Inky's Collection of Shorts

God of Sloth

He could be a god, they whispered. They trailed after his name in taverns, smiles curling the edges of their mouths as they traded stories. He wields his weapons like they are nothing but an extension of his body.

But they were all idiots. He listened as she recited the tales she'd heard, irritation lacing the bite in her voice as she mentioned how off-handedly they spoke of the gods. They were drawn not to power, but to the idea of it. How many of them had actually seen him practice before? No, in their minds, he had never trained. He had been born steps above all the rest, the palms of his hands perfectly wrapping around the hilts of his swords. In their minds, his skin was scarless --- how could it be wounded, if he could never be touched? --- and his only reason for staying out of the public eye was so that no one would never know when he was about to strike.

He enjoyed her anger, though he himself had never been one to care much for the great deities that reined over their world. They were invisible to him, just as he was to those drunkards; a figure in a legend, nothing more. They did not know his name. It was better for their reception if their protagonist was a nameless, faceless hero.

That was another thing. Since when had he become a hero? He trained because she trained. He fought because he wanted to fight alongside her, to ensure that she would come home instead of foolishly hoping at night. He was selfish. The likes of him could never be a hero.

She thought otherwise, though she always poked and prodded at him and laughed when he lost to her in battle. You're too slow, she teased. How could you protect me if you can't even keep up? See, you're already growing white hairs from the effort.

It was a jibe that fell on deaf ears. He kept up better than she did, for he worked harder than she did. She always questioned what it was that drove him like that, sometimes jokingly, but he could tell when she was being serious. So he told her that he did not know either. Perhaps it was in his genes. That it was just the sort of person that he was.

That was a lie.

They sat in the field, watching as the winds blew up the leaves that had begun to fall and made the grass around them a billowing curtain of green. Their blades were tossed somewhere behind them. It was the quiet moments of reprise, the ones that felt hard-earned, that he'd come to cherish. She looked thoughtful when she was at peace, like a joyous shell had fallen off of her and she wasn't quite sure whether it was worth the effort to retrieve it again. She always did, though. I don't want to scowl at everything forever like you do, she said, when he asked her. Smile more! I love your smile.

He didn't agree with her, so instead, he turned the conversation away. The war is here, he said, averting his gaze. Are you ready?

She scoffed, but there was a playful air in her smirk. Of course. Are you?

War. Such a thing that they'd wished for. It was a chance to prove themselves, to show that they'd made it. She wondered about it, though. What sort of a person would wish for something that saw the deaths of so many?

That was just the way she was. Sometimes he questioned whether or not she really should've become a fighter, when she was so kindly. But she was not gentle. No, she was fierce, and he respected that greatly.

"Why do you work so hard?"

He should've given her a better response, even if he'd known she would've teased him for it. Did she not deserve his honestly? He should've told her that it was her radiant smile, or maybe the way she glanced up at him, streaked with sweat and dirt after a particularly difficult session, or even the glimmer in her eyes when she thanked the gods for her strength and durability. But they should've made her stronger. They should've made her skin tougher. As he clutched her to his chest, his fingers scrambling over the fabric he'd ripped off of his shirt to staunch the wound that weeped crimson tears to join his own, he knew that the deities that she'd loved so much had not loved her so.

Her hand gripped his hand tightly, her nails digging into his skin. Ingkeu, she whispered, closing her eyes. Don't be... too mad. Promise.

She didn't see the slight shake of his head, because he could not promise her that. But she must have known, as she pulled him closer, that he'd at least do his best.

Would he have acted differently, if he'd known that that fight would have been their last? Would he have lived differently? He should've smiled more. She'd loved his smile. He should've given it to her more freely.

Distractions. They came in the form of drinks, of challenges that only an idiot could believe they could ever possibly hope to accomplish. He was that idiot, and he completed them. Each impossible task distracted him from the gaping hole next to him, the stool in the bar that should've been filled by her presence --- though she'd never drink. She would scold him for it, he already knew. He wished he could hear it.

Ingkeu of cutting warmth. Ingkeu of the ruined village. The whispers grew as the stories surrounding him did, as he moved from one war to the next, serving whoever could hire him. What was he to do with the money he gathered? He'd done it all; there was no use for it.

He smiled more, for hadn't she told him to? But his smile was dangerous now, a cheerfulness that people learned to be wary of. He was dangerous.

His talents and the stories of them attracted the attention of a king, who was one for high-stakes gambling, where rewards were high or dangerously low. He fights an army, he declared. The bets were placed, murmurs passed lip to lip. No man could fight an army alone. He was sure to lose. The king watched gleefully as everyone set their coin down against him, rubbing his hands together. There was no room in his mind for the one who he was sending in to an impossible battle.

In the end, there was no space in anyone's mind for him. He gripped his sword in his hand and lowered his gaze, watching as the other side approached, jostling one another and roaring with laughter at what they were about to do. A single man, with eyes that looked so slain? Surely the king was about to lose his entire inheritance.

It would be impossibly for anyone to defeat so many at once on an open field, no matter how much training they had done. He was almost grateful as he lay on his back, gazing up at the sky. It meant that he would get to see her soon. He missed her.

He stretched out his fingers, brushing the tips of the grass that surrounded him as his blood fed their roots below. Will they mourn me? he wondered, but he already knew the answer. Between the money that traded hands and the glowering rage that encircled the king, his name had long been forgotten.

When the figure extended her hand to him, her luminous hair spilling over her shoulders, he had already closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it would be the first in a world he had only ever heard legends of, but there would never be again be a last.