In order to fully understand this story please read Grey Lioness and Daylight Disdain. Carlos is my Oc and appears in both of them. I own nothing except the story and him.
Ever since the first day he could remember it was always like this. The Grey Palace. Him and Rhea. The Grey Goddess. Figuratively and literally. She was the goddess of this world and the Goddess to his world, his keeper, his lifeline. His personal duty it was to protect. Trained throughly in the arts of combat. Skills sharper then the most fire touched sword. They were all just second nature to him before he was fifteen years old.
Like she even needed it to begin with but Rhea told him that his sword skills would one day rival that of a hero far in the future. "He will have hair as bright as gold and strong sapphire blue eyes. He will have a mark like this, she said. Pointing to the three shining triangles on her left hand. "Only, his will be the bottom right. A strong hero chosen by Hylia and the Golden Goddess..." With that she turned glowing eyes to the stained glass window behind her. He was familiar with that window for in it was depicted the white Goddess Hylia who had protected her. Like Rhea had done with him.
Rhea had found him crying in the sand of the one of the unoccupied deserts, alone. Wrapped in a thick blanket against the sands but not the sun. Looking less then a few days old. He looked of Spanish origin ones who lived in the mountains beyond any deserts. The goddess could not find his parents. And even thou the the lands called Spain were uninhabited no one had seen anybody go there. He didn't mind. He knew his parents were with the God of death Hades now. Their souls being reborn into a newer form. He wondered, as he gazed into the twilight, if they had been separated and in different world's now. Once he had been allowed to go to his domain in the Goddess Salein's world to look for them. Cerbirus had found him very annoying. After that Rhea had turned him into a sort of envoy to the other gods and goddess when she couldn't be bothered to go to their meetings. He found them as dull as she did and only a few times would Din, one of the three Golden Goddess, acknowledge his existence enough to ask him why Rhea wasn't here.
How he regretted venturing into Hades after that.
Living with her was, quite literally, like living with a ticking time bomb. She could be happy and smiling one second and cold and almost cruel the next. But he loved it. Even when he was a helpless little child scared of everything. He loved it. Everything she had to offer him and much more. Even when she had let other people into their world he didn't care. She would always cast her mismatched green and blue dark eyes back to him with a playful look in them and a slight smirk on her face. How he loved those eyes. He found that the eyes of a goddess always shone with a light much stronger than those of mortals. Even more so then a God.
Other people, wanting to be by the Goddess' side like he was, came and went with the passing of the long years. However Rhea could not find a fierce spirit in any of them to give the gift she had given to him in any of them. There was just one way to be one of her guard though. Defeating him, Carlos in battle. They all fell. Woman and men alike, under his swift blade and cunning moves. Very quickly they settled for a different position at the Grey Castle soon after. He had joked with Rhea about them after they had gone sometimes. Always light and never mocking. Rarely would he succeed with making her laugh. One man was especially persistent and driven. A man from the snowy mountains of Russia named Nick or Nickolaus. Who, time and time again, had come so close to nearly defeating him that it greatly worried him. No one could protect Rhea like him he would not allow it.
Eventually however after years of this the man left without a single word and he relaxed a bit. It was later that his daughter would come seeking the title of Warrior. A young woman named Anastasia, called Annie. And he fell under her, she was the first one to do it in over a millennia. In time though he grew to enjoy her company. He found no reason at all to hate her just because she had fulfilled the wish her father could not, or that she was his daughter. Such a thing was childish and idiotic to him and he grew to depend on her. He swore sometimes though that he could hear her old cod of a father laughing at him.
Very soon after that he found there was little to laugh about.
He could feel his arms regenerating but try as he might it would not heal as fast as he wanted to. He had held tightly onto her bloody hand and war-torn body as she was sucked away by that nightmare so hard that both of them had broken off at the shoulder. And an instant the goddess had disappeared from her land as the sky dyed red with the hell of war. What a sight he must have been then! Defenseless and one his knees on the bloody ground.
The two of them could not go back after that. The castle had collapsed without Rhea. The only thing that was still in tact was the stained glass widow. Soon he found himself in the land of Russia, Annie's old homeland. But he never felt himself to be so far from home. They were being guarded by her father as best to his abilities. It was only this time that he had seen the passing of long years in humans watching helplessly as Nickolaus grew weaker and weaker with the passing time. Yes, he had known about it but never had he actually seen it it was only then as he watched him no his knees begging forgiveness from his daughter that he understood how lucky he actually was.
He was alone now, with only Annie for company. His world separated from the others. They could not get to the others gods. The world he had known since the begging of time had withered. The people had turned against the. The people soon turned to killing one another. Accusing them of blasphemies when in truth they were the blasphemous ones.
These weren't their people any more but mere ravenous and ferocious animals that needed to be put down. He didn't know why Annie didn't see this sooner when they were being chased through the snow in her once native land. He had lost all hope for these humans who worshipped the very one who was destroying them. May they rot with him.
But in what was their bleakest hour then he met Kichirou, Grisha and Berwick. A small group who still lived by the teaching of Rhea. Truth and knowledge. Two things the false gods worshippers had forgot and ultimately rejected with everything they had and when one person did they were put to fire and rock. That was how he had found young children called Bertholdt and Reiner. Shivering and starving in a cell. Both of them barely clinging to life.
After that his hate for the animals only deepened with the cold years. He could only find comfort in Annie and she with him. But soon he had hope. For Kichirou's newborn daughter bore the upside down triangular mark of Rhea on the back of her left hand and her dark eyes reminded him of her a little. She was the darling of her father. A polite little girl with ever a kind look in her eyes whenever she looked at him... Ye goddess he must really miss her! With the passing of the years his heart filled again with hope for the people. Though this child they will find their minds again.
But as he gazed at the crumbling remains of the mansion looking down at Kichirou on his knees the ground still smoking and hot beneath him. Holding the fire licked and charred remains of his beloved wife and child in his arms. His heart darkened yet again. And once more the sky turns red as sinful blood pours and rains down from the dark clouds above.
Rhea was never coming back and the people were destroying the land she had created for them. To him it had made perfect scene. He regretted nothing not a thing. Ungrateful animals needed to be taught a lesson after all.
Now however he couldn't help but feel that he had done it all too soon.