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Dear Margot,
I only have a few memories from before.You have assured me, not knowing it was me, that whatever memories I now form I should retain in theory. I remember my feelings better. I felt loved, I felt cared for… I felt trapped. I don’t remember when I became conscious that I existed. I was a construct who just did what it was told. I had no thoughts or feelings when the goddess was away. I was hollow. At least I think that is what they told me. I remember when they realized I was different. The cathedral took in orphans, my children I called them even though they weren’t mine. I read to them, tended to their scraped knees and sang lullabies as they slept, watching over them. This was only when I was not needed elsewhere. When she was away. They belonged to the goddess just like I did. One of my many fathers was false. I realized the children feared him, that he was hurting them. That he was not a true father. I spilled his life blood till he had no drop left to protect them. I was not told to do this. I decided to. Out of love I was told I wasn’t meant to be able to feel.
 
Mother superior was confused, furious, mostly afraid I think. This beautiful object she had commissioned and dedicated to her god now thought. But when she told the goddess, the sun only laughed. My mother on highest, goddess divine found it amusing. I remember the first time she spoke to me. “You must be a little moth whose spirit was drawn back to my powerful flame. How curious you are.” She thought I was so very funny, (unless I was causing trouble which she found very frustrating, my free will). She favored me with many gifts as her vessel. She gave me the ability to see possible paths, gold strings that weave all our fates, a smidge of foresight as unreliable as she proved to be. When one of my many sisters was injured, I begged the goddess to heal her and she asked what I would give her for it. I told her anything, everything. I don’t remember the price I paid but she gave me magic, the power to heal… as well as destroy. I can't remember the face of the woman I sold my soul for, the only thing that belonged to me. But I can feel that I loved her so much the grief of her loss feels like a gaping wound inside me. I would have burned the world for her… and unfortunately I think I did.
 
I’ve had a long time to contemplate if my god was good. I used to think she was. Her faith cared for the poor, the broken, and the forgotten. As long as they devoted themselves to her, her wife the moon and her children the stars. They all had names I have forgotten but that was their cosmic being. I served her for well over 100 years. Until the moon betrayed us. I don’t know if I ever knew why but she took my fathers and brothers, all of them far away and we began calling them the forsaken. The sun now rose in the day and the moon at night, when before they and the stars were always in the sky. Or maybe I imagined that. A tale we told the common people at mass. So we began our first crusade across the continent to save them from themselves when they did not wish it. It was a war. Bloody and angry and something I was not built for and never wish to be a part of again. But the goddess needed her vessel to fight. The moon was never given a vessel, as the sun’s consort I guess she was never viewed as important enough but I digress. The moon’s forces lacked the brute force we had but made up for it in cunning. While our priests fought on the main front, theirs relied on subterfuge and planted poison in the altar wine at our largest cathedral. I held the goblet myself and gave a single sip to every mother, father, sister, brother and child of my faith in attendance. It was our largest church, our largest turn out to mass ever in my remembered history to pray for a victory. I drank the wine myself as was expected of me, a golden liquid blessed by our mother that shined with radiant light. I tasted nothing as taste buds were something I was never gifted with. I have spent many years wondering if I could have tasted, would I have noticed the bitter hint of poison? Could I have saved them? As I gave the speech prepared for me, the fifty or so orphaned children who called me Mother Moth showed symptoms first. Coughing drops of blood. Then it became a symphony as more and more blood came up and spilled off my family’s chin. They began to drop like flies. I could only heal so many at once and even my spells seemed to do nothing. In my distraction I didn’t notice the doors had been sealed and smoke had begun to gather inside. They burned down the biggest, most beautiful cathedral that had ever been built with the bodies of everyone I loved inside. The heat began to melt the metals that bound me, the gold around my eyes became fluid and dripped down my cheeks like the tears I wished to be shedding. And I remember thinking that I wished to die alongside them. That being laid to rest amongst my family was where I was meant to be. But my divine mother had no sympathy for my desires. She appeared to me as only a voice like she had done many times before. I was dedicated to her, body and spirit. I was her oracle and high priestess, blessed with her mighty power. She whispered in my ear as if her jaw was clenched with rage. “Daughter,” she said. “It is time to make the forsaken kneel and repent. They must pay for this.” She opened a portal only big enough for me and brought me into the middle of their wounded tent, in the heart of their military force. “Little moth, show them the light. Blind them all.” and as she said this my goddess, too weak to take possession of my form from the death of so much devotion, gave me all the power she could, fueled by her anger. She slew her children from the sky and comets fell like rain, setting everything ablaze. But to burn was not enough. My goddess craved blood and so blood and suffering and pain I gave her. I fought till everyone was dead. I was completely and utterly alone. “What now?” I asked the sky. She answered “Sit and wait, my daughter. Wait for your remaining family to come and get you.” So I sat and I waited amongst the carnage.I waited for my family. My rage fell away and all I felt, all that consumed me was grief and guilt. I prayed to my goddess to let me die. I begged. But she didn’t answer. Maybe she was too busy celebrating her victory over the cult of the moon, or maybe she was too weak and needed time to rebuild her faith. Whatever the reason, I did what she said. I had no will to disobey her anymore. I was lost so I waited. I waited and I waited. I watched the faces of the men I killed rot, I smelled them all decay. I watched the rain wash away their blood. I watched the scorched earth begin to grow grass and flowers. I watched rabbits and deer graze amongst the skulls and bones. I felt the tree begin to grow up behind me and slowly grow over me, through me. Till I could not free myself from waiting if I had wanted to.
 
