Ereshkygal herself talked a young teen out of self-harm. -- BKF
It was a long way down. They said a lot of things about the heights of Pinnacle Peak's tallest towers. Some said that a copper coin tossed from the top could kill an innocent civilian below if it hit. Some said that if you jumped from the topmost parapet, you would be dead before you finished falling.
Tevan leaned on that parapet and stared down at the streets below. Further below than the street by which ze entered the tower, because it stood at the edge of a cliff.
From here, anyone could see the curve of the world.
Tevan only looked down onto the roofs and streets of the lower part of the mountain city. It would be easy to climb onto the wall keeping hir on the roof of the tower. It would take the literal last of hir courage to step -or leap- off. Ze had been standing there for hours as those who came up there ebbed and flowed around hir. None had interrupted hir musings in all that time.
It was easy to believe that nobody cared.
"It's a long way down," said a voice beside hir.
Tevan startled. Ze had heard people come and go, but had heard none come to hir and linger. Ze looked up to face what appeared to be a woman in black, wearing the irridescent black feathers of a High Priestess of The Dreaded One. There was even the bird-skull mask covering most of her face.
"To leap from here to there," the woman continued, pointing down into the lower city, "you would surely die. If not on the way down, then at the bottom."
"Yes," Tevan agreed. "I've thought about that."
"Did you think about the people down below?" she asked. "That's a common road. It's rarely empty. Should you jump when you see an empty patch, it will have moved elsewhere by the time you get down... Onto some luckless merchant, a mother walking with her child, a roaming bard... Anyone."
Tevan hadn't thought of that. Ze also hadn't wondered why nobody was up on the tower with them. Squinting, ze realised that the traffic on the streets far, far below was at a literal standstill. There was a child paused mid-pace in a run. Both feet clear off the ground. A chill overtook hir as ze looked up at last to the birds frozen in the sky.
"Shai sent me," said the not-priestess. Goddess. "The loss of your thread would cause many of her knots to untangle. I understand you feel unimportant and useless in the moment. I understand you believe that all the problems you face will end as you jump." The goddess seemed... realler... than reality. Deeper, somehow. Both infinitely large and the same size as an adult Human.
There was no hint of a face beyond the bird-skull.
"Do you have a plan for me?" Tevan said, suddenly afraid.
"Not today," said the goddess. "It is the same plan I have for all who are mortal." She plucked a feather from Her raimant and pressed it into Tevan's hand. "Should you feel the same again, ask where you need to be. My love and I will guide you."
In Tevan's palm, the feather turned like a compass arrow. The clamus pointing firmly towards the stair down to the streets. It even took to jerking in that direction like an anxiously pointing finger.
When Tevan looked up, the goddess was gone. Birds were flying, people were coming up to look out at the wide world, and Tevan could see distant clouds casting shade on countries ze couldn't name. Children were pointing out distant storms. A teacher was telling her charges about the curvature of the world, while the students were yawping about seeing birds fly at the same height their eyes were.
Tevan followed the guiding feather. Ze had something to do when ze got there.
[Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash]
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