Day 19 - Pearl | Words 1,158
@tomarrymortmicrofics
Riddle walked through the statues, treading a familiar path as he ignored the world around him.
As it was every year, The Garden of the Gods was packed with people. Groups, families and individuals mingled around him. Some, like him, walking their own silent paths.
Others already surrounding their Gods, offerings given and received in exchange for prayers answered. Shared power—a magical influx—, for peace, for love or whatever their Gods were willing to give.
Envy curled up his spine as he thought of them, but he didn’t pause. He didn’t turn to another God—one who responded—he’d been walking this path too long to turn away now.
Riddle had been warned.
Long ago, when he’d first walked through the power of the Gods, Abraxas had warned him.
In a clearing set apart from the others stood a single statue. An older God. So old that no one recalled his name.
Abraxas had told him no one bothered leaving offerings for him. Even those who gave to all Gods skipped this one. Because who would give to a God that never answered.
He’d stood before the fading statue, carefully hiding his awe at being around so much magic. At being included and accepted in a ritual old as time.
He’d almost walked away. Almost heeded Abraxas and sought out another. Yet as he’d gone to turn away a flash of movement stopped him.
A spark of green in his peripheral vision, a touch of great power and a feeling…
Riddle had stayed.
He’d offered a bowl of burnt apples and fumbled through the ritual words, breathless with hope—to receive only silence.
Yet it hadn’t deterred him. Perhaps burnt apples simply weren’t the correct offering—and the challenge, the obsession, consumed him.
He’d left, returning every year—all fifty of them—with a new offering. Searched all the lands of the world for more gifts. Furs and fine clothes, gold and precious metals, strings of pearls and fat diamonds, stones of every size and colour.
He’d offered books and knowledge. Old tomes found in long forgotten graves. Books he’d had to fight for and others he’d been gifted.
And still he was ignored.
He’d offered words of prayer, of promise and devotion. He’d begged and pleaded.
He hadn't raged and cursed and wept, though he'd wanted to. Riddle had managed to keep his emotions in check, and chosen every word with care, too cautious of angering such a powerful being.
He’d offered more. Sliced his own palm and painted the statue in blood. Burnt the heart of an enemy defeated in combat. A lamb sacrificed upon the deity’s alter.
And still he was ignored.
He brought nothing this time. For there was nothing more to bring. Only himself.
He knelt before his chosen God in silence. Giving nothing, having nothing, and receiving nothing.
“You’ve been coming here for years,” a quiet voice broke the silence. A young man by the sound of it, still young enough to sound like youth. “Has he ever responded?”
Riddle didn’t turn his gaze from the statue, too exhausted, too hurt, to face the newcomer.
“Never,” he replied.
The other was silent, and Riddle wondered if he had left but then he spoke again,
“Have you no offering this time?”
“I have given everything,” he replied, tone harsh at this stranger's audacity to throw his failure in his face.
“Are you sure?”
Riddle let out a mirthless laugh and dropped his head, eyes shut tight to prevent the swell of emotion from leaking out.
“What more have I left?”
The stranger hummed in contemplation. “Only your life,” was his soft reply.
Some Gods were cruel. Demanding offerings that were too great for any man to sacrifice. It was just Riddle’s luck that he’d choose a God who might actually demand his death.
His chest squeezed at the thought. He didn’t want to die, was terrified of it, and what sort of God would demand such a thing. And yet…
Nothing else had worked.
“I said nothing about death, Tom Riddle,” the other countered his thoughts.
Thoughts he hadn’t verbalised, a name he hadn’t given.
He lifted his head, turning to face the source of the voice but no one was there. The clearing was as empty as it always was. Empty and silent.
He turned his gaze to the unmoving statue, wondering if he was finally losing his mind. Had he imagined the voice?
But no. There, at the edges of his vision. If he took the care not to look then he could see.
Green. A shade he knew well, for it was the colour of death.
And as he focused without focusing, there was power. A magic so old and strong it ached in his bones.
His breath caught and he didn’t dare to make a sound, didn’t dare move in case he broke the spell.
Even so he asked himself, asked his God, what was giving his life, if not dying?
The answer came to him slowly, drifting through a fog, wisps of understanding that tickled his mind.
He’d spent years kneeling before this alter. Travelled the world and lived for a being he thought uncaring. Sought out the hidden wonders, the beauty and ugly, and journeyed the spaces between time and death.
He’d given up on his dreams of immortality, of his need to conquer and dominate—all for a God who’d never answered.
Until now.
He’d lived a life without realising.
Riddle settled back against the statue and spoke. Wove a tale of his life, not with careful precision or care of offending, but open and honest as he never was.
It was clear his occlumency shields were no barrier for his God anyway.
The more he spoke, the more settled he became. Magic flooded the clearing, wrapping around him in an embrace that must be what love felt like.
He became unburdened, light and free and at peace as he never felt before.
The years he’d lived could never be told in a single night, but he tried anyway.
His voice became hoarse, his mouth dry as old parchment and yet he continued. Only when the sun rose above the treetops did he trail off.
He opened his eyes, still basking in that heavy magic and came face to face with a young man.
Black hair, green eyes and pale skin. He looked no older than seventeen, and yet there was an agelessness about him.
The man—his God—drifted closer, straddling lightly on his sitting form and capturing his eyes with his own.
“Will you give me your life Tom Marvolo Riddle?”
“All I have lived and all that is yet to come,” he promised breathlessly.
His God leaned closer still.
“Then life you shall live for eternity,” he declared.
Soft lips descended on his, warm hands pulled them together, and Riddle lost himself as he offered his God all that he was.
Death’s Bitesize Bits and Bobs
