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“Shall we begin? The twilight of the gods–Ragnarök.”
That little bitch.
Summoner Keera stomped to her room in blind anger, those words echoing in her head. After the proclamation of Ragnarök's beginning, the Order was warped back to their base in Askr. Presumably to prepare for-
“...the winter of annihilation.” Keera threw open her door and saw the barefoot boy in white Ásgarðr garb floating nearby. This one had piercing red eyes and a copper glass-like halo above his head. There was another. He had golden eyes, kicking his feet while he lounged in a chair. Her lounge chair.
Keera’s anger spiked.
“...Get out. Get out now.” Keera hissed with barely restrained fury. She unholstered the Breidablik from her belt and pointed it at the Runes. Both Creators smiled, amused at the Summoner’s paltry threat. Keera knew her Breidablik was infused with the strength to banish gods, but against the Creator, Keera knew it was useless. Still… “Did you hear me?! I said get out! Don’t you-”
“Keera… How could you say such things?” The gold-eyed Rune pleaded. His smile dropped to a frown that made Keera’s fury melt. His voice was so full of anguish and innocent pain the Summoner wanted to scoop him up and pat him on the head.
Keera’s grip on Breidablik tightened.
“Stop that. Don’t even try it.” Keera growled. Her finger laid onto Breidablik’s trigger, preparing to fire. “I know who you are, demon. How dare you barge in, nonchalant after… EVERYTHING you’ve done?!”
“Oh, Keera. You’re accusing me of such terrible things!” The scarlet-eyed Rune floated closer to Keera, lining his adorable face right up to Breidablik’s barrel. One shot, and Keera could blast this Creator’s stupid head off. “After all we’ve gone through, is that how you treat a friend?”
“You are NO friend!” Keera squeezed the trigger, but before any magical blast could fly out, the gold-eyed Rune waved his hand. Breidablik faded out of Keera’s hand instantly. “What?!”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. A Creator destroys as easily as he creates. You’re smarter than that, Keera.” The red-eyed Rune mocked, smirking. He floated up to eye level of the stunned Keera, studying her bewildered expression. “You’re so fascinating, Keera. I thought it was fun bringing someone from the World of Steel and molding them into an incredible hero. You fulfilled every single expectation.”
“I thought you were going to die several times!” The gold-eyed Rune piped up. He put his elbows onto his knees, watching Keera with a charming smile. “When Princess Veronica cornered you in the World of Radiance, we thought your story was about to end prematurely.”
“Yet you survived. You continued to succeed against all odds.” The red-eyed Rune agreed. Keera was too stunned at Breidablik’s destruction to even notice a magical force moving her into her room. Keera’s door slammed behind her, shaking the Summoner out of her stupor.
“What’s this all to you? Some sort of game or story for your amusement?” Keera asked.
“YES!” Both Runes exclaimed at once. “This is an epic saga of legendary heroes, mythic gods, and humanity ascending to new heights! It’s all so exciting!”
“Don’t you know how boring life is as a Creator?” The red-eyed Rune asked. He floated towards Keera’s desk by the corner window, where several thick tomes rested on nearby bookshelves. He pulled a random one off the shelf and carelessly weaved through it. “Molding worlds, races and lives… It’s fun and all for a couple millenia.”
“But it’s so boring without conflict!” The gold-eyed Rune jumped off Keera’s chair, sauntering over to the alternate Rune. Keera’s legs were wobbly and frozen. She couldn’t move, only watch and talk with the two Creators. The gold-eyed Rune plucked the tome out of the red-eyed Rune’s hands. In an instant, the dusty green tome dissolved into golden light, before reforming into a crimson red tome. “Tales without suffering? What do we make characters for, if not to watch them overcome great adversity?”
“That’s what makes life interesting. The throes of conflict. The perfect peace is stagnant.” The red-eyed Rune agreed. He took the red book from the alternate Rune, shelving it into Keera’s bookshelf. “You should thank us, Keera.”
“Thank you?!” Keera spluttered. Her rage returned after Rune’s absurd proclamation. “You made Surtr burn Princess Gunnthra alive! You made Hel kill Princess Eir over and over again! You made Fafnir go insane from the Dvergar Crown!”
