He turned to Dayna. She held the baby in her arms, and gazed at him. The old midwife leaned behind her looking upwards. He walked forward and held out his hand. Calmly he moved the cloth from the child’s face. There should have been a face. But what looked at him was only an abomination.

There was silence, in the forest and from the group, and breath tried to escape from the twitching child, it moved its head slightly, its arms and legs. Its fingers clutched its cheeks and its head, its body. The child was made of gold.

Although it was no ornamental metal, it writhed and moved, porous skin. It covered the thing, which had no eyes, no mouth, no nostrils. An incomplete creation. A slight against the gods. He raised his blade to strike the creator and the midwife raced forward and grabbed the blade, nearly severing his own hand. He pulled it away and watched as the girl covered it again.

“What is that thing?”

“It is my friends’ child.”

“It does not breathe?”

“It breathes look!” She uncovered the child and its bare chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

“I have seen monsters who have beating hearts. This thing is not… this is not a child.”

“In that way are they not?”

“Does it eat? Does it cry? Does it bloody shit?”

“They are different, but I know in my heart that I must protect it.”

“Why North? You think they would not smash its head at the gates to any city?”

“My father is a lord, he lives there, he abandoned me but we have written one and other since the death of my mother. I will pay you anything.”

“No amount of gold or honor could force me to do such a thing.”

He left them there in the forest. They could find their way to the fire and surely no other abnormalities would occur in the night, then they could walk back to the town and find some other way to survive or find a more willing passage North.

He had a sense of guilt, but also shock; and he was half convinced that he was still sleeping and the strange owl at his window had planted the most outrageous dreams in his mind. He willed himself to wake up and walked into nowhere with the rationality that none of this was truly real and he had succumbed to madness. More thunder threatened the horizon and a wind rushed past him.

He walked forward. Marching with a defiance against all that he had witnessed. It was in fact illogical that anything like this could occur. It was another cold day. And he had taken a wrong turn in the forest or gotten so lost in his thoughts that he had not absorbed the area around him. Then the impossible occurred and his steady boots, which had walked further and harsher terrain slipped.

He rolled down a hill into a mud filled marsh. His knees lay just above the thick mud and desperately he clawed at the wall behind him, but it was far to dark in the light of the half moon, already eclipsed by the tree canopy above, to see the mud wall or search for a root to climb. He put a hand against the wall and began to walk forward, tugging each leg out and praying that it would not get deeper. He knew that in a mud like this and a forest so dense, it would take a single step to drown. But suddenly a greater light shone against the wall. He thought that the moon may have broken through the canopy but instead he raised his eyes to look at a horrific creature.

It looked like the moon, with rings orbiting it and eyes on each side. Six massive wings which held it above him. With a blinding flash it transfigured turning into a woman, with the same face as Dayna.

            Although its skin was a translucent silver, which emitted a light of many colors.

Again, memories pained him, of a theological family. And readings of beings so powerful and dangerous, of holidays in celebration of many gods, especially their angels who watched over their humble home and protected noble cities; though those creatures were proven to be nothing but myth, when the demons and monsters crawled out of the darkest nights and the angels were nowhere to be found, scorned by the gods, they had no reason to exist. This entity was very relevant however.

As it stood before him and looked deep into his soul with dark black eyes. “I come in peace.” The woman said. It was followed by a silence; and he considered what he could do to possibly escape this situation. The woman looked at him, her hair fell to her shoulders and her face was slender. Her hands seemed to replicate and mimic with each gesture resting as one and becoming many as she moved her arms.

“I have a favor to ask of you?”

“What?”

“The child must live.”

“Ahh.”

“In the gods conquest, much was forgotten. In the Gods extinction much was liberated and again. A new god must rise and structure the world.”

“Can I ask any questions?”

“Any but those which would demand a different fate.”

He stepped up to find himself walking through smooth water. Which was light and rich as it washed his legs of the bog soup. He reached out his hand to grab hers and before them the land turned to a reflection of the night sky. They sat together on the glass lake. There was a profound silence but it seemed like the most beautiful kind. A overwhelming embrace from the night sky.

“The gods have truly abandoned us then?”

“Yes.”

“Why”

“It begins with an old story, of the goddess of life.