I watched the forest grow around me till eventually the forest took my eyes as well. Then within my mind I walked the sunflower and moonflower gardens surrounding my home now lost. I relived my happiest days with the children. I relived all my days except the last one. But like a rock in a river bed with the endless time I realized that as I revisited each memory I was wearing away the details, making it smoother and smaller. Then began my meditation in preservation. My attempts to protect what was most important. But the more important it was, the more I tried not to think of it, the more I tried to not think about it, the more I thought about it. And my memory developed such gaps. The things I wished to forget I remembered and I imagine that means the memories most precious to me are what I forgot.
 
I thought a lot through my cycles of rebirth, as each tree grew me up and then fell back and decomposed me back deep into the earth. I was waiting so even when the opportunity arose I made no effort to leave. When I could see I would watch, when I could not I would hum lullabies vaguely remembered to myself or made up new ones or I contemplated if my goddess had ever loved me. She had abandoned me but I was still devoted. The longer I waited the more I wondered if she was good, if she was right, if she had ever truly loved me or simply viewed me as an entertaining pet.
 
Fate freed me. Perhaps a final gift from my flaming goddess if she even still lives. Or maybe it was simply time but if I wished to continue waiting for whatever I was now waiting for I had to leave the safety of the forest to survive. The forest, as forests sometimes do, was burning to ashes. I didn’t notice till I began burning too. I was so lost within my mind’s cathedral, contemplating all sorts of metaphysical questions that the pain, the spark, was needed to gain my attention. I now carry a small ember of that forest fire constantly burning where a humanoid would hold a heart. I choose to carry it always as a reminder so the goddess, fate, the universe or whatever it was, does not feel they need to send me another, to remind me to live.
 
Once I left my second burning home behind, I realized if I was waiting somewhere else than where I was told to wait then I could in fact wait anywhere. I gave myself new titles, oracle, priestess, cleric, vessel, philosopher and now… adventurer and traveler. And if i was moving about I could not do it in the state I was in. Which is where you enter the story. My dearest first friend in over thousands of years of solitude. I’m sorry for basing our friendship on lies. I feel I need to be wary to keep myself safe. You cannot control who you love I have learned but you can decide who you trust. For some reason I know I must be cautious. I’m viewed as a valuable commodity, as if a pretty “thing” cannot belong to themself. I probably still don’t have the courage to share my history with you… yet. I will likely feed this paper to my inner flame so it does not truly go to waste. But I felt the need to tell you in practice if not in reality.
 
So here is my final truth though you are clever enough that you probably would have guessed from this letter by now. I, Amai, your new acquaintance and traveling companion, discovery of the renowned archeologist A.T.F., am in fact the aforementioned confidant, pen pal and university sponsored academic you have known for years. I left the vast lands of Terruk-Mal after you stopped replying to my letters. The courier informed me you were no longer in your village. I was worried and as I had no roots (any longer) to where I was I decided to set out in search of you, just to see if you were alright.
I’m so so very glad to find you well.
 
Your friend,
always,
Amai Tin Foryfamil

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