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Lightning flashes menacingly overhead, accompanied by a loud thundercrack not far behind. Rain pelts the parched ground, raising a cacophony that’s quickly swallowed by the desperate soil and browning grass. Ducking under the cover of the first building-like structure you come across, you lean against a cracked limestone pillar and look out into the darkness. Through the haze, you see nothing but a pitch-black void. You hear nothing except the hiss of the rain and a steady dripping from somewhere nearby. Drawing in ragged breaths, you wait. For how long, you have no idea; your heart's pounding too loudly in your ears for you to count. But when nothing leaps at you from the darkness, when you don’t wind up with a sword to your throat, all you can do is assume it’s safe.
Then again, Bro would probably be waiting for this exact moment. Your next best hope is that he doesn’t give enough of a shit to chase you anymore.
You’re soaked through, but you still try to shake some of the water off your cloak. Shirking your pack, you start rummaging through it, grateful to find that the oiled leather protected its contents. You don’t have much, but it will have to do, since it was all you could grab before you fled in the time it took for your brother to get back from hunting. You extract a stubby travel candle and a tinderbox, sitting yourself on the cracked and dusty tile floor as you try to light it. It takes a few tries, and you curse to yourself, but eventually, the wick catches and casts a dim golden light around you. Gathering yourself up, you start to look for somewhere to bunk down for the night, and hope that the storm will be gone by tomorrow.
From where you stand in the portico, a colonnade stretches out to either side, encircling a vast, dark area. The rain is falling here, too; some kind of courtyard, you guess. You make your way down one side of the structure, shielding your candle from the wind and the rain that blow between the columns. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear it was changing directions just to spite you, just to try and get around your protective hand.
When you come to the end of the colonnade, it opens into a wide, high-ceilinged cella. Your candle doesn’t even come close to touching the upper reaches, seeming like it must go up forever. At least you’re out of the rain and sheltered from the wind. As you wend your way between the columns, you startle. Out of the corner of you eye, you spot movement, and wheel on it, ready to draw your sword.
It’s just your shadow.
You’re always so high-strung, chill out, Bro’s voice rings in your head, and unfortunately, he’s right this time. He’s not even here, and he’s right.
Towards the back of the space is an apsis, and from the sound and the way your candlelight glints off the semicircular dome, you gather that it must be made of glass. Below it, you can barely make out a band of mosaic, each facet reflecting your candle, even when you can’t figure out the shapes. What you can see, it makes you think of movement and freedom. Isn’t that a nice thought?
The altar that is the focal point of this space explains where you are. This far into the cella, the altar is largely untouched by the elements, but is covered in a fine layer of dust, with the limestone starting to discolor. You can still read the inscription, though, and hold your candle closer as your fingers brush over the weathered engraving:
"Go where the wind calls. Stay where the wind rests. All who pass are honored guests. This is the house of the Breeze, first among wanderers."
The Breeze… the god of the wind and sky. No wonder this place is abandoned; supposedly, their god disappeared over three decades ago, before your time, before Bro’s time, even. You’ve never been especially devout, or much of a believer at all, but if there’s any god you’d need right now, it would be this one.
Setting your pack on the ground, you start rummaging through it. You didn’t have much of a chance to grab personal items, but you did snatch two: an old, bleached crow skull, and a crow feather, rumpled but still intact. You don’t think the Breeze would want a dead bird, but the feather you found presumably was shed from a live one. It’ll have to do.
Stepping up to the altar, you place the feather in the offering bowl and kneel, bowing your head reverently. You have no idea what you’re doing. You’re probably doing it wrong, and you just have to hope it invites mockery and not wrath from any deities listening.
“O, God of the Wind, protector of travelers, please… uh… I mean, I come to you to honor your name.” You’re talking to yourself in an empty building. You feel like a fool. “Please accept my humble offering and… I dunno, do the protecty thing?”
You groan, sitting back on your heels as your head falls back and you stare into the void above. “This is so fucking stupid. I don’t know if anyone is out there listening, but if they are… please, just. Tell me what I need to do. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stay here.”
The only response you get is your candle sputtering out, and you curse loudly. You should have checked the wick before you left. Not that you had time. Now plunged into total darkness, you're left to start groping around, trying to find your candle to relight it, provided you can find the tinderbox, too. You're feeling around on the altar when your hand finds something warm and squishy… and decidedly bigger than a candle. That is not your candle. With a yelp, you fall backwards, saved only by the cushion of your pack. You hear something within it crack and don't even have time to think about it.
Two braziers flanking the altar flare to life all on their own, and the feather you placed in the bowl is no longer there, but in the palm of a boy who stands barefoot on the altar and looks at it curiously. He's draped in gauzy, shimmery fabric, a variety of whites and soft blues that shift with an iridescent sheen in the flickering firelight. There's no real rhyme or reason to the draping, and they fall all the way to the ground behind him. He looks about your age, with dark, messed-up hair that makes it look like he's never known a brush a single day in his life, and wide blue eyes that aptly take your breath away.
"What's this for?" he asks, as if he didn't just appear and magically light two fires from long-dead ashes.
"Uh. It's… a gift? For the wind god?" You're getting the impression that there's a reason this boy is here, looking like he does, but it's too much, too ludicrous to be believed.
"Oh, cool! Thanks!" He tucks the feather behind his ear, where it blends into his dark mop, before he hops down from the altar, and you think you can actually see the shimmer of eddies he leaves behind. "I didn't bring you anything, though. Sorry?"
