Burn [London, December 29, 1940] (narrative)
The hours between dusk and dawn had always been mysterious to humans. It could be a time of intimacy and romance as people drew together, unable or unwilling to leave the small circles of light and companionship they created. Because it was also a time of fear and uncertainty; mortal creatures relied far too heavily upon their eyes, too little on their other senses, and the darkness robbed them of the sight that they felt gave them an advantage. Which was, in Nyx’s opinion, rather narrow minded. Bad things happened just as easily in daylight as they did in the depths of the night.
But it was a psychological thing, a primal discomfort that came with not knowing: not knowing what was coming, not knowing what threatened, not knowing what lurked in the shadows, unseen and terrifying. The imagination, though, could conjure up far worse things than truly existed, and it was often a human being’s own mind that was their downfall. Not some unnamed danger in the darkness. So they created a sanctuary, small beacons of brightness in the night, to keep the black at bay and trick themselves into thinking that as long as they stayed where it was bright, they would be fine.
They had done so since they first received the gift of fire. But fire was like the night, it blessed and it cursed in equal measure. There was good and there was bad, it was just easier for them to quantify. There was no doubt at all into which category this fire fell as it painted the sky orange. Nyx had pulled her nightly veil over the city of London, but it refused to go dark.
Because it was burning. Burning in a way that it had not done since the Great Fire in 1666. There had been fires before this. There had been fires recently. They were impossible to avoid with the amount of bombing that had been taking place in England. For nearly two months, 57 days, the bombs had fallen every single day, every single night. Then it had become frighteningly more sporadic in November, the targets becoming wider spread and the bombing less predictable. But tonight the Luftwaffe was not attacking the Port of London, which had been their main target in London thus far, but the City of London, which sat in the very center of the metropolis.
And they were attacking with incendiaries.
All over the city fires were breaking out and spreading with frightening rapidity through the rubble and buildings. The conflagration lit up the sky, despite the thick clouds of black smoke that rose up to block out the clouds and stars. The night was anything but dark, and Nyx knew many would welcome the relief of the blackness she could bring to escape the unrelenting flicker and glow of the damaging fires. Just as many were cursing the darkness that they thought kept them from seeing what they were doing. If they only knew what damage was happening, they would be grateful for the blessing of ignorance she brought them with her shadows. Tomorrow would come soon enough, and then they would see.
Nyx had hated from the beginning what that crazy little man and his advisors in Germany were doing under the cover of her blanketing darkness. They liked to move when they were less seen. They used the primal fear of the night to their advantage, and she loathed them for the exploitation. A time would come when others, those that opposed them, would use the shadows she provided to fight them. And Nyx knew where her favor would lie. The Nazis and their hate-filled rhetoric, blindly blaming, the lies and the propaganda, reminded her far too well of the treatment unfairly meted out by Olympians against her family.
Mortals being what mortals were, they would fight back. The people of London would fight back, because these attacks were not doing what Germany hoped. They were not demoralizing the population and making them clamor to surrender. They were bringing the city together, strengthening the steel of their will in the fire. Tonight, quite literally. Like a phoenix, they would rise from the ashes, and then they would take back the night and use it to their advantage. And when they did, Nyx would be there to aid them as well as she could.