Chapter 2: When even the Moirai wail
I found myself laying on a corridor made up of the purest darkness.
There had been nothing in that place. Not a single speck of light could be perceived. Hearing, touch, taste, smell, all those senses that before were but a simple part of my existence, now seemed to have been nothing more than a fever dream, bred from my jaded mind.
Something that would allow me to believe other realities existed beyond this one. That I had once lived in one of them, and I was able to feel.
I tried to touch my surrounding to no avail. No floor, no walls, no matter seemed able to subsist in this plane. Not even me, when I tried to touch myself, with arms that no longer existed, seemed to be made of what I had expected to be a solid… a solid anything.
I started to drift through that new reality.
Drift, drift, and drift around some more. Without pause, without rest, I drifted.
Long stretches of time were not something that was easily measured for the common man. Place that man in a pitch-black room and it becomes an exercise in futility.
Even so, I can at least say with certainty that the time it took for me to wrestle control of my… soul perhaps? Well, before I wrestled control of what I would henceforth refer to as my soul, was long indeed.
Some might say it did not matter in which direction I went, for there were no signs of this infinite darkness having any kind of end. Nonetheless, knowing that at least the direction I was going in was my choice was perhaps one of the two single factors that kept me sane during those times.
The other, perhaps a bit more fittingly supernatural for the situation at hand, was that my spirits during that period were muted, as if my supposed death had taken with it my ability to feel along with my life.
It made sense in a way I suppose. Without a brain to process the chemical reactions that gave origin to what the common man referred to as emotions and feelings, I should not be able to experience any of those things.
I also should not be able to think either, for the electric signals needed for that were missing too. Unfortunately, it looks like nobody bothered to pass that specific memo to the overseer of this weird reality.
More time passed. Minutes, hours, days, weeks. Perhaps even months or years, I could not tell. The only thing I knew was that after that time passed, after I had prayed over and over to all Gods I knew of – and some I did not too – after I forsook the Deities and started praying to the ones that made the underworld their domain, after I had – with no success – attempted to end my existence more times than I could count, someone finally answered my prayers.
A literal light in the end of the tunnel started shining. Its rays were omnipresent and all-encompassing, I was sure that should I still have eyes I would have been permanently blinded by its brightness.
Once I managed to recover my center, I verified that as unreal as it sounded, there had indeed been nothing around me. Only darkness that was now rapidly losing its domain to the shining beacon that was quickly encroaching upon my previously shadowy dwellings, as if beckoning me to come closer. Making my surroundings, previously blacker than anything I had ever seen, into a pure white seemingly free of any impurity.
The warmth it promised, the safety it augured, it was more than enough to make its appeal irresistible to the current me. Though, in the state I was, its promises could have been a lake of piss together with a pile of shit and I would still have dived into it with no second thoughts.
And so, like a moth drawn to a flame, mindless and foolish, I advanced.
I did not know how long I had passed here, alone without anyone to hear me, without anyone to talk to, without anything to see or even to simply touch, but I did not want to know what would become of my psyche should any more time come to pass. Should I carry on believing that I actually had control over the direction I was going, only to realize I was as powerless as I had ever been and that none of it mattered. In the end, none of it ever did.
I approached the light source – how I could still distinguish it from my surroundings I did not know – and once my hands were close enough to envelop it if I so desired, I saw it rapidly cover the distance between us, as if it had suddenly been given a will of its own, and connecting itself to me. Abruptly and without warning I felt what passed as my body in this place start burning from the inside out. It appeared the moth analogy I used had been more accurate than I could have ever hoped for.
I wanted to let go of it, a lover of pain I had never been, much the contrary in fact, yet my hands had been apparently fused to the Light-Bringer by its heat, and I was unable to separate myself from the object no matter how much of my non-existent back I put into it.
That, and the light itself appeared to have latched onto me with a drive akin to a desperate hungry dog to a piece of bloody meat. Then, after having its fill, just like a spider that had finally caught its prey after days of waiting, the only thing left to do for it now was to ensnare the victim and make sure it did not escape.
From the tip of my fingers to my veins, from my veins to my systems, from them to my mind, from there to everywhere else, I felt the heat envelop me and once the pain became overwhelming, even to that muted me, I sensed myself shutting down. True darkness took me then.
Soon enough however, I would… wake, once again. For whatever the definition of awake stood for in this place anyways.
