Lazarus

"Sometimes, despite our best efforts, Nature must reclaim her own. At least, usually.


Laz was a late bloomer. By that, I mean, he was born already dead. At first his parents tried to shrug it off on new-parent nerves when his egg had been taking longer than usual to hatch. But by the third day, after all of his other siblings had long opened their eyes, they knew something was wrong. In a panic, they did the forbidden, what no parent is to do -- and pried him open. He was whole no doubt, and the egg hadn't succumbed to rot -- but that was the only good news. His body was limp, and the only signs of life in him was a weak heartbeat that made his flacid little body quiver. His parents were frantic. They had never lost a hatchling, and they certainly would not now. They tried everything -- scoured every herbalism book, hunted down every shady and renowned healer they could find. Magic, rituals, even forbidden ones. Nothing worked. Nothing could work. Nothing, except for a miracle. And that's when (Name's) parents prayed for one. That didn't work either, until it came. The apocalypse. Peaceful coasts raged and the skies burned. Gossip of Plague in the holy labryinth started to circulate like a virus. The earth screamed in protest, and climbed it's way up from the seas. It was as if all of the elements struggled to break free to welcome their new god. The God of many faces, the God of death. Few people know what happens when an Imperial dies. But now, we all knew why.

The God was an angry and vengeaful one, that wrought vengeance upon the land. We trembled in godly fear, and wondered if the gods had forsaken us. But the gods had not fully abandoned us yet. For this fallen angel, come to earth, was also a God of life. It came, it destroyed, it breathed out our destruction and shepherded our souls back to the soil. But it also breathed life. And it stirred. He stirred.

Nature takes and Nature gives, as a mother in her infinite wisdom. But She knows her children, the dead and the living, and when the winds are fair and the Gods hear us, she reclaims her own."

"His clan declared it a miracle. They named him Lazarus, after the plants and animals that defied scientists long after they thought they were extinct. But despite the fact that he grew and played like any other hatchling, they sensed deep down that there was something off about him. Something they whispered about behind closed doors, something their parents refused to hear. When our clan took him in, we didn't care. But, we never cared.To Rose, a hatchling was a hatchling, and love was love. That something never went away. But we came to adapt to his idiosyncrasies and love him as a whole, just as we always did. Whether it was unwise to love him never really mattered, anyway."

-Cthula