The goddess was known to all as the most beautiful deity to live. The ground she walked upon would become luscious and overrun by flowers, and her fingertips would inspire moss and mushrooms to grow on the greatest of trees. An age of brilliance and radiance was expected to follow her and by a mortal’s standard of time, I suppose it did. For three thousand years she and many gods benevolently guided the human race. They gifted them with fire, clothes, comfort and love. The last of which inspired the end of the Age of Splendor. As the emotions which the gods gave humanity are only a small portion of what they feel and need. It is in fact the case that the gods are far less rational and logical beings than their Mortal imitations. As the gods are emotive, driven by empirical knowledge and self-interest. It is such that the gods to are less neutral than any others, as their hearts never lead them to the middle of the fence.

But the goddess was not so sure. She believed that it was human weakness, that they would were dependent on another to fill their hearts and minds, she grew curious of the mortals which leant and thrived below her moon, and so one in particular became her point of interest, a young herbalist. A witch by trade. Who sought through medicine and knowledge to ascend to the thrones of the philosopher kings and queens. One day in her experimentations she began to question, why even in the winter the flowers near her forest home never wilted. She challenged the goddess, saying that there was no proof she grew the flowers. So, the goddess challenged her back. Silly thing. The herbalist started to poison the flowers and the goddess would boost them, or the flowers would die and the herbalist would resurrect or save them.

This battle went on for years until the herbalist began to wilt. The goddess arrived before her and saved her, and they swiftly fell in love. The goddesses love was deeper than the humans, of course, who had a more temperamental love. The goddess would play at times, trying to bend her joints or grey her hair to challenge the herbalist and tease her, as they had played with the flowers. The mortal would lash out and lecture the goddess but they had a major obstacle: time. Even with the gift of immortality the mortal still gave value to time, which the goddess saw like passing specks of dust. The mortal expected that the goddess should be old and wise for all that she had seen but the goddess had no notion of maturity. To her time, age and wisdom were by no means connected; she was proud to be playful, wise, powerful and decisive all at once, and to her a common prank was as much a gesture of the heart as a gift.

The lesbians lived happily though, they loved and challenged one and other but their fights became more and more aggressive, until they could barely stand the sound of the others voice, the goddess however was reluctant to leave: it was after all, a most potent emotion.

However, that was forced to change. One day the goddess returned to their home, followed by the creatures and golden light of the forest to find her wife in bed with another woman. She was older and more mature. Despite that the goddess had endless wisdom she did not flaunt it like the other woman. She was enraged and her fury knew no bounds.

She turned her wife to dust, but soon her anger turned to sorrow and the world was engulfed by winter. She did not eat, or sleep, she only felt guilt until she withered into nothing.

The gods met and were in discordance.

They blamed human arrogance for the death of their beloved goddess.

There was an effort to rebind the gods, nationalist nations, theocracies, royals and demi-gods alike attempted to restore respect and balance to the world, but never the less the world was already descending into chaos. And so, the gods decided to remove themselves from the experiment and abandoned humanity. However, this allowed for crueler, smaller and bitter gods to ravage the land and so the hellscape was born.

But human arrogance continued and so the Code of Men was created. The gods spited man for their arrogance and man spited the gods.

      Therefore, am I man?

A soldier of the wind and defender of stone,

And arches; and great cities which shelter us

A defender of the wheat; and the food we eat

Of woman, men and all, who pick up arms to spite us

A warrior; guarding the shadows on the cave wall

a guard of the strings, which remain transparent

The Leader which beckons me to war, has forgotten

that we are the same, fragile creatures, And

I am a mortal being

They forget that we are not the enemy,

The only enemy is the man that commands them

And so, it was deemed unnecessary for any change and the gods decided to watch as the world turned to dust but there was a change. Inspired by the philosophers and the leaders of the humans, the gods sought to give them a chance by placing a god among men, to see if the god could learn their ways. If the child is raised to become great and love his fellow humans. Then the child would ascend and unite the gods and men, under one empire. But if the child should die, or be raised to despise his fellow people, then the world will be destroyed. Many gods have taken part in the gamble and I have chosen a fate which is almost fully dependent on you Odis.”

She smiled and he felt lighter.

“Will knowing these things change the child’s fate?”

“No, nor will it save your own.”

“The child, what should it be named?”

“That is in the hands of the chosen mother.”

“Did you meet her as well?”

“No but she is at the right place, she is on the right path.”

“Will it be a happy path?” She was silent and gazed at him. “I have not had an easy life and perhaps I should seek contentless or redemption. But why me? Actually, there is no need to answer the other, I do not need to know where my fate lies, I only want to know what has made me a warrior worthy of this role.”

“You were not chosen for any role; it is simply your path. You will find that one day you will look at the child and feel peaceful, your stress will leave you for a moment, your insecurities will abandon you and you will look at someone which only you could have saved and know that you have such extraordinary value in this world and the next.”