"S'okay," you mutter on reflex, and start to right yourself. The braziers cast considerably more light, and you can see how high the arcades stretch above you, which is pretty high, but thankfully not infinite. And you can see the mosaic now, and the birds and figures it depicts, all flocking to one central figure made of a swirling of blue. "So. Uh. What… brings you here?"
"Technically, you did," the boy-and-possible-god says with a shrug, as he sits on the floor across from you. "You leave for like, ten minutes, and everyone thinks you're gone forever!"
You are so not prepared for this interaction, and you swallow hard. He looks fairly unassuming, but who knows with gods? "It's… been more than ten minutes, bro. More like thirty years."
"Ugh, close enough!" he huffs, throwing a hand in the air. "You mortals are all so hung up on time. Ten minutes, thirty years, what's the difference?"
"About 262,974 hours," you respond after a brief moment to think it through. "Or 15,778,440 minutes. Give or take 10."
The wind god stares at you for a solid few seconds, during which you're sure you're about to be smited. Then he throws back his head and laughs, loud and bright and from deep in his chest. "Oh man! Okay, you got me, that's pretty funny! I don't even know if it's right."
It is. You don't say that, though. "Uh, thanks?"
"Heheh, yeah," he says once he calms a bit, inhaling deeply. "Hey. So what's your name, anyway?"
"…Dave. It's Dave," you say, fighting past your normal hesitation. You did kind of invade his temple, so you owe him an introduction.
"Nice to meet you, Dave!" He holds out his hand, and you take it. His touch is surprisingly cold, but not in an unpleasant way. More like a spring breeze when the snow starts melting.
There's a long silence where he stares at you, smiling blithely, and you're lost, too many thoughts trying to cycle through your head, all vying for attention first.
"Okay," you finally say, which is pretty unintelligent, but you could come up with something much stupider if you tried. "What… should I call you? Do you even have a name-name?"
"Not really?" he says, brow furrowing in thought. "Most people call me the Breeze, or something dumb like, our lord of the skies. It's so boring and stuffy. I wish I had a normal mortal name."
"Why don't you pick one then?" you ask automatically, before you can think better of it.
"I can do that?" His eyes widen, and he leans forward. "How?"
Oh boy. This is… weird. Really weird. It's not bad, but it is bizarre. His face is so close to yours now, and it's like you can feel the divinity radiating off of him.
"Just pick one?" you reply, questioning yourself rather than answering him. "Mortals do it all the time. I mean, if you really think about it, names are just random-ass sounds that we use to communicate. We just push air out of our faceholes in different ways and just know that, hey, that particular air means a specific guy as opposed to a horse's ass. Basically the same thing sometimes, but you know what I mean."
He stifles another laugh, and you can't help feeling smug about it. Making a god laugh once is just an accident. Twice, you think, is an accomplishment. Not just a fluke.
"I don't know where to start, though!" He's pouting. Why is he so cute when he's pouting? "There are a million human names!"
The only thing you've ever named was a crow who used to come by your window. You would feed him table scraps and he would bring you shiny things. You wish you'd been able to bring those with you. The feather you offered was his, shed during molting, and you named him Tom, because you thought it was funny to give a harbinger of doom a totally mundane name.
"Want me to list some off?" You don't wait for an answer. "How about… Gary? Doug? Brian? John? Steve?"
"Oh, I like John!" the wind god— John— says with a chipper grin. "Let's go with that!"
"John, the god of wind. Sick."
That night, curled up against the stones of the temple walls, you made friends with a god of wind, and changed the trajectory of your life in ways that you could never hope to anticipate.
✼ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ✼
The sun sets over the lively riverside town, casting it in golds and pinks, as tuxedos and gowns begin to gather on the street outside the merchant guild's assembly hall. The place has been done up with all sorts of glittery garlands and pristine banners representing all the merchant groups, as waiters make their way around the growing crowd with trays of champagne flutes. You're cast in shadow as you huddle in an alleyway, obscured from view by two walls to either side, and some awkwardly stacked crates that block the view from the street. It would be totally fine, if the breeze stopped messing up your hair and flipping your collar. The crowd gathered on the street seems utterly unruffled, meaning this localized wind storm is just doing it to get on your nerves.
That isn't paranoia, either. It's the truth.
"Dude, can you fucking chill?" you mutter under your breath. A piece of paper plasters itself against your face, kicked up by another gust, and you let out an indignant squawk. Thankfully, no seems to have heard you. But they could have. "I mean it! Don't start with me, okay? I need this."
You were thirteen years old when you first awoke the wind god. You'd fled your cruel older brother, the one who'd looked after you after your parents died, though 'looked after' is a very generous term for what he did. He made your life hell, and when you couldn't take it anymore, you struck out on your own, found yourself in an abandoned temple of the Breeze, and one offering later, found yourself face to face with an actual god.
It's been three years since then. You traveled as far from your old home as your feet would take you, and learned very quickly that the world is just about as caring as your Bro… which is to say, not at all. Your only saving grace was having a little divine intervention, and as thankful as you are to have John on your side, there are times when he can grate on your nerves. Like right now.
Another gust ruffles your shirt and kicks dust up over your boots. "Thanks bro, really helping here. If you're not gonna help, then just go."
