#steg writes

[localcryptidsteg]

Tentatively, An Epilogue

After the end of the world, people rebuild. Life goes on. Things almost return to normal, even.

The little village Kestrel left behind so long ago is finally whole again.

The first structure that had been raised is a familiar cottage, nestled just at the border of the woods. The years ebb and flow, but just like its occupant, it remains a constant.

Divinity is lonely, but she is not alone.

Kestrel braces herself, setting her sword against the door and raising her hand to knock. There is little need for a weapon anymore, but the weight is familiar and comforting.

A few minutes pass but... that is to be expected. He cant move as well anymore. Turns out, even for a god, there are lasting consequences to having a rift open on top of you.

Unfortunately...

The door creaks open.

"Hello! You... were here the other day, weren't you? Im sorry. Im afraid I can't recall your name, just now..."

Some of those consequences are harder to accept than others.

The face on the other side, cracked and greyed as it is, remains ever the same. His expression is always like this; sad, confused, and a little guilty.

Arithanos knows there are things he should remember.

Theyre harder to get to, these days.

Kestrel smiles back, ever patient. "Thats alright. Youll find it again!"

Some days it takes him longer than others, but he *always* remembers sooner or later. She finds talking to him helps.

"May I come in?" She offers an arm to help him maneuver a bit more easily. He graciously accepts, and moves out of the doorway.

"Do you remember where we left off yesterday?" She asks as they near the table in the kitchen area.

He stops to think a moment, and nods. "I believe so."

The kitchen is full of drying herbs, and bottles of tinctures he can prepare off rote muscle memory alone, and a few baskets of vegetables and jars of jams that townsfolk have dropped off.

He spent centuries caring for mortals, now they return the favor. It leaves Kestrel with a soft, warm feeling. He will be alright, even if she's not here.

She helps him to his seat and sets about boiling a kettle of water and getting out some cups.

"Where were we? I dont believe I told you about the mountain, yet?"

"No, no. Not there yet. There was an underground lake in a cave at the foot, I believe..."

"Yes! The cave sirens! They were really quite nice, once they understood I wasn't food. I stayed with them a few days and helped set up a route back to the ocean for them. A few decided they liked the cave and would rather stay, but now theres a pass so both groups can stay connected! I actually saw the ones that left a few months later on as well, they helped us- oh! Sorry. Thats a bit too farther down the line, isn't it? Im getting carried away!"

"Not at all! Its fine!" Her companion smiles back at her and chuckles.

The kettle starts to whistle. She gets up and pushes her chair back in with a little squeak across the floorboards.

"Is that the tea? What are you making today?"

"Hmmm... I was thinking, perhaps something with oranges in it?"

"That does sound quite nice."

"It does, doesnt it?" She drags both cups closer to herself to pour the water, and sets about packing various spices and dried leaves and orange slices into little sachets, dropping one into each cup.

"Travelling is fun! I pick up all sorts of ingredients. But... Im glad to be back home again. I miss sitting down to chat like this, after a while."

"It is awfully cozy. Welcome home, little bird."

And so the last two gods in the world sit down for tea.

[localcryptidsteg]

Before I Go

I will tear and bare my teeth and fight

And fight

And fight

I will laugh in the face of any challenge and revel in the strife

And call out my spite with glee

The ground will shake with my footsteps

And I will smile and smile while they call me a villain still

I will be kind

I will care

I will carve out a place in their ribcages

And sing out the words they can never take from me

A bloody songbird burrowed deep in the rotting carcass they shuffle about

As they insist they were ever truly alive without a heart or soul

And Ill live

And Ill live

And Ill live

Long after my bones turn to dust I will live

Long after their monuments to themselves crumble under the vines that fed on my body

One year more for everyone who wants me dead

And five for everyone else they can't stand

[localcryptidsteg]

"-then just do it yourself-"

"I CANT!"

A pause

"You know I cant. Not anymore, not ever again!" Hes pleading now.

He sounds scared.

Kestrel sighs and shifts in her bed. Its been like this for hours; Ari and the other immortal bickering back and forth. They think shes asleep. They grew a bit too loud for that quite a while ago.

Here's what she knows so far, that they dont seem to want her to know:

One, theres a way to reinstate godhood.

Two, they both, at least in theory, could do so, and it would potentially solve this whole thing.

Three, neither is willing. Especially not Ari.

She's seen her mentor go through a wide range of emotions on the way here. But... never scared. Not the way he is now.

Their voices fade into an indistinct hum as she mulls it over.

In the other room, Arithanos scrubs at his face with his hands, dragging them down and trying to just ground himself, just for a moment.

