#jinorah

Jinorah’s hand rests momentarily, inches over the page he had been writing on as the Temple Carers outside began shouting. Shouting is not a thing done often in the Halls of Silence that lead to the chambers he takes his rest in.

It is not that he minds, of course. If they are shouting they are shouting for a reason. Besides, this shouting is familiar and not entirely unwelcome. They shout more because they feel obliged to, not because they think it will have any effect whatsoever on the perceived intruder of Jinorah’s peace. Jinorah had asked to be left alone for the evening, but as the shouts grow louder, he realizes this is not something that will be granted and puts his quill down back into the bottle of ink his hand rests besides. He lets his eyes flick back over the words he has just written and waited for his doors to slam open. 

Only when they did – and only after he took a sliver of a pause to admire the growing surge of power that radiates out of the Deity of Culture – did he look up.

‘Good evening, Onah.’ He said, with every polite appearance of pleasure. He does not mind their visits really, and has long since given up attempting to appear as though he does. The concern of favoritism once plagued him, but that concern has long passed now. ‘You appear to have woken every soul under my roof.’

In a flurry of feathers loosened by their summer molt, Onah stands furiously panting. Behind them, the two Temple Carers give their Father mortified looks of apology before shutting the doors again.

‘I’m so angry with you!’ They shout. It concerns Jinorah enough to push the scroll he had been writing on away. He gestures to the empty spot opposite him on the table he had been taking tea at. Their rage is great and visibly tears at them, but they are obedient, and love Jinorah more than they could ever hate him – they know it just as well as Jinorah does – so they reluctantly slam themselves down into the chair.

The God of Death and Silence takes a moment to read the wet lines that run over Onah’s cheeks and the puffy circles that frame their normally energetic eyes. The pause of reflection and calm seems to work wonders on the tail end of Onah’s anger – like a bucket of water tossed over a fire; their rage subsides into steaming anguish that rises up into the air between them.

Onah is an emotional creature against Jinorah’s passive, calculating logic. The truth of it was Jinorah was old – although on the overall, it would be more accurate to say he had been around an unfathomable amount of time – and over those long centuries he had gotten good at being able to tell the differences between emotions even though it was not something that came to him naturally. It is a learned behavior with a massive, human-like margin for error.

‘You all lied to me!’ They shout, before the rush of adrenaline leaves them entirely. They quickly get a mastery over their tongue and clamp their mouth shut like a book. A strain of angry noises murmur off inside their throat that they know better than to say aloud.

‘I am glad you have the presence of mind not to say too many impulsive things to me,’ Jinorah says, pointedly, ‘But even someone like me needs context to this kind of accusation.’

Onah tries to stare him down for several long moments; a foolish and rather disrespectful endeavor that Jinorah very privately admires from them. They are the only one but Myrcella who might ever try such a thing and he can’t help but to admire the sheer gall of it.

Now that their fury had been broken against the unmovable wall of Jinorah’s calm, a discussion can take place. Onah sucks in a breath. ‘I died. I’m a God, and I died. The humans killed me! None of you told me. Why didn’t any of you tell me?’

Jinorah opens his mouth, only to close it again and sigh, heavily. 

‘The avoidance of a subject is not the same as lying-‘ He tries to say, only Onah slams a hand down on the table and silences the God of Silence in a moment. ‘Tell me the truth. You should have told me. Out of all of them, you should have told me. If it was you…I could have at least…’ 

They are too frustrated to continue sitting and get up to prowl around the space, muttering Southern curses under their breath and ruffling their wings as they go. 

‘I am unsure if you would have preferred to hear it from me because Death is what I preside over or if it is because you are simply used to hearing bad news from me. It suggests a trend I do not like.’ Jinorah said.

‘You’re still avoiding it.’ Onah says, sourly throwing a look over their shoulder. ‘I will get to it.’ Jinorah said. He is not much of a gestural person, but he waves his hand irritably. ‘You and I share a closeness Onah, but I am still a God above all but Her and you will give me the appropriate respect for it. I rarely allow even Her to take such a raw tone with me.’

Onah swallows.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you for saying so.’ 

Like a child deflated from a lecture, the very last traces of heat from Onah vanish and they seat themselves on the floor beside Jinorah with a painful moan; their face the very portrait of agony as they lay it in his lap. Their eyes are watery with tears again. Jinorah is not always so cold and removed, and seeing Onah in such a way prods him sharply in the chest. He runs the back of his hand against the warmth of Onah’s cheek and wipes away the only tear that manages to fall. Onah sniffled.

‘I’m so sorry. You weren’t ready to hear this yet.’ He is not even sure how they have come to hear of it; not when the rest of the pantheon of the Gods were sworn to silence and any and all records of their past life had been extensively hidden from even them. 