“YOU CALL THAT INTERESTING?!” Keera screamed. She launched herself towards the two Runes and slammed her fist into the gold Rune’s head. Rune crumbled to the ground, clutching his face. “Our fates are NOT yours to toy with! You ruined so many lives all for… entertainment?!”
“Hee, hee. Hee, hee, hee…” The gold-eyed Rune rose, uncovering his face. He had a bloody nose, but he wore a delighted grin. “Wonderful! This is exactly what I’m looking for! I should’ve joined in earlier!”
“This rush of adrenaline… The rattling of my skull…” The red-eyed Rune gazed into his little palms. “And the pounding of my heart… It’s euphoric!”
“This is what suffering feels like! The pain of humanity!” The gold-eyed Rune agreed. Keera was tempted to punch Rune again, but she stayed her fist. Rune’s bloody nose trailed down onto his teeth, staining his mouth sanguine. “Ah… It’s been so long since I felt this. I’ve distanced myself from the mortal plane for so long, pain is a forgotten feeling. Thank you, Keera!”
“You… Don’t you… This is not-” The Summoner spluttered, her mind in a jumble. She wanted to pound Rune’s head into paste, to make him experience the true suffering of humans. But it only seemed to amuse the Creator like candy. Keera decided to speak instead. “Do you feel nothing? Innocent lives are being destroyed just for your fun!”
“I feel plenty, Keera. You just punched me right now.” The gold-eyed Rune smirked at Keera. A fresh stream of blood trickled down Rune’s nostril, painting the boy’s face crimson. “It felt incredible. Watching you fight felt incredible. I feel everything.”
“That’s not what I mean, damn it!”
“Come on, Keera. Are we really having this conversation?” The red-eyed Rune leaned on Keera’s shoulder, bored. The Summoner wanted to shove him off. “You’re the one pulling Heroes from their lives and putting them into an endless war. And you’re accusing us of destroying innocents?”
“That is all your fault, and you know it!” Keera was disgusted. Her Creator treated everyone’s lives like putty. She didn’t know whether to retch, laugh or cry. “You pulled me here to participate in the war YOU created! This is all you!”
“Okay, okay. Bad example.” The gold-eyed Rune wiped his nose with his sleeve before strolling back to the center of the room. He tapped his chin with his finger thoughtfully. “Think about it this way, Keera: how does an author view the characters they create?”
“We know you like writing. You are a lot like us in that way.” The red-eyed Rune brushed their finger against a paper on Keera’s desk. The ink from the Summoner’s latest entry dried in the sunlight. “Tell us. We want to know.”
“They… they’re not real. They don’t feel anything.” Keera forced out. She stared at the parchment Rune was tapping. It was true–Keera was writing stories about people in the World of Steel to remind her of home. She wrote stories of a girl living a normal university life, not the wartorn world Keera was in. “Even if they did, the suffering they feel is nothing compared to what you’re doing here!”
“Suffering is still suffering.” The gold-eyed Rune responded casually. He spun in a circle before settling back down into Keera’s chair. So daintily that Keera boiled over from how casually he was treating this. “And how do you know they feel nothing?”
“You have no way of knowing. You are a creator, but not omniscient.” The red Rune added. “Does it make you feel better to have your creations suffer, knowing they feel nothing?”
“I…” Keera had no words. The Runes both faced her and nodded.
“You understand us now.” Both Runes spoke together. Their sweet voices that Keera used to adore spoke softly in resonance, almost out of pity. “To a Creator, everyone is nothing more than a character on a page. The lowliest rabbit to the mightiest god… they are all the same to us.”
“We created Surtr to herald the end of the world.” The gold Rune continued. Keera glanced over to see him open his palm, summoning a ghostly vestige of the King of Muspell that terrorized Nifl and beyond. Compared to the giant Keera knew, this one was tiny in Rune’s palm. He opened his other palm to reveal a purple vestige with a massive scythe. “We created Hel to transform Zenith into a land of the dead.”
“We created Freyja to trap every mortal in their dreams.” The red Rune was sitting on top of Keera’s wooden desk chair. His weight wasn’t even tipping it back. He opened his left palm to summon a white vestige of a glorious goat. “We created Eitri to test the limits of your summoning capability.”
Another spirit appeared in the red Rune’s right palm. A black vestige of a witch riding a massive rifle. All dangerous adversaries that threatened the fates of entire realms. Mere putty in the Creator’s hands.
