Gods and Shadow Creatures - Summoned
More playing around with canon possibility in my Gods and Shadow Creatures universe. There are allusions to [click]rape in this one.
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Breccan sipped his coffee, feeling peaceful, when an envelope appeared out of thin air on the kitchen table. It glowed white for a moment before settling into a rich lavender. On the front of the envelope, someone had written Breccan’s name in curly golden letters. He couldn’t see the back of it, but a sinking sensation in his stomach told him what it was -- a summons from the Gods Council.
He stared at the envelope, not daring to touch it. Maybe if he blinked enough times, it would disappear.
It didn’t.
“That letter won’t explode if you touch it. In fact, it’s far more likely to injure you if you don’t open it,” Nico muttered as he wandered into the small kitchen.
“Are you sure it won’t vanish if I ignore it?” Breccan asked, his stomach sinking.
“I’m sure,” Nico murmured as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“What could they possibly want with me?” he said, running his hands through his hair. He grabbed his own cup of coffee and sipped from it, eyeing the letter with much trepidation.
“What could who want with you?” Maris muttered as she, too, entered the kitchen. When her eyes fell upon the lavender envelope, they widened before her face settled into a scowl. “Them.” She, too, went to get a cup of coffee.
Biting his lip, Breccan opened the letter. He stuck his fingernail under the edge of the golden wax seal and pulled it off, warping the very symbol of the gods. The letter read:
Breccan,
You are summoned before the Gods Council, to arrive upon receipt of this notice. Five minutes after opening, you will be transported.
It said nothing more. Breccan’s heart stopped for a moment, and he clutched his mug of coffee hard enough his knuckles turned white.
The letter writer had signed their name in an incomprehensible script. To Breccan, the signature undulated on the page and almost could be read if he looked at it out of the corner of his eye. This signature shimmered with power, much like the rest of the letter.
Nico looked over Breccan’s shoulder. “I know the letter writer. She will allow you to bring supporters with you, if you’re in physical contact with them when the transport mechanism goes off,” he murmured.
Breccan nodded and took another sip of his coffee, his knuckles still white around the handle of the mug.
“Do you -- want me to come with you?” Nico asked.
Still incapable of speech, Breccan nodded. He stood up from the table, his legs shaking as he did so.
“I’m not letting you two go alone to the Gods Council. Who knows what those bastards want,” Maris muttered, one hand on her hip. She then placed that hand on Breccan’s shoulder, while holding her cup of coffee in the other. Maris scowled again -- Breccan knew she had a low opinion of the gods as people, despite getting her magic powers from them.
Nico moved with much more hesitancy than Maris had, barely touching Breccan’s shoulder with the tips of his fingers. Like the other two, he still gripped his cup of coffee.
Moments later, the world around them vanished in a flash of white.
They arrived at the Hall of the Gods, appearing in another flash of white. Each of the three still clutched their coffees -- thanks to the smoothness of divine teleportation, not a drop of it spilled.
Maris and Nico let go of Breccan once they landed, but they stayed close. The Hall reverberated with power. To his very core, Breccan felt the inhumanness of the place. The golden designs on the square white tiles undulated, much like the signature on his letter. If he looked out of the corner of his eye, he felt he could almost read the designs, similar to how he had felt about that uneasy signature.
He looked up at the high vaulted ceiling, also covered in those tiles, thinking how no human could survive long in this place without fainting from disorientation. The Hall contained no windows, yet it stayed bright without any other visible light source. This strange light distorted their shadows, which looked as if they didn’t even belong to their owners anymore. Their shadows didn’t even resemble humans so much as paler versions of the shadow monsters they fought. Breccan kept his grip on his coffee cup, while thinking how inappropriate it was to bring a drink to the Gods Council.
Columns, also covered in those disturbing tiles, lined either side of the Hall. At the very end of it stood a tall bench made of what appeared to be pure gold. Raised trimming the color of the rest of the desk decorated its edges, undulating like the designs on the tiles did. Three figures sat behind the bench -- two goddess and a god, all with serious expressions on their faces.
Breccan shivered when he saw them. He remembered the Hall of the Gods from before and had no good memories of the place. In contrast to his unease, Maris stood there and sipped her coffee like she were still in the kitchen. She even dared to scowl at the three divine beings looking down on them.
“You brought refreshments, I see,” said the goddess on Breccan’s left.
“If I’m going to support my companion among...great beings such as yourselves, I need my coffee,” Maris said, taking another sip.