And this time I could at least see something beyond either pure darkness or absolute light.
Flashes and nothing more though, of a seemingly medieval world, through the eyes of what I perceived from various contextual clues to be a boy on some kind of journey.
With the passage of time, and with the lack of anything exciting happening, I started losing hope that I would ever truly leave this state.
And then I saw the tower.
They're real.
After the encounter with Hashana and the random dwarf most of my doubts lay dead, but upon seeing Loki Familia, the Loki Familia – what were supposed to be nothing more than characters born and bred from the rich imagination of an overworked Japanese light novelist – live, breath and walk right in front of my eyes, they had all been laid to rest.
Well, not through my eyes, and though many philosophers spoke of how we should only trust our own senses, I do not think they had this specific situation in mind when proclaiming things like that. As such I would for the moment disregard their wisdom and consider what I saw as the unadulterated truth.
In that moment I wished I had forced myself to try and catch more flashes of this world through the boy's vision. Had he ever looked at a reflective surface? How did he look? Was he a character, one character, the character? While those thoughts spun around my mind with an unbidden will, I caught a glimpse of his image through a storefront glass.
White hair. Red eyes. A stupid smile etched onto his face and an aura of innocence unmatched by anything I'd seen till today.
I felt what must pass as excitement in this place run wild through my body. If I had arms, I was sure I would have started throwing them around in what would benevolently pass as an attempt at shadowboxing.
Fuck. Yes.
I could influence him. I had verified that with the previous encounter. I did not know if that control could grow, but I felt compelled to put in all the effort I could manage now.
I did not know why, but I wanted it. I wanted it more than anything else and seemed to instinctually know how to achieve my desire. It was quite ironic that only now, after I finally lay dead, what I want above all else is to live.
Nonetheless, inside I felt weirded out by the fact I was not more weirded out by my situation though. From the lack of pop-ups, it seemed the unfortunate truth was that the system people liked to use so much in stories that feature events just like these was not on my list of possible powers, and as such the ability to calm the mind that came with it was not the culprit.
Yet I still felt calmer than I should. Close to emotionless even, outside of some strong bursts of sensations once something particularly striking occurred. I knew myself, there was no way I could have confirmed death was not the end, or at least it was not for me, and still stood like this.
Not crazy.
Yet, perhaps fruit of that aforementioned state, I effortlessly ignored such an irrelevant fact to the problem at hand, and directed all my attention into capturing each and every act the boy engaged in.
I wished to allow him to walk as he so desired, free of any intervention, hoping he would tread the same steps he had on the tale I once read, yet it seemed my connection with him had grown in the meantime, for when he was about to approach a random God, my reproval was ostensibly sent through whatever link connected us and he thought better of it.
That was mostly how the day went, with useless wandering and failed encounters.
However, that was not how it ended.
Maybe it would have been better if it did.
In this world of Gods and Goddesses, of spirits and magic, of plots and tricks, perhaps three old ladies also had a hand they wished to play. A tapestry they recognized could not be salvaged anymore, fruit of tricks and weavings a thousand years in the making perpetrated by a foolish lovestruck Goddess that did not know when to give up.
But even so, some events must be complete.
Some pre-requisites must be met.
The rest would lay in the hands of that child.
As if given life, the tapestry changed. Interweaved and folded itself with no rhyme nor reason, leaving behind an ugly mess of lines and knots that would be impossible to disentangle.
The ladies wept.
My body was tired from walking around all day, my legs numb, my feet sore, my head throbbing. But none of that managed to eclipse the excitement I felt.
Loki Familia. I saw theLoki Familia.
I could not believe how incredibly lucky I had been. There were people living in this city for years that had not even seen one of them, much less the whole Familia, and yet on my first day I somehow managed to catch one of Loki's famed Homecomings. Essentially, after some particular dives into the dungeon, the Familia would choose a random direction and walk through it on their path to the Twilight Manor, allowing the population to see their so acclaimed Heroes and what they really looked like.
What it felt like, to look upon those that had already climbed five or more steps on the stair to divinity, it was indescribable. As if I was looking at something grander than myself, grander than everything.
It was rumored Braver did that in order to reduce the crime rate of the less populated locations, by making it unpredictable where the next place he was passing through would be, and as such discouraging any sort of criminal activity that would be caught by his enhanced senses.
Truly, it was no wonder he was considered the greatest Hero of this age.
