Part One | Most Recent Part
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Once Upon a Time...
Growing up, Cellbit heard plenty of stories of the bloodthirsty God of Chaos. He steals souls, he kidnaps men, he causes wars...
But, now, Cellbit watches Roier trip over a rock, fall right onto his face with a high-pitched scream, and lay with his face in the mud, unmoving.
After a moment, the rock explodes into a shower of pink glitter that puffs up into Cellbit's face.
Cellbit sneezes, nose twitching, ears and tail fluffing up.
(His hands are in his pockets.)
Roier swears into the mud. Slowly, he pushes himself up onto his hands and knees. He shudders not unlike a dog coming in from the rain.
Cellbit feels his mouth twitch up into a smile, and he allows it.
("Once upon a time," she said, "there was a man who claimed to feel no fear.")
Cellbit doesn't move to help Roier stand; he's a god, he can handle himself.
Roier gets to his feet while fixing his hair where it had fallen into his eyes; his clothes, however, are still perfectly neat and clean.
He points at Cellbit with a real pout of a glare. "Stop laughing!"
"I'm not laughing," says Cellbit, laughing.
Roier grumbles under his breath, but he does nothing else as he flips his cloak behind himself dramatically. He continues along the path, glitter trailing in his wake.
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("The man, determined to finally feel fear, left home and traveled. He walked all day and all night, unafraid of any monsters or criminals pursuing him. "'Ah!' he cried, 'if I could only feel fear!'")
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And Cellbit keeps his hands in his pockets.
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("One day," she said, "he came across a black cat sitting alone on the side of the road. "'Why are you alone?' the man asked. "Everyone is afraid of me,' the cat replied, 'I bring bad luck.' "'Well,' said the man, I neither feel fear nor believe in bad luck. So come with me, and I will be your friend.' "The cat agreed, and so it was done.")
-
The sun sets, and Cellbit and Roier setle down for the night in the hollow of a shallow cave that Cellbit had watched pop out of the ground at the snap of Roier's fingers.
With another snap, there's a fire, and another conjures a couple of fish skewers roasting over it.
Cellbit, being half cat, has to fight back an embarrassing amount of drool as the smell of the cooking fish. He coughs, instead, and goes to sit on a rock as Roier gets to work cooking the fish.
Despite being a god, Roier has been more than happy to create a campsite every night since he and Cellbit escaped the village. He probably just sits and watches Cellbit sleep, and the food is probably poisoned, but that's fine; it isn't anything that Cellbit wouldn't be long used to by now.
One of the first stories Cellbit had ever heard of the God of Chaos was about the god when he was newly-ascended. He had fallen in love with a priest of Death and had started following him in secret upon being rejected. One night, Chaos tried to steal the priest away to the Holy Realm and marry him.
In the present day, Roier conjures up a packet of spices in his hand and sprinkles it over the roasting fish.
"You get to cook tomorrow," he says without looking up from the fire.
Cellbit hums noncommittally. He knows that he will, in fact, not be cooking tomorrow, or even on the day after that. He doesn't know how to cook, for one, and, for another...
Suddenly, Roier sighs and hangs his head in apparent defeat. (He wrinkles his nose as his hair falls back into his eyes.)
"Fine," he theatrically says, "I get it."
He looks up with a prideful look on his face. "You love my cooking. Ah, ah!" (He holds up a hand even though Cellbit wasn't trying to speak.) "No arguing! I know I'm a god, but I can cook better than half the humans on this plane."
...Roier goes back on his offer every single night.
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("On the first night," she said, "the man and the cat settled beneath a large tree. As the man laid his head down on his pillow, he heard a howling from the forest beyond. "Suddenly, an enormous black wolf leapt out of the forest and ran towards the man, but he did not react. "The wolf vanished, and the cat came out from his hiding place in disappointment. "'Ah!' the man cried. 'If only I had felt fear!' "'We shall see tomorrow,' said the cat.")
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After dinner, Cellbit sits with his back to the fire as Roier talks to himself in a language that Cellbit Knows hasn't been spoken in over one thousand years.
The palms of Cellbit's hands are hidden by the night's shadows, but he knows that they're looking back at him. Judgemental. He doesn't need to See to know, not with them.
Briefly, he considers turning around and shoving his hands into the fire.
But he doesn't.
He squeezes his hands shut and lets out a tense breath.
Roier is watching him. He Knows it.
"You want dessert?" Roier asks. "'Cause I don't know about you, but I'd kill for some alegría right now."
At the mention of dessert, Cellbit's ears perk up. (He's always had a sweet tooth, even if he was on a strict diet of bread and wine for most of his life.)
Roier chuckles. "Oh? On it, boss!"
"I'm not your boss," Cellbit argues, not for the first time since they left the village. (Somehow, it keeps coming up, and it feels condescending every time Roier says it.)
He does turn around, though. He's careful to keep his hands out of the light.
Roier winks and smiles and snaps his fingers. And then, suddenly, he's holding two bricks in his hands. They smell of honey, and they look to be made of seeds.
