Eternal Balance

The sun hung lazily in the sky, slowly sinking towards the horizon bathing the sky in a pale yellow. A lone, slender woman sat passively on the edge of the quiet waters; brushing a willow branch through the placid waters she raised her hand and a beautiful white swan descended and landed serenely on the water sending ripples flying out from the disturbed surface. Looking up she smiled at the swan as it peacefully bobbed its head into the water and drank deeply from the life giving fluids.
Suddenly the smooth waters broke and a fierce face burst forth, its long teeth glistening in the fading evenings light. The swan let out a startled cry as the jaws snapped shut across its belly instantly stealing the life from it.
The woman looked up, a hint of surprise marring her beautiful features. “So,” she said over her shoulder, “you’ve come to me here as well.”
A shadow moved silently from behind her and came to stand by her side. “I go wherever you go,” a thin raspy voice replied. “Where you breed life I’m forced to bring death.” The shadowed figure knelt beside the woman, his long black cloak billowing out behind him as the gentle breeze played with it.
“Why,” The woman pleaded, “why cannot you leave me to my living, Thanatos.”
“You know as well as I Gaia,” The cloaked figure replied, a faint touch of sadness crossing his voice. “Were I to let you be you would stumble forward with all the blind love of a mother. Your sick and weak would come to populate the earth, you know as well as I that this host can’t handle all you would have it do.”
“I just want to be free from all this pain and suffering that you give so freely to my children. You take their young and old with no regard for the feelings of those left behind.”
“Fool woman,” he snarled at her. “If not for my killing your people would have no obstacles to overcome, without me they would grow weary of life and cease to try. Would you have your planet die of indifference? I kill so that your precious mortals can have their passions.”
She looked towards the water, reaching out she cupped the fluid in her hand. Smiling forlornly she rose to her feet, thin trickles of water escaping her hand splashing into the water below. With a wave of her willow bow the water in her palm began to vibrate and she cast it onto the earth. Quickly the water took form into a new born baby. Reaching down she took it in her arms and wrapped it in a thin white cloth from her robes. “Is this life not beautiful,” she whispered to herself as she placed the child back on the ground, its body quickly growing to manhood.
“Be it so,” the Thanatos whispered. “Still we all must die.” He moved closer and withdrew a long black knife from the folds in his robe and plunged it into the shoulder of the youth. The boy let out a gasp of astonishment before falling to its knees.
Before the Gaia’s eyes the boy’s smooth face grew wrinkled, its skin shrinking and clinging to its bones with the frailty of old age. The hair on its head grew long and gray then fell slowly to the ground leaving its head bare. Slowly its skin grayed and its eyes glazed over; slumping to the ground the body became limp then quickly decayed to dust.
“Are you so blind as to not learn this of yet?” The Thanatos asked. “For every life you bring to this world you must steal one from mine.”
“You lecture me of wishing life when you yourself wish only to protect your kingdom of dead!” She exclaimed angrily. “You wish to crush my kingdom of flesh to populate your desolate night with the frail bones of my mighty creatures. You even use my beautiful creations to carry out your deeds, why should I listen to anything to say?”
“Our worlds are closely intertwined, if you would lift your naïve head long enough to look at this world you strive to create you would see the error in your ways. You instill a wish to destroy me in your children; they spend their lives finding ways to prolong them. Each time they succeed my kingdom weakens. My hand brings death, but with death comes wisdom. You see only with the ignorance of youth; that alone will make this world falter. If you don’t throw aside your petty desires and begin looking to your consequences, both our worlds will fall to ruin. This I cannot allow.”
The final rays of the sun sunk below the horizon, the pale glow of the moonlight illuminated the two figures as they stared defiantly at each other. “You know it so Gaia.” The thin raspy voice of Thanatos carried across the gap, “resist your temptation for life and I will ease mine for death.”
She looked over his dark robes; her hands grasped the willow branch, her slender fingers probing the smooth bark. Lifting her eyes to confront Thanatos’, a thin tear streaked down her pale cheeks. “So be it,” she said dejectedly. “I’ll slow my children’s growth.”
“That is all I ask,” The shadow said as the night enveloped the dark robes. A gust of wind passed between the two and when the woman looked up again the shadowy figure had vanished. Lifting the willow branch above her head she looked sadly at her world one last time then closed her eyes.
When the sun rose in the sky the next morning it cast its golden rays upon a beautiful weeping willow, its long branches dipping down to meet the water and the leaves brushed the smooth surface sending ripples to the nearby banks.