CHAPTER SIXTEEN - WHERE DEATH LIVES.

“Love can pull you apart and leave you heaving and panting after the one responsible for your breaking. Now, why is that?  It is because love is necessary for the continuation of your race. Our daughter is a romantic; she never listens when I tell her how destructive love is. Cosmics do not concern themselves with emotions that do not serve their powers, but our daughter, does she listen?” 

The larger-than-life woman in front of Oge spoke as if she were proud of the child she referred to. Something in the way she talked about this child felt familiar to Oge, like she, too, had a daughter she scolded but was full of pride and love for.  

The woman's hips were as wide as her dark eyes. Eyes with a depth beyond this world. Oge let the woman run her palm over her wet face. She was weeping. She had no idea why. Something told her that whatever the reason was, it was precisely as this woman had said. It was tearing her apart on the inside. 

“Your tears used to burn through me. You were a love I mourned for centuries. Me, Mother of Deaths, falling in love. Who has heard of such a thing? You are many firsts for me.” 

Oge cocked her head to gaze into the bottomless eyes of the woman. She looked familiar, felt familiar. Oge felt a strong desire to be held and consoled by the strange woman. 

“I understand loss and pain because of you, my love. Ogolo, you set me on fire, left me burning when I did not think I had a heart to love passionately with. Ogolo, I have no soul, but thanks to you, I have two daughters who are mine. That is as close to having a soul as I would ever come.” 

Oge drew into the woman's embrace and wept into her chest. Where a heart should beat was cold and stiff. Oge pulled away, her soul remembering warmth with this woman; in shock, she pulled away even farther. 

“I know, your pain is letting you see me for what I am. You don’t see the beauty that used to take your breath away, do you?” 

The woman was smiling sadly. Her eyes, Oge thought, were like something she could drown in. 

“Go back. Our daughter will be fine. Her sister is pulling on her strength. She needed wholeness, something she lacks within herself at the moment; she is yet to learn to draw from herself.” 

Turning away from Oge, the woman paced the farm they were in, leaves spurting off mounds, burying secrets underneath those mounds, surrounded them. 

“If she keeps drawing from her sister, she will expose her to those things, earlier than I am prepared. I can no longer spare the time for her training.”  

She rushed over to Oge and placed her palm on Oge’s beating chest. 

“Your warmth used to keep me going. It tore me apart to let you go, so I understand how you must feel with Uloma. Our love, like our daughters, was something unprecedented. I will give the realms for our girls. I already am. Don’t break my heart with your tears anymore. Our girls are safe, and they will continue to be if I have something to do with it.” 

She babbled as much to herself as she did to Oge. She kissed Oge on her forehead and looked at her resolutely. 

“Go now, the human soul was not built to live outside the body for long.”