Daughter of the Moon Goddess Drabbles

Chang'e: The Gods

I had spent so long worshipping them, pleading to them for a better life. I sometimes felt selfish for such begging, as I had so much that other didn't have.

A home.
Family.
Support.
Houyi.

And yet, when I became one myself, when I became a god, I found nothing.

These gods felt no love. They had been hollowed by their immortal life span. They had no need for wealth or power, yet they craved it. Gathered it for nothing but their own pettiness.

The Celestial Empress, she was the one to greet me--after Xingyin had been born. Thank the stars she slept peacefully hidden away when she arrived.

Disloyal. Betrayer. Mortal waste.

Those were her words to me, as I sobbed at her feet, begging to be reunited with my husband. As she read me my sentence; eternal prison on this beautiful, lonely, rock in the sky. I could never return home. Never see my parents again, my friends, my husband. 

I would never swim freely in the sea again, never hear my mother's laugh as I raced ahead of my father's fishing boat. Never be able to teach Xingyin to swim as they taught me.

Xingyin. She'd never know her father's face, her grandparents' faces. She'd never know a mortal's face. And this Empress, a new mother herself as I would come to learn, held no pity for me.

Neither did her husband, neither did any immortal. For no reason they despised me. I used to believe it was my actions--taking the elixir from Houyi, even for the good of our daughter (though they did not know of her existence). But I know now, with years of hindsight, they are simply petty beings who care for nothing.

Gods do not deserve worship. Not even me. 

Chang'e can be more than just sad, though that's an important emotion to feel. I wanted her response to how the gods treated her.