Chapter Text
What is immortality? Dripping gold, burnished blood. Ichor. "There is ichor in our veins," they say, these deities in their cloudset castles. They bleed (they live, even if we might never call them alive), but their very veins know they are Other.
Does it gleam a gilded glow through their skin where humans would tint red?
Aren’t they shapeshifters? Wasn't that what the fallen sun god wished to have back- the ability to be anything? Does their blood stay gold?
Does the blinding light inside of them have blood at all?
And what of their children, these demigods. Semi-deities, harmed and strengthened in turn by both worlds. They want a 'normal life,' and they think that quests and wars are all that will separate them.
Do they not train against flowing lava? What mortal human would want that? What illusion do these children cling to, even still?
"When you know, your scent is stronger." Know what? That there is a reason for their Otherness? When that reason comes in acronyms and special aid, does that make it not a reason? No, it is more than the restless energy thrumming (always, ever, unstoppable, restless) beneath their flesh.
These children bleed red yet spill gold. How do you split immortality?
"Gods don't have DNA," they explain, before kissing each other, holding hands in the dark (and more, once they've been 'released'). They think that they share nothing with their immortal parent but domains of interest and power. They have the hands of the smith or the tongue of the lover or the face of the sun and say-
They all want to live a normal life, don't they?
Liars, liars, liars. Foolish, to think it will ever be over. Do they think this life is merely something that happens to them? Nay, they throw themselves into it, bared teeth slick with saliva, hands tight around metal.
Mortals. That is what they call their parents, their siblings, their teachers. Mortals, spirits, monsters, immortals. Everyone is easy to categorize. So what are they?
The power that shapes the cresting of the waves does not fold itself within a human boy. The ruptured screams of the deceased do not find a kindly welcome from someone who cannot walk their shadows. The vines of madness tangle and twist within those who would not be called sane by any mortal standard- what does it say about these campers, that they notice no difference to themselves?
They can touch the curtain that hides their secrets. They call it Mist, and warp it tightly around them. They lie, and they lie, and they lie.
Their blood runs red, and that makes them normal. Gods do not have DNA, and their fully formed genetics came from nowhere. Their problems are acronyms in a guidance counselor's office. It is their parents that placed them in this world, and their happy ending would be to leave it. All they need to do to live is survive.
mortal
/mawr-tl/
adjective
1. subject to death; having a transitory life.
(all mortal creatures.)
2. of or relating to human beings as subject to death; human.
(this mortal life.)
3. belonging to this world.
immortal
/ih-mawr-tl/
adjective
1. not mortal; not liable or subject to death; undying.
(our immortal souls.)
2. remembered or celebrated through all time.
(these immortal words.)
3. perpetual; everlasting; constant.
(an immortal enemy.)