Яikyn

A familiar voice draws my eyes from where they’d been watching the God, and those who gather to worship him.

What happened to you?

I don’t know, my first unspoken answer; instead, my lips curve down, my crown turning away from the Divine Light to look at my herd brother. The touch of the bear’s insidious blood still lingers on his features, which my aureate eyes cross swiftly, nostrils vainly dragging the air for the familiar smell of snow and stone, of kinship.

I am glad my wise friend stands so far away. He cannot see how much of the slime is lacquered to my features.

A cough, wet and horrid, breaks from my lungs.

"Something from the Labyrinth," I explain to the best of my knowledge, though I don’t even know that for sure – it does seem, however, that I hadn’t been ill at all until we’d fought the wolves.

I wonder if Aithniel and my father are okay, the concern a brief darkness which flashes in my gaze before I grunt and look back to the God; though my eyes turn away from Erebos, I still share with him what little I know, curious as well in what is to become of this meeting with a divine I had never seen.

"I think I cured a colt of another disease," I mention without having seen the same boy, not far away, and a thought strikes me – Erebos does not know I have magic yet! – I look back to him, excitement lighting my gaze as I barely sputter out my next words before another cough steals my breath, "with my magic. It might have been a coincidence."

But I don’t believe in them.

The words of the Sun God lure me away from my childhood companion – something of there being no disease, and no corruption to follow him in his return. My eyebrows rise.

Why had the others been unable to do so? Erebos had mentioned that the Moon had been banished, but the Lord Time was in his full power.

And yet, the thoughts are stolen as I watch him, looking to each who approach him, offering words and recognition, sometimes promises. He is gentle, even when annoyed, and it is in such harsh contrast to the rough demeanor of my native Spark that I find myself wondering what sort of divine the Sun is.

My mother tells tales of his razing Helovia with fire.

I find it hard to believe, if this is the same man.

And then he walks towards Aithniel, ignoring the rest who press to him in such contrast to the care he had offered before.

He shields her beneath his wing, in a bird’s embrace.

Even my dense head wonders why he cares so much for an orphan girl, and my heart tightens in envy that she is so loved by a God (my not so long ago earned praise from the Spark forgotten in my annoyed bewilderment).

More hacking erupts from my lungs, my eyes running across her boil ridden figure, her eyes weeping the same blackness; the worry for her paired with my confusion at the entire situation is too much for my aching head.

"What do you make of that?" I quietly wheeze to Erebos.

Because I certainly don’t know what to.





[ Mentions: Sun God, Erebos, and Aithniel; Volterra is spoken of but not noticed. :3

in every heart a hole