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Chapters 1–3: The Agent’s Wish

If love were alien, how would you confess it? You’d know it was good; you’d know it was wonderful; you’d know the meaning of life itself was in your hands — but you wouldn’t know where it had come from, where it was heading, nor what horrible things it might make you do.

For the agent on the floor of a bullet hole-ridden workshop, bleeding — dying — crafting his final bow, it was stupid that he’d have to deal with that kind of problem now. He’d accepted dying at any time, but this? It was the first time he’d felt the unknown so close to him. He had been in the bowels of infinite mazes, the torture chambers of resurrected pharaohs, and come face-to-face with horrors barely contained by human hands; all that, and yet his mind could not ponder why he would love anyone now.

Knowing the answer to that was his greatest wish — and passing that answer to the one he loved would be his final one. Most would say he was too young to die, but with these thoughts, he thought he was right about old enough.

The workshop was a dark, damp place. The only light was from thin sun shafts coming through a hundred bullet holes, all his handiwork and poor aim. He’d missed enough times that he’d had to rely on his body armor, but it had done nothing to stop the tree root that had shot towards him. Now, he was slumped against the legs of a chair, the root still in his gut.

It had been a while since then; a minute, an hour, he didn’t know. All he knew was it was getting colder. Already, his legs had grown numb; already, it was getting darker. His brain had at least given him the mercy of not processing the pain at all — at least that way, he could focus on finishing the bow.

“Show me that,” a young lady’s voice said behind him, close to his ear. She had been watching his progress over his shoulder. He lifted the stave up to her, but it was hard; he couldn’t feel his arms now. “Terrible,” she remarked. “Keep going.” He could only see the hem of her Spanish dress in the corner of his vision, but regardless, he could imagine her smile as she spoke.

Keep going he did. He swept away the spent brass cartridges annoyingly littered around his legs, resting one end of the stave on his shoulder and the other on the floor. “You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Hey, you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“Hypothetically, what would you think — if I asked you to marry me?” He chuckled in saying that, trying to pass it off as a joke she shouldn’t take seriously. He didn’t take it seriously, himself — or was it more that he didn’t want to? A part of him hoped she’d say yes, and another tried to get him not to think about it at all.

She coughed ugly. “Terrible” — there was a pause — “but I wouldn’t say no.”

His hands stopped. He began to laugh, but moving so much, some pain managed to bypass his brain’s defenses, and he winced.

The first pitter-patters of rain came knocking on the roof, soon pouring down. Water dripped onto their heads from the many pinky-sized holes of the old workshop’s ceiling. It was raining, but why did the sun still shine? Maybe a god’s getting married today — but what a cruel twist of fate.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

There was a burning sensation in his eyes and throat. “Nothing,” he said. “I was just thinking, maybe I should’ve done it sooner.”

“Why don’t you do it now?” she asked.

Even while it rained, thin shafts of light shone in through the holes, not just from the ceiling, but through the walls, too, breaking up the dimness of the workshop into triangular slices. There used to be a sawhorse by the clamping desk, and even a rowboat hanging from the ceiling, but everything was in tatters. This was a place he used to find happiness in. Now, it was just a broken place.

“I don’t think I’m the kind of person who deserves it,” he said.

The burning in his eyes flowed down his cheek, but before he could wipe them, two hands gently pulled his head back, and he was made to look up at the person most patient for him.

A flower grew out of her head; it had always been there. It had once been a healthy Rafflesia, but now it was wilting, dying just like him.

Seeing her, he struggled between choosing to smile or to frown. There was no one in the world who knew better how he felt and what he thought, and for a time in his life, he had forgotten all about how he was just some country’s drone, just another name wiped from the registry then programmed to kill or be killed.

No matter what a country did, however, a man was still an animal of emotion. He could be programmed to kill even someone he loved, but he could never be programmed not to be tortured over it for the rest of his life. Lucky for me that’s not a long time, then.

“Craft,” she said. “You aren’t the only person who decides what you deserve.” She moved her hands to his shoulders. “All you have to do is decide that you do, and I’ll be there to affirm it with you.”

He kept quiet, because he couldn’t say it. He kept shaving away at the bow, hoping it would turn out alright. He kept shaving away, hoping an answer would arrive for him.

