Title: Bria

Author: UniDagger

Feedback: Yes please!

Legal Stuff: This story and its characters were created by me, no resemblance to any living or fictional person or persons….other than the mass population. Copyright is held by me.

Distribution: Please feel free but contact me first and let me know.

Website: www.oocities.org/unidagger/

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There were no words to describe her beauty. There was no number to determine her age. The depth of her sorrow was a deep as her beauty was stunning. She stood at the window of her castle. It had sustained the ravages of time by magic, but it had fallen dark and empty since last she'd journeyed to this realm. Her heart was broken with the memories and her anger fueled. She had decreed that she would never return to this forsaken land, yet a voice had reached her. Ever hopeful, she had not be able to resist the prayer that summoned her, begged her.

She watched the young man who knelt before the shattered remains of a temple altar. The vines had taken over, intent on making the stone its own. But the man had found it and attempted to clear all away. With a heavy sigh, Bria looked across the war torn planet. She could fill the earth's pain and illness in her soul. She hardened her heart…as much as she could anyway.

These humans deserved what they had made for themselves, she reminded herself. And yet it was her nature to love and heal, re-create. She had created this world millennia ago. The creatures of such nobility and purity had been her first children. All of them her children. She had loved them. But the man-child had turned on her and the others.

Bria had left the world before the humans had even had their first World War. She had watched from afar at the atrocities they did to one another and had wept. How could she have created something so wrong…so evil.

"Please, Goddess…." The young man lamented aloud, his voice cracking. He had been there for 7 days now, praying, asking, begging. The world needed a savior; they needed help for the humans were on the brink of extinction not for the first time, but perhaps the last.

The Goddess appeared in her human woman form, stepping out of the woods and crossing towards the man. "Why have you summoned me, Michael Abernathy?"

The man gasped, stared in shock and awe, before succumbing to fear and trembling, groveling at her feat. "Please, Goddess…we need you. Why have we been forsaken? You must help us, please!"

"And why should I waste my time?" she asked coldly, her throat tight as she fought the instinct to rush to her child and embrace him.

The man stared at her in confusion. Surely the Goddess of Love and Light couldn't refuse to help. "But you….I…we need…you."

"After everything mankind has done, you truly believe that you deserve help?"

"I..don’t…understand…."

She looked at him a moment, searching his heart. Surprised to see some good existed there, let alone in the entire world, she sighed. Walking slowly she stepped closer to him and sat on the stone altar. "You have forgotten the truth. I suppose it would have been driven from the histories and the telling so as to keep the young ignorant. I will tell you then, Michael Abernathy, the truth of your heritage and why humans do not deserve any further assistance from Me."

Michael watched the Goddess, his body still trembling. With a nervous lift of his hand he brushed his black hair from his green eyes and stared at her, his mind reeling, but he listened.

"I created this world, I created all the creatures that have ever lived her. I created the humans, a species somewhat more special to me, but no greater than my other children. I placed them here to live and love and to learn. But they didn’t love. Not all of them. They were petty and ignorant, thinking themselves higher and more deserving than the other creatures. They destroyed what they couldn’t control; they killed what they didn’t understand without so much as even trying to coexist."

"I made the Great Dragons to teach them their wisdom. Humans rejected them, angry and jealous of their knowledge, wanting their power with none of the responsibilities. They began to hunt and kill them. I created the Unicorns to show them nobility, purity, strength and beauty. They hunted and killed them as well. I thought maybe, a creature more like them…perhaps these others were to frightening, so I removed what Dragons and Unicorns were left, along with a few other creatures, to another realm where they would be safe from humans, and created Elves. Beautiful creatures full of the same virtues as the Dragons and Unicorns, but closer appearance to the humans."

They enslaved the Elves, the ones they didn’t torture and kill. They tried to force them to reveal their secrets. They hunted them until I had to remove them too, to keep them from dying out. There were some humans that were good. I gave them knowledge, and the Druids attempted to share it but the others wanted it all for themselves and they soon had killed nearly all of them, burning their books and stealing their children so they could pour their own vile ways into them. Even their own fellow humans they had begun to hunt, enslave, torture."

