"Did you meet them?" Elavale asked, eyes wide but serious.
There was a silence before Haq answered.
"No. And Lyruk hasn't either," he declared with a sharp look at Lryuk, as if daring him to say more on the topic. In response, one of Lyruk's brows twitched up for a brief few seconds. Rather than delving into the unpleasantness of the warning of imminent death, he changed the conversation to that of something necessary. He sat, folding his hands in his lap.
"I can guarantee there'll be no help from those assisting either of them personally." Lyruk stated plainly, as though it had nothing to do with him. "It's us or nothing."
A grim message, but not one totally unexpected for the four who knew best the situation at hand.
"Why? If your father agrees, why wouldn't he help us?" Nadia asked, frowning.
"An oath."
The air was almost darkness itself as the words were uttered aloud. Like a storm cloud had descended upon them with no warning, silence consumed the moment, all of them gazing into the flames solemnly. Even Nadia knew the depths of that word, as no other on the planet was taken as serious. An oath wasn't merely a promise, as once made, it could only be broken by death, that is, if one were to defy those words they claimed, they'd be punished severely. More often than not, it led to their death. Even gods weren't exempt from the cruel reality. For a moment, nobody dared ask what they'd all been wondering, about a secret only Lyruk knew.
"Oath?" Nadia finally questioned further, her voice softly blending into the crackling of the wood within the fire.
Once the dam was broken, a breath of air could be had, Haq even going as far as to try a joke.
"What, did they swear to never harm the God and Goddess?" Haq, having never heard of such a thing amongst the hands of the God and Goddess, considered it the best mood lifter. As good of an attempt it was, it's life was cruelly short.
Whether it was fascination or horror, a realization set in amongst them in the renewed quiet. Haq blanched as Lyruk looked at him solemnly.
"You're kidding," he attempted, an exhale of an incredulous laugh joining his words.
However, there was no joke to be had. Lyruk shook his head.
"Then... the other two?" Haq asked, keeping his voice light despite the gravity of his inquiry.
Lyruk met his timidly hopeful gaze and shook his head just once. The others, watching the two of them curiously, didn't understand the words but figured out easily that whatever happened to the two mysterious hands or the Goddess, it was far worse than they realized.
Receiving the message loud and clear, Haq nodded solemnly to himself, hope crushed with disappointment blooming restlessly. Despite being born on one side of the battle of the Valley, it was never a good thing to hear that two attendants lost their lives to the very individual they served. Even more so, according to Lyruk, not only were they under an oath that prevented harm, but that it wasn't even broken.
"Did any of you witness the previous battle?"
Nadia's new question brought them from their thoughts. She didn't know any of their ages as looks were easily deceiving for beings of power. In fact, they seemed hardly to age beyond their twenties and thirties in appearance alone until they were well past hundreds of years old.
"Nope," Elavale replied quickly, leaning back, calmly relaxed. "Last time, I was just fourteen."
"Haq and I ran into each other before the fighting could start. We both ended up leaving."
Haq agreed quietly to Abana's words, his head bobbing up and down.
"Lyruk?" Nadia asked quietly, expecting a similar response. "And you?"
All eyes swiveled to him as everyone else had given an answer. Though he was not the youngest of the group, he was also not the oldest among them. Even so, when Elavale was fourteen, he was much older, that is, exceeding her age by over a century of time.
Lyruk stared into the fire, gazing intently at the varying colors of the flames that determined the levels of heat produced. Shadows danced across his face, illuminating something that resembled a serene hollowness rather than any singular discernible emotion. Already used to his habit of thinking long before speaking, they waited patiently for him to declare he had, as well, never seen the reoccurring battle.
"Yes."
It was a shock that quickly spread between them.
"I wasn't supposed to be there," Lyruk admitted with a self-derisive lift of one corner of his mouth, his eyes widening slightly as he stared at something they couldn't see, something deep within himself. "Nobody knew until all was done."
It was stated words, ones without charismatic explosion and dramatic effect, but tension rose in the air surrounding them all in an instant.
Lyruk continued to stare into the fire, images rising into his mind as though the flames were a mirror reflecting his past memories. He'd been younger, nearly half as old as he was now, with a touch more of hope for the future than he currently held. Cynicism had seemed to be something he was born with, the world appearing all too colorless and lacking light, dull and predictably enlightening in the darkness of existence. He wasn't blind in any sense, just as he could see the grass was green and the sky occasionally held a mesmerizing blue. Perhaps, though, he saw too much. To lack disappointment in the actions of others meant that there had been no expectations in the first place.
"Why must you do this again?!"
"Stop! I beg of you!"
Desperation, in its barest form, the rawness of a voice breaking and trembling, the helpless pleas that told a far different story than the one all of Elpidius's residents knew.
"Do what you must to me, just let him go!"
"No! I'm not leaving you."