Why does it take so long to die? Next thing he knew, there was nothing left to shave down. The stave had taken the shape of a bow of crooked cuts and flat faces. When he showed it to her, he asked, “Is it okay?” — but she didn’t answer.

He looked up at her. Her hands were still on his shoulders. Her eyes were closed, the flower on her head, dried, yet her smile never disappeared from her face.

He trembled. It was cold. He hated it here. Why did it take so long to die?

“Raffie,” he said. Maybe she could still hear him. Unmoving didn’t yet mean gone. “I wish I had the courage to tell you I love you. I’m terrified you’d open your eyes just to say the same thing back to me. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear it. I’m not sure I’m good enough to.”

His eyes closed without permission. “I’m counting the bad things I’ve done, Raffie,” he struggled to say, counting his seconds left. “I just wish I’ve done…enough good…for you.”

Was it just him, or did the hands on his shoulders start to squeeze? Rigor mortis or Rafflesia’s last act — he couldn’t tell between the two.

To be afraid she might say something, or to be lonely that she was gone; to be angry at himself for being a coward, or being vengeful against the world who’d pit them against each other. He had all these feelings — and they all perished with him, all at once.

***

His senses came back to him one by one, and he rued it. No time had passed at all between death and all these new sensations: the feel of cool air, the taste of his saliva, the smell of his sweat, and the sound of a singing woman.

The voice soothed him, almost making him forget the last minute like it had all just been a bad dream, but he couldn’t understand her lyrics — and he still couldn’t forget. Why would he still be made to suffer?

Finally, sight came back, and then he saw who it was. On a flat white plane was a woman in white robes and with silver hair, almost blending in with the white expanse around them. The air around them was just like a silver screen.

While the woman continued to sing, he saw his memories being played in the air like a black-and-white movie on fast forward. Every achievement and failure, every moment that shaped his life, was naked for all to see — even the part where he traded blows and bullets with Rafflesia until they were both as good as dead.

In the end, he couldn’t tell her about the feeling that was just beginning to simmer in him, and he only had himself to blame. Was this the afterlife? Why was he here? Why did he still remember everything? If this was supposed to be heaven, he didn’t want it. To whichever god put him here, he owed nothing.

“Hey,” the woman said softly. She had stopped singing, and the movie had stopped playing. Craft looked at her. Tears were building in her eyes. Were those for him? Why pity him?

“I’m sorry I took a look,” she said. “You don’t trust me, and I haven’t given you any reason to. The best I can do is say my name’s Enthusia. I just hope you’d eventually trust me.”

Craft still refused to look at her. She could do whatever she wanted with him. “Whatever it is, just get it over with and let me die.”

He might’ve heard a gasp, but he didn’t care.

The woman steeled herself. “I understand how your people view beings like me, like I’m supposed to play with your life.” She paused. “But that’s not what I want, and it’s not what I do. That’s why, I hope you’d take your time.”

The scenery shifted, and they were no longer in an indeterminate plane. He and the woman were standing on a hill, and behind the woman was a gazebo with a tea table and seats for two.

She gestured to a dirt path behind him, and when he looked, it led down to the foot of the hill where there was a cottage, tiny in the shade of a large tree.

“Rest however long you must.” She lowered her finger. “You and I both know you don’t know what to feel yet. Come to me when you do.” She seemed to hesitate to take her eyes off him, but she turned around and entered the gazebo, sitting down and drinking tea as if to end any other afternoon stroll, contenting herself with a view of the open plain beyond the hill.

Craft turned towards the cottage. There was nothing in his mind.

“But if you haven’t, and you need someone to talk to,” Enthusia called after him, “I’ll always be here.”

Maybe.

He started to hike down the hill, feeling like he was just in a passing dream. Just moments ago, he’d resigned himself to death and a failed life, yet now, he was being left alone to recover from that.

He stopped halfway down the path, turning around to look at the gazebo. The woman was still there, looking far off into the distance.

Entering the cottage, there was a table, a bed, and a fireplace under a chimney. He found a hand bell and a note on the table:

— If you need anything, ring and ask the angel who appears.