"What you're asking, it's too much. That faith isn't dead yet. I can't-"

The older man stops him, a gentle hand on his shoulder. He's startlingly alike Ari in his facial features, but lacks color almost entirely, and his accent is a bit thicker.

"If it happens again, we stop it. Again."

"Who's 'we'? You couldn't do anything but hold him in place and stall the last time, why would it be any different now?"

He's quieted down a bit; the wind seeming to leave his sails abruptly with the motion as he leans into the touch, and one last, halfhearted snap of his words.

"... I know. Im sorry. I did wrong by you then, and I'm so, so sorry, my little one," The elder rumbles placatingly.

The truth was, neither one of them would be safe to return to the way they were. Like father like son, or perhaps the other way around, the god of blood carried the risk of Maro, but the god of control carried something far more unpredictable. Maro was raw power and destruction.

Vilke, father of Arithanos, was... not that.

Vilke hadn't been all that corrupted when he elected to give up divinity a good few decades after it had been ripped from his son out of necessity.

He hadn't needed to fall far to see where it would end: a world on puppet strings, running mechanically and methodically like clockwork on the surface, and controlled by paranoia beneath.

By his own name, not a buffer like Maro had been. It wasn't good for anyone.

While he could, potentially, be the fastest solution to all this, he could also make things much, much worse.

But Vilke had felt himself slipping away and shut it down, in line with his own nature.

Ari had all but drowned, slipping under fast and eerily silent. He had every reason to be afraid. He had been the first to demonstrate the sheer magnitude at which a god could become a problem.

Yes, he had good reason to be afraid.

It was partially why Vilke had never sought him out; as much as it burned him to know his child was out there, alive somewhere, he didnt dare force those memories back on him with his presence.

The other part was guilt. His own shortcomings had forced his oldest to tear his youngest to shreds just to properly contain him. He didn't deserve to look either of them in the eye after that.

And yet here Ari was, intact though not unscathed, at his door. After all those years. And his only request was for help.

It was enough to break the old immortal's heart a bit. Even after everything, he was trusted. Safe enough to argue with and take a few (deserved) shots at. This time, he would do better. He had to.

As the raised voices drop back to a lull again, Kestrel is shaken from her thoughts by the quiet. They won't tell her what she wants to know on their own; getting information from an immortal is like pulling teeth. She's learned that much travelling with Ari this far.

The other thing she's learned is how to be dead silent when she wants to be, and she creeps to the door of the room she was given and opens it just a crack to see whats going on.

Instead of figuring out what they're trying so hard to hide, though, all she finds is an old man trying awkwardly but earnestly to comfort his estranged son.

Watching the two is... difficult.

She'll never see either of her parents again, as far as she knows. Ari isn't cut out to be a parent, as much as he tries to make up for it.

He couldn't replace them even if he wanted to (he doesn't, and she appreciates it).

But right now, she'd give about anything to be held close and safe like that again, just one more time.

She wipes her eyes, catching a tear before it can hit the floor, and creeps back to bed. She has a lot to think about, and a lot to ask, but that's for tomorrow.

For now, she finds herself dreaming of home, and working in the garden with her pa, and helping her mom with the laundry.

[localcryptidsteg]

Unicorns and Horror

In 2004, my father walked into a blockbuster with me, hand in hand, and pointed out a movie that would change the trajectory of my entire life; a movie that would become so beloved, so near and dear to my heart that the characters and my favorite quote from it are now displayed prominently on my arm forever. He pointed it out because there was a pretty cartoon unicorn on the front and I was VERY into horses at the time.

I was 6.

That movie was The Last Unicorn.

Now, arguably, no 6 year old should ever watch The Last Unicorn, as it is very pithy and very old and above all else, very dark. In fact, most reviews recommend you wait until your children are at least 8 to scar them with it. But what's done is done, and I am forever happier for it.

That movie took the magic horsey all good little girls are meant to love immediately, and treated it like it wasn't very vapid or frilly at all. Likewise, it treated the audience, for better or worse, with a respect and trust that certain subjects and themes can and should be handled from a rather youngish age.

For those unfamiliar with the premise, The Last Unicorn is a bittersweet fable about humanity, immortality, and what it means to tread the lines between; what is gained and what is lost, and the sweet tragedies found therein that give a mortal life meaning. It is a very human story about a mythical creature and the people who change her and are changed by her, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. In fact, it's also a book, which I should very much hope you'll order from your local bookstore when we finish here today!

Initially, this was going to be one essay on those themes in the story. Immortality, death, humanity, memory; however that's already been done far better by someone far smarter than me.

But it got me thinking.

