No Strings on Me
If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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Chapter 358: No Strings on Me
24th March 2015, Sayre Manor
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I refuse on principal to let that being have any hold over my immortal soul. She could reincarnate me once more, forcing me to fight endless battles for an eternity.
No more!
I am the Avatar of Death, but I will not always be. I was born to light yet forced to darkness. I have lost and suffered more than any being on this cursed planet. I have withstood loss after loss, pain after pain, with a heart of glass that is slowly shattering with every single one. I decree no more. I have given my entire life to Death; she will not get a drop of what comes after.
To prevent Death itself from getting my soul, I will have to gift it to someone else, someone that she can't touch, and I have the perfect candidate. After all, the Queen of Olympus was invisible to her, and I would rather trust my soul to her, and live out my time in her realm after my death, than allow my patron to have it.
And Death did have a blind spot when Hestia is involved, didn't she?
A sinister smile appeared on my face when the barebones of a plan started to get put together.
It was two days later that the plan was ready to be executed. I had given my students a day off and teleported to a familiar cave in Wakanda. It really was the best place to make a ritual. The vibranium had absorbed most of the ambient magic around, making it an exceptional magically sterile environment to conduct any ritual.
Yeah, that was how I was planning on executing my plan, with a ritual. Yeah, I didn't have the greatest track record with rituals, since, you know, I almost died in the last one. But binding your soul is a very delicate situation, one that needed precision. One wrong move and I could end up enslaved to a demon like Mephisto, or Dormammu.
To give away your soul, its recipient must be technically your superior when it comes to raw power. They must have a lot of authority over your action to circumvent Death's influence. It was why my binding was of a different kind. I was not offering a bond of servitude, but a bond of marriage. Honestly, something like this would have never been possible with any other God or Demon. The Olympians were the only gods that had a soul, hence could get married to mortals in the old way, the Atlantean way.
Hestia had proposed, and I realized that I never explicitly refused her offer. It was a verbal contract, one that I postponed answering. I gave her excuses, but nothing more.
It was also a binding contract. After all, the words of gods are law. And Hestia hadn't taken it back after she left. I could still feel it, the tentative bond between the two of us, ready to become something deeper, something more intimate, something more. I didn't know whether Hestia just wanted a connection between the two of us, or just to give me a way to accept her proposal, but I was very thankful for it.
I wanted to be free and now I found a way. A binding wedding, connecting my soul and hers for all of eternity would make me a part of Olympus. I wouldn't be part of Death's domain anymore, but Hestia's. And Death had no say on beings that wouldn't die.
Wakanda was a dimensional nexus that was sealed years back. Someone had decided to summon demons in this place, before a powerful sorceress called Bast massacred them, closed down the breach, and sealed it using Vibranium. The ancient Wakandans worshipped her as a Goddess, who blessed them with the 'sacred metal'. Bast being able to turn into a large black panther didn't help with the worship much.
Still, the breach, even if sealed, could be unsealed. With a flick of my finger, a tear in spacetime appeared, and I was able to traverse the endless dimensional chaos using the bond between me and Hestia, the unfinished promise. I wouldn't have been able to do this without the bond. It was like a small crack in the wall, a small hole that Hestia made just for us to be connected, just so that the offer of marriage would still hold even in between dimensions.
It didn't take long for me to find Olympus, the realm that I created in a hurry, the realm that I built to save the only remnants of my true home. These were my people, flaws and all, and they simply did not understand their legacy, their truth, and had grown arrogant in their power.
I pinged the bond and I could feel Hestia's surprise, joy, and hope. She was still standing behind her offer, and I giggled slightly in hysterical relief and spoke up, "In the eyes of the world, and everything else, I, the Morrigan take this woman. I will be hers and she will be mine. May our souls be joined in love, hope, and acceptance. May our magic be one. May she be the light to my darkness, and I the darkness to her light."
This was the start of a traditional Atlantean wedding. It was a joining of souls, with the purpose of staying together even in the afterlife. There was a reason that husbands and wives died soon after their spouses in my old home. After their death, you could still feel their presence, but they often yearned to move on, yet stayed with their spouse.
I had never done this with Selene. I never really found the reason to. We were all we had anyway, and I wanted to move on as soon as possible when I died. I never did a lot of things with Selene, especially in regard to my home.