Onah stared up at the older God, peering deep into eyes that normally shifted and changed their colour and pattern according to whim. For once, they rested calmly in two pools of unmoving pale blue – and no matter how much Onah tried to search for some hint, some intent that Jinorah might lie to them, they could find nothing. They saw only a gentle, somewhat sad smile. It was genuine, but still, that was all there was. A thousand years of composure shows you only what it wants you to see.

‘Why don’t you start by telling me what it is you have come to know,’ Jinorah said quietly. ‘And I will tell you of the rest.’

‘I overheard Myrcella talking about it to Kemeya. I…’ They swallow the thickness building in their mouth down to clear the path for words. ‘I confronted her, and she said she would tell me. She begged me to not to come to you.’ Jinorah makes a soft tone in his throat that soothes them slightly. ‘But I need to hear it from you. You never lie. And she knows it!’

‘You assume too highly of me.’ Jinorah laughs a little. ‘Do not place me on such a lofty pedestal. Even with wings, it will be a hard place to fall from. And I will, eventually.’

Onah pursues their lips. Out of all of them, they feel a closeness to Jinorah unlike to any of their other siblings – even to those with whom their energies align, under Myrcella’s light. They do not belong to Jinorah’s dark, but even so, they are always drawn to it.

‘…Am I…close to you because I’ve died?’ They ask, sitting bolt upright in the horror of the realization. Jinorah smiles carefully. 

‘No, Onah. You and I were also close in your previous life. You were once cut of my cloth and took your residence here, with me, in the dark.’ He pauses and lets out a sad little sigh as the memories wash. And he has a vast repository of memory, Onah knows. ‘You were not supposed to be reincarnated in the same way the children are. I forbade it. She ignored my wishes. It caused a great…dissonance between us that will never fully heal. It was what caused our united house to separate into two factions.’

Jinorah knows that he could have at least taken a little more time; dressed his words a little better; but Onah has come to him for the truth and not a softly painted picture the likes of which She would paint for them. Their shoulders heave. A strangled noise pushes out of their chest with expanding air as they gasp for a breath to fill them under the drowning weight of so much revelation. It is a heavy thing to realize you are the centerpiece of an entire upheaval, and not a weight any of them wanted Onah to have to bare until they were ready. ‘Please understand, Onah. This is not an event that could have been avoided, and it was certainly not brought about by you personally. It was fated to be, as many things in the future yet are. We only made a secret of it to keep what little harmony remained in the fallout.’

‘I’m the Diety of Culture and History…and I don’t even know the truth about it. But you all managed just fine without me, so what even is the point of me?’ They whined, miserably. It cut Jinorah deeply, but he knew better than to flinch in the face of it. 

‘I didn’t even know Gods could die...’

‘It is not a…Death as you know it, Onah. We simply return to the Aether we came from. We will all eventually turn to it. It is a fool’s wish that Her Light can burn forever, even for us. If it did, what is the point of me?’

Onah had never considered this; Jinorah could tell by the way their thoughts shifted the muscles on their face as subtly as the wake behind a boat pushing the water into ripples. He had never wanted them to have to confront the terrible realization that all the others had, and had never recovered from: that their Godly status did not exempt them from Him.

‘You were different before I died, weren’t you?’ They hazarded, their voice barely a whisper. It was a like a knife in his heart. Jinorah wisely decides to stay well clear of that, for as long as he possibly can. Knives can twist.

‘The thing about momentous upheavals is that change is bound to occur. Where Death destroys, Life creates. I should not have to remind you of this cycle.’

Onah can sense the trepidation leaking out of Jinorah. It tinges the air with a tenseness that is not normally felt in his presence. He is doing them a kindness, when he could have easily slammed his doors in their face and sent them back to Myrcella for a softer kind of telling – but he respects them, they know, and so they decide to show it back and move away from the kind of questions they want to ask for now.

‘What was my name?’ They ask instead. Jinorah’s fingers relax a little in their hair, and Onah can feel the slight shift of relief. But it is only slight. This is just as painful for him, they realize.

‘Your name was Mirrenah.’ Jinorah answers, pausing slightly and letting the name roll from his tongue as it was a foreign word. He has not said it in a long while, and thought of it for even longer. ‘You were a royal pain in my feathers. Not much has changed.’

This little joke does what was intended, to his relief. Onah lets out a wheeze of a laugh. It is slight and only bittersweet, but it is a laugh nevertheless. ‘At that time, Her House and Mine were not divided, and nor were the children. You were one of the few among us who shared traits, as you are Deity not fixed to any one of us. Sometimes you went to her, sometimes to me, but you had come from me, so you were mine. It was not an easy thing to guess, when you constantly filled my halls with Noise.’

Onah snorted.

‘You thought you could play any instrument you laid your hands on, and the Temple Carers hated you so for the songs you sang.’

‘Did…you like them?’