When the wind stills, you feel a moment of relief… and then the guilt sets in. Most of the time, John is fun. And funny. And great to have around, when he shows his face. You'd venture to call him a friend, if you can ever call a deity a friend. You care about him. You worry about him. You think about him in the small hours of the night when you're alone and lonely, listening to the wind through the reeds on the riverbank.
Maybe friend isn't the word you're looking for, but you doubt anything more could come of this.
"Fuck. I'm sorry," you sigh, hesitantly. "I just wanna be able to eat for a few days without having to worry about my next job."
Something comes hurtling at your head, and without thinking, you reach up to catch it. An apple thrown by an unseen force… you wonder where John even found it. But it looks fine, so you laugh sardonically, and bite into it.
"Let me do this. Then we can fuck around all you want."
John graciously lets you finish preparing yourself in peace, and when you're ready, you make your way to the doors.
Everyone who's anyone in the merchant sphere is here tonight, but it's not just merchants. Dignitaries and politicians are in attendance too, rubbing elbows with the rest of the wealthy elites and bartering deals to their own benefit, not all of which are entirely above-board. You recognize a lot of faces, ones you've spent time getting to know. You don't like being a common thief, but you also don't feel a shred of guilt taking from any of the stuck-up dandies or dilettantes who think the world owes them simply because they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
You slip in with a nod to the doorman, and immediately start ingratiating yourself into the crowd. It's easy to fleece these suckers, once you know the right balance of lies. You have to keep it reasonable, unverifiable, and most of all, something that they can easily one-up. Because if there's one thing rich folks love more than money, it's talking about themselves.
Chandeliers glitter overhead, wine and champagne flow freely, the ensemble plays a lively waltz, and you pocket whatever you can when no one is paying attention. A brooch here, a cufflink there. They're all too busy getting tipsy to notice, and by the time they do, it's more likely that they'll think they lost whatever it is, then go replace it with three more of its kind.
You're taking a breather while deciding on your next mark when you spot a familiar face, and immediately, your blood boils. Even though you're talented at keeping your face schooled and level, heat simmers beneath the surface when you spot the man: a politician, already a ding against him, but also the kind who gets fat off the misfortune of others. The kind who makes it his life's mission to stamp out any hint of poverty in his fine city, not by supporting public works and helping people find homes and jobs, but by sweeping the slums and pushing anti-vagrance ordinances in a bid to make life impossible for those he deems unworthy.
And that is a very nice pocketwatch he just pulled out.
You edge closer, casual as anything, trying to set yourself up to be in the right spot at the right time. The chain is hanging out of his pocket, so it should be easy to slip out as soon as he's distracted. Your fingers twitch and you're just about to make a move, when you hear a shout over the crowd.
"Excuse me! You there, boy! What—"
You don't wait to hear how that sentence finishes. The politician wheels around to see you turn and flee towards the nearest exit, and after a beat of hesitation, you hear the pounding of boots on the polished marble, as scandalized gasps and shouts come from all around you. Luckily, most of these schmucks are too high off their own brand to try and stop you, but they have enough sense to make way for the guards to give chase.
You burst out into an alley, and immediately hook a right. You didn't come without an escape plan, after all, but you're panicked. You don't know what gave you away. If anything gave you away. As you vault over a stack of crates and push it over behind you, you realize a little too late that you don't even know if whoever said it was talking to you, or if they were actually about to call out your shenanigans, or if they just wanted to ask where you got your incredibly sweet jacket. It is pretty damn nice, all crimson red and velvety. You mentally curse and dodge down a side street as the guards are hot on your tail.
They follow you at every twist and turn, up every staircase, over a ledge, and through the park. You know the city well, and you're almost back in your usual territory. When you hesitate, a gust of wind pushes you in a direction. You dodge down another alley, pushing a barrel over behind you, before launching yourself at the fence at one end.
You're almost home free, when your foot slips. You lose your grip on the fence and land flat on your ass on the hard-packed dirt, as the guards manage to skirt around the barrel.
Oh fuck oh shit you're screwed, you're—
You're scrambling to your feet to make a last ditch effort at escaping, confident that you're not getting away this time, when you hear a loud flapping of fabric behind you. You pause just long enough to for a breeze to muss up your hair as a clothesline above drops all of its contents on the advancing guards. One has a ruffled pair of ladies' drawers on his head, and another is fighting for his life underneath an embroidered sheet.
By the time they manage to free themselves, you're long gone.
You're exhausted by the time you make it back to your secret hideout, a crawlspace above a tavern, long-disused and easy to slip into unnoticed. You've been camped out in here for a long while, and you thought you were being stealthy about it, until the day you found a plate of leftovers by the hatch to the kitchen. This is how cats were domesticated, you think: they learned that if they kept other pests out, the humans would feed them. You are the kitty cat now. It's you.
The food might not be hot, or fresh, or at all coherent; just a hunk of meat here, a scrap of cooked pastry there, but it's food, it's edible, and it's more than you deserve, the leech that you are. What would Bro say if he knew how you were living now? What would Bro do? That's your only solace: you might be a freeloader, but at least it's on your own terms, and there's no one shoving a sword into your hands, demanding that you earn your keep by spilling blood.
