Over the centuries, I'd picked up other hobbies besides playing with the birds and stargazing. Which was good, because stargazing wasn't really the same when I could only ever see the brightest ones through the glow of my own mana spilling through my skin. I might have been able to find a solution if I had more to wear than my venerable little combat tunic and undergarments, but I didn't. Going to minimum power and trying to cover myself with a thick enough layer of spare leaves and feathers to block my glow, while leaving my eyes exposed, had proven impractical. Burying myself in the sand except for my eyes did work--I could confirm that some of the dimmer stars and nebulae still existed!--but the setup was...not ideal in many ways.
Today, I was hovering over the coral reef surrounding the island, inspecting my work. I'd long ago finished guiding the growth of plants into my final masterpiece of ornamental gardening on the island proper. Since then, I'd branched out into guiding the growth of corals and plants in the reef. These were much more difficult media to work with than land plants for obvious reasons, but the additional freedom of a vibrant color palette and diversity of structures made it more rewarding, too.
Nine centuries after my arrival, I was finally done. The island now appeared as I had planned in my original vision, conceived in my first century. The effect I had been aiming at was something like "Sacred Peaceful Garden," and as I surveyed my work, for once my chest swelled with something other than acid.
I had really outdone myself.
Rainbows of coral spiraled around the island, inviting those who traveled light, but blocking any who would come in force. Instead of the dense, disordered thickets that had prevailed upon my arrival, I had induced generations of trees, shrubs, and ferns to arrange themselves into groves, with winding pathways meandering through. Every so often, sturdy roots and branches arranged themselves into surprisingly comfortable natural furniture, ideal for bird petting. Or reading all the books that I didn't have.
'...Do I still remember how to read and write?' I wondered.
The thought made me frown; it was a troubling question. Quickly, I scrawled some text in the sand.
...Yes, good. That skill was apparently as locked-in as the memories that shall not be mentioned.
I sighed, and squinted my eyes preemptively to halt the inevitable flashback before it made me nauseous. There was very little I wouldn't give to go back to that moment, with my increased power.
Thinking positively, at least I could still remember the faces of my adoptive family as clearly as ever.
"Let it go, Menelyn," I murmured.
I knew academically, had always known if I thought about it calmly, that they would understand. Approve. What really hurt was, well, a few things.
They hadn't had time to think it through, as it happened. What had their immediate thoughts been. in that moment, when their shields went down to strengthen mine? Had there been enough time for them to realize what had happened? Did they die in the middle of considering, for a fleeting moment, whether I had betrayed them?
They had trusted me to keep us all safe. Had they been disappointed? Regretted their trust? Would they do it again, knowing I would fail in the end?
And most of all, I had--ohhh, the acid. The acid had never left.
Bluh.
And most of all, I had made a conscious choice. I had pushed the proverbial button. Pulled the lever. Cut the rope. I only had one real option, but that didn't change the fact that I had knowingly chosen it. I had chosen to let my family die, so I would live.
I would never know the answers to the unanswerable questions.
Izena warned me against obsessing. All I could know was that I worked hard for a long time to guarantee that I would never repeat my failure, straining until I was pretty sure that it had become virtually impossible for any innocents to be harmed if I was nearby. I could even revive the dead. The stretching never stopped hurting, but I'd never stopped doing it, although I did stop torturing myself literally constantly centuries ago, first when I achieved three sufficient shields and especially after resurrecting Hopper.
Anyway, to round out my Sacred Garden Island of Peace and Harmony and Tree Benches for Bird-Petting design, I'd kept the pool at the base of the cliff filled with my materialized mana, and induced the surrounding ring of trees to form a canopy above it, shading it from the tropical sun to enhance the glowing effect. A bath in the pool of liquid light would almost surely leave anyone feeling rejuvenated, but I couldn't be certain since I was already constantly bathed in my own immaterial mana.
Altogether, it was the kind of painstaking project that only an immortal could envision and complete. Coaxing every plant and coral to achieve just the right forms had consumed most of my centuries spent on the island, and at last, it was complete.
There was only one thing left on my to-do list: provide a satisfactory shield to every significant plant and animal on the island and in the reef, simultaneously.
I'd put it off for, uh...let's just say an immortal can procrastinate for a long time. Mostly, I'd grown frustrated with anchoring shields to plants, but after centuries of working with plants extensively to complete my nature-art, I hoped I'd be able to make it work. It was time to try again. I'd worked with plants more than any other mage in history, literally many lifetimes more.
And after nine centuries of stretching my mana pool, I ought to have the range required to attach shields to everything in the reef.
So, I sat down, breathed, made as many shields as I could and...Oh.
Oh.
Uh...it just...happened.
Without conscious effort.
That...the last time things had worked out so conveniently for me was when I found this ideal island.
Every living creature the size of my birds or larger located within a league or so of my location had a completely impenetrable shield, and although it was draining, I was comfortably able to maintain the spell. I didn't even need to assign the shields intentionally, one by one. The shields simply jumped out and attached to the nearest target with a matching anchor signature, keys attracted to matching locks, as I willed them into existence.
'Am I attaching them subconsciously?' I wondered.
If so, I was impressed with myself. Perhaps it was an economy of scale effect--make enough shields, and they self organize? After all, if you shoot enough arrows, one of them will hit the right target.
Yes...Shields that 'missed,' found no matching anchor, simply returned their mana to my pool, as if they were never created!
I smiled. My faith in overwhelming brute force had been rewarded. It always was the most reliable solution to problems.
'How many shields is this, anyway?'
Swiftly, I decided to give on counting. It was a city's worth, at least. The reef had many, many creatures in it.
An entire city, invulnerable, shielded from harm by my light.
When I first arrived on this island, I could only provide that level of protection to myself. A single, solitary shield. Now? Hundreds of thousands. If I was near, hundreds of thousands of people could laugh in Oscanion's face. Maybe even millions.
At least hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than I was when I arrived, when I was possibly the most powerful white mage who had ever lived.
Overwhelming indeed. After nine centuries, I'd achieved every goal I set for myself. I wouldn't need to let anyone die.
My shield range was far from infinite, and resurrecting the purportedly dead remained very mana intensive, slow, and limited to a corpse in decent condition. Healing, repair, and purification were intrinsically short-ranged and no amount of training would change that, although distributing materialized mana could very inefficiently evade this limitation, to some extent. But caveats aside, for the first time in my life, I felt like that "Goddess" title might not be completely absurd. No one, not anyone, not a single soul within my sight could be harmed by any attack if I wanted them to be protected.
"No harm can come to anyone who can see my light," I whispered.
It had been a while since I grinned so ferally. I couldn't scream too loud or I'd frighten the birds, but I wanted to.
This had been a good day.