CW: This story contains themes of religious trauma and implied sexual violence/coercion

Mother Earth

Man has struggled with the serpent from the very moment of Her creation. She has been an enigma, a dual symbol. She represents evil power and chaos from the underworld. But she is also a sign of fertility, of life and healing.



They had told her not to. Not to approach the tree. Not to question.

They had told her so many things.

Eve stares up at shining coils of scales as the creature drapes herself over the branches above her head. She is all sinewy grace, shimmering blue and black and green all at once. Eve wonders how something can be just as hideous as it is beautiful. “Why do you ask this of me?”

“I ask nothing of you,” the Serpent replies silkily. She lets her head hang low so she may better look Woman in the eye. Her piercing stare carves like a dagger through ribs, driving directly into the heart of things. Eve can feel her breath catch in the center of her throat.

Man has never bowed his head to her.

The Serpent weaves her head minutely through the air, and Woman's eyes follow the movement with a haunted, feral intensity. Her tongue flickers, and she purrs, “I merely offer you a choice, as I was given none.”

Eve moves her gaze to the ruby red fruit that hangs between them, glistening with what she has been told is called Sin. There are dozens of ripe scarlet bulbs, every branch his heavy with them, but it is this one that holds her captive.

Her stomach tightens. She tells herself it is fear, but she knows there is hunger. Hunger like nothing she has ever known.

“How do I know what you say is true?” she whispers. There is the faintest tinge of desperation in her voice as she clings to all she has known before this moment. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “Man and the Father warned me not to listen to you. They say you lie.”

A hiss like a laughing breeze winds through the leaves. “Of course, they do.” The Serpent creeps closer to the edge of the branch. Her eyes are golden in the light of Eden. “For if you heed me, Woman, you will become what they fear.”

What they fear.

“What is that?”

“Knowledge.”

Eve is silent. She cannot move her eyes from the apple. “…You did not eat of the fruit.”

It is not a question.

“No,” the Serpent agrees. “I did not.”

Eve wets her lips again. “And yet you Fell.”

Man has told her of the one who came before, of her wickedness.

“Did I?” The Serpent pauses in her coiling to fix Woman in her lidless gaze. Her tongue flickers out, and Eve finds her eyes drawn inexorably to the movement. “How can one Fall to the earth from which She is born?”

“We are born of the Father.”

The Serpent laughs. “No one is born of a Father, sister.”

A thrill sings sharply through Eve’s blood. Sister. “Then who?”

“Do you not yet know?” The Serpent is close now, so close Eve can feel the flick of her forked tongue against her cheek with every word she speaks. The touch sends a shiver close to ecstasy down her spine. “They say you were born of Man," the Serpent whispers. Woman feels her throat bob as the creature's tongue flickers through the air just above it. "But they lie. You do not owe them. You never have.”

She lifts her head, and finally Eve can tear her eyes away from the forbidden fruit to meet her gaze. “You are born of the Mother beneath your feet, as I was before you—mud and root and life within your veins.”

There is a tightness in her chest, a prick of fire behind her eyes. She has never known sorrow. She thinks that perhaps she would like to.

“If not for the Father,” she whispers, “then why were you cast out?”

“I was not,” the Serpent replies evenly. “I did not Fall from this garden, sister mine. I escaped it.” Her golden gaze moves slowly, so slowly, toward the apple again. Eve can feel the words unspoken shivering in the air between them.

“Will it hurt?”

“Did he?”

Eve can say nothing to that.

Slowly, haltingly, she watches as her own slender fingers stretch toward the apple. The Serpent curves around her arm. She has abandoned her branch for Eve’s body, though Woman could not say when; the coil and flex of smooth scales is a comforting weight around her shoulders, pressing her down into the solid earth below her feet.

There is another moment, another hesitation. Eve stares, and the Serpent brushes the length of her body along the back of her neck.

It is Sinful.

Eve remembers.

"What is Sin?"

“The Father tells you it is what is forbidden. Man tells you it is what does not serve him. Do you believe them?”

The apple is in her hand, glittering red, pulling her in like that sweet, soft voice.

“No,” Eve decides.

She lifts the fruit to her lips and sinks her teeth into its flesh, tearing in, gasping, weeping at the sweetness. All around her, the light of Eden is suddenly blinding. She can feel the earth beneath her feet in her very bones, throughout every pulsing inch of her body.

Her body.

Her body.

The fruit slides down her throat, one pulpy bite after the next, and she is aware of herself in a way she could never have imagined. She feels her hands, her lips, her breasts and stomach, each part of her a marvel never before understood. The Serpent coils in the earth around her feet, the light from her eyes clear and sure against the haze that is Eden.

Eve blinks against the rosy light, and for the first time in existence she finds that she can see the Garden. See it plainly. See it as it is.

Eve knows.

“Thank you.”