To Study and Observe
Although they revered him, they never called him a son of the gods as they might have done only a century ago. Their victory was too fresh, too joyous in its success and too tragic in its losses, the gods had fallen too far for the people to believe that something good might have come from them.
In another century, General Titen knew, the stories would have changed considerably. Perhaps they would call him a god then, or an evil spirit, or something else entirely. But he was familiar enough with the birth and life of legends to know that he was unlikely to be forgotten (soon).
Already they attributed things to him that others had done, but at least they were still accurate. He suspected that it was because his name was the only one the people could understand and recognize. Even he, who had practised different tongues for centuries, had trouble with Djek and Zä-män-fa, and he knew that his pronunciation of Dan'yel's name was slightly off.
Dan'yel claimed that it was good that the legends would credit Titen with the success of the rebellion, for the spirits that knew the future had told him that he and the other djinn-people who had come to this land twice must be forgotten, else they could not return to aid them in the far future.
Since he had arrived here, shortly after the first, failed uprising nearly five floods ago, Titen had enjoyed many talks with the unearthly man.
In the beginning he had been amazed that a being that could so casually step into and out of the river of time and even alter it would deign to reside amongst the mortals (and not so mortals) for so long.
But his understanding of the magics involved had slowly grown, and Dan'yel's conviction that he would return in some millennia made him think that he likely was immortal too, though it had to be a different kind of immortality for he couldn't feel the telling warning of his arrival.
He had, of course, denied it, but Titen was not fooled. The pain and wisdom in Dan'yel's eyes and his sheer knowledge of the world and the gods' magics could not have been collected in a single mortal live.
Titen knew only too well that beings of power restricted themselves in what they spoke of. He was glad that none of his kind of immortals would seek to harm Dan'yel, whom he looked up to and liked.
He only wished that he would one day understand his own duties in this world as well as this ancient spirit in mortal shell.