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( “May you love as fiercely as you hate.” )
Odio hates, as Oersted always has been too afraid to.
He hates injustice. He hates how humans tear each other to shreds for power. He hates the ones that refuse to grasp for power, begging others for help. He hates the weak, for what they do not do, and hates the strong for what they have done. He hates the demons that started it all. He hates Lucretia, and its people. He hates the guards, the ministers, Straybow, Alicia, Hash, Uranus.
(In his bag lies trifles, clothes, armour, weapons, and medicine. Gifts that they would give their hero.)
Odio loves, too. Loves with a fierceness that Oersted would never dare.
He loves the ones who held him close when he was young. The ones who offered to teach him. He loves Lucretia, and its people. He loved the demons who kneel to him. He loved the guards, once. The ministers. The king. Yet, actions do not destroy the fondness he held for Uranus, Hash, Alicia, Straybow.
(And yet, the pain does not stop. Would it not be better, be mercy to end them all?)
Oersted committed his actions out of duty. Out of hope. He loved because he wanted.
Odio loves.
Amo.
He hates. He loves.
It tears him apart. He wants to burn everything until nothing is left. Wants to tear Lucretia to shreds until they beg to have him back. Wants to-
Wants to go back. Wants to return with hope and safety. Wants the words he speaks to be listened to. Wants to be able to put down his weapon and never need to lift it up again.
He wants to keep them safe.
He wants to kindle the flames.
He does not prepare his army. Not yet.
He hates. He loves. He loves that he hates, and hates that he loves and he wants everything to stop-
To make things stop would be to lose them, though. Some things (death, torture, betrayal ) cannot be undone. Not truly.
(One thing that Odio does not have is Oersted’s rashness. He does not know if humanity is better for it.)
He buries Hash. The hero. The deserter. He buries him where his false grave was once empty, and… wonders.
Hash was a hero. A true hero, who grew frustrated with the shallowness of humans, who still helped regardless, and yet, and yet -
(An old memory, when he first began training under the knight. Another memory, of when he was a child, who needed to be protected-)
Is it not the strong’s duty to protect the weak? If Hash had been willing to ask for help in return, would he have lived past his illness? Asking for those strong in other areas?
Perhaps the people did not deserve even that, their shallow and fickle nature, and yet, and yet -
Hash did not help him nor his companion when they first came. He wanted an uninterrupted life. He didn’t even tell them the location of the key to Devil’s Peak. If Uranus had passed away before they could ask him to help…
Would Hash have let Alicia die? Let her remain trapped there? Considered his hermit’s life a fair price to pay for hers? Even to the point that he would not even tell anyone that the key is buried in the grave of a ‘hero’?
He doesn’t know. Hash died a hero. (By his own admission, he only did so to prove he wasn’t a coward.)
The people deserve nothing from Hash, and yet-
Odio may see Hash as a hero-
-but Hash is also a human, and he does not wish to know how deeply Hash embodies their worst traits.
Next, Odio walks back into the gates of Lucretita. He has unfinished business.
The guards yell, people scream, stones and weapons are thrown, but Odio barely notices.
Were the guards always so fearful, even as they still stood there? Were the people always so frightened? Were their stances always protective?
Odio cannot remember, before, when panic clouded his mind.
Yet, he hates them. Even powered by fear, they attack him despite him making no effort to harm them.
It takes more effort to avoid harming them, through parries, misdirection, and fleeing. Yet after one strike, so many run and hide. He remembers being hunted to the ends of the earth, yet many cower behind each other. Yet some merely shield each other. Did they do that before? Did he not notice? He does not care if actions are seen as cowardly, he has a more important goal.
The Minister trembles as he stands before the throne, so very small and pathetic. Somehow, this man does not seem important enough to hate, though Odio feels an inferno of rage, standing before him.
Odio asks him one question. The Minister answers through his stammers and pleas.
He leaves. Revenge can wait. There are more important things.
He does not know where to bury Unraus’ body, now that he has retrieved it.
Uranus was-
A hero, perhaps a true one. Even as humanity turned against him, he did not hate. (Unraus did not forget that he, too, was human. Odio has not forgotten. Not yet. Not yet.) Uranus did not reject humanity-
However, humanity rejected him.
Odio does not know if he should bury Usraus next to Hash, or the village the monk once lived.
He waits. Oersted was always impulsive, but he cannot be that person anymore. All that recklessness did was bring him ruin. So, he visits the village while he keeps the remains of his companion hidden.
It feels like a dream. So much of everything feels like a dream and a nightmare. Disconnected, yet real, yet not quite.