Maybe not left alone. Whoever they were, they wanted him to talk to them — that much was obvious. He didn’t have anything he cared about losing, so maybe he’d oblige just to see if it would kill him … but he just couldn’t do that right now.

They were giving him time. If he overstayed his welcome, whatever the punishment was would be fine. He lied down on the bed, closing his eyes, hoping sleep might still take him as a dead man.

***

Days passed, and there was nothing to do. The cottage had no books, no anything. He’d resorted to doing calisthenics the other day, walking around with nothing more than a pair of boxers and a shirt. That got old pretty fast.

He needed something to do. He needed something so he wouldn’t beat himself up again. He was going a little crazy, too, though he found it a little funny he still found it in himself to care about that little detail.

Today, he put on trousers and rang the bell.

There was a knock on the door. That was fast. He hurried and opened it for his visitor — though, he couldn’t say he was excited about meeting an angel. The ones he’d met had all been horrifying-but-friendly or beautiful-but-arrogant… Maybe he shouldn’t have rung the bell.

It was too late now; he’d already pulled the door halfway open. As he steeled himself and opened it the rest of the way, he was shocked to find someone a little more approachable: her wings were courteously folded behind herself, and unlike most angels he knew, she wore a business suit and a pair of glasses with a thick frame, carrying a briefcase like some embassy attaché.

Down to business and punctual, he didn’t let first impressions deceive him, however. With obsidian-black feathers and gray hair, something about her aura told him he shouldn’t ever try to mess with her — not that he had any spirit to do so.

“May I come in?” she said curtly. Craft shuffled out of the way, and the angel stepped inside. She made a beeline for the desk, setting up the briefcase on it, opening it and taking out a few documents, and when that was all out of the way, she took out a pen and clicked it open.

She looked at him. “What do you need?” she asked.

“That’s, uh” — he took a moment to collect himself. Her pace made him feel even more sluggish. “Do you have something for bowmaking?”

“Bowmaking,” she whispered to herself. “Can you be specific?”

“Right, that’s a spokeshave, a draw knife, a hatchet” —

There were other things, and the angel noted them. She packed up and left without another word.

It was quiet again. His guard was down. Ordinarily, he’d be taking note of the angel’s every mannerism and weakness by now, but he was still just too tired. Whatever happens, happens. Treat me, roast me, make me your subject or your experiment — or whatever other roleplay they could come up with. He’d go along with it. If they allowed him some hobbies to pass the time, then that’d be fine too.

Not even a minute passed when the next knock came. He opened the door, and the same angel was there with everything he needed, sticking out of a tool box. Even the two-years-aged staves he requested were in a neat standing bundle beside it.

Was the angel really just on-call like that? That was hard to believe. After a moment’s staring, he thought to approach the angel since she seemed to be waiting for him. She stood aside, though, making way for him to check the whole bunch of tools and materials.

He confirmed it was everything, feeling uncertain the whole time. After he gave the thumbs up, the angel left, sinking through a shadowy puddle in the ground.

She’s really playing courier. He tentatively believed it.

He was alone again. The thoughts came rushing back again. He took his supplies indoors, and for weeks, he didn’t come out. He drowned himself in the making of new bows, remembering the things Rafflesia had taught him. Whenever the wood chips and sawdust piled up, he’d just sweep them out the door’s entrance, letting it pile up outside and not making it his problem.

He realized he’d never get hungry. He never once even needed to relieve himself nor did he ever smell bad enough to have to take a bath. That was all good, though, because he didn’t want to think of anything other than making bows.

There had been twenty staves in a bundle, and twenty days had passed. He rang the bell again to ask for more.

The knock didn’t come as quickly as he’d thought, however, and he opened the door to check if she wasn’t just waiting outside. He found her…sweeping the chips and sawdust out of the way of the entrance.

This wasn’t even on the level of “playing courier” anymore; she was seriously his attendant.

“Please clean up sometimes so I can make my deliveries,” she said.

Craft scratched his head. “Sorry. Can you toss in a broom, too?”

“Very well.”

She handed him the broom she was already holding, showed him the new bundle of staves, and left — just like that. He still had it in him to be slightly embarrassed over her cleaning up his mess, but she hadn’t seemed annoyed in the slightest. A part of him hoped she wasn’t just putting up with it, but was it right to assign human emotions to these entities?

