((I would explain Ellaran mythology but I believe the story does for itself.  Any questions don’t hesitate to ask.))

Tealeaves

It was said that the ether in between the four divine realms that comprised Ellara could be sculpted to suit any number of purposes, according to a wanderer’s wishes.  (For who else traverses the ether but a wanderer?)  To-day, it seemed to suit its current wanderer by being a tea-house, or at any rate that’s what it was, a little tea-house on the outskirts of the realm of the Goddess Life, quiet, tranquil, comprised of a tiny room with one table and two chairs, for that’s all its single occupant really needed.  Had she bothered to imagine further she could probably have solidified it a bit with the addition of a counter, a kitchen, and other tables, but as its boundaries were determined by her existence the outward edges tended to blur into fuzzy vagueness.

The other chair was simply there for effect.

The tea was Lady Grey.

What could best be defined as a girl sat at her single round table draped with a white lace tablecloth, sedately stirring her tea in a china cup patterned with pink rosebuds.  Her soul was still quite young, at least in comparison to that of some of her more divine Cousins, though it seemed already slightly faded from use.  It was a misty white tinged with blue – she came from Life’s realm.

In fact at first glance it was a bit obvious Whose realm she had originated in.  Her overall design seemed to be that of a cherubic baby doll – round-faced with a smooth rosebud complexion, round eyes that were as guilelessly bright and clear as a kitten’s, round mouth set in a habitual contemplative pout (that meant she was thinking), and a generous wealth of dark Pre-Raphaelite ringlets that tumbled over her shoulders and onto the table.  This did not, however, explain the faded aura, the little sighs that lifted her narrow shoulders at intervals, or her present location, alone in an imagined tea-house amid the ether.

It was dark, the ether.  It was dangerous in its intangibility, for there was no clear beginning or end to it, and virtually anything could lurk there, from fantastic creatures to alternate probabilities, scraps of worlds and stories the Goddesses had thrown away, half-completed.  It was said there were holes there, which a careless wanderer could end up stumbling into one and ending up trapped in another dimension, or ceasing to be altogether.  Hence the ether retained a sort of selective infamy; the ones who dared traverse it were either counted among the tremendously powerful, or among those who had been banished from the four realms. 

Then the door opened, apparently impossibly, and the girl looked up as a woman intruded upon the tranquillity of her room.  Her bright eyes widened, startled, for a moment before she narrowed them.  The newcomer was as much a masterpiece of the Goddess Chaos’ as she herself was of Life’s – tall, exquisitely crafted into a form that evoked the allure of a siren, sapphire-eyed, auburn-haired, ruby-lipped.  She moved with a panther’s sinuous grace, so that the wine-coloured cloak she wore rustled ever so slightly, giving off the scent of red roses, and her aura – visible in Ellara – was crimson.

Apart from that, the two looked enough alike to be related.

The baby doll put down her tea.  “Andromeda.”

Andromeda raised one finely-sculpted eyebrow, as though it were pure coincidence that she had meandered into this particular ethereal tea-house.  “Well if it isn’t Princess Sarah.  And what brings you here, to the realm of fallen angels?”

Typically only the denizens of Life’s realm called the misty wasteland between realms by that particular epithet.  Outside of Death’s realm it was actually something of a step up in holiness and to Chaos or Nature it was really just the hard way to get from once place or another.  And as far as White Lore knew, only one angel had ever been cast from Life’s realm.  Asmodeus was one of the greater dangers of roaming the ether, but he had not been seen between realms in quite some time.  Andromeda’s use of the plural was distressing.

“Oh, are you looking for him?” Sarah inquired innocently, “I thought everyone knew Death took him in.” 

Andromeda snorted.  “Eons ago, lark.  Why – you’ve not seen him recently, have you?”

It was also known throughout Life’s realm that the White Lady’s younger Daughter had returned to it last in tears, with a bit of red string that hadn’t been there before knotted about her left wrist, the once-pristine play angel wings she had been wearing ruffled and bent, and had left it last with them still like that.  She hadn’t even bothered to change her clothing, in which she had returned uncharacteristically dirtied and dishevelled, her favourite pink pinafore torn. 

The wiring in one was still broken, so that it hung limply over the back of her chair, displaced feathers ruffling slightly as, instead of leaving, Andromeda seated herself in the empty chair and summoned herself a cup of Red Zinger, then leaned back languidly and crossed one knee over the other.  Sarah pushed away her tea-cup and stood.

“Going already?” inquired Andromeda, “I just got here.  That’s hardly any way to treat your Cousin.  Do sit down.”

  For a moment only Sarah tightened her hands, resting on the edge of the table, into fists, then sat down again, a bit stiffly.  “Well, all right, you’re here.  What is it you want?”

Andromeda stirred her tea.  “Actually, I came looking for you specifically because I’ve something to ask you regarding you, your Sister, and your next life.”

