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You were born a god.
Unlike the others, when you first opened your eyes, stars flickered under your lashes and the world held its breath. The seas paused, the magic in the air stopped its cackle, and you drew in a breath of iron and half-dead air, and you exhaled curiosity through sharp teeth.
Save the jokes, but you were born in a library. It was small when you came into the world, barely the size of a human dwelling. The books were few and far between and none of far-reaching knowledge. Few visited for few could read, so dust settled on the ground and in between the pages of each book. But you were not born from this.
A child sits on the windowsill. A human, something you would come to learn were [REDACTED]. The small thing has opened the window, a broken piece of glass jutting towards her head as she turns to look at you. There is blood over her fingers and around her mouth, a small organ, identifiable to you, hangs from her lips. A bird has flown into the closed window and died, and curious fingers have dug into the body and pulled out the still-twitching pieces. It slaps against her chin with a wet slop as her mouth hangs open and the taste of blood lingers on her tongue.
You bare sharp teeth and your jaw cracks into a smile too big for your face, and the child screams. The bird is left behind as she flees and you stand on unsteady, new legs. It is with this killing, sick curiosity that you watch the child flew around the corner and think: what would you look like as you bleed?
The library that serves as your shrine grows enormous. It grows as you stay in it, as you feed off the knowledge in the books. Some are clearly fairytales for they speak of gods you know do not exist. You are not sure why you know it. But these tales are the foundations of your knowledge of the people that meander around your place of worship. Humans wish to be heroes, for they embark on dangerous quests and face beings beyond their comprehension and rewrite history books to pretend they were in the right. Rickety wooden shelves become gold with dozens of small, mousey little humans who scurry around and remove the dust. They think anything less than a shining shelf will anger you. It makes you laugh, and you make a game of scaring the maids as they come in and out. Poor little mice. What a lark!
After a while, they begin to call it the Library of Alexandria so you adopt that name, too. You spend years there, reading about the other gods you know to be real, but you never meet them. The occasional brave soul will venture in and ask you for the truth. They are never satisfied with your answer. Their lips turn down, their fists clench. Some become angry and some weep. It is beyond your understanding and so, your first Truth is this: mortals indeed are strange. You stick your nose in the books, you look out the windows and watch your priests bow to you on the steps. You lay in the rafters and no one comes to visit without wanting something and this, you find, is your second Truth. You begin to kill those with too much arrogance and not enough reason to be in your presence. You begin to feel like a god, and then this place feels too small.
So, you burn the library down.
You rise above the mutiny on your streets, placing your form on a cloud and kicking your materialized legs as your followers stab at each other. They hurl insults as the flames lick the pages of books you’ve long since memorized, the smoke piling up against your clouds and staining them a dark, foreboding black. They argue below you whether you are a god of chaos or a god of knowledge and you laugh and know that both are wrong. Some want to storm in and take a sword to your form to see if you will bleed. You admire this kind of human curiosity so you drop to the ground and let them try. The sword parts your dress and your magic pours out, stationary and spinning. Gold and silver, flesh and blood.
You laugh and take their heads off. Their question has been satisfied so what else is the point to their lives?
You jump to the rooftop shingles, cackling at the humans beneath you. You leave bloody footprints on the roofs of their cathedrals and watch in interest as white priest robes are thrown to the ground, stained red.
[REDACTED]. He bleeds for these humans? Amusing! Incredible! Nothing less! What is a god who cries for humanity?
You dance and red raindrops splash from his hands onto the top of your head and trickle down your face. You taste his blood and it feels no different than the mortals’.
The Truth is this: you are set in your ways. In mere human months from now, you will draw a sigil out of Yeshua’s never-drying, always weeping blood on your lips and a human will copy it. You will destroy a town with it and the survivors will follow in your footsteps like lost little ducklings. She is benevolent, they say. She is evil. they say, in equal measure. You don’t know which one of these is True because in ways, they both are.
The Truth of you: you were never kind. Humans die in your wake so you can see how their internal structures change over time. You laugh as [REDACTED] weeps over the loss of a kingdom you have ruined and turns to you, eyes blazing fire. You let him absorb the spirits of all those you’ve left to their end. You sit in mages’ and blacksmiths’ minds; you whisper to them and their work does not cease until their eyes are bloodshot and their hands tremble, until each mage is filled with rage, until each blacksmith has made a thousand weapons. Even without your prodding, humans will make war. [REDACTED]
“You were meant to be benevolent. What Truth is there in war?” he asks.
“War is entertainment!” you proclaim, arms wide. “The humans find it themselves. With enough weapons, they will make war all on their own.”
“And if you push them? Are you not responsible?” he demands. You giggle- you saw him yesterday push away [REFACTED] with mismatched ears that do not belong to him. What an experiment- the degradation of a god!
“That is a matter of perspective.” you grin wide and he lunges for you.
° x °
Eventually, you tire of conflicts. They all start the same and end the same, and you prop your chin on your head as a Queen squeals while she is executed. The people cheer as her head rolls and nothing ever changes. [REDACTED] You Know this.
Robwyn approaches you from behind. You think they Know this, too.
Their hands twitch as though they long to pluck strings. [REDACTED]
What an experiment- [REDACTED]-the death of a god.
The Truth of the world is this: you do not understand it.
You are incapable of change.
You are violent and you play with people’s lives because they mean nothing to you. The end of the world sparked because you did not care.
You die, but not fully.
You live, but not really.
The TRUTH of YOU is this: you participate in the greatest experiment in the world. What is greater than a god than a being that can create one?
You stare down at Lierin in fascination as their small fingers curl around the barely-tangible form you can still keep up. You wonder if this is how mortal mothers feel as your heart skips with every nudge and movement. You curl the edge of a ratty little blanket around Lierin’s toes and lean down to promise them the world.
You cannot help your nature but you Know they will be what you cannot. You kiss their forehead and your blessing sticks.
It is the first one you have ever given out.