In a rage, destructive power was thrown toward one of the offending voices. Lyruk watched in abject horror and shock as the blast was deflected, obliterating a tree next to the bushes he hid behind. It cracked, dark lines taking over the natural ones of the trunk, spreading like a wildfire through the branches. Chunks of bark flew in all directions as it began to tumble backwards, landing with a heavy shake of the ground. A piece, sizzling hot, stopped next to his foot like a dying ember. He nudged it away, feeling queasy at the heat radiating from the small fragment of the tree.
His gaze returned to the fight in front of him. At the deflection, it had stalled. It was then that he noticed what exactly had changed the trajectory of the blast. It was a sharp glint in the fading light.
A harsh realization struck him.
The God and Goddess, one was protecting them, the pleading outsiders in the Valley, while the other tried to destroy them. Or rather, as he observed from afar, it was not both. One. Only one of them had earned such explosive wrath.
Both of them, turning in near unison, looked to the fallen tree, fear etched in the lines of their faces. One seemed to harbor some of their own anger, though not enough to dampen their dread. Shadows couldn't hide their features. No, rather the final starlight of day put a spotlight upon them, a perfectly placed gap between the leaves of the trees in the forest.
Lyruk stared, the image of their faces carved into his mind forever, unable to be forgotten.
But the way they stood, the actions they took, those were not that of young souls. The word again returned to his mind, echoing in the voice of the one standing protectively in front of the other.
It was as if they knew it all, had recalled a previous lifetime where they stood in the Valley, battered and beaten down, thrust into a fight they wouldn't win.
He didn't understand it, watching the dance of battle. For as long as he'd lived, he'd been told that the others participated, fighting one another in the honor of those they served, that is, the God and Goddess. Instead, as if they couldn't attack either, they stood behind, as though statues carved of stone, spread around the outer edge of an altar made for sacrifice. Lacking the bravery to stand in the path of something that was already decided, they merely watched as if it were a scripted play, acting appropriately but remaining in place.
And it wasn't only them, it was the God of Death and the Goddess of Life that furrowed his brows in deep thought and confusion.
One attacked with a clear arsenal of ability. And the other... hesitated. Again and again, it was as though they couldn't bring themselves to do anything other than defend.
With such a fight, there was only one outcome.
"Why?!"
An anguished cry silenced the woods for a brief moment. Strangled sobs escaped them as they held onto a limp figure, a line of blood running the length of an arm, dripping off the end of a motionless finger, red pooling on the dirt beneath. Tears streamed down their face, but they no longer had the will to put up a fight. They simply held onto the body and waited for their own end.
Quickly, just as it had begun, the battle had been decided. Both of the outsiders... the ones pleading for their lives, stopped breathing, red soaking into their clothes and the dirt below.
As if practiced, the God of Death, without any resistance, let the Goddess take one of the bodies with her.
Downcast expressions and silence. It was then, as the Goddess disappeared up one hill and the God to the other, Lybis noticed Lyruk's presence.
Spotting him, Lyruk's father stalked over and grabbed him by the collar, hauling him to his feet.
"Lyruk, I thought I told you..." Lybis released a heavy sigh.
Sparing one glance toward the God of Death walking up the hill with Galbnad at his side, Lybis's frown deepened. Lips pursed and a frown visible in the furrowing of his eyebrows, he pulled his son away from the Valley, deep into the thick of the forest.
"Lyruk. Explain yourself," he demanded softly, unable to truly grow mad at his child whose interests lay more in observation than direct involvement in anything, almost as if a bystander in their own life.
"I wanted to know."
It was a simple sentence. One that clearly defied the warning Lybis had given him years prior. A sudden exhaustion took hold over Lybis and he roughly ran a hand over and through his hair. He couldn't dispel the thought that his warning might've only served to fuel his son's interest in the fight between the estranged pair of the so-called God and Goddess.
"Effatune would've known what to do with you," he muttered solemnly to himself in dry consolation.
"Mother?"
Lyruk didn't know Effatune well. Perhaps due to the limited time they shared while she still lived. It had long been a hundred years since her passing, though, to Lybis, it was still as if it were yesterday.
He froze, turning to look at his son seriously, a frown seen clearly in both mouth and brows. His eyes narrowed.
"Do you not know why I told you to stay away?"
When Lyruk didn't answer, his gaze falling to the floor, his father placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. As his eyes lifted to meet Lybis's, he found himself stuck to the spot, though not by any magical means. Once again, like a child standing before their parent, expecting to be scolded for some yet unknown misdeed despite his age already exceeding that of a normal human's lifespan, Lyruk couldn't find the words he needed. To his father, he was still so young, as if he'd barely become an adult. It mattered not his true age, as one could learn for lifetimes and still lack enough knowledge to satisfy their mind.
"Death is unkind to those left behind," Lybis said, his voice low. "And by death, I don't mean... I don't mean him."