Scorn. Contempt. Disdain.
I held my head as the wave of thoughts passed through me, but showed no other outwards reaction that anything unusual was happening to me.
As time passed, I had gotten better at handling these events. Also, at detecting what he – thought I did not know how I knew the voice was a 'he' in the first place – was feeling. What he was thinking. They were mostly negative emotions, especially when I tried to approach a God or Familia, but I trusted it. After all, whenever my eyes swept over the statues of old heroes, the shops, the demi-humans laughing together with those of my race as if no boundaries existed between them despite their differences, I felt his wonder and excitement too, and they were almost as high as mine. Perhaps higher even.
There was no way someone that felt like that could be evil, or trying to purposefully trick me for no reason. He probably only had some premade biases against Braver or something.
Contemp. Condescension. Disparagement.
And then, hidden behind them, like a child hanging behind the legs of their parent –
Admiration.
Though the child was quick to hide its face, and act as if it did not exist, I still knew it lay there.
My thoughts seemed to annoy him, as the next moment I was having to force myself to sit lest I do it involuntarily.
Flashes, images, information, all of it in such a quantity as to make me feel dizzy. Most of it related to Braver. There was a lot I did not understand from them. I felt I lacked the context needed for that. Still, from what little I managed to understand, I could derive only one thing.
Finn Deimne, or whoever he was behind that seemingly fake name…the poor man must truly want to be a Hero.
...
Nothing.
I pursued my lips. How do you describe the feeling of nothing? I did not know, yet that was what I felt from the one that shared my head with me. It was as if he was blocking himself. Recoiling like a man who had just been slapped.
Whatever the reasons for it I did not have the time to dwell on them for in front of me, the most beautiful Goddess I had seen until now appeared.
Her clothes were somewhat shabby, a white dress weirdly cut at its borders that ended just a few celch below her butt. A blue ribbon was used to force her outfit to make what I could not describe as anything other than two – big – boob socks that left little to the imagination. Her feet were bare and she was walking in two sandals that made a loud clop-clop sound each time they hit the ground. The hair that almost reached them was being held by two pieces of cloth that seemed as if they might give out at any moment.
By any measure the person wearing those kinds of garments should have been nothing more than a beggar, something ugly that radiated misery and gloom. Yet not only did she run counter to all that, she made it work. Somehow, she made clothing that wouldn't look unfamiliar in a vagabond work in her favor.
Her walk seemed more dignified than the one of the noble elves I had caught earlier today. The way she smiled lit up a fire in me, and when her fingers strolled through her dark hair, I felt my heart start beating several times faster. It was only enhanced by the fact she did not even seem to be trying, giving her an air of uncaring perfection that could not be matched.
Loki Familia seemed grander than everything else? Foolishness uttered by a boy that had taken the limits of his field of vision for the limits of the world.
It was not as if I had not seen any other Gods today, but this feeling inside of me none of them had come even close to evoke. It was said that while mortals would never be able to read the Gods as they read them – such a thought was beyond idiotic truly – they still held an inkling of what they were.
Like an instinct born from having them live in the Lower World for a thousand years, and from having to be able to differentiate between the relatively harmless ones, and the ones that wanted to put you in a stick and feast on your meat.
I wonder then, over what domain does she reign to make me feel like this? This pure nostalgia that I cannot place, this sense of belonging I haven't felt in Heaven knows how long.
Her hair, like a starless night sky, her skin, fair and free of any kind of blemish, as if they too understood nothing could mare such perfect beauty, her blue eyes that seemed to reflect the ocean itself but carried behind them a fiery undertone. She stopped and I felt my breath stop along with her.
Her head swiveled around, and when her gaze passed through me, she offered me the most beautiful smile I ever received. I wondered if Fate itself had had a hand in this event, for there was no way it could have been this perfect otherwise.
Inside me, it was as if the temperature had just shot up by several degrees at once.
Her gloved hand waved at me and I awkwardly waved back like my body had suddenly forgotten how to perform the act. Her smile was perfect, and for the life of me I was not able to imagine it as anything but.
For a moment she seemed to be preparing herself to say something – before slowly shaking her head and moving away.
Excitement. Desire. Plea.
That and many other emotions flowed through me, something that perhaps fueled by the constant deepening of our connection made my face burn and my pants feel tighter than they ever had before.
