Of Gods and Games ✅ (#ONC2019)

*Three*

He woke up because of the noise. Like the Saturday-market chaos that was so familiar to him; like the crowds that thronged around visiting performers and musicians.

He was standing up and planted squarely on both of his feet, which was odd. He didn't remember getting up, or moving, or doing anything apart from lying face down. But here he was, in long queue, with all sorts of clamour rising and falling all around him. The figure in front of him was definitely of the Fae; a half-blood if not full faerie. The slender, fine boned features, the long hair, and the elongated ears said it all. Perhaps he had stared a little too long, because she turned around, fixing her violet eyes on him.

"Hi," he ventured. "What exactly are we all waiting for?"

He couldn't tell whether she understood him or not, because all she did was hiss and turn back.

So much for that, then.

"Do you really not know?" said a voice behind him, and Theoddar turned around, sighing with relief when he saw that it was a human, like him. Although he had nothing against the other creatures, he tended to avoid any interactions with them for fear that they would suck his blood or devour his soul. Perhaps those were all fables that the old women of the village made up to keep the children vigilant.

"Do you really not know where you are?" the man repeated. His vowels had the rounded accent typical of the North, each o sounding like there was an acorn sitting at the back of his mouth.

"No," Theoddar said, gingerly touching his breastbone. The pain was gone; it was as if that Gilligan bastard had never stabbed him at all. "But I'm almost certain that I'm dead."

The man laughed. "Did you never get told about the Judgement, young boy?"

Theoddar cringed slightly. He hated it when other people called him 'boy'. People seemed to either forget or not know that he was a man in every sense of the word, having turned twenty over a year ago. It wasn't even that he was small. Maybe it was just because he preferred not to grow a beard, like so many other boys in the village had done. He sighed. "I tend to lack a little knowledge sometimes."

"You're going to be Judged, boy," the man said, raising his voice above the noise in the room. If it even was a room; Theoddar couldn't see any walls, let alone a ceiling. Maybe walls weren't a thing for dead people. "You're going to get told whether you'll be staying in Hell or Heaven."

That was a lot to process. But at least he hadn't been thrown straight into Hell; it looked like the Gods had had enough faith in him to at least send him to this intermediary stage. He wondered if there was a place for people like him to go, the 'not good but not evil' category. That wouldn't be too bad. He tried to tell the man this but he was tired, and all he managed to say was, "I'm not a boy."

The man said something in reply, but Theoddar's ears were beginning to fog. So he merely nodded, turned back, and waited. The line moved forward, just a little, and he took a step. The faerie in front of him retied the laces on her boot, straightened, and began braiding her hair. He watched her fingers, pale and dextrous, which entertained him for a while, but she soon finished, and he was stuck once again with waiting.

If only she was here, he thought eventually. Then he wouldn't need to be this bored. If only-

A thought hit him, full force.

He would never see her again. Because she was alive, or he hoped she was, and he was dead- why hadn't that crossed his mind before? No, that wasn't possible. There was no way that she was lost to him now, because-

The line moved, just an inch, and he shuffled forward mechanically. Someone in front of him cleared their throat loudly and he snapped out of his thoughts.