A/N: Hi there! This little Leodle story is a gift for my lovely friend jyuanka, who's so very precious to me and a goddess all by herself.
Love u moos vitch, I hope you had a great time! *hug*
1 - legends
⋨ just as the legends say ⋩
Fairies, elves, fae folks, muses.
Winged, horned, all-powerful, all-knowing.
With sunlight in their hair, moonlight in their gazes, elements bending at the will and whims of their fingertips.
Leorio was a child when he first heard of the Garden of Divinities. Deities living in a sky castle with a garden as big as the world, elementals and almighty beings playing with the tide of the sea as he did when he threw pebbles in puddles. The elders in his village told stories about them, those fantastical beings turned into gods, every night. And every night, Leorio would sit next to the others to listen to those godly tales, mesmerized, dreaming of muses and fairies and nymphs spinning wheat and blowing on the land and sewing stars into the sky.
The legend went like this: everyone can become a god. Everyone. Each and every being, even orcs and witches and werewolves and the smallest of children, could pretend to the status of divinity, as long as they had the power to claim it.
There were two ways to do so.
The first — natural, honorable, deserved — was to be worthy.
If one could control the wild tides better than Leol and the whimsical lightning better than Killua and the roaring of nature better than Gon, then one could take their place, would they be bestowed that duty by the god of gods — Netero himself. It was rare, that one would manage that prowess, but the divinities that could rise to the top through the sole will of their powers were to be feared and respected. Destitute gods would serve as their subordinates, forever humbled and quieted by the greater, dignified deity.
The second — brutal, vile, radical — was to kill a god.
Leorio had read about those assassin gods. Silva, god of Chaos, an assassin of night elves turned deity, head of the legendary Zoaldyeck family born from the core of a storm. Hisoka, god of Tricksters, of Liars, of everything rotten in the hearts of palaces and the secrecy of their bedrooms. Chrollo, god of Thieves and Thief of gods, with his crew of orcs and fae folks born from the mud and the ashes. They had all claimed their throne with bloody hands and the bounties of the killed gods, forcing their way into the Garden of Divinities, stealing the deity's power as their own.
He was fifteen years old when he asked the elders if any human had ever become a god. Surely, in the infinity of creatures that roamed on the known world, there had to be a chosen one, a witch powerful enough to will elements better than any god, a wizard creative enough to find new spells to cast, a warrior born on the battleground and brave enough to defy a god.
The elders had laughed at him.
"There are no gods among us! Just flesh and bones that bleed and break at the first fall."
No human had ever been elevated to the status of deity — none, in all history of divinities. Not even the witches in the wilds and the wizards across the isles and the warriors that fought for the king.
When Pietro fell ill, prey to an illness no doctor in the human world could cure, Leorio knew he had to be the first.
⋨ just as the legends lie ⋩
There was no such thing as absolute power. No almighty, no all-knowing, no all-powerful being.
Cheadle would know; she had had her wings clipped and her hands bound and her voice silenced time and time again, one goddess in a sea of gods all striving for the top.
The legends went like this: all gods could exercise their powers on their respective attribution. Malzi ruled over the Darkness, Satotz over Travelers, Menchi over Harvest with the god of Gluttony, Buhara. And Cheadle, goddess of medicine and science, one of the twelve Zodiacs that passed down Netero's will onto the rest of the divinities, over Knowledge.
Every seventh day of the month, the Zodiacs called all the other gods to the Council of Awakened to discuss matters of the below-world — where humans and fantastical beings and supernatural creatures festered. Beside those ordinary meetings that so very often ended with fights — Illumi and Killua didn't get along despite being brothers, Kurapika abhorred Chrollo, and no one liked Hisoka — they rarely met, unless urgent issues brought them together in extraordinary meetings.
During those meetings, each god had the same voice, and each got a vote. That seemed fair, right?
Well, that was just the theory.
In practice, Cheadle ruled over little more than her own mind — and even that, with Pariston's tricks and Netero's cryptic orders and her own anxiety, that wasn't sure. Time and time again she had tried to exercise her godly power and gift the humans with knowledge of immunity treatments and electric fields and planet arrangements, and time and time again she had been stopped by the other gods who feared what humans could do with knowledge.
"Ever since they have taught themselves to weld iron, fae folks and fairies have been captured and sold on slavery trades," Cluck had said. "They do not value other lives. They only have eyes for themselves, and for how they can benefit from others."