In her tone, Breccan could detect her contempt for the gods. He hoped the goddess didn’t notice or would ignore it since Maris had helped defend the Gods Council from a shadow creature attack. This time, Maris hadn’t even bothered to dress up -- she wore her usual practical trousers and shirt designed for ease of movement during combat. They hadn’t had adequate time to prepare for this meeting.
The goddess almost smiled. “I have no problems with your need for coffee. You all have earned it,” she said.
Breccan remembered her as the one he had pushed out of the way during a shadow creature attack on the Hall. The goddess -- who went by the name of Tamsin when talking to mortals -- had the same form as last time, with the same ink-dark skin, long, flowing black hair and pale purple eyes. Despite how he had risked his life for her, Tamsin made Breccan tremble. He placed his coffee on the floor, feeling awkward, and bowed before the Council.
Even Maris and Nico did as Breccan had, though Nico was a god himself and Maris felt no respect towards divinity.
“You may stand,” Tamsin said.
They all stood, each of them grabbing their coffee before they did. Breccan needed his for security, something to hold.
The goddess in the middle -- a lightly tanned, long-haired, violet-eyed blonde who went by Lucia and looked far too much like Egan -- narrowed her eyes at Nico. “And why do you carry a mortal form here? In mortal clothes, no less. It’s not proper in this realm, since you were pardoned, after all,” she said.
Nico nodded and returned to his divine form, though he didn’t look happy about it. He changed his clothes to a layered sleeveless white robe with gold trimming, tied with a gold sash. The fabric flowed and flared out from his body, creating striking lines to match his striking form. Nico even created a narrow gold circlet to wear over his long ash brown hair. His eyes changed from sky blue to light purple. Now, he looked like the gods on the Council, though they wore purple sashes to mark their positions.
Breccan felt inadequate in his own simple earth-toned clothes. He wrenched his eyes away from Nico and forced himself to face the Gods Council. This all felt so wrong to him. He knew, for one, that he shouldn’t have a cup of coffee -- permission or no -- when going before the gods, but he clutched the cup anyway.
“You -- you summoned me, oh Shining Ladies and Lord?” he said, his shaky voice not above a whisper. He couldn’t talk any louder than that.
The god sitting on Breccan’s right -- a short-haired brunette with light brown skin and lavender eyes who went by the mortal name Gregor -- nodded. “We have a request,” he said.
His words sent shivers down Breccan’s spine. What could these beings want from him? His trembling grew worse. If he had his way, he would have nothing more to do with any gods, except for Nico. After what Egan did to him, Breccan would rather remain invisible to divinity for the rest of his life.
“A request? For -- for me?” he said.
“Yes,” Gregor said. “After Nico here killed the god known as Egan to free you, he left an imbalance in the world.”
Breccan’s stomach sank -- Nico had been pardoned for helping defend the Gods Council, but was he now to face consequences for his actions?
Lucia crossed her arms over her chest. “Gods are not supposed to be killed. When one does die, it lends disorder to the world. Egan’s consciousness was destroyed, but his power remains -- and divine power without an intelligence to hold it is a dangerous thing,” she said.
Maris raised an eyebrow. “And what does this have to do with Breccan? He wasn’t responsible for Nico’s decision to kill Egan, even if he did it for Breccan’s sake,” she muttered.
“We need a mortal consciousness to take on Egan’s power, before the power starts disintegrating reality,” Lucia said.
They couldn’t mean...
Tamsin looked right at Breccan, making him flinch. His coffee sloshed around in its cup, and he stared into the cup to avoid the goddess’ gaze.
“The one who agrees to take on Egan’s power would become a god and thus restore balance to this divinity of this world,” Tamsin said.
“We called Breccan here to ask that he take the power and ascend to divinity,” Lucia said, uncrossing her arms.
Maris spit out the coffee she had just sipped, spraying it right at Gregor. He made the stream of liquid disappear with a wave of his hand, scowling as he did so. “Do mind your manners, at least a little bit,” he said.
The world swayed around Breccan. He tilted forward -- Nico caught him with one arm before he could fall and didn’t let go. Somehow, his coffee stayed in its cup.
Breccan couldn’t have heard correctly. He stared at the Gods Council, with Nico still supporting him.
“You want Breccan to become a god? After what your people have done to him?” Maris said.
“It is precisely because of his contact with multiple gods that we want him,” Tamsin said. “Transferring divine power to a mortal carries many risks and is all but certain to kill the mortal in question -- unless the mortal has had a previous encounter with a god. Even then, it is risky.”