The child- he does not know the boy’s name, all he knows is that the boy does not look at him with fear, even when others do- he runs up to Odio only after a moment's hesitation. He tells Odio that he knows he isn’t the demon king, that he still has faith-
That is before the other villages see, and he is forced to run before more blood is shed.
He does not want to shed blood in front of the boy.
(Life and faith are so very difficult to restore.)
He was chased out, but he does not forget the single person’s kindness.
He does not forget that demons completely lack faith or loved ones.
He buries Uranus next to Hash, wary that any closer to humanity will result in the monk’s body desecrated. (And yet he is human, and he buried him safely-)
Uranus was a good man. One of faith in a way that none else could compare-
And yet, and yet-
That faith meant compliance. It means he didn’t try to save himself, but Oersted. It meant torture. It meant death.
Odio stands before the grave, and he does not have any words to give. None that do not feel like lies. To say he completely understands is a lie. To say he completely doesn’t is a lie.
His love does not erase his hate, and his hate does not erase his love.
He doesn’t know how long he stands there, but he still doesn’t have a prayer by the time he leaves. Any words would feel meaningless or shallow. His voice, spoken before such a grave would feel wrong.
He takes a breath in. Loves. He breathes out. Hates. They’re so intertwined that it’s impossible to separate. He does not think of it much. He already knows that there is everything and nothing for him here. Was there ever, or did he believe wrong?
Did Alicia and Straybow always look so fragile? So broken? (Did they always have shadows under their eyes, that haunt them even in death, or did those shadows only appear as the life left their bodies?) He cannot tell. His own eyes burn.
Odio cannot remember.
He wants them back. He wants to tear them to shreds. He wants to hold them close and keep them safe like precious jewels. He wants them to scream and beg and kneel and apologise for a forgiveness that will never come. He wants to ask why, wants to explain and curl around them, until he forgets the feeling of longing. He wants to burn them until nothing is left.
He carries them down the mountain. (Not carelessly, but not carefully, either. They are valuable and not. They are merely bodies.)
The field is quiet. There is no one there.
He tears at the frost-covered ground, and it parts easily for him. He remembers when it was difficult to do such a thing. He was weak then.
He places their bodies not together, but not appart.
The dirt looks wrong as it begins to cover them. There is no box, no possessions to bury them with, no pyre or offerings. It is what they deserve.
He loves them. He hates them. They are lies and traitors that held Oersted’s heart in their dead hands. Oersted had only loved the lies they told. He does not know if the lies were true at one point. (Would that matter? Would it make it better? Worse?)
He hates them. His body still aches from the spells, his voice is still horse from the screaming. His heart feels heavy and broken all at once.
(He closes his eyes, and in the wind, he can still hear Straybow’s voice, singing him a lullaby after a nightmare.)
(He feels Alicia’s lips on his cheek.)
(They burn.)
He hates them.
(He can still remember the screaming. Who’s was it again?)
He kneels before the graves and does not move.
(He wants to dig them up and wrap his hands around their throats.) What would it feel like, to be held once again? The feeling makes him nauseous.
He still hasn’t washed the blood off his hands.
He went into Lucretia with the blood on his hands. He breaths. Loves. Breathes. Hates.
Lucretia, where the minister took power so easily. Such a weak man. So breakable. In his mind’s eye, he imagines breaking the man’s neck. (It leaves him unsatisfied. In his fists, there is soil and frost and stems and flowers.) A weak man with so much power. Who uses the right amount of force to place himself on the throne. Did Odio use too much?
(Oersted took power from the remains of the demons so, so easily. Almost as easily as) The minister took power from the remains of Lucretia. He took it as if it had always been his right. As if it was always meant to be.
…What would Oersted have done, had there been a coup? What would Straybow have done, had there been a coup? (Would Alicia have done anything, had there been a coup?)
Oersted lived off faith like food. Would he have survived such a thing?
He waits. He does not know what he is waiting for. He doubts it is important. (Still, something builds in his chest.)
He waits. Waits for the guards, or the monsters, or the demons.
He waits, (for no one but himself,) did he ever have the strength to exist on his own?
He does not know. He cannot bring them back. (Cannot bring them back to embrace or tear until there is nothing.) They are dead, in the cold, dark stone. Beneath everything.
(He hates. He loves. It makes him ill. He rages and screams and cries and prays and curses.) He waits. (He thinks he understands Straybow better, now. Hate and love intertwined. Was there ever a difference between the two?)
Flowers start to bloom on the graves. They aren’t the ones he carried back from the palace. Alicia must have been keeping them in her pockets.
He never knew Alicia’s favourite flower.
He’s tired.
He closes his eyes and rests. He does not open them for a long time.
He wakes. It feels wrong, resting here. Standing over graves. An empty place.
