The attendants were in disarray. Earlier, one of them went into Solaris’ room and saw that he had barely touched his breakfast, the whole tray sitting on his dresser. He had not moved from that singular spot in his bed and had taken to staring out the window before he eventually shut the curtains over it in a fit. He then proceeded to lie in bed for the rest of the day, staring up at some phantom that he had created for himself. It took the attendants to the height of inviting the Goddess of Providence, Sala, back to the Abode in an attempt to talk Solaris out of his deep disdain for anything of his own life.

“It is not his fault that Bebeloi left, Agathe Dea,” declared one of the attendants with his hand over his heart. Sala only looked at him, frowning slightly, before she answered in turn:

“Noctifer, do not forget your place,” she said. The attendants shook at the appearance of the goddess in such a wrathful manner, a far cry from the tender motherliness that she was known for. The attendant, who had spoken, only nodded.

“It is still an issue; without the presence of a Sun Deity, the world will fall into ruin.”

“The absence of a lunar deity is enough to send Solaris into a spin; please have your priorities in order,” she said as they guided her down the hall into Solaris’ chambers. She remembered that sobbing god and knew well enough what his tailspin was about. She knew how his fits could be when they hit him.

As they entered the darkened room, she looked at the hunched figure in the bed with a simple sorrow building in her, mixed with venom for his actions. She dismissed the servants before coming forward to seat herself on the edge of the bed next to Solaris. She put a hand on his shoulder and tried to rub it, but she knew well enough that it wasn’t going to solve his episode.

“You know, bathing might help. It’s productive and soothing,” she whispered, leaving the offer in the air between them. Solaris didn’t move but only stared back to the side, having moved from his position when hearing the attendants rushing down the corridor.

“Or eating something; maybe a little fruit would be good,” Sala offered in response to the silence. When Solaris still didn’t respond, she let out a sigh before squeezing his shoulder firmly.

“You can’t starve yourself, Adonis,” she sighed.

“I wish I could,” was all he said in response.

“Your death would only add to the trouble around us.”

“Then let it,” Solaris snapped back, shaking Sala’s hand from his shoulder. The goddess looked down at the figure, annoyed but also aware of his pain and anxieties.

“Your death will only bring more suffering,” she tried again.

“Hardly” was all he could say. Before Sala could object, the god sat up in his bed. His eyes were sunken with insomnia, his face gaunt, and his entire demeanor was akin to that of a man who had seen the edge of hell.

“If I die, then what will be left of me? The priest will idolize my flesh, my enemies will romanticize my corpse as a sign of victory, and my mourners will mourn it as a fallen idol. My memory will be an oddity, my flesh a relic of my identity but not my personhood.”

Sala did not respond, only watching the god scratch at his hair in his hysterics, falling back onto the bed with tears running in excess.

“And to him?”

Solaris didn’t have a response to that, but he couldn’t bring himself to imagine Noctifer’s reactions to his dying if he were granted that luxury.

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Noctifer took up residence in one of his temples, lost to time, in the northern regions. It was here that he had taken to the simplicity he had seen with mortals. Although the cold air did not support the most gentle of flowers, it still did its best with the hardy bushes and shrubs, which he took great pleasure in watering as much as he could. It was no secret that the place drew him deeper into melancholy with its images, bringing him back to the diaspora of his followers, but it was still one of his homes.

Currently, he was busy drawing together strings of the white blooms from the aforesaid bushes. He saw his devotees do this for him, and he could see the appeal of it. It was a gentle and meditative exercise that took him away from the evening prior, or even that morning, when he had noticed an omen. The morning sun did not shine as brightly as it did. As much as he could blame it on the air of the mountains, it was still a noticeable dullness.

“Glad to see you never lost your thinking face,” croaked a voice behind him. Turning over his shoulder tiredly, he saw the sauntering figure of Ava, the Embodiment of All Death and Degeneration, in the hall with him.

“Ava,” he greeted quietly.