It's a nice night, so you change out of your fancy duds into your usual linen shirt and slacks, then take your spoils and your dinner up to the roof. You sit yourself on the widow's walk with a lovely view of the river and the stars, both glimmering with lights, but utterly silent from your vantage point. You chose this particular tavern because of this spot, an unusual architectural feature in the middle of the city. You figure it must have been built long ago, before the city grew up around it, and it was turned from a home into a tavern. You're not sure it matters, really, but you sometimes think about going downstairs and simply asking the proprietors, even just to have someone to talk to for a few minutes.
The wind tousles your hair and billows up under your shirt, and all you can do is laugh.
"Yeah, yeah," you mutter around a mouthful of bread. "Thanks. I totally had it handled, though."
It gusts stronger, nearly knocking the plate out of your lap where it's balanced on one knee, and threatening to send a few of the lighter baubles you managed to snatch over the edge of the roof.
"Woah! Dude, what the hell?" You set your plate down, the pewter heavy enough to stay on its own, and scrabble for the trinkets. You managed to grab one, but another goes teetering closer to the edge. "That's my fucking dinner for the next three nights!"
The shimmery cabuchon that you're expecting will fetch a good price wobbles once more, before it's reluctantly pushed back over onto the roof. You start gathering all the goodies and shoving them into a satchel, ready to abandon your rooftop perch in favor of somewhere a little more sheltered. A pair of bare feet wreathed with blue silks appears in front of you before you can abscond, and you look up.
Unfortunately for you, every time John appears to you in corporeal form, you remember just how beautiful he is, and your heart stutters. It's only gotten worse in the past year or two; you're getting older, you're starting to notice other boys, their hair, their eyes, and the way they move their bodies. And here he stands, unaware of how flawless he is, even once you get past the godly aura. His eyes are so full of wonder and joy, his smile could melt diamonds, and he still wears the feather you gave him when you first called him back to this plane of existence.
You look back down and try not to pay him any more mind, but you know that giving him the cold shoulder just forestalls whatever it is he's here to do. He sits down across from you, legs crossed and leaning forward on his elbows. He looks confused, as if he has any right.
"I thought you liked it when I visited," he says quietly, and that hesitant note in his voice grabs your heart and squeezes. "Do you want me to stop?"
"No. It's fine," you spit out… but it's not fine, and he keeps staring at you, like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. He knows you just as well as you know him. "What I want you to do is stop disappearing and then coming back to play some shitty pranks just to fuck off again."
"But it's not like—"
"Not like what?" you interrupt, the frustration of the entire evening finally coming to a head. "Not like you have to deal with how damn lonely it is when you leave, how you can just breeze in, do whatever the hell you want, and then vanish without a trace, and not have to think about the consequences?"
"Dave, you don't unders—"
"Don't tell me I don't understand!" You're trying not to raise your voice. It's hard, but you manage to keep it to a loud hiss. "I know I don't, okay? You're a god and I'm not, but being a god doesn't give you a free pass to just be a dick."
John is silent for a moment, which is new for him. It's new for you too, to blow up like that, and you shut your mouth tight like a beartrap around your own blasphemous tongue. You've gotten chummy with him, and somewhere in the back of your mind, you know it's dangerous. No matter how you feel, he's still more powerful than you can ever fathom, even if he does act like a teenage douchebag.
"I don't know how to… how to stay," John finally says, sounding so miniscule that you just want crawl into some hole and resign yourself to your fate there. "That's not what I'm for. When you reawoke me, it was because I was being reborn again. I was the wind, and then I was a patron of travelers, and now I'm a manifestion of trickery, I guess. All of that stuff is literally who I am. I'm nothing without those things."
You look up and finally meet his eyes; they're big and glassy and there's something on his face that you can't quiet pin, though you don't think it has anything to do with his divinity, and everything to do with this confusing tangle of feelings in your chest.
"That's why I keep leaving," he says softly, and you want nothing more than to gather him in your arms and hold him tight. You've touched him before, but only a brush of the hand here, or a playful shove there. Nothing quite so intimate. "But I'm always listening. And I always come back… 'cause of you."
The confession hits you like a punch to the gut and it feels like your heart is stuck in your throat.
"That doesn't help when I'm left here by myself, just trying to make it to the next day, and wondering what I did wrong," you admit, finding it both easy and incredibly hard to bare your soul to him. "I don't need you to be something you aren't. I just need you to be honest with me."
He sits with you for a long stretch, marked only by the soft ticking of a different pocket watch you successfully snatched, and the occasional muted conversation drifting up from the street below, as patrons come and go from the tavern. The wind around you goes entirely still, which is rarely the case when John is around. In that absence, you feel his shame more than words could ever express.
"I am being honest," he finally says quietly, glancing down. He nervously fiddles with some of the blue fabric of his robes, and the air between you feels charged with something indescribable, something dangerous verging on incredible. "I like you a lot, Dave. Not the way I like my followers. It's hard to explain but I…"
There's a moment where he stares into your eyes, and you know this is a turning point. And… fuck it, what do you have to lose, except the one thing that matters to you the most? You scoot closer to him, turning to press up against his side and throwing an arm around his shoulders. He looks at you bewildered, and you remember that first time you met, how close your faces were. How close they are now.
"I dunno, I think it's pretty easy," you say, voice level despite the fact that your insides are vibrating at a frequency heretofore unknown to man. "You got the hots for me, don't you?"
He blinks rapidly, and you expect him to laugh and push you away. You gave him an easy out for a reason.
What he does instead is he kisses you.
