"Aristaeus!", a loud call reverberated from inside the house.
Immediately, Aris dropped the stick he'd been frantically waving - and turned towards the back entrance of his garden. He'd been play fighting for a while, the subject of his one-sided torment being a tree that he pummelled with great enthusiasm. Although, after a while - it grew to be quite boring.
If only his mother would just listen and deliver him a baby brother to play with.
"Aristaeus!", his mother yelled once more. This time with a layer of contempt seeping through. It was this unfamiliar inflexion that caused Aris to approach the house with less steadfast determination than he'd normally produce.
In most cases, if one were to hear their name being called; they'd promptly make their way over. Especially when it's the voice of their mother. And as much as Aris wanted to...every fibre in his body was telling him to run.
"Mama's home!", it cried out again, this time accompanied by unnaturally heavy breathing and equally heavy footsteps.
Aris' mother was a tall woman, but he could be quite sure he'd never heard her make that much noise just walking. Unless she'd suddenly decided to consume the townsfolk before coming home...
With extreme trepidation, Aris grabbed hold of his stick before running to the other side of the tree. He saddled himself at its roots, clutching his 'weapon'. Not in preparation for battle, but more as a lifeline - as if it held the answers for whatever it was that seemed to be happening.
"Come...here AriStaeUS!", this time he was sure. Whoever it was, slipped up and had dropped their near-perfect impersonation. Aris didn't think he could ever recall his name being yelled with such abrasiveness.
So...could you blame him for doing the exact opposite of what the voice had ordered?
He slid himself up to his feet before turning and peeking his head from the side of the tree trunk. Large feet, and legs that went on for ages is all that he saw before he began running for his life.
He'd even forgone his precious stick in favour of getting as far as he could, although not before stepping on it as he left.
Snap!
"There you are!", he heard the voice shout, all traces of his mother's voice spurned and relinquished by the goliath creature.
'No, I'm not!', Aris whimpered in his mind, the words not quite escaping his mouth - having become occupied by quick pants and gasping instead. His feet glided across the grass as he hauled tirelessly through the endless body of trees, he didn't even bother to look back.
Luckily for Aris, his home had been situated near the front of a forest, with a neat little lake deposited in the centre of it. His mother had warned him not to venture inside it - but Aris reckoned he'd be pardoned if she knew what he was running away from.
Tearing of trees, and the falling of lumber traced Aris rapidly. Not too long after his early retreat, he found himself by the forest lake. He had been about to run around it in favour of trying to reach whatever area existed beyond the forest until he heard something.
It was soothing...its whisper sounded like a deep song - calling to him.
"What?", Aris murmured, seemingly to no one. There certainly wasn't anyone he could see, and he'd all but convinced himself he was hearing things until the voice returned. This time louder and clearer.
"The lake, young prince!", it beckoned - annoyance and desperation laden in its voice. "It will protect you!"
Aris' skin prickled with alarm, he had just been tricked by that giant monster - would this...lake be any different?
He took small steps...inching closer; until the deafening noise of a tree being launched metres above his head startled him into making the choice.
Plop!
Aris held his fingers on his nose tightly, praying and hoping that he'd have enough air to last his impromptu hide-and-seek game with the giant monster.
"Why are you doing that?", a voice whispered from behind him - It's 'breath' fanning his ear with small waves.
"Agh-!", Aris' screeched, before slapping his hand across his mouth.
He pivoted his body and was met with a luminescent body of water, it had the figure of a boy a couple of years older than Aris.
"How peculiar...", it said as it inclined its body closer to Aris. "Is this some sort of a game?"
Aris backed away. Surprisingly - he felt no fear towards the being, but his unfamiliarity with the day's proceedings had rendered him completely incapable of believing whatever he saw, heard, or felt.
"Agh-!", the body of water mimicked, copying Aris' earlier actions. "Hmm... It's not a very good game." He continued, frowning as he closed in on Aris.
Aris was growing incensed at the boy's insistence that his attempt on surviving was a game. 'I never said it was a game, idiot!', he retorted discordantly.
"Hey!", the boy spun at Aris with a finger reaching towards his torso. "That's not a nice thing to say to someone who saved you!"
"You can hear my thoughts?", Aris recoiled, unaware that he'd spoken aloud before it dawned on him seconds later.
'Did I just...'
