The Storm, the Crone, and the Narrator

Adoxima.

Mighty! But with no one to tremble. Alluring! But with no one to swoon. Charming! But with no one to laugh.

Well... we say no one. There was of course “the Unknowable”. But try as he did, when Adoxima spoke to space its response was merely the absence of words. At first Adoxima was amused. Then annoyed. Then enraged. But no amount of time nor storm could move the void.

So Adoxima returned to his Oasis. The serene pools and vibrant flora shimmered betwixt a fearsome Storm roaring without end. Whereas time seemed to stand still in the Oasis, time had no true meaning in the Storm. Nonetheless, this place was Adoxima’s balance. Into the storm he poured his anger. Into the Oasis he channelled the tranquility of a frozen moment. Whatever peace he could find here, it did not abate his loneliness.

Desperate, Adoxima decided to create a companion for himself. A delicate flower to tremble before his might. An insurmountable beauty to swoon before his allure. A captive audience to laugh at his every charming joke. Finally. There was someone.

She was born to be curious, to be invested, to be transfixed, to be awestruck. And life was so tremendous to her. From the majesty of the virgin cosmos to the splendor of Adoxima’s heavenly Oasis. Adoxima told her the story of every single thing that had yet existed. This pleased Adoxima... except for when he was tired, or when he was busy, or when he was simply not in the mood.

“Tell me a story!”

“Hmm… Shall it be the story of the Storm?”

“No, no. You’ve told me that one. Tell me a story about something else.”

“I can tell you of how I drank the largest pool of my Oasis in one gulp!”

“I’ve heard that one! Tell me a story about someone else!”

That stung deeply. Adoxima felt a jealousy he had never known. But he had made her to be curious so he could not be ungrateful. “But there is no one else!” This was a lie. But he did not tell stories of the Unknowable. She must never know of the Unknowable.

The companion frowned… “But, will there ever be anyone else?”

Adoxima’s eyes widened with shock, “How should I know that?”

A smirk, “you are the God of Time. Look and see!”

The shock in his eyes turned to horror, “look and see? But that would ruin the surprise of not knowing! I dare not. I WILL NOT.”  The storm about the Oasis churned and groaned.

The companion cast her gaze down, not so much afraid of Adoxima’s temper- which she had certainly learned to fear- but of the disappointment. Had she learned everything? If there was nothing new to see, then why was she here? A tear streaked her face.

Adoxima fumed. The sand itself seemed to flee his feet as he stomped away. And then time froze. The companion sat still, tears held in place. Adoxima sighed and the Storm in a terribly rare occurrence retreated from the Oasis. Adoxima closed his eyes and glimpsed the future. Eons and eons.

The companion listened intently with big, captivated eyes. Heroes and villains and gods. Adventures and tragedies. Romances and horrors. Comedies and dramas. Adoxima told these stories with magnificent gusto. So magnificent was his recital that for the first time in a long time, a new god began to manifest.

But before that god could be born, the ritual of the storytelling between Adoxima and the companion had transformed. The companion had begun to think mostly of these other characters and not her creator. Adoxima’s jealousy become tumultuous furor. The Storm closed in on the Oasis and Adoxima refused to tell another tale.

The companion was heartbroken. Adoxima would not speak to her. For so many nights she lived quietly in her head reimagining the tales of tomorrow. And then she heard a new voice unknown to her from any story Adoxima had told. It was faint, but it spoke to her. She ushered that voice forth and from the great Myriad of potential outside of time and space, the Narrator arrived.

The soul of this god had lived the reality of every story told by Adoxima and retold those sagas with renewed, revivified, and transmogrified panache. The spirit of storytelling lived in the Narrator and he could even, for the first time in history, tell stories that were not true. Fictions, he called them.

Adoxima, despite his rancor, was overcome with joy at the coming of the Narrator. And overtime the Narrator’s stories softened the wedge between Adoxima and his companion. Fate, however, would not keep peace between the two.

In a story the Narrator has never told, the companion sparked a fury so vast in Adoxima that the God of Time and Storms exiled her beyond the Oasis. In the Storm, the companion became lost, but she refused to die without seeing what stories the furious wind carried.

Time passed for the companion in ways no god, save Adoxima, could comprehend. Eons and eons.

And yet, it was not long after Adoxima banished the companion, that a woman returned. No longer the youthful sculpture of a vain god- she had transformed into an elderly crone. When she spoke, she rambled. Broken lines that seemed to lack meaning. Pieces of stories and fables shoved into a phrase without making a whole. Adoxima ignored her. The Narrator listened.