The Gifts of Mortality

Just as love has many forms, a love story can be about several types of love. Beyond romantic love, there's the platonic love one has for friends. Or for a group of people different from themselves. There's the love for things and for pursuits. And there's self-love.

All are different shades of love. All are worthy of being featured in a love story.

Samil is at the center of this one. He's a god, the God of Festivals and the Arts.

He often sits alone in the city of the gods with his music and paintings, far removed from humans. He sits in a city of gods that feels the humans have abandoned them, so the gods have abandoned humanity.

At the height of this separation, a group of humans gain control over the Goddess of Death, forcing her to kill their enemies and increase their power. All of the gods, even Death's sister, keep their backs turned on humanity. Except one.

Samil knows he isn't very powerful among his kind. He holds no influence or sway among them. But when he learns that the humans desperately need the immortals' help, he chooses to give it his all and do a deceptively simple thing: Help them.

He befriends a human, learning about humanity through her eyes and re-examining his immortality. And as he works to help the mortals, he also helps himself. He helps himself experience love in all its shades, from friendship to self-love to, perhaps, romance.

If he can stay alive long enough in his dance with Death.