#god!moon

Aligned with the front door is a dark curtain of blue speckled with tiny yellow stars separating a study from the rest of the building. The guard pushes you towards it. You glare back at the rudeness of your escort. Though you are still a captive, you are a famous gladiator. Your renowned skills earn you much recognition within the colosseum, and though fame does not grant you freedom, it provides you with status. Status that should keep from being treated so harshly, like a lamb led to slaughter. 

Unless that’s what you have become in such a short time. The god games are soon. Your heart cools like iron left out to crumble and crack at the thought of your patrons choosing to cast you aside for another—and forsake your chance for freedom.

A strong, steady voice speaks beyond the curtain.

“Enter, our champion.”

The guards step back in a unison beat of footsteps, standing tall and fearful of the gods they serve.

You however straighten with grizzled anticipation. You smooth down your chilton, a knee-length, short-sleeved tunic, and adjust the cloak carefully wrapped around your body. Stepping forward, you sweep the curtain aside and enter the study.

The room glitters lowly with the light filtering in from small square windows. A glow from the bronze couches, overrun with plush cushions, brightens the space. A center table piece of polished wood lies gilded in gold. The walls are finely decorated in frescoes of yellow ochre and blues so dark they’re almost black. 

Two astral beings fill the room with their radiance. You remain guarded as you bow yourself before them in reverence. Your patrons are powerful. You do not trust them.

One steps forward, his body flickering with living flames. He dons dark armor, cladded with a rich red cloak down his back. Gold chains bridge over his chest and attach to his shoulders with the rich symbol of the sun. Aptly decorated, for he is Sun.

A marking that is upon your lower back, a stamp of claim when you first became their champion, shares the symbol.

The second astral being leans against the wall, draped in shadows. Moon. You resist a shiver as his crimson, otherworldly eyes look over you with an expression you can’t read. He lingers on the scar on your face, and you nearly turn your head away in anger that he would openly gaze at the marred flesh you despise. His arms are folded, and his skin is the living flesh of the night sky, dark and deep blue, with tiny stars speckling his body. He wears gray linen, thin and climbing up his throat. A tendril not unlike a nightcap falls over his shoulder from behind his head, shimmering softly.

“Welcome,” Sun greets boldly. He gestures an open arm over the couches. “Make yourself comfortable.”

You silently pad to the bronze seat. Sitting down, you loathe how they stand over you, lording, commanding, an untouchable power radiating from their beings.

“You are stunning, our champion.” Sun steps closer, and draws his finger along the scar of your face, leaving a hot trail over the bridge of your nose. “Your physical prowess is lethal and your strategic cunning is a marvel to behold.”

You hold very still, jaw clenched and muscles pulled taut along the length of your body. The beat of your heart jumps.

“Yes?” you inquire.

Sun flashes a burning smile, his pale eyes flicking like candlelight.

“We have an offer for you.”

Moon steps forward. He studies you fiercely, eyes half-lidded before he speaks.

“Become our consort.”

You stare, struck by the astral beings. A thick haze takes over your mind.

They already claim you, a marking of a moon and sun sitting on your lower back, circled in black. You, their champion. But to become a consort would mean a fight you have never faced before. Would they use you? Bleed you dry of all your mortal love before casting you aside? Do they only care to preserve their favorite fighter?

You don’t dare lean into their silvered words. How can you?

“We are waiting for your answer, my champion.” Sun steps closer. He takes your hand and brings it to his mouth where the temperance warmth of his flames lick your knuckles. “You have never been so uncertain in battle. Why begin now?”

“If you accept, you will have freedom,” Moon rasps darkly. He slips like a shadows to your side. He gathers your other hand and drags the back of his finger down a scar that cuts the length of your forearm. “You may refuse if you wish.”

“And rot in the colosseum,” Sun punctures cheerfully. 

You shiver in equal parts fear and uncertainty.

Freedom. You could see your mother again, after all these years. She was frail before you were thrown into the gladiator fights. You have often imagined how unkind the years have been to her and your younger brother while you’ve been held away in the colosseum. How big has your brother grown? Has he moved on? Begun his own life? You hope so.

The two gods loom over you. You cannot keep them waiting.

You open your mouth, then close it, then open it again. This is not the simple task of cutting another down. This is your fate of dancing between the will of astral beings and your desires. 

Can you trust your patrons?

“I beg, my lords, for time to consider this most gracious offer,” you speak, cool and cordial, but careful.

The flames of Sun’s being flare for a heartbeat, and the heat upon your hand creeps to an unbearable degree. Moon’s hand tightens around your wrist as if to place you in shackles. Would it matter to them if a consort is willing or not?