“Then choose someone who was at least glad of their ‘encounter,’” Maris hissed, the venom in her voice enough to kill.
“No other mortal living has had two claims put on him and a continued association with a god. This level of exposure to divine energy makes him far more likely than any other candidate to survive the procedure,” Gregor said, resting his hands on the bench in front of him.
Breccan opened and closed his mouth -- no sound came out. He trembled worse than ever, and Nico had to continue holding him up.
Lucia crossed her arms over her chest once more. “If he doesn’t accept the offer and we try with another mortal, a failed ascension could result in untold damage to all realms,” she said.
“We will not force Breccan to do this, but the Gods Council wants him to be aware of both the risks of accepting and the risks of refusing,” Tamsin said. “If he agrees to ascend, he may die in before the process can be completed, though that chance is small. The death of any other candidate is much larger, and any death during ascension will cause great damage.” Her eyes caught Breccan’s own, and he flinched, almost dropping his cup of coffee.
“You have a mortal’s month to decide,” Gregor said, leaning forward and looking at Breccan as well. “That is all the time we can allow you. We have likely waited too long by not asking right after Egan was killed.”
Yet again, Breccan tried to speak and couldn’t. When he went to stand without Nico’s support, he fell, prompting the god to catch him.
The next time Tamsin spoke, she addressed Breccan directly. “Do you understand what we are asking?” she said.
He managed the smallest of nods. Though his mind spun and the world swayed around him, he did understand, all too well. Cold horror clamped down on his chest. He wanted more than anything to refuse the Gods Council and their “request.”
Breccan didn’t do that, no matter how much he wished he could. The consequences of a refusal pressed down on him with physical force. He couldn’t condemn another innocent to all-but-certain death, nor could he allow himself to risk the wide-scale destruction that would result if he said no.
“I’ll do it,” he said. As he spoke, he managed to stand on his own power, though he still quivered.
All eyes snapped to him, burning him with their attention.
“You -- you will?” Nico breathed.
“I -- I cannot let anyone else die, just -- just to save my humanity,” he said. His voice shook, but, beneath the fear, it held a strength born from moral conviction. “I am...but one person, and my comfort is -- it’s not worth whatever destruction would result if I refused.”
Maris and Nico stared at him, their jaws dropping and their eyes wide. All three members of the Gods Council nodded.
Tamsin smiled. Relief flowed off her in sharp contrast to Breccan’s own turmoil. “In a week’s time, we will contact you. We need that much to prepare everything,” she said.
“Alright,” Breccan said, managing another small nod. He looked down into his coffee again and took a sip, though the drink had long grown cold. He needed to taste something real, something human. Could he truly accept ascension?
Breccan had no choice.
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Breccan sipped his coffee, feeling peaceful, when an envelope appeared out of thin air on the kitchen table. It glowed white for a moment before settling into a rich lavender. On the front of the envelope, someone had written Breccan’s name in curly golden letters. He couldn’t see the back of it, but a sinking sensation in his stomach told him what it was -- a summons from the Gods Council.
He stared at the envelope, not daring to touch it. Maybe if he blinked enough times, it would disappear.
It didn’t.
“That letter won’t explode if you touch it. In fact, it’s far more likely to injure you if you don’t open it,” Nico muttered as he wandered into the small kitchen.
“Are you sure it won’t vanish if I ignore it?” Breccan asked, his stomach sinking.
“I’m sure,” Nico murmured as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“What could they possibly want with me?” he said, running his hands through his hair. He grabbed his own cup of coffee and sipped from it, eyeing the letter with much trepidation.
“What could who want with you?” Maris muttered as she, too, entered the kitchen. When her eyes fell upon the lavender envelope, they widened before her face settled into a scowl. “Them.” She, too, went to get a cup of coffee.
Biting his lip, Breccan opened the letter. He stuck his fingernail under the edge of the golden wax seal and pulled it off, warping the very symbol of the gods. The letter read:
Breccan,
You are summoned before the Gods Council, to arrive upon receipt of this notice. Five minutes after opening, you will be transported.
It said nothing more. Breccan’s heart stopped for a moment, and he clutched his mug of coffee hard enough his knuckles turned white.
The letter writer had signed their name in an incomprehensible script. To Breccan, the signature undulated on the page and almost could be read if he looked at it out of the corner of his eye. This signature shimmered with power, much like the rest of the letter.
Nico looked over Breccan’s shoulder. “I know the letter writer. She will allow you to bring supporters with you, if you’re in physical contact with them when the transport mechanism goes off,” he murmured.