A part of me felt ashamed of ever having such a reaction to a Deusdea. It was neither proper nor right. But those emotions were quickly overwhelmed by the constant influx of the voice's positive feelings and I found myself running after the Goddess.
Was she to be the one? I wondered. All until now had been soundly rejected by him, but she alone garnered such a reaction. I wondered what kind of Goddess she was. Kind, compassionate, hard-working, with a soft voice and demeanor that would put any mortal to shame? The textbook definition of what a Goddess was supposed to be like essentially. Though reality from what I heard was fairly different from that.
Well, whatever it was I felt everything was going to be okay.
Just like Joan D'Arc and her spirit, I too had someone in this journey with me. Someone that despite their moods, made sure to share his opinion with me and tried to guide me as best as he could. That made me feel happier than I ever had in the last few months since Gramps' death. I was not alone anymore, and soon enough I would have a Goddess to call my own too should she accept me.
I felt that Nothing coming from him again.
But this time it felt like I could almost glimpse whatever it was he was attempting to mask.
It was an emotion like the one I would feel after promising grandpa I'd go to sleep right after finishing the current chapter, only to lose myself on the stories and stay up late reading more heroic epics. It felt like that but… deeper. More meaningful.
It felt like shame.
I wanted to turn back. The way the boy looked at me was enough to confirm that there was no doubt he would accept an offer to join my Familia should I give it.
Could I do that though?
Subject someone so young, so inexperienced, so full of hopes and dreams, subject someone like that to me? Turn him into my child? To make him hold the burden that would come with it?
I knew how my fellow Gods saw me. A bumbling fool of a Goddess. Someone with no shame, a deity upon which even mortals looked down upon. But that was fine, amusing even. I cared not for such trivialities and could not find the reason why they did. I had come down here to escape those things after all.
In the moment I looked at him, only one question passed through my mind. As the Goddess of the Hearth, of the Home, it was not unexpected.
Can I give him a place where he can live, laugh and develop himself? A place where he will feel accepted and where he will feel he can pursue any life path his heart desires with no regrets?
Home. Can I give him a home?
No, the answer was obviously no. For one, I was subsisting daily on potato snacks which unfortunately, as good as they tasted, were not enough to let him survive, much less grow. As a Goddess things like lack of nutrients or scarcity of liquids were not of much importance to me, outside of the eventual stomachache that is.
Starving, dehydration, scurvy, cancer, S. ., overdosing, none of those things could be the cause of a God's death. Not even permanent scarring would affect us should some matter of injury befall us. Only perhaps the loss of a limb would be felt, but for it to reach that point then said God would most likely be going back to Heaven soon enough that he would not miss the appendage for long.
We were immortal beings. Eternal and unchanging, if we still got things like colds, hangovers, the need to sleep, eat and drink, it was because when we were crafting our vessels, we chose to let those things affect us, as a way to make our experience feel more realistic. There were things that even we did not want to experience though, even for the sake of realism.
In the end, for most Gods, this world was nothing more than a deeply immersive R.P.G., a place where they may entertain themselves by interacting with the ever-changing mortals of this plane and see them grow and evolve in ways not even they could expect.
It was not wrong of them to see it like that. In a way, it could even be said I and my friends were the weird ones for not holding that view.
Hmm… perhaps I should have taken him? Heaven knows what the other Gods would do to something as cute as him. Nothing good, of that I was certain.
But before I could dwell anymore on my most recent regret, I heard a voice calling for me.
"Goddess! Lady Goddess! Ple- please wait!"
As I turned around, I found myself almost face to face with the boy that populated my thoughts. His face was flushed from the running, and he was clearly out of breath as he held his stomach in slight discomfort.
His pure white hair stood disheveled, but in a way that only added to his childlike charm, something perhaps only broken by the sweat that made the clothes he carried cling to his body, their creases and shape telling a tale of hours of hard work and harsh training in them. Had he been coached to be an adventurer since young perhaps?
"I… Familia – your, I mean, the Familia to join – I wish –"
An indulgent smile found its way to my face. He was so pure. His desires so easy to grasp. His heart so easy to read. It felt like a breath of fresh air in this city.
A low chuckle left my mouth. I did not believe it possible, but the boy seemed to become even redder. If he continued like this, soon enough his face would match the color of his eyes.