Jinorah brushed the hair from their forehead and smiled at them, a warm smile that filled Onah from the top of their head to the soles of their feet. ‘No!’ Jinorah laughed. ‘In fact, I thought you were one of the worst singers I had ever heard. But you sang with such heart I could not help but love you for it. At least, in this life, your voice has matured somewhat.’

‘Hey!’

‘You did ask me for brutal honesty, did you not?’ Jinorah purred. 

Truly, he was not smiling. His laughter rang as hollow as bell, but Onah was too spellbound by circumstance to take much notice – a thing he was grateful for. This was intensely painful for Jinorah, who had never grieved over the loss of anything except for them.

‘Then…how did I die?’

Jinorah steeled himself behind the dormant, calm mask of his face. This was something he had thought about for a long time, when he knew the inevitability that nothing can be kept a secret forever, and one day they would have this conversation. He had never really comfortably settled on a prospective explanation, and now the day was upon him. Time stretched strangely for a God.

He sat for several long moments considering a way to approach the horror of it, but finding none, merely exhaled and calmly stated: ‘The humans killed you.’

Onah did not react immediately. But Jinorah knew when they would, when he could feel every emotion and muscle tied together in their form squeezing and twisting around into a tight fray ready for immediate release. They shot up from his lap, their face pale in horror. Jinorah waited patiently for them to say something, but the only sound that passed between them was the hammering pulse of Onah’s heart working overtime.

‘…What?’ They said, eventually, when the thoughts screaming in their head quieted enough for them to break through. 

Jinorah’s eyes shifted from cool blue to a darker shade. Onah had yet to figure out what the changes meant or if he was conscious of making them at all. ‘Perhaps you might now understand the reason for the Silence on the issue.’ Jinorah said, quietly. 

The idea that Gods could die was already a new one to Onah, but Gods that could be killed by humans was so unfathomable to them that they couldn’t help but laugh. If this was a joke, Jinorah had a poorer sense of humor than Onah gave him credit for.

Only…he was not smiling. He stared at Onah with Godly dispassion, as though he was not really present at all. There was something sinister building here; Onah could feel it in the air around Jinorah. 

‘I don’t like this story.’ Onah mewed like a frightened child.

‘Mm.’ Was all that came from Jinorah.

They took several moments to piece what little information they had together and build atop their own intuition. They were young, but they were smarter than most of their siblings gave them credit for, and they knew Jinorah terribly, terribly well. Or so they had thought.

If the humans had learned how to kill a God – accepting that strange truth as it was for now, without argument – then of course they understood why it had to be kept quiet. It threatened the very foundation of what Jinorah and Myrcella had made together if they were, indeed, not as immortal as they had been painted.

‘But…this was hundreds of years ago! Are you telling me they haven’t tried since?’

Jinorah’s usually soft face hardened. Onah could not tell if it was anger, hurt or grief that set his features into cold marble; but either way, he looked as though it was a forcible effort to so greatly remove himself from his emotions over it. ‘Oh Onah, please don’t make me say it. You are the only one out of them but Her who doesn’t fear me. It would break my heart if you began to, as well.’ Onah thread their fingers through the spaces in Jinorah’s, feeling odd that they would do the comforting for once. They had never seen Jinorah this way. ‘Is it…why you avoided me so much? When I was new?’

Jinorah did not answer, but he cast his eyes downward to the floor. His face twitched with the effort not to show his miserable humiliation over it. Perhaps this was the reason Myrcella had begged so profusely with them not to bring this to him. 

‘Please Jinorah.’ They begged of their own now, ‘I’d never hate you. I’ll try to understand whatever it is. What happened?’

Jinorah looks at the teal green of Onah’s eyes and wonders if the way they look at him will change, should he divulge his shame to them. The pedestal they had put him on was so much for him to bear at times – him! A God who had helped shape a world! 

He knows he has no choice but to tell them, when they have come this far and Onah trusts him so much. A refusal to divulge everything would only betray the immense trust they had heaped on his shoulders. It is normally a comforting weight, but now it sucks the air from his lungs and causes his ribs to crack. ‘I made very sure that no human who had learned how continued to live.’ Jinorah said. ‘I punished them for breaking my heart so. I leveled a city in my fury. In my emotional foolishness, I have condemned us all to ever be at odds with them. I slew thousands of innocents for the putrid actions of a few.’

Onah’s eyes widened. Jinorah cupped their chin in his hand and titled them up to look at him, his eyes dark and sad. His eyes drew a particular kind of gravity all on their own, sometimes soft and intimate and sometimes impossible to pull away from. Onah felt as though they could see a hundred years of pain nesting inside the irises of Jinorah’s eyes, peeking out now only to aid him in underlining a very fine point.

‘You love me Onah, but I am a terrible creature. You are the only one among us not to know it until now. I hated the humans for killing you, but I hated myself more for being the very thing that brings it into this world.’

