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There are two parkour pros in the training grounds. That in and of itself is unusual, but even more unusual is the fact they are lying in the grass, stationary, not parkouring. The two of them are facing each other with two hands intertwined, simply existing side by side. One tucks a strand of hair behind the other’s ear, they both smile.
Evbo turns away abruptly when they shift to be closer, their faces inches apart and- wow ok he doesn’t know why but this feels like something he does not want to see. He doesn’t stay long enough to witness the two parkour pros press a chaste kiss to each other’s lips. They fall asleep like that, content.
Evbo can’t stop thinking about the two pros. About the training grounds.
The next day, a parkour pro will take his ticket from the previous day to go practice. He will find the training grounds different than it was. New saplings are peppered between the grown oaks, these hues of browns and green alien to him. Tiny stalks, flowers not yet in bloom, surround him completely.
This parkour pro will find a flower, the tiniest pink speck in a sea of green. He will pick it, admire it, and weave it into his hair.
When a new daily task is decreed by Parkour God, tending to the saplings and flowers in the training grounds, most parkour pros are in love with the idea until they realize they cannot take their work time to practice. The first pro to receive the task complains, and another will come up to him, offering to trade.
This parkour pro will continue to do so. Day after day. Until it is only right that he be the one that tends to the training grounds.
It is only right that he be the Gardener.
***
Evbo finds himself coming back to the training grounds, though there is no more flora he can add. He finds more parkour pros each time he does. Today the pros have set up some tables with stairs and slabs where they eat and chat with one another. Some others have laid out sheets on the grass.
At one big table, six slabs lined up, Evbo can see… wood chips?
Eight parkour pros sit at the table, and each one has a pile of wood chips before them. In their hands they hold slips of paper with writing. Evbo watches in confusion as the pro sitting at the head of the table flips over some more pieces of paper on the table to reveal more writing, followed by a different pro immediately shoving all their wood chips towards the centre of the table. The pro next to them stared straight ahead, then shoved their chips in too.
The pro at the head of the table flipped over the last card. The pro that pushed their chips second stared, stood up, and walked out of the training grounds. Their leave was followed by the first pro throwing their hands in the air with a manic grin, grabbing all the chips from the centre of the table.
Evbo scratched his head. He’s pretty sure the parkour pros are having fun, so he’ll mark the improved training grounds a resounding success!
With his invisibility wearing off, Evbo inputs the command to return to the top of Parkour Civilization. Now alone, he thinks, and starts to wonder. Eventually he summons his champion, and gives EMF an entire inventory’s worth of grass, flowers, and saplings. The parkour champion looks up at his god, eyes asking, ‘what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?’
Evbo describes the training grounds, describes how it is now, lively and happy and safe. He tells EMF to make that, but on the master level. Then EMF is shooed back down from the clouds, and he feels very confused. His god has given him a task, but he has no clue how to make it happen.
EMF makes his way to the parkour temple. Makes his way down to the pro level. Makes his way to the training grounds.
He promptly challenges someone to a parkour battle. Seawatt.
Seawatt, ever the coward, finds a way out of battling.
“Hey hey hey c’mon, I’m just a parkour pro! Are you really going to battle a pro.”
“You were a-“
“Yes! Were, now do you really want the masters to talk about how you challenged a pro, again?” Seawatt hissed, making too much sense for EMF to resist battling him.
“Besides, we’re both here for the same reason, aren’t we? Evbo wants us to be his errand boys-“
EMF surged forward, jumping forward into the training grounds, “Do not speak ill of him!”
EMF’s fist connected with Seawatt’s jaw, and they were both silenced as Seawatt landed on the grass. EMF’s knuckles, they hurt. Seawatt’s jaw, it hurt like hell. That, this, this pain, they’d never experienced something like this before, not from someone’s hands.
Seawatt squawked and scrambled to stand up when EMF raised his fist again.
