The dinner finished after an hour of merry-making. Drunken gods stumbled out of the abode to their respective spheres, leaving Solaris in the company of a handful who thought to speak after the festivities. Caeli was glaring over the rim of her cup and had become notably drunk and angry. Noctifer had finished his meal, wrapping a bit of his chlamys around his thumb awkwardly. He was still staring upwards, and the tension between the trio of Solaris, Noctifer, and Caeli only grew.
Solaris, at odds with the evening, finally stood up. He nearly threw his chair back in his haste to leave the hall and the memory of the evening. He rushed from the main hall, rubbing his temple with a groan that only caused it to worsen. Caeli was the first out of the room after Solaris, who was stumbling into the garden.
“Why do you hate him so much? He has done nothing to you.” She hissed at the figure that leaned against the pomegranate tree. Turning over his shoulder, Solaris looked at Caeli with a vile venom burning in his eyes.
“He is impure.”
“No more impure than the gods who cast him down,” spat Caeli at the deity. He spun around angrily, staring at the defiant goddess who had questioned him.
“I am the God of the Sun, and if he is my adversary, then he is impure and the antithesis of all that is mine.”
“And, pray tell, what is yours that isn’t his?” She asked mockingly, gesturing to the grand space around them. “What has the sun seen that the moon has not seen in turn?”
“He wanders the mortal world like a scavenger, Caeli,” Solaris roared angrily, lurching towards the goddess with murderous intent. She did not budge when he ran, nor when he raised his hands up angrily in an attempt to scare the goddess. She simply stared at him, knowing then that his nature had contradicted itself.
“He cares deeply for you,” she muttered to the pocket of air between them. Solaris shook, stepping back and letting out a sad, resounding chuckle.
“I care more to be loved than to love itself,” he responded sadly, looking at the garden around him. ‘A god,’ thought Caeli, ‘who whines like a child’.
“That doesn’t change the fact that he is here, and he is undoubtedly attached to the friendship you had.”
“He is not my friend,” swore Solaris, turning back to the goddess with fury burning in his chest. It faded just as quickly, and he threw his hands up dismissively.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Get out,” he huffed, “please.”
Caeli recognized that tone; the god had fallen to himself again. Angrily, she turned and left. She stopped when she saw the figure of Noctifer in the hall. He was looking over her shoulder at the god, who leaned against the tree. His eyes were clouded with a darkness that spoke of his subtle anger.
“Please don’t hurt him,” Caeli pleaded, realizing that he had heard the coarse denials and rebukes.
“I won’t; he will destroy himself,” growled Noctifer. He placed a hand on Caeli’s shoulder, squeezing it with a forced smile. She nodded, scurrying away to leave the god to his affairs. Noctifer, now back in his brooding darkness, stormed into the garden. Solaris didn’t turn from his position, hearing the god enter the garden and the air burn with electricity.
“Aren’t you even going to look at me?” Demanded Noctifer. Solaris turned to look at Noctifer over his shoulder. His eyes were red and puffy from crying, and he turned away just as quickly. Noctifer’s anger softened, but it did not stop burning in his body.
“Solaris, why do you act like this?”
“It is only fitting,” Solaris murmured.
“Fitting of what?”
“Of an adversary. How else am I supposed to treat a man who does his heathen sorcery in my own abode?” Solaris snapped back to look at Noctifer. The lunar god stiffened at the frantic glare of the solar deity.
“You are a god, just as I am. There is no rea-”
“You are not a god,” screeched Solaris, pressing himself against the tree as tears fell from his eyes.
“And neither are you,” roared Noctifer, placing his arms on either side of Solaris and staring down at the weeping god between him and the tree.
“You have been made arguably mortal. You, Solaris, have fallen to the Land of Mortals and have suffered a Mortal’s Fate.”
“And what is that?” He sneered at Solaris, looking up at the figure that lurked over him.
“You have fallen into human limitation. You are a god made inextricably mortal, and one that will die a mortal death at the hands of his own limitation.”
“A reason to die,” thought Solaris, musing over the words that Sala had said to him earlier. It had weighed down on him, and now the words of the Goddess of Providence hang over his head.
“Get out of heaven; I banish you,” murmured Solaris, looking down at the floor. His eyes were red, and he could only see the vague outlines of his feet next to Nox’s. He felt the hot breath of the god over his hair, but he didn’t want to look up.
“You banish me?” Noctifer chuckled, the shock of the declaration hitting him.
“I banish you,” Solaris repeated, looking up with ferocity contorting his face. Noctifer looked down at the angered god, his face darkening. Soon, the cloud passed, and his eyes went back to their sorrowful form. He bent down and kissed the head of Solaris before turning on his heel and leaving the garden. Solaris gazed as the form left the garden, his head burning with the seal of his own actions.
“A reason to die,” whispered Solaris to the air around him, “a reason to die, indeed.”
He held tightly to his robe, trying to grasp some sense of reality. The world had conspired against him, and now his order had slipped from his quivering hands. He had indeed become a mortal god, made susceptible to the death most mortals faced. His head burned with the remnants of Nox, but the lunar deity was no longer there by his side. The god was no longer present to witness his fall, and now he bore witness to the travesty he had formed for himself.