Simply Divine

Part 11: Daz (ft. Bella)

We solidified on a mountaintop, with a drizzle of rain pattering on our skin.
The flecks of light accompanying us swirled up into the air like sparks from a fire until they were indistinguishable from the stars themselves. My eyes followed them up, up into the night sky, where I beheld the full moon shining above us in all its glory.
I scanned it for any hint of the patches of moonbells I'd seen on its surface, but nothing could be discerned from this distance. Even the crater I had seen entirely filled with the flowers was apparently too small to be seen across the vastness of space.
Bella's arms withdrew, the sound of clinking chains tugging me back to here and now. We disentangled ourselves and stepped to the edge of the butte (hah, butt) to look out over the Al'Terran terrain.
We were standing on the peak of a mountain, littered with boulders and sparse grasses and far above the tree line. A gentle rain fell on us, leaving the ghosts of droplets trailing down our skin.
"Are you alright?" Bella asked gently.
Somehow, the question itself provoked the emotions I'd been pushing down. My eyes pricked, and I finally allowed a wistful smile to break out.
"I'm more than alright. I'm home."
Then I glanced at Bella and realized how insensitive that was. I winced.
"I know, little one," she said before I could apologize. Were those tears on her cheeks, or the rain on her skin? "That's Montel in the distance."
I followed her finger to a smattering of lights like clustered freckles on the skin of some ancient sky deity. That was definitely Montel. The city walls were visible even from the great distance, and I could see the mansions in the center where the four lords and their close families lived, sequestered away from the rest of the population.
I turned back to Bella and gave her a long look.
She regarded me as well, silver-blue-tipped hair tossing in the light wind. Her periwinkle dress caught the moonlight and glittered like the surface of the rivers that crisscrossed the land beneath us.
I had to say something. I know I did. But how to begin? How was I supposed to express the depths of my gratitude for this kindhearted, selfless divinity? I wanted to say something that expressed my admiration, gratitude, sympathy, and reverence all at the same time without being annoyingly obsequious.
"You're a lifesaver. Literally," was the best I could come up with, unfortunately.
The smile that lit up Bella's shadowed face, however, gave me the feeling that she heard my unspoken words.
"Good luck, Aspen," she told me. "I will walk these mountains tonight. I would suggest you make your way back to your city."
"I'll try."
I watched as Bella Mune turned and swept through a glade of spindly trees and was obscured but for a faint glow between the branches.
I scanned the dark ground. Montel was-
BOOM!
I staggered. A crash of thunder loud enough to shake the mountain frightened me enough to make me trip and nearly lose my footing on a gnarly root, but I managed to grab onto the connected tree and swing myself upright.
My head shot to look at the top of a neighboring mountain, connected to this one by a land bridge a little ways below where I stood at the peak. It was a monolith, a towering mound of earth and stone that made the one we stood on look like an anthill. Atop it, wreathed in moonlit clouds and neon lightning, was a brightly glowing figure that crackled with yellow electricity.
Even from my distance, the figure was glowing so brightly that I couldn't tell whether it was short or tall, male or female, but I didn't need to. I knew who it was, and all I cared about was the second cluster of storm clouds raining down disaster on the village a league north of Montel- and moving south.
Towards the city.
I broke into a run. Not towards the city, where I'd barely have time to warn anybody before the storm arrived, but up the side of the rain-slick mountain towards the glowing yellow beacon that could only be one thing.
The rain lashed my skin as I hiked down the mountain, and the gales threatened to toss me to the valley far below. I dug my heels in and continued on until I reached a narrow land bridge that connected my mountain to the taller one.
I hiked across, using young trees to help me keep my balance. Once or twice, my feet skimmed on the muddy ground, but I managed to somehow keep myself from tumbling over the edge. I kept my eyes on the buzzing humanoid mass of light high above.
As I climbed closer, soaked and shivering with my brown hair stuck to my face, I fixed my eyes on my target and made sure each step was sturdy and stable. Thunder roared and cracked, but I steeled myself against the noise and force. Under it all, I could hear brash, familiar laughter.
I gritted my teeth and slogged on.
When I finally crested the top of the second mountain (Curse you, Daz, for choosing the highest one around), I checked on the storm below. It was nearly to Montel now, and the first rain clouds had already begun to weep upon the outskirts of the city, portending the destruction to come. Daz, his yellow invocations glowing bright enough to make me shield my eyes, stood before me with his back to me, looking down on the city and his creation.
"Hey!" I shouted over the roaring wind, fighting the wind as it buffeted me backward.
The blinding yellow silhouette turned, and the look in his glowing eyes was terrifying. It was one of merciless, destructive amusement. It was a look that could only come from a being completely unconcerned with consequences.
