III.

The clouds were thick and heavy, blocking out what little star light that would have given this dimly lit room with a candle burnt to its wick on this day with a new moon. A boy in green was tucked into bed, heavy fur blankets toppled over him. On the second bed of the room right next to his, separated with an end table where the light source emanated from, sat a living god, his cape and coat hung on behind the door. He was no longer heavy in equipment, with just a tunic over his naked body. Significantly less bulky, yes but no less formidable.

The wick flickered and the boy watched with eyes following the ember sway. Then a deep voice came from behind the flame, “Would you like to hear a story to fall asleep to?” The boy took his focus off the flames to look at the side, shadow was casted over the god’s sharp eyes, hidden under his pale pink hair. The god paid little attention to the boy, fletching away at twigs and sticks into points just to dull the pain of time slipping away. After all, he was a god of the battlefields, his need for sleep had long since been washed away.

“This is an important story to me, and should be to you mortals as well. So put your ears to it, do so until sleep takes over you.” He continued with his eyes still fixed to his petite knife, “This is the story of my great friend, Eurus. No doubt you’ve heard of him, as I am one of them, well, adjacent might be a better word, I never get my own tale, but always along with one of theirs. The East Wind? Angel with Raven Wings? However remote your village was, the stories of the four living gods can never leave your side, you are human after all, we are your guardians of this age. The elfs hang on to the older ones, and the mer and crabmen pick and choose, or worse, will some into existence.”

“Before the Dragons were released from their madness, he was born from the feathers of a dead god. He gathered the people whose lives had only been hiding from the Serpents' rampage, and to live long enough to see the next generation. He gave humanity language; he taught them to build, to rule, and mostly importantly, he taught them how to protect. How, to channel their instincts to love, and to cherish into a power to shield them from harm.”

“We first met on a battlefield, when the humanity that he loved with all his heart turned against each other and invented war. It was a bloody mess, limbs and gore laid on mass and corpses piled. I was still young, and my control of my head was still weak. All I saw was a sea of red and my hand only knew the shape of my sword handle. Each head was another skull for my throne, and—” He cut himself short, the sound of knife slicing through wood stopped. “When I saw him, he was freeing the souls of those who fell but cannot die, as death herself hadn’t yet. It was from him I first learned defeat, and had never felt it again. He caught every swing of my sword I had at him with the feathers on his back; he grabbed me by my wrist and swept at my ankles and I fell on my back.”

“Later, we founded a kingdom. He ruled and I slaughtered all that came to challenge the city. The city was not half bad, under his rule it was prosperous, but I soon became bored when people had learned of my divinity and refused to come to me. So, I left.” The god signed out the last sentence and his face wrinkled up.

“I went off to wherever blood called me, went off to random battlefields and fought alongside random generals. Usually killing my allies as well, as soon as I deemed them unworthy of me, or when my sword had tasted too much blood.”

“One day during another one of my aimless wanders, I stumbled upon a grand city. One too grand for the attitudes of their guards. I have seen one like that many times, always stemming from hubris. I stormed into the royal chamber intending to make a fool of this ego filled king, but the person I found was Eurus instead. All this time I thought he would despise me, for abandoning what we had together; therefore, I threw out all the insults and sarcasm I had in me. Among all those I yelled out, the worst was when I yelled at him, ‘Imagine being the god of freedom, you invented suffering, and soon death.’ But to my surprise at the time (since if you have met the man for even just a month and think about it for just a second with a clear mind, it would be no surprise), he did not reject me, not ever. He had always been there waiting for me to be back.”

“He sat me down and taught me how to meditate and control my bloodlust. Not that he didn’t before but that I didn’t listen. Listen Paeleus, when there is a wiseman willing to be at your side, listen and keep them with you, and under no circumstance, should you leave them.”

“Later, I also learned that he had apparently found himself a wife, a mortal. There they had a child…” The god kept on speaking, a few dozen wooden stakes now piled by his feet. The boy in green’s breath was steady with a snore here and there, his eyes firmly shut and did not open until the next morning.