All of the Never Born were considered beautiful by mortal standards. Even D’Argen, who believed himself to be average, was looked up to. He believed it to be his mahee, but that could not be all. Tassikar, however, was one of the most beautiful of them all.
Before his death, the God of Indulgence was favoured by both mortals and Never Born alike. His features were pleasing to the eye, his body sculpted to set unrealistic standards, and even the way he always dressed in loose draperies that revealed more than they hid was enticing but not indecent.
His personality, however, was shit.
At least D’Argen thought so.
Which was why when he recognized that beautiful smile, his first thought was not that it was impossible, but that he was glad Abbot never got around to fixing that bump on the statue’s nose so Tassikar’s face would not be so perfect.
When D’Argen felt the vice grip around his waist loosen, he finally realized what he was looking at it.
Impossible.
“Tassikar?” Thar was the one to whisper the dead god’s name.
The grin widened and brightened, showing off perfectly aligned white teeth. It also looked less like a grin and more like a warm welcome. D’Argen had seen that beautiful smile many times before but never directed at him.
D’Argen felt something inside him squeeze when Thar’s arm from around his waist fell off completely.
“How is this possible?” Thar whispered and he stepped forward, clearly forgetting that D’Argen stood in his way.
“We are gods,” Tassikar answered even though he was too far to hear the whispers. Too far for his voice to carry so clearly over the distance between them.
With his next step, Tassikar was right in front of them. From so close up, D’Argen realized that the warm smile was not directed at him, as always before. The dead god’s lilac eyes were focused past D’Argen and on Thar.
Thar was silent and D’Argen shifted, removing himself from the space between the two. Thar was like the ocean waves, waiting for the iceberg to move so they could spill forth and right into the scent of lavender.
“And you still have no idea how true that statement is,” Tassikar said. He raised a hand and suddenly he was too close, his palm cupping Thar’s cheek. D’Argen felt like he was watching a private moment and turned his eyes away.
“What is this place?” Thar asked.
“Does it matter?” Tassikar asked in return.
“Yes, it does!” D’Argen inserted himself into the conversation harshly, breaking up how soft their voices had become. “You’re dead! Are we dead too? Did we—”
D’Argen felt the rest of his words die out and not make a sound when Tassikar looked at him. Except it was not lilac eyes narrowed in annoyance. They were wood-brown, then red roses, then sunset orange, then—
D’Argen panicked when he recognized each of the flashes in front of him. They were the eyes of all the gods and D’Argen saw their colours. More importantly, one of those colours he knew too well and had just looked into a few days ago.
“What is this place?” he growled out the question, not wanting to hear the answer.
Tassikar smiled, his features forming an expression of pity that looked so strange on his handsome face then said slowly, “It is a place where you do not belong.”
One of the reasons D’Argen had always disliked the God of Indulgence was because he had a very strange way of speaking to him. His words were slow, like thick honey, and too many. It was only one of the reasons though.
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The way Tassikar’s pity transformed into a glare was the main one.
For some reason, Tassikar did not like D’Argen at all. It was not always the case, back when they first fell to the mortal realm, but over time, their lack of friendship turned into an animosity that even D’Argen could not ignore and run away from.
“Where are we?” D’Argen asked through gritted teeth, slowing his words down to mirror Tassikar.
“Where do you think we are?”
“Enough with the—”
“Tassikar,” Thar interrupted D’Argen’s raised voice with a gentle call of the dead god’s name. Tassikar had yet to drop his hand from Thar’s cheek. Thar reached up and covered it with his own, slid it off and kissed the man’s palm, before dropping both their hands between them. It was too intimate. Too close. “Where are we?” Thar asked the same question as D’Argen.
Unlike the response D’Argen got, Tassikar turned a beautiful smile toward Thar and said, “Home.”
D’Argen was so angry at being ignored and goaded but that word made him freeze like ice water had invaded his veins. Lilian had wanted to go home. Lilian had screamed of home after they tried to use the mahee to take their own life. Tassikar was dead – the first of them to ever die in the mortal realm.
Tassikar’s body shimmered as the white had earlier before, but when it settled the dead god’s visage was still there. Now, however, he was covered in blood with large rips on his body. His perfect face had huge gashes covering it that Simeal had sealed up when they collected his body. Another shimmer and he was back to looking perfectly put together, except for the fact that he held a sword in his hand. A sword that D’Argen recognized too well as it was raised and pointed right under his chin.
D’Argen was too surprised by the blood and the change back to register but Thar was not. Thar wrapped his arm back around D’Argen’s waist and yanked, pulling him out of the way as the sword continued to where D’Argen had been a moment ago.
Tassikar had never fought. He died when the demons came to be and never participated in any of the mortal wars before that. Seeing him holding a sword was strange. Seeing him holding the sword D’Argen had used during the demon wars was stranger still. The sword was forged after Tassikar’s death.
Another tug around his waist had D’Argen moving out of the way of another stab even as Thar yelled something in the air between them.
The next slash that came was too perfect to be delivered by one who never held a sword. D’Argen was the one to dodge this time, letting instinct take over. Thar finally let him go and when Tassikar charged again, he was clearly aiming for D’Argen and not for Thar.
“What are you doing?” D’Argen asked even as he side-stepped another slash and ducked under the one to follow. As he rose from his duck, he crossed his arms over his chest with both of his daggers running the length of his forearms.
Tassikar ignored his question and charged. When his sword—D’Argen’s sword—hit the daggers, the hit was strong enough to make D’Argen’s arms shake. Then the daggers disappeared as if water slipping through his fingers and D’Argen had to duck and roll out of the way. Tassikar charged him again with an unnatural speed and this time Thar stood in the man’s way.
Tassikar stumbled, moving his sword out of the way at the last minute, but he quickly regained his feet. He said nothing at all as Thar tried to get him to stop, as he questioned the other, and instead moved around Thar with a grace and speed that made no sense for the God of Indulgence.
Except that move was one D’Argen himself had utilized in the past, using his speed to his advantage. Tassikar circled behind Thar’s back and kicked the back of the man’s knees, sending him down and out of the way as he charged D’Argen again.
Thar did not get back up and D’Argen opened his mahee—
The pain in his chest had him gasping and crying, doubling over instead of running away. He saw that Thar was on the ground, trying to get up and failing for some reason, but he could not figure out why. Not past the stab inside him that felt like a thousand sword attacks at once.
Tassikar charged him and D’Argen could only think, what was one more?
A gust of wind blew so hard that it shoved the sword away at the last minute right before it touched D’Argen’s chest. The wind was strong enough to unbalance even D’Argen while he ran at his fastest speed. This time, it barely touched him. The only time that gust of wind was so precise was when Lilian was using their fan.
D’Argen looked to the side where the wind had come from and felt his entire body go numb. Lilian was standing there, their metal fan pointed at Tassikar’s fallen form and anger creasing every line of their small face. Like Tassikar, Lilian appeared out of the white with a ripple. Like Tassikar, one of their steps shortened the distance in an instant and then Lilian’s metal fan was striking down. Tassikar raised his sword at the last moment and the ringing of metal against metal sounded like a giant bell over their heads.
All of the white shuddered and rippled and shivered. Then Tassikar’s form disappeared like it was blown away by the wind.
D’Argen had no idea what to think except that Tassikar was dead. Tassikar had called this place home. Tassikar had shown him the eyes of the dead when he looked at D’Argen earlier. Tassikar had looked at him with Lilian’s eyes.
And Lilian was here.