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Naris was the best thief that the world had ever seen, and likely ever will. There are many kinds of thieves, who steal for many kinds of reasons. Naris was a thief of desperation. Naris grew up without a mother or father or home or even a kind word to help him along. Everything single thing Naris needed to survive was kept from him, locked away to keep him out. Which is why, in time, Naris got very good at getting past locks.
It was said that Naris could steal anything, and so he set his mind on stealing everything. Or one of everything at least. Before even his tenth birthday (not that he knew the date of his birth) he had already made significant progress. Stealing baskets of fruit, armfuls of bread, and on one special occasion, an entire cake and much much more. And slowly, the boy who had nothing, became the man with everything.
Well, almost everything. You see, Naris had a problem, he was still unhappy. No matter how much food he ate, the memory of hungry nights never faded. No matter how close he got to the fire the phantom cold from his child never faded. And no matter how hard he tried, Naris was never happy.
Naris spent every cent he stole in search of a solution to this problem. His answer finally came in the form of a woman with hollow eyes. All of her village knew she was powerful, they say she had lived for hundreds of years, surely she could help.
Despite the cold of her hovel and the bare threads of her dress she did not shiver. He offered her money, he offered her food, he offered her anything at all she may care for, if she would tell him what she knew. She turned away every offer, but she told him the answer to his problem anyway.
“There are many entrances to the home of the Gods,” she told him. “If you eat as the Gods eat you will never again be hungry, if you warm by the fire of the Gods you will never again be cold, if you live as the Gods live you will never die,” she told him.
Naris was overjoyed with this news! After all Naris had already stolen one of everything on earth, stealing from the land of the Gods’ seemed like the next step. He pleaded from her for every bit of knowledge she would share for how to gain entrance to the Gods’ home. And so she told him the only three ways she knew.
The home of the Gods’ is at once everywhere and nowhere in particular.
There is a rabbit burrow, deep in the forest, and in that burrow there is a hatch that leads to the Gods’ root cellar. Rabbits, as a general rule, do not care for Gods of any kind. The family of rabbits who live in this burrow are not especially different. They have avoided the tunnel with the hatch since it appeared, but none have disturbed the hatch. Which is why not one of the kits born that spring were taken by an eagle. It was an uneasy alliance, but maintained easily enough. However Naris was unable to fit into a rabbit burrow and so he had to find another way.
There is an open window in the majority of painting that leads to the Gods’ drawing room. The artists do not paint them there on purpose of course, nor do the Gods’ place it there. Despite the best attempts of both the Gods’ and the artists the windows simply keep appearing. After a while they both just gave up and accepted that there just wasn’t anything for it. However the only person able to enter a painting is the artist themselves, and Naris was never much of a painter.
Lastly, in an alleyway behind a restaurant that is not well known, but is loved by all its patrons, there is a back entrance to the Gods’ kitchen. This door only appears when the chief is making his special, a wonderful dish involving roasted tomatoes and top secret spices. Naris did not stop to try the special on his way.
It was a nice day, the air was warm and filled with the smell of good cooking. Naris waited two weeks for the back door to appear. After the two weeks, not only was it there but one of the Gods’ had left it propped (even the Gods need fresh air sometimes). This was how Naris got into the home of the Gods, tiptoeing across a floor no mortal was ever meant to touch.
Naris tiptoed, silent as he had ever been, to the cooking flames, left burning in the hearth. As he knelt beside it he felt warmth like never before. He felt the warmth of his childhood, the warm arms of a mother he never had, holding him close. “Careful,” she whispered to him as he reached for the flames “don’t get too close.”
Naris closed his eyes and reviled in the memory that never happened. Remembering the way his mothers hair fell around them and the gentle sound of her voice.
All sense of caution was forgotten as Naris stood from his place by the fire and walked to the table in the center of the room. Cooling on the simple wooden table was a pastry he had never seen before. They were just the right size to hold in one hand, with a fluffy looking crust and a fruit filling. Naris held his prize carefully, bouncing it between his hands to avoid burning his fingertips. Unwilling to wait, Naris ate half of it in one bite. The filling was made with no fruit he had ever known and yet it tasted like his childhood. It tasted like the sound of his father’s laugh. “You’re going to spoil your dinner,” he would say when he caught Naris sneaking sweets. “Well maybe just one.”
Naris grabbed another pastry before returning to his place by the fire. He curled up beside it, and let the memory of his mother’s hugs and his father’s mirth, carry him to the land of dreams.
When Naris awoke he was in the alleyway where he had found the door. But the door to the Gods’ kitchen was gone. His clothes were soaked through, and there was snow piled atop him. Despite this Naris felt no cold. It had been summer when he entered the home of the Gods. Had he slept for months? At the rate at which the snow was coming down, and the amount piled atop him when he awoke, Naris knew he must have been laying there all night. Naris wondered when the last time he ate was. How long ago were the pastries? Despite this, Naris wasn’t hungry.
Naris realized immediately that it worked. The woman who sent him on this journey had told the truth. He should have been overjoyed, after all this is what he had been working towards for so long. Maybe it was the quiet night, or the falling snow, or the still lingering memory of warmth. But Naris didn’t feel anything at all.
The nearest inn was clean, and small, and had a fire burning and the scent of stew heavy in the air. Naris still had the pouch of coins he had brought with him. He paid for a room, and a bowl of stew. At another time he might have eyed his fellow inn goers, to see if any of them had anything worth stealing. Naris ignored them all, collapsing into a chair by the fire.
Naris thought of the woman who had told him of the Gods, and where to find them. He thought of her as he tried to warm his hands by the fire and yet felt nothing at all. “I have seen the home of the Gods” she had said. He thought of how hollow and empty her eyes were as he tried to eat, and yet the stew tasted of water and nothing else. “Those who live as the Gods live can never die,” she had said. Naris didn’t bother using the room he had purchased, he wasn’t tired. “I would not recommend it,” she had said. As Naris walked back out into the snow, he considered how odd it was, that he could mourn her loss, and not his own.