Daughter Earth

Esther lived by the moon. 

Eclectic, magnetic, enigmatic. A pinprick of light in a sky full of darkness. A force of femininity and elemental spirit. 

Just as the night was, she too was misunderstood. A beauty undeniable, but unconventional, and shrouded in the darkness that encompassed her. 

She could feel the force of it in her veins; the pull of the night. The moon was full, she always felt it the strongest on these nights, it was whispering her name. 

The summer sun of the day past had warmed the earth, so she stood, feet bare, toes curling around the blades of grass, teetering over the cliff edge, the salty smell of the sea below her and the glare of the moon above her. Breathing. Breathing. Breathing. The feminine power of Mother Nature’s embrace filling her lungs and nestling in her veins, compartmentalising itself down to dance with the atoms that she was made up of. It became her. 

She’d always felt it. This calling. And every month she came here, her body alight with something. Some magnetic pull she had seldom tried to ignore but had never really understood. The days following she always felt different, more powerful, like her nerves were electric, with lightning at her very fingertips. 

Over the last twelve months, something had been building. The pull was stronger every time. Something was coming. She could just feel it. Something. 

And that’s when she heard it. With the moon at the peak of the night’s sky, the tide awash the sand many feet below her, the gentle breeze rippling through her hair and sending a chill through her body: 

“Jump,” 

Without a moment’s hesitation, without any doubt, question, or uncertainty: she jumped. 

There were no screams. Her heart didn’t pound. She felt no fear. The wind whistled by her ears as she plummeted, like a bird diving for its prey, from the cliff’s edge to the sharp water below her. The seabed was a magnet and she was metal. Like a soldier returning from war, finally recognising the roads to home, that’s where she knew she was going. Home. 

Even a breath away from the water’s edge, her body moments away from slamming through the ocean’s icy hands, she felt cocooned in a blanket of safety. It had told her to jump; she could only oblige. 

“My daughter,” A voice of honey melted through her eardrums where salty water should have invaded her senses, “you came,”

Sweet serenity, a tranquility bordering nostalgia, clouded her. She hadn’t broke the water, or if she had it had transported her somewhere else entirely. She lay upon a floor of amethyst, the room cave-like but radiating warmth, light bouncing from the quartz walls. Nowhere had ever felt more like home. This was beyond the natural realm, but she felt no shock or surprise, she’d been waiting for this her whole life, she had just been unaware. 

The cave was something of ineffable beauty, made up entirely of natural crystals, humming with power and energy, undeniably close to the sea going by the thick saline smell and the puddles of seawater gently simmering in the groves of the floor and trickling down the walls. With her hands pressed against the amethyst she could feel the Earth’s pulse, the rise and fall of its breath. Lifting her eyes slowly, drinking in every inch of the beauty that surrounded her, her gaze finally rested on a woman who looked down at her fondly. Woman didn’t feel like the appropriate word, she was some sort of goddess, some anthropomorphised natural wonder, or an unearthly spirit borrowing a human form. She sat in a chair of moonstone carved into the marble wall, entirely naked aside from the warmth of the gentle smile she wore on her face. She was unabashed, and so Esther felt no discomfort. Her skin was alabaster, with specks of lilac and lines of sapphire, hips and breasts full and round and soft, with ivy in the place of striae. Looking at her face was like looking through a portal straight to heaven, where she would be the Angel on God’s right shoulder. Her lips were striking against her pallid skin, an almost violent shade of red if she didn’t repel the mere notion of violence. Freckles of sage and lavender and blush were littered over her nose and forehead, dancing across her features like the stars in the night sky. Hair of copper cascaded over her back and to her hips. Most striking of all, however, were her eyes. Set against navy sclera, her iris’s were true reflections of the moon - her eyes mimicked the sky. She was beauty personified. 

“I am Materra,” She hummed, her voice a perfect melody. “Mother of All.” 

Esther adjusted herself to kneel before Materra, bowing deeply to her. She knew nothing of this world but her actions felt innate. There was an invisible string tying the two of them, from one heart to another, beating softly in the air between them. 

Materra stood and glided to Esther, kneeling with her, taking her hands. Materra’s touch was an elixir of life, a burst of perfect ataraxy settling over her at the contact. Esther bowed her head further, bringing Materra’s knuckles to her mouth and placing a kiss upon them. 

“This is the heart of Earth,” Materra continued, slender hands slipping from Esther’s grip, pointed nails gesturing fluidly to the cave that surrounded them. “The very heart,” Esther nodded. She understood. “I am Mother of All, but tonight, I am Mother of You.”

“Mother?” Esther whispered, head still bowed respectfully. 

“I have waited for this day for eighteen years. I have watched, every Lunar night you have come, and I have waited. You have always known?” 

“Yes.” Esther affirmed. She had always known.

“Clever girl,” Materra lifted her hand, cupping Esther’s cheek with a delicate touch. “Even raised by mortals your divine power was palpable, I could feel it, here,” she lowered her hand to rest over Esther’s heart, her other hand coming up to lay against her own chest. All at once Esther could feel their hearts as one, slow and synchronous. “Press your hand to the floor,” Esther did, and the thumping of their hearts grew louder. “Our heart’s beat with Earth, we are all one. I am Materra, and you are Filiarrae.” 

“What does that mean?” Esther asked, her voice hushed, bouncing against the walls of quartz. 

“A thousand years Materra reigns before she crumbles to selenite and joins her ancestors in Luna. I am 974.” Esther’s eyes lifted and met Materra’s, a question that needn’t pass her lips. “I am Mother Earth. In 26 years time I will be gone. In 26 years time your clock will turn back to zero. In 1,026 years time you will join me,” Materra’s eyes flicked up. 

“You are Filiarrae. You are Daughter Earth. In 26 years you will be Materra; Mother of All.” Esther’s breath hitched slightly, and so the Earth below her hiccupped, “You, Esther, will become Mother Earth.”