"Are you in a hurry? No? Good, then we have time child, there is no need for needless hurrying. Come, I know a close bookstore where we can talk more calmly."
I grasped his hand and started moving.
My heart beat excitedly, like it had not even once beat when I was back in the Upper Realm. I understood him. His innocence, his wants, his feelings. It was as if he felt no need nor want to hide who he really was.
I knew all that, but none of it gave me an inkling of why he chose me.
The mystery, the ambiguity, the search for the unknown, it was intoxicating for one that had once access to every secret of the universe in the palm of its hand.
As we began our walk my mind started straying. He kept his silence, his grip on my hand tightening at irregular intervals, making me want to fill the awkward silence with something but finding myself unable to break the status quo created between us. Afraid that whatever I said would give him knowledge of how destitute I actually was and make him want to leave like all the others.
I slightly shook my head as if to get rid of the current thought process invading my mind.
It did not matter. In the end, either he would awkwardly go away once he understood my current situation, or he would accept it and we would form a Familia.
Still, I felt a small amount of smugness come over me.
After all, would you look at that, while he may not have literally fell onto my lap, I still did not have to actually search for him. He came to me.
A particularly ungodly-like smile crossed my features as I thought about the close future and the amount of shit I would be giving to my closest friend.
Await and fear my returning, Hephaistos!
"Oh, what is this? Why, my old eyes must be deceiving me! Is – is that a potential child you bring with you Lady Hestia?"
As soon as I entered the bookstore the voice of an old man made itself known. He smiled kindly at the Goddess while she seemed to get playfully mad at his way of speaking. They talked a bit before she turned to me and beckoned me forth.
Her back turned and I made to follow her but the old man stopped me when I passed in front of him. His hand on my shoulder, his face appeared to be locked into one of unease.
"She is a good Goddess you know? Nice beyond reason and with kindness none of her fellows seem to equal." He seemed to be grasping for the right words to say as he threw careful glances at the corner she had turned a few seconds ago. "I guess what I'm trying to say is… after hearing what she has to say, consider less what she can offer you right now and more what –"
The Goddess' head appeared and she fixed the old man a hard stare.
"Elias. Your actions are appreciated, but unnecessary. His choice must be based on his feelings and no one else's. Also, whatever the boy may say is surely no worse than what I've heard before so you may throw away that needless worrying, you foolish child."
The now named Elias' posture seemed to tense for a moment before he sighed in defeat. It was amusing in a way, to see someone that appeared far younger than the old man in front of me scold him in such a way.
A pat on my back and I was free to go.
"I'm sorry Lady Hestia, I overstepped."
The Goddess waved his apology with a simple acknowledgement and beckoned me once again to follow her. Behind me I could feel the old man's hard stare and the promise of something bad happening should I hurt the being I was following.
Soon enough, after some fiddling with a keyhole, we found ourselves in a room full of books. Some on shelves, some on the ground, some on top of furniture, clearly unorganized but not badly treated.
All of them Heroic Epics.
For some reason I held the feeling this place was not open to the normal clientele.
She motioned for me to sit on the floor. I did as asked and she moved to stand in front of me.
What I assumed then to be my interview with the esteemed Goddess started.
AAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!
Look at those eyes!
They are full of respect, of wonder and admiration! How can I stand up too whatever image he has crafted of me inside his head?!
The boy – damn it I had not even asked for his name yet! – tilted his head, waiting for me to begin.
It seemed as if the times I had spent lazing around in this room made me more propense to act my true self.
I lightly cleared my throat in a way I hoped was something resembling dignified, and started.
"I am completely valiless, live in the basement of an abandoned church, and have barely any means to sustain myself, much less a boy in his adolescence. The weight of my name in this city is nonexistent." I thought momentarily about my rivalry with Loki. "…perhaps even negative."
The more I said the more the boy's face turned from smiling to frowning instead. I did not stop though, not until I finished telling everything he would have to endure should he choose to join my Familia.
For a moment the thought of embellishing the truth and mentioning things like my friendship with Hephaistos crossed my mind, but in the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it. It was a foolish thought, but if I was to consider this an RPG I was playing, then I desired its story to be one where I acted the part of none other than myself. Where I would not put-on a mask to hide my true else, and instead would bare it all open.
Where the ones who would stand beside me would know and accept all that.
I waited for his answer, but it was predictable from his facial expression. He opened his mouth and I prepared myself for another rejection. It stopped hurting after I got into the three digits but none had gone as far as this one…
"Do you… not want me in your Familia?"
