因果応報
inga ouhou
“Bad causes, bad result”; “karma” or “what goes around comes around”
~Japanese proverb
Horus
I stay longer than I should, grateful that I made the decision to delay my quest to the Abyss until after dinner. I watch my friends—or family—talk around the dinner table over the stupid chicken they decided to grab, and I laugh when Kit smiles along with them like she’s finally home.
It’s pretty, her smile. I like it a lot, and I remember it well. I don’t know how or why I keep seeing just bits and pieces or why I cannot seem to call to mind exactly who she is to me. I only recall sitting in a forest and promising her forever I had no business promising, even as a god.
She was so enticing, though, so perfectly imperfect. I don’t know why, but I’m pretty sure she bit me the first time we met and then licked my wound clean and apologized for her manners.
I scolded her… I think.
She held her head down. Her tails swept the ground, the shame easy to see as dust clutters around the fur. But she doesn’t know that what she does as a fox will always reflect in the stars, in the heavens.
I look up, and sure enough, she’s swiped the stars to the left, to the right, and then rested, staring directly up at Orion’s belt.
"It’s a good story,” I said, “of the warring angels.”
"What?” she asks. “You aren’t mad?”
"You’re easy to love,” I say simply. “And the skies, they change constantly. Sometimes it’s an itch from a fox; other times, it’s a breath of wonder from a human. A dozen lifetimes can cause the skies to move, but right now, you have Orion staring down at you. Angels and demons. I wonder what that means for your eternity… that they war for you.”
“What?”
"Sleep.” I press a kiss to her head. “Go to sleep, my precious fox. The thing about being a god—I worry for you, so you can rest. You rest, so you can wake up and find your destiny.”
She crashed against the ground and then slowly crept up into my lap.
I remember feeling real warmth for the first time as I petted her head and watched the skies. My job had never felt so fulfilling.
The peaceful vision fades, but my sense of peace somehow remains.
I smile while she argues with Alex over the proper feeding of plants and animals, no clue where that actual argument came from, but he’s clearly upset, he’s not full god, but his eyes do go a complete white.
Everyone around the table laughs.
What a weird group.
Werewolves. Vampires. Sirens. Gods. Angels. Demons.
Life is never what you think.
I slowly excuse myself, scooting my chair back. It’s loud. It’s final. Everyone stops and looks over at me.
I smile, but it’s sad. I can’t meet my brother’s eyes. I’ll see too much in their eyes, loss, despair, hope, anger, sadness. I’ll feel it all, and I might lose my nerve. Immortals are said to be good at shielding our emotions, but only from humans, not from each other. No, they may as well be screaming right now. I can feel it in the tension around the room, in the way the stars press down even onto that house, ready to shove me into the ground to keep me from taking the first step.
So I continue not to meet their eyes.
I choose not to meet hers.
I lower my head and bow, cross my arms, press my palms to my chest, and then extend them toward the sky. Slowly stardust appears around the room, falling in small tiny pieces of colorful ice around the table. My final blessing to my family and friends, to her, a piece of stardust, a piece of the sky.
A piece of me.
When I finally look up, it’s to see Alex and Timber offering the same gesture back to me. I finally look into my brother's eyes and know what I see there. He is, after all, the god of the underworld. If I was braver, I’d walk up to him and say. “Anubis, tell me what you see. Weigh my soul.”
And I’m positive he wouldn’t do it unless I fought him, and even then, he’d reach into my chest and pull out a flickering flame, one that knows it’s about to be sacrificed, and I wouldn’t make a different choice. I need answers, and the more I think about it, the more I realize this is something I should have done a long time ago. I learned how to sacrifice for others rather than expect them to offer themselves to me. Is this what happens when a god wakes up? When he realizes how selfish he has been? Is this love? And why do I keep asking the same question over and over again, what’s love? It’s like I’m desperate to find it and know the only way to do so—is to die for it.
Cassius stands, his multi-colored wings fan around him. His hair glows white, along with his eyes. His whisper is full of pain that I feel down to my bones. “I’ll take you as far as I can.”
“But wait!” Kit yells.
I wave my hand in front of her face. “Sleep.”
Her eyes are filled with rage before they close. Then she collapses against Timber’s chest.
He stares down at her and then up at me. “Come back alive, you stupid god.”
“Please, it’s just the Abyss,” I tease.
He nods. “You know what gods face down there.”
“Everything.” My whisper becomes a resigned sigh. “But I was god of the skies. I’ve seen stars reborn, and I’ve watched the heavens celebrate every single time a life was born, every time a life dies and ascends. I’ve watched the horror. I’ve watched the glory. I’ve made sure the sun sets and rises. What could I possibly face in the Abyss that I haven’t faced while watching humans suffer?”
