They made it to the town without consequence, both holding their breaths as they passed the piles of corpses being gathered for burning. The Sun gave the pile an especially wide berth, seeming less disturbed by the carnage than the smell of carnage, smoke. It didn't ease up as they passed through the trenches and mud barricades, only shifting slightly from the stench of death and burning meat to the smell of unwashed bodies and human waste. The people of the village bowed their heads briefly to Helianthus as they went about their business, giving the stranger accompanying him not much more than questioning glances.

"Eli!" Astera came charging through the makeshift tents and shelters accompanied by Cadmus and the blacksmith. A couple of herding dogs yipped around their ankles, grinning "The dogs found a few of the sheep! I don't know how they did it, but they all got themselves into a cave in the foothills, we could use some help to- Who the fuck is this?"

Helianthus gestured for his sister to close and did his best to keep his voice low. "Is there somewhere quiet we can talk?"

Every habitable building within the town was well occupied by two or three families or a dozen wounded. Outside it, ruined farmhouses and cottages dotted the landscape, most burned beyond recognition and teeming with people looking to salvage whatever they could from their former lives.

Astera had spent the entire morning surveying the damage done during the siege. She knew of a few places too derelict to rebuild that had already been picked over and left to rot. She sent the blacksmith to find help to retrieve the sheep and led them out of the overcrowded town center to a pile of stone and ash that had once been a mill just a few yards away from the outermost mud barricade.

They all huddled behind the toppled grindstones, Astera shooting the stranger sidelong glances as they all made sure there was no one in earshot. The Sun seemed oblivious to this and the reason for them all gathering in secret. In fact, as Helianthus stared helplessly at the god as though his eyes were shackled to him, the mortal couldn't help but notice that his expression was not unlike that of a nobleman enjoying a play. Amused, but not entirely invested in the scene before him

"I don't remember this guy from the Legion. Is he a messenger from Astuvia? Are they sending aid?" Astera asked, the hope in her voice dampened by the concerned creases on her face. "No, no. If it was good news, you wouldn't need to talk to us in secret..."

"He's The Sun." Helianthus whispered, leaning in despite the empty plains surrounding them. "He came to me to ask for my help."

Astera's face fell quick and heavy as the grindstone must've when the mill burnt down. "Oh no, Eli."

Cadmus scoffed, turning away to lean his forehead against the pitted granite. He took a long, deep breath.

"Did you plan this?" Astera asked him, grabbing his shoulder so he had no choice but to face her. "It has your brand of lunacy all over it."

"No." Cadmus flinched when Astera shot him a nasty look. "Look, I wish I'd thought of it, I really do. But this is beyond me."

The Sun smiled with all the charm of a kingfisher. "But I am The Sun."

"Shut up. I don't want to hear a word out of you."

"Whatever you say." The Sun shrugged.

Helianthus blinked, wondering if he'd perhaps said the wrong thing. Maybe they had misunderstood him.

"Eli, I love you. You're brilliant and you saved the lives of most everyone I know, which is more than most people can say about their little brothers..." Astera sighed, the anger in her face dissolving into a blend of sadness and pity that brought Helianthus' childhood rushing back like the flow of blood into a limb. "But this isn't The Sun. I don't know who it is, but he's had a bit of fun with you. I'm very sorry."

"Well, he is though." He insisted, refusing to go back to the dynamic they had as kids. He had just saved the town. he wasn't going to have his sister talking to him like he was a hopelessly gullible ten-year-old. "He's just taken mortal form."

"If this is The Sun," She pointed up at the afternoon sky, where a blindingly bright orb cast its light down from the cloudless sky. "Then what is that?"

Helianthus looked directly at it for a brief moment and buried his head in his hands. As the sting in his eyes faded, he considered the well-proven fact that he was gullible.

The stranger who probably wasn't The Sun cleared his throat. "Oh, that is my crown actually. I-"

"Not a word."

The would-be Sun smiled, lifting his hands apologetically. "Sorry."

Helianthus turned his earlier conversation with the stranger over in his head. There was a reason he was so convinced beyond the man's own declarations. He was sure of it. "He knew things about me! Things he couldn't have known unless he was all-seeing."

Astera took a seat on a pile of bricks that was once a furnace. "Like what? Be specific."

"Well, he said I enjoy the sunrise," Helianthus said, immediately regretting it for how ridiculous it sounded.

Astera nodded diplomatically. "That is true. But do you know of anyone who doesn't?"

Cadmus laughed, tears sparkling in the corners of his eyes. "Classic."

Helianthus shoved him, effectively shutting him up. He took a deep breath. "I know this will sound strange, but he said my first word was actually baa baa."