Unicorns- soft, sweet, sparkly things that they are- lend themselves so very well to horror and existential dread, don't they?

Now, some might argue I was doomed to fall down this particular rabbit hole, as that very same aforementioned father had a penchant for inserting chainsaws into the narrative of every My Little Pony storybook he was ever pestered to read aloud. However, I am choosing to give myself credit where credit is due here: I asked him to read them rather than my mom because I knew he would throw a few chainsaws in.

See, there's something alluring, even from the view of a child, about the idea that something so good and kind and pure might have a way to protect itself once its had enough. And it makes sense, doesnt it? Even if you don't quite have the language to explain it at that age, a horse is an awfully big prey animal, and a horse with a big, sharp horn must not be quite so helpless as everyone says! Why shouldn't a lone unicorn, with minimal help from a mediocre magician, a scullery maid, and prince who dies almost immediately, be able to drive off a flaming bovine eight times her size by pure virtue of her determination?

Likewise, why shouldn't it go a step further? If unicorns are all that is good, it is natural that they must fight evil and be able to best it, and if they fight evil, they must also be capable of being twisted into it should they lose.

This series of essays is meant to explore murdercorns and dark horses of varying shades across media, ranging from the good-but-stabby to the twisted husks of divine beings.

This

Is Unicorns and Horror!

Prologue- Whats In A Murder Horse?

Part 1- The Last Unicorn

Part 2- DC seems to hate Unicorns

Part 3- Hunting Monsters

Part 4- To Anthologize a Horse

Part 5- Murdercorns Are For Kids

Part 6- Muppety CG and Jenna Ortega

Part 7- Disney Also Hates Unicorns

[localcryptidsteg]

Pity our Fathers

Small-town boy with a dream

Looked up at the stars,

Nearly made it there, Traded,

For money and cars

Hurts those who love him, missed out on his dream,

Son wants nothing to do with him,

Hes just too damn mean,

Now hes stuck with nothing but oil!

Friends,

Pity our fathers

The man loves his daughter,

Really he does

Courts left her with Mom

Who broke from the drugs

He doesnt know how to apologize

Tries to buy back her love with a ps5

But the Kid doesnt need it,

Theyre awkward but trying,

And its a long, long road ahead

Friends,

Pity our fathers

Well they've never met him, and he doesnt know them

Adopted at birth,

Just had Mom in the end

Theyre Smart and theyre Funny

Creative and Kind

Still they see every day

The comments online

About how he left them,

How theyre broken and bad

How theyd be accepted

If they just had a Dad

But they dont have one and probably never will

And he doesnt know!

Friends,

Pity our fathers

He was ok once, he loved us all dearly

Til depression and stress laid more claim to him yearly

Went from Dad to abuser in just two kids,

One can move on

One cant forgive what he did

Do you know how I remember you?

Do you care how she does?

Wish she got to know

The father I loved

[localcryptidsteg]

I Still Want To Be Friends!

Macaque stood on a branch near the temple clearing, arms crossed, watching Mk as and Mei as they finished up their training for the day. Things were... better, now. He and Wukong were at least on speaking terms again. That counted for something, right?

Speak of the devil, the branches below him rustled and broke out in hushed cursing as the monkey king himself popped out of the foliage, clambering gracelessly onto the branch next to him.

"Why didnt you just jump...?" Macaque raised a brow, looking down at the gold monkey.

"Didn't want to, not important!" Wukong grinned, hauling himself over the branch and standing.

"And what is so important that it needed the extra five minutes to scramble up here?" Macaque caught himself teasing a bit.

"I think we should be friends again!"

Well. That certainly wasnt what he'd been expecting.

"What for? This is fine." It wasn't that he was opposed to it, but this was a little out of the blue.

"Well yeah, but you know, for the kid!" Wukong fumbled for an explanation. Because I miss you? Because dancing around eachother like this is awful?  He couldnt say that out loud!

The black monkey sighed. Why did he ever think it would be anything different?

"Wukong. The kid has nothing to do with us being friends. Im not interested in being friends for Mk's sake. Ill work with you but... thats it."

"Yeah... ok...." Cowed, Wukong dropped from the tree. Its my own fault, the king mused. It was stupid anyways. Being ok now isn't going to change centuries of animosity. So why did rejection sting so badly?

[localcryptidsteg]

The girl squints up at a moss covered statue half-obscured by shadow. It looks... old. Older than she knew anything in this area to be. How long had this been here? Was it a temple, or just a shrine? Whoever it belonged to, once, they've been long-forgotten.

Across the cavernous space, her companion continues his endeavor to start a fire.