Onah trembled slightly as Jinorah withdrew his hand and set it back on his lap. ‘Myrcella’s grief was greater than my own, but so was her self-control. She knew better than to punish the humans, so instead she punished me. She brought you back from your rest and undermined the very point of me, my rest and my balance against her in this world.’ He said. ‘Some of the children sided with her, and some with me. Our family split into two and it has never been whole since.’

Sick with grief, they could do nothing but weep as the wave of emotion rolled over them, knocking them back and bringing them up for air like a choppy sea intent on drowning them ever so slowly. Jinorah looked pained as he watched them. Onah had never seen him cry, and suspected he was not really capable of it; but knew that if he could, he would be in that moment.

‘You asked me why I avoided you when you were new to this world, Onah, and that is my answer. For a very long time, all you reminded me of was my utter pointlessness in this world, of my folly and mistake…’ And now he really wasn’t holding back, ‘…and how I truly am the worst among us, to preside over what I do in a world that could theoretically would be better without me. So that is the truth you have asked me for.’

He left it unsaid, but Onah received the distinct impression that, had he not been as polite, Jinorah might have asked him which they might have preferred – his cold truth, or Myrcella’s rosy pictures? Onah was not entirely sure of the answer to that either. They had not been expecting so much to orbit around a past life; that so much that had been solidly established could change so much in what must have seemed like the blink of an eye. 

They let themselves cry for what seemed like an embarrassingly long time. It was not a very dignified kind of crying either. They wiped their eyes and nose on the sleeve of their shirt and heaved as though they might empty the contents of their stomach all over the pristine black polished granite of Jinorah’s floor. Jinorah waited patiently and detached from the devastation he had wrought; likely for his own self-preservation if nothing else; by pretending to find something intensely interesting out on the balcony. Onah was not sure how much time passed between them, but eventually, their howling softened into exhausted sobbing, and then finally, to nothing at all.

‘Jinorah…’ They said, after awhile; their voice cracked and exhausted. Jinorah very slowly turned his head to look at them; his face a perfect mask of tranquility. And that was just what it was – a mask.

‘Thanks…for telling me the truth.’ They stammered awkwardly. 

Jinorah blinked slowly. ‘…Of course.’

He unfroze from his rigidity when Onah threw their arms over him and curled up into his lap like a child. They dug their face into the crook of his neck and breathed in the familiar scent of the temple incense. 

‘Onah?’

‘I’m not scared of you, Jin. I think if you died, I’d have done the same thing.’ They said. ‘And it hurts, but you always told me that hurts stop when the wound is treated…not by being told that it looks like it hurts.’ Jinorah let out a drawn out breath he had been holding and kissed Onah gently on the forehead. 

‘You have taken all of this far graciously than I thought you would.’ 

‘There’s a lot to work out, but…it doesn’t…change anything.’ Onah settled on. ‘Between you and me, anyway. I love you still.’

‘I am relieved to hear it.’ He whispered. ‘More than you know.’

Onah got up and tugged at their clothes, wiped their face and fussed a little with their hair to make themselves look a little more presentable. ‘I’m going. I have some thinking to do. But…thank you, Jinorah.’

Jinorah

 The thick marble pillars that supported the mountainous roof of the temple glowed as white and cold as the snow that lay over the North. The sheer size of the hall that the God had claimed as his was intimidating, cold and unnaturally dark. The platforms and walkways extended up to great heights above them and the lake underneath lay still, casting an ethereal blue glow. Aside from a few candles dotted haphazardly around the pillars, it was the only light source the entirety of the hall had to offer. In front of them a long, single walkway lead up the steps toward the altar. This was truly the resting place of a God.

The Admiral’s knee’s quivered and his breath stayed short in his throat. The quiet, deafening atmosphere within the temple was so strange and unknown that none of them dared to speak. They had fought their way toward this end point, but now they could barely move.

                ‘Sir..’

His heart banged painfully in his chest as one of the men next to him fearfully tapped at his arm and broke the silence with a tiny, whispering voice. Even that tiny breath of a word had been enough to utterly dislodge the energies of the room. He gritted his teeth and suppressed the urge to whip round at the young soldier in panic. After all, he had been personally chosen to carry out this task for the Royal Family for a reason. Without answering, he took a slow step forward. The sound of the metal caps on the heels of his boots clinked loudly against the marble as he ascended the platform and made a slow, careful approach toward the circular platform in the very back of the room. His men remained behind, still and silent in their fear. By the time he drew short of the altar a mixture of rage and fear coursed through his veins.

The God the Aesir called Jinorah, who until that moment had been as still as a statue, finally looked up. His eyes were unwavering and dark with flecks of gold and green that seemed to swirl and move as he locked his gaze against the Admiral’s. That cold stare was as piercing as a sword through his throat. The Admiral knew the God was considered ageless and yet, he did not look a year over the end of his twenties. His eyes were dark and focused in a way that seemed almost predatory; and yet, his expression was calm and his voice was soft as he spoke.

