[attr="class","loctitle"]
THE AFFAIRS OF PASSING GODS

[attr="class","locbody"]CW FOR: SUICIDE, MILD DESCRIPTION OF GORE[break][break]

Diespiter dreams nightly. This is no out-of-place occurrence, or anything that strikes him as odd. It would be weird if he didn't dream. He can't fathom it, not dreaming. It comes as easily as breathing, so it is something he cannot part with, cursed as he is to dream. The same dream, mind you, with very minute differences influenced by the world as it changes around him, and the stresses of everyday life.[break][break]

This time, he doesn't wake up submerged in snow. He wakes up, and he is standing in a dark forest. Dark mist coils around his ankles, with scar-barked trees reaching into a starless sky, stretching endlessly like pitch-black spires. The snow sits at his feet, and despite the thin, tattered clothes he wears on himself, goosebumps do not rise on his skin. The silver moon passes behind the branches, Her fingers remain tangled in his hair. There is a gentle flurry which falls from the skies, touching his skin, melting on his face.[break][break]

He turns down the rumpled path that leads forward. So he walks. He walks, and he doesn't know for how long. The path seems to go on forever, until it suddenly seems to widen. Three children play in the middle of the path, tagging each other with long sticks shaved of their twigs. It's a silly game where they have to rely on their hearing to tag the other players hidden in the dark. It is a game meant to be played on the darkest of nights — it's more fun that way.[break][break]

Diespiter pauses a few feet away, and the children stop what they're doing to regard the one who interrupted their nighttime play-date. With the faintest light that scores along the ground, he can see the tall, patchwork masks they wear atop their heads. The masks take the form of animal heads. They've cut holes into the "necks" of the masks, and somehow the glint of their eyes in the darkness puts him off more than anything else.[break][break]

"What do you want?" He asks. The children gawk, and then they lean over, murmuring among themselves as if planning a conspiracy. They stare back at him in silence for a long moment before they, too, speak.[break][break]

The Stag speaks first. "You would leave everything behind, because you are upset at yourself?" He sneers, blatantly ignoring Diespiter's question by answering with one of his own. The Stag is indignant, lifting his antlered head high as to brandish the sharpened sticks sown into the mask. "You would leave your family, who loved you and your sister so?"[break][break]

The Spider, with its spindly legs abnormally laying limp at its side, tilts her head toward Diespiter. "Look at him, Stag. He's tired." She says, tugging the hem of the Stag's shirt. "He left because he wants to rest. If you had to do all of that, wouldn't you be tired, too?"[break][break]

The Stag snorts. "No excuse."[break][break]

The Raven shifts on his feet, and with eyes too intelligent for a child, stares into Diespiter with piercing clarity. "You know it will follow you wherever you go, right? You can only survive for so long without your pack, Wolf. At some point, you will have to bare your fangs again. Doesn't the flesh taste so sweet?" They slam the edges of their sticks into the ground, in unison. They demand an answer from Diespiter that he can't give. His expression shows his hesitation to answer any of their questions, and he draws his hands close to his chest as they watch him expectantly. They all look to each other again, and lean in to converse in secret again.[break][break]

"He won't answer us. It's annoying."[break][break]

"What do you suggest then?"[break][break]

"We will whet the Wolf's lost appetite..."[break][break]

An idea shared between the three, they look to Diespiter again. The Raven grabs his hand, and brings him forward. They start down the long path again, walking in uniform silence. The moon shifts over head, and dark clouds begin to part slowly. They step off the path at some point, and step into a glade instead. The bushes part, and the Raven's hand slips out of his as the children dart off to the side, and into the darkness that grows thicker, somehow, despite walking into the open space.[break][break]

A tall figure stands in the middle with his back turned toward him. Diespiter doesn't need to see his face to know who he is. He goes as still as possible, and the tall man—Luka—turns slow to face him. The moon's light, despite the wispy darkness surrounding them, is bright enough to shine upon the two. It especially highlights Luka's smile, cracked permanently onto his face. It highlights the look of fear, which surely colors his face a ghastly pale, because Luka drifts forward with his arms open, as if to give him a comforting hug.[break][break]

Diespiter's eyes flick to Luka's hands, then his face, realizing with a stuttering worry that he is getting closer. He flicks his hands out, a universal motion for, "Stay away." Luka's red eyes, a brighter red than usual, seem to narrow a touch when he reads the frightened gesture, and he sighs.[break][break]

"Sad, that you won't hug your own." Luka tuts. He looks upon him with a look that befits a parent looking down upon their misbehaving child. "You must talk to me, boy." His fingers twinge. Exasperation bleeds into his gesture, thinly veiled, accompanied with a tilted head as he tries to see eye-to-eye with Diespiter.[break][break]

"You have lost your bite." Luka signs, emphasis on the word bite with a sharp twist of his hand. "Did they tame you, pup?" A voice deceivingly gentle and pitying, there holds a quality of icy disappointment. Diespiter, perhaps to Luka's annoyance, doesn't answer. "Sooner or later, you will come home. You will learn to hunt with us again."[break][break]

Why? Why must he return home? There is nothing for him left in the Reach. He holds so much guilt in his chest that it hurts to breathe. Sometimes he wonders if he deserves to breathe. He doesn't understand why, with his departure from the frigid north, the Winter's Grasp still holds so much interest in him. Is it only because of Fenrisúlfr, the Messenger of their community? Is it because of the dreams he has, how they point him toward climbing to the top of the Summit? Both? Why does he have to deal with a curse masked as a gift?[break][break]

Diespiter bares his fangs at Luka when he advances forward again, feeling his heart beat erratically in his chest. Desperation trickles in, then floods. Wait. The realization dawns on him, like the early morning sun. He's dreaming. Of course, he's dreaming. He can wake up; he can make himself wake up. Diespiter, for the first time, locks eyes with Luka as he fumbles with something in his pocket. He produces a stone arrowhead, sharp and jagged.[break][break]

Luka's stare flickers from Diespiter's abrupt change of expression ( he is giddy, grinning wide ), to the jagged arrowhead he now holds with a knuckle-white grip in his hands. He's silent, but the look he gives is withering. He is smiling, too, but Diespiter doesn't care to attempt to understand what such a smile means as he plunges the arrowhead into his gut.[break][break]

Once, twice, three times— how many times should he stab himself to wake up? As many times as it takes. It hurts, you know. Some people say they don't feel anything in their dreams, that they wake up just before they crash into the ground, but Diespiter feels it: the pain, the way his fingers have to grip tighter on the slippery arrowhead the more his blood pours out, the way blood starts dribbling from the corner of his mouth. ( It stains the snow red, such a familiar color — he's stained it this color before. ) He stabs until he can't stand on his feet anymore, and stumbles forward.[break][break]

He lets Luka catch him when he falls, but he doesn't feel the embrace when he wakes. Alone in a park, and petrified.