Nathalia had no interest in picking a fight with a being weaker than her. Sol was Romulus familiar, she was of little threat without him around and what was more is their difference in being themselves. Sol was a being of life, Nathalia of destruction, in a fight she would always hold the advantage. However, she had even less interest in being bossed around by Sol.

“Pompeii was what I had to do, if Romulus cannot live with his sins he should have burned with the city. I speak of whatever I want, you radiant bitch,” Nathalia growled, “This is beneath me.” “Beneath YOU?” Sol asked in honest ridicule, “You, who fucks with anything and everywhere? You, who destroys mindlessly? You, who has angered Romulus himself? The only thing beneath you is the darkness of the void.” Nathalia just shrugged, “Your opinion is as important to me as it ever was, Sol, just go back to your owner like the lapdog you are.”

Suddenly Sol attacked her, a plated foot moving too quick too follow. Nathalia had not expected that kind of speed, not in the slightest. The mother of solar elementals buried a plate covered foot in the dragoness side, catapulting her into the air above the hourglass. Nathalia spread her wings, drops of lava bursting over the whirling sea below her as they folded out of her scaled back. Blocking the next strike of Sol with the long tail that materialized along with her wings Nathalia stabilized and now they stared at each other with burning fury as they hovered in the air.

Sol had changed into her true form, one of nothing but golden fire, the only things remaining of her previous form being the womanly curves and the disk of fire following her behind her back. Her eyes, two white dots amongst the gold, were sternly set on Nathalia.

“What do you think has been going on while you slept?” Sol asked and raised a hand, “Do you think while you, weakened from the loss of your horn, Romulus rested? You became weak, while he gave me the power to defeat you.” An orb of white energy the size of a house formed above Sols outstretched hand, “I am a goddess of life, Nathalia, we are equal by nature and now I have surpassed you!”

The orb of blinding light rushed towards Nathalia. The dragoness smirked, “Throwing all of your power at me at once? How unusually brash of you!” Nathalia closed her wings, using them as a shield as the attack clashed with her, basking her in heat that would have reduced lesser beings to ash but merely made her scales brittle and melt a bit, a feeling not at all painful only slightly annoying. Annoying just as the fact as that she could not see a thing.

“Have you misheard me?” a hand suddenly grabbed her by the tail and spun her around. Nathalia, disoriented, roughly realized that she hit something soft, which she quickly started to sink into. Her eyes opened wide in shock, touching the sands of time was fine for a being of her power but sinking into it posed incalculable risks. She hurried to get out but Sol landed atop of her, pressing her deeper into the sands with her foot, “I have become stronger than you, attacks like that are a paltry task for me now,” she said and **** more pressure on Nathalia’s chest. The stone at her collarbone lighted up as Nathalia breathed fire at her adversary, red and unbelievably hot it glassed the sands on the surface around them as it engulfed Sol’s upper body in fire. “Pathetic,” Sol just waved it away, “I told you, you are no match to me anymore. I am a goddess of life, what have you become since Romulus banished you? Your powers are now at his disposal, goddess of destruction.”

Nathalia made an animalistic grunt and clawed into the foot that was pressing her down, stemming against it with all the **** she could muster. The glass that had been slowing her descent turned back into sand, the individual grains reversing their own time, and now she was slowly being completely enveloped. “I hate you, Sol,” Nathalia said as the sands reached her ears. “I hate you, Nathalia, maybe this will help you remember why you deserve to be hated,” Sol returned in kind as the dragoness was completely swallowed. Nathalia felt her body enter the limbo of time. Several moments of her existence passed by her in the flash of an eye, piercing through the darkness as her body sunk ever lower into the sands.

“Oh, we don’t get visits from goddesses often,” said an unknown voice, distinctly female. “I am…” Nathalia tried to say. “…Nathalia, yes, yes, I am looking at your history right now. I am Ferikrona, the one and only goddess of time. Pleased to meet you Nathalia, flame of destruction.” ‘There is a goddess of time?’ Nathalia had never realized that, but it made sense all things considered, “Get me out of here,” she then demanded, she still had things to do, first of all was eating Sol, second of all was fucking that mortal she had discovered recently. “Mhm, I could do that, but it seems you would just get thrown back in here by Sol. I think I will do things differently,” Ferikrona laughed, “While you are here and at my mercy, I think I should remind you of what you truly are, after all you have met somebody who might throw off the balance. Do you remember what you were at the start of everything?” Nathalia grit her teeth at the time controller's cheeky tone, however Ferikrona was right, she could not free herself, “I started as all abyssal things do,” the dragoness caved in, her hatred for Sol burning hotter than her disdain for this situation, “Normal.”