“Nox,” Ava greeted in turn, sitting down next to him. Their presence brought the death of the flowers, which he had spent so much time preparing, and he could only frown at them as they picked at their nails obliviously.

“Why are you here, if I may ask?”

“Wherever Zaeal goes, I go, and wherever I am, I stay.”

“Zaeal brings war, does she not?”

“And war has come to this land, don’t you know?”

“Why must they engage in it?”

Ava shrugged distantly, dusting off the red-stained cloth of their robe before turning back. They smiled gently, seeing the sad eyes that looked back at her.

“You’re horribly sincere,” Ava joked. Noctifer only chuckled weakly in response, continuing with his garlands.

“So, you left for good?”

“I was banished,” Noctifer responded bitterly.

“Nothing is ever banished, Nox,” Ava mused. “If the Creator has put us into his creation, we’re never truly separated from anything or its opposite. At least not without some heavy damage.”

“Which brings you here.”

Ava chuckled at Noctifer’s attempt at joking, slapping his shoulder.

“No, I’m here because of the war, but I must say that your disappearance has certainly put something at play.”

“What is it with you and riddles?”

“I am a riddle that every mortal tries to figure out, and they do,” Ava droned, “when they die.”

“You truly do have a sick sense of humor,” Noctifer cooed.

“When you’re down here, you have to change to meet its power, or just fade into it, I suppose.”

"So, how’s Sala?”

“She’s goo-” Ava turned back to look at Noctifer angrily, but he kept at his work.

“She asked me where to find you, and I told her I’d keep an eye out,” Ava huffed moodily, resting their head against their hand.

“And are you going to tell her?”

“I think that maybe that’s best left to another person, not me.”

A comfortable silence fell over the two. While Noctifer deftly made his garlands, Ava stared out into the remnants of the temple. They knew he’d be here; no one came here anymore. What Ava also knew was that the world was shaking around them and practically about to fall. They wanted to report back to Sala, but the last time they were in Heaven was in the Beginning before they descended to the mortal world to fulfill their office. Ava was snapped out of their thoughts when Noctifer took one of the pristine white garlands and wrapped it around their neck. Ava couldn’t help but grin at him, their tusk-like fangs gleaming in the light. Not to their surprise, the flowers began to wilt around her neck. They did, however, have the uncanny appearance of small little crosses when they wilted, making it look as pretty as it did when the flowers were still living.

“So the wheel turns,” pondered Noctifer as he straightened the garland around their neck. The deity brought their brows together in an exaggerated expression of thoughtfulness before Noctifer smacked them on the shoulder with laughter.

“Life is relatively simple; it moves, and that is it,” chuckled Ava as a response, their words having an air of finality to them.

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Caeli had spent most of the day calling the stars and the Seven Presidents of the Spheres to attend to the growing issue. She barked orders at them, demanding that they keep an eye out for Noctifer. The President of the Moon said that not even he could feel where Noctifer was and that Noctifer was his deity. Caeli didn’t take well to the implication that Noctifer wasn’t to be found, and so she dismissed the Seven Presidents and left herself to the swirling thoughts in her head.

She felt guilty and had fled from heaven just as quickly as she had, as she would describe, ‘failed’ to keep Noctifer in Heaven. She glared at the Aethyrs, cursing them whenever she spared a glance. She cursed Solaris’s name; she cursed all the gods when her thoughts were left on their own for even the smallest minute. She could not do her work, and when the petitions of mortals to the Presidents, or the Stars, came to her desk, she could only stare at them.

It wasn’t long before she took to drinking again, pulling a decanter from her room and seating it on her desk as a liquid incentive. She had to go tell them that Noctifer had vanished, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave her abode to go to Heaven. She didn’t think she’d be able to look Solaris in the face again. Angrily, she threw the decanter at the wall, where it landed with a crash. The blood-red wine spilled over the floor and wall, marking it with its hue. She watched as the spill expanded on her floor.

“I will find you; by all that is, I will find you,” she swore to the room around her. “I promise.”