The Goddess of Death came to claim me. Her hands were gentle as she lifted me from my bed and carried me to the door. I was old, tired, and in pain. Then when my eyes opened again, I was young, in a cradle, and I remember her words whispered. "You died a person who believed in kindness. Hold that in your heart, for I wish you to teach it to others." -- BKF
Grace had spent a life doing little things for everyone around her, asking little but for the things she could not do herself. As time pulled her body apart around her, she could do less, and asked more. Never once begrudging anyone for not having the time or the energy.
Those that took advantage of her never repaid her kindness. That was expected. Those who had needed her in one way or another, remembered. They helped even when she was only capable of sitting up in her bed.
Then time, the ultimate destroyer, stopped her heart.
The Goddess Whose Name is Rarely Spoken cradled Grace in Her hands. She was simultaneously as large as the universe and the size of Grace's mortal form. Which was slowly cooling in her deathbed.
"That's it, then," said Grace. "Someone will make bread for me and off I go to the sea of souls."
"Not quite," said Ereshkygal. "There is more for you to do."
The old Hellkin woman's soul sighed, "Oh no, I'm not being deified am I?"
"Not that," said the Goddess Whom All Fear. She swept her cloak of shadows over Grace. A moment of darkness... and the blurry view of the walls of a cradle.
Grace could still see the goddess. She wanted to ask what was going on, but the new body could only burble.
"Welcome to your new life," said the goddess. "I charge you to remember the kindness you had in your last one. The world has desperate need of such... grace."
The goddess was lucky that Grace was too young to give Her a pity laugh. Such disrespect would only earn her a curse. She focused instead on remembering what she'd been told.
She honestly hadn't thought her worth wasn't that great.
"Here we are, Grace," cooed a grown Human. Grace's new parent. "Rennie's got you."
It was in the process of getting changed that Grace realised what was different about this new body. There was no tail. Rennie had pointed ears.
She was an Elf. Maybe a Half-elf. Either way, she had a lot longer to help others however she could. Grace had been named after herself, she could sense it. All the better to capture and keep the spirit and ethos she'd lived with previously.
Grace had four to five years to learn how to move around and behave like other civilised beings, and then she could begin as she left. Helping in little ways wherever she could, and only asking for help with the things she could not yet do.
The orders of the gods were not that easy to forget, after all.
[Photo by Spencer Liao on Unsplash]
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