Soft and sweet as the air swells around you, your lips meet. He's cool to the touch, but not unpleasantly so, and before you know it, he's crawling into your lap, arms looped around your shoulders as if keeping you from fleeing, as if you could run from him if you tried. But you don't want to run from him. You want to hold him in your arms and kiss him back, no matter how awkward it is, given that neither of you knows what the hell you're doing. It's messy and awkward and everything you'd ever dreamed.
You could kiss him like this forever, but the night wears on, and you're exhausted from the day's exertion, plus you need to get up early to meet the fence before dawn. John follows you back down to your lair and curls up next to you on your bedroll, stealing sweet kisses with more confidence, now that he knows you'll return them. He can have all the kisses he wants, as long as he keeps coming back to you.
You don't know when you drift off to sleep, but you do know that you wake up with empty arms and a cold space next to you on the bedroll. You sigh and sit up, and as you do, from the corner of your eye you catch something fluttering away from you. Reaching over, you pick it up.
You inspect the pristine blue-gray feather, lighter at the tips and smudged with darker coloring in the middle. Turtle dove. As if on cue, you hear something just outside the hatch that leads into the crawl space from outside, a soft trilling call of purr-roo, purr-roo. You see a fluttering of wings just as soon as you nudge the hatch open, but you didn't actually need to see the bird to know.
Your eyes wander to the lightening sky, only able to see a sliver of deep blue from your vantage point. "Love you too, you goober. Come back soon, alright?"
That night, with the only being who's ever mattered to you curled up by your side, you fell in love with a god of travelers. You go about your day, unaware of the universe shifting ever so slightly.
✼ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ✼
Being in love with the Breeze, the god of wind and travelers and mischief… isn't easy. When he's gone, you spend your time wondering if he really will come back, or if he'll tire of these silly mortal excursions. When he's with you, he gets on your nerves, but endears you to him even more at the same time. He starts leaving feathers when he disappears, a silent goodbye with a language of their own, and you tuck them safely into your belongings, preserving each one.
Days turn to weeks turn to months turn to years. Your travels take you from the city by a river to a town by the sea, smaller, but still lively. You find steady work, not by stealing money, but by stealing the attention of audiences. You cultivate a style all your own, not just that of the typical tavern bard, but one of lyrical rhythm, syncopation, and a cadence that leaves most people feeling tongue-tied, and the rest wondering if the wind itself lives in your lungs.
The evening is just beginning, which means an early crowd is starting to shuffle into the tavern. You spot a woman with a shock of red hair and a smattering of freckles, two girls at each hand looking like her mirror image, and grin. Her name is Felicity, with her daughters Erin and Soleil. Sweet girls, the three of them live over the clothier a few blocks down and run the shop below. You've watched her eyes dull over the past few months, waiting for her husband to return from some business overseas, something to do with inheritance… but you think you have something to help cheer her up.
Sitting back, you clear your throat, catching the attention of patrons, including Felicity and her girls as they're seated and served tea and milk.
Winds of change came to call,
Said he loved them with all—
—his heart, but at dawn he was wrest,
From his nest,
Pulled the heart from her chest,
And set off for the coast,
With a prayer and a hope,
That he'd come back someday,
And his girls would know,
More than a ghost.
Folks breezin’ past now,
It's been months without—
—word; They don’t care, don't even think about,
What ain’t their problem, anyhow,
That she’s starting to doubt,
All she has now is a prayer and a vow,
Gotta bend with the wind,
Oh no, she can't break,
She can't lose her head,
Not with two pearls,
Their beautiful girls,
Looking up to her,
She's their whole world.
But I got wind of somethin’,
She’d really wanna know.
This ain't just a show,
My rhymes and my flow,
I got sources like crazy, bro.
So let’s wait and see
Which way the wind blows…
When the ship's sails are stowed
And dad comes waltzin’ on home.
When you finally look up from the performance, you see bright smiles on the faces of the girls, and the glassy, thankful eyes of their mother. The applause around you is muted, not out of disinterest, but out of respect, and you rest assured that your message got across loud and clear.
You play a few more songs before they leave, and when they do, you watch out of the corner of your eye as Felicity presses something into each of the girls' hands. Soleil bounds up to you, ever a ray of sunshine like her name suggests, while Erin approaches cautiously. They each hand you one silver piece, and you thank them before they run off giggling. Felicity gives you a look of gratitude, and you nod, before she takes her girls by the hands and leads them out.
You set aside the two silver coins; as generous as it is, it's still just silver, but these two are special, you decide.
Nightfall finds you ascending the old clock tower, watching as the sleepy little town shuffles off to bed. Lights flicker out one by one, with only a few lanterns left down by the docks, dockhands working late into the night to finish loading and unloading the ships. You like it up here. It's quiet… and you can feel the breeze on your face. Tonight, it ruffles your hair in a way that's intimately familiar, and you crack a smile as you feel a cool presence manifest at your side.
"So, how'd it go?" John asks slyly, his grin evident in his voice without you having to look over.
"Went pretty damn good, I'd say," you reply, bumping shoulders with him. "Now do your part and bring that guy home."
"I'm gonna!"
Without John whispering in your ear, you wouldn't be much of a prophet. But this is how you've made a name for yourself. He tells you something he's planning to do, and you immortalize it in song. When it actually comes to pass, you sound like a true visionary. They say you speak with the words of the wind, though they only think of it as a metaphor. It's anything but. You talk with John every chance you get… most of the time. Other times you just kiss him silly until you're left breathless.
