SONGS OF OURSELVES

❦ pain

in another lifetime

you would be

mine

❧ joyce wrice, "kaytra's interlude"

It hurt, if you were wondering.

It hurt tremendously.

His memories flooded back to him all at once. A million children diving into his head, splashing about until there was simply no more room.

Shame burnt him up inside, gnawed at his watery lungs and too-tight heart.

Split open on his sister's altar, Xosa clutched his chest and writhed in pain.

He saw them. He saw them all.

The tired eyes, the spritely fools, the wise sages, the somber undertakers.

The beasts,

the maidens,

the scholars,

the creatures.

The relics, objects, artifacts, and items most would assume couldn't possibly contain a living soul.

The other half of a death god's flickering flame.

Lost. Found.

Renewed. Eradicated.

Rekindled. Extinguished.

Gone.

Just gone.

❦

If love could've saved them, they would've lived forever.

But even that wasn't enough.

He wasn't enough-

❦

"All modern mortals know how to do is cry themselves to sleep, eat stale grain, and die."

Flushed pink, Poallu sipped nectar on his throne. This was back when The Incident loomed behind Xosa like a bad dream, foggy and incomplete. When nothing made sense unless Poallu told him what it meant, and that was okay.

"They can't even pray properly anymore. Worship used to be the only thing they could do competently. Besides weeping."

The lesser gods snickered, cursing the beings who fed them daily, jockeying for a seat at Poallu's side.

Later that night on the mortal plane Xosa cradled Zeusah to his chest, glad the boy resembled his father in appearance only. How amazing to find a mortal whose traits did not contradict each other! The boy could be both beautiful and kind, powerful and gentle. Most divinities were astonishingly simple, forever one thing and one thing only, but even at his tender age Zeusah could already do what Poallu never could: change.