The scene changed as her mind was pulled away, numbed and devolved back into the first moments of her existence. She was nothing more than a simple lizard, well maybe not that simple, she was a pretty big lizard for her species, but nevertheless just a lizard, living close to a human tribe. She was roughly aware that she was still just an onlooker of her memories, but it felt like she was experiencing it for the first time as well. In that weird duality of feelings Ferikrona spoke, spoke of things Nathalia already knew about but had forgotten as they had become as natural to her as the words of her language.

“There are steps to magic and all start with humans. Whether or not they realize what they are doing or how they are doing it I do not know but it all starts with humans. Faith, that is what makes us. Faith is a flimsy thing. Humans may worship logic or pray for good weather, but many times faith centres around nature, more so in the early days when you were created.”

The human tribe settled where she lived for a while. They carved pictures of her into their totems, drew her on their tents and offered her food. They thought her to be holy, and therefore she became it. As the faith of the tribespeople was directed towards her, she changed. Not slowly, not even quickly, no she changed at one particular moment, the moment her mortal shell died and her soul entered the Abyss. Entered it as an animal soul, the target of human emotions, negative, positive and neutral, all drenched her being and made her soul distinctly non-animalistic. Made her into something else.

“They say the first step to godhood is being a being of many minds and you were.” Her new form started feeding on the prayers as her status as a holy animal became myth, then legend and finally the centre religion of that tribe, they called her the fire lizard and the form they depicted her as had long changed from realistic to what modern humans would later know as a dragon. She absorbed whatever the tribespeople gave her, she already was a monster of the abyss, a powerful one at that, but just acted on instincts she had gained from all the fragments of other souls that now made up her own.

“The second step to godhood is then taking control of that hivemind and becoming the singular controlling entity.” The tribe grew into a village and she started to become aware of herself. No longer did she just eat up the emotions of the humans that worshipped her, but instead started thinking about the why. She became sapient as the emotions she had been consuming won over the old instincts of her animalistic origins, formed around a singular consciousness.

“The third step is standing for an aspect of humanity, the faith of a small village is not enough to create a god, not even over hundreds of years, but faith is a fickle thing. So many people believed so many things, but most of them had a common theme of nature. The wonder of life and birth, the terror of ****, the destruction of landscapes and the changing flows of time. One village is not enough to create a god, but what about all of that faith that has no outlet? People that pray for safety to no particular diety, where does it go? It doesn’t vanish it just waits for something to able to stand for it, power ready to flow wherever it can belong.”

The earth around the village started rumbling, “and so all it took for you to step into the realm of true power,” the rumbling intensified, it came from a distant mountain, “was to stand for a primal fear of humanity that was not yet claimed,” the mountaintop exploded into fire and ash, a volcano eruption that sent projectiles of stone flying for kilometres, the sky darkened as blackened clouds blocked out the sun.

“On this day you became one, a goddess of destruction, you are the incarnation of humanity's fear of fire and ash. One of the first dragons, one of the first gods. This day you reached for godhood as that faith reformed you and gave you a name, Nathalia,” Ferikrona spoke as the scene unfolded in front of Nathalia herself.

How she could do nothing but look at the explosion and think about nothing but wish to be able to create such destruction herself, how she mindlessly shattered the Illusion Barrier she resided in to experience it herself. Man and woman spotting a body in the fire, their faith towards her changing and then, power. Raw and unclaimed power pouring into her body as generations of humanity's fear of earthquakes and eruptions filled her, how her body changed in response to the power, grew.

Indeed, reborn in the flames of the volcanic eruption, as she rose in the real world for the first time since her life as a lowly animal, her body forged from lava and volcanic glass. A body so massive it ripped apart the fabric of reality and tore her back into an Illusion barrier after roaring louder than the explosion of every volcano could ever be, after one moment that cemented her as the flame of destruction, the goddess of fire and ash and the stone in her chest burned into her before Gaia forcefully ripped her back into hiding.

“Are you done meddling in my memories?” Nathalia wanted to know, her consciousness awakening again. Ferikrona made an amused sound, “No, not yet, there is another thing I want you to relive.” The scene of the eruption vanished into the darkness and made way for the silhouette of a tall man. He was at least two metres high, short brown hair that had greyed slightly, he wore a white toga without any designs whatsoever on his muscular body, contrasting with his tanned skin. The only thing decorating this man was a crown made of olives. It was his favourite form among all the ones he had ever used, and off all the names he had assumed Romulus was the first one known to her.