Work Text:
Tommy flew into bed as Kristin followed behind him.
She sat down in the chair next to the beds. Each little boy was in their bed quietly waiting.
They all knew the routine.
“Hurry up, Dad!” Tommy yelled, trying to keep still under the blanket.
Kristin smiled as she noticed the shadows melting under the door. So that was the bedtime story they were doing.
She turned back to the three beds.
“On a misty night, I was walking through the forest collecting a special type of dark purple berries. I was studying their effect on mortals who eat them. They are said to hold the properties of lady death herself.” She had a hint of mystery in her voice.
Kristin could feel her shadows dance along the wall. She let them bend and twist how they wanted. They crept and swirled on the wall, deep black with a hint of purple mixed in.
Phil burst through the door holding an old wood sword.
The boys laughed as the shadows mixed together.
Each sang their own tune that made the shapes upon the wall.
As the boys laughed, she noticed shadows with hints of red, pink, and blue.
“Then I stumbled across her. My sword was held high to ward off the dragon that I feared was hiding in the bushes to eat me. I had followed a trail of wisps into the deep dark forest.”
The children gasped at the mention of the wisps.
She laughed. “He scared me so bad by rushing at me with a sword that my shadows rushed over him-“
“And they turned me into a crow!” Phil said as he shifted to his crow body. He flew around the room, trying to dodge the shadows that shot through the air at him.
She felt the familiar tug at her magic that happened when he turned into a crow.
“Then you proceeded to fly straight into a bush. A bush filled with thorns, I might add.”
Phil landed on her shoulder with a laugh. “I didn’t know how to fly yet.”
Kristin laughed. “So I took him back to my cottage.” Her shadows formed a silhouette on the wall of the cottage. “The original one I had before this one. Filled with berries and plants of all magical use.” She could hear the hint of longing in her voice.
That had been a place of memories; for immortals, memories were powerful. But they had to expand it when the boys came. New memories were an equally powerful thing.
“I pulled each thorn out of his wing to make sure it didn’t get infected.” She said while Phil ruffled his feathers. “I had to get some golden watermelon, so I left him on a blanket on the table.”
“I, in the meantime, woke up starving,” Phil said as he leapt onto the ground and turned back into his human form.
“I only had thought that I would be out there for a few minutes and left the berries in a bowl on the counter across from the table.”
Phil laughed. “You were only gone for a few minutes. I just ate fast.”
She sighed. “The little bird had eaten an entire bowl.”
Wilbur gasped. “What did you have to do? Did the bird die?”
Phil laughed. “I am very much alive, thank you.”
“I had to go back into the depths of the forest to find the one cure I knew wouldn’t kill him.” Her shadows darkened the room.
“It was late at night by the time I finally stumbled across it. The phantoms were guarding it. Their haunted screeches filled the night as they swooped down at me.”
The shadows mimic the phantom by ducking and rising again.
“One knocked me back against the giant willow tree. My shadows tried to fight it off, but it was too strong. I screamed, hoping for someone to hear and come help.”
“Someone did,” Phil said as his shadows overpowered hers and drove them away.
“My shadows were suddenly boosted. These shadows were ones I had never seen before. Shadows that had swirls of deep emerald green.”
“My shadows raced me as I ran through the brush. Just as her power had turned me into a crow, it pulled me back to help her.”
She laughed. “You did. He scared off the phantoms. The emerald in his sword shown in the night.” Her voice quieted for the next part. “It went falling to the ground as he fell.”
“The effort had been more than I had. The berries were trying to kill me.” Phil said with an equally grim voice.
She had never told anyone this, not even Phil, but his soul was the only one she refused to take. If he had been anyone else, he would have died.
But she couldn’t do it.
“I ran to what the phantoms were guarding. The golden flower sat in their nest. I grabbed it and forced him to eat it.”
“I was healed, but there were two after-effects. My own shadows and a life span to match a goddess.” Phil said with a smile.
She held her finger up to her lips in a quiet motion.
All three of the boys were asleep.
She got up from the chair and walked over to the light switch, and turned it off. Phil quietly shut the door behind them as they left the room.
“Are you ever going to tell them?” Phil asked quietly as they walked down the hall to the kitchen.
The black and purple shadows pooled at her feet. “They will figure it out, but we give them a sense of normality for now. It will be their only sense for an eternity.”
Phil nodded. “Normalcy will get tiring, but the world awaits them.”
The world awaited three immortal gods of different powers.
Technoblade, the blood god, whose shadows were black and pink.
Wilbur, the god of strategy, whose shadows were black and blue.
Tommy, the god of life, whose shadows were black and red.
The last was unexpected to the goddess and angel of death, but life clings to balance.