                ‘So, you came.’ He smiled. The Admiral gulped. He gripped the handle of the blade at his waist and made an attempt to come across as fearsome, but his voice sounded wobbly and childish.

                ‘J-Jinorah…I’ve come for your death.’

The God got up off the pillows he had been sat cross legged on with a measured grace the Admiral had never seen in a living thing before. Every moment was calculated and slowed; as if the life that weighed down upon him was taxing even for him.

                ‘I know.’ He answered in a voice that seemed too calm for the situation. ‘I am Death; and the Silence, the Cold and the Darkness.’

The Admiral felt that. He had felt it the moment he burst open the heavy doors to the chamber and barged through into the dark and the silence. He had felt it, and so had his soldiers. There was no way the Aesir standing serenely in front of him was not speaking the truth.

                ‘Do I frighten you, truly?’ Jinorah asked. The small measure of mirth in his voice sent the Admiral stumbling backwards.

                ‘No…I…I don’t fear Aesirs.’

Jinorah looked at him, blinking slowly.

                ‘…Or Death.’

It seemed impossible that this had come to pass so easily. The Aesir had not fought against the onslaught of the sell swords he had brought with him to take hold of the North. They had not lifted arms or tried to defend themselves even when the blood of their priests ran crimson down the white stairs of the Temple. And now, they were here, facing their God; and no one had come to defend him from his own impending death. Jinorah was eyeing him slowly.

                ‘Well, then. I’m right here.’

The Admiral wanted to take a step forward, but for some reason his feet remained firmly planted on the floor. Even the grip he had around his sword did not tighten.

                ‘Are you…really their God?’ He asked, voice shaking.

                ‘Yes.’

                ‘If I cut you, will you bleed?’

He could feel the eyes of his men on him from the entrance of the chamber, waiting for Jinorah to do something. Anything. This Almighty God of Death and Darkness that even the King had cause to fear. Jinorah took two steps toward the Altar and the Admiral turned slightly to look at him. For a moment he had thought the God might try to escape, but he stopped and picked up a small blade that had been resting on the table. In panic, the Admiral drew his sword; but Jinorah lifted a hand to stop him. With one quick, clean motion, he sliced across his open palm and held it out for the Admiral to see. Red blood bubbled up through the cut and ran between the gaps in his fingers.

                ‘I bleed as you do.’ He said simply.

The Admiral stared, transfixed as the drops fell to the floor and stained the glistening marble underneath it. His hands dumbly took the small blade as Jinorah offered it to him.

With a surge of adrenaline and panic, he rushed forward and grabbed Jinorah by the neck of his shirt, pulling his neck back to expose glowing white skin to the steel of the blade. Jinorah did not flinch. He simply looked at him, his gaze still and tranquil. He didn’t dare to. He didn’t dare cut him. It wounded his pride to admit it, but he didn’t dare to do this. He couldn’t. How could anyone? It was only now, standing face-to-face with Jinorah that he understood that, yes: this was Death. This was Silence. His very presence was cold and stiffening; his eyes were so piercing and full of depth and darkness that seemed to only overspill the longer the Admiral gazed into him. Only He had seen the time before existence and the Nothing. He was truly, utterly terrified.

Jinorah smiled and closed his eyes as the Admiral let go and withdrew, his hands shaking.

               ‘I think that will do.’ He said, looking toward the water underneath the walkway. ‘It suits me better than the sword.’ The Admiral jumped as Jinorah spoke, interrupting his own suffocating silence. ‘W-What is?’

                ‘The water…’ He looked at it somewhat wistfully, like it was a bed he longed to rest in.

The Admiral glanced at his soldiers uneasily, but they merely looked on; confused and frozen to the spots they had stood upon. They didn’t appear to be hearing or seeing anything; everything was so deathly silent and yet, they were not reacting. Was it Jinorah’s work?

                ‘…Are you truly death?’ The Admiral asked.

                ‘Yes.’

The Admiral shivered against Jinorah’s soft, direct answer. ‘What happens if I kill you?’

Jinorah closed his eyes as if he was tired, his hand waving out to the darkness of the room around them.

                ‘I created Death. If the Parent dies, the Child does not.’

                ‘I…I can’t…do this…’

Jinorah’s voice was reassuring in the strangest of ways. This man had come to kill him and all he had done was welcome him with open arms and speak to him in the manners with which one might speak to a frightened child in need of comfort.

                ‘I will die, by your hand or another’s hand. It does not matter how, who, or why. I will die. Death is the only certainty.’

                ‘But-‘ The Admiral swallowed.

                ‘You fear me, I know. Your kind always has. You fear things you do not understand or know. My Children do not fear me because they know and understand that I am peace. It is only the living who suffer. I am not pain. Myrcella is pain.’

