who we are and all that we're trying to be
All for you he hoped his eyes conveyed, her hand in his, fingers woven together – he wouldn’t have committed to this project otherwise, wouldn’t have cared one figment, one shard, one moment about fallen gods and their trivial games, their trials and tribulations, already full to the brim with problems of his own making. But it was worth it, in the end, to witness gifts coming together, to see the shrine finished, completed, rendered hospitable to whatever divine creature floated among them, to the future worshippers who clamber on their knees and pray, lifting their heads, hoping beyond hope that there was someone listening to them.
The Reaper held faith in himself, in his friends, in his devotion to her, in those things that had proven themselves beyond shadows of doubts.
He wasn’t prepared for the sight to flicker before him: no measure of warning or starlight, a waver, a curl in the shadows, in the breath of dawn – a being, faint, traced, as if she were mere sketches and framework, lost somewhere in the transient and the tangible. She sighed, she moved, and he stood there, stupidly, utterly bewildered.
This was a god.
The only other intervals where he’d caught bits and pieces of celestials had been in another life, another time, and those had been peculiar at best; openly in awe of the Time God as he cultivated their lands into being, then defiant against him whenever possible. The others had kept their distance from him, and vice versa, no relationships forged, no communication opened, no flickers of favor from either side.
He thought his jaw might’ve opened and gaped like a ridiculous fool, closing it quickly, striving to compose those reticent lines and nonchalant features, to appear detached when his heart hammered, when his eyes were widened, and his mind was tangled with the void, the abyss. He didn’t know what to do or where to look, glancing at Ronin and Remi for support, but Ronin had already been entangled with her presence, and Amalia was favored, spoken too as a gift, as a consecration, as a blessing (he’d always understood that, but was content to see that even those looking down upon them could see her for what she truly was).
He didn’t expect the goddess to turn towards him at all; none ever had. Were they supposed to say anything? Was she going to strike him down on the spot? “Yes,” was all he managed to utter, nodding his head in agreement with his speech, tethered in the vast unknown. His gaze wasn’t reverent, wasn’t pious, but curious, inquisitive, behind the layers of carefully-forged detachment.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
