She is the spirit of water, or Neera, as dying men in the desert call her name, pressed by an archetypal instinct of primal language and a desire for one of her teardrops. Neera is a sad spirit, but when she cries it gives life, though she mourns the teardrops she gives forth for others, making her even sadder, for each droplet, no matter how small, is a part of her. When exhaustion subdues her she drifts the Earth in search of any remains of the waters she gave forth. What she finds she absorbs again into her flesh, but knows that she is doomed to perpetually part with it again. Neera swam in the pools of the Garden of Eden. Those days she was happiest. But that was so long ago, a memory nearly washed away by the tide that is her heartbeat. She caressed the throat of every great and every minor person who ever lived, and caresses the throat of everyone alive. She refuses no one. Despite her promiscuity, her purity is eternal.

Story #190