Weak and want you need, nowhere as you bleed Who: Ereshkigal and Namtar (no_linen_shroud) [narrative] What:NY City-wide blackout, courtesy of Erebos and the Di Omnes Nocti When: Thursday 12:01 to 12:21 PM Where: Ereshkigal's workshop and elsewhere Warnings: None
Darkness.
In another time, Kur had been her friend, her guide, had led her through the depths of her mother's seas to meet the dark little ones, the half-brothers and sisters who hid away from the light. Curiosity was behind, wisdom ahead, in the halls of the Great Below, where the glare of the sun did not reach and all secrets were unveiled.
There she gained wisdom, power, love. Her family was left behind, but the little ones swarmed around her and welcomed her, all the judges and viziers who knew her better than anyone but Enki.
In another life, Kur kidnapped her and left her weeping and bleeding on the barren plains of scorched earth below the world. It had been up to the young goddess to rise to her feet and above, to weave a mask and wall around herself, a shield against the bleak loneliness.
In the dark, she was not alone. Voices that whispered alien terrors, presences brushing against her and promising lies to the Dark Lady. She stood frozen, unblinking, unaware of the scalpel in her hand. If she strained, she could hear the water and Enki's magur boat, could feel the stones crashing down around him. But this time she could not go to him, could not open his eyes to the wisdom - because there was none, and she had no eyes with which to see him. There was only wind, and wings, and talons ripping her away from her twin.
There was no feast from Above, no emissary to send, no offering from a tribe of gods that forsook her. He did not bring down his chair, and she had no reason to bathe where he could glimpse her. There was only pain, the Bull's death, her sister's betrayal, Inanna's corpse an eternal reminder of what she had lost, for there was no Enki to send down the water and food of life.
There was only her, in an empty/not-empty wasteland with no mysteries, no knowledge, no Divine Twins, no Huluppu Tree.
Namtar found her by touch, her skin cold and clammy like that of the dead she presided over. For a moment, he was not Fate, only a son seeking his mother's comfort.
(For she who could not give birth had done so, and her children were imprisonment, fate and healing.)
It lasted only a few minutes, but for entities millennia of years old, the nothingness spread for eons. When the world returned, the vizier of Irkalla let go of his Queen's hand before her vision re-focused.