Then, I heard Hestia's voice whisper around me, "In the eyes of the world, and everything else, I, Hestia take this woman. I will be hers and she will be mine. May our souls be joined in love, hope, and acceptance. May our magic be one. May she be the darkness to my light, and I the light to her darkness."
I could feel the bond solidify and there came the next step. The final binding. The one I could not come back from. With this, I abandoned the multiverse to Entropy's plan, with this I betray everything I suffered for, just in a bid for freedom, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I was done being the puppet, there were no strings on me.
And yet, why did I feel so regretful. Why did I feel like I was losing something. Emotions were something that came difficult to me these days, and yet the grief was so intense it hurt. My daughter, my students, my family. I was leaving them to their fate, leaving them to die.
There was a faint hope that they would be able to handle it without me. Loki and Jean were certainly powerful enough, but deep down, I knew that they wouldn't be able to do it. This was my operation, and I was giving up on them.
Perhaps it was because I didn't say goodbye. I left without saying anything. I didn't even pretend to have an excuse. Would they keep waiting for me to come back? Would they even mourn my disappearance? Would they even move on after I'm gone?
I was absolutely central to their existence. I had saved Wanda from her own powers, saved Jean from a life as a puppet, and so many more. And I was leaving without saying a word.
Perhaps it would be better to leave them at least a goodbye, some kind of closure.
I create a small illusion of myself that would act like a messenger and make it record. My surroundings which was essentially a representation of the dimensional chaos, shifted into stars, and I could look at the Earth below me. Was I subconsciously getting one last look at my world before saying goodbye? I didn't know, but it seemed fitting in a way.
"Ah, there it is," I find myself saying, "silly old Earth. The more I save it, the more I save it, and the more it needs saving. It's a treadmill. Yes, I know they'll probably get it all wrong without me. I have given everything for this silly little planet, and it's not enough. It will never be enough."
I grimaced as I found myself arguing with nothing at all, and just straightened up and looked at the recording, "I'm sorry I'm leaving you, I really am. I don't want to leave you out to dry, to deal with something I was supposed to fight, but I'm just tired. I refused to be the universe's fixer, the puppet cosmic entities use to try to fix their messes with their prophecies and quests. I suppose I'm abandoning you, in a way, but don't I deserve to have my peace? Thousands of years I have been fighting one horror after another, saving the universe from horrors you cannot even comprehend. I have fought mighty gods, and demons in realms where the laws of physics simply did not exist and was focused on the greater good, humanity's survival. And all I got for it was betrayal and heartbreak. I was so focused on some impossible goal for thousands of years that I forgot to live. The sad thing is that I know that Death is planning something for my afterlife, and this is me saying the most beautiful word in the English language, no."
I took a deep breath to stop my little speech, "Sorry, I was ranting for a bit. But the truth is that I am broken. I have been broken for a long time. And this is just me just not wanting to break even further. I know that the challenges that will await you will be frightening, so I thought I would give you a few pieces of advice an old woman like me learned the hard way. Basic stuff first, never be cruel, never be cowardly, and never ever eat pears. They're disgustingly squishy," I giggled slightly with tears in my eyes.
I really hated the fruit, something that Wanda and Jean teased me about endlessly. I guess that makes this goodbye a little bitter. I straightened up and continued, "Remember, hate is always foolish, and love is always wise. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind. You never know how far a single act of kindness can reach. Give your best whenever you commit to anything. Save as many children as you can. They'll always surprise you. Laugh hard, run fast, be kind."
I looked down, with teary eyes, and murmur softly, "It's time for me to let go now. I want you to know that I love you all, and that I cherished the time we had together. We all knew that I was preparing you for taking over for me. I guess this is me saying tag, you're it. I hope you do it better than me."
I ended the message and made it so that it would be sent on the next day. With that done, I watched as the Earth slowly morphed into the dimensional chaos and I stepped forward. I slowly floated towards the end of my bond that was getting stronger and stronger.
With every second, it solidified, and the moment that I reached Hestia, our vows would become binding, and our marriage ritual would finally be completed. I would be free to make my own choices, to live as I wish, and perhaps to die as I wish. Oh, it wasn't even close to being perfect, but it was better than the alternative. I would be letting go of my mission, of the fated fight against Entropy.
I guess this is me saying Fuck You to everyone involved in my misery.
I could feel the golden realm of Olympus as I neared. My hand was barely a couple of inches away from it when everything turned white.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.