Urania was forced to become the one entrusted by the deity.
“Before her fall, she entrusted the future of the werewolves to me, hoping that I would pay close attention to all the turmoil in the werewolf world until the next lunar goddess arrived. Over the years, the werewolf society has never been completely peaceful. Some remain unwavering, following traditions. I call them the stubborn traditionalists. They insist on observing traditional festivals like the Spring Hunt and demand that werewolf mates strictly adhere to the lunar goddess’s arrangements. They reject any non-werewolf ethnic groups from entering werewolf territory and even resist new werewolf technologies. They resist change, as if it can prevent them from being abandoned by the times. At the same time, there are radicals, and you’ve probably seen many of them in the human world during elections.”
Maggie nodded, as she often saw different political factions arguing over trivial matters from the beginning of elections until the end.
“Radicals yearn for innovation in the werewolf world, hoping that the north can become a haven where humans and werewolves coexist, similar to the Southlands. So, they have aligned with witches and made peace with vampires, seeking new powers in the human world. Some have even interbred with vampires, giving birth to half-wolf, half-vampire hybrids. You know, this is a recipe for trouble. All things need an orderly process, just like in the human world, a transition from an absolute monarchy to communism doesn’t happen all at once. People lack the patience for such changes.”
Maggie thought of the woman who had died in the Moonlit Forest and Grace. They seemed like living ghosts, forever skulking in the shadows.
She nodded again, “You’re right.”
“The radicals and traditionalists are always at odds. Your mate, Aldrich, is more like a radical, while Ethan, the little guy from the Frost Moon Pack, and his family are closer to the traditionalists. You’ll find that they can never reach a consensus on the interests of all werewolves; they can only conclude on their own interests.”
Urania wished she could go back in time to ask Selene if this was the ending she had envisioned for the werewolf society, fragmented, leaderless, and engulfed in internal conflicts, even if it hadn’t escalated to affect all werewolves.
But she didn’t have the opportunity to see Selene again, and even if she did, she wouldn’t ask.
Thousands of years had matured her beyond her years, making her more like a true deity. She wouldn’t question the deity’s capacity for both love and indifference. She had witnessed too many faces scarred by war, half-faces, rotten eyes, half-bodies shattered on the battlefield. Some soldiers had transformed into their wolf forms only to die, leaving their enormous bodies sprawled on broken rocks and sand, blood tracing a long path. Maggie’s father, an ordinary guard, had suffered a fate one could only imagine.
She collected the few bodies from the battlefield that could be recovered, but her father wasn’t among them.
Selene hadn’t told her whether she had seen the last moments of the men. However, Urania suspected she had, or she wouldn’t be so angry, filled with hatred for the greed and stupidity of humans, nobles who could issue commands from on high, causing hundreds of families to lose fathers, husbands, sons.
She loathed herself as a deity, incapable of preventing her selfish subjects from slaughtering each other, unable to even save the lives of mates.
“So we need the lunar goddess,” she said, “We need the lunar goddess to stop wars, use magic to punish the greedy, and limit the ever-expanding desires of people. Only this way can werewolves avoid conflicts.”
But Maggie just watched her. From the moment she first saw Urania, she had displayed an attitude of indifference towards everything. Despite being the High Priestess, Maggie felt that Urania wasn’t particularly fond of her own people. She wanted to understand this woman’s true thoughts.
“May I ask you a question?”
Urania hesitated for a moment. She had just spoken so eloquently, and this young girl seemed not to have absorbed any of it. But as Selene’s only child, she decided to entertain the question.
“Go ahead.”
“You seem to not like the Blue Moon Pack very much. I’m not sure if it’s just my perception, but whenever you mention the entire werewolf race or the Blue Moon Pack, you don’t seem particularly concerned or emotionally invested.”
“I am over a thousand years old,” she sighed, “No matter how attached one is to a group for so long, it can be quite exhausting.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m saying, don’t you have any attachment to this world yourself? Even if someone lives for a thousand years, they should still have feelings. They should enjoy the beauty of spring awakening, desire to build closer relationships with others. I want to eat more delicious food, maintain a family with Aldrich, and go to summer Hawaiian islands with my sister. But you seem to have lost interest in everything.”
Urania couldn’t tell her that she had lost hope in this world after witnessing the fall of a deity.
“A High Priestess doesn’t need pointless emotions; they can hinder the High Priestess from viewing this world objectively,” she didn’t want to continue discussing this matter with Maggie. “I need to ask you now, Maggie, what’s your perspective behind wanting answers to those dreams you can’t interpret?”
Maggie was taken aback, “What do you mean by my perspective?”
“Your father didn’t pass on many werewolf genes to you, so you may never have a wolf, which is not easily accepted in werewolf society. Rarely do clans accept that their Luna is an outsider without a wolf. However, you can choose to return to the human world. You could live among humans, receive human education, and be raised by humans. If one day, you and Aldrich no longer love each other, you can return to the human world.”
“But all of this depends on you not accepting the responsibility of the lunar goddess. Once you choose to be the successor of the next lunar goddess, your responsibilities will be far more than you can currently imagine. You will have to learn more than Aldrich, take on more responsibilities, and make many sacrifices, some of which you might not be able to accept.”
Her words made Maggie lower her head in thought.
“It’s because you’re Selene’s daughter that she once entrusted you to me. She said that one day, when you return to the werewolf world, you would need to assume the responsibility of the lunar goddess, and I’m the one to assist you in bearing that responsibility. However, the path to becoming a deity is long, full of hardships and thorns. You have human blood in you, which means you carry more love, hate, anger, and desire. Deities don’t need these things.”
Sometimes, deities need to ignore the suffering occurring in the mortal world. A life that can endure hardship and pain holds value. The indifference of a spectator is for observing the mysteries of life. Some flowers can break through layers of rock to reach the sunlight, while others wither at the gentlest breeze. The world needs more flowers that can break through those rocky layers.
Therefore, a degree of detachment is also a gift.
In Urania’s eyes, Maggie currently lacks this gift.