The Goddess that was a mistake

The chill midnight breeze blew against the treetops, electing an occasional downpour of graying autumn leaves. The rich scent of pine and lavenders diffused through the air in this distant fringe of a small forest, where a lone building stood surrounded by an old broken fence.

"Please Goddess, we beg for your help and blessings." A young auburn haired girl prostrated herself before the small temple, with glistening tears streaming down her small oval face.

Behind her, a woman wrapped in a patched-up grey blanket leaned on a part of the partially broken wooden fence. The only distinct features in the woman's form were the large bulge protruding from her flowy robe, and her dirty sweat-drenched face as she clenched a piece of cloth between her teeth, grunting in insurmountable pain.

"Please, we have offered you as much as we could. Great goddess why do you forsake us? Why do you ignore us?." The weeping girl continued to grovel before the closed temple door, refusing to move from her position, as the muffled screams of the woman behind her reverberated through the air into the reach of the temple.

On the other side of the door, a tanned young woman in a messy unkempt violet robe stood plastered against the cool dark wood, pushing with all her body weight against the door, as if her life depended on keeping that one door closed. "Why me? why this?" She said in a panic, blowing away the stray hairs that keep getting into her widened eyes.

"I Just wanted peace and quiet. And they said I'll get peace and quiet. So why do I have a woman giving birth at my door in the middle of the night?" The young black haired woman, said in frustration as she leaned carefully to the side, enough to get a small peak through the nearby window.

"I would have been perfectly happy being an almighty god of water or some other element like in the movies or tv shows. I wouldn't even mind being the god of sitting on my ass all day doing nothing since I was quite excellent at that in my previous life." The women mumbled to herself in wild whispers, shaking her head in denial. "I can't do this. I won't," she spoke firmly to herself in resignation, while she brushed away the short black strands of hair haphazardly covering her face.

Breathing calmly, the young woman stabilized her mental state and slowly began to lean away from the door (which was already twice locked and once barred with a metal bar). The interior of the building wasn't much of a temple. It was mostly a large circular hall supported with four thin pillars, and a statue of her in the middle. In Front of the statue, a ground level alter in the middle of the room, made of concentric circles carved into the ground like runes, took up most of the space. But the most curious things in the temple hall were the Jars, Cups, and vases surrounding the area around the altar. Each filled to the brim with water.

Within an instant of Riya leaning away from the door, the entire altar floor glowed in a light blue aura, saturating the room with a soothing light. When the young brunette saw the light expanding in her view, she swore under her breath and made a mad dash towards the water containers arranged nearby.

A blue flame materialized in the engraved circles of the altar from within the light, growing larger fast. The woman ran to the nearest Jar of water, picking it up and splashing it on the fire without a second thought. "Not this time, go away!" She shouted.

But the fire only grew larger.

With moves that seemed almost acrobatic, she dashed around the growing fire tossing glass after glass of water at its flames. But the fire only roared and grew bigger, as if feeding on the water itself. "No, go away. leave me alone, I never wanted this and I never will. Let me be miserable in peace." She wailed in defeat.

"Why would you think throwing water at a Goddess of the Nile would ward me away. Are you really that stupid?" A calm airy voice resonated through the room, making the young woman stop in her place, panting after all the wasted effort.

" I don't know where Atum went wrong in your creation, Riya. But you are by far the most simple-minded of my children." The soft maternal voice echoed, as a face materialized in the dancing flame tongues.

"Look here Goddess Inui, can you just stop popping out of every damn flame, water, or actually anything within a fifty-meter radius of me? Does knocking on doors and politely visiting people not exist in this place and time? does it have to be a surprise magic visit whenever the hell you want." The young woman now visibly angry, gave up on the water dumping effort, and throw the whole clay jar in hand at the face in the flame.

"Insolent child, Do not speak to your mother like that." The goddess merely flicked her eye up at the incoming projectile, and as if being manipulated by an unseen force the clay jar smoothly arched in the air, changing its trajectory and smashing into Riya's head.

"Insolent and stupid. We believed you to be a blessing. A goddess of fertility and childbirth from our very own line. Our family would have been proud. Your grandmother Isis might have even invited you to her own temple and domain. But you just had to be like this, speaking nonsense about being a man and belonging to some other time and place, refusing to even abide by your Goddess duties." Inui Shook her head in dismay, speaking her words softly but sternly to her irredeemable daughter.

"Look forget everything I said before, okay? I just don't wanna go out and do anything, I like my temple here, I'll stay here and I won't be a disgrace of some sort to you or the rest of the so-called family. Simple, right? Just leave me be. That also means, no popping out of my bath water please." Riya said as she held her head in pain.

"Dear mother," she added in the last second with a timid face.