"Well, of course, you're standing in my-"
BloOsH!
Suddenly, nearly every space in the lake was occupied with a giant foreign body. Its legs and feet were distinctly familiar, Aris could never forget anything that had made him run away with such distress. Or anything that grotesque.
"Stay back, young prince!", the boy instructed, thrusting his hand at Aris and propelling him to the bank of the lake. "I can restrain him for a while, run and get your mother."
"My mother's gone!", Aris bellowed."She doesn't come home until after 3!"
"Then get the man!"
"What man!?", he heaved himself to his feet, half-surprised to see that his clothes were not wet.
"Just follow the trail of broken trees!", the boy pleaded, his body had seemingly melded with the water, creating a jet of water that suspended him mid-air.
Aris nodded frantically before turning and sprinting through a cemetery of trees and shrubbery.
He hadn't even reached 30 strides until he had found a man, although...Aris wasn't sure if this was the man the water boy from the lake was talking about.
"Uncle Erik!", Aris wrapped his hands around the man's waist tightly, glad to see a familiar face. "We have to get out of here, there's a large monster thing-... We have to leave!"
Erik grabbed the sides of Aris' face, his thumbs resting underneath Aris' messy brown mop of hair. "Aris, I want you to calm down."
A shocked, deeply pained look quickly spawned on Aris' face, his head shaking angrily as he tried to pry himself from Erik, "Calm down!? I've just had to-"
A loud thud, followed by the sound of a large body of water being hurled into the hair interrupted Aris' rant. His words of anger were lost in the knowledge that his saviour - albeit a strange, sometimes incorporeal one, was holding back the monster that had come after him. All in the hope that Aris would be the one to find a man.
"The water person needs our help! He told me to find the man that could beat that t-thing."
'Water person?', Erik filed away absentmindedly.
"We have to go!", Aris tugged on Erik's arm.
"It's alright, Aris. Let's go help your water person.", Erik smiled, as he began running towards the fight.
"...'ave you gone mad!?", Aris hollered as he chased after him.
Erik cackled at Aris' indignation, "You're finally going to see why I'm the best uncle in the world, Aris!"
"Or what's LEFT OF YOU!", he scaldingly replied.
To Aris, Erik was the type of person that would struggle to go through the day without having a mishap. The type of person that spilt every drink, and ripped the knees of all his trousers from falling so often.
Erik was chronically disaster-prone.
At least, that's what Aris had thought. Until the world decided to flip on its head and become a place he'd never willingly have step foot in. A world where his normal, completely average - if sometimes clumsy uncle, had become some sort of...superhero?
Erik launched himself into the air with a giant leap, the wind roaring as it aided his ascension into the sky. He flicked his wrists.
Schlink!
Twin green daggers sprouted from his hands. The monster didn't even have a chance to retaliate, its head split from its neck with a resounding slice. The faltering groan of death emerged from its lips before it found itself firmly planted and kissing the ground. Within a matter of seconds, Uncle Erik had disposed of the monster.
Its body slowly withered into yellow dust, leaving behind a rotting smell.
Thud!
The telltale sound of a body slapping against the ground tore Aris' eyes away from the dead remains of the monster, and towards the limp body of his uncle Erik.
"Uhhg..."
'That's more like him.', Aris noted as he leered over Erik's body apprehensively.
"He looks less impressive when he's not flying through the air." The debilitated voice of his saviour sounded. Although in their brief interaction he had been quite flagrantly blunt, Aris was glad to see he was alright.
"Water person!"
"I am not a...water person.", he said with his arms folded across his chest, "I'm a water spirit, and my name is Zael."
"What's a water spi-"
"Aristaeus!", a worried shrill in the form of his mother's voice shocked Aris into speechlessness.
Aris' chest became heavy and lined with dread. 'The monster's still alive! Or it had a friend! We're doomed, Uncle Erik's still on the floor and Zael is tired from fighting. I'm dead.'
He quickly adopted a stooped posture, and readied himself for impact - it was only a matter of seconds before he was flattened.
And so he was.
But only by his mother.
"Argh!", Aris screamed, blissfully unaware that his attacker wasn't mauling him, but instead kissing him repeatedly out of relief.
"My darling Aris.", Stella murmured as she held her son in a tight embrace, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears.
"Mum?"