W-Wha-
"No! I mean yes! Wait, NO! Ah – what I mean is I want you, yes, of course. In my Familia. With me as your Goddess. Yes."
I wanted to dig a hole and throw myself to it. None of the rejections I suffered until now made me feel this embarrassed.
A chuckle. Then another. More and more unbidden laugher came from the boy until he was holding his stomach and tears formed in his eyes.
I do not know when or why but there was a moment I started laughing with him. Our laugher fed off each other in a seemingly never-ending cycle.
In what pertained to the start of my Familia, this was not a bad beginning.
I looked at his smiling face and smiled in return.
Yeah, not bad at all.
"I am Bell Crannel. Until but a few months ago I was nothing but a farmhand. My fighting skills are nonexistent and I probably have as much magic potential as an amoeba. Even so, I wish to go into the dungeon and become an adventurer."
I bowed my head and tried not to devolve into another senseless fit of laugher.
"Do you even… want to be in my Familia?"
I failed miserably.
We both did.
"Well then, shall we make this official?"
Lady Hestia searched around her dress before taking out a needle and motioning for me to sit closer to her.
As soon as I got into the desired distance, her hands snaked their way into my shirt and promptly took it out.
I tried with all my might not to let out a girlish scream.
"You said you were… a farmhand?"
Her eyes narrowed and her voice took a questioning tone towards the end. I looked down to see if I had suddenly accrued any scar that would make her believe me to be lying but could not find anything out of the ordinary.
"Uh, yes Lady Hestia, that is right. Plowing the fields, cleaning the stables, shepherding the sheep, that was my day-to-day life since I remember, well, anything really." There were also the daily warm ups to the farm work that Grandfather always made me do, but that was not anything significant. They took less than half the time I spent working to perform, so there was nothing noteworthy about them.
The Goddess made a gesture of acknowledgement and I let the matter drop.
"The first time always takes a little longer so find a comfortable position, ok?"
I nodded and let Lady Hestia begin her work.
I heard a hiss behind me as she pricked her finger and felt the cold – wait, no, actually it was pretty hot? Her finger too, as it traced what would become my status onto my back, was surprisingly warm.
Of course, detecting such a thing made me focus a bit too much on the way her hand moved through my back. The way it strolled through my vertebrae, fluidly and unhurriedly, left me with a tingling feeling that did not have much to do with the one felt when being tickled.
…!
There it was again.
Since I had begun my talk with Lady Hestia, this emotion was being inadvertently shared by the voice, growing stronger and stronger as time passed. But it was one I did not recognize.
I hoped it was nothing bad.
"There! It's almost all done, only the final connection is missing. Ready for it?"
I felt her whole hand connecting to my back. A deep and primordial power entering my body.
I made to answer but I did not have the strength for it.
My body felt similar to the way it did before I had passed out after spending too much time at the sun on one of the more particularly work-full days.
It was as if my whole conscience was a liquid being soaked up, leaving only the empty husk of my body behind. Was this a normal part of the process? Lady Hestia could have warned me…
I'm sorry.
The voice apologized. I did not know why.
It… I'm sorry.
No, I knew. It was time I stopped lying to myself. Time… time I stopped trying to shy away from the truth.
Deep down I knew. I think I knew from the moment I first heard it. Like an instinctual warning, I felt something like this was coming. I just wanted to believe otherwise.
Please forgive me. I, I too want –
Forgive? I wanted to rage, to scream, to declare this injustice to the Heavens!
I knew they did not care though. Just like they did not care when my grandfather, my only family left in this world, died unceremoniously and without honor to a mere goblin. Just like they did not care about the death of my parents. Just like they were not caring about the child that had been left behind.
I want to live.
If there was anything I was thankful for, it was that my remaining time was spent with this wonderful Goddess.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I felt that whatever it was the voice was doing, it was almost finished. I did not think even my mind was my own anymore, it was as if our roles had momentarily reversed.
I'm sorry. Please forgive me.
Does it matter?
…no.
Heh. I'm sorry Gramps, looks like… I will be meeting you sooner than expected eh?
You... will not.
I'm sorry.
Oh. That… sucks…
…
I grasped the ray of light Hestia's blessing had created in my world. It shone with the same light that had burned me, but the heat that enveloped me felt nothing like the previous opressive one.
If I had not done so then none of this would have happened. My mind wandered to the stories I had read in my past life, the ones I used to escape that reality into better ones. How seemingly easy it was, when you did not carry the knowledge that it was your decision which ended another person's existence.
I did not lie to him. I was sorry it had to be this way. But it was not my fault.
It was not.
I wanted to die. I wanted Oblivion. I wanted Nothing.
Not – not whatever this is! This place where the barest sign of life leaves me parched for more, where the simple occasional glimpse of this world leaves me with more desire to live than I ever had before when actually alive. Where every glimpse, every sight, leaves me in a worse state than Lazarus. To know that the means to end this thirst was at arm-length, how could anyone resist?
Still, how pure were you?
To not even recognize jealously or envy when they were being thrown at you in such quantities.
You could at least make it easier to hate you, you bastard. This would be easier then.
Gods be damned…
"And done!"
I smiled at a well-done work as I slapped the back of my first child, signaling the successful end of the engraving.
I saw him turn his face to me. I smiled at him but he did not smile back.
His hand slowly moved up, I watched it curiously.
Then it pinched my cheek.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!"
I massaged the sore place before focusing my attention on the boy.
It was not a lie when I said I could see his everything. This was also one of those things, I guess the Falna just brought it to the forefront sooner than if he stood unblessed. It was not unusual for some people to feel slightly out of it when being engraved, and show some side effects from it.
It did not speak well of their potential, but it was not unusual.
I got up and approached him. He was so disorientated he didn't even notice. His gaze was focused solely on the hand that touched my cheek.
I slowly enveloped my arms around him and felt him stiffen under them.
"I – uh, Hes- Lady Hestia, I…"
I made a shushing sound and he promptly complied.
"Was it hard?" His body seemed to tense, as if ready to break in a sprint the moment I said another word, so I simply stood that way for a bit.
Then, slowly and without any urgency, I lowered him until his head lay on my lap.
"I- I'm afraid I don't understand the question Lady Hestia."
Lie.
It was not as much a supernatural ability as it was a skill born from endless unavoidable practice. After all, if there was one thing where Gods and mortals could claim to be similar in, it was in the way they all lied – or attempted to, at least – as easily as they breathed.
With an infinite lifespan came an infinite time to train that which Loki called an art. Consequently, with it came an infinite amount of time to train its detection. Using those skills against mortals that had not been alive for even a tenth of a millennium, it was not even close to fair.
"Were you alone?" He stiffened once again but nodded his head. "Was it hard?" Another nod.
I smiled. This was something I had detected in the boy ever since I saw him for the first time.
Behind his kind spirit and innocent face, lay someone that wanted above all else to not be alone. To be respected, to surround himself with people that loved him and would not leave his side. And now, now he felt he was closer to that goal, but feared it might be taken from him once again.
I knew empty words were of no use, neither were sweet nothings, especially when they were whispered by one of the Deusdea. So, we simply lay there. Goddess and child, feeling each other's presence through our clothes, knowing neither would leave.
Knowing we were not alone. Not anymore.
When the sky began to truly darken, he moved his head and looked me in the eyes. His mouth opened but no sound managed to leave it, so I talked for him instead.
"Hey, let's go home?"
The question startled him, and he acted as if he had just taken a slap to the face… before he relaxed and smiled at me.
"Yeah, home… home sounds nice."
Hestia turned back and yelled over her shoulder.
"Hey hey, come on slowpoke, how am I faster than you, you lazy butt? Everything about you should stand above the greatest unblessed specimen of your race!"
Her smile seemed to shine with its own brand of light, her hair waved around in a way I had only seen on beauty commercials, thrown around perfectly by a wind that was not blowing. Every step she took seemed to echo with joy and leave behind a path that if followed promised a better future in whatever lay ahead.
When she smiled at me, I felt my stomach flutter, the air suddenly became hard to take in and I knew my voice would come out a few octaves higher than it normally would should I try to talk.
"Urgh, come on, I should be the one trying to delay this, not you."
She walked back, took my hand in hers and started dragging me along,
I suddenly became very interested in the state of my appendage.
It was not sweaty, was it? I hoped this body did not start sweating easily.
I gave her hand a little squeeze and she turned back to smile at me.
Hey, let's go home?
My lips became dry and I redirected my gaze away from her eyes. It seemed as if she had not noticed what had happened, perhaps the boy and I shared more similarities than I hoped, or whoever put me here also provided a means to hide such change from the prying eyes of the Deusdea.
As I wetted my lips, my gaze wandered through every nook and cranny of Hestia's perfect body, yet my mind was only able to focus on the smile she had thrown at me a few seconds ago.
Once we arrived on the entrance of what looked like it might have once upon a time been called a church she turned and smiled waveringly at me. I felt the burning need to turn it into the worriless one she had showed me a few minutes before so I smiled reassuringly. Hopefully reassuringly at least. I still had not gotten the hang of moving this body, used to moving one far higher, but facial expressions were not hard.
She reached a hidden door and with some effort pushed it up.
"Well, guess this is it." She turned and extended to me her hand. "Hey… welcome home."
My vision became turvy for some reason. My cheeks felt wet. The feelings I felt before came back with a force ten times greater. Amid that, as Hestia reached me, led me down some stairs and embraced me, I had only one thought as I embraced her back.
"I'm home."
I am so utterly fucked.
XXX
I thanked them.
Every God, Goddess and Demon I had prayed to while surrounded by that oppressive darkness.
Thanked them for the opportunity they gave me and that, quite uncharacteristically, I did not make to question. Question exactly why this happened. Just naively believing this to be my adventure. My own light novel isekai if you will.
The world would not take long to disabuse me of that notion.
It would not take long to once again drive me to the point where I would simply desire to end it all.
Yet… if not for it, then none of the happiness I had now would matter. None of the bonds I had created would be worth anything. I would not have had the power or strength of will needed to face what was arising.
So, let them come, those dark early days that shaped me into the man I am today.
If it was for better or for worse, it would be a question better left to the Fates.
The closest thing I had to them in this world was Braver, and he was quick to tell me to stop fucking around and help him organize the war effort if I had time for useless philosophizing.
A.N.:
So, kind of lewd right? I mean, handholding, hugs and lap-pillows? What den of degeneracy is this?
Jokes aside, I think I can almost hear some of you ask:
Hey author you do know you said this story would be wish-fulfillment, right (or at least I said it on Questionable Questing)? What is with this crying little baby then? What is it with these ominous promises that bleak and dark times lay ahead?!
The answer is, of course, I obviously do! Unfortunately, it seems as if the term wish fulfilling has been somewhat distorted with time. At least in the circles I talk in, whenever that word comes up it is used to describe lacking fiction that provides nothing more than a plotless work where the protagonist is an unreachable beacon of perfection who can do no wrong, or when he does it has no consequences.
I find that wrong. When you read such a work, can you really feel it fulfilling any kind of wish? If everything is good… then nothing is, right?
Shameless quote altering aside, in my opinion, the flaws is what makes a protagonist. What defines a character. Perfection is just that, perfection in everything. Boring and predictable. Now corruption? That can take so many different shapes and forms my friends.
Besides, like snorting coke, if you do it every day then it will surely start to lose its power right? Because it becomes usual, routine, predictable. Instead, if it only comes once in a while, in unregular intervals, that would make it much more potent right? Much more impactful. (Or at least that's what I'm led to believe by the countless documentaries showed on tv).
In a way, what I'm trying to say here, is that as more chapters come out, and our for-now-still-unnamed-mc gets a big ol' kick in the nuts courtesy of dear reality, I hope you continue reading, as the payback shall be magnificent.
That aside, we have finally gotten an insight into what our protagonist is like, what he feels and what he thinks. What did you think? Not what you expected? Or perhaps exactly as you predicted?
Hestia too, made her first appearance; in the most glorious way I could write it might I add. She deserves it though, the dislike she gets from a part of the community is just weird seriously.
Guess I will end this with the usual diatribe. Comment, like, ask questions, and things like that.
(Ah, and I may have slightly underestimated how busy college would make me. To think I wanted to post this thing weekly at first. Ha!)
Also, one last thing, if being embraced by someone that accepts all of you, and promises to stay besides yourself no matter what comes, that gives you a home (in the true meaning of the word) and asks for nothing back, is not the most wish-fulfilling thing you can get then I must truly be completely removed from the common man's reality.
(For the peeps on FF, sorry, the forum received this chapter a lot sooner since I had exams and forgot to post it here... Silver lining is that you won't have to wait as much for the next I guess?)