Note: Originally posted on LiveJournal on May 18th 2006

Gods of Ice
by Rhea Logan

Who could tell me which light to follow
Who could tell me in which god to believe?

--from a poem by Johanna

-

Gods expected obedience – absolute, blind, and Soubi wrung and bent himself in humble answer to all of their demands.

Thunder-voices rumbled, you have a fragile heart. Made of feeble fibers too easy to tear. So they tore all the stronger and pulled at his trembling strings, teaching him the art of holding back the tears, how to bear the pain and not make a sound. They twisted and broke him, until thick scar tissue grew and sealed again what had come apart.

Sensei wore the mask of a supreme, cold-hearted deity. He named himself Perfection, crafting others in his image – sans free will – so that, when they were ready, they would follow him. He stood, tall and proud, behind the charades of training and aid, teaching painful lessons on values and skills. Yet, under the silver surface, the ugly, rotting core of a fallen angel betrayed his self-indulgence, his insatiable greed.

Prayers, Soubi learned early, yielded nothing but another crack of Sensei's vicious whip. Silence was his alone, thoughts and words he'd left unspoken out of grudging respect and lash-instilled fear. Flesh, he was told then, was only a tool. It did not belong to him. It was made to serve, to obey, to protect and please.

Later, Soubi picked up the pieces, splintered crumbs of a soul and fading frailty. He locked them away from the altars, outside the shrines of the fake god who laid claim to his virginity, and threw away the key.

He tossed the bitter memories as he walked away, watched them fall and scatter across the barren ground of regret-filled days. Out, into the world of his new reality, he followed his master, the true god, on eager feet.

He learned to question the laws and orders of all except his Sacrifice. No rules apart from his were set in stone, Seimei had told him once, and they existed for Beloved to break them at their flawed joints. Seimei was the one meant to be sacrificed, but Soubi lived to endure any blow his only god would grant. These new scars, he hoped, would aid the strings and chains in binding him to where he wanted, needed to belong.

But his heart weakened slightly and he trembled inside at the distant stare of Seimei's violet eyes. And he prayed, although never aloud, that his god would never see it fit to leave his follower behind. Born for each other under the same stars, they were one; Beloved Fighter of his Beloved Sacrifice.

Then the chains released him, strings that bound them shattered and he fell with no memory of a happier time. Worlds dissolved and died; stars collided, imploded, swept him off his feet. Gods he did not believe in cried out their loathing, their accusing voices condemning him for following his last order: live. The voice of his one god faded in his ears when Seimei vanished in his burning shrine and, this one awful time, Soubi regretted having let the gods teach him how not to cry. He existed – not lived – on the outskirts of reality, between unanswered questions and silent, failed attempts at understanding why.

In the end, he learned that all gods turned angry faces veiled in burning ice, slapping his greedy hands starved for acceptance of his less perfect side. Each of them built his lighthouse on the opposite shore, tempting and taunting and calling with their pretty words. They left him adrift, seeking nothing but validation of a single truth:

If gods were immortal like he had been taught, Seimei – no matter what others told him – could not have simply died.