Aris sat languidly on the couch. The whole ordeal had overwhelmed him to the point that he was just waiting for the next bizarre encounter to happen.
"This is my life now...", he sighed.
"He's too young!", Aris heard his mother shout from the kitchen, before subduing her volume and continuing in hushed tones.
Erik responded just as hushed, but it was clear to Aris that the subject of their quarrel was him. Quite honestly, it annoyed him. They were keeping things from him, they seemed to have been doing so for a long time - but who were they to do that!
He rose from the couch and turned on his heels - desperate to join their little tiff.
"Too young for what?", Aris said as he burst through the door. His ribs tightened from anger. "What are you not telling me?"
"Aris...", Stella attempted to placate the obviously irate boy, but he continued nonetheless.
"No!", he channelled a hard gaze at his mother, his ears flushed with irritation, "Whatever it is, I deserve to know."
"You're too young.", Stella reinforced once more, her expression mirroring his as they both stared at each other defiantly.
"11 years old!", Erik interjected. "We started just as young!"
"But he doesn't have to!", Stella yelled, throwing her hands into the air. "What we went through, and what we're still doing - he needs no part in it!"
"Even with his heritage?", Erik pressed on, "We both know that's not possible."
"You know, it doesn't make me feel any better-", Aris scowled. When met with the two adult's befuddled glances - he elaborated. "Talking about me as if I'm not here. Like any questions I might have don't matter to you."
Then, Stella's expression changed - the hard lines that framed her face softened as she knelt so that she would be eye-level with Aris. "I'm sorry, hun. Everything's just...complicated now. Everything we didn't want to happen, is happening."
"But what is it?", Aris whined, "What's happening?"
Stella circled her head to Erik's direction, to which he responded with a fast jerk of the neck. A nod that seemed to wordlessly intone, 'It's time.'
Stella proceeded. "We're...different. We can do things that mortals cannot as a result of our lineage-"
"Like Uncle Erik's...", Aris mimicked Erik's early actions with the daggers, not before cheekily adding a 'splat!' at the end.
Stella and Erik chuckled, "Yes."
"...Cool.", Aris nodded slightly whilst grinning.
"Not all the time.", Stella lamented. "Because of who we are, and what we can do - we're hounded by monsters. We've been working to protect you, but...Ughh!"
Erik placed a comforting hand on Stella's shoulder, "It was bound to happen sooner or later. We would've never been able to keep this up. Stop beating yourself up about it."
"I know, I know...", Stella stood up, raising her hand and placing it on her pendant. "I just wanted to believe it for a while."
"So...We're going home?", Erik asked cautiously.
"Yes." Stella resigned, "Home. To Asgard."
"Where's that?", Aris said, puzzled. 'Why do grown-ups speak a lot but never really say anything!', he complained inwardly. He seemed to be doing that a lot quite recently...
"It's where I'm from-" Stella began, before correcting herself. "Where we're from."
She gestured to Erik, Aris and herself - her finger creating a metaphorical link between them.
Stella smiled wistfully.
"I miss it...and its beauty. The streets were paved with gold, I would run across them for hours as a child. During the summer, the city would shine so brilliantly - It was as if someone had poured liquid sunshine over every corner.", she closed her eyes - envisioning her home.
Erik rolled his eyes and mocked Stella, his palm flat on his forehead as he sighed dramatically, "Ooh! ThE bEaUtY!"
Stella rapidly ceased her daydreaming and responded with a punch.
"Oomph!" Erik grunted. "Sorry...", he whispered as he rubbed his shoulder gently.
Aris smiled. He'd gotten used to Erik and his mother's interactions, having grown up with them. To him, this image of them was way more familiar than the monster fighting heroes they insisted they were.
"When do we leave?", he asked impatiently. "I can't wait."
"You know, most kids hate moving to an unfamiliar place."
"Apparently, I'm not like most kids." Aris snapped back, "Besides, It's not like I have any friends here."
"Hey, It's okay. I wasn't trying to rile you up!", Erik raised his hands reproachingly.
"Tonight.", Stella said - keen to leave. She had been feeling a steadily escalating sense of foreboding, and in her experience, it was not something to be ignored.
Aris grinned happily, he was just about to grab his things until he suddenly remembered something...or someone. "Urm...What about Zael?"
"Who?", Erik and Stella questioned simultaneously.
"The water spirit!"