Sun grins and releases your hand. “Very well. A day should be plenty for you to understand what a gift this is. Moon?”

“Agreed.” He sets your hand back on your lap with a rubied stare. “You may go.”

You bow again and slowly rise. Without a word, you leave their presence, their stares cutting through your spine and into your very core before the curtain falls. You breathe out.

Is freedom worth the price of becoming two gods’ consort?

Your quarters are meager, dusty pale walls with simple wooden furniture strangely strewed with lavish gifts from rich contributors and sponsors of your battles. There are letters from those you celebrate your victories and root for more bloodshed by your hand. 

If you accept being Sun’s and Moon’s consort, you are then slotted in as their champion for the god games, and winning such a battle would win you everything. Your gods’ affections, freedom, and the power to choose your fate—should your lords treat you well and properly.

You don’t believe they will simply adore you. They yearn for something. They wish to use up precious life at their whim.

But do you stay and fester, fighting until you grow older and more unbalanced, and a blade catches your heart?

What choice is there when it is between two shared fates of doom?

You do not light a lamp. You stay in the darkness and contemplate how you will answer in the morning. 

A disturbance pulls you from your brooding. Under your door, darkness shifts. Before you can reach for your weapon, a column of smoke slips into your room. It spills and twists upon itself. From it emerges a god.

Your eyes widen before you throw yourself down on your knees, and bow properly. Never had you hosted such a guest in your pitiful chambers.

“Eclipse,” you breathe.

“Do not speak,” he growls. The god holds his two sets of arms wide. His skin is dark maroon, almost colorless. His loose brown robes expose his chest and the burning orange star set within his chest like an exposed heart. His one eye glows not unlike embers pulsing within a fire. A fierce marring on his other eye removes it completely. He glides deeper into the darkness of your room, standing before you.

“Rise, and sit with me.” He moves without confirming your movement. Draping himself upon the humble workings of your dull wooden couch, he waits for you. His head tilts expectantly. His sharp teeth flash, waiting. 

You have no choice but to answer. Straightening, you rise to your feet and stand before him. His relaxed, reclined position on the couch is too uninhibited for your liking. 

The god smirks up at you, his tongue running over his wicked fangs.

“Sit.” He pats his thigh.

You do, falling into the god’s lap. His arm immediately wraps around your waist. You hold your breath steady as if you tread black water, afraid of sinking into his abysmal mass.

“I have come here to make you a most beautiful proposal.” His upper right arm finds your hair, cut short with an undershave, and strokes the scars over the back of your neck. It takes all your being to not shudder.

Your eyes flash to his in the darkness. 

He grins wickedly and snarls softly, “Become my champion.”

Your lips part, eyes widening. 

“Oh, I know,” he chuckles ruefully, “Sun and Moon think they can keep you all to themselves. But you don’t have to be tethered to them, dragged into their apathetic schemes. No, I will show you what a true champion deserves.”

You hold horrible still as his claws softly scrape over your hip bone. His eyes fall to your lower back side, where your chilton conceals the gods’ marking upon you.

“And you would not have to tell them you have chosen another,” he says, his eye half-lidded. “You need only to say you have accepted their proposal. Then you will watch them, study them, and tell me what you have found. What do they lack? Where do they stumble?”

You wish so horribly to speak but if an astral being commands you, you must obey. Your teeth grind softly together.

“Do this,” he lowers himself to your ear. His glinting teeth graze the shell of it, and you clench your fists, “and I will free you. I will adore you eternally.”

You hold yourself rigid under the god’s offer. That may be the ultimate demise. If you taunted Sun and Moon and betrayed them to another, how would they obliterate you? Your very being could be scattered to the cosmos like stardust. 

But Eclipse offers you something more. 

“You may speak,” he says and draws a clawed hand down your thigh. He clutches you close. His one eye admires you as if you were a golden crown.

Your mouth is dry. Wetting your tongue, you face the astral being as if he draws in the very light of the world into him. Nothing can escape, not even you.

“Do I have your sworn oath that no harm will come upon me should I agree to such a plot?” 

His single burning eye glimmers.

“Yes.” His hands tighten around you. “I give it now, pledging myself to you, gladiator. We will be equals. Though you will be consort in name, you hold the power of a god at your disposal when you accept my hand.”

You hold your breath. A god’s oath is too powerful, and unbreakable, even by their strengths. 

You could soon be free.

“I will give you the night to reach a decision.” Eclipse slides you off of his lap as if you were only a feather. He sets you sweetly back on the thin cushion of your couch. “By morning, when you return to Sun and Moon, I will have your answer. Don’t keep me waiting.”

Twisting smoke envelopes him. Again, the thick haze of his traveling form slips under the door, and you are left in the dark without his crackling orange light.