"We cannot trust the humans with knowledge," Piyon had added. "They are greedy. Every new invention is turned into a war machine. Look at their advanced torture machinery yet half of their continent still cannot drink without dying of cholera."
"I don't think humans are that terrible, but they are still too selfish," Beyond had diluted. "Their power structure is unbalanced. They think their own folk are lesser than them for having darker skin or accents. They are violent, barbarians."
Cheadle knew all that. She hadn't always been a god, had once been a fairy free to roam as she pleased, had explored the world and seen it as it was. She had seen the witches burnt at the stake and the wizards hunted by their fellow, the wars that had torn entire countries, the preposterous superstitions that willed their sword in the name of deities they didn't believe in and kindled their pyres for beliefs forged in hatred and greed.
Yet she couldn't forget. The old witch who had upturned earth and sky during a storm to concoct an ointment that would heal Cheadle's broken wing. The young woman who had busted her out after she was captured by hunters and had hidden her from them, risking her own life for what was right. The wizard who had cast an illusion over her wings to let her blend in with the humans just so she could watch her favorite play with them. The carnival where everyone dressed as something they weren't and danced from dusk to dawn and shared treats regardless of their origins.
There was no perfect creature. The humans, selfish and greedy as they were, were proof of that. And when Cheadle watched young mothers die as they gave birth and tots as weak as pixies die from the flu, she burned to do something.
(Besides, with deities like Hisoka in their supposed perfect garden, Cheadle had stopped believing in the so-called higher status of her own.)
"You say they're not that bad, that they're resourceful, and I want to believe you, Cheadle," Mizai, her one trusted friend, had mused when she had told him her thoughts. "I've seen good humans too. But they are the only species that has never ascended to our garden. Netero says it's because they need to be ruled over; I don't agree, but until a human becomes a god, I will have to be cautious."
And so went all of her conversations, all of her debates. With power shivering in her hands that she couldn't use, and knowledge sizzling in her brain that she couldn't share. Never had she spent a day without envying Ging, that bastard, who had since long relinquished his rule to wander in the world in search of new civilizations to dig up.
"What good is power if I can't do anything with it? Damn their rules and their expectations," was what he had told her, and though she remained loyal to Netero, there were days where she dared to ask herself that same question. "I don't need no throne; as long as I still have that power I was born with, I don't need whatever those asshats pretend to have. Greater power? For what, sitting around that stupid table and conclude that we shouldn't intervene, as usual? My ass."
Ging was no reference. He was selfish, had given up on his own son, didn't know how to be a friend and even less a lover — she would know, for having known the misery and wonder that loving him was. But he was also right.
She had sacrificed so much to get where she was. Had given up on a life of exploration and discoveries and freedom for the opportunity to change the world — something a simple fairy with blessed hands couldn't do on her own, not without the power of Knowledge. And yet every day she had to prove herself time and time again to take up the space she wanted to take. All these dreams of hers — these endless ambitions and aspirations — stifled in a casket and balloted in uncertainty as she wondered if her ideas would ever see the light of day. Because the sharks were watching — and they had infinite patience.
The legends lied.
The gods weren't equal. They weren't almighty. They weren't perfect, and they were even less kind. That status, those privileges, this power — all of it was ornament. Nothing worthwhile happened, not in the garden and certainly not with the council.
"Going into the human world? For what?" Netero asked, looking at her with eyes wide as saucers.
"To make a change," Cheadle answered. "With all due respect, I don't feel useful here. I would be more apt to make something, anything happen, if I were down there with them."
Netero laughed. "Cheadle! Don't be foolish. No god has ever returned to the human world after their ascension. Don't forget that without your House, you are still a fairy. A stake of iron in your heart and you are done for."
"I have spent more time below than I have here; I would be fine."
Netero tutted. "Pluck those ridiculous thoughts from your mind, young fairy. The gods can't travel below. Your rule is too important here to be risked for those pesky humans."
After their ascension, the gods were banned from returning down below. No god had ever dared to — not after the rumors of murdered gods and stolen powers from rogue creatures that they whispered among themselves.
When a human being broke into the House of Time, murdering its god and stealing his power, Cheadle knew she had to be the first.
A/N: so! this is going to be a multichapter story, albeit a short one. If you like Leorio with Cheadle or are curious of this gem of a ship, check out jyuanka's stories and tumblr! she's on both ffnet and ao3 and is an amazing, amAZING writer.
Until the next one, bye!
