I had a related vision dream last night. Not the part of watching/checking in on the polar bear through the ice at varying levels of thickness which I've had many times intermittently over the last six months or so. This vision dream is from earlier. Or before. Or...however time works in vision dreams?...  This one is/was/will be from when the glacial ice was just starting to form and so thin it wasn't even turning blue yet and I could easily have broken it barehanded with no effort. And I was staring through it thinking about breaking it, about how much I hated it and wanted to break it. But I didn't. because this was his free will choices and who was I to tell him it was a mistake even if it was lies and illusions? Still, I had my hands in fists ready to punch through the thin ice forming.

That was when The Goddess appeared behind me and told me, "You can break it easily now, you can keep breaking it -- but that won't get you what you want and it will mean standing here breaking that ice as it forms over and over until he tires of his distractions and remembers you. Which won't be for a while -- see that lamprey twined around him and feeding on him? He's infatuated with her and she's making him soul sick. he won't see the distractions with true sight so long as he thinks he's in love with the lamprey feeding on him. Still, you can break that ice of his choosing. If you want. If you don't break it, it will keep growing. if you do break it, the ice will keep growing back to cover this entrance for as long as he keeps making these life choices and idolizing people and things that make him soul sick. No matter what you do with the ice his choices are forming, you can't make his choices for him and you know why you won't try to change them while it's what his free will chooses. So what do you choose, my Hiereia?"

I stopped from lifting my balled fist to smash the ice as I'd been about to do before The Goddess appeared. And I turned to her and said, "Destroying this ice over and over and over never knowing when my task will be done is pointless torture from Tartarus. I don't want that for me. But what else is there for me to do while he's trapped by his own willful blindness to the siren song illusions?"

She smiled at me and everything was brighter than the full moon and she said, "There's my chosen makheteia!" Then she pulled from the air a bright shining leaf blade sword and turned it to hand me hilt first and laconically said, "We have a demon nephilim to hunt and slay. You marked it for me to hunt and unravel the harm it's done so far and you placed boundary limits on its reach to spread poisons which I can enforce -- but by the rules of incarnation I need an incarnating soul ready to battle it with me for us to expel it and defeat it. So. if not you, then who?"

I grasped the hilt and with a wry half smile said, "That is my question. If not me then who? Especially since I'm the one who found it. When we're done, will you bring me back here for when he's ready to see through the illusion and is looking for me again?" 

The Goddess nodded her head, "So mote it be. I will return you to this spot in Divine Timing and you can make your choices based on what you find at that time." 

"Thank you Artemis Britomartis." Then I gave a heavy sigh and said, "Can you show me, just for a moment, how he sees what he's choosing? Before you return to me my true sight."

She looked sad and said, "I will, for I love you as I love myself. But it won't help anything or make you feel better to see the lamprey and the minnow sirens how he sees them."

And she did. And it didn't make anything better, but it helped me understand why the polar bear was spending his time and frittering his life away the way he was choosing. I did ask her, "Why does the lamprey look so much like me in his false sight?"

She said quite seriously, "Because he still seeks you but he's scared and feels old guilt so he doesn't think he deserves you. So he has found one who reminds him of you and is trying to convince himself she's what he's always sought. Even though in truth she is a lamprey, a vampire fish gorging on his life force who will bleed him dry if he doesn't see her truth in time. This is not the first time he has made such a choice. Perhaps it will be his last. Perhaps not. This is his karmic pattern to break and it's what has kept him from you since he handed you over to be burned even after you warned him with the prophecy it was what his lord would do with you if he kept his liege troth. What one regrets doing isn't the same lesson as what one refuses to ever do again. He has learned the first, he doesn't realize he has learned the second. And since you are under my protection, I won't let him reach you while he thinks he might still choose to be the reason you burn or lie to himself about his choices."

And she was right. I guess I had just hoped he had learned but it was clear from his choices over this year that he has not yet learned. And I understood also why it would be so hard for him to choose differently. And I wondered how thick the glacial ice would grow by the time I returned.... But this wasn't my fight and nothing I could do could make him ready to see through the illusions to the truth until he would be ready. So I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath and belted my sword on and turned back, "I'm ready. Let us hunt."

She held up her hand and reminded me, "You've lost your bow and the fang tipped Arrow of Lerna. You can't kill this demon without it."

I looked around for it and realized she was right. But I shrugged and said, "You and your brother have always been the truest shot. Why should we need my shot? Why not have the best archers take theirs instead."

She just shook her head at me and reminded me, "You are the Pythia. You chose to incarnate for that reason. Only your shot as an Incarnating soul can win this hunt, no matter how many arrows me and my brother loose in the demon. Stop trying to hand your shot off to others -- you're the one marked after you chose this path."

I made a face and said, "I know. So where are my bow and the Arrow of Lerna now?" 

She smiled again, "Right where you left them." When I didn't do anything but look confused she sighed in exasperation before she said, "Here." And just like with my sword, she pulled them out of the air and handed them to me, then made a face and pulled forth a horn quiver so I didn't have to carry it all. "How annoying it must be to choose to be mortal and have to carry your weapons everywhere, to not be able to let the pockets between space/time hold your things."

I laughed, the first genuine laugh since she had found me there pensively staring through the ice at the polar bear, "Isn't that what you deities and fée do for me? Disappear my things into the pockets of space-time until I ask for them or you decide I need them back?"

She grinned at me, all brightness cutting through shadows again, "Yes. I certainly do. And I know others among us do. You have many friends and allies across these lifetimes you've chosen to incarnate. Which makes your allies my allies, even the ones I wouldn't have chosen." Then she became serious again,  took a step toward me and gestured for me to come to her said, "Now. We go to my brother where he stands watch over the wards you put around this demon nephilim to try to contain it. And don't worry. I will make certain you return here when it is time for choosing. You've already been here when you're meant to be and you will be again. When the time is right. When he sees the illusions with his true sight and he's ready to free himself from what he has chosen for himself and his life." 

Then The Goddess hugged me and kissed my forehead in benediction and everything turned to the brightest light. And I woke up still feeling The Goddess with me and Her protection surrounding me. It was 3:33 according to the clock.

And in me, after talking to The Goddess, I felt peace over my decision to release him from all expectations in this life and my choice of boundary to not let him reach for me down the bond until he's ready to choose to seek me out have me in his actual life.

And I do have a hunt or be hunted battle ahead of me, one I've known to be inevitable for a long time and I've been taking steps to neutralize the demon nephilim over the last year or so as I found it in an unexpected place. Remember when I mentioned that I sicced Durga on something that i was working on and the Hindu Goddess who is all the warrior goddesses in one thanked me told me it took me long enough to ask her. And it's where I should be focusing my time/energy, especially while he's choosing to fill his life with a lamprey twining herself around him feeding on his energy making him so soul sick that he believes minnows are seals. Luckily, I have some damn fucking strong allies in Spirit. Including The Goddess, who has always watched over me in all my incarnations. 

 Also. This post makes 999 posts/drafts here. And that feels the right number to close the chapter. After this post, I will close this window into me and leave it closed. It is time and past time and all that needed to be shared here has been.