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Sep. 3rd, 2010 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lettersforbloodSet in the 'verse of my story Pantheon. POV is that of Timothy Carpenter. Prompt is from ![[community profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
musing_way.
~*~
"Gods are meant to die," I told him.
"It doesn't seem fair," he said.
I disagreed. I still do. What doesn't seem fair to me is that I have to live--that I have to stay here, in the realm of the living, even though I've died, but I'm not dead, because it's part of my role that I am the only god to last to the next pantheon.
But I didn't tell him that. "You had your time," I told him instead. "You had your power and your rights and your responsibilities. Now it's time to go."
He was old. Narash Tenkest. The ruling god of war. They usually don't live long; too caught up in fighting, in surrounding themselves with war, to live past their prime. But he lived to old age, because he was a general. He sent others in to fight instead of fighting himself.
And he didn't want to die.
"No," he said. "I won't go!" He waved a hand, trying to hit me away. He was too weak to do it; I just watched the hand futilely gesture at me.
"Of course you will," I said. "You will die. Your body is giving out as we speak. If I don't take you with me, your soul will simply stay trapped in a dead body, paralyzed until I decide to come back. You don't want that."
He tried to object, but he'd used up all the fight in him. The fight that, like it or not, agreed with me, and believed in me. On the battlefield, I'd trust his word. In his last days, he'd trust mine.
He gave up. He waved me closer and just breathed out the last of his life. I put a hand on his shoulder and showed his soul the way out of his body.
And I and the god of war made the voyage to the beyond world.
musing_way."Gods are meant to die," I told him.
"It doesn't seem fair," he said.
I disagreed. I still do. What doesn't seem fair to me is that I have to live--that I have to stay here, in the realm of the living, even though I've died, but I'm not dead, because it's part of my role that I am the only god to last to the next pantheon.
But I didn't tell him that. "You had your time," I told him instead. "You had your power and your rights and your responsibilities. Now it's time to go."
He was old. Narash Tenkest. The ruling god of war. They usually don't live long; too caught up in fighting, in surrounding themselves with war, to live past their prime. But he lived to old age, because he was a general. He sent others in to fight instead of fighting himself.
And he didn't want to die.
"No," he said. "I won't go!" He waved a hand, trying to hit me away. He was too weak to do it; I just watched the hand futilely gesture at me.
"Of course you will," I said. "You will die. Your body is giving out as we speak. If I don't take you with me, your soul will simply stay trapped in a dead body, paralyzed until I decide to come back. You don't want that."
He tried to object, but he'd used up all the fight in him. The fight that, like it or not, agreed with me, and believed in me. On the battlefield, I'd trust his word. In his last days, he'd trust mine.
He gave up. He waved me closer and just breathed out the last of his life. I put a hand on his shoulder and showed his soul the way out of his body.
And I and the god of war made the voyage to the beyond world.