As long as routine didn’t break, then anything was fine.

Weeks passed again, and he chewed through all those staves. He made sure to sweep the front of the cottage before ringing the bell a third time — and three became four, and four became… Well, he lost track.

Some Nth time, however, before the angel sank into the ground to leave, he made another request.

“A storage rack for bows,” he said. The angel stopped.

“For how many?” she asked.

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Craft scratched his head. “Never mind, I haven’t counted. Maybe next time” —

“I’ll count it,” she interrupted him. He decided whatever wizardry it was she was doing to sink in and out of the ground, she’d be able to use it to instantly count all the bows he had.

The angel proceeded ahead of him, but when she entered, she found a room littered with unstrung bows. Beside the fireplace, where the firewood was supposed to be stacked, bows filled it instead. A raft made of bows was placed between the bed and the table, and then another raft between the table and the door. There were bows lashed together by their bowstrings to form frames against which even more bows could be stacked.

“I see,” she muttered. “Two-hundred fifty-three bows.”

She turned around and walked past Craft. That surprised him. There hadn’t even been a spell or showy magic.

Before she had one foot out the door, though, he had to ask her something. “Is this really okay?”

The angel stopped and looked at him, letting her gaze convey her question.

“I don’t know how long it’s been,” he clarified. “Maybe the goddess” —

“The goddess will wait,” the angel said. “If we’re alike in any way, she will wait for you.”

He didn’t expect to hear anything like that from the angel. ‘Alike?’ — he’d wanted to ask. He wanted to ask her name, too, but she escaped into the ground before he could even call out to her.

He’d been thinking these past few days. Even if he couldn’t prove to himself that his hosts were “good,” they were certainly being patient towards him. There existed no gods, however, who would pour this much patience onto someone they weren’t also putting their hopes on — and if the owner of this domain, Enthusia, had expectations for him, then his extended vacation here wasn’t really for free, was it?

With the door left open, he could see the gazebo where Enthusia had said she’d wait. He could see someone still sitting there, but he couldn’t believe it was actually her. There was no one who’d just sit there doing nothing except waiting. Patience besides, it wasn’t something a god should be doing.

Regardless of Enthusia’s intentions, he just didn’t want to piss off patient people as a matter of principle.

***

Winter had come suddenly. Craft hadn’t expected there to be winters in this place, though he supposed it helped to have some kind of sense of time.

Even through the winter, he just made bows. Winter being winter, he didn’t go out except to deposit new bows into the new storage shed, but this winter seemed oddly long. Of the two-hundred staves in the last delivery, he had already used up half of them.

Bows were already starting to pile up in his room again. He needed to get them to the storage shed, or else he’d be swimming in them like last time.

The moment he opened his door, the snow came howling in. The first thing he saw was the gazebo far in the distance, glowing a warm yellow by the lamps that surrounded it. Even in this weather, there was someone still there.

He scooped up a bundle of bows and trekked through the snow. He had to raise his legs higher than usual just to take one step, reaching the shed after much tedium. Even so, of all the winters he’d experienced, he wouldn’t call this one severe.

He threw the bows into a chute. According to the angel’s explanation, they’d get automatically organized inside, so he didn’t need to make any effort other than dumping bows through the chute.

He turned back towards the gazebo, curious of the person there. Why would she wait for so long? It was freezing, and it seemed a long way away. Even just this short walk to the shed felt like an expedition on its own.

That question bounced around his head as he made the trek back to safety — but he stopped halfway. He’d been thinking recently: why was he still alive? He could just lie down in the snow right here and…no, that probably wouldn’t kill him. The cold bite of the snow was real, but by the settings of this place, there was nothing here that could kill him in any meaningful way, except perhaps himself.

He’d thought about it: doing the deed himself. If it wasn’t a physical death, but a soul-bound one, then he knew how to do it — but just as he lacked the motivation to live, he also lacked the motivation to die. This had been true even during his mortal life; everything was harsh and unfulfilling, and he had always been like a pinball bouncing around by the whims of his bosses, enemies, and tentative comrades.

