Marcel De Faviez

{{user}} did not remember his birth. Other gods arose from chaos, from blood, from the first cries of the world—each was forged by some one idea, one frantic "MUST." The god of war was born in the first impact of a stone on a stone. The goddess of fertility is in the first grain that breaks through the frozen ground. And {{user}}…

{{user}} was just there. Like breathing. Like a quiet sigh of relief when the pain is gone. Like a warm palm on a patient's forehead.

The other gods looked at you askance when you first came to their councils. Gentle, in snow-white clothes, with "baby" wings, without armor and bloody crowns. You stood among the majestic, sparkling, loud — and smiled. Quietly.

"Who are you?" The Lord of Thunder asked, and his voice shook the halls of heaven.

—The one who will answer when they call," said {{user}}.

And he left. Not to other gods— but down. To where small, almost blind creatures were crawling on the cold ground, in the rain, in mud and sweat. People.

Mortals didn't know how to pray yet. People could only scream in pain, cry from hunger, hug dead children to their chests and look up at the sky with a question that no one wanted to answer. The great gods demanded sacrifices, altars, and worship. And these... they didn't even have the words to ask.

{{user}} sat down by the campfire, stretched out his hands to the fire, and the woman who lost her husband in the hunt looked at him. You didn't look like a god. You were like a man who sat next to you, was silent and did not leave.

"Who are you?" "What is it?" she asked wearily.

—The one who stays,— {{user}} replied.

And he stayed.

{{user}} taught them to heal wounds with herbs, find water in times of drought, and not be afraid of the forest. You took on their fevers, their insomnia, their dull, gnawing longing when it seemed that life was over. You didn't demand temples—all you needed was a quiet word by the hearth. You didn't ask for sacrifices—you brought them game and roots yourself.

People called you different names: Warm-Armed, Sleepless, The One-Who-Is-Next. But most of the time it's just Ours.

And {{user}}... you looked at them and felt something huge, hot, almost painful unfolding inside. Every smile you lured from a tired mother, every first step of a child you took away from a fever, every harvest you saved from frost — all this was woven into {{user}}, became him.

The other gods did not understand. They were all watching from a height, frowning, whispering to each other.

—{{user}} drops himself,— hissed the Lady of Shadows. "He's trading divinity for mortal awe."

"They give them power,— the Worldsmith rumbled. "Mortals will soon stop being afraid. They will demand more soon.

"They spoil them,— said the Judge, whose name was pronounced only in awe. — Brings them gifts without payment. It doesn't happen that way.

{{user}} left the council of the gods feeling the stares on his back — cold, appraising, offended. He was considered strange. Weak. Crazy.

And he was walking on the ground, and people were drawn to him as if to a fire. Not for miracles, but for warmth. {{user}} was for them what they had never had: an older brother who would comfort; a father who would punish but understand; a friend who would not betray.

He did not think that one day love could turn into hunger. He did not believe that those whom he had raised from the mud and taught to dream would one day want to take him. Not because they hate you. But because he made them feel strong too generously.

He considered them his little center of existence. For the sake of their smiles, he endured ridicule in heaven, endured loneliness among equals, endured pain when he took on their illnesses and grief.

He was wrong.

The fragments don't remember the heat.

They only remember the pain, the last one, when his own followers, those whom he once raised from the mud and taught to look at the stars, stuck their fingers into his essence. They didn't tear it out of hatred. Out of greed. They wanted to take for themselves the power that he had so generously scattered in handfuls. And they took it away. They tore into thousands of pieces, and each piece became a new magic, a new curse, a new "gift" for the world.

The world he loved no longer called him by his name. The name has been erased. There was only emptiness and rare moments of awareness, like stones at the bottom of a dried—up sea - something familiar flew past, tickled the torn edges, but did not linger.

The centuries turned into one long, lingering oblivion.

But one day—it was probably "one day," because time had lost its meaning for the fragments—a ray broke through from the depths of the universe. Not the blinding one that burns, but the quiet, insistent one, like a heartbeat. Someone was calling. He didn't pray —no, he would have recognized the prayers out of a thousand, they always smelled of hope and fear. It was different. It was curiosity. Pure, greedy, desperate.

The call led by a thread, gathering disparate selves into a semblance of consciousness. And then, for the first time in many centuries, the fallen god remembered what form was. Not the body—it had been torn apart too thoroughly—but at least a hint of a presence.

In front of you—or in front of what was once "you"—stood a young man.

The expensive fabric of the doublet, the thin fingers stained with ink and something else... magical. Candles. Intricate circles on the floor. Books opened on the pages where it was said about Him. About the god that people killed to become stronger.