A building is made out of stone and rubble. By the time it is done, he cannot remember if it was him who built it, or the demons that answered his call.
He loves them fiercely.
He hates them even more so.
The demons obey, until they don’t.
(Demons only listen to their own kind.)
He waits. (There is little point in moving now.)
The statue that is not a statue waits.
He is not needed, not yet.
For now, the rage and love and hate and pain sleep.
For now, there is peace.
He does not breathe. Does not love, does not hate.
He sleeps but does not sleep. Everything is dreamlike and nothing is.
There is something left to do. He just does not know it yet.
He is not human, he gave that up for hatred.
He is not a demon, he gave that up for love.
What is left, for a creature such as him?
His form is twisted, yet he waits. He rests, and the world feels so much more alive than he could ever be.
(Love and hate and rage and sorrow twist and twine and knot around each other to form protectiveness.)
(Of what, he does not know.)
The first people to visit the ‘building’ are desperate. Who else would visit a stone hall in such a state? Who else would take shelter inside it, and kneel at the altar? Who else would whisper for help until their voices are horse, until their knees are cold and bleeding?
Who else would sleep in a mound of rubble, under the watchful gaze of such a wicked looking statue.
The people sleep the night, inside the crumbled stone building, near the overgrown graves. They do not expect to wake up the next morning.
(Odio has forgotten many things.)
(He has not forgotten what it is like to be shunned.)
The people wake up the next day, the fields watered with fresh blood, and trees fed with flesh.
The people are unharmed.
There is blood on the stone creature's claws.
(Odio remembers that protecting leads to pain. That it leads to joy. That blood leads to short satisfaction and long pain. He waits to see what leads to fulfilment.)
(For now, his rage has been fed, and has his care.)
The people leave offerings. They sleep within the church. Each day, they clean the graves. The names have long since been erased. The flowers that bloomed there from the beginning look beautiful still.
The people repair what is now a church.
They sleep in it.
They always wake up the next day, safe and whole.
More of the shunned come. More outcasts. More humans who are not human enough for the powerful.
The crumbing church is repaired. Rooms are added. A small fence is planted around the graves. Houses are built. Herbs are planted. Fires are lit. Clothes are made-
More and more and more-
Harm does not come to any of them.
(Odio loves each and every one of them.)
(He hates those who dare to harm his. )
The people whisper "Gargoyle."
(They whisper it with reverence.)
(They whisper is with hope.)
(They whisper it with fear.)
The people form into a village.
A small bowl is placed at the feet of the stone creature- the gargoyle. For all its cruel stare and twisted expression, no one has found harm under its gaze. The people light candles, and thank it. During meals, they cut a small portion of the food, and leave it at the monster’s feet.
The event that caused the first wave of people to arrive ends, but there are always more. It is always the desperate that pay the most.
The village forms into a town.
The first time a child is born- or, more accurately, born after the people have completely settled- the couple place the child before the gargoyle so he can stare into its eyes. They thank the creature for what it has done, and beg that Odio Amo continues to watch over their child.
Rumours are spread about the two graves- some say they belonged to the human parents of the gargoyle, others say it belonged to its children or siblings, others that they were friends, and others that they were enemies, and that the stone one watches to make sure they do not rise again.
More gargoyles begin to appear on the roofs of buildings as the sanctuary expands. Some human like, and some not. Some formed by people carving stone statues to keep their protector company, others appearing on their own.
(Humans have a habit of falling to despair and rage. Not all choose to turn that anger into destruction. Odio may have been the most noticeable to turn his heart to protecting, but he is not the only one.)
The town forms into a city. The church, a cathedral, made holy to house those damned by the world.
Odio sits atop the highest tower of the cathedral (not always, as when he stands there, he can almost remember the longing, and heartbreak, and pain. He can remember the determination, the drive to help- ).
Odio does not remember much. He remembers hate. He remembers love.
Yet, he is almost (almost, but never) satisfied.
The people under his eye know better than to become what he hates. They do not shun the innocent. They do not harm the defenceless. Those who do wake up choking on their own blood. The people that are his know how to remain his.
The people that are his are loved, but are not hated.
When he is in the gardens, or the graves, or the podiums, he finds himself decorated with flowers. Sometimes, small wooden carvings are left at his feet. Children climb on his still body, and swing from his wings, smiling and laughing carelessly. Those older smile, but always remind the young to respect him.
It only feeds his love.
The love only feeds his hate.
The sun sets, and he hears, so very far away (but no distance to him) the sounds of a child crying in fear as their guardian screams and harms in rage. He takes flight.
The next morning, there is another orphan within the church’s halls.
The people take care of them, like always.