Sarah stiffened again.  “If it’s got anything to do with Christine, I refuse.  You’ve caused the two of us and especially her enough misery over the past . . .”

“Do calm down and let me give you the story from the beginning,” Andromeda cut her off sharply.  “You do know that your dear Mother is planning to send you into your next life within the week?”

Sarah nodded, her face expressionless.

“And are you aware that the world She’s sending you to is doomed?”

“What?”

“Doomed.  It’s on its way towards an apocalypse.  2015 they’re prophesising, and the whole place is literally going to Hell.”  She grinned with a sadistically gleeful expression and then took a sip of her tea.

Sarah folded her hands carefully on the edge of the table.  “Well, I’m sure She’s sending me for a good reason . . .”

“Oh, certainly.  You’re supposed to help the only one with the power to stop the world from ending.”

“ . . . And that would be . . .”

“Your precious Christine, who else?”  Andromeda sneered at her over her tea-cup.  “Don’t you ever get tired of being the Messiah’s little Sister, is what I want to know.  But anyway.  So yes, They’re sending Life’s Daughter in again to save the world and everything will be fine.”

“Well, that’s lovely.  What has it got to do with me?”

“Everything, Princess.  They’re sending you in first.  You’re to be the elder Sister this time, by several years.”

“That still doesn’t explain anything.”

“Well think of it, lark.  The world will be yours.  For Heaven only knows how many years – you will be the only Daughter of Life on the planet.  If you wanted to, you could have them wrapped around your sweet little fingers by the time you’re twenty.”

Sarah blinked slowly, then raised one eyebrow in a manner that came close, apparently unconsciously, to mimicking Andromeda’s own.  “All right.  I suppose the real question is, what has it got to do with you?”

Andromeda grinned.  “Sharper than you were, aren’t you?  I suppose it’s all the planes-wandering.  Hardens the soul, but being on your guard like that on the time does hone the perception.  Well, all right, I shall get to the point: suppose Christine never averted the apocalypse?  Suppose you were there to watch the world fall?  Suppose – oh, this one’s priceless – suppose they believed that you were their Messiah, while all the while you knew full well that you, the younger Daughter, could do nothing to save the world, and when the time came, you stood back and let the apocalypse happen?”

Sarah’s smooth forehead furrowed slightly in a frown.  “That’s dreadful.”

“Isn’t it brilliant?”

Sarah poured herself another cup of tea.  “All right, so I think I understand.  Once the world ends, it’s yours.  There’s no-one left to claim it but you.  You’d have to wait a thousand years before another opportunity like that turned up, wouldn’t you?”  She set the tea-pot down on the table sharply.

“Or more.  Perfect, isn’t it?”

“You’ve not changed a bit, Andie dear.”  Sarah lifted her tea-cup delicately with two hands and glanced at Andromeda over the rim.  Her Cousin laid her elegant hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward a little.

“Your role in this is simple.  All you’ve got to do is keep Christine from achieving Messianic status in time to save the world.  I don’t know if you know it yet, but your Mother Life has commissioned another opera in that realm, based on one of her more definitive lives and you’re to star in it – as your dear Sister.  Who else better for the role, I suppose?  Well.  Her reputation, then, is entirely in your hands.  Portray her correctly – let me direct you – and by the end of the first season we can have her credibility torn to pieces.  So, the time comes around and this little girl pops up again and announces she’s Life’s Daughter and she’s going to save the world.  They laugh at her, or better, have her hanged, crucified, burnt at the stake, anything you like – they think they know her already.  And so then there’s just you.”

Sarah’s face had darkened to an austerity it had not appeared capable of taking on moments before, but she calmly raised her eyebrow again and resumed stirring her tea.  “It will never work.”

Andromeda snorted.  “Oh?”

Sarah glanced up, and smiled humourlessly.  “Well, for one thing, if Life is sending me back within the week, surely by the end of world I’ll be . . . in my fifties, at least!  I’ll be an old woman, if I’m still alive.  Some fresh-faced starry-eyed Messiah I’ll look.”

Andromeda grinned in a manner that was not at all benevolent.  “Ah, but you’ve forgotten one trifling detail, little lark.  We Cousins have this habit of appearing curiously resilient to time, you know.”  With a furling of velvet she produced a photograph from one of her voluminous sleeves and laid it on the table.  It was a portrait of Sarah, nearly as glowingly radiant as on the first morning of her holy existence, bright-eyed, cherub-faced, and smiling.  Clasped about her neck was a silver eight-rayed star, sacred to her Mother. 

Sarah reached over and cautiously drew it to herself with the tip of one finger.  “You look like you did before you met me, even!” Andromeda laughed, “That is you in the year 2013, just before the end of the world.  You are fifty-three, and don’t look a day over twenty, do you?  Interesting, that.”

Sarah said nothing.