He turned toward the stairs and began to walk down them, to the bank of the pool’s edge. Before he could think on his actions, The Admiral found he was following. Even as Jinorah stepped into the waters and the ripples lapped at their waists, he followed. They had an understanding. He was going to kill Death.

                ‘It’s alright.’ Jinorah said quietly. ‘Do what you have come here to do. I am tired.’

The Admiral placed his hands onto Jinorah’s shoulders and with the lightest of touches, pushed him back into the water. Jinorah gave no fight, no resistance as he sunk below the water’s surface. There was something numbing that seemed to rush out over him as his hands clamped around Jinorah’s shoulders. Bubbles rose and broke at the water’s surface and the Admiral’s breaths came in heavy, laboured pants of anxiety. He barely dared to move his hands. He couldn’t move. His arms were locked and still as he stared down at the calm face below the surface, accepting Death as easily as one might go to sleep. The Admiral was drawn to the dark pits of his eyes, ceasing any thought from running across his mind. Something inside of him dislodged.

Eventually, the bubbles stopped. Jinorah’s wings unfurled themselves and spread out like white satin under the water’s surface. The God’s slight smile had not faded, but his eyes were half lidded and glossy. The starlight and golden flecks had vanished. The water was still once again. He was still. Everything was still, and the world was once again silent.

He couldn’t tell if Jinorah was truly gone or not. He didn’t dare move to check.

                ‘Jinorah?’ He whispered like a frightened child, only now realising he had been gripping the God so tightly that his hands had turned white. He stood up properly, relinquishing his grip and Jinorah remained in the water as he slowly, achingly stepped out.

Everything around him slowed even though time seemed to run again. His men cheered and a chorus of voices flooded through into the Temple, breaking the Silence that had once been. It dissipated like a blanket thrown away by the wind and noises that had previously not echoed began to.

The Admiral had killed hundreds of people before, Aesir included. But this? This was different. This carried a sense of doom and dishevelment. He looked down at his hands and felt as though they were cursed. None of his men would ever understand what he and Jinorah had shared in his last moments. They raced outside in their victory but only he remained, sinking onto the step with a heavy thud.

 Myrcella

 The world suddenly seemed to drain away from him and his fingers did not move to grab at it. His eyes suddenly felt like windows that looked out upon the world impassively. Outside the shrieks and despairing wails of the Aesir filled the land that had once been peacefully silent. He could hear the life, the pain, the noise; but it drained away from his very being the moment it washed over him. He stood alone, gazing at the world beneath the Temple with Death’s grave behind him. It was only when he felt a mighty presence behind him that he slowly turned around. For a split second he thought that it was Jinorah.

She stood by the pool, staring down at her beloved with hands that lay uselessly by her side; her expression lay blank like the skies before a thunder storm. The white dress she wore swept across the marble floors like mist and the pale gold of her hair tangled in choppy curls down the length of her back. He watched as she unfroze herself and stepped into the water, her arms reaching forward to pull him out.

She cradled him on the steps of the pool and placed his head in her lap, stroking the dark, wet hair from his face. She had turned him to face her and her eyes welled with tears as she gazed down at a lifeless face that still smiled for her. Now the Admiral understood. Jinorah had not smiled for him. He had smiled for her. Her sobbing turned to crying. Then to wails of agony that echoed over the domed ceiling and pillars of the temple hall. She had closed his eyes with her hand and had curled over him protectively, shrieking her anguish as though she had been stabbed. It was different to stand in Myrcella’s presence. Jinorah had terrified him with his blanketing silence, his darkness and death. But Myrcella was terrifying in a different way. The world around her seemed to reach and pull toward her, desperate for her to give it air to breathe. She was a giant flash of lightening and a roaring fire that overpowered anything that might stand too close to it. All at once, the Admiral remembered what Jinorah had said.

‘It is only the living who suffer. I am not pain. Myrcella is pain.’

She sniffled and kissed him a final time before his body began to fade in her arms. She murmured something in a language he could not understand, a language that had existed for the two of them before anything else ever had. Soon, there was no more Jinorah in her arms. No more starry dark eyes full of wonder, no more silence to comfort her and bounce her loud noises against. Nothing else in the world would cool her down, nothing and no one who gave her gentle smiles and sweet kisses; nothing that would sleep soundlessly next to her. He was gone, and she was alone once again.

There was no way to describe it when Myr lifted her gaze and looked towards him through the strands of hair falling over her face. Her eyes were red and sore from salty tears that ran in stains down the sides of her face. Her bottom lip was cracked and bleeding from her teeth biting down onto it. Steam rose in puffs around her and every atom of her being seemed to shake with her rage and grief. The air around her bustled up and her chest heaved as she let out a shaking, laboured breath.