Breccan nodded and took another sip of his coffee, his knuckles still white around the handle of the mug.
“Do you -- want me to come with you?” Nico asked.
Still incapable of speech, Breccan nodded. He stood up from the table, his legs shaking as he did so.
“I’m not letting you two go alone to the Gods Council. Who knows what those bastards want,” Maris muttered, one hand on her hip. She then placed that hand on Breccan’s shoulder, while holding her cup of coffee in the other. Maris scowled again -- Breccan knew she had a low opinion of the gods as people, despite getting her magic powers from them.
Nico moved with much more hesitancy than Maris had, barely touching Breccan’s shoulder with the tips of his fingers. Like the other two, he still gripped his cup of coffee.
Moments later, the world around them vanished in a flash of white.
They arrived at the Hall of the Gods, appearing in another flash of white. Each of the three still clutched their coffees -- thanks to the smoothness of divine teleportation, not a drop of it spilled.
Maris and Nico let go of Breccan once they landed, but they stayed close. The Hall reverberated with power. To his very core, Breccan felt the inhumanness of the place. The golden designs on the square white tiles undulated, much like the signature on his letter. If he looked out of the corner of his eye, he felt he could almost read the designs, similar to how he had felt about that uneasy signature.
He looked up at the high vaulted ceiling, also covered in those tiles, thinking how no human could survive long in this place without fainting from disorientation. The Hall contained no windows, yet it stayed bright without any other visible light source. This strange light distorted their shadows, which looked as if they didn’t even belong to their owners anymore. Their shadows didn’t even resemble humans so much as paler versions of the shadow monsters they fought. Breccan kept his grip on his coffee cup, while thinking how inappropriate it was to bring a drink to the Gods Council.
Columns, also covered in those disturbing tiles, lined either side of the Hall. At the very end of it stood a tall bench made of what appeared to be pure gold. Raised trimming the color of the rest of the desk decorated its edges, undulating like the designs on the tiles did. Three figures sat behind the bench -- two goddess and a god, all with serious expressions on their faces.
Breccan shivered when he saw them. He remembered the Hall of the Gods from before and had no good memories of the place. In contrast to his unease, Maris stood there and sipped her coffee like she were still in the kitchen. She even dared to scowl at the three divine beings looking down on them.
“You brought refreshments, I see,” said the goddess on Breccan’s left.
“If I’m going to support my companion among...great beings such as yourselves, I need my coffee,” Maris said, taking another sip.
In her tone, Breccan could detect her contempt for the gods. He hoped the goddess didn’t notice or would ignore it since Maris had helped defend the Gods Council from a shadow creature attack. This time, Maris hadn’t even bothered to dress up -- she wore her usual practical trousers and shirt designed for ease of movement during combat. They hadn’t had adequate time to prepare for this meeting.
The goddess almost smiled. “I have no problems with your need for coffee. You all have earned it,” she said.
Breccan remembered her as the one he had pushed out of the way during a shadow creature attack on the Hall. The goddess -- who went by the name of Tamsin when talking to mortals -- had the same form as last time, with the same ink-dark skin, long, flowing black hair and pale purple eyes. Despite how he had risked his life for her, Tamsin made Breccan tremble. He placed his coffee on the floor, feeling awkward, and bowed before the Council.
Even Maris and Nico did as Breccan had, though Nico was a god himself and Maris felt no respect towards divinity.
“You may stand,” Tamsin said.
They all stood, each of them grabbing their coffee before they did. Breccan needed his for security, something to hold.
The goddess in the middle -- a lightly tanned, long-haired, violet-eyed blonde who went by Lucia and looked far too much like Egan -- narrowed her eyes at Nico. “And why do you carry a mortal form here? In mortal clothes, no less. It’s not proper in this realm, since you were pardoned, after all,” she said.
Nico nodded and returned to his divine form, though he didn’t look happy about it. He changed his clothes to a layered sleeveless white robe with gold trimming, tied with a gold sash. The fabric flowed and flared out from his body, creating striking lines to match his striking form. Nico even created a narrow gold circlet to wear over his long ash brown hair. His eyes changed from sky blue to light purple. Now, he looked like the gods on the Council, though they wore purple sashes to mark their positions.
Breccan felt inadequate in his own simple earth-toned clothes. He wrenched his eyes away from Nico and forced himself to face the Gods Council. This all felt so wrong to him. He knew, for one, that he shouldn’t have a cup of coffee -- permission or no -- when going before the gods, but he clutched the cup anyway.
