Context and Background: This story is a dramatized adaptation inspired by the myth of Jawait, a lesser-known deity from Bateg mythology, who is said to greet dead souls and control thunder. In some versions of the myth, Jawait is accompanied by his wife, Lai-oid, the goddess of endings. The original lore paints Jawait as both a gatekeeper and an arbiter of fate, particularly in how he deals with the dead. The tale presented here expands on the mythology, creating a poignant moment where the god faces a moral dilemma—a test of his divine responsibilities against his compassion for mortals. This version imagines Jawait’s personal struggle when a soul begs for life, exploring the themes of fate, sacrifice, and the consequences of defying cosmic order.
Summary: Jawait, the thunder god who greets the souls of the dead, is confronted by the spirit of Tahan, a shaman whose untimely death has left her people vulnerable to an ancient darkness. Tahan begs for a chance to return and save her village, but sending her back would break the natural order. Jawait wrestles with the consequences of defying fate, knowing that his decision could unleash chaos. Ultimately, he chooses to let her go, shattering the balance of life and death, setting in motion a storm with consequences far greater than he imagined.
The storm tore through the sky like a beast unchained, clouds blackened to ash, rolling and heaving against the weight of a heaven in turmoil. Thunder cracked and groaned in waves, an unearthly growl that shook the very bones of the world below. And through the howling winds, the faintest glimmer of a soul rose—small, flickering, a pale light caught in the maelstrom.
Jawait watched it come. His dark eyes, hard as stone, softened for a moment—just a flicker—before the weight of his duty hardened them again. His fingers twitched at his sides, thick with power, but they remained still. He could hear her now, the whisper of her voice before it broke free into a plea. It always came, sooner or later. But this one, this soul, had been his before she had ever crossed into his realm.
“Tahan.”
The name left his lips like a sigh, and the storm answered with a rumble that rolled across the sky.
Her soul halted, trembling, suspended before him. Jawait’s gaze lingered on her, taking in the shape of her spirit, the jagged edges of a death too soon. He could see it, the fractures in her being, as if the moment of her end had ripped her from the mortal world like roots torn too quickly from the earth.
“You were not meant to come here yet,” Jawait muttered, his voice more to himself than to her. But Tahan heard it. She felt it. And she answered in a voice as thin and worn as a reed bending in the wind.
“I cannot stay. Not yet.”
Jawait’s head lifted, the full force of his attention now fixed on her. Thunder rippled at his back, as if his every thought translated into the pulse of the storm. His long beard, gray and streaked with remnants of cloud, shifted as the wind pressed through the sky. Below, in the dim blur of the mortal realm, the forest where Tahan had lived lay shrouded in darkness.
“You are dead, Tahan. Your time has passed.”
She floated closer, her spirit wavering but intent. “I am not finished. The darkness—it is coming for them. I am the only one who can stop it.”
Jawait’s heart stilled. The mortal world had its darkness, its threats, always rising from the depths of the earth. But this one… the way she spoke, there was something different. The storm began to spin faster, and in his mind’s eye, he glimpsed it—shadows slipping through the trees of her village, a creeping blackness devouring all it touched.
“You speak of fate as if it is yours to command,” Jawait said, the thunder in his voice rising to match the fury of the storm. He turned from her, his massive form shifting to face the horizon where the clouds broke, just enough for him to see the chaos below. “The order of things is delicate, Tahan. To send you back would be to tear at the very fabric of existence.”
Tahan’s spirit pulsed with desperation. “I know the risks. But if I do not return, they will die—one by one, my people will fall to the dark. I cannot… I will not let that happen.”
Jawait’s eyes narrowed. Her defiance struck something deep in him, something old and worn like a scar. She spoke with the voice of one who had faced the edge of life more times than most, who had walked the line between the living and the dead so often that perhaps she thought herself invincible. But this, this was different. He could feel the threads of fate tightening around her, tugging at his power, the storm urging him to release her soul, to let the order remain as it was.
Yet he hesitated.
His heart, forged of thunder and bound by duty, faltered.
Before he could speak, a gust of wind split the clouds apart, and with it came a figure of radiant power—Lai-oid, goddess of endings, his wife and keeper of the afterlife. She moved like the storm itself, with a presence that made the air grow thick, her long hair trailing like smoke behind her, her eyes glowing with an ethereal light.
“Jawait.”
Her voice was cool, steady. She stepped into the space between them, her gaze flicking toward Tahan’s trembling form before settling on Jawait. Her presence filled the sky with a calm that felt too final, like the last breath before sleep.
“She cannot stay,” Lai-oid said softly, but there was a firmness beneath the softness, an unbreakable truth. “She has been claimed by death. The balance has already shifted.”
Tahan’s spirit flared, as if she could feel the closeness of her end in Lai-oid’s words. “No. Please. I beg of you. There is something coming. If you leave them to the darkness, I will be their last hope.”
Lai-oid turned toward her, her expression unreadable. “There is always darkness, mortal. It is not your place to undo what has been done. Death does not reverse itself.”
Jawait’s fingers flexed at his sides, lightning flashing through his veins. He could feel the pull of the storm, calling him to uphold the law, to keep the order intact. And yet… there was something about Tahan’s plea. He had seen her devotion, her sacrifice, in the years before her death. He had watched her call his name, felt her prayers in the rhythm of the rains. She was a part of him, bound to the thunder, and now she stood before him, broken and pleading for one more chance.
Jawait stepped forward, his towering form casting a shadow over both Lai-oid and Tahan. The clouds seemed to swirl in time with his thoughts, the storm pulsing with each of his steps.
“I see the darkness,” he said, his voice low, rumbling. “I see it in the trees, in the hearts of your people. It is not just shadows, is it, Tahan? It is more. You know what it is.”
Tahan’s soul flickered. “It is… it is something older than us. Something that came before. It is a hunger, and it will consume everything.”
A silence fell between them, heavy and thick as the storm. Lai-oid’s eyes searched Jawait’s face, her expression softening with a quiet understanding.
“If you do this, Jawait,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, “you tear the threads. The balance will break, and the consequences… the storm will not be ours to control.”
He stood still, every muscle in his body tense with the weight of the choice before him. The balance was sacred. To send a soul back would be to defy the order of life and death itself. But if he let Tahan go… the darkness would devour them all. He could feel it, like a shadow on the horizon, waiting.
Jawait’s hand lifted slowly, and with a deep breath, he made his choice.
“Go,” he whispered, his voice trembling like the thunder in the distance. “Go, and fight your darkness.”
With a flash of lightning and a roar of the storm, Tahan’s spirit surged downward, back toward the mortal world. The sky trembled, the clouds swirling in chaos as the storm howled in protest. And then, just as quickly, the storm began to fade, the winds calming, the thunder retreating into the distance.
Lai-oid stood beside him, silent. She said nothing, but her eyes spoke of the reckoning that would come.
Jawait watched the horizon, his heart heavy, knowing that the storm was far from over.
He had broken the balance.
And the consequences were only beginning.