“Oh, I’ve forgotten to mention – well, you know me, I wouldn’t ask all this of you and then give you nothing in return,” Andromeda waved her hand airily, “You know me, I excel at scripting lives.  I’m almost as good at it, I daresay, as my own Mother, Chaos, and She’s a Goddess, after all.  Fame, wealth, power, anything you need – it’s yours.  And of course, I’d see to it that you weren’t sent into the world alone . . .”

She pushed another photograph across the table, and Sarah let escape a little gasp, in response to which Andromeda pressed her lips together complacently.  They were a darling little family in the photograph, a beaming Sarah leaning fondly against a big, broad-shouldered man, so tall he could rest his chin on top of her head, his gentle giant’s presence sheltering both her and the curly-headed, sweet-faced baby, a perfect miniature replica of her mother, in her arms.

Andromeda drummed her red-lacquered nails idly on the table.  “How long is it since you’ve had a family?” she mused, as though half to herself, “A few lifetimes at least . . . ever since that little fling with the Fallen Angel.  Is that what got you kicked out of Heaven?  Hm.”

The space between Sarah’s shoulders tightened only slightly.  “And how long has it been since your Mum turned you out of Hell?  Even he laughed at you that day, did you know?”

“And who would that be?” Andromeda replied, feigning nonchalance, but the rapidity of the challenge betrayed her curiosity.

“Why, the Fallen Angel you speak of, who else?”

“How nice for him.  Now, about that family of yours . . .”

Sarah looked at the picture again, briefly, then pushed the it back across the table.  “No doubt we named her after her Aunt.”  She stood, abruptly, and crossed the room.  Andromeda rose in a silky movement and followed her.  Sarah put her back to her and folded her arms in a gesture that seemed more defensive than defiant.

“You know she’d give you up for her own beloved in an instant, Sarah,” Andromeda pressed softly, in a tone of bewildering gentleness, “I know where you are.  We’re both the younger Sisters – no-one really cares about us, not our Sisters, not even our Mothers.”

“No.”  Sarah turned slowly and looked up at her through the five inches of height that separated them.  “That’s where you’re wrong.  Maybe no-one really loves you, but even now, after everything unholy you’ve done to me, I know Christine adores me and would put herself in the way of you, even, to prevent me from getting hurt.  She’s died for me, you know.”

Andromeda smirked.  “And you saw what happened to that world soon after.  She died, you died anyway, the world ended.  Still, I suppose you feel it’s the thought that counts . . .”

“Whatever my Mother has planned for me is planned and that’s all there is to it,” Sarah continued, “You can’t do anything about it, Andie dear.  You’re not a Goddess, just a Daughter, just a younger Daughter.  Just like me.”

For just a moment Andromeda looked taken aback, her corundum eyes flashing.  Then she snorted disdainfully.  “I hardly need to remind you, lark, that I am virtually nothing like you.  I’m the dynamic inverse of your cherished Sister; that does establish me as quite a bit removed from you.  And I should think that you, of all people, would acknowledge that of which I am capable . . .”

The words hung in the quiet air as though charged, while Sarah looked at the floor.  She did not respond.  Andromeda sauntered back over and retrieved her tea-cup, leaning on the table with one hand.  “And even if I were anything like you, you know my dearest Mother would still do anything I asked Her to if I could persuade Her that it made you miserable enough.  She enjoys watching Life’s darling Daughters suffer almost as much as I do.  So if this is the way you want it . . .”

Nonchalantly she dropped another photograph on the table, and inexorably Sarah returned.  She sat down again, picked up her tea, and glanced at the picture. 

“2013.  That’s you.”

She looked no older, but she had lost that childlike roundness, and the brightness had all but left her eyes.  They were the eyes of a defeated warrioress now, tired, cynical, dimmed beneath the weight of untold ages and vanquished dreams.  The eight-rayed star was gone. 

“You know he’ll share a name with about ten percent of the male population,” Andromeda remarked offhandedly, “Your soulmate, that is.  Oh, I could keep you looking for him for a lifetime and then some . . . and imagine the agony of finding him over and over again, only to discover that it isn’t really him at all, until finally you’ve given up, the world is laughing at you, and you are completely alone.  That’s what I can give to you, cherie, an eternity without hope, an eternity without love.”

The tea-cup rattled only slightly as Sarah set it empty in her saucer.  “Then I suppose I’ll have to make the best of it.”

Andromeda drew herself up and made as if to gather the three photographs, then appeared to think better of it and left them there.  She swept her heavy velvet cloak back about her shoulders and clasped it.  “Indeed you shall.  I’ll be seeing you again, Princess – don’t doubt that.”

Sarah folded her arms on the edge of the table and smiled brightly with a little tilt of her head.  “I never have, Andie dear.”

The door closed soundlessly behind Andromeda as she swished away with a rustling of skirts.  Sarah looked at the table, then sorted through the photographs with her fingertip for a moment.  The man, the baby, and Life’s younger Daughter smiled up at her until she turned it over.  Then she rose and left her quiet tea-house to resume wandering the ether between dimensions.

((Please review!))