CW: Mentions of Death and Revival, Immortality and Mortality
Survival is an ugly thing. It’s not quite living and not quite dying. It’s forging on through experiences that should have left you dead.
When he fought to survive in that moment he could have never expected how long it would last. He wouldn’t have thought about the consequences.
Staring at the oil paint that is supposed to resemble him - it doesn’t quite manage, although it is close - he thinks about the consequences. He doesn’t regret it, who would regret immortality this early in the slow crawl of time? He doesn’t regret any part of it, really. He’s just angry.
He understands how he came to be. He understands the time that creeps into his bones, that slowly turns scarlet into a muddy gold. The title of God doesn’t fit incorrectly upon his mind, not even on his tongue. He’s always been good about rolling with the punches.
His newfound - relatively speaking - immortality is not the problem. What is the problem is his newfound perspective on the concept of Gods. The moment his world shifted and everything slotted into place with a click, it was the moment he finally understood.
He had always been an angry child, cursed the gods with every word he knew, and learned more just to continue.
Cursing the gods has always been an impersonal thing. The gods must not be at fault, they aren’t mortal, why would their distance be any problem? Gods and mortals are seperate, and just as mortals cannot bridge that gap, neither can the Gods.
He slides his gaze from his own face over to another, almost more familiar face, rather, more familiar wings. His own paintings never depict his own, he keeps them hidden for a reason.
The Angel Of Death is a familiar figure. He grew up in the empire established by gods, how couldn’t he know their names? It was better than everywhere else simply because it couldn’t be otherwise, with Gods themselves protecting it. And the gods may protect the empire from war, have faced armies down singularly and struck them all down, but that means nothing when faced with the citizens.
As evidenced by the reflection of wings on his own back, the empire is as horrible as everywhere else. His wings born from reflection, mirroring those depicted as those of Death, grown in the moment it took for things to make sense.
There was never a gap. The gods who swore to protect the empire failed from their own refusal to care. Their own refusal to be on the same level as the mortals who are under their pedestal.
He grew up starving, an orphan under the same stars that the gods resided under. When he died, when he survived, it was under the same stars.
The gods do not care.
He stares into the eyes of a god who has never cared despite his promises, who has called the world to be balanced. With immortality comes survival, two sides of the same coin.
The hate he feels has accompanied him through life and will continue everlasting. May it be carried with his survival and may the gods be brought to their knees the same as mortals.
His whispers carry themselves out the window to be lost in the wind, a prayer to himself.
He turns from the window, from the wind as he is called.
“Petras!”
Melvira emerges from the doorway, her curly hair in her face hiding her eyes from view. A picture of imperfection, the gods would never carry themselves in a way that was anything but perfect, as if their facade were reflections of their worth.
Her hat is in her hands, why she’s not wearing it is a mystery. She’s usually against taking it off, something about missing opportunities if she passes another mage without it. He doesn’t understand mage culture.
She barrels into the room after seeing that he is, in fact, there. She spares a glance at the paintings but moves on when she sees his depictions.
She rushes him along out of the room and soon enough out of the entire building. He wanted to stay for a few more minutes, but he has a promise to fulfil.
It’s been a few weeks since she first started tagging along with him and his travels. He’s never considered himself a mage, but he does have a decent understanding of magic collected from the many years he has under his belt. He doesn’t understand mage culture much either but he does understand the sharing of knowledge.
She stuck around after he taught her an enchantment he knew she probably didn’t know. A child wouldn’t have been taught to enchant swords just yet. Sharpness was too common an enchantment for him to bother with, she could learn that on her own, but Fire Aspect was interesting enough.
Eventually he got tired of carving runes - she didn’t of course, she didn’t need to try as hard as him- so to distract her he promised to show her to fly. The feathered wings he forgot the name for, were pretty rare around these parts. He had a pair for her of course, otherwise he wouldn't have offered. It should be exciting for her. This particular pair was made and enchanted by him, it had taken years as it was an early project. He started it as soon as he started learning how to.
So he’s being dragged out to a cliff because he promised. She stopped dragging him as soon as he got the memo, so it’s just a nice walk out in nature. It peeves him that she picked up the wings without him, but she’s been good about not touching stuff he’s warned her will break, so he’ll forgive her this time. They aren’t all that fragile, pretty tough actually. They have to be if they’re going to fly for longer distances at high altitudes.
The enchantments aren’t on standard but they are better. Normal fake wings don’t feel like real wings but these do. In order to understand them enough to teach you’d have to have real wings yourself. You could teach yourself with enough trial and error, but that’s a lot more dangerous.
It takes time to teach her how to move her wings and even more to move on to the flying part. But eventually they stand at the edge of the cliff ready to take off.
The wind in his face feels familiar and strange at the same time, he doesn’t fly often, doesn’t show his wings either. But he’s more focused on making sure Melvira isn’t going to suddenly fall than the weird feeling of flying.
She isn’t a natural but she’s still in the sky and gliding fine. He corrects her form when he needs to but after a while they're just flying to fly.
The sun slowly moves across the sky, it’s around midafternoon by now. They continue flying, he has strong wings, and her wings are fake, so neither of them need to worry about tiring out. Of course, there are limits but they enjoy themselves while they can.
Whenever he looks at her, there is a look of wonder on her face. He had the same expression when he first flew. It slowly faded as his wings started to become a reminder of cruel and uncaring gods.
His wings no longer look beautiful to him when he knows a disgusting ichor runs through them. Not even a mixture of blood and ichor, just pure gold. A pure piece of godliness.
He didn’t want this. He didn’t survive just to live. He fought so hard because he didn’t want to die because he was worth less. He was always worth less, less than the gods above, less than the empire which was not it’s people but a trophy to be defended, less than the people who walked the streets uncaring. He was only ever an orphan on the streets. When he chose to survive it was because he didn’t want to let himself die for nothing. He wanted to prevent others from his suffering and he was going to die before he could do anything.
The gods couldn’t prevent this, but he could. He could push himself past death and do what he had always set out to do.
He was a reflection of the god he had grown up knowing. The gods had a choice of whether to care, The Angel of Death chose not and so he chose to care. Two sides of the same coin.
Thinking about his resentment for his reflection and his wings is not a good idea while flying. Thinking about his promise to not be a detached god is a good thing, but ignoring his partner in flight is not the way to do it.
It’s already been a few hours of flying, so he doesn’t feel guilty about cutting Melvira off and dragging them back to ground. She complains but gladly goes off to eat when he suggests it.
Eating with someone is making him feel better. Makes him feel a little less like a god and more like the human he’s always been.
Why did he let her tag along with him?
He’s glad he let her. He has lots to teach, no need to keep knowledge hidden. He’s learned a lot over the years and even though he doesn’t have quite that long to teach what he knows, she’ll pick up a lot quite quickly.
It’s nice to have company. He is still surviving but it doesn’t feel like it has been. Survival doesn’t have to be lesser. Survival is survival of knowledge, of emotions, of everything that can die. He can’t change the ichor that runs through his veins, but he can remember the blood that still runs through him.
No matter how he ascended to godhood, he is still human. He can choose to bridge the gap.