Chapter Text
She lived in a time before death. This was, at least, what Prime would tell her, all drifting hands and absent smiles.
It wasn’t as if people didn’t die, when she was alive. Prime would say it was a deathless time because nonexistence, to him, was not true death, rather erasure. She would argue otherwise, that for the soul to cease existing was the truest death of all.
Prime did not see it like that. Gods, he said, were different.
She did not think it was a matter of gods against humans. Belief was not constrained to mortality. He thought that was the most delightful thing she’d ever said.
She did not really like him. In this way, she was different than most, but she had no need for his tinctures and wish-granting. Her grandmother raised her to provide for herself, to find no comfort in false gods and prophets, and for this, she was eternally grateful and resentful.
This mindset, this belief that she could give herself the moon and stars, drew the attention of Prime, beckoned him to her window to peer as if she were some animal to examine. She could bite and snarl at him all she wanted, but he always stared curiously at him, wearing down her defenses with sheer stupidity. Because he was not pestering her to be cruel. He showed genuine interest in her habits and methods.
She let him follow him as one might allow a dog to heel. She walked through her village with her newfound shadow, garnering envious glares and glances, all for being the only unlucky one to attract the attention of a god.
“Everyone hangs off me,” Prime said, picking autumn leaves out of his hair, turning them green with a flick of his wrist. “If you have the opportunity to make friends with the person who provides goods, why shouldn’t you?”
“Are we friends?”
“Aren’t we?” He sent her such a pleading look that she had to look away.
“You’re a god. Gods don’t make friends with mortals.” It was what her grandmother would tell her as she brushed her hair. Gods don’t play nice with humans, so don’t think they will when they come tumbling through your door.
“That’s boring. Who says that? Old women and their dogs?”
She bit back a retort, focusing instead on churning the butter before her. They were in the yard, catching the last remains of autumn light before winter.
He sighed beside her, beginning to cast a spell that would make the butter instantly, but she slapped his wrist away, scolding him. “I need to make this alone. I can’t get too complacent. Besides. This is my only workout.”
Prime groaned. “Any other villager—”
“Would love the opportunity, yes, you’ve mentioned.” She pulled away from the pole. “But, as we’ve established, I don’t need your help and, in fact, would be quite content to have you gone.”
Prime mumbled something that sounded vaguely mocking, and she chose to ignore him, turning back to the churn. “You should go visit the children. In the infirmary. The passing sickness looks like it’s sticking.”
“Is it? How can you tell? It’s only been a few days since it arrived.”
She shrugged. “Something about the air. I’ve always had a knack for knowing when things die.”
Prime was silent, before humming, a curious thing. She turned to look at him. “It’s nothing odd. You just learn to look out for things. I used to want to be a nurse when I was much younger.”
“You say that like you’re old, now.” He let the weird tension drop, something he’d inflicted, easily passed. “You’re very young.”
“I’m twenty-eight.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “I was, I don’t know, twelve, then.”
“Ten and a half years isn’t much.”
“How old are you, that ten years isn’t much?” she grumbled, mindlessly pulling off the lid to the churn to examine her progress. “Can you help me bring this up to the house?”
“I thought you didn’t need my help.”
“I would ask this of anyone with me. Up.”
Prime laughed, the sound more like a delighted giggle, before hoisting up the churn effortlessly, as though it was a feather. He followed her up to her house, obviously making great effort to step exactly in her footsteps. She found it funny, almost. The silly mannerisms of a child.
She dismissed the thought as quickly as it came.
She did this often when it came to Prime.
She awoke in utter darkness. So cold she was certain Prime had dumped river water on her to wake her up. She waved her arms around clumsily, knocking over something on her bedside table.
She forced herself to stand, shivering from head to toe, her legs trembling at the weight of herself. She fumbled around her nightstand, striking a match to light a candle. She gripped the handle of it and stumbled through her house, until she was in the kitchen, filling a glass of water and drinking like a desperate, dying thing.
“I reckon you’re sick.”
“Shut up,” she said hoarsely.
“I’m just saying,” Prime said, gnawing on a cigar when she turned to look at him.
“What are you going?”
“Tobacco tastes good.”
“You’re supposed to smoke that.”
“Smoke it? Why would you smoke it?”
“It’s—not important. Can you run to the infirmary and get me medicine?”
Prime looked at her, waving his hand, a bottle appearing like a mirage.
“No. If you do that every time, you’ll ruin the economy. Think of the economy, Prime. Take a bag of radishes and some of the butter and get me proper, economically-friendly medicine. And walk there, while you’re at it. Smell the roses, or whatever”
Prime rolled his eyes but did as she asked, even the walking comment, using the door like a proper, normal person. She collapsed back into her couch, wrapping a spare blanket around herself, shivering herself sweaty.
She waited an eternity, almost regretting having asked Prime to walk, but it was worth it to get the annoyed look in his eyes. When the door clattered open, she was already melting into the cushions, not out of true heat, but rather desperation. She reached out for the bottle without looking up.
It was cold in her hands, and cold going down, bitter but soothing. She allowed herself to be rearranged so that Prime could sit next to her. If he weren’t here, she would have had to trudge to the infirmary alone, likely forced into a cot alongside other sick villagers, where the air would kill her before the sickness.
“She’s loaded up on patients, in there,” he remarked quietly. “You were right, it’s staying, the passing illness.”
“I'm typically right about these things.” Her voice was grainy and strained. In these few moments, it had gotten worse, grating her poor vocal cords into a raspy mess.
“I commend you.” Prime pushed around blankets and pillows to reveal her face. “Do you feel better?”
“It won’t take effect immediately. Idiot.”
“Mine do. What am I supposed to know about mortal tinctures?”