She looks back at him and frowns. From the moment they fled the burning village, he's been different. She has always seen the village record-keeper as a bit of an airhead, though well meaning. But the level of worldweary competence and fighting prowess he's exhibited since they set out, not to mention he can use magic... It has been a lot to take in. No one has used magic since...

Her eyes widen as she looks between the weathered statue and her self-assigned protector.

“YOU'RE A GOD!”

“Yes.” He does not expand on that.

“But the gods are all dead!”

Its part exclamation, part accusation.

“In a way, yes.” He sighs, and settles, crossing his legs beneath himself and patting the ground next to him. "Sit."

She obliges, choosing to hunker down on the other side of the cheery little fire.

“Your people only tell half the story. The end, actually. So I'll tell you the rest, because you're going to need to know this."

He picks up a stick that had been too wet for the fire, and smooths down the dirt next to him so she can see. He begins tracing lines.

“Everything in the world is connected. It exists with or without governance, all the same, but it changes based on what you make of it. The gods were the very essence of that fact. In some cultures, a god might be a trickster, or a warrior, or a scholar, or leader. Those different beliefs allowed us to stay in balance. But if one idea started to rise to dominance it... warped us. What started as a balanced existence would skew. And, for a handful of us, that became an issue. Gods that were once seen as benevolent became violent and unpredictable due to human influence. Some were brought to heel. Some... were only worshiped in a select few places. Some changes were harder to undo.”

He frowns, shakes his head. The girl leans closer, focusing.

“So yes. Once, there were gods, and Magic was possible. Until one empire decided they wanted the world. The farther they spread, the more their beliefs overtook the old ways. We weren't concerned, at first. So many of us weren't even on the radar, and it's not like a god dies without believers. We exist all the same, even if there's no one left to remember us. We just get a bit weaker.

“What we didn't account for was that war needs a figurehead, and they had decided one that was once a healer was just perfect for the job. So they killed in the name of the god of blood.”

“Maro? The god of blood was a healer?”

She asks slowly, letting this information sink in. Maro was a figure used to scare children into behaving. The aftermath of his defeat had left scars in the earth itself that hadn't healed even centuries later. It was hard to imagine something that could cause so much damage as capable of being gentle.

“Yes, but that wasn't his name. If they had kept the true title, there likely would have been no stopping him. Misdirected worship can only grant so much power. If the concept is right but the name is wrong, the effect isn't quite as strong....”

He trails off, frowning and waving his hand a bit, as if to shoo away that train of thought.

“At any rate, the god you call ‘Maro’ wasn't a soldier. He was a healer. An arbiter of promises. Patron of the bonds that tie friends and family alike. He was worshiped in a small mountain village, but loved dearly there, and he loved them as dearly in return. Life was as idyllic in that village as it was anywhere, until travelers from a swiftly expanding empire stumbled across it."

He crudely etches a small village in the dust, and a caravan.

“They came with false gifts and honeyed words, and left the smoldering ruins of that village with word of a god of blood, and the idea that such a being must be as greedy and vengeful as they.

“And so Maro was born. Demanding and cruel, with an endless, gnawing hunger for violence and death."

The little village is consumed by wispy flames. He's not the best artist, but it is sufficient to illustrate his story. Rising from the flames, he draws a formless figure with frenzied eyes.

“As that empire and their war and their fervor grew, so did their stolen god. At the height of their expansion, he was powerful enough to level battalions of minor deities, and had lost all control over his actions. What once was gentle and meditative was now mindless, aimless, and never satisfied.

“His own siblings, and gods even more ancient than he, found themselves struggling against him as he began to lash out at the mortal realm. It was a long, ruinous fight, but eventually his eldest brother dealt the final blow, with his own blade, and sealed him while the smarter gods figured out what to do about the issue.

“While sealed, he was able to return to his senses, just enough to realize what he had done. He begged to be destroyed. But he was family still, and seeing that some part of what he had been still remained was enough for more powerful among the gods to plead mercy on his behalf. But they were on borrowed time. The longer he remained sealed, the less of that god remained, and the more real Maro would become.

“In the end, the fastest and most effective solution was to cast him out of the pantheon, strip him of his power, and leave him on his own in the mortal realm. They found a way to destroy a god, and they used it, forcing an immortal being into a mortal body. So ended Maro. And so began the struggle for power amongst the gods in earnest. With a way to effectively neutralize eachother, the more powerhungry among us began to abuse it, striping others of their immortality and killing them, until there were none left.

“However, in this same way, several of us managed to survive. We traded power for life. And while we are capable of some small magic, it's rarely anything more than a party trick. So, yes. The gods are dead. But some who were gods once still draw breath. And that is who we need to find.”