They feared his aliases and gave him noms-de-guerre, but being a skilled agent didn’t really mean anything to him. He may have been good at anticipating things and adapting to them, but the flipside of that bore the truth: that he had always lived his life in reaction — of the past, of the present, of his flimsy idea of the future.

Desires and force of will were irrelevant; he had nothing.

If there had been anything that he could call his own, it was those few months spent with Rafflesia.

A single person defined his one and only moment in life, and it was a moment that cursed him. He still remembered, in those times, how the hustle and bustle of his brain would inexplicably go quiet, leaving him reeling in the silence and safety of sincere company. It was strange that he had felt no euphoria nor bliss, and yet he wanted to crawl back to those moments of stillness. He wanted them, over and over, again and forever.

Could bits and pieces of what he had found with Rafflesia be also found in someone else? It was unjust to think she could be replaced, but she wasn’t what he was replacing. There was a void in him of missing emotions and questions he didn’t even know how to ask. It was the kind of unknown that would freeze someone’s life into a preset routine, repeated ad infinitum until a nuclear winter came.

But when it came to the unknown, he was a veteran explorer, and the most important rule was to never think he knew the answer.

He looked to the gazebo. Maybe the one over there did.

He got back inside the cottage, closed the door, and rang the bell. He didn’t wait for the knock this time, though; it was freezing outside, and he didn’t want the angel to turn into a snow angel just waiting for him to open up.

He opened the door just as the angel’s hand was poised to knock. She was padded-up in thick weather gear, though he didn’t see why someone who could probably erase him with a snap would feel the need to fight off the weather to begin with.

She lowered her hand and welcomed herself inside. Craft closed the door before speaking. “I’m going to need snow gear,” he said.

The angel took out a tickler file and jotted down what he’d said. “Anything else?”

Despite this weather, she’s still so straightforward. Somehow, he felt glad that some things didn’t change. Catching himself feeling glad…he surprised himself. When was the last time he’d felt that?

In a lighter mood, he had the will to ask: “How about your name?”

The angel raised an eyebrow, but not complaints. “Amacus. Anything else?”

“No, that’s all.” Craft opened the door for her. “Thanks,” he said as she passed. She nodded, left, and a few paces later, sank through the snow.

The moment he closed the door, there was a soft thud against it. He opened it again, discovering the clothes he’d wanted lying in a bundle on the floor. He imagined Amacus had tossed it at him shortly before the door clicked closed. It was a little more rude than he’d expect a servant of a goddess to behave, but maybe she did feel the cold, and in the first place, he didn’t mind the angel’s demeanor at all.

***

Fifteen minutes later, he was trekking through the snow, making his way up the hill. The snowfall here was steady, but the snow itself wasn’t so thick that he had to raise his legs too high. Even so…he should’ve asked for snow shoes.

‘It’s just a short hike.’ Right…

Climbing up the slope, he could make out someone still seated inside the gazebo. Each and every time, he thought, she’s always there when I look. The more he thought about it, the less he understood her. He even doubted it was actually her.

Coming closer, it really was that same head of silver hair there. He could make out fluffy ear muffs on her, too, seemingly made from clouds. Her feet were off the ground, and she was hunched over with a thick blanket wrapped around her. In her hands was a steaming mug of something, and where there used to be a teapot was now a thermos flask instead.

He was just steps away from the gazebo when Enthusia turned and noticed him. “Want some hot chocolate?” she asked, her words slurred by the snow chill.

Her choice of words surprised him somewhat, and he let it show on his face. “Hot chocolate?” he parroted. He patted the snow off his coat before taking a seat across her. “I thought you’d be a tea person through and through.”

It felt to him strange enough that they were conversing like this…but it had been a long time since they’d last spoken; how long, he didn’t know. Perhaps it was more that it was easier to speak his mind when he had nothing to lose — easier to pretend they were both just people under a gazebo during a long winter.

Enthusia hummed in disagreement. “Even if I like tea — have to change it up sometimes. Even using big words is tiring.”

That…wasn’t an answer he was expecting. Gods were whimsical, but was it supposed to be like this?