"So, I was thinking," you say softly, after a long pause. "About—"
"The next 'prophecy'? Heheh, yeah!" John interrupts. "Actually I had a really good idea!"
You turn to him finally, seeing his face lit up. It's odd. You wouldn't have imagined gods age, but he looks older now. Despite that, he still has those sparkling eyes like he did when you were 13. It's hard to say no to them, so you swallow down the question that's been on the tip of your tongue.
"Aight. Let's hear it."
"Okay, so," John starts, already excited. He must have been planning this one, with how eager he sounds. "You know the Harvestlight Festival that's coming up? Where they get all those displays together and make a big deal of it? I know how much you hate showy things like that, so what if I crashed the party? And you can warn people if you want, so they'll think it's totally cool when you predict the weather!"
It takes far too long for the thought to permeate, for you to understand what John is proposing. But when you do, you frown deeply. "Dude, what? Harvestlight isn't about a bunch of stuck up nobles showing off more than they need. It the town's chance to celebrate all the hard work they put in to prepare for the winter."
John, confused at first, bristles as you reject his idea. "Wow, okay. I thought you'd be totally into it! I could just not tell you. What would you sing about then?"
You open your mouth, but realize you don't know what to say, studying his eyes for some sort of hint. He gets like this sometimes, gets frustrated and throws a little toddler tantrum worthy of a god. You can't stop him, and to a degree, you understand that it's the natural order of things. Sometimes the wind is violent. Sometimes it causes harm. But this… this feels spiteful.
"I get it," you reassure him, trying to defuse the situation. "It's just. Not this time, okay? How about we table it and come back to the idea when they hold the Winter Yeartide in the city? Now those assholes—"
"They deserve it? Because you don't like them?" John's frown deepens, and he leans away from you. "I spent a lot of time on this idea, just for you! And you know what? I'm gonna do it anyway! Sing about it if you want."
The champion of getting the last word in, John dissipates into nothing, a cold wind chilling you to the bone as he makes his exit.
That night in the belltower, you realizes just how truly complicated it is to love a god of mischief, and hope to the heavens that he listens to you for once.
❊
The day of the festival arrives, and nothing is right. The lanterns are strung up along the stalls, swaying in the breeze, as whitecaps kick up in the ocean. Boats creak against their moorings and the festival goes on as it always does. Fires are lit on the beach to ward off the chill in the air, and mid-afternoon, townsfolk start to make their way to the festivities.
You had less than two days to warn them, and you don't think it did any good.
Even though the townspeople have come to trust you, the dissonance of your warning, contrasted against your usual good tidings, or cautionary tales from lands far away, didn't have the impact you'd hoped. They weren't cruel or mean about it; the mayor thanked you when you brought it to his attention, but declared that the festival would go on as it always did. Living as they did on the coast, they were always prepared for a little inclement weather.
You hope he's right. You hope he's prepared for whatever this is about to be.
Months back, you were invited to play at the festival, background entertainment for the real stars: the stalls full of fruits, vegetables, salted meats, and jars of pickled produce, ready for the cold winter ahead. You set up closer to the surfline than not, as if your presence might somehow stop the impending storm. The air tastes metallic, and the breeze is foreboding, whistling and rustling the fabric tents as if to say this is your fault.
"John. Please. Don't," you whisper under your breath.
In response, the wind blows a nearby tent over, and the people scramble to put it back up. Still, no one seems concerned. You start playing, but you feel like the band playing on a sinking ship, your audience doomed before you strike the first chord.
You barely get through three bars when there's a crash from the other side of the beach, and you turn quickly to see that the awning over the main stage has fallen. The gusts are coming on stronger, and the waves are sending flecks of spray into the air.
Fuck this.
You abandon your spot and book it for what remains of the mainstage.
"Mister Mayor," you hail as you spot him. "I really… really think you should reconsider. The Breeze. Uh. He isn't happy with me…"
He looks bewildered for a moment, like he doesn't know what to make of that confession, then nods decisively. "I think it's a good decision to bring everyone inside, anyway. I'll start letting people know. Let others know to head to town hall… calmly, though. I don't want to start a panic."
The mayor is a kind man, and you feel bad for the way I told you so echoes through your mind. You ignore that thought and nod, heading off back to the far end of the festival to let people know they should pack it in.
By the time you get there, the storm is only intensifying, with waves crashing hard against the sands, lapping at the legs of bystanders who thought they'd be safe this far up the beach at low tide. Dark clouds have rolled in, blotting out the pleasant afternoon sun, casting the world in a sickly gray-green hue.
"Mayor wants everyone to head to town hall," you say to the folks you pass. They look confused but don't have time to ask questions as you move on. "Yeah, festival's gonna continue in there."
More of the stalls and tents have started toppling. Lanterns are snuffed, and the fires closer to the water are doused. Before you can instruct even a fraction of the townsfolk to calmly vacate, a panic does arise, and you can do little to quell it, just like you can't hope to quell the growing storm. But if there's one useful thing Bro taught you, it's composure under pressure, and you use that to start prioritizing, figuring out where you can be of greatest assistance.
