Time never meant anything. The world was as it was, the turn of the seasons, rotating with the great expanse of the heavens. The winter fled and the spring planting came as the stars shifted restlessly only to return to their homes. Change occurred, but the familiarity remained as a steady helpmeet of change. What loss was there when planting, growth, harvest, and rest would have their place, leave, and surely return again? The seasons were endless, a beautiful and delirious rotation of all that was lovely and necessary of the earth.

My mother saw it so. From my smallest state of memory, when I could hardly toddle about on tripping toes, I wanted to be like her. Stately, graceful, prettier than any woman I had seen to the point I did not understand the celebration of Aphrodite. And she was kind. How could she not? She gave all she had to the earth, all her devotion and heart to the growth and the harvest. In winter, when the poor earth cried for a rest, she spent that rest worrying and planning and yet always faithful that all would be well.

I didn't always understand it. In my youngest girlhood there was confusion. That little blonde thing, hair the color of the sun, did not understand the scraps of plant left behind when the grain was pulled in and the feasting began. The healthy green was gone, as was the wise golden.

Resting, my mother said. Immortality was the way of things, though not all things remained the same. The soil would turn and take in those scraps and after a rest life would spring joyfully up for another round.

Life was endless. When endless was about, there was no time.

I grew up in the fields and slept in the shelter of the orchards. In my earliest memories all responded. I could coax seeds to release tiny green tendrils, flowers to bloom at my smile. When the fields turned gold I would race through them all day.

Little surprise they called me the Corn Maiden.

I rarely saw them, those mortals, and therefore I must assume their sightings of me were just as rare. My mother never tried to keep us hidden, but there are some things mortal eyes just couldn't find. But speech flew fast and had power in its own right and the stories of me reached my ears.

They were good stories, the kind any young girl would love to hear. They spoke of a girl nothing less than a goddess. Pretty, fresh, face like flowers and hair like the grain. The Corn Maiden.

Of course I did not mind the mortals telling stories of me. The bits of lore and truth that dripped down to them could be nothing but good. They were strange creatures, the mortals, so frail and weak I could not help but wonder how they would tackle the endlessness of life.

They fascinated me.

Somehow I could never get close enough to them. I never went far from my mother, and despite her love for the mortals they never seemed to further interest her. I was her love, and the earth. Perhaps it was never intentional, but the villages of the mortals were never as close as their fields. Even their praises of my mother and the prayers for her blessing rarely grabbed her attention. She just patiently and peacefully did what she loved.

There was a certain cave set in the hills above a large field of wheat. Our wanderings over the centuries brought us there on several occasions. I held no particular fondness for it, only thought it was interesting because of the smoky color of the stone and the wildflowers that grew near it. It was a nice place to go to when we were in the area. That was all.

One day that changed. One day that cave became one of the most important things to me.

My mother was tending the field, humming a sweet song as she gave the wheat all she could. The sun was strong, the sky clear, and my feet refused to be still and my mind refused to focus. I asked permission to go to the cave and gather flowers. Permission was granted.

A man lay near the cave, his form half-hidden in the grass. I almost didn't notice him.

I don't recall much of how he looked, at least not details. He seemed comfortable, a tired man seeking a sunny place for a nap. His face was peaceful, as if lost in the finest of dreams.

Much of the world was visible and practical. Plants grew among the stones, both were scattered over the rich brown earth. Mountains rose in the distance and in the horizon the sea spread. So much could be touched. But then there was the wind, the heat of the sun, things I had tried so often to scoop up and failing every time. The breath of life, the energetic wind that everything seemed to possess, was also unseen.

The mortal man did not have that.

I could make no sense of him.

All things were endless. I knew this like I knew myself. Things may change and things may rest, but they were without a doubt endless. It was truth.

Somehow, the frail mortal lying on the ground near the cave, did not fit so neatly into this truth.