He looked out to the view Enthusia had been watching this whole time, but all there was was a flat plain. It was green the last time he’d seen it; now it was all covered in snow. What’s so interesting about it? Rather than interesting, he felt nervous just seeing it. He’d experienced harsher winters before, and there was nothing more terrifying than a tundra — a vast expanse of nothing. When snowstorms came, it was a whiteout, and the line between the air and the ground vanished. In those things, even having a GPS in the corner of his vision couldn’t make him feel less lost.

“Hot chocolate?” Enthusia said again. Craft shrugged and reached out for the flask, then the mug, taking one and filling the other, but only up to half.

When he put the mug down, he saw Enthusia was squinting at him. “Fill it up,” she said, judging him just a bit. “Scarcity here is artificial, y’know.”

“Right.” He shrugged and filled up the mug, but when he was done and he looked up at his host again, she was looking far out into the snow plain.

“I’ve got a question,” he said.

“Mhmm.”

“Why’re you making it cold?”

“Just changing things up,” she said, practically mumbling. She wasn’t even looking at him when she’d said it. “I wanted some hot choccie, but it wasn’t cold enough to enjoy.”

“So you…floored the thermostat until you were satisfied?”

“Uhm… Yeah.” She slowly panned towards him. “Don’t look at me like that.”

He was looking at her in awe. He recalled that one time he was on an aircraft carrier, and he saw this sleepy officer get a bagel, sit by the window, and crack open a book. The sun had been striking the officer directly in the face, so he got the phone hanging from the wall above his head, dialed someone, said some navy jargon, hung it up, and went on to eat his bagel.

Some seconds had passed and Craft had noticed the spot of sun on the officer’s face drift away to light up the book on the table instead.

That guy grinned as he cracked open his book. He’d redirected the entire aircraft carrier — and with it, the whole fleet — to precisely shift the sun to light up his trash romance novel.

Just like that guy, Enthusia was here doing weather manipulation just to enjoy her hot chocolate. It’s not the magic of it that bothered him, but the thought process; he will never understand what went through the minds of these people who wielded incredible power for lazy reasons.

He later posted about it online. It did amuse him.

“It’s not like you’re showering with liquid nitrogen,” Enthusia continued.

Craft chuckled. She was pretty much just summoning things on-demand, so even if she probably wouldn’t do it, “Well, I can see that happening,” he remarked.

She frowned; he hadn’t expected that. “I won’t, though,” she said. “I don’t have a hobby of making you suffer just because.”

He shifted in his seat. That piqued his curiosity. The goddess had kept her word so far, but with how these things usually went, he couldn’t let go of the possibility that this was all just her upfront investment for something she wanted him to do once he’d gotten unstuck.

“Why’re you giving me free room service?” he asked, and that doubt of his seeped through his tone.

Enthusia’s gaze flittered towards him, then away to gaze at the snow plain again. She could read between his question’s lines just fine.

“Around 1% of humans have this thing called ‘psychopathy.’ I’m sure everyone’s heard of it.”

He said nothing. He couldn’t tell whether she was deflecting or leading.

“The extreme of being unable to care for anyone,” she continued. “In gods, the rate’s closer to 50%.”

Craft couldn’t help but to think, Well, that sums up Earth’s clusterfuck.

“On the other hand,” Enthusia continued, “humans also have another extreme. The ones who believe in community, have an abnormal amount of humility — the ones who’ll die on the hill of people being inherently good” — she turned her head towards Craft — “if you take that far enough, it’s called ‘pathological altruism.’ Heard of it? Being so selfless that it kills you.” Enthusia chuckled, and Craft imagined it might be for herself.

“Not the term.” Craft shook his head. “I can think of a few people who fit the description, though.”

“If you know someone like that, then you understand why they’re rare. In a place where people die if they don’t climb over others, they’re the first ones to go,” she said, and Craft nodded. She smiled politely, but he could tell she was trying her best to hide a kind of pain he’d thought no god would be able to express. He kept that to himself. “What do you think the rate of pathological altruists is for gods?” She raised three fingers. “They’re the only ones I know.”

She turned away and watched the snow plain again, satisfied to have given enough of an answer.

Craft set an empty mug on the table. He could read between her answer’s lines just fine. “Thanks for the chocolate.” He stood up. “Maybe try adding some salt next time. If it’s all sugar, you can’t really bring out the sweetness.”

