Double Role II

The last place I always end up at is a field of flowers.

When I was in the heavens, I was somewhat restricted.

A goddess of beauty is special even among gods and goddesses.

Our power is both a sweet nectar and a deadly poison.

A charm that entrances even deities is absolute, capable of twisting even

divine truth. Other deities, especially chief gods, both feared and desired

goddesses of beauty. It wasn't uncommon to hear of gods who tried to bring

a goddess of beauty to heel only to become puppets themselves.

Because of that, there were only two options.

Either completely destroy us or pamper us like princesses.

Most opted for the latter. As a safety precaution, a virgin goddess might

also be kept around. These arrangements were made to make sure the

goddesses of beauty behaved, like when Artemis was paired with

Aphrodite. There came to be an unspoken understanding that the guardians

of the realm could use their powers without limitation if it would prevent

aggression and domination in the heavens.

So I was restricted by having a guard watching over me—would be the

logical assumption.

But my charm could even break the defenses of virginal goddesses.

I was special even among goddesses of beauty.

Regardless of what I wanted, I became worshipped and feared. Chances

were the only deities in all of the heavens who could truly resist my power

were the three great vestal goddesses of Olympus.

Because of that, I was very carefully managed.

On the surface, I lived in a paradise and wanted for nothing. In truth, it

was a gilded cage meant to hold me for all eternity.

In my grand temple, peerless in heaven, the countless subordinate deities

and spirits protecting my supposed paradise were just more shackles to

chain me. The most awful part was that Odin carefully took all of my

interests and tastes into consideration when designing the temple. He

specifically chose those whom Freya couldn't abandon, turning their pure

and untarnished love into more chains that could tie me down. Meanwhile,

Odin himself skulked around at a distance where my charm couldn't reach

him while still staying just close enough for his spear to find and kill me if

anything ever happened. It was just the sort of thing that loathsome old god

would think of.

But I didn't resent my lack of freedom.

I had countless complaints, but I was pampered as a goddess of beauty

and love.

I was blessed, beloved by everyone and everything. It would be absurd

to pretend I was somehow unfortunate. After all, resignation and

detachment had long been my companions, even before I was placed in my

prison.

Ultimately, I was really just playing with dolls.

No one opposed me. Nobody could.

Everyone, from the strongest gods of war to the most villainous gods of

evil, was desperate for my love. They would do anything for it.

Meanwhile, any being I might desire would gladly offer up their love to

me.

And that love was the most hollow thing in all the realms.

There might be no one who could understand.

There might be no one who could sympathize.

What a twisted contradiction it was. Even though I was near mad in my

search for love, every being offered it to me unconditionally.

Beauty and love transformed even an abyss of dark desire into a pure,

unblemished plain.

And all regardless of my charm.

I was doomed to live with this hollowness forever.

The truth was that as a goddess of beauty and love, I would find it

impossible to ever escape my fate.

I realized that I was nothing more than a slave to love.

No matter how free-spirited I fancied myself, no matter how ruthless a

witch I pretended to be, I would never break free from the yoke of a

goddess.

When was the last time I donned a heartfelt smile instead of a mask that

entranced anyone who gazed upon it?

I couldn't even remember anymore.

Love is a convenient thing.

It allows you to attain anything. There is nothing that cannot be obtained

with it.

Love is a wonderful thing.

It can bring joy. And in the process, it can bring jealousy.

Love is a pretty thing.

It must be beautiful. Without beauty, it cannot be called love.

Calculation isn't love. If it is even the least bit unsightly, it won't be

perceived as love.

Or else it would be impossible to laugh off vulgar lust or rebuke simple

narcissism.

Love must be sacred. Everyone has their dream of love. There is nothing

more beautiful than love, nothing more noble.

If I wasn't beautiful, would I be able to forget love, I wonder?

If I cast off my beauty, could I be freed from this yoke?

That's when I decided to sully myself. I wanted to be corrupted.

I surrounded myself with gods and goddesses in my gilded cage,

debasing myself with every sort of pleasure and sampling every kind of

debauchery imaginable.

The infamous city of depravity couldn't begin to compare. The pinnacle

of degeneracy in the heavenly realm was undoubtedly the grand temple

where I was imprisoned. I sank into a sea of lust and carnal passion for

centuries, millennia.

Despite being a deity, I felt a deep weariness consume me.

And at some point, the realization hit me. Eyes still watched me from

every angle. The passionate, love-filled gazes focused only on me. Nothing

had changed.

They were still the same!

No matter how much I tried to corrupt myself, no matter how long I

spent degrading myself, not one of them would look away from me!

The yoke was still firmly locked on my shoulders.

I screamed. For the first time, I cast aside any thought for appearance

and ran from the temple. Over mountains, through valleys, across seas, and

into the stars. Wearing one of my hundred faces, borrowed from my

daughter, I evaded my pursuers and wandered the infinite heavens.