Stella frowned, clutching her elbow as she mulled it over in her head.
"It should be fine.", she acquiesced. "Do it quickly. Erik, go with him."
"Sir, yes sir!", Erik saluted as he rushed Aris outside.
As soon as Aris left outside of the door, he broke out into a sprint - following the path of destruction before him. Eventually, he arrived at the lake. It looked different now that it was darker. The devastation caused by the monster might have also played a part...
Aris stepped inside the lake, his torso fully submerged. "Zael!"
For a while, nothing happened. Then, bubbles began to emerge from the bottom of the water - almost as a fanfare for Zael's arrival.
"My leige." Zael bowed. "What can I do for you?"
Aris frowned. "Why do you keep calling me things like that? 'My liege, My prince', I'm not the prince of anything."
Zael stared blankly at Aris, "I assume that there is a reason why you do not know, so it is not in my place to intervene."
"Oh.", Aris scowled, "More things I don't know about. Great."
"You'll have your answers soon, I'm sure.", Zael comforted, "For now, just focus on not encountering anymore Cyclopes; else your father will extend my exile..."
"Oh, that's what that thing was.", Aris crinkled his nose in disgust, "Wait, did you say my father?"
"No."
"I'm not deaf. I heard you say something about my father.", Aris narrowed his eyes.
"...It's not in my place to tell you."
As much as Aris wanted to, he couldn't bring himself to care about his father's involvement. He'd already garnered that his family was different, but the fact that his father was just as absent as ever didn't do much to pique his interest. What's the good in caring about someone who never bothered to visit?
"Yeah, yeah. I know." he rolled his eyes but took the statement acceptingly. Aris floated aimlessly in the water until he finally remembered what he came for. "I just came to say goodbye. I'm leaving now. We're going to some fancy place called Arsegerud."
"I see... In that case, I wish you farewell.", Zael bowed deeply. "My prince."
"Friend.", Aris corrected, "As far as I'm concerned, we're friends now."
"Is that so?", the water spirit laughed. It was the first time Aris had recalled it looking so content. "Then, goodbye - Aris. My friend."
Aris smiled, before turning and swimming away. "I'll come back to visit, I promise!", he shouted over his shoulder.
He made his way over to Erik, who was waiting expectantly.
"You're going to have to change your clothes now, Aris. You shouldn't have jumped into that lake, your mother will-", Erik began lecturing before seeing that Aris was positively dry. "...Nevermind."
After a brisk walk back, they were faced with a disgruntled Stella. She had her sword drawn, it shined like a beacon in the darkening sky.
Erik noted that the blade was covered in blood.
"We leave, now.", she said as she tossed two backpacks at them.
"How many?", Erik asked, drawing a singular dagger.
"Five hounds.", she responded. "His scent is growing stronger, we need to leave."
"Um, what?", Aris said, completely lost in the conversation.
Stella grabbed hold of his hand and leap into the sky. She flew as high as she could, with Erik following in tow.
"Heimdall, open the Bifrost.", Stella and Erik intoned at the same time.
Meanwhile, Aris was doing his best to not soil his pants. His stomach churned from the sudden cloud walking, 'A warning next time would be great.'
All of a sudden, a bright - nearly transparent rainbow bridge materialized in front of the trio. Stella and Erik descended onto the bridge.
As soon as Stella had dropped Aris onto the bridge, the foreboding feeling she felt earlier returned at full force. "Aris!"
And then...everything stopped.
"Oh... I guess this is where I come in." A lazy, floating figure hummed as it loomed over the scene beneath him. "He doesn't look like much right now... Too early?"
It shrugged carelessly before snapping its fingers. Everything then resumed, unbeknownst to the family below.
"Mum?", Aris said, alarmed.
CrrrKKk!
The rainbow bridge shook laboriously, as if it had turned on its visitors and decided to throw them off.
"Mum!", Aris screamed as suddenly, the floor beneath him gave way. He let out a loud, piercing cry - his voice drowned by the distance he had fallen.
Regret and hope battled for dominance inside Stella as she dove down for her son - desperate that she wouldn't be too late.
"Odin, be damned!", she cursed as she landed, "I knew this would happen!".
Stella searched tirelessly, taking hours with no rest to comb through the forest for her son. No matter where she looked, or however diligently she ransacked the whole of England - she'd never find young Aristaeus...