To be born is to be granted a miracle.
These are the words oft repeated by the men who find themselves composed fully of flesh and sinew, skin covering their complexions, finding themselves blessed with two arms to pick up items, and two legs to stand on their own, and feet to walk the harsh clay below their semblance. It is a phrase of turn which has become most popular in that world of theirs, so filled to the brim with angst and misery that it is difficult to consider any which occurs to be auspicious in any possible sense. And yet, the act of inception, that of joining roe and milt, is believed to be the most potent of all possible actions.
What happens after one is birthed then? If the miracle occurs, then what happens after? Would one not assume the continuation, following the formation of the zygote, to be naught but distress and suffering, an eternity of fire-dancing and glass-stepping, of maladies and maddening insultes? Yes, one must consider that the ‘life’, as it is considered in their realm, is a meaningless squirming, akin to the worm that stares at the sun as the finch rips it from the ground and swallows it whole. No more intoxicating than the gills of a fish burning up as it gasps for clearwater, praying for aqueous air to diffuse into its vessels.
But what of those whose birth signals a miracle much greater than simply that?
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Our story begins at a chapel, where the children were brought to be birthed, as the pastor, the patron of the school of Saint Theophrastos, could stop any placental misalignment, any umbilical entanglement, any profuse spilling of the iosis, and bring the birth into completion. Yes, smart listener, you have realized the truth: The process is not any different from that of transmutation, of the transformation of the dead flesh into living beast, yet only the most adept of controllers of fire were able of such feats. The parents knew well, and thus, the chapel was visited by a great empress of a faraway kingdom, with a belly most bloated and full of flesh willing to be converted into edible, metaphorical gold, and the master of arms of her kingdom, who accompanied her as protection in name, yet was hiding a most terrible knowledge: That of being the lover and true seed provider for the child to be birthed. Ah, but of course, that is an unrelated folktale the which of will be told in due time. Let us return to the proper birth.
The situation was grave, the pastor realized, for the empress had been losing immense amounts of the life water and correlating liquids and oozes that are vital both to her and to the child concocting inside of her, so she was dragged and quickly given the most foul-smelling herbs and powders available. The battle that commenced then was a long one, and even with the arsenal of leaded utensils at the disposal of the master alchemist, it was not enough to save the empress. She wriggled in pain and suffered all the way to her naturally unnatural death at the hands of equivalent exchange. We all know the rules of transmutation, and so this shan’t come to a surprise, but to them it was. Pain was held and tears were shed, for they knew not the nature of the vitality of a life given to another.
Indubitably, and this can only be assumed, but at the exact instant the empress lost her hold onto reality, the child, now covered in blood and bile, ripped from the entrails of the receptacle which held him, opened his eyes, and here the two remaining, father-turned-widow and pastor-turned-miraclebringer, realized that the finished produce was one of utmost quality, not unlike that served at the bistrots of our vainglorious city. Truly, a most excellent specimen, with the most gorgeous of eyes.
And oh, these eyes of his must not be simply mentioned in act and then never again, for they were simple in construct, yes, no more blue than the eyes of the knight-who-fathered, but a miraculous event took place right there and then, and dear listeners, this is where the introductory phrase gains its weight:
It is said that, in the faith of the chapel built and unkept by the pastor, holy powers are represented in the asters atop the great dark firmament, and on that night, that beautifully, freed of any cloud night, two stars began dancing the most exquisite pas de deux, and the child giggled at the entree, stretching his hand at the adagio, and the two stars descended, spiraling down for the coda, each of them striking each of the child’s eyes. With a spasmodic rhythm unbecoming of any creature of his ilk, the child was granted a most powerful boon, a reinforcement of the significance of the act that had taken place at that moment.
The knight understandably rushed to his side, stealing the small figure from the pastor’s hands, who, at the moment, had been left catatonic by the ballet of the asters. The knight came to check on the child, and realized the mark of the blessing: The child eyes’ were now in the shape of the stars, and the colors of all that was pure for them reflected upon: The pupils changed from the blue of the foamy sea to the calm green of the grass, to the violet of the royal robes the empress wore, to the golden of the knight’s armor. Maroon, then cyan, then red, color in particular hues only imagined by poets buried eons before.
It was then that they understood; not only the pastor and the knight, but the whole world: A miraculous One had been borne.
* * * * *
His name came to be Adiaptus, as Adia and Aptus were the names of the two asters that removed themselves from the extensive sea of constellations to join him as extensions of their holy creation. The two of them took themselves out from the constellation of Gerana, the opulent crane, and so they brought with them a blessing of protection against the vices of the terrenal world. Adiaptus knew how to use such blessing well, for they were to be left abandoned since childbirth. The knight and lover, upon return to the kingdom, had to present himself in front of a despot, and the despot rightfully sent the knight to be taken away and have his flesh separated into small chunks which were then thrown into the dog coops. A paladin, coming back not with the dame he was meant to protect? I say, being torn to pieces is too puny a punishment!
Ah, but returning to our tale, Adiaptus was taken in by the royal conglomerate, yet isolated from every noble and aristocrat, only allowed the most destitute of rooms, and granted old and moth-smitten books to study. A tutor taught him how to write and read, as well as the most basic of assumptions regarding history and culture, but past the bare minimum the child was left to fend for himself.
And so he did.