Timber’s sigh echoes mine. “There is so much more darkness in the deep than you know. The things I’ve seen—”
“Maybe it’s my turn to see those things.” I grip him behind the neck and pull him in for a hug. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
His eyes fill with tears. “Okay.”
They reflect nothing but darkness.
Mine reflect the light of the skies.
Opposites yet blood. Maybe I was brought to this timeline for this very purpose; who knows the true meaning of destiny?
“Okay.” It feels like goodbye because a small part of me recognizes that it is. I don’t want it to be over, but can I not celebrate that it happened? That I existed here, that I’ll at least be able to save parts of a person that was, at one point, my North Star? I turn toward her sleeping form and press a kiss to her forehead. She mumbles in her sleep and reaches for my face.
“You promised,” she whispers. “You promised you’d come back.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and nod at Timber. I refuse to hug him again or tell him my regrets. I hope my eyes say enough just like his do, and I turn.
I turn toward my destiny.
I’ll save her even if it means destroying myself. One life is never long enough when you don’t know who you are or why you are, and she deserves to know at least that.
I promised.
And when a god makes a promise—that god is bound to it.
I follow Cassius out of the house, and we walk. It’s nothing special. Gravel crunches beneath my feet as I walk behind him into the darkness. His massive form keeps walking without looking back. One might think him a giant if they didn’t know the truth.
An archangel walks before me.
Paves the way for me in the only way he knows how.
Once a sinner, now a saint.
I follow him, head held high, and I look at the stars.
They shine down at me, but their song isn’t the same.
I wanted a celebration.
I’m given a eulogy.
Sadness drips from the heavens with a thickness that becomes fog surrounding us as we continue to walk.
"…god of the skies, god of the skies, the walk it isn’t bright,” they sing. “It’s filled with danger, disaster, and despair, the darkness you cannot bear. God of the skies, fight for your life, fight for your light.”
I ignore their tears even as a light rain starts to fall. And that rain isn’t normal rain; it comes from the stars themselves, their tears, both sweet and bitter because the god of the skies will no longer be with them… at least for now.
"Take care of them?” I ask Cassius.
He stops in the middle of a field and waves his hand over it. The River Euphrates appears in front of me; it’s dried up more than usual and has been since the prophecy of old.
You can almost see the Abyss or the gates to it.
"I shall look to your stars,” Cassius whispers, lifting his gaze to them. “They’re as much a part of me as they are of you, and if all else fails, my father’s aware, and he’s already watching.”
I frown. “Sariel?”
"My father. Yes.”
“I thought he ascended. That he died to give you his powers. To make you an archangel?”
Cassius smiles. “For a god, you know so little. Nothing, really.” He points up at the North star. “He’s there, watching, waiting. Years from now, he’ll be an angel again, but for now, he watches. Was that not his original job, god of the sky? To watch over humanity? He has merely returned to his baser form. He watches. And while he watches. I wait.”
"Patience.” I look out toward the sad amount of flowing water. Really, at this point, it’s maybe four feet deep in places, with patches of sticky mud in others and some places completely bare, the river bottom dry and cracked. But the Euphrates still flows.
And until it stops, there is still hope for humanity.
"Any advice?” I ask.
Cassius waves his hand over the water. It parts, allowing me to walk through toward the gates of the Abyss.
I almost laugh. “That’s some Old Testament voodoo right there.”
Cassius joins in the laughter. “It’s merely the water allowing you to pass. I was thinking more along the lines of Moana.”
“Ah, so you finally watched it.”
He barks out a laugh. "I like the songs.”
"Of course you do.” I laugh again, a little surprised that it feels good. I see my breath in front of my face and stare down the gates. They aren’t what you would typically think gloriously dark gates would look like.
It’s mud.
Mud caked on mud and a small window I’ll have to walk through after surviving the suffocation of the mud as it collapses onto me while I crawl in.
It isn’t heaven.
It isn’t pretty.
This is a prison.
Cassius doesn’t follow me; I can no longer feel the presence of the heavens or the Creator. Everything is cold and dark. It’s the dampness that seeps into the bones… into my soul. My all-seeing eye can no longer see beyond the prison cell of a window I have to crawl through. My eye has always been part of my power; the great eye of Horus is part of the sky just as much as Ra’s eye is part of creation. It’s what helps me see even in this timeline. It’s the one thing nobody can take from me, a power I was created with. Something I can no longer rely on as I descend. I’ve never been without the true power of being a god of the sky.
My steps falter.
It isn’t because I have no bravery in me. It’s because I feel abandoned, and I know this is just the beginning. As a god, I’ve always had the power of the skies, my eyes, I’ve had the heavens. I’ve even owned hell, thanks to my brother.
But right now. I am in utter darkness.
The great Eye of Horus, for the first time in history—can no longer see.