Garrett heaved a sigh and immediately noticed the lack of warmth surrounding him.
Everything, the delicately constructed fortress to the pillow he had been cradling against his chest had disappeared from his grasp, replaced by the same hollow emptiness that seemed to permeate the strange realm he found himself in.
"It wasn't for you." Garrett grumbled as he slowly pushed himself off the cool grey stone he was laying on. He knew exactly where he was, he had dragged him to this hell too many times before and frankly, Garrett was well sick of seeing it.
"No, I suppose not." The infant god mused softly, voice reverberating, like waves against the shore or falling rain, a constant rattle against stone and shingles. Unnatural in the most rooted phenomenon of nature, put to human words, twisted by inhuman teeth and tongue. Garrett shuddered within the small hovel he had not quite awoken within, hidden beneath the twisted mess of debris surrounding them.
The Baron Northcrest's ritual chamber had been everything Garrett imagined it to be. Elegant, nauseatingly aristocratic in appearance, stone pillars upholding the arching rooftop, a true feat of ingenuity, architecture and undoubtedly the pride and joy of some mason somewhere out in the city, provided they hadn't been killed yet.
What Garrett awoke to, what he had been awakening too since first being dragged off to the strange empty realm, was a far, far cry from the splendor of the Northcrest estate.
Stone walls fractured to rubble, some few chunks of debris still caught, suspended in time and space. Of course, the thief couldn't exactly remember how the chamber looked during the collapse, he had been too preoccupied at the time to take note of every little detail of crumbling architecture. But Garrett needn't remember to know that the disaster he stood in the center of was, in fact, exactly how the Baron Northcrest's ritual chamber looked during the collapse.
He had awoken where he always did whenever was dragged off to the Primordial Sea, exactly where he had fallen that night.
Honestly, looking at the carnage had Garrett wondering how he had managed to survive that night. Rising from the small alcove nestled between a support pillar and fallen beam, Garrett reached above himself, setting a hand against the slab of rock hanging frozen above him. The first time he had awoken, he had panicked and nearly cracked his skull open in his desperation to get out.
He was more careful now, not because he needed to be, the Primordial Sea was a otherworldly place and seldomly, rules from the waking world applied.
"I take it you have finally decided to fulfill your role?"
"No." Garrett snapped, turning, eyes narrowed at the god hovering at his shoulder. Eyes, inky black, deep as time, stared back from a vacant, wet, expressionless face. Garrett may have once been impressed with the Leviathan from his history lessons, but actually meeting the infant god had done little to endear the child to the thief.
"I don't have a role to play in your little fuck-up." Garrett hissed; "I have a duty to my sister, that is all." The Leviathan slowly tilted It's head, It's hair moved unnaturally, short as it was, wafting around the creature's head as though submerged underwater. Abyssal eyes stared at the thief before, contemplative and silent before the young god's lips began to twitch and stretch, pulling It's expression into a facsimile of a smile that showed far, far too many teeth for any human skull to house.
Lesser men would have cowered at the sight, run screaming from the inhuman creature before them or postulate themselves for favor or mercy. But not Garrett. Despite the mounting ache burning at the edges of Garrett's mind as some deep-rooted human instinct fought to comprehend the maddeningly incomprehensible thing before him, Garrett stared the god down.
"Oh thief mine." The young god crooned, softly, sweetly, with a hint of poison as, before Garrett could react, It reached out to grip him by the jaw. Its fingers, though appearing as human as his own, were deathly cold, cold and wet, like a grave or winter, a drowning child desperately reaching one last hopeless time for something, anything. Its grip was firm, but not painful, not even all that restrictive, Garrett could pull away if he so desired.
He did not.
"I am not your thief." Garrett spat back coolly, merely earning himself a somehow wider, somehow impossibly larger smile from the infant god before him.
"No. You most certainly are not." The Leviathan nearly laughed, Its voice echoed in Garrett's head, a deafening cacophony of rolling waves and whalesong.
"We are however, our fates, our futures, pasts, presence, our very lives…" The god murmured, Its words trailing off absentmindedly, Its thumb moved to run across Garrett's cheek, directly over the jutting scar spanning across the thief's cheek as It leaned ever closer.