Your attention turns first to an elderly couple with mobility struggles, and you dart over to them. With the help of the blacksmith, you manage to escort them off the sands and to the solid ground of the boardwalk, where the baker and her wife assist them on towards town hall. Back and forth, you help the elderly, the young, the folks who are too stubborn to leave their goods behind, and get them on their way to safety. You lose count of how many people you escort like this, as the winds grow more violent, flinging the fabric of the demolished stalls all across the beach, and scattering the smaller produce into the sand.
Two-thirds of the way down to where the waterline should be, you spot Felicity and Soleil, huddled around a tipped-over table. As you get closer, you see Erin cowering behind it, and you understand the story in an instant.
"I swear to fucking god— to some other fucking god, John," you hiss as you make your way over to them, "If you hurt this kid just because you want to have a hissyfit…"
Felicity spots you, her eyes pleading as the wind whips her hair about her face and she desperately tries to push it out of her eyes. She doesn't need to say anything for you to kneel down next to Erin, putting a hand to her damp, sandy shoulder.
"Hey kiddo," you shout over the wind, "You gotta get going, okay? I know it's scary, but you gotta be brave. Remember that song about the courageous rabbit who got lost in the forest? You gotta be like the rabbit, and hippity-hop on up to town hall with your mom, okay?"
Erin's cheeks are tear-stained as she looks up at you, but she nods minutely. You look up to Felicity with what you think is reassurance. "Get a head start, we'll be right behind you."
Frozen for a moment, Felicity snaps out of it when Soleil tugs on her hand, and the two of them start making their way to the boardwalk. You help Erin get to her feet, consider how small she is, and simply opt to scoop her into your arms. It'll be faster. It will be safer.
It was supposed to be faster.
It was supposed to be safer.
From ahead of you, you hear frantic shouting, words lost in the gale, and you turn to see a fishing boat, unmoored from a nearby dock and hurtling straight towards you. You have to think fast. You toss Erin not ahead, but to the side, out of the path of the careening boat, just in time for the keel to slam into your back.
The last thing you hear before the world goes dark is something mournfully howling your name over the wind, as loud as the storm itself, and you know that you can at least rest assured that someone will miss you, even if the god of wind and travelers and mischief has abandoned you.
❊
You float in stillness. In utter silence, nothingness ripples beneath your feet, like a calm lake reflecting a starless sky. It takes a moment for your eyes— is it your eyes?— to adjust, but before they do, you hear a voice. 'Hear' might be a generous word, though. It's more like it resonates through your being, whatever and wherever you are now.
"Awww, Dave!"
The saccharine enthusiasm of the voice-slash-thought-slash-resonance is so jarring that it brings you back to… it brings you back into yourself, at least. You still don't know where you are, but suddenly you feel more lucid, less like you're floating, and more like you're standing on solid ground. When she appears before you, it's first as a void within the void, hard to look at, but hard to look away from. The nothingness coalesces into a more recognizable form, like a painter's practiced brushstroke on a dark canvas, and she solidifies, looking decidedly human, although you know she's not.
It's so odd how when you meet her gaze, her soft pink eyes are warm and comforting. The strawberry blonde of her hair and the curve of her nose remind you of Bro in the oddest way, and you want to ask about that, even though it's clearly not the most pertinent question.
"C'mere Davey!" Before you can get a word in, she rushes forward and embraces you. She's surprisingly warm, in a sort of all-encompassing way, and it's easy to sink into her. "I've been waiting forever to meet you! Too bad this is how it happens."
You pull back, confused, brow furrowed. "Am I dead?"
"Yep! As a doornail!" she says, way too cheerfully. "Well, for now, at least."
"For… now?" Holy shit. There's so much you want to say, so many questions to ask, but before you can even try to get one out, she puts a finger to your lips.
"Shhh!" She hushes you like a teenage girl might hush a friend when their crush walks in on a choice gossip session, and it throws you even further into puzzlement. "Do you know who I am?"
You're about to say that you have no idea who she is, other than some cagey broad in the death void who won't give you a straight answer.
But you do know, an instinct buried deep within.
You know that you're in the arms of the First Goddess, the beginning of all beginnings, she who was there before everything was made, and who will be there when it's someday unmade.
"The… First Goddess? The Void?" you venture hesitantly.
"Yep! You got it!" She hugs you tighter, and you're starting to feel numb. You're not sure if that's from shock, or from having the circulation squeezed out of you. Do you even have circulation anymore? "And kinda-sorta your cosmological mom. Eh, it's weird, but it'll make sense someday."
"Cosmological mom," you repeat. "Wow. Didn't know my mom was a total bombshell."
You're lucky she laughs at your stupid commentary. "Now you know where you get your good looks and your sense of humor! For realsies, though."
At long last, she releases you and holds you back at arm's length. You don't know what to do or say. You thought meeting the god of wind would be the most impressive thing that happened in your lifetime. Or… well, you after-lifetime, too. You never gave much thought to what would happen when it was your turn to shuffle off the mortal coil.
"That little bit of divinity in you?" she asks rhetorically, as you try to stop your head from spinning. "That's me. I could tell you, like, the whole family tree, but that's kinda boring. You probably wanna get to the fun stuff!"
"Divinity? So that means I'm a—"
She shakes her head, cutting you off. "Not yet. But it's why you were chosen, and why you now have a choice in front of you."
This is all too much. You swallow, searching her face for some sort of clue, but finding nothing more than warmth and tenderness.
"Okay," you say slowly. "What are my options?"