It took her only a second to get in front of him. She was so close that her hair swirled around him at her sudden stop. Their noses nearly touched.

Her eyes were alight with fire and emotion, contrasting heavily to Jinorah’s dark stillness. They screamed, ‘You did it’ and he knew she could read his eyes replying, ‘Yes.’ He was prepared. Her presence was the only thing that has stirred any emotion inside of him from the hours that had passed since he had held her beloved under the water and watched Her Life drain away from Him. He was waiting for her to claw his skin off, to scream in his face and push her fingers into his eyes in her rage. Something. Anything. Instead, her eyes glistened with something; like he wasn’t worth whatever punishment she had intended to exact on him. She narrowed her eyes into pink slits of contempt and breathed. The steam around her was so hot it burned his skin.

                ‘May his Silence eat you alive, human.’ She spat. Tears fell down her cheeks like little sparks of fire, climbing over her skin and cracking it open. ‘Carry his burden until your own Death.’

She screamed at him then, fire cracking through her skin as she struggled to contain herself. It was so loud and piercing that even he could tell the World outside slowed and leaned an ear to it. The fire sparked and burned at her dress, burning in patches and turning the silky white to a blackened, burning mess. She staggered away from him with her hands clutching at her face, screaming as though the sheer insurmountable grief had maddened her.

                ‘He’s dead, he’s dead…there is nothing! Nothing! No shade for my light, no cold for my heat. There is nothing! No silence, no dark…no comfort left in the world…do you know what you’ve done?’

His throat had dried from her heat. Every instinct would tell him to run, but she had burned them all with the slightest breath upon his face. He merely stood, watching the poor woman stagger around as though something had blinded her, her voice echoing in pained shrieks around her.

                ‘Why didn’t you like my gift? How could you do this to me? Jinorah…Jinorah!’

He had never seen a volcano spill before, but he felt he was watching it now. The ends of her hair curled and embers jumped from them as if they too would turn to fire at any moment. Cracks of fire glowed through her skin as she tore herself apart, her tears drying before they could even reach her cheeks. The floor around her buckled and cracked as the gravity of her emotion weighed down upon it and the Temple seemed to shudder.

                ‘Mother, no!’

Through the door a Priestess ran in bare feet, her arms stretched out in panic as she ran to the flaming figure stood in front of him. She pushed him aside and with hands unfearful of pain, grabbed at Myrcella’s arms and pulled them down from her face. Myrcella’s once pink eyes now glowed a hot, scalding red even as she looked upon the child who had stopped her. His back thumped against the wall and he slowly slid down it, looking on in wonder as the fire lapped around the white hands the Priestess had clamped around the God of Life and Noise’s arms.

                ‘Mother, please…’ She begged. ‘Not you too. Please Mother!’

Myrcella shook her head, her mouth open but wordless as she struggled to contain herself. The flames licked up the arms of the girl desperately trying to comfort her parent, but her eyes lay only on the face of her beloved Mother even as her own dress began to burn.

                ‘Mother! We need you! Please don’t go!’

Myrcella lifted her arms and wrapped them around the girl. All at once the exploding energy that had filled the room softened and slowly ebbed the way a fire dies when it has nothing left to burn on. The red madness of her eyes slowed and faded but the life that had been in them before was gone. The pink that remained was shallow and tormented; glossy with despair. Steam rose up into the air around her and the mighty Goddess stood, holding her sobbing child in her arms with a blank expression. Her dark skin rubbed with blackened ash, the cracks bleeding painfully and staining the floor underneath in shades of black and red.

                ‘I can’t stay.’ She murmured through cracked lips with a voice devoid of life. Of herself. ‘I can’t. I can’t.’

 [][][]

He had wept the entire journey back to the Palace and his soldiers had averted their eyes in discomfort and confusion. It was a victory. It was HIS victory. Why would he not celebrate with them? The threat of death was gone. Their revenge against the Aesiric race had been exacted, and so easily! None of them understood. None of them could. Not even the King and Queen when he was forced to stand in front of them and recant Jinorah’s death with a voice lacking emotion and bravado. He did not accept the reward he had once so highly coveted. He walked out of the Palace with his sword on the floor and his life in tatters. The War against the Northern Aesir was not over, but he would no longer be a part of it.

Instead, he journeyed to the South. The look of grief and the screams of sorrow haunted him even in his waking thoughts. Nothing else lay in his future now except for her, and her hand. When he came upon the Southern settlement, no one stopped him and yet, everyone seemed to know who he was: the man who had killed their Father. They looked on at him warily and whispered as he climbed the steps of the Temple. The Priests and Priestesses there met him with silence and cold faces, lifting only to point at the lake when he asked where their Mother might be.

