''Tanazzali''

"I WAS A KING!" he bellowed, spitting at the girl's feet.

She smiled at him, her eyes sad yet full of mischief.

"And I was a god."

He gave a frustrated cry and started pacing in the empty cave, eyes that were one praised for cunning and wisdom now wide and bloodshot with madness. The little girl saw him with bored, dark eyes, her hands rubbing her feet as she sat with them joined together, on the cold floor. Chilly wind wafted over from the arched entrance, but neither of them took notice of it. 

"We have to do something." he suddenly turned his crazed eyes on her. "We need to get my kingdom back."

She raised one white eyebrow at him.

"And your believers." he added, taking a step towards her. Her dark irises blazed red and he stopped.

"We will put you back in the hearts of everyone. The temples will be made again!" he said, licking his lips. "Much more than last time. much, much more."

The little girl smiled again, her now brown eyes twinkling.

"How ironic knowing that you were the one who tore them down."

The former King bared his teeth and scrabbled at his unkempt hair, fidgeting on the spot in a wild frenzy; looking quite ready to strangle something, anything.

"I know!" he screamed. "I shouldn't have done that!" he scratched at his face, looking back at the little girl. "Doing it has cost me dearly."

The girl tucked her knees under her chin, wrapping her arms around her pale legs, her white bangs sliding over her face.

"That it has." she whispered.

There was a moment of prolonged silence, but the girl did not add anything, sitting eerily still.

The man trembled, his voice cracking with childlike hope.

"So..? Will you help me get back my kingdom?" his bloodshot eyes reddened, moistening as he spoke. "I'll spend my entire life giving sacrifices in your name. I'll glorify you in every conquest I make. Give every one of my achievements to you...I'll-I'll make every war in your name! I'll make it the law to worship you!"

"Just...please...make me King again."

He fell to his knees.

"Will you make people believe in me again?" she asked, her voice soft.

"Yes!"

"You can't."

The little girl peered at him from beneath her bangs, her eyes a sea of blazing silver that kept him fixed on his spot, unable to react. The air went still. The light in the cave dimmed. The man held his breath. 

"I will never be a god again." she said, twining her long, thin fingers into each other. "You will not make them worship me again."

"But I will-"

"-You can't." she repeated, cutting him off with her soft voice. "And you're stupid to believe you had any power to do that in the first place."

Her mouth tilted up.

"Did you really think they stopped believing because of you?" she turned her head away and gazed at the shaft of soft light splayed on the floor of the cold cave, now riddled with floating dust. "No amount of temples you destroy could make them stop believing...if," she turned back to him, shrugging, "they actually believed in the first place."

She smiled at him.

"You have no power at all. You never did."

The man shivered.

"Times have changed." she said, skipping up on her bare feet, and walking past him. "They will keep changing, and with them so will gods and kings. We were too; bound to change, and our time is now up."

The man wrapped his arms around himself as his shoulders slumped.

"Don't be so sore, Your Majesty." the girl's voice echoed around him. "We all discover at some point in our lives that we were not as indestructible as we thought ourselves to be.....and we have to live with it."

"You will never be King again." the echo was a whisper tickling his ear. She giggled. "Maybe it is time to be something else."

The King sat alone in the cold cave, rocking himself and sobbing until exhaustion made him stop. 

Then he slept. 

..........................................