"The essences of bravery and protection have chosen you to embody them," she says, as if that makes sense. It shouldn't. But it kind of does. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you're aware of the difference between primordial gods, like John, and the mortalborn gods, who ascend to their place by embodying their aspect. "They are ready to coalesce, but you still have a choice. You can die a mortal death and go on to your eternal rest, which is totally understandable! No one would blame you at all. Or… you can be reborn, as a new god of this world, with all the responsibilities that come with it."
The proposition stuns you. And you should stop and think about it, or ask questions, like what responsibilities you might have, what this would actually mean for you in the long term. But you already know your answer. You just have one question before you can give it.
"Will I see John again? —uh, the Breeze, I mean."
She snorts, in an incredibly ungoddesslike manner. "Duh! That's half the point! Who else is going to be brave enough to try and tame the wind?"
"Or stupid enough," you mutter to yourself. "I guess someone's gotta protect people from him going all batshit again."
"You said it, not me!" She chuckles again, more demurely this time, "Soooo… is that a yes?"
You nod, trying to find the right words, but nothing that comes to mind seems to hold the appropriate amount of gravitas. So you say the next thing that pops into your head. "Deify me, cap'n."
She laughs again, pulls you back for another hug, and kisses your forehead. You think you hear her speak as you fade back into an inky void.
"See ya later, Davey, and look after him for me! You're gonna do great!"
❊
You awaken to the sounds of waves lapping gently at the sand and someone sobbing above you. You feel… great, actually. You expected to feel like you'd been trampled by a marching band of plow horses with freshly-shod shoes, but instead you wake up like you just had a 10-hour sleep in the softest feather bed. You feel a little groggy, but physically, you're in one piece. Nothing hurts, and when you shift a little, nothing feels broken.
The gasps from all around you jerk you right back into the present, and you open your eyes to see a crowd gathered all around you, and John cradling you, half in his lap, as he sobs over what he must have thought was your dead body. Or… technically it was your dead body? You're not really clear on the specifics, and it probably doesn't make much of a difference.
The sky above is clear, the sunset casting the world in a warm golden hue. The ocean is calm, and sea birds call out as they wheel overhead. And the breeze only kicks up a notch when you shift.
"Sup," you croak, still finding your voice. You guess that the ascension didn't heal the vocal cords you overtaxed while trying to help people. "What'd I miss?"
"Dave?" John asks, incredulously. "You're… okay?"
You look into his eyes, and you feel so many things at once. That pang of affection and that sting of irritation. But something more, something comfortable pulling you towards him like a tether. You can feel his divinity more keenly now, and you can see the way the winds swirl around him in a way you only ever caught glances of before.
"Woah. I got crazy god vision now," you mutter, but then parse that you were asked a question. "Uh. Yeah. I am, apparently. I guess I did die and then this lady said that I could stay dead or I could come back if I wanted to be a god or whatever, 'cause I was chosen or something— man, I have no fucking idea. But I'm here. And I'm still pissed at you. What the fuck were you thinking?"
John's face goes through several emotions in rapid succession, from surprise, to relief, to confusion, to amusement, to contrition.
"I dunno," he says quietly, sounding just as small as he did on the night you first kissed him. "I was just so mad, and it took over. It happens sometimes, that's part of what I am. Huh. I guess you'll find out what that's like now, won't you?"
You don't need to find out, though. You realize that you understand what he means, some sort of inherent knowledge you guess. The winds might be his to control, but sometimes, they control him, because they are him. They're one and the same. It's esoteric as fuck, but… you get it.
As you sit up, you glance around at the gathered crowd, seeing familiar faces: the mayor, the blacksmith, Felicity and her daughters. You wince when you see the cut on Erin's cheek, but her eyes are so wide and she looks so thrilled that you know you made the right choice. She's alive, and she's going to have a killer scar someday. Gonna tell all her friends about it, all like, yeah, the god of protection personally saved my life.
Oh god. Oh… you. You're a god now. It still feels dizzying to think about.
You're not sure if you want to know what the overall damage to the festival and the town is just yet. You need a moment to settle into this new way of being before you start thinking about how to recover from this. Or maybe… it's not for you to recover anymore. It's for you to give the townsfolk the strength to face their grief and the shelter that they need while they rebuild what was lost, and mourn what can't be recovered.
It occurs to you then that the crowd can see John, too, just as much as they can see you. You don't know if he's ever manifested in front of so many people, but he saw that his winds hurt you, and… he must not have cared anymore.
"I think first," you say quietly, ignoring the crowd, "I wanna find out what it's like to kiss you when you can't just disappear on me. I can find you now, John, god of the wind. You can't escape me. And mom said I have to look after you."
John snorts, and you bring a hand to his cheek, leaving behind sand where your thumb brushes over his cheekbone. "You think that's funny, but wait until you find out who my mom is."
"Don't say it, you ass." Despite your protest, you coax him to turn towards you and press your foreheads together. "Can't you just let me have one goddamn romantic moment?"
"Well," John says, drawing out the word, "I guess since you came all the way back from the dead, you can have one kiss. But only one!"
That sounds like a challenge, but instead of arguing with him, you grip the back of his neck and pull him in, kissing him warm and deep and feeling something between you pull taut. A bond, forged between you, a song both of your hearts have been singing before you ever knew it, and that continues to sing in you still.
The cheering crowd around you melts away, and you sink into the arms of the god of the winds, the god of travelers, the god of mischief…
But to you, he's just John. And he always will be.
