Confession

When the world was being made, the first thing The Creator did was write a plan: he planned how the open fields and hills would roll greenly under the sun, he planned how the birds would chatter in the myriad forests he grew, he planned how dragons would walk the earth and he planned, with miniscule precision, how each creature’s life would pan out, from the minute of its birth to the minute that it died. His paper, where he wrote this plan, was the sky, and his pen so great and terrible that the only marks it made were flaming sulphurous clouds that glittered and burgeoned and broiled on that sky from the dawn of time. At least, this is what Sian believes.

Sian is a priestess of the stars, those same stars that The Creator blotched onto the sky in the first few seconds of the world. Her eyes never leave the sky, from dawn to dusk and then through the night. She is silent and thoughtful, and she listens to the world so closely that she hears it moving on its axis.

Sian is one with the stars. She knows the movement of every creature on the planet, large and small, insects and mammals and dragons alike. She knows when those creatures have heavy hearts, and when their conscience weighs on them like a thousand worlds. She knows when they will come to her, and in the darkness of the setting sun they will whisper to her their confessions. Sian listens silently to their guilt and their admissions. In the light of dawn she bows her head and forgives them, and they leave with lighter hearts and brighter minds.

And so Sian is left with the guilt and heaviness of a thousand minds, each feeling like a thousand worlds, and every time the sun rises it seems a little bit heavier, and every night she sees the stars it seems they are a little bit louder, and Sian knows that with every heavy confession her life comes a little closer to its end.