The Scared God [ManXManXMan]

Chapter Thirty-six: Счастье - Schastye

~Chapter Thirty-six: Счастье – Schastye~

The Norse library is vast but also incredibly boring. Despite the sheer number of scrolls, books, and other forms of achivable material, at least eighty percent of it is nothing more than the tales of battles someone thought were important enough to keep record of. Loki's personal library is far more impressive, but seeing as the Norse magic god already knows everything that library contains, there would be no point in searching through it. Instead, Loki, Hors, and I – Perun could not join us since he ended up being dragged into playing Hnefatafl, a strategy game similar to chess, with Odin – are here in the hope that some ancient scholar might have thought to write something important down.

Unfortunately, though, turning people into statues or stone appears to primarily be a Greek thing.

Bored out of my mind, as I literally just finished doing piles of research on wards, I have mostly just been following Hors around the library for the last while. It is not that I do not want to find a way to free Ainmire, but I am still tired after everything that happened early yesterday morning. Perun and Hors had insisted I take what was left of yesterday to rest after the ordeal, but even though I did basically nothing except eat and sleep, I am still mentally exhausted, which is why it is probably best I tag along and read over someone's shoulder than try to go through the stuff by myself and miss something.

Hors sighs as he sets another scroll back before reaching for another one. I would make jokes about how his sudden dislike of reading, but, at the same time, I feel much the same way at the moment; there is a very big difference between reading for entertainment and reading for research, and I am so very done with the latter. While research reading might be interesting from time to time, it is not really all that fun. At least, it is not fun in this context, which just involves skim reading materials that might actually be attention-grabbing under better circumstances.

Three scrolls later, and after making sure that Loki is on the other side of the library and, thus, not eavesdropping, I try to start a conversation. "You didn't like me at first, did you?" I ask, though it feels more like a statement. When Hors' eyebrows rise in a silent question, I elaborate, "When we first really met after my revival, you didn't even pretend to like me."

Hors' expression clears as he realizes what I am referring to, and he does not seem at all put off by the random, somewhat odd conversation starter. "No, I didn't," Hors admits. There is nothing reluctant or apologetic about the way he says it, but the warmth in his expression as he looks at me tells me all that I need to know; he no longer feels the same way he did back then. And, considering how much my opinion of them changed, I can believe it.

Even if old habits still make me a bit skeptical.

"What changed your mind?"

Setting down another scroll, he turns to face me, and I take a startled step back when his arm brushes against my chest in the process, as I had been basically hovering over his shoulder to see what he had picked up. "I realized that you were more of a danger to yourself than to others and that you needed help," Hors says, and I wince, looking down at the floor.

So...it was pity, then?

A hand suddenly lands on my head, and I flinch in surprise. When I look up, though, Hors just stares back at me. "Before I met you, I had come to hate you," the sun god says, and I try not to grimace at the ache that sends through my chest. My expression must have revealed something, though, as he threads his fingers through my hair gently and tilts my head up so he can press a chaste kiss against my lips. "You were Perun's first love, you know. And though he came to love me, he never got over you, even if he wasn't aware of it from the start. I was jealous."