  He came upon her as the sun was beginning to sink into the horizon. She was dressed in pink silk and gold that swayed in the breeze and hid nothing from his eyes. Once, there had been a time where he would have found her strikingly beautiful and averted his eyes from her from in embarrassment; but now, nothing in the world was beautiful to him. The colours faded into shades of brown and grey.

She was piling wood in her bare feet, the impressive lengths of her white-gold hair tied behind her shoulders as she worked. Her hands and knees were filthy with dirt. She was a Goddess and a Mother to all her children and yet, she was slaving here under the hot sun in filth and sweat.

                ‘…Myrcella.’ He managed after a while. She stopped and stood up straight, letting the wood she had been carrying fall to the floor with a noisy clatter. Slowly, she turned to look at him.

                ‘…What do you want?’

She asked in a tone of voice that expressed no emotion. No anger or sadness lay in her eyes as she gazed at him. Then, without waiting for an answer, she turned and carried on her task.

Her skin had not recovered from the flames that had poured out from the cracks he had seen not two weeks before. Moving seemed to pain her and drops of blood stained her dress in thin lines as it made contact with her skin. He watched droplets trickle down her bare legs and land in splashes in the dirt underneath her feet.

                ‘…I…I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did to him. And to you. To all your children. I was…I was wrong.’

She regarded him cooly over her shoulder.

                ‘I have not come here to ask for forgiveness. I…I came here to ask for Death.’

               ‘You have come to the wrong person.’ She scoffed. ‘And you killed the only one who might have given it to you. No, human. I will give you neither forgiveness nor death. You chose your path in life and now you must live with it.’

                ‘But I-‘

                ‘No.’ She snapped. ‘How dare you.’

She took steps toward him, but she lacked the ethereal speed with which had rushed to him before.

                ‘How dare you come to my home and ask that of me. How dare you!’

                ‘I-I’m sorry…’

                ‘Do you know what you have done? Does your tiny human mind comprehend what you alone have done to this world? You have taken the silence, the dark and Death. You have left only me and my noise, my light and my life. Do you have any idea what you have done?’

He staggered backwards a little, shaking his head. Around her feet the earth seemed to grow and change; flowers and grass growing and springing up between her toes as she paces around him in a predatory circle.

                ‘There will be no dark. There will be no silence. There will be no death.’ She hissed. ‘He and I may only ever exist together. Soon my light will lap at the earth and burn everything it touches. Soon my Life will overspill the earth until there is nothing but noise, chaos and confusion.’

She threw more wood onto the pile significantly growing in height and, for the first time, he realised just what it was she was doing.

                ‘You have destroyed our world and you have the sheer…’ Her lips curled back. ‘…the sheer…audacity to come to me and ask that I give you an easy exit. ‘No. No, no, no. You will carry the burden of your actions until he sees fit to release you from them.’

The Admiral knew what she was talking about. He had tried, several times and very unsuccessfully, to end his life. It had not worked. Every time something had gone wrong, or he would black out only to wake up later in a blurry haze of confusion.

                ‘I didn’t know…’ He tried to choke. She cut him off scathingly and shook her head, her hair falling over her cheeks as she did.

                ‘And here I thought there was no other thing alive more selfish than I.’ She laughed mockingly. ‘Of course you knew. Get out of my sight, human.’

He licked the dryness from his lips and looked at his feet in a numbed shame that barely felt genuine. Nothing did, anymore. The weight of his actions did not weight on him. Nothing did. She recognized that and shook her head, looking at him as if he was something so disgusting she could barely stand it.

                ‘Get out of my sight.’ She repeated. ‘Leave mine and my children’s home at once.’

                ‘I-I know what you’re doing.’ He gestured to the pile of wood at the bank of the river. ‘…Let me help you.’

She lifted her nose into the air and looked at him in silence, her hands twitching around the log she had picked up from under the shade of a nearby tree. Disgust and rage filled her face, but to his surprise, she relented and nodded.

                ‘…How poetic.’ She spat. ‘Yes. You should be the one to light the flame.’

They worked in silence. By the time she was satisfied with the pile it was as tall as both of their heights and then some. The evening light was fading and the sky was awash with oranges and pinks. But since his death, it never faded to blue. The sky hung in a perpetual state of sunset before it would once again rise to its full height in the sky. This is what she had meant. Soon, the earth would crack and splinter under her heat. There was no cool of night to comfort a world that was tearing under her light. She climbed into the pile and sat on it as if it were a throne, looking down at him as though she was intending to burn him too.

                ‘Well, then.’ She mirrored Jinorah’s words to him in an eerie coincidence that deeply unsettled him. ‘I am right here.’

                ‘What about your children?’ He asked. Only then did her expression soften and her gaze turned upward to the hill above the bank, where the homes of the Southern Aesir resided. She sighed through her nose and closed her eyes.    

                ‘…They will live without me the same way they will die without their Father. It has to be this way, now.’ It was the softest way he had ever heard her speak.