"Well, in that case, Mum lied to you your entire life."

"I said it when Mum was away," Helianthus said, a small smile of victory creeping across his face.

Astera leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "So, he knows something about you that no one else was around to witness and that you have no hope of remembering."

Cadmus patted his shoulder apologetically. "He does look the part, Captain. I'll give you that."

Astera pulled herself to her feet with a groan. "At least he'll be of use in getting the sheep down. Come on, it won't be long before sundown."

The would-be Sun, who had been watching the others debate his identity with contented silence, glanced uneasily towards the horizon. "How long, would you say?"

"Why, do you have somewhere to be?" Astera asked, shooting him a sharp glance. "Cadmus, keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't run off. Until he tells us his true identity, it's not safe to have him run back to wherever he came from."

They made their way through the lightly wooded foothills. Helianthus and Astera walked a few yards ahead of the other two. They'd both grown up in the wild forest on the other side of town, hunting, trapping and gathering dandelion greens. This place was tamer. This is where the townspeople let their kids run and play, secure in the knowledge that there was nothing out here to hurt them but their own foolishness.

Here, Astera taught him the songs of all the birds. Some calls meant food might be nearby, some meant danger. Most of the time, they were just singing for someone to love. He got good enough at whistling them that even the birds couldn't tell the difference.

It was also out here among the too-friendly squirrels that she would sit him down on an oak stump and teach him that people are not like birds. They don't always say exactly what they mean.

"I know that I can't prove he's The Sun. But I have this strong feeling that he's telling the truth. He just appeared in the old dead riverbed, miles away from a major road. Where else could he have come from?" Helianthus reasoned, trying to prove that this wasn't him being useless little Eli, the idiot boy who can barely say his own name.

"You've seen his clothes; he'd have to be a noble to afford them. But a carriage couldn't have made it within five miles of the riverbed. So, he'd have had to ride three days from Astuvia, left the carriage on the open road then walked a mile through unfamiliar terrain to watch Oxalis and I bathe, which I hadn't even decided to do till this morning. So, if he isn't a god, he'd have to be very eccentric and more than a little clairvoyant."

Astera sighed as she pushed aside a low hanging branch. "This world is strange. Maybe he is some kind of god in mortal form. He could be The Sun. But what if he's a different god? A mountain trickster spirit taking advantage of the village's instability or the god of the old river come to take revenge on us for the dam?"

"...I don't think The Sun would take kindly to an imposter." Helianthus wondered out loud as they turned onto a narrow deer trail.

"I suppose you could ask That Sun, whoever he is." Astera laughed, unsticking her old leather boots from a patch of mud. "How far back are they? I thought your Cadmus could at least walk up a hill without supervision, maybe I'm still overestimating him."

"He's good for morale and has a strong stomach for battle. Not so good for navigating terrain any more difficult than cobblestone roads." Helianthus admitted. Cadmus was raised in the beautiful, well-paved city of Astuvia. He joined the Legion for a chance to escape it and go to new and unfamiliar places. As much as Cadmus loved traveling, he was very unsuited to almost all forms of movement beyond walking. He got violently sick on carts and ships, couldn't run very far before breathing became a chore and had a particular distaste for horses. Helianthus called out for Cadmus and heard a vague response a few yards downhill. "We should wait up for them, so they don't lose us completely."

Thankfully, they didn't have to wait long. In just a few minutes, The Would-Be Sun's sleek and handsome form appeared from behind a thicket of pale birch trees. Cadmus came soon after, panting with an uncharacteristic wildness in his eyes.

"How much further?" Helianthus asked, a little concerned for Cadmus as he listened to the man wheeze.

"About five, ten more minutes. He already made it up once before, he'll survive."

"Captain, you were..." Cadmus waited for his next full breath to speak again. "Captain, you were right. He's The Sun, he's The Fucking Sun."

Astera turned to Helianthus, her expression saying more than her tongue was capable of. The irritation and exasperation simmered in her eyes like a broth warming up to a rolling boil.

"I'll deal with that. After we retrieve the sheep." Helianthus assured, keeping the feeling of sweet vindication off his face.

"Thank you." She went on ahead, marching around the muddy patches.

Cadmus ran over to him as best as he could, The Sun following close behind with long, graceful strides. "Either you were right or you're finally having one over on me as revenge. If you are... then congratulations, I've been fucking had."

"There'll be time to talk about it after we get the sheep down. Caught your breath?" Helianthus restrained his ecstatic grin.

In a patch of light by a birch sapling, The Sun watched with eyes dark and gleaming as those of a mockingbird.