I sent heroes, I allowed miracles to be performed. I answered prayer after prayer but the humans preferred to rage battles and destroy one another. They harm every animal they came across, they harm each other and themselves and still shout that they are the higher species, the more deserving, the more intelligent."

"Even nuclear war, that nearly wiped out the entire human population didn’t stop the destructiveness of humans. The books I gave them, the creatures I sent, even appearing myself and speaking to various ones…..never did they head the word. Never did they stop. There is nothing that I can do to change that and I don’t think I even want to try again."

The man sat with his head down, tears falling from his eyes. He looked up and whispered, "But what of us….we are not all evil. Cant you spare us?"

"You are not the first to say those words, Michael Abernathy. What would you have me do? Those of you who were not evil, still had the knowledge in your hearts of what was right or wrong, the truth of things. The memories of what had been…"

"But we tried to fight against the evil. Armies were sent to stop the atrocities of World War II, and others. We tried to help other nations…"

No, Michael. Gestures were made, but there was no heart in what was done. How many Jews and Homosexuals were murdered before the other nations even began to think of intervening? How many times was history repeated in slavery and abuse and murder of other humans? Not a single race was without its period of enslavement. And yet they moved on to become the Slaver. How many had family that was tortured because of their faith, or the language they spoke, the color of their skin, their love, or because they wouldn't succumb to evil? The majority of humans has never been able to truly care about any others to actually stop it. They elected instead, to let a few people pretend to put out efforts of comfort and protection to various groups and people because the others felt some pang of guilt, but no motivation to do anything themselves. Each one that let anthers rights be dictated or abused, sat there uncaring. Not knowing they were sealing their own fate…a fate that would be no different than that person they either allowed or assisted in destroying."

"Why?"

The goddess looked at him.

"Why" He repeated. "Why were we made this way??? Why are we destined to kill everything around, including ourselves?? Why did you make us just to die??"

"I made you the same as I made the others. I don't know why you turned out the way you did. It has never happened before, nor since. The other creatures I've made, many quite similar to humans, on every planet and every realm….some have strife's, but they all eventually find and accept the peace and love that is there for every one. The earth humans are the only….." The Goddess paused at a loss for the word.

"Rejects." Michael supplied for her.

Bria closed her eyes and sighed. Softly, and in a pained voice, "I tried Michael. I did everything in my power to help and change the humans without actually just destroying you all myself. I am not a destroyer by nature. Perhaps it would have been kinder had I done so. To yourselves and to those you wronged. But I couldn’t do it, and so I left, leaving only a few creatures who volunteered to try and show you the way should you ever be ready."

"Your enemy…is yourself. Your savior…is yourself. There is nothing I can do, Michael. I wish there was."

"You could just destroy the evil ones, allowing the good ones to live." He said with hope.

"I've tried that. And yet somehow evil found itself a home again in the hearts of humans and those I saw as special were driven off and destroyed. The Celts were among my most beloved. They were fierce and strong, but beautiful and knew the way of Balance in all things. They tried to teach, and they were slaughtered instead. They tried to warn and they were locked up and branded Pagan Heretics who had no place in “god's” plan."

"I don’t know what plan or God other than themselves they were trying to envision, but it was not my will. It was not my Will for people to be murdered in the Crusades, or the World Wars or even the Purification Movements. The humans want to rape and murder each other, keep each other as slaves, strive for a power that doesn’t exist and call it Gods Way or the Truth or whatever….. It is what humans want. They thrive on their self-made suffering. So be it. There is nothing more I can do."

The goddess rose to her feet, and looked down at the man.

"I have responded to your summons, Michael. I have given you the knowledge lost. There are still those with the long memories, the books still exist. The way to peace and love has never been closed to you. But I can not walk you down that path. If humans are to change, and become what was their destiny…it is up to them. I will not give back the talents and powers they once had. I will not assign any more creatures for their disposal. I have done enough."

"Good bye Michael. I am sorry that I can not give you the quick-fix you desire. I wish you love….and the desire to not fail in your search for that path."

With a last sorrowful look, the Goddess stepped away. The pain the man felt, the cries of the earth tugging at her. Tears fell from her golden eyes as she stepped into the woods, seeming to meld into the greens and browns of the trees. She returned to watch over her other children, mourning those who were lost.