“Embla, to test the faith in your patron god, and your relationship with Princess Veronica.” A grey vestige of Embla’s demonic bat form appeared behind the gold Rune.
“Gullveig, to test your resilience against a foe unbound by time.” A gold vestige of the serpent-consumed seer appeared behind the red Rune.
“Læraðr, to test trust against someone who can control hearts.” A brown vestige of a tree bearing Yggdrasil’s bark appeared behind the gold Rune.
“And finally…” The red Rune exhaled with satisfaction. “Our most powerful creation yet. Alfaðör, the king of heaven. To test your resolve against the might of the gods.”
A white vestige of an aged man in his mechanical chair wielding a heavenly spear thrice as tall as he was. The man Keera and her companions struck down mere hours ago. Here again with the Creator’s power. It hovered behind the gold Rune with the other vestiges.
“All of them, and you…” The gold Rune closed his eyes with a light smile. Blood still dripped from his bleeding nose, staining his white robes and Keera’s lounge chair with godly blood.
“Mere characters. Erased and recreated on a whim.”
Rune’s hands closed and all the vestiges disappeared into sparkles of golden light. The gold Rune put his free hands on the armrests before lifting himself off again. He walked up to the stunned Keera standing in the center of the room. He barely reached hip length with the Summoner, yet was responsible for everything. Gold Rune looked up to Keera, the blood on his face drying already.
“I am a Creator who knows my characters suffer. I know that such suffering builds resilience. I’ve seen it firsthand.” The gold Rune spoke. “I created humans to be the weakest race in the Nine Realms. Yet you have prevailed and grew truly strong because of the trials I designed.”
“Again, Keera…” The red Rune said, his feet carelessly swaying atop Keera’s desk chair. “...You should thank us. We made you strong, adored, relied upon, validated.”
“Happy.” Gold Rune continued. His gaze was unbroken with Keera’s own. The innocent, adorable boy Keera grew to love like a son carried the blood of thousands on his dainty hands. “Everything you ever wanted.”
“Even at the expense of millions of innocent lives?” Keera whispered, barely audible to even herself. “Askr, Embla, Nifl, Muspell, Ymir, Niðavellir… They all paid for this. They did nothing wrong.”
“You humans can always make more. A couple million lives to uplift your race-”
“That doesn’t make our individual suffering irrelevant!” Keera snapped and this time, her resolve truly broke. Tears began welling up in her eyes and her legs wobbled. She fell to her knees on her carpet, her voice strained by both agony and rage. “I don’t care what you did for me! I don’t care that you see all of us as playthings! We are people and we deserve better than your mockery of our lives!”
“Go ahead! Write me out of your stupid story for all I care!” Keera raved between sobs. Her vision was clouded by tears, the betrayal of Rune freshly stinging like hot knives. “Or don’t! We’re all just being played by you, aren’t we?! All our victories, the peace we won… none of it mattered because YOU decided it!”
“So do it! Bring Ragnarök upon us! Whether we win or lose is all up to you, isn’t it?!” Keera cried. The Runes watched her with impassive amusement. Keera swung her fist again to smash Rune’s cheek, but her hand phased through gold Rune’s body without harm. “Nothing we do matters! When I shoot myself with the Breidablik, it’ll be your decision, right?!”
“...Such is the task of the Creator.” Both Runes answered.
“Aah… AAAAGGHHH!!!” Keera clutched both hands to her head. Nothing mattered. Everything the Order did was meaningless. The Summoner’s entire life was orchestrated. All of their victories were hollow. One boy decided it. One God held everyone's fates in his hands. Keera was nothing more than another puppet dancing on his strings.
Keera broke.
Broke from knowledge she was not meant to know.
Broke from the revelation she was never meant to hear.
Broke from the answer the Creator gave her.
Keera’s vision began to fade as her heartbeat slowed. Rune’s two pairs of eyes gazed down on her. Thump, thump, thump…
Three heartbeats in five seconds.
Two heartbeats in seven seconds.
One heartbeat in ten seconds.
And then, nothing at all.
—
“Ah… I did not expect that.” One voice said amidst the fleeting moments of lucidity.
“We can always make another, right?” A second voice responded.
Keera’s eyes closed.