Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 313: Claimed

"Teigh," the Goddess Danu said, her 'voice' resonating, her presence reaching within and connecting with my soul.

Speech wasn't the correct noun to describe how she was communicating. She was projecting her words, emotions, and intent under the umbrella of her divinity. There was nuance and weight to what she said beyond a simple conversation.

Her words were interlaced with the Divine. Each word tinted with the powers of life and creation that were part of her [Domain]. This method allowed her to understand what was said and unsaid entirely. She could parse meaning from something as simple as a yes or no response.

"What is this?" She wondered aloud, looking, and searching the Sithern first and then the world beyond in a growing sphere of [Domain]. As she searched, as she understood [Law] inherit to this universe, she changed. Her power to commune with the world began the process of enfolding this world and this universe within her mantle of [Authority].

"Another realm without even the barest spark of the Tuatha de Danann?" She said, answering herself. It was hard to think clearly; as I listened, time was affected. Almost as if this time and place were caught in a gravity well and time was being slowed.

Her attention on the world around us was soon mirrored by the other Gods. The Divine Presence of four Gods manifested and released an oppressive aura that was still somehow invigorating.

I felt measured in that first second when they had manifested. My soul and actions weighed against some Divine metric I would only understand once I advanced far enough to become a God myself.

My current [A-rank] was unable to protect me from their [Sight] as they sifted the memories of my life to fully understand the flow of time and fate that had parted the randomness of [Dream] and allowed them to enter a [Lucid Dream]. Lucid enough to think and act, to deal with the events that required their attention.

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"The Sidhe exist here," Beleros exclaimed in wonder. "On a world that Danu's Domain has never graced, somehow the Sidhe still exist."

"This is not like the last world," Cyronax agreed, speaking of my time in the Dungeon CERN and the changes made when System arrived at Earth. "That world had not even a hint of Sidhe presence. Only the bleed-through of myths and legend encountered by mortals in [Dream]."

I felt the presence of the four Gods that inhabited the Silinium statues I had created pool their power and send it questing out across the planet. The energy had a questioning flavor to it. My own small gift of prophecy reached out to ride that crest of energy to 'see' what they would discover.

I watched as they searched through time, following the trail of Sidhe and the connection that should have existed between them and the Tuatha de Danann. That connection was missing in this generation, but as they turned their attention backward in time, that connection began to form, to grow stronger, until the moment of the Sidhe's arrival when it existed fully and their arrival on this planet was made clear.

The Sidhe were not native to this world or this universe. They were refugees, people that had been hunted almost to extinction, precisely as they were being hunted now. But they were still connected to the Gods and Summerland, and they used that connection to escape.

Instead of fading into history and oblivion, they had decided to brave the Summerlands and search for a new world, a new place where they could live and call home. Their plan worked, but because the Tuatha de Danann had never manifested in this universe, the connection that bound one to the other frayed over time until that connection finally broke.

That fraying wasn't inescapable if they had conducted [Ritual]. If they had asked for the [Blessing] of Danu at the solstice and equinox. If they had remembered to spill blood to make the crops grow. The Tuatha de Danann could have reached beyond [Dream] to claim this world as theirs.

But they did none of these things. In their shame and despair at being forced to flee the world Danu had gifted, they believed themselves unworthy of the Tuatha de Danann's grace and blessing. Over time, they began to forget that they were the children of the Gods.

As those memories faded, they lost more and more of their inheritance. The Summerlands was closed to them. [Fairy] began to wither and die. The Wild Magic quieted and began to slumber.

They were very close to losing the blessing of [Immortality]. If I hadn't arrived when I had, it would have been a race between Sidhe extinction by waging war with Man or losing the essence of who and what they were fading. And if that happened, they might as well have accepted oblivion. They would no longer be Sidhe.

The Tuatha de Danann were omniscient, able to know anything and everything, but they were not omnipotent. There were too many Gods for one being to claim omnipotency truly, except perhaps the Alpha and Omega, who might share true omnipotence. In universes where the System existed, the System came close.

But within the realm of their Domain, acting within their nature and bound by the scriptures of the universe, they were unassailable. They could not be denied what was within their Divine mandate to do, no matter how the other Gods might rail and rage against them.

The Sidhe were theirs.

Children born of their dreams, gifted with the Gods' bloodlines, their divine spark made immortal mortals. For all their claims to immortality, the Sidhe were still mortal in the end. They could die. They could choose to fade. And it was this bridge between mortal and immortal. This fulcrum of the Divine that gave breath and life to their children. That allowed the Tuatha de Danann to reassert the connection that had been lost so long ago.

Asgard and Olympus may have tried to stem the tide, but the tsunami that was the Tuatha de Danann could not be denied when acting within the bounds of their [Authority].

The Sidhe were theirs.

And as their Divine Will radiated across the surface of the planet, establishing that link between the Sidhe and the Tuatha de Danann no matter where they were, a fundamental change reverberated across the Cosmos.

The Tuatha de Danann Pantheon of Gods forced a wedge, a change in the fabric of this universe that allowed their [Authority] to blossom, to set down roots, and claim the mantle of true Gods. Their actions had immediate and profound ramifications as a people that had been oppressed were made whole.

The Gods of Asgard and Olympus forced to accept the change would have to consider what protections and blessings the Tuatha de Danann might offer their people now that this universe had accepted the Tuatha de Danann [Authority] as valid.

Because even in [Sleep], there were actions that could be taken. Automatic responses, almost like breathing that their Divine aspects were conditioned to make. My acts of returning the Summerlands to the Sidhe, reviving [Fairy], and awakening the Wild Magic added impetus to the seismic shift that blanketed the planet and radiated out to encompass the universe.

The Tuatha de Danann were roused by today's events, not wholly, but they were incrementally closer to throwing off the bindings of [Sleep]. The process of gaining and claiming this world and these Sidhe gave an added boost to the depth and heft of the Divine they could reclaim as theirs.

And unlike Odin and Zeus, who would defy Fate and steal their items of [Power] and [Divine Mandate]. A theft that would allow them to steal and absorb the Divine spark of fallen Gods. The Tuatha de Danann acted within the bounds of [Universal Law].