“You use freaky god magic.” She coughed, waving away his warm, remedy-hands. “It’ll work. Those people stay sick because they’re all clumped together. That’s why I’m here, in the comfort of my own home. It will pass.”
Prime made a noncommittal noise. She hoped it was a weird, non-translatable godly agreement.
“Leave me alone. I want to sleep this off.”
Prime shrugged and did as she asked, ambling off into the hallway, vanishing either into her bedroom or the guest room. It had once been her grandmother’s room before she’d passed, but now it just gathered dust, as she’d never had a single person over.
“You should clean for me, while you’re here!” she called after him. He did not respond, but he had always fulfilled her other requests. “Normally! No god magic!”
There was an audible thump this time, and she hoped it was him throwing a mop and bucket down on the floor. She curled up into her side after a while. Prime’s humming softly drifted through the house like fading sunlight. Fingers through the air.
She fell asleep. It was calm, the air alive but not loud. It reminded her of her youth, being a child whilst her grandmother cooked. She had hummed as she worked in the same way. Prime even sang songs that sounded like they came straight out of her grandmother’s era. All dragging vowels and rasping words.
When she woke again, the air was made of smoke, flooding her lungs, stealing her breath. No matter how hard she gasped and choked, no oxygen rushed to meet her. Fingers curled around her throat and constricted. Robbing her. Depriving her.
She tried to scream. Only a hacking sound emerged, a heavy pressure on her chest, as if Prime were sitting on her. Is he? She deliriously waved her arms around, the limbs heavy, weighted.
Warm fingers wrapped around her forearm, gently bringing them back against her chest. She mumbled something incoherent and the hands brushed hair back from her damp forehead. It was painfully warm. She writhed to get away, but the hands simply pressed harder, as if placing divine fire in her blood.
“You are not bettering,” a voice drifted above her. Like strands of fine silk, they dance, they weave into insanity. “You worsen.”
“It will pass,” she said, the words melding together, stringing into one. “It must.”
“You say that every time you wake up.”
“This is the first.”
“It is not.”
She was silent a moment. “Can you not make me better?”
“I thought you did not like that.”
She swallowed thickly. “I prefer it to dying.”
“I am afraid…” The god carded his fingers through her hair. “I fear I cannot.”
“You are god,” she said hysterically. “What god cannot save someone?”
“I have long relinquished the ability.” Prime brought her dying body to his chest. A lamentation dripped off his lips, a mother’s thing, said to dissuade death from the cradle. “I could…”
“I don’t want to die,” she said, allowing tears to fall freely from her sickly eyes. “Do anything, if it saves me, Prime.”
“A few springs ago, I made a god. Another. To him, I gave Pestilence. This is his doing. He is angered by something. In giving him his abilities, I have removed my own ability to heal his sicknesses. If you truly want to be saved, I can do only one thing.”
“Anything,” she pleads, griping his tunic, “anything at all.”
“…You will hate me, when you come to realize what I have done.”
“Salvation is not something to hate.”
“I hold you to these words.” As he spoke, he covered her eyes with a smothering hand, and it caught flame. She wanted to scream, to claw away the god fire, but it was fruitless. It ignited her face and damp hair. She was kindling.
Maybe Prime’s idea of kindness was killing her before the illness did. Maybe that was why he was incessant about her being all right with it.
Her mortality melted away. Burned. Died.
What emerged was far uglier, every corner of her soul upturned, sold for parts, divinity installed where faulty mortality used to churn. What emerged was a god.
Prime stared at her across the table. She noticed, now that his divinity, his small fragments, rushed through her blood, the intricacies of his emotional expression. His ears twitched when he was nervous. His pupils minutely grew oblong when he was angry. His hair darkened to straw when he was upset.
She hadn’t noticed these things before. She’d never needed to.
“I hope the days fare you well,” he said, not timidly, but with an ounce of uncertainty. His irises even grew pale to prove it. He swirled the tea in his cup.
“How do you think they fare me?” she asked flatly. Her cup grew cold. Gods, she had learned, had no need for food and drink. They sustained themselves off prayer. Adoration and offerings.
She wouldn’t want to drink even if she could.
“I do not know, which is why I ask.” Prime stared down at the liquid. She wondered what stared back.
“My body has forgotten illness. Has forgotten exhaustion. Everything that made me human: gone. Should I be glad, Prime?”
“You begged me to do anything.” Prime’s eyes turned hard. “Was I meant to predict your thoughts to me fulfilling your wishes? I listened to you. You said you would not despise me if it meant your living. If your ire is bloomed off your godhood, then turn it inward.”
She set her jaw. Worked it as she looked anywhere but him.
“Besides, you mention the worst that humanity has to offer. Who cares if you no longer grow sick and weak? You are healthy and strong now. Is that not good?”
“Forget my words.” She massaged the headache forming behind her brow. “They are foolish.”
“They are not foolish. They are the words of mortality. It is not a bad idea to forget them, however. You are mortal no longer, after all.”
She repressed a sigh. “I do not even know what I am the god of.”
Prime considered her. Waved a hand. “I gave you Death. It was all I could think of, in my wanting you to live.”
“Death,” she mused. “To give the thing I gave up humanity to avoid.”
“You are human,” Prime stressed. “Just not one who dies.”
“To be human is to die.”
“How precarious.” Prime pushed his cup aside. “I am done. I am leaving in the morn.”
“Leaving, now that your one source of entertainment is no longer intriguing?”
He considered it a second. “Yes.” His bluntness was of no surprise to her, but it stung to hear anyway. “You will always be interesting, my human friend. Simply not as much as before.”
He left her in her quiet, mortal home. It was no longer for her.
She followed soon after, her footsteps leaving golden, godly prints in the grass.