You see, those ridiculous men and women with their pompous powdered hairs and false cedar-made teeth thought they were depriving the bastard child from all senses, but they could not understand the power that the two asters had granted the child: That of company. Thanks to that first blessing, Adiaptus would calmly converse with Adia and Aptus, and they would unravel all the mysteries of the world he lived in, all of the things seen by the most vibrant of eyes that exist: Those that belonged to the Universe. And they taught the child how to start a fire with only his hands, and how to resolve sequential progressions. He was taught how to read lips, how to tell lies from truth, how to understand botany and zoology and skepticism and stoicism. Taught in the arts of sword fighting and spear fighting and shield bashing, becoming an expert despite not having swung a single utensil in his whole life. And he was also taught that what he was living through, this isolation, was the most unfair of outcomes for the miraculous child. How could he, blessed with fortune, suffer a fate fitting of a peasant, of a starlesskind? And Adia and Aptus understood this, of course, this ingratitude, and taught Adiaptus a piece of information not found in any place, the kind that comes from within. The kind not even the fabulist in your most esteemed presence can claim to know the full truth of.
What is known is, without a doubt, that the results that were obtained from the application of such forbidden knowledge was a most ravishingly poetic banquet. For you see, dear listeners, the asters posited a question: What would be the most effective time at which to carry out the performance of the century? A banquet, why of course! Adiaptus knew all that there was to know and much, much more, and so he waited and waited, learning and putting into practice until the festivities of the despot’s celebration of age came to be. That day, the despot, accompanied by his new empress and brand-new children, who in no way, shape or form measured to the magnanimity of the miraculous child, all celebrated, and gorged themselves with fowl and pastries, and drank crimson wine and sparkling wine all the same, and chanted the old hymns of patriotic foulness that the ilk of this empire were immensely proud of. The despot’s day of birth was just if not more prevalent than the land he reigned in, after all! Ah, what display of sickening sin, a reminder of what we’ve come to lose with time, and for good reason! As the inebriated spewed bile onto the floor, and attempted to mate with the workers that would attempt to pour water to remove their stupor, Adiaptus, who was hidden away behind eight locks and eight keys, raised his right thumb into the air, as if a goblet was held in his hand instead of the grasping of empty air, then brought it down onto himself. Onto his right eye.
The details become fuzzy here, as they oft do. A great force ripped through time, ripped through space, coming from the hidden nooks behind the eyes of the populace of the castle, and feathers made of molten glass and pyrite erupted from within each member of the banquet. The drunkards were set ablaze as the floors contorted into the shapes of constellations long forgotten, and the roofs collapsed atop the cellars, and the pots and pans from the kitchens cracked and shifted like desiccated skin, assaulting the cooks and ripping the skin from the bone, painting the walls the color of the eyes of Adiaptus. All of them. Every single one of them, and more.
Nothing worth recognizing was left of the despot, of his family, of the nobles and the soldiers and the populace, of the castle, but the people living at the outskirts of such a kingdom were not as unlucky, and many can be said to have survived the first arrival of a great dark. A villain no one believed was truly a sight, for when the kingdom was discovered to have met oblivion, many of the neighboring habitants believed it had been destroyed by foreigners, by outsiders, but the people knew that the kingdom was felled from inside. They knew that the castle was besieged by a power rivaling a great volcanic eruption, and they knew because they saw it with their own two eyes: A great dark, made of emptiness incarnate, wearing the entire firmament as a cloak. A cloak, mind you, which was covered in lone stars and constellations taken from the night itself; only for that day did the land high above turned starless, the truest shape of dark. Imagine, dear listeners, the many schooners that crashed into cliff, sunken without the light to guide them, or the townships which were absorbed by the void, and when day came, had been erased from both sight and memory, farmers and cattle forever trapped in the inbetween, the space between us and them.
And the survivors said that the great dark opened two wings as starred as the cloak, covered in feathers made of opaline eyes, pearls of chrysocolla that reflected every single color, just like Adiaptus’ eyes. Ah, and what a surprise will it come to be, when the following description the outsiders heard came to be the lack of eyes the great dark had. Indeed, the deity-if-in-shape-only had eyes in every portion of its repugnantly beautiful body, except for the two sockets where an avian of its more common ilk would have chosen to have them placed. Following the destruction of the kingdom, the survivors swore that they saw the great dark, turn its head towards something, someone, and remain motionless for well over an hour, before departing. It did not depart in the common way either, but rather, it stood high above the castle, enormous trunks made of white light acting as two long legs that brought it into the space above. And with an unfolding motion, not too dissimilar from the unspooling of yarn, it left their land, the cloak returning the asters to their right positions. All was well, again. Well, of course, except for the kingdom itself, but it was a fair price, would you not believe so? Apt punishment for the kind of individuals willing to cage the most miraculous of childs. I suppose if there is any lesson to learn here, it is that: All miracles come to pass.
* * * * *
Oh, and what occurred to Adiaptus, you ask? Keheheh… Oh, what a good laugh you’ve contributed! If only for that, I will bring light to your query. Look up towards the night sky tonight, dear listener. Can you see the one that most resembles the opulent crane?
Yes, that one. Now, feel free to count up the number of asters composing its body. You did? Marvelous! Now, dear listener, do me a last favor, and cover your right eye.
Now count again.
Miracles are not oft what one seeks, but they always are what awaits.