I stare out at the sea, hugging myself. Angry. Rigid. Shaking with rage.

Hating the world.

“Hello, lass.”

The familiar voice felt like both a whip to my back and a weight lifted off my shoulders. I wasn’t in the mood, and I was so relieved to have him here.

“What do you want, Bergen?” I asked.

“I can feel you screaming a million miles away.”

I closed my eyes and a hot tear spilled down my cheek.

“I hate this world,” I said. “I hate it so much. And some days, I just want it to burn.”

I could hear him move behind me. He knew to wait. Giving me the space to speak.

How could I tell him that I wanted to burn this planet and sink it? How could I tell him that I didn’t want to save it at all? That I wanted to set it on fire myself and watch it burn before walking out into the Abyss of Time and just finding another place to call my home, far away from this place?

I hate this place so much.

The screams within me grew. Just burn it all, it said to me.

“How do I explain to you how much I hate this place?”

I opened my eyes and looked at the sea.

“How much I hate every soul, every tree, every… thing. How much I hate the sun.”

“Imagination,” Bergen said, taking a step toward me.

“They broke my Love,” I said in a gasp. “How do I explain how every leaf, every breath of wind, every wave upon the sand was a Bonding Gift to me? That my Imp King made for me? How much that Sun was made from his Laughter for me?”

“I loved Gardens. So my Imp King built me a Garden. A planet-sized Garden. I loved his Laughter, so he made me the Sun.”

I turned my back to the window and looked at Bergen who stood, giving me space to speak.

“And how much my Imp King loved people, so I gifted him with people… The People who broke him. The People who broke me. The People who broke us both so much that, by the time he and I did manage to find each other again, we both were so broken, that my healing broke him… And now my Imp King won’t even talk to me… Won’t even remember me…

Yet… the Hell I must endure while I remember him…

How much, I’m now supposed to save these… assholes… who broke me who then broke him who now can’t even remember me… While I stand in what is left of the Bonding Gift of a Garden, my Imp King gave to me…

There isn’t anything in this world that was not put here by my Imp King that was not a marker of what I love. A reminder of how much he did love me.

Give me one reason why I shouldn’t just burn this place to the ground?”

Bergen looked at me.

“I hate this world, those people, so much…” I whispered.

I gulped down a hot ball in my throat. I was shaking.

“If that man does not wake up and remember me, I will sink it all. I will destroy it. They had better fucking hope and pray, that man remembers me soon… Because if they broke my Imp King and I beyond the point of repair, then the Garden, this planet, and all of its people… all of them, can all just go to Hell.”

I pushed past Bergen on my way back to my Imp King’s Chambers.

“You would destroy the world?”

I turned and looked at Bergen.

“This world is my Bonding Gift from an Imp King to a Goddess Queen. Those People and my Healing Garden, my gift of love to him…

The Universe, the World, all of Everything was spawned from the Love of He and I. And without Him? … Without our Love… This world lives, thrives, breathes, and dies, on our Love.

And if they broke me and My Imp King beyond the Point of Repair… then there is nothing here for me. His Love…”

I looked down at my hands.

How do I explain it?

“His Love is the Be-All and End-All of Life, The Universe, and Everything. And without his Love, it all can just… go to hell.”

I turned again for the door.

“Imagination.”

“The fate of the world is in his hands, Bergen,” I said, not bothering to look back. “If that man can make up his mind to love me, then I will save this world. But if he does not, if they broke he and I beyond the point of repair… Then let it all burn, sink, and die.

What do they say? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?”

I left the room, the cold ice filling my chest, a warm welcome to my hatred.