There was a pause, and a gust of warm air stirred the strands of my hair that had fought their way loose during the night. A chuckle, if you could call it that. Chuckling is what humans did. Even Others. This was more like the sound leaves made when disturbed by a sudden gale, settling back to earth. Or the gurgle a crow would make in the back of its throat. No human mouth had formed it.

The itching was getting worse, so bad it was making my eyes water. I scrubbed a hand across my face, hoping it would rid me of this almost-sneeze. I dared not turn, at least not until I got a response. I wasn’t too smart, but I was bright enough to recognise something that was potentially bad for my health.

“Generally speaking, we tend to be more...palatable, than what I imagine you are used to. I assure you, no eldritch terror awaits you. We meddle a little more personally than your….patron.”

The voice was amused, and very breathy. It felt like a cave was suddenly speaking to me. I couldn’t escape, not even across a bloody ocean, it would seem. With a sigh, I turned, shoulders hunched.

It was tall, and slender, and surprisingly human. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the folk I had seen in Zira. It - he - almost looked like Edgar. Just with way sharper cheekbones.

“Hishin.”

He smiled, thin black lips pulled into a rictus that was almost but not quite human. His lips never parted across his teeth, and for that I was grateful. Gods only looked so human.

“I’m impressed you recognise me. I would not have expected it, from a heathen.”

I couldn’t help the way my lips twisted. I hated, hated these sorts of interactions. I’d come a long way, but it had taken a lot of time and a great deal of effort to achieve. My nose wasn’t bleeding - yet - which was a plus. And it had been years since I last fainted following a ‘meeting’. Most folk had it worse - people who were stupid enough to look a god in the face did not live long enough to crow about it. That’s what I was - stupid. I would have quite happily gone about existing without ever having to deal with a god. Even being God Touched. No idea who my patron was? Who cared? Most God Touched never even knew. Most God Touched never got more than the occasional message scrawled on a wall in someone else’s blood, or birds that suddenly spoke in tongues. I got deities, in the multiple. Apparently the gods were much more excited to talk to mortals than we were to speak to them.

“You remind me of someone. Similar aesthetic and all that. Just more-” I circled my free hand in front of myself to indicate ‘face’. “Him I don’t know though.”

The god didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. He knew who I was speaking of.

I mean, I could have guessed. It wasn’t half hard to tell that this Ziran pantheon had a tendency to appear more to their worshippers. Gotta keep it nice and simple for the simple folk. The man had seaweed in his hair, for crying out loud.

“Arbor.”

“Lord of fish and things with too many legs?”

He was a twitchy little fellow, this Arbor, and not overly talkative. He had a spitting glower, though.

“More or less.”

I had to admit, they were far easier to look at than the gods I was used to. Umbra had long ago resorted to using simulacra, strange little almost-humans made of clay, to pilot in order to speak to the normals. Even that was unsettling. It was still uncomfortable though, and I’d really rather this pair took their leave sooner, rather than later.

“I doubt this is a social call. To what do I owe the - “ nope, couldn’t do it. There was something about gods that always had me wearing my heart on my sleeve and my thoughts on my face. I was usually so good at this. I tried to force my lips not to twist in distaste. Bastards. “- pleasure?”

Arbor snarled, fishily. He was pure ocean, distilled, and he certainly smelled it.

“I should strike you down where you stand, mortal.”

I bristled then, the way a pissed off cat would.

“Try it, I fucking dare you fish boy. Bigger men than you have tried and failed.” It would hurt, and it was stupid. I had the scars to prove it. But thanks to my lord and saviour, I tended to bounce back, sooner or later. And by the gods, it would piss an entire continent’s worth of deities off more than I ever could on my lonesome, if he actually attempted it. I just didn’t care anymore. I was done with this godforsaken country. I’d been stabbed and roughed up, and now this.

“Please,” Hishin sighed, like the air that sometimes came up from crypts when some fool pried them open. “All we ask is a boon.”

I considered him, eyes narrowed. It was suspicious, suspicious as hell. Mysterious ways, and all that. Never worked out well for the humans involved. When I didn’t jump to answer him immediately, the elder god sighed again.

“One of my children is in danger, I would ask that you offer him sanctuary. From what I have seen, you have done an admirable job of keeping your little princeling alive and you are...resourceful.”

“You’re talking about the prince that everyone keeps trying to shank?”

Eyes with no white bored into me.

“It has been a long time since one of my own stood in a place of power. The other houses look down on those that tend the dead. If he were to ascend to his father’s position, it would be a great victory. But to do so, I need him to live, and that he will not do if he stays here.”

The way he spoke had me pondering if these Ziran gods were a lot more like my own than they first appeared. Esarian gods were desperately dependent on how many folk believed in them. It was why we had major gods, and little ones. The strength of the prayer determined the strength of the god. Having a little king all of his own would likely give the dark god before me quite a boost.

“I already have one prince that everyone wants dead, why would I want two?”

The dark god stretched out a hand, and touched the wet, slimy little head of his companion.

“Arbor has agreed not to sink you, when you try to cross the Green Straight. I’m sure you are aware that there are...reasons, that your people and ours have never traded.”

Surprise, surprise, the little green bastard was responsible for obliterating anything that didn’t have fins. I’d wager he had something to do with how we had ended up in Zira in the first place. But it solved a problem, and my insides seemed to unclench just a little. The way people had looked, the expressions they cast to each other when they thought Tiru, breathlessly explaining his voyage plans, was not watching. The doubt. It had worried me, more than I wanted to admit. I don’t think Dell could have plucked the boy out of the ocean twice.

“Fine. I’ll take your princeling. Just leave me be.”

I turned away from them then. Probably a foolish move. But I was suddenly tired, and all I wanted was to crawl back into bed, to breath in wood smoke and earth.

“Oh, and Guðr,” A chill marched all the way up and down my spine. This little foreign god should not know that name. No one knew that name. Not even Dell, who knew more than most about me. The only one who called me that was my own patron, my dark god. It was even more worrying that he pronounced it perfectly. In that one tiny moment, his accent was so perfectly a replica of what I knew from my youth that I ached for home. But my home was gone, split asunder. No one spoke like that anymore.

“What?” I snapped, and my voice sounded harsh even in my own ears.

“The boy with the curse in his blood. He is my child too. I think he would fare best with another child of the dead. Even a foreign one. I would consider it a personal favour if you kept him with you.”

All I could do was nod, mute. I didn’t trust myself to speak. The dark god seemed satisfied though. My nose started to itch as he smiled, and those black lips split open. The void behind those lips reminded me of a lamprey, rows of serrated, turned in teeth stretching back as far as the light allowed me to see. I sneezed then, violently. When I opened my still-watering eyes, they were gone.