Enthusia didn’t face him, but he saw her smile grow from the side of her face all the same. “You can get through anything if you have what you need. Don’t forget your snow shoes on your way out.”

There was a pair of snow shoes in the corner. It wasn’t there before.

At the first blink of sunrise, he found it easier going home.

***

Spring came the next day. Craft stepped around melted puddles and hopped over newly-formed streams with a bundle of bows hefted over his shoulder. He was light on his feet — a suspicious rather than welcome change. Every sight and sound felt crisp and clear. That shouldn’t be right. Nothing should have changed except that he’d had a conversation after a long time, or was it that he’d figured something out in his subconscious?

He reached the shed and started to feed the storage chute with his practice pieces. Do I trust that goddess? He loaded a bow. Is it because it’s worth it, or because I don’t have a choice? He loaded another bow. Even if I did, and it’s worth it, what do I do about it now? Enthusia’s intentions still weren’t clear to him; perhaps it was something good, but ‘something good’ wasn’t something concrete.

“Good morning,” a now-familiar voice called. Speak of the devil. He turned around to find her in a spring dress and a wide-brimmed hat. In one hand was a basket, and in the other, a bucket of ice. “Let’s talk inside.”

Even after yesterday, he had been under the impression that his days could continue as normal. What changed?

Enthusia welcomed herself into the cottage, willing her hat out of existence, and Craft followed closely. He found her setting up coffee brewing equipment on the table. First, tea, then hot chocolate, and now…

“Why,” he said, more of a reaction than a real question.

“Because,” she replied, because non-questions deserved non-answers. She looked at him with a just-sit-down-already smile. “I just need to talk about a few things.”

Those were the most terrifying words she’d ever told him until now. “Sounds serious,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Decently so.” She nodded. She moved various glasswares around before she spoke again. “It just felt like the right timing to talk about your choices.”

“So it’s a career counseling session?”

Enthusia chuckled. Craft smirked, a little more relaxed knowing that the goddess could take a joke.

She looked at him, smiling at him. “I’m glad,” she muttered, returning her attention to whatever she was arranging.

Craft raised an eyebrow. That seemed out of nowhere. “What for?”

She looked at him. “It’s your first joke in years, you know?”

That unit of measurement struck him a little harder than he expected. It’s true he felt lighter now, but before anything — “Years? Did I hear that right?”

She looked at him all nonchalant and friendly. “Why, yes, it’s been 289 years since you got here.”

Craft blinked, but when Enthusia refused to break eye contact, he folded. He hunched forwards and propped up his head by his hands, deep in contemplation as he stared at the ground.

Two-hundred and eighty-nine years. That just wasn’t a number he could wrap his head around. It wasn’t a number he even felt pass by.

The scent of coffee suffused through the room, reaching him before a cup of coffee presented itself in the edges of his vision. He looked up to find Enthusia holding it in front of him, surprising him that she’d had any courtesy whatsoever as a god. He took it without comment, looking at his reflection in the liquid gold.

“Almost three-hundred years,” he absently said, repeating it over and over in his head. How is that possible — no, hold on. There was a very important fact here that he’d been glossing over.

He furrowed his brows and looked up at Enthusia. “Wait, I’m dead anyway.”

“I’m glad you’ve caught up.” She took a seat by the table, finally able to enjoy a cup of her own efforts.

“No, not by much,” Craft replied. “It doesn’t even feel like that much time passed. Hell, if anything, isn’t it wrong I’ve made you wait for three hundred years?”

Even if she’d been an evil god, she was his benefactor, and he still had some principles.

Enthusia smiled. “It’s nothing to me. Don’t worry about it.”

He shook his head, exhaling loudly through his nose. Just imagine freeloading for three-hundred years. There was no way he’d not feel guilty over this. Before he could say anything, though, Enthusia interrupted.

“Think of it this way,” she said, “you’ll pay it back with the choice you’ll make.” She shrugged. “Though, I’m fine with anything you’ll choose. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“I’ll keep this to the point.” She set her cup on the table and placed her hands on her lap, straightening her back. She was too nervous — an emotion he hadn’t thought she could have.