He raised a lightning-wreathed hand carelessly in my direction. Terror filled me, but more than that, rage rose up to meet it. This was not how I was going to die; not after I'd been through so much.
I held up my fists, though I knew they'd be useless. I wasn't going down without a fight.
Suddenly, Daz's expression changed. The glow in his eyes faded, showing me the real eyes looking out at me from his blinding silhouette.
"Sparky?"
The single word was a sharp contrast to the booming voice that usually came from his mouth. It was... soft. Disbelieving. I didn't know what to make of the off-guard look on his face, but I squared my shoulders and scowled up at him.
"Yeah?" I demanded. It was all I could think to say.
Daz blinked hard a couple of times, like he thought I was a mirage. The lightning humming over his arms thinned, and his invocations began to fluctuate in intensity, giving him the visage of a flickering light bulb.
"How are you alive? Rex zapped you to the moon!" he queried, turning his muscled body away from the ledge to face me.
I braced my feet in the mud against the howling wind that didn't seem to bother him at all. "Yup. His dear wife found me in time," I said shortly. I wasn't in the mood to discus the details, not with the supercell of disastrous weather inching closer to Montel.
"Stop this, Daz," I snapped, risking being swept away by the wind to take a step closer to him.
I gestured at the encroaching storm with a desperate fire in my eyes, demanding that he cease the destruction of my city.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah." Daz waved a hand in the storm cloud's general direction.
Before my eyes, the enormous black thunderhead dissipated like smoke from an extinguished candle, leaving overcast but mostly uniform night skies behind. With a snap of the demigod's fingers, the raging tempest around us just... stopped, the gales tugging at my clothes scattering like scolded children. Visibility improved, and though the night remained cloudy and overcast, a gap in the cirrostratus clouds displayed the full moon in all her glory. No other gaps in the cloud coverage were visible, making the perfectly placed patch of clear sky appear oddly intentional.
I gape at Daz, still standing with his back to the cliff, yellow invocations flickering like fireflies, or like the lightning he commanded.
Well. That was much easier than I expected.
"Thanks," I said awkwardly.
Daz chuckled. Slowly, his flickering markings began to steady in brightness, settling on a dim glow that didn't obscure the rest of his body.
"So," he chortled, "That moon chick saved your ass?"
I stared at him annoyedly. "Yes. That moon chick saved my ass," I deadpan.
"This is great!" Daz laughed. "You're alive! Holy shit, Rex is going to blow a gasket. He even met with the moon witch to ask her if she'd seen you, and he said she hadn't! Damn, he is going to be pissed, but who cares? We've gotcha back!"
I looked at him funny. "Um, is that 'We've got your back' or 'We've got you back?" I asked.
"Huh?"
"Daz. Look me in the eye and tell me you're not thinking about taking me back to your home."
This time, when he laughed, it was a big, full belly laugh that shook his whole body. He waved me off like a child distracted with a toy, like my disbelief was one of the wisps of storm he could dispel with a flick of his hand.
"C'mon, Sparky! Don't you want to see the look on Rex's face when he sees you?" he challenged.
"Not even remotely."
I was partially lying there. I did sort of want to see Rex's dumbfounded expression if I showed up in from of him after he thought me dead at his hand, but not at the cost of losing my freedom again.
"Aw, come on. You can't just leave after all that hullabaloo!" Daz exclaimed. "You're coming back home with me, and it's gonna be epic."
I jerked back as he reached for my arm. "What? No! I have to go home!"
It's like my objections went completely over his head. He grinned to himself as one meaty hand grabbed my wrist, and right as I aimed a vicious kick to his black-loincloth-covered nether regions, he chuckled and pulled me back.
I staggered back, outraged, and tried again by scratching his arm with my free hand, but he just laughed like it tickled. He wrapped an arm around my stomach and lifted me off the ground, grinning with careless humor like it was all a game to him.
"Hey! Put me down right this holy second! I am not some doll that you can play with whenever you want, I am a HUMAN BEING. Are you kidding me?! This is seriously happening to me AGAIN, after all the bullshit I've been through? Get your hand off me, you unholy offspring of a static shock to the rear end!"
The divine of weather ignored my complaints, patting my head like I was an agitated puppy that needed to be soothed. The gesture angered me all the more.
All of a sudden, my anger popped like a bubble, moving to the outskirts of my mind. In its place at the top of my brain was fatigue, exasperation, and a dark sense of humor about the irony of the whole situation. This really was happening, and I must either really be something special or have the worst luck in the multiverse to have everything that's happened happen to me.
Fortunately, I didn't have long to dwell on it. My thoughts were cut off as Daz raised his free hand to the sky, and both of us dissolved into a burst of yellow light.
My last thought as I turned to light: Why in Gehenna can't I catch a break?