Hope in the Abyss

The young creature sought shelter against a huge rocky outcrop against the starless sky as the wind - strong enough to rip the fur off a less clever creature - ravaged the endless wastes. Lightning once more erupted across the starless sky in an unnatural red, forking aberration as thunder ripped in a wave to her long, sensitive ears.

She knew she had found the desolate place beyond the end of her short journey before, and now... how long would this new journey last?

Around her were the ruins of unknown beings - the shattered remains of some curs’d civilization. Or had there never been any creatures here? She had barely escaped her pursuer through the caverns of the abyss and into this new place that was barely better than the chthonian depths she had just emerged from. 

Orphea - once a gorgeous, clever vixen - had merely encountered a... setback. She refused to be reduced to a shivering creature. Spying a puddle of water in the neverending storm near a wall she lunged and lapped it up into her everthirsty throat, being careful to keep one eye always peering behind her.

To her desolation, the water did not soothe her thirst - no matter how much she drank. Her muscles ached as the liquid turned to dust in her maw. She opened her mouth to the sky, hoping to catch a scarce drop of water from the merciless sky but, just as she figured, there was none.

Orphea’s pursuer, whom she had not seen in a few days, was hopefully lost in the caverns now, but the memory stalked her dreams.

The wind continued its merciless scream across the black-sanded wastes that had been in this place since the beginning of time, and perhaps before. Orphea wrapped her once-luscious tail around herself and watched the cavern entrance a few hundred yards distant for the telltale eyes of her tormentor.

Was it just her and the other? Was she and... the other one... the only ones forsaken?

Somewhere else, in her splendid gown of stars, was the Goddess of Hope, Rejita. She was watching in the wading pool the struggles of her adopted daughter. Presently she heard steps behind her.

“I wonder if the Goddess of Hope would consign someone to the Delirious Hells if she did not have a good reason?” It was her old nemesis-turned-ally, Jack O’Savern. “What good does it do anyone to keep her there?” He asked gently. “She is no threat, Red.”

Rejita, a jackalkin who now reigned over the celestial plain, turned to the old, sly fox.

“I’ve tried showing her the path out. But she refuses to take it. There are some rules even I must abide by. She has to find her own way out, I can’t just yank her free.” 

“So you are without hope for her, Goddess of Hope?” Jack asked. After all those millenia, he still liked getting under her skin... except in this case, his snipe was regarding his own wayward daughter, and his eyes had no hint of mirth in them, but a gentle sadness.

“I will never give up on her. Some might say that makes me a fool.”

The image in the scrying pool - of a vixen shivering against an outcropping, planning her next move in the endless wastes - made Jack shake his furred head. “No one will ever think that of you, Red,” he said, using her worldly moniker and placing a furred paw on her shoulder. “Having mercy on those that have erred makes you brave.”

She smiled sadly in response. 

“Thank you Jack.”  

“Certainly, but... Will you ever show her mercy?” Jack asked, a little more serious.

“Yes. I still love her. Even after all of this.” 

“Don’t forget her, Red,” Jack said, stepping back.

“Never.”

Orphea kept her pointy ears straight up, but could hear little other than the screaming winds of the storm that ravaged the Delirious Hells - the afterlife to which she had been consigned by her adoptive mother. Finding that her keen sense of hearing was of little use, the vixen folded her long ears against her head.

Just then, a thought crossed her un-alive mind. It had the shape of a dread concept, but encapsulated all of Orphea’s trials and tribulations. As the wind howled she held it in her agile mind and began to laugh.

It was a full-throated laugh, the kind that made her maw extend almost to its maximum. After a few minutes the laughter relented until she saw two twinkling circlets emerge from the far cave. Orphea wiped her now-dull blue eyes and sat herself back up.

“Grand-daughteeerrrrr...” the voice said, clearer than ever, even through the dimension-spanning storm that spat and raged through forgotten ruins. It was her pursuer, Alia Veilwinter.