“Craft, I’m the creator and goddess of Amatoria. It’s a world very unlike your last. It’s a world I made so people like you can find the things you need in peace, and when you find them, of course, you’ll always have the right to stay.”

She took a deep breath, exhaling to relax herself. “It’s not a mature world, but I still hope you’d choose to stay there, because if not, well” — she suppressed a frown — “if you choose to disappear, I’m too much of a coward to stop you.” Her face brightened up, and she clapped. “Or, or! You can also try a different world! I know another god who can have you” —

Her words blurred to his ears. Why did she want him to live so badly? He thought it didn’t make sense for someone, who had only just interacted with him a few times, to already be so desperate for the mere idea of him to survive.

Well, he already knew such people existed, and he knew that what they felt towards strangers was real — and besides, the person in front of him wasn’t really much of a stranger anymore. Just to pay her back somewhat, he ought to put her at ease.

“When was the last time you read my mind?” he asked her, interrupting her desperate pitch.

The question stunned her, but she answered quickly. “Not since that one time. Why?”

“Oh.” He chuckled. How respectful of her. “Well, I’ve been having other thoughts since then, you should know.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“When Raffie died” — he lingered on her name — “a little bit of me was hoping that somewhere in there, her brain was still alive, that she could still hear everything I was telling her.” He smiled to himself. “Truth was, I kinda knew what she was going through. Before then, I mean. I was already starting to feel that she might have wanted to say the same things to me as I did to her, so, I’m sure, if I’m right, and she heard everything I said, then I’m sure I made her really happy in those last few seconds we had. I think that whole skit in South America is the only mission I actually feel proud of accomplishing, even if we had to take each other’s lives in the end.”

He looked up at Enthusia. The poor goddess was already covering her eyes with a handkerchief, refusing to speak. Knowing someone was willing to feel what he felt was one thing, but seeing it right in front of him—it didn’t feel real. Reality was here, however, and he accepted it.

“You made her happy,” Enthusia said. “I’m sure.”

He smiled and looked down, embarrassed as heck. “The more I think about it, making someone really happy is actually pretty addicting, isn’t it?”

Enthusia chuckled between her sniffles. “It is. The more you do that, the better off the world becomes.” She paused. “But if you’re gone” —

Again with that fear. “But I won’t be gone.” He still felt like human trash — he couldn’t resist thinking of himself as one — but trash was flammable, and lit under him was a defiance he had never felt before. Etched in his memory was proof that he was not just a killer: that in all actuality, he had just been molded into one; that to begin with, there was no such fate that said, ‘This is all you are or will ever be.’

“Even if I can’t be happy with myself, I’ve got proof that I can make someone else happy, and if that makes me more of the person that Raffie thought I could’ve been, well — I don’t want to disappoint her again.” He looked Enthusia in the eye, confronting her with a smile that was half plastered-on, but also half-real. “So don’t worry. I can live for this feeling for a long time coming. I’m not going to disappear.”

Enthusia removed her handkerchief, putting it down over her mouth, showing him her glossy eyes. “That’s great,” she weakly said. “But I’m still going to worry.”

Craft play-frowned, turning away as if disappointed. “Well, that’s just unfair.”

“You’re really saying that to your landlady?

He laughed. She’s a strange one. He couldn’t even think of her as a goddess anymore, and that was the only reason why he could face her with a smile — a bright one he could say was real. “Well, that settles it.”

She turned his way with a tilt of the head. “What does?”

He showed her two thumbs up — one more than he usually gave. “I’d like to stay in your world.”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t have to make your decision right now. There’s always” —

“It’s because I’m glad it’s you I met, not some mass-produced almighty.” He lowered his hands. “Thanks to Raffie, I got a glimpse of something really i-important.” His eyes watered. What? Why just now? “And you’re here, telling me you’ve got a place for me where I can reach for it as much as I” — it was getting harder to speak — “I want.”

Somehow, even as he had to wipe his eyes and breathe a little deeper, his chest felt lighter. For Raffie’s sake, he could only think and say:

“I can’t waste this feeling.”

Enthusia gasped and gulped. To the man who no longer controlled his sobbing, she couldn’t say anything — and she, who had no control over her compassion, could only be swept along with his tide.