Cellbit... hesitates. It was easier with dinner, Roier was facing away from him when he took his skewer from off of the fire.
He looks at the candy.
His fists clench.
Roier wiggles the candy like it's a worm on a fishhook. It smells tantalizing: sweet and familiar in a way that scratches at the back of Cellbit's brain like an old friend. (One of the worshipers brought some once, maybe?)
The fire flickers, the light dimming for just a fraction of a second.
In that split second, Cellbit snatches the candy from Roier's hand. His teeth sink into it; his tail wriggles contentedly.
Roier stares at him for a moment, his own candy halfway raised towards his open mouth, eyes wide in shock- four eyes in shock.
Cellbit chews. He swallows. He takes another bite.
The God of Chaos is said to have stolen the soul of the God of Fear by feeding him a cursed pomegranate.
Cellbit knows that he'll owe Roier after this. Whenever they get to the next village, he knows that Roier will demand payment for all the favors he's been doing.
Suddenly, Roier lets out a sharp, amused bark of a laugh and relaxes. He takes a happy bite of his candy. His bottom two eyes fade out of sight (but not out of mind.)
"Told you it was good!" he exclaims, mouth full.
He might potentially own Cellbit's soul now, but, frankly, he's the better of Cellbit's two options.
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("On the second night," she said, "the man and the cat settled inside of an abandoned farmhouse. As the man laid his headdown on his pillow, he heard roaring and rumbling from outside. "Suddenly, an enormous giant appeared in front of the farmhouse swinging its cudgel wildly. It reached for the man, but he did not react. "The giant vanished, and the cat came out from his hiding place in disappointment. "'Ah!' the man cried. 'If only I had felt fear!' "'We shall see tomorrow,' said the cat.")
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Cellbit lays on his back with his hands tucked neatly under the blanket Roier had thoughtfully conjured for him. He stares up at the ceiling, painfully awake.
Growing up, he was always told a story before bed. When he was a teenager, he was made to tell the group's children stories before bed. As soon as he turned 18, He forbade him from communicating with anybody besides Him.
He's 26 now.
He's 26 years old, but he still can't sleep unless there's noise. Even his Cave had a river running through it. The forest's ambience now doesn't compare.
Roier sits at the mouth of the cave looking up at the stairs. Just as he has done every night so far, he hums softly- so softly that it probably isn't meant to be heard.
Gods don't need to sleep.
Sighing, Cellbit rolls onto his side so that he's facing the cave's small interior.
His eyes slip shut, and he sleeps.
-
("On the third night," she said, "the man and the cat settled in a bush on the side of the road. As the man laid his head down on his pillow, nothing happened. But then, suddenly, the cat screamed. "The man looked around, but the cat was gone. "'Cat!' he cried. 'Where are you, my friend?' "He searched until the sun rose. Then, and only then, did the cat come out of his hiding place.")
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Cellbit wakes up in the night to the familiar feeling of being watched.
This time, luckily, it's just Roier.
He cracks an eye open and glares; Roier, at least, has the decency to look mildly ashamed as he looks away.
Groggily, Cellbit groans, "Stop that. I'm not going anywhere, you'll still have me in the morning."
(Because that has to be it, right? Roier is just making sure that his new soul hasn't run away in the night.)
Roier looks back at him with a crooked grin.
"I'll have you?" he teases.
Perhaps unwisely, Cellbit hisses at him. He pulls his pillow out from under his head and covers his ears and the top half of his face with it.
Roire laughs, and Cellbit desperately wishes that it was possible to be an atheist.
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("The man fell to his knees and held the cat to his chest. "'You did it!' he cried. 'You made me feel fear!' "'No, the cat responded, "you made yourself feel fear by caring about me. Your lack of fear is only a lack of care towards yourself. To be afraid is to feel love, be it love towards oneself or towards others. This, I hope, I have taught you.'" "How does the cat know this?" he asks, daring to be curious in the face of a stranger. "It's just a cat." She smiled and poked a finger at one of his ears. "Don't you know? Cats are the chosen animals of the God of Fear.")
-
The sun rises, and they're walking again.
Cellbit's hands are in his pockets.
"We should be near the next village by tomorrow night," he says.
Roier nods. "Cool."
And then he smirks and gives Cellbit a pointed side-eye.
"You owe me breakfast," he announces. "And an hour in whatever bathhouse they have there. And a night in an inn, I'm sick of sitting on the dirt. It's making my ass sore."
He then rubs his ass.
Cellbit looks away politely. He doesn't think that it's wise to look at a god's ass, it's probably, like. Blasphemy.
"Whatever you say," he agrees. He knew it. Favors must be repaid.
An hour without Roier will be nice, though, if only for Baghera's sake. Because she might be more... chaotic than Cellbit is, but she doesn't need to know that her second favorite god has attached himself to Cellbit's side after all the stories she heard him tell the children about Chaos' evil deeds.
The teasing would be horrible.
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A/N: Let me know what you think in the tags or in my inbox! Please let me know if you want more, because there is more!
