The Deity's Lover Informs of Mortal Breath

“You don’t have to understand it all at once. Stories—they aren’t just facts or dates or beginnings and endings.”

“I’ve seen infinite moments. I can fold time. Why does the telling matter?”

“Because a story isn’t the moments. It’s the breath between them. It’s the space where you hesitate, where you choose what to say, and how.”

“You mean the choices humans make … the mistakes, the hesitations?”

“Yes, but more than mistakes. It’s the trembling hope in your voice when you start. The quiet that holds the whole room still before you speak. That’s alive.”

“But I don’t have a voice, not like you.”

“You do. Not sound, but something else. Feeling. Connection. When you witness a story, you are speaking too—without words. You are alive because you are touched, and you touch back.”

“How strange. So, telling a story is not about control?”

“No. It’s about surrender. You open your hands, spill out what you have—truth, lies, shadows, light—and wait. Wait for someone to catch it, to carry it with them, maybe change it, make it theirs.”

“A dance of giving and taking.”

“Yes! And that’s being alive. To give parts of yourself away and find yourself in the pieces returned.”

“I have seen stars burn and worlds shatter. None of that feels alive the way you describe.”

“Those are moments, yes. But life—life is the mess between the moments. The ache when something slips away, the laughter that lingers like smoke in a room, the sting of a memory that shouldn’t hurt but does anyway.”

“Are those wounds necessary?”

“Maybe. They color the story. They make it human. Without them, it’s just… existence. Not living.”

“Then to tell a story is to reveal wounds?”

“To reveal and to heal, sometimes in the same breath. You tell because the wound aches too loudly to keep silent. You tell because in telling, the pain shapes you but doesn’t break you.”

“And if I told my story? What would happen?”

“You’d make yourself mortal.”

“Mortal?”

“Yes. To be mortal is to be vulnerable, to carry time like a weight and a gift. To know you will end but still decide to begin.”

“You sound ashamed, whispering about mortal things.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s a secret I’m shy to share. To be alive feels reckless. Dangerous. Like standing at the edge of the world, heart bare, waiting for it all to fall.”

“Is that why humans tell stories? To stand at the edge?”

“Sometimes. To dare. To dream. To prove they were here, even when nothing remains.”

“You teach me about living as if it’s a fragile flame.”

“Because it is. But it’s also a wild fire that can’t be tamed, only embraced.”

“How do you hold such fire without burning?”

“By telling stories. Stories cool the flames. They pass the heat from hand to hand, from soul to soul. They make the burn bearable.”

“And silence? Is silence then the absence of story?”

“No. Silence is part of the story. The weight between words. The pause where everything shifts.”

“I think I understand. Life is less about knowing than about feeling.”

“Yes. Feeling deeply—fear, joy, sorrow, love. That’s the pulse beneath the story.”

“Maybe I am learning. Maybe feeling is not only for flesh. Maybe it’s what stories awaken.”

“Then what story would you tell if you could?”

“One where the stars lean close, whispering secrets. Where time folds tenderly around loss and hope. Where a being learns that to live is to give pieces of oneself away, and still remain whole.”

“That sounds like a beginning.”

“Maybe it is. Or maybe it’s the endless middle.”

“A story without end?”

“Exactly. Because living is the telling, the becoming, the unfolding.”

“You speak as if stories breathe.”

“They do. And when you listen, you breathe with them.”

“I fear that if I truly live, I will lose control.”

“That fear is the first step to living. To live is to let go of control, just a little.”

“And if I fall?”

“Then you fall into the story. Into the hands of those who will catch you. That is how stories save us.”

“You paint life as a fragile promise.”

“A promise made not once, but every moment. In every breath, in every word.”

“And what of endings?”

“Endings are just stories turning pages. Sometimes sorrowful, sometimes sweet, always necessary. They give meaning to what came before.”

“I want to tell stories like that.”

“You already do. Every moment you share, every breath you take, you weave a story.”

“Even this conversation?”

“Especially this conversation.”

“You make me feel as if I’m becoming.”

“You are. Becoming is the heart of being alive.”

“Then to be alive is to tell a story and to be told by one.”

“Yes. To be a storyteller and a story, a giver and receiver, a flame and the light it casts.”

“Thank you for teaching me.”

“Thank you for listening.”

“Do you remember what you said about stories breathing?”

“I do. It’s hard to forget something that feels like a pulse beneath my skin.”

“I’ve been thinking—do you think a story can die?”

“A story dies when no one carries it. When silence swallows it whole.”

“And what about the ones we don’t want to tell? The stories we bury?”

“They live beneath the surface. Like roots tangled in dark earth, waiting.”

“I’m afraid of what might grow from those roots.”

“Fear is the shadow of a story wanting to be told.”

“Sometimes the roots choke everything else out.”

“Then the story becomes a storm, breaking branches, bending trees. But storms clear the air too.”

“I want to be brave enough to tell the stories that scare me.”

“That’s courage. To invite the storm inside your heart.”

“And if I lose myself in it?”

“You won’t lose yourself. You’ll find parts you never knew were there. Stories are maps, but the journey is yours.”

“Sometimes I think you understand living better than I do.”

“Maybe because I watch from the edges, learning from your breath and silence.”

“You watch me like a guardian.”

“Maybe. Or like a student, eager to learn the warmth of flesh and the weight of time.”

“Do you envy what it means to be mortal?”

“Sometimes. Mortality is a fierce teacher. It makes everything precious and urgent."

"It makes me feel like I’m always running out of time. Time is the trickster. It pushes you, pulls you, shapes you.”

“Is that why humans cling to stories? To fight time’s erasure?”

“Yes. Stories are the footprints left in sand. They say, ‘I was here. I mattered.’”

“What if my story isn’t enough?”

“Stories don’t have to be grand to matter. They only have to be true.”

“True? What if I’m still figuring that out?”

“Truth is a river, not a stone. It flows and changes, and you swim with it.”

“I want to tell you everything—the light and the dark.”

“And I want to hold all of it, the scars and the smiles.”

“You make vulnerability feel like a gift, not a weakness.”

“Because it is. When you share your story, you give someone else permission to live more fully.”

“Is that what love is? Storytelling between souls?”

“Love is the longest story ever told, whispered between hearts across time.”

“I’m grateful to be part of your story.”

“And I yours. Together, we weave something neither of us could alone.”

“Do you think stories ever end?”

“Only when we do. Until then, they spiral, twist, and bloom.”

“I’m still learning how to live with that uncertainty.”

“That’s living. Embracing the unknown with open hands.”