“Fucking hell, fine! I’m sorry, I won’t complain about making some bullshit training ground on the noob level- DON’T TRY AND HIT ME AGAIN”
Their squabble turned into them rolling and tumbling around the grass, pulling and slapping and hitting everything they could reach. Seawatt bit down on EMF’s arms, realized there was liquid inside that tasted really fucking weird but also really fucking good and how does he make EMF bleed even more. EMF yanked on Seawatt’s hair, hit him square in his right eye, and Seawatt let go of his arm to scream about how he was going to rip EMF in half.
EMF’s heart skipped a beat out of fear. Definitely nothing else. There, was there something else?
They were both interrupted by someone’s voice interrupting them.
“What’d you come to the meadow for? Need help with anything?”
Seawatt looked away from EMF, from the bright red blooming on his black skin. Seawatt blinked, found his right eye could not blink, and looked up at the parkour pro who he recognized as the Gardener. He had a lot more flowers in his hair.
EMF said they were sent by Parkour God to make more of these ‘meadows’ on the other levels. Seawatt then stood on shaking legs, and looked at the Gardener like his right eye wasn’t swollen shut, “You made this whole place, right? Why not make some more on the noob level, spread some flowers, yeah?”
Any protest that EMF could muster was instantly swallowed by Seawatt turning to him. His right eye was as purple as his hair, which was tangled and twisted and tied into so many knots, and his clothes were covered in green grass stains. EMF wondered if he looked that beautiful right now.
After the Gardener finishes on the meadows on the noob level, and finishes training a Gardener on the noob level, he returns to the pro level to find EMF waiting for him. The parkour champion offers the lowly pro training lessons, offers to help him become a master, and the pro accepts. He reconsiders his choice when he realizes Seawatt will be attending to. It’s not that he has anything against Seawatt, he just, uh, really doesn’t wanna be around when he and EMF try to kill each ofher
One week later, EMF will kneel before Evbo, and declare that it is done! Evbo will look up from his commands, and scream when he sees EMF.
“OH HOLY FUCK WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU????”
“Oh, my appearance? I’ve indulged in a new pastime with Seawatt! Would you care to join us, my God?”
Evbo satiates his curiosity once, and promptly leaves when he sees the way EMF and Seawatt stare at each other after they’re both beaten and bloodied. He still looks back, just in time to see Seawatt lean down to press his and EMF’s lips together. He, well, he doesn’t look back again. That doesn’t stop him from noticing how EMF walks with a limp for the next week.
People stop referring to them as Seawatt and EMF. People call them something else, the fighters. They come to be known as the lovers too, when their fights become too loud to be contained in their home. Evbo can’t look either of them in the eye when they come to him, asking for a blessing.
They want a baby.
Evbo gives them one, then tells them to please keep it down. He can hear it all the way from up here.
EMF looks ashamed. Seawatt looks like he’s just been challenged to a parkour battle.
Eventually, after realizing EMF and Seawatt have inspired people to take on their lovers moniker, Evbo makes a decision. Anyone can make their own children, so please stop coming to him and begging for one! He really, really does not want to see any more of his people like… that.
They stop calling him Parkour God one day.
These days, they simply call him God.
***
One day, a young man will sit his tearful parents down, and admit what they already know.
“Mom, dad, I want to do parkour full time.”
When those same parents pray to God to make their wayward son return to them, to deliver him from the hands of parkour, God will grumble, ‘what the hell is wrong with parkour? You’re literally praying to Parkour God!’
God will not listen to their prayers. Instead, when that young man hits a flip off the fourth story of a parking garage, he’ll do the sickest 360* in recent memory. That young man will never shake the feeling that someone else was walking in his feet, but that same feeling will immediately be assuaged.
It is he who worked, and trained, and fell flat on his face many times to become as good as he is. It is he alone who learned how back flip and front flip and made himself a fool for the last decade of his life. It is for his effort alone that he’ll wake up and find diamond boots waiting for him.
Gifts from the Father.