‘It’s only natural’ she said and Mesec snorted in response, seeing her point but still. “Is it?” Although he spoke the words, quiet as they were, it was meant as an entirely rhetorical question. A natural thing it might be but an all but foreign concept to Mesec and there lay his discomfort with the notion. Perhaps he didn’t want to think about his mother (or really, anyone) doing that because he was still trying to figure it all out. Was he supposed to be surging with hormones, chasing every piece of tail that wasn’t related to him? It sounded exhausting - and Lucius emitted a quiet noise that might have very well been a laugh at the notion. Hormones were no match for the powers of Mesec’s worrisome mind.

But, thankfully, the topic of the gods having sex was abandoned for the topic of them dying.

He shook his head with a smile as Little Earth started to take his question quite literally - giving him an answer that was both oddly poetic and completely to the point - before answering his actual question.

She then asked him what had prompted the question and his gaze shifted to the moonlit ocean - silver eyes bright as he took a moment to contemplate what she had said. Mesec agreed with her, it made sense. Their parents were unlike the Rift creatures - they weren’t likely to be taken down so easily in a fight. But it could, theoretically, happen. “I was just thinking, about our purpose…” He was wary about continuing this train of thought, about speaking it out loud but took some comfort in the idea that if he was going to spew a ridiculous idea to anyone, Little Earth was a good pair of ears to hear it. He didn’t think that she would judge him for his words and perhaps she would be able to poke some holes in the logic - he was rather sure that he did not want what was bouncing around in his mind to ever happen after all. “What if we’re their replacements? What if we’re here as a security measure so that if they die, we’ll be able to step up… and in the meantime we’ve got to learn as much as we can so that we’ll be able to...”

That he was born to be groomed - indirectly or otherwise - as an heir unsettled him. Refusing to meet her eyes as he continued the thought - going on to explain why he hoped this idea was false. “You might think it silly, but I’m afraid of that being the truth. Afraid of what it will mean for me if it is.” Mesec feared his part in the balance of Helovia, feared that in the end, his part would be to bring out darkness and death to balance the light and good. Had that been what his mother meant, when she talked of balance? Things had been too good, the population was growing too strong. And his own thoughts unknowingly mirrored those of the other demigod beside him - what happened when another purge was needed?

we'll go over the mountains and under the stars