Chapter Text
There are whispers of what resides deep in the dark forest lining the very edges of the Hub, where not even the most ambitious of Users dare to tread too deeply. The trees stand tall, their branches slicing through the sky in dark, jagged lines, the thinner fingers of them gnarled and drooping towards the ground, limp and still like the damned resigned to an eternity of suffering.
Those who step foot into the dark entrance do not make it far, the dense collection of trees making it difficult to traverse through. Even those with the ability to use navigation skills struggle, interference reminiscent of a compass unable to point in one clear direction making a definite path exhausting to pinpoint. Many who dare to try and conquer the way through that empty darkness do not return for days, swallowed by the gloom before being spat out on trembling legs, all stumbling gaits and sheens of cold sweat—the disorientating nightmares that plague the presumptuous do not abate for months. Of those who are careful, never overstepping and never demanding more than can be handled, they leave the dark maw of the forest with tales regaled in hushed voices of the heavy blanket of death that clings to your skin, a feeling as sticky sweet as honey but crushingly heavy, and the feeling of eyes dogging their every step. It is a clear sign, silent but no less deadly, to stay away.
But if one were ever lucky enough to be able to make their way through the maze of trees, they would find a small clearing, tiny little flowers—unseen elsewhere, the translucent petals catching the meager light in a way that make them appear aglow—blooming underneath the dark canopy of leaves swaying gently in the breeze. It's softer, there, the oppressive notes of death lightening to something sweeter, the twisted branches curling in a way that was more reminiscent of sharp claws carefully cradling a child than their usual slump of forsaken salvation.
If one were ever to be even luckier, they'd find that inside that dark forest, in the middle of the clearing, sits a minor god.
He is a god that's barely heard of, information on him far and few between—information that's even inaccurate, based on some of the depictions of him in the form of a female, much to his chagrin—barely kept alive by the link of those believing in his father, the god of death.
Despite his wavering grasp at existence, he tries his best to fulfill his duties in guiding souls in the afterlife—always so gentle in how he tugs the uncertain hands of those who have passed to the boat bobbing by the shore, the ferryman waiting silently to bring the dead across the river to the other side. He imparts a blessing to those who fall under his temporary care, a quiet be gone to blessedness slipping out of his mouth, whisper thin but thick in its sweet intent, before slipping into the pitch black shadows for his next task, as few as they are. The larger affairs of the Underworld are dealt with by his father and older siblings, wiser and much more significant than he is, his role simply to help ease the process for those who are finally afforded the luxury of painlessness after a lifetime of suffering, or those too young to understand but too ill to stay on the mortal plane.
When duties do not occupy his attention, he finds solace in the dark forest in the mortal realm. It teems with the soft pull of mana, dancing across his skin like a lover's caress, a comfort away from home in the same way shadows shroud his being with a comforting chill. Though it's a place that could not be described as anything but disquieting, dense foliage and the flora breaking up the homogeneity of rustling leaves few and far between, they welcome him into their embrace, the wind murmuring of the mundane affairs of the mortals bestowed with the power of the all-ruling [System] that they are at the mercy of. People talk, whether in a nervous fit or even out of sheer boredom, and the forest holds no loyalty for these [Users] that carry too much arrogance, the whispered stories of marital fights and working blues startling the occasional laugh out of him. He is, for all intents and purposes, at peace with how his days go by, but his shoulders, still, sag with an unspoken weight.
After dozens of millennia of isolation, forgotten by the masses and his existence lost in the sea of his father's many other children, loneliness is his only companion. It stays with him during the blinding light of the day, huddled with him in the shadows, and it stays with him while he gazes at the constellations of stars twinkling in the sky like celestial diamonds. Wistfully, he wishes upon the stars that loneliness will no longer have to trail after him like a loyal dog. He holds no illusions that it'll come true despite the small hope resting in his heart, resigned to the mundanity of his life as he is, but perhaps his uncle in the skies takes pity upon him—he gets his wish granted not even a week later.
Stars fall into his unsuspecting lap. They are mortals, fragile in the way that even a weak minor god like him isn't, but the way their souls shine in infinite potential, a kaleidoscope of brilliant colours dancing in his awestruck gaze like solar flares... He cannot label them in any other way.
He meets Yeonhong.