“Are you feeling better now?” Arctoria’s breathy voice was in his ear. He shifted slightly from his position. He felt warm and comfortable. The ground was not hard, he felt cozy and safe as if enveloped in the arms of his mother. He opened his eyes and saw Arctoria leaning over him, her face within inches of his own, a pale blue fog emanating from her whole body. “I feel….” he started, “…whole?” she finished his sentence. He thought for a second. Yes. Yes, that was exactly what he was feeling. Whole. He looked into her black eyes in agreement. She lifted herself off of the ground and stood before him. He was only now realizing how tall Arctoria was, how slender her frame was, how outlandish.

“Why am I here?” he muttered.

“Why were you in my lake?”, she retorted.

“Your lake?”

“Yes. My lake.” Her voice rose in agitation. “My pristine, pure arctic lake. The lake I’ve spent eons protecting. Why were you polluting it with your frail human body?”

He was taken aback and took a second to collect his thoughts before responding.

“I am sorry for disturbing your lake. I didn’t know that it had a… a you in it”.

Arctoria’s eyes shrank to slits. A few moments later she let out a sigh and made a motion that resembled an eye roll.

“Humans”, she muttered under her breath. She turned her eyes to him again and spoke.

“Your kind thinks they own this world and all that exists within it. You have even laid your claim to the stars and the heavens. Yet, you’re so ignorant to how fleeting your existence is on this plain. I have been the mistress of this lake since the dawn of ages. These waters and I were created for each other. It is my home and I am its guardian. We are each other’s half”.

He felt blood rush to his cheeks. He was humbled by only a few turns of phrase from her mouth.

“What are you, Arctoria?” he whispered.

“Your people have had many names for my kind in the endless generations that have come before you. Limnad, Camena, Jengu, Gwragedd Annwn, Undine, Kappa, Rusalka, Su lyesi. And so many more. I am a spirit, born of and to this water; potent, one of the fae folk,endless”.

He swallowed hard. She was a goddess. Or, at least the closest thing he would ever come to divinity. He went into the water to meet his end after all his unanswered prayers, and instead he’d found proof of the divine.

“Are we still in the lake, your lake, then?”

“In a way”.

He pondered on that for a bit.

“How do you mean that?”, he asked.

“We’re neither within, nor without the lake. My plain of existence borders both the celestial and the human world. We’re in my sphere of being, my retreat”.

“Why did you bring me here, in your sanctuary?”.

Arctoria started to say something, but then stopped. She mused on how to reply for a few seconds.

“For centuries, these waters have been serene, innocent. Free from the atrocities of humanity. Life came full circle in my realm. Birth, existence, death; all in order, all in their place. Yours, was an act of violence so vile, that it would have marred my kingdom and tarnished it beyond repair”.

“What act of violence?”.

“You were trying to take your own life, were you not?”.

He thought about feigning innocence, but he decided against it.

“I was”, he conceded.

“There is no violence quite so vulgar as that which is against the self”, Arctoria said. “It is insolence, and an insult to the divine life force that flows within you. When yours began to wane, it resonated within my lake, within my skin”.

“How….?”, was all he managed.

“The people before you knew, they had wisdom. They realized that this world of ours is interconnected. There are traces of the divine in your mortal flesh and that binds you to us just as the skin suit you’re born in bonds you to the land and all its creatures. And, yes, all of us have our parts of this earth to reign over; we’re more sensitive to the loss or gain within our territory that that without. Still, energy is neither created nor lost. It just is. And it flows incessantly through us all”.

There was silence. Lingering, deafening. He dared not break it. Arctoria waited patiently. He was breathing in and out, evenly, trying to digest all he’d heard. It dawned on him, all of a sudden, that his lungs were doing what they were supposed to. That his throat no longer ached. He clasped it with his palm. He looked at Arctoria.

“You did this. Didn’t you?”

“Healing your maimed little body? I did.”

“Why?”

“You have many questions, mortal man.”

“Orion. My name is Orion”.

“You bear the name of a great man, do you know that?”

“My parents named me after the constellation…”

“Yes, humans look to the stars for guidance and inspiration all too often. Yet, before he became stars and was dispersed in the ether, Orion was the most perfect specimen of your kind I had ever known. Incomparable hunter, unparalleled in stature, quick of wit. Not a man since has been born to surpass him.”

Orion chuckled softly. Arctoria raised a quivering eyebrow.

“Surely you’re not… Orion is just a myth…” he stopped dead in his tracks. Realization washed over him. “Oh… Orion existed?”

“Indeed”.

He sat down, feeling his knees a bit weak.

“You are endless” he breathed. “Why did you, a goddess by all intents and purposes, save me from certain death?”

“Your demise would add nothing to this world, it would simply take”.

“I thought you said energy just was.”

“I did. And it is.” Her agitation was starting to seep through her words. “Yet, nobody will ever be you again, nobody will have your life, your dreams and goals, your purpose; no one can bring to this world the same things you can. However fleeting human life may be, it cannot be repeated or replicated.”

“So you saved me because I have a higher purpose in this world?”.

She sighed and rubbed her temples with her long, slender fingers.

“I do not possess the gift of foresight. Oracles are woven of a different fabric than we. I do not know what you were or were not meant to accomplish on this plain, I simply know you were not finished doing it.”

He nodded.

“Would some celestial balance be broken, if I hadn’t been saved?”

“No. No, I cannot say that it would”.

“Then why? I still don’t understand…”

“Why do you need to understand?” she snapped at him. “Why should you be privy to the ways of a being so far beyond your understanding and reach? Why can’t you just be grateful?”.

“Grateful?” he asked, agitated.

“Yes!” she yelled back. “Grateful!” Her whole shape started to quiver and pulsate, her frame expanding to fill up more space. “I saved your pathetic human life, show some gratitude!”

He tensed and shivered. Terrified though he was, he took a step forward and straightened his back. Calmly, evenly, he said.

“I did not ask to be saved”.

The edges of the cavernous room began to expand and contract, Arctoria’s body turned a menacing emerald green and rips of raw power started coming out of her in waves. He was forced to his knees. He just then understood that the sprite had been holding out on him. She’d been harnessing her divinity the whole time he’d been in her presence. A deep rumbling emanated from everything around him, deafening and formidable.

“I’m sorry!” he pleaded, shouting to be heard over the noise. “I am sorry, Arctoria, I never meant to offend you!”. Arctoria stared him down, unmoved. “I know I should be grateful to be given another chance, but I cannot be! I do not want this life! I cannot…” he broke off the end of his sentence and let out a tortured moan. “I cannot”. He hugged his knees and started sobbing, tears falling to the ground, heaving breaths shaking him. Arctoria looked at him bewildered. Slowly, she softened her eyes. Her frame stopped pulsating and shrank to her human-like form. The thunderous rumble ceased, the room stopped shifting. The human in front of her was not ungrateful. He was not impudent. He was broken. She was at a loss for what to do. She gracefully sank to the ground in front of him, knees pulled to her chest, and waited. For the sobs to become less frequent. For the tears to run fewer. For his breathing to become even.

“What broke you, Orion?” she asked quietly.

His answer came out in a choked whimper. “Life”.