"O' Great Gaia. Hear our prayer!"

Another earthquake was rocking over, a destructive path coming out. Steam fired up from the ground like a boiling kettle. The girls covered their coughs as the ashy air spread out through the trees and clouded them for a moment. Cloaked shadows started stepping backwards from their positions, expanding their circle for all the forest to see between their shadows. There was a symbol in the ground, and it cracked out further, the Earth only a shell for something underneath.

~ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

GAIA :

From Greek mythology, the ancient goddess of the Earth; Mother Nature. One of the first Greek deities, many mystical races have descended from Gaia's direct flesh. These include Nymphs, Satyrs, Titans, Giants, Cyclops.

Legend tells us to expect vengeance and chaos if anyone so seeks her out…

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ~

* * *

Family for nymphs extended beyond biological relations and encompassed their whole community. Youth grew up together, living together and bathing together, till they came of age and entered womanhood. Mentors and elders provided guidance in harnessing their skills, training, while teaching them grace of movement and how to nurture the fruits of life.

It may be a simpler life than many in the modern human world are familiar with. Living in nature, frozen in an ancient time with traditions rarely seen today, yet there was no doubt a sense of carefreeness and timeless beauty to this humble woodland community.

However, if there was one thing that showed that times had changed for the mystical woodland folk, it was that the ancient stories of Greek gods had become relaxed to them. Although they still learned about their history and culture in their early years, it was done in a casual way and more to understand the roots of where they came from rather than to serve it. Bomi had once described the gods as idols and nursery tales in this sense, being myths and legends even to her.

Even as minds had grown to move on, their town kept its spiritual touch from the old gods. Lowes had always been laced with symbols to remember their history by, believed to have been left in honour of this unforgotten past.

Aphrodite had a monument near their baths, standing like a supermodel and still popular today among nymphs for her beautiful looks and championing of pleasure. A bust of Athena loomed over their archives, the place of reading and learning and gathered history they shared with the rest of the community.

The placement of twins Apollo and Artemis even contrasted each other like their personalities; Apollo, for his love of arts, was celebrated in the town centre where they held festivals and bonfires almost every night. Artemis stood with her bow on the edge of the forest where the moonlight would shine the brightest, the readying signal for hunters and protectors.

These were only a few public decorations that stood out in the woodland civilisation.

Further out from the main bustle of the town were quieter places to properly pay their respects to the gods. Their elders always kept these in order. Bomi and a number of young nymphs once visited on a trip led by their mentor, and because it was a rare outing, Bomi had genuinely paid attention then. Great care was still given to temples of the original twelve Olympians. Their sanctuaries could get very large, housing other gods and minor gods, and were designed and fashioned to match the gods' preferences.

One of these was a grove with two moss-covered pillars erected on either side, while sunlight peeked spottily through gaps in the tree canopies above. The temple of Demeter welcomed them with its tranquil green flooring; a path that could lead to a timeless walk of pondering in its sanctuary, or further yet to croplands that grew under the deity's blessing.

Inside stood the statue of Demeter, Olympian goddess of harvest, and her daughter Persephone. Demeter cradled a basket of wheat in one arm, and Persephone carried a lily flower, marking her return from the underworld to meet her mother every spring.

Gifts lay decorated at their feet for the coming harvest and in memory of the season. It was a common sight to see Demeter's temple visited with humble gifts all year round for her role in the balance of the seasons, for good luck.

Seated nearby in another space of the temple was a statue seen to have rarely as many gifts or visitors, seeing as the floor opened around it to a shallow body of water. A few ears of wheat and what smelled to be ash had been sprinkled about and laid in the basin.

Bomi asked who the statue was of. When the young nymphs were gathered once again, their mentor and the temple caretaker told them of an ancient being that existed even further back in their mythology than the Olympian gods, and even the Titans. It is Gaia, goddess of the Earth; the foundation and embodiment of the world they live in and the land they walk on every day. Thought to be the mother of all things, the black ash represented how she resided beneath the earth.

"Why doesn't she have her own temple then?"

"She did not live on Mount Olympus."

"But Lord Hades has his own temple and he didn't live on Olympus."