"Entwined…" It finally whispered, Its lips ever-so-gently caressing Garrett's brow, once again over the ridge of his scar. As quickly as the Leviathan had snatched Garrett into Its grasp, It gently released Its hold of him, Its hand slipping from the thief's face almost like a tender farewell. Garrett staggered back regardless, a pointless endeavor, he knew well that he was helpless within the Leviathan's realm.
"Your loyalty and devotion may lie with your sister. But her salvation, and the world's salvation rests upon my shoulders." The Leviathan spoke, Its voice calm despite the magnitude of Its proclamation. Garrett could only scowl weakly at the young god, the two of them had spoken long and exhaustedly about the circumstances surrounding them, entwining them, the Leviathan insisted.
Whether Garrett liked it or not, he could not save Erin without inevitably aiding the Leviathan.
"Why am I here?" Garrett finally sighed as he hoisted himself up onto a particularly flat slab of fallen stone, taking a seat to face the god before him, the Leviathan smiled again, softly this time as It shifted to imitate Garrett's posture, albeit adrift above the stone beneath It.
"I called you." The young god hummed, Its tone was nearly coy, nearly playful, nearly, but not quite.
"Don't bullshit me." Garrett snapped; "You never bring me here without reason. So why am I here?" The young god once again tilted Its head, observing Garrett through those damn endless eyes. It's chest remained still, Its hair swaying as though underwater. Everything about It was ethereal and impossible. And Its final response was just as baffling.
"You, thief mine…" It began softly, pausing to fold Its hands in Its lap, quiet, contemplative, nearly human in Its hesitation… "As I am your sister's, your world's salvation… So too are you mine…"
Garrett couldn't help but laugh, a ugly snort which had the young god's gaze snapping back to the thief in not quite a glare, but something equally heated with humiliation. Garrett dismayed the god's affront with a passive wave of his hand as he drew his legs beneath himself to rest his elbows on his knees.
"And here I thought gods were above small human desires." Garrett teased, spite and wit decorating his tone in equal measures. Once again, the Leviathan moved to imitate Garrett's position, crossing Its legs where It hovered.
"I have existed for a very long time, thief mine." The god replied, "And for much of that time, I have governed the Primordial Sea."
"I know." Garrett interjected; "I learned all about you in my history lessons." A small smile tugged at the edge of the young god's expression, the closest It had yet come to anything genuine.
"Yes… I recall, you were top of your class. You loved learning about the lore and myths which construct the world as you know it…" Garrett bit his tongue to refrain from saying anything unsavory to the Leviathan, unsettling as it was to hear your life discussed as though merely a book plucked from a shelf, Garrett knew well that watching the Tides of Time roll on was about the only thing the infant god could do, and it was of little surprise that the Leviathan had turned Its gaze towards him.
"You do not though know." The Child of Change continued, knocking Garrett off of his train of thought; "That through all my time residing within this ocean, I have only been alone thrice." It was Garrett's turn to tilt his head at the god before him, though the Leviathan carried on regardless.
"Once, and first, when I was initially cast into the Void." The young god murmured, small and afraid, Garrett had heard the legend, memorized the myth, he knew the god had been young, younger than himself when they had been used and abused in some blasphemous ritual. Still, the mental image, uninvited, made itself, a small child, clutching their bleeding throat, wandering aimlessly through a desolate, endless expanse of fragmented memories and echoes of a place no longer home…
"Second, third, previous, recent… When the Primordial Sea was severed from your world, thief mine…" Garrett blinked, his gaze refocusing on the god before him, the god who no longer met his eye, the god who for the first time since their meeting, finally looked like the damned child who had died all those lifetimes ago.
"So you called me here because you were lonely?" Garrett asked bluntly. The Leviathan looked up, had the child been alive, Garrett was sure they're cheeks would be gaining hue. But they did not, because the child was dead.
Still, Garrett shuffled on the rock he had seated himself on, putting just enough space between the edge and himself to set down the small deck of cards he kept in his pocket.
"What's your fancy?" Garrett asked as he began shuffling the cards with swift hands, aware that the god began leering closer to watch his fingers fly.
"I know all of them." The Leviathan replied simply.
"You can know as many games as you like." Garrett huffed lightly; "Knowing and playing are two very different things."
The god hummed, sitting Itself just before Garrett.
"Titles." The Leviathan finally murmured, Garrett offered the young god a smile as he began to set the deck.
"Titles it is."