“Grand-daughteeeeeerrrrr...” The violent ghast in the vague shape of a vixen said once more - her vibrant eyes flashing in a violent myriad of different colors. Her smile matching her eyes in the colors that it was cycling. “Come to meeeee...”

Jack looked at his old friend, her muzzle frozen in a frown of deep thought. “I know you did not mean for this kind of punishment, Red,” he said. “The Delirium was made beyond the sight of Gods. Does she deserve... this?”

“All creatures deserve salvation, Jack.”

Jack licked his maw with a thought. “While she finds her way to heaven from that... place... perhaps a salve from time to time would be... helpful? So that she does not lose all hope?”

Down in the desolation, Orphea had grabbed a rock and ran down a side path back into the abyss, followed quickly by Jack’s own mother whom he also mourned.

“What exactly are you proposing, Jack? You know I am not lying about having limits for what I can do for her.”  

“Merely a salve,” he suggested. “Perhaps once a ‘week,’” he began, neglecting the existential meaning of the word in his current context, “you could let her taste the food of love and heaven. Just for a brief respite? To give her your namesake... hope?”

In the great Abyss - greater and deeper than the one from the plane of flesh and death and life - Orphea lacked the strength to pile stones in front of the entrance and simply staggered on. The caves themselves were so dark that even her foxkin eyes could not see the way from one path to another except for rare glints from bioluminescent moss that clung to a few of the walls. In other cases, she had to make educated guesses on the routes to follow based on her studies of cave and rock formations.

She couldn’t be caught again.

A roar from a few dozen feet behind her, followed by the sweet tones once more. “Grand-daughteeeerrrr...”

Orphea hid behind a stalagmite and held her breath. Even though her lungs had long, long ago decomposed, she still felt the pain in her non-existent chest.

“Grand-daughteeeerrr... Come say helllooooooo...”

A light at the end of the cave. Calling her in a familiar voice. Was it a trick? She peered around the corner and even saw her vile grandmother called to it.

Rejita’s cherubs had put the basin of the sacred pool on the table and had decorated the glade with hanging lights. She looked at Jack.

“Do you think this will work?”

Jack nodded. “Veilwinter has eyes everywhere, and with your blessing, they can open.”

“I hate it when you talk like that,” Rejita said, peering into the basin and seeing two pairs of eyes greet her. Immediately she recognized both sets. “Hello, Orphea,” she said softly to the gentle blue eyes. “...Hello, Alia,” she said darkly to the set of eyes that darted and phased in and out of a million different hues.

“Rejiiiitttaaaaa...” Alia said, her threatening fangs drawing across her maw. “So lovely to seeeeee you...”

“Hello mother,” Orphea said, sitting next to her horrific grandmother peacefully. The light from heaven was enough to melt almost all animosity, it seemed. “I am... happy to see you. Somewhat.”

“Please Orphea, come to me.” 

Orphea huffed. “I haven’t found the path out yet, mama!” she said. Rejita’s heart leapt: it was the first time that Orphea had called her anything other than ‘mother’. “I’m being chased and eaten by this one, here!” She said, jerking a furry finger to the other guest.

“What a fun surprise!” Todd - Jack’s heroic son - interrupted. “Are we going to be bringing them to heaven soon, mama?” he asked Red.

“TODD!” Orphea squealed. “Hello brother!”

Todd lurched over the shallow platter that held the visages of his beloved sister and somewhat-beloved grandmother. “Orphea! It has been a few thousand years, hasn’t it?” He said, laughing like the happy pirate he was.

“Not so close Todd,” Rejita corrected.

At hearing his daughter call Rejita ‘mama,’ Jack leaned over and nuzzled her before standing over the scrying pool himself. “Be parsimonious my fluffs,” Jack said. “We can only keep this portal open for a few hours.”

The evening passed with food and drink on one side and conversations on both sides. After a little while - too little - the light flickered. Alia was still entranced - able to cause a disagreement between two gods in spite of everything - while Orphea silently excused herself.

She covertly waved to Rejita who smiled and waved back warmly.

So, the vixen thought to herself... 

...There is hope...