“You -- you summoned me, oh Shining Ladies and Lord?” he said, his shaky voice not above a whisper. He couldn’t talk any louder than that.
The god sitting on Breccan’s right -- a short-haired brunette with light brown skin and lavender eyes who went by the mortal name Gregor -- nodded. “We have a request,” he said.
His words sent shivers down Breccan’s spine. What could these beings want from him? His trembling grew worse. If he had his way, he would have nothing more to do with any gods, except for Nico. After what Egan did to him, Breccan would rather remain invisible to divinity for the rest of his life.
“A request? For -- for me?” he said.
“Yes,” Gregor said. “After Nico here killed the god known as Egan to free you, he left an imbalance in the world.”
Breccan’s stomach sank -- Nico had been pardoned for helping defend the Gods Council, but was he now to face consequences for his actions?
Lucia crossed her arms over her chest. “Gods are not supposed to be killed. When one does die, it lends disorder to the world. Egan’s consciousness was destroyed, but his power remains -- and divine power without an intelligence to hold it is a dangerous thing,” she said.
Maris raised an eyebrow. “And what does this have to do with Breccan? He wasn’t responsible for Nico’s decision to kill Egan, even if he did it for Breccan’s sake,” she muttered.
“We need a mortal consciousness to take on Egan’s power, before the power starts disintegrating reality,” Lucia said.
They couldn’t mean...
Tamsin looked right at Breccan, making him flinch. His coffee sloshed around in its cup, and he stared into the cup to avoid the goddess’ gaze.
“The one who agrees to take on Egan’s power would become a god and thus restore balance to this divinity of this world,” Tamsin said.
“We called Breccan here to ask that he take the power and ascend to divinity,” Lucia said, uncrossing her arms.
Maris spit out the coffee she had just sipped, spraying it right at Gregor. He made the stream of liquid disappear with a wave of his hand, scowling as he did so. “Do mind your manners, at least a little bit,” he said.
The world swayed around Breccan. He tilted forward -- Nico caught him with one arm before he could fall and didn’t let go. Somehow, his coffee stayed in its cup.
Breccan couldn’t have heard correctly. He stared at the Gods Council, with Nico still supporting him.
“You want Breccan to become a god? After what your people have done to him?” Maris said.
“It is precisely because of his contact with multiple gods that we want him,” Tamsin said. “Transferring divine power to a mortal carries many risks and is all but certain to kill the mortal in question -- unless the mortal has had a previous encounter with a god. Even then, it is risky.”
“Then choose someone who was at least glad of their ‘encounter,’” Maris hissed, the venom in her voice enough to kill.
“No other mortal living has had two claims put on him and a continued association with a god. This level of exposure to divine energy makes him far more likely than any other candidate to survive the procedure,” Gregor said, resting his hands on the bench in front of him.
Breccan opened and closed his mouth -- no sound came out. He trembled worse than ever, and Nico had to continue holding him up.
Lucia crossed her arms over her chest once more. “If he doesn’t accept the offer and we try with another mortal, a failed ascension could result in untold damage to all realms,” she said.
“We will not force Breccan to do this, but the Gods Council wants him to be aware of both the risks of accepting and the risks of refusing,” Tamsin said. “If he agrees to ascend, he may die in before the process can be completed, though that chance is small. The death of any other candidate is much larger, and any death during ascension will cause great damage.” Her eyes caught Breccan’s own, and he flinched, almost dropping his cup of coffee.
“You have a mortal’s month to decide,” Gregor said, leaning forward and looking at Breccan as well. “That is all the time we can allow you. We have likely waited too long by not asking right after Egan was killed.”
Yet again, Breccan tried to speak and couldn’t. When he went to stand without Nico’s support, he fell, prompting the god to catch him.
The next time Tamsin spoke, she addressed Breccan directly. “Do you understand what we are asking?” she said.
He managed the smallest of nods. Though his mind spun and the world swayed around him, he did understand, all too well. Cold horror clamped down on his chest. He wanted more than anything to refuse the Gods Council and their “request.”
Breccan didn’t do that, no matter how much he wished he could. The consequences of a refusal pressed down on him with physical force. He couldn’t condemn another innocent to all-but-certain death, nor could he allow himself to risk the wide-scale destruction that would result if he said no.
“I’ll do it,” he said. As he spoke, he managed to stand on his own power, though he still quivered.
All eyes snapped to him, burning him with their attention.
“You -- