Prologue
Dark was the night, but not as dark as the horrors the man used to fight. He sat on a stone, in a clearing in the middle of some gods-forgotten forest, his gaze sweeping over the few stars that adorned the sky.
The moon could not be seen. And that was a good thing.
The forest was quiet, too quiet. But the man was not scared.
Not him, he couldn't be. Not because he was brave, although that was a reason, but mostly because he couldn't afford to be. He had to be strong, for the one he loved, for his brothers, for his friends, as few as they were, for everyone that counted on him.
And also because he had killed almost every living thing in that forest. And the ones that had died once.
A woman came into the clearing. The man did not move his gaze from the stars. He gave no greeting to the woman, yet she knew that he was pleased that she was there.
She was beautiful, tall, dressed in an impeccable white dress that made her eyes stand out. Strange color they were.
In her delicate, yet strong arms, she held a small bundle of blankets. She approached the sitting man. Only when she put a hand on his shoulder did he lowered his gaze. He met her gaze, they kissed softly.
"This is him?" the man questioned, his voice was gruff like he was used to ordering people around and scream on battlefields.
"Do you want to hold him?" was the woman's answer as she handed him the small bundle.
Carefully, the man took it, the blankets shifted revealing the face of a baby. He had been sleeping but when the man took him his eyes opened.
"He has your eyes," the woman said as she gazed at those beautiful dark green orbs.
The man sighed, very few had seen his real eyes, most of the time, they were covered or the color was changed. But he had to admit, his son looked a lot like him.
"I hope my looks are the only things he inherits from me," he confessed mostly to himself.
The woman frowned, "Don't say that, you are a good person, even though no one else other than me would admit that, you know that deep inside, there is a good one, deep inside, there is the man I have fallen in love with."
The man sighed again. He wasn't acting as some evil villain, but still, he wasn't really that far from becoming one of the things he fought against, after all, how do you destroy a monster without becoming one?
A pale gust of wind enveloped them. The man shivered and the baby shifted.
Such a little thing, so beautiful, so innocent.
"He is not immortal is he?" the man questioned.
The woman's smile didn't change, but something in her eyes did.
"No, he is not."
"That is," the man hesitated, "fine."
"It complicates things," ah, there was it, the cold judgmental person that the woman acted as for most of the time, straight to the point, cutting out any nuisance to reach her goal.
The man sighed, the wind was starting to get colder.
"I know. What are you going to do?"
"For now, we must see if he is strong enough to survive," the woman's tone was cold, but her eyes were sad.
"He will grow up without knowing us, he might hate us," the man stated.
His lover's shoulders' slumped. In that moment, he saw weakness in her eyes, incertitude where there should have been conviction, doubt where there should have been determination. She was afraid, afraid that she was condemning her son to death, that if he survived, he would grow to hate them. She was too afraid to lose another person she loved.
With the baby in one of his strong arms, he draped the free one over her shoulders, pulling her closer to him.
"When the time comes, I will come for him, I will train him, I will make sure that he survives," the man said with determination, with the acceptance of the consequences that will come to be.
The woman raised her head. "But you will break the rules."
"But he will be prepared for the task ahead of him."
She nudged her head into his broad chest.
"Sometimes, I hate myself for bringing him into this world," she said, her voice cracking.
The man sighed again. He was starting to do that a lot lately.
"The things we do for our survival," he bitterly spoke. "What do we do if your father finds out about our son?"
The woman raised her gaze and stared into his eyes, with the teary ones of her own.
"I believe he already knows, when they will find out about our union, chaos will come, but I will control it, as best as I can, I will make them see the necessity of this child," she assured him.
The man looked at his son again. He had fallen asleep again. He was so innocent, so fragile, but he will have to become a warrior, a soldier, so maybe, he could give a hand in saving the world.
"What will you do with him know?" he asked her.
She took the baby in her arms and slowly began to sway him.
"I will leave at an orphanage, he will grow up to be alone until you will come to him, as you said so yourself."
"I wish we could just take him with us," the man admitted.
The woman laughed, a beautiful sound that was now stained by the cruel realization of how life went.
"We can't. There are some laws that we must respect, whether we want to or not, besides, he appears to be a demigod."
The man lifted her chin and kissed her slowly, passionately, who knew when will he get the chance to see her again?
"If that is so, then I will take my leave," he turned and started walking but stopped when he heard his lover question him.
"What name shall we give him?"
The man looked at her over his shoulder. At his son. The two beings that he loved so much and changed him so much.
"You chose one," he answered, "I'm sure I'll like it," and with that, he turned and started walking.
And his lover…
She stood there, with tormented eyes. Shivering under the wind, she felt as her soul was leaving her, as she was losing something that maybe she would never recover. She watched as the man reached the end of the clearing, ready to step into the forest and disappear from her life for how many long years?
She wanted to say something, to tell him how much she loved him, even though he knew, to tell him that he was not a monster, even though that was partially true, to tell him that there was hope, even though she knew there was almost none. She wanted to hug him one more time, to kiss him.
Instead, all she said was a whisper…
"Stay…"
The man stopped, turned his head so he could look at her one last time, smiled sadly, and gave her his whisper.
"I can't…"
And with that, he left.
The woman sighed, she gazed down at the child in her arms, what a grim fate awaited him. She had been told, her brother had seen the future, there was nothing she could do, only prepare him and hope that he was ready.
"One day, my son, you will help the child of the prophecy, you will make sure that we will survive, whatever must be done, you will do it, you will be our real savior," she spoke in a cold tone, and the child started crying, she flinched. She hadn't meant to wake him.
She sighed again and stepped into a portal. She left him on the steps of an orphanage with a note which told his name.
Before she left, however, she turned and kissed him one last time. How she hoped that he will not grow to hate her, for abandoning him, but that was most likely. She wiped a tear from her eye and started vanishing, but before she was fully gone, she spoke one last whisper.
"I will always love you, my son."
Above, in the night sky, one star shone brighter than others. A star separated from the others.
The child's star, a gift from a god.
And on that day, it was decided, that when the son born from an impossible union shall die, so would the star.
It was a beautiful star. A lonely one.