Girl of Rain and Lightning

She lives in the storm, where lightning crackles under her feet and the wind never lets a stray hair touch her shoulders. Insignificant humans run from her winds and dance in her rain. Whole forests burn down from her anger, villages flood with her tears, but it’s her bitterness that kills. It flashes down quick with no mercy. They fear her storms. As they should. They offer up words and food and their livelihood to try and earn her good graces. For years they have done this, but not right tonight.

Tonight, she waits on the edge of the sea, where storms drift from her control. Clouds sift through her fingers across the sky to appease forces greater than her. You can feel her good mood in the salty, warm air, because tonight the full moon will rise, and she will see him. The man who lives on the moon.

Her feet touch the sand, just out of reach of the ocean. Her eyes find the cliff she followed her lover off a decade ago. He insists on meeting her where he knows she can see it. It’s an immovable reminder of how different her life has become.

She turns back to the horizon to see the last sliver of moon break from the horizon. But the ocean grasped the light it left. The light came racing toward her. In a wink he was standing before her in all his shining glory.

His skin shone like the moon on a clear night and his hair was translucent and glowed like a halo. Rows of angry white teeth glare at her in a smile that never meets his eyes. Something dark keeps him ageless and bound to nothing but the moon and his own special type of cruelty.

“Hello, Amaya.” His voice was deep and crashed like waves onto shore. Amaya was what the villagers called her. She had long since given up asking him to call her by her given, human name.

“Moon.” She never asked his real name, she didn’t care to know.

“How goes the stormy business?” He takes a step away from the ocean and begins to circle her. His outfit had changed since the last time she had seen him.

“What’s with the dress?” It looked like a rug had been draped around him and pinned at the shoulder while being supported around the middle by a belt.

A hand flew to his chest while his jaw dropped. “It’s a toga, and it’s all the rage in Rome.” She let one eyebrow raise. “But that’s not why I came, I wanted to see how you are, how you’re adjusting. Minji and his second wife just had their second child.”

Lightning cracked above his head, the only sign he had struck a nerve. Thunder rolled in the distance. She was well aware of the developments in Minji’s life. You don’t forget the man you gave up your mortality for.

“I’m fine.” Another roll of thunder prevented Moon from immediately responding.

“Well, it was ten years ago tonight that you rose to your full potential.”

The wind became sharply colder. Memories came into view of that night ten years ago. When the current was more violent than you could tell from the top of a cliff. When Minji had insisted on bringing her out in the dead of night to swim. She didn’t want to jump. Fear had been the net that had kept her safe for so long.

Minji had taken her hand. He whispered something in her ear that made her toes tingle. They jumped together, only releasing each other when their feet broke the waves. She came up hollering their victory. Minji didn’t.

That’s when she had made her deal. She had begged the ocean, above and below the surface to save him. And when a voice whispered to her: What would you give?

“Anything,” she answered with a mouthful of water. It was her desperation talking.

When Minji opened his eyes on the nearby shore. He jumped away from her. Called her a monster She hadn’t understood. She didn’t know her nails were now made of ice, that her hair floated as if underwater, or how her eyes reflected light like they were made of sea glass. She had become the most horrifyingly beautiful person he had ever seen. He threw rocks and sand and words at her face. Then he ran. And the sky opened. And it rained.

She wandered the shore until the next full moon, until Moon came to speak to his new creation. Like he is now.

Moon looked to the sky. “A hurricane’s coming.”

“You would know.” You did this to me.

“I wonder if Minji will bother hiding this time?” Moon’s eyes flashed. He had caught on to what she was doing years ago, but he couldn’t control her, no one could.

Minji had ripped her heart out from where it was beating. Now, she would tear apart his life, piece by piece. Every year, to mark the anniversary of her death, she would take something from him. The first thing had been his new bride. And she would take so much more. It would never be enough until he was crying out her name in the darkness, until his children knew her name, until he had nothing left in the world but her mercy. She would destroy him.

“Why do you care?”

He lifted her chin with a finger. She met his eyes. “Because, when you’re finally done with him, you’ll be so broken I want to be the only one who’s left to fix you.” He leaned in closer.

A blast of mist passed between them. A light touch lingered on her smiling lips. Later, she would deal with him later. In one step she was back up in the clouds, lightning beneath her feet. She had more mortal things to conquer that night.