"I destroy everything I touch!" she cried out miserably, but the man to whom she was speaking only gave her a puzzled look.
"Why does this trouble you, my child?" he asked her tenderly.
"Why does this trouble me!?" the girl shrieked in return, disbelief in her face and voice.
"I mean," the man amended, gesturing for her to relax again, "that this may not be as big of a curse as you may think."
"Not as big of a curse?" Again, she echoed his words, disbelief and downright hatred in her voice.
She could not believe the gall of this man! Pretending he knew her better than she did! Acting as if any of his years in magic could ever help him understand what it felt like to have the power to kill something with just a touch! Could any of his experience compare to hers? Could he ever truly claim to understand how she felt?
"Hush, my dear," the man continued calmly, "Death and decay are all a natural part of life. We cannot have one without the other. True, your powers are rather...unsavory... But they are by no means bad or wicked. It is only society's twisted, selfish notion that leads you to believe that," he explained, but she only scoffed in disbelief.
"Yeah, it might also be the fact that I kill everything I touch!" she retorted. "So you can stop the Life-Death Circle-of-Life crap now."
"Be that as it may," the man continued, "Death is still very much a part of life, and you just so happen to have a soul that falls upon the former half of that dichotomy. It is nothing to fear or revile, just something to accept and understand."
"Because that's so simple!" she scoffed again, rolling her eyes.
"It's not," the man replied severely. "That is why you must work very hard with what you have been given, that is why you have been blessed with such a great power, because fate knew that only you would have the strength to harness such raw, primal energy!"
The man waved his hand and suddenly, a hole opened up in the air in front of her. Peering inside, she found herself watching all the ways death could help life. Plants and matter decayed into compost. Death took away the sick and suffering. Destruction led to rebirth. The world rotted away, mixing and churning with a rich, fertilized, dark brown soil.
Then newness and life sprung forth from the ruins, and from the freshly turned earth. Trees sprung up from corpses. As people passed away, new ones were born into the homes they left behind. More room was made for new life. One could not have the fiery phoenix without the ashes to rise from first. And the most beautiful phoenix of all was always the one that came right after the ashes...
"And that is all thanks to you," the man concluded, waving his hand to end the vision. "You are like a farmer. You reap and sow, you clear the fields and make way for the fresh harvest. You are the very beginning of the earth, the literal bread-maker. You are Mother Earth incarnate," he said, and she looked at her cursed hands in awe and wonder, seeing them in a new light for the very first time.
"Without you, the world would overflow and spill out into chaos. You are order and control, command and cleanliness. You clear away the old and make way for the new. Death and decay are not monsters to be feared and destroyed, but rather, they are angels to be worshipped and understood. You must upkeep them well and serve our planet right.
"Do as the angels and farmers did in Ages Ago, and reap the world and turn the soil over upon a new harvest, and a new day. Go, guardian and custodian, and protect the earth. Keep her clean and pure and alive. Keep her happy and healthy. Make sure she runs smoothly. You are our hero, a Mother Goddess. You are a farmer, a harvester, a reaper. You will till the soil of the Earth and keep this planet fertile and protected..."
The man finally bade for the girl to rise, and she did so without hesitation, a new sparkle in her eyes now that she had a new purpose in life. She saluted the man gratefully before strutting boldly out of his house with a new swagger in her steps. She marveled at her blessed hands and all the wonders that they contained. Her power was still hardly pretty, but that wise old man had given her a new perspective on things. She finally understood what sort of good she could do with the awful powers she had. She now understood the necessity and importance of her gift.
The man watched her go with a smile. Decay was a very sweet girl, and she was going to need all the love and support she could get, given what her duties would be from now on.
"But I know she will do great," he told himself, and he was absolutely right.
AN: More ecogoth stuff, combined with Iris from my original work, who has this very same power for this very purpose: highlighting the importance of death in life, even if it's unpleasant.
