The mother's love towards son

 

Once upon a time, in a land where the gods walked among mortals, there lived a mother named Elyra and her only son, Kaelen. Elyra was a healer, known for her wisdom and deep connection to the earth. She had spent her life tending to the sick and injured, using her knowledge of herbs and magic to heal those in need. Her son Kaelen, a boy full of life, had inherited her compassionate nature and spent his days helping her gather plants and tend to their patients.

 

Kaelen was Elyra’s pride and joy. She had raised him alone after his father, a warrior, was taken by war. To Elyra, Kaelen was not just her son but the light that gave her life purpose. They lived in a small village at the edge of a dense forest, where people came from far and wide to seek Elyra's healing powers. The bond between mother and son was as strong as any mythic force, like the ancient love between Rangi and Papa, the sky and earth, eternally connected despite separation.

 

One day, a mysterious illness began to spread through the village. People became feverish, weak, and bedridden. Elyra worked tirelessly, brewing potions and administering remedies, but this disease was unlike any she had ever seen. No matter what she tried, nothing seemed to cure the afflicted. And then, to her horror, Kaelen fell ill.

 

At first, Elyra thought she could save him. After all, she was a healer, a master of her craft. She had fought off death many times before and had faith that her skills would be enough to protect her beloved son. But as the days passed, Kaelen’s condition worsened. His once vibrant eyes dimmed, and his strength ebbed away like the setting sun. Elyra’s remedies, her spells, her prayers to the gods—all of it failed.

 

Kaelen lay on his bed, his skin pale and cold, and Elyra was beside him, her hands trembling as she tried to comfort him. “You will be well, my son,” she whispered, though her voice cracked with doubt. “The gods will not take you from me.”

 

But the gods remained silent, indifferent to her cries. On the last night of his life, as the village lay quiet under the stars, Kaelen looked up at his mother with eyes that no longer held hope. “Mother,” he whispered weakly, “I am not afraid. But I don’t want to leave you.”

 

Tears streamed down Elyra’s face as she held her son close. “You will not leave me,” she said, though she knew the truth in her heart. “You cannot leave me. I cannot lose you.”

 

But as the first light of dawn touched the horizon, Kaelen’s breath grew shallow, and with one final, faint exhale, his spirit slipped away.

 

Elyra’s heart shattered. She sat beside his lifeless body, clutching him in her arms, rocking him like she had when he was a baby. She called out to the gods—to Isis, the great mother who had once resurrected her son Horus to avenge Osiris, to Demeter, who had once brought the world to a standstill to reclaim her daughter Persephone from the underworld. “Hear me!” Elyra screamed. “Bring him back! You have brought back your children—bring me mine!”

 

But no god answered her. The village mourned Kaelen, but their grief paled in comparison to Elyra’s. Day and night, she sat by his grave, refusing to leave, refusing to eat or sleep. She wept until the earth beneath her was soaked with her tears, just as Rangi wept for his beloved Papa when they were torn apart. She was inconsolable, her spirit broken beyond repair.

 

The people of the village tried to comfort her, but there were no words that could heal the wound in her heart. “Why did the gods take him?” she cried. “Why have they forsaken me?” She cursed the gods for their cruelty, for allowing her to save so many others but not the one soul who meant the most to her.

 

In her despair, Elyra sought the forbidden magic of the underworld. She journeyed deep into the forest, to a hidden cave where it was said that the boundary between the world of the living and the dead was thin. She carried offerings for Anubis, the god of death, and called upon him to return her son to her.

 

The cave echoed with her pleas, and the shadows seemed to listen. At last, a voice answered her, cold and distant. “You seek to defy the natural order, mortal. The dead cannot return to the living without consequence.”

 

“I will give anything!” Elyra cried. “Take my life, my soul—just bring him back to me!”

 

But the god's voice was unforgiving. “Once the dead have crossed into the underworld, they belong to us. You cannot follow him. You cannot change what has been ordained.”

 

With these words, the light of hope in Elyra’s heart was extinguished. The weight of her loss crushed her spirit, and in her grief, she collapsed, her body and soul broken by sorrow. The villagers found her the next morning, lying lifeless beside Kaelen’s grave, her face peaceful at last, as though she had joined him in death.

 

It is said that the gods, moved by Elyra’s unrelenting love and grief, took pity on her. In the sky above the village, a constellation appeared—Elyra and Kaelen, mother and son, forever together among the stars. Though she could not bring him back in life, their spirits would remain united for all eternity, shining down on the world, a reminder of the unbreakable bond between mother and child.

 

And so, their story lived on, whispered in myths and songs, a tragic tale of love, loss, and the power of a mother’s heart that transcended even death.