And my wandering feet took me to a boundless field of flowers.

It was here that the line between sky and ground disappeared, and in the

sea of beautiful red flowers, I kneeled and collapsed.

I couldn't cry.

But tears still continued to fall from my eyes.

Ah, I was so consumed by resignation and detachment that any powerful

emotions had long since dried up, like a parched desert. So even though it

should not have saddened me, I covered my face with my hands like a slip

of a girl. The unceasing rain became gold that fell on the red flowers and

soaked the ground.

I can't find it.

I can't find it.

I didn't know what I was even searching for. But I was surely yearning

for something—something that would free me from the yoke of being a

goddess of beauty.

The hollow tears unaccompanied by any sadness continued for a

thousand, two thousand, three thousand nights. And when the flower petals

scattered, the stems snapped, and the spring of gold threatened to swallow

me whole, she appeared.

Idun, a goddess from my homeland, was almost as charming as a true

goddess of beauty. This innocent and righteous goddess declared she had

come to give me a talking-to, because she couldn't bear to continue

watching the vulgar life I chose to lead. After detailing how sweaty she had

gotten searching long and hard for me, she began to passionately talk about

youth, the thing that she presided over.

It was her belief that relations between men and women should be pure.

They needed to share in both the good and the bad. She went on to argue

that no matter how many years passed, our souls were still youthful. And

apparently I needed to get some fresh air and buck up.

I thought about killing her. I stood up and circled behind her as she

continued blathering, and just as I was about to slip my hands around her

slender neck— "So let's search for your Odr together."

—Odr?

I stopped moving.

She smiled and continued, not realizing how narrowly she had avoided

death.

She said that there was surely an Odr who could complete me

somewhere, so I should go ahead and enjoy a vibrant springtime of youth

with whoever that may be. Evidently, they were supposed to free me from

my bondage.

Hearing that, I sneered.

I told her there was no way someone like that existed.

But I decided to believe Idun's tall tale.

After all, I couldn't prove that person didn't exist.

Once I returned to my temple, after causing a massive uproar, I became

a collector.

In my search for the one who would be only mine, I gathered every sort

of beautiful being, paying special attention to the souls of the mortal

children. And once things calmed down, I slipped out again and again to

wander.

I embarked on these trips to find my Odr. Whenever the urge struck me,

I would mask myself with my daughter's face and crisscross the heavens

aimlessly.

I escaped countless times, evading the inevitable pursuers, but the longer

I failed to find my Odr, the more my disappointments grew. Loath to let the

poison of boredom consume me, I sought stimulation, sometimes dealing

with the deities who swarmed around me while I continued to wander. That

was probably the time I happened to run into Hestia while not in disguise.

When I met Idun again and she nonchalantly asked me if I had found my

Odr yet, that was the second time I came very close to strangling her, but I

did learn something new.

There was one thing and one thing only that goddesses of beauty like

myself couldn't attain.

Something we couldn't attain because we were more beautiful than

anyone. Something we couldn't have because of the existence of love. I

began to wonder what the other goddesses of beauty felt about this, but I

quickly put that out of my mind. It was obviously pointless.

My peers were assuredly not troubled like I was. They had no doubt that

they were absolute queens and indulged in their blessings and offerings as if

it were only natural. Given their unshakable confidence in their own

superiority, they never spared a thought for how others felt.

I envied prideful Ishtar. I was jealous of foolish Aphrodite.

Even if they experienced " ", they would either sneer at it or be able to

turn it into just a painful old memory.

An eternity later, I finished my search of the heavens. My Odr wasn't in

the heavenly sea.

The next logical place to go was the mortal realm. That was around the

time in the age of gods when more and more deities began to descend from

the heavens, so I joined in as well.

On the surface, it was to deal with the boredom of the heavenly realm,

out of an excitement for the possibilities to be found in an imperfect world.

I clung to the hope of a miraculous new experience—of meeting my Odr.

But I discovered that the mortal realm is far smaller than the heavens above,

and I soon found its limits. My prayer quickly turned into despair.

Once I finished my search, all that remained was to wait for time to

pass.

By then, I had already formed my familia, and I was tired. Wearing a

regal smile in front of all those cute children, I thought it would have been

better to be consumed by boredom and sleep for all eternity.

One day, I slipped away from my watchful followers and by coincidence

wound up in a place that resembled my homeland in the heavens—a field of

red flowers bathed in the dusk light.

In the middle of that field, I slumped down, and my tears flowed. This

time there was grief as well. My yoke laughed in my ears as I desperately

held back the pangs of despair.

Those were the first and probably the last tears I ever spilled in the

mortal realm.

…Ah, no.

Because Syr cried in front of you, too.