The temple caretaker went rigid with a forced smile and their mentor quickly took it as their cue to move along, berating Bomi later for her brash curiosity in front of the divine. But for that day, it wasn't only her, as the diversion only made her peers curiouser too.

Unknown as the ancient times were to their generation, the young nymphs later gossiped about what their mentor and the temple caretaker could not. They learned that despite her status, the goddess Gaia had not always been seen favourably. Born of Chaos herself, Gaia bore children that were frequently nemeses to Olympian tales, and it is those rumours of her wrath that seemed to cloud her disappearance from their texts early on.

It was indeed a curiosity, but a curiosity Bomi left alone after that.

It seemed that curiosity hadn't quite so left others.

* * *

Ashes. Black ash was always used to represent gods of the underground.

"Thereeee!"

Minutes before the ritual began and before she knew what was to become of her… Bomi had just been separated from Hyunsik. The dark mist that chased them had caught her. It fogged up her senses, clawing at her body, and then in the painstaking seconds of lungs burning, she woke up.

Cool stone and moss pressed against her cheek, a confusing feeling to the glowering warmth of the air. Bomi sat up stiffly. There was dark soot around her, her feet bare and covered in the stuff. Her wrists and arms ached, as if they had been tied before but she was now free to move them.

Temples were mostly far and isolated from Lowes, so it took her a moment to recollect where she was. She was in an altar, a small one that their elders had made for their town. The pantheon of gods peered down upon her. One in the far corner appeared the oldest and full of cracks.

Talking voices drew her attention to the altar's entrance.

"The preparations are ready."

"Good. And the nymph?"

"Inside."

"I see. Please leave us for a while."

"The satyrs have begun moving," another voice interrupted. "Should we begin earlier, sir?"

"No. The ritual will go as planned. We mustn't disturb the process."

"Yes sir," they echoed.

She jolted at the loudness of the wooden doors creaking open. Sharp senses were still pounding in her head. A cloaked man in sandals stepped through.

"Ah, you're already awake I see. That makes things easier."

Bomi held her guard up, eyes on the door and fists in front.

He smirked and lifted his hood from his face. A man of age, maybe in his 40s or 50s with his hair done proper and wrinkle lines around his mouth. Clearly it was nobody she knew. Uncovering his identity and allowing her to put a face to a voice might have been his way of dropping his guard. "Please, hands down. I want nothing with you right now. It's just pleasantries. A talk."

"What would you have to even say after kidnapping me here?" Bomi fired back. He just smiled.

"Well, there is a reason for all of this, but I don't expect you would understand the fate that will befall you. My name is Lee Taegon. We haven't formally met. I have been watching you for some time."

She nervously peeked past him to the door, now knowing there was no one monitoring them.

"I know you are Yoon Bomi. Nymph of Lowes. Blessed by the House of Ceres with Gifts of Venus. Descendant of the first ash-nymphs, the Meliae. And of course, the perfect vessel for Gaia."

The shock and confusion only barely escaped . "What?"

"No? You don't recognise your predecessors in Ceres, goddess of agriculture, or Venus, goddess of love, desire, and ? I would have thought you'd read up on them. They are your relatives."

She was thrown off by it all; Everything he claimed, how he's been watching her. And he strangely called Demeter and Aphrodite by different names, referring to them as their Roman counterparts. She shook her head. "Um. No… They're not really relatives…"

"That's where you're wrong, little nymph. I'm hardly a relative, just a human. Only a creation by the gods as their playthings. You, on the other hand, have the kind of blood to bring them back."

His smile grew impossibly wider with her bewilderment.

"Oh yes. I see your surprise, but I don't plan on bringing back all of them. It'll be just enough for one." He finally kneeled under the cracked visage she noticed in the far corner, and it slowly came together in her mind. "Yes. Gaia will rise again. With your power."

Bomi shook her head and swallowed. "No, no, no, this– That's not possible. The gods have long passed, and I don't have the kind of power to do that."

He rushed towards her, and she hit her back against the centrepiece.

"But a powerset as delicious and refused as yours only leaks stronger the more you don't use it! Haven't your people ever told you it is rude to hide who you are? Hiding is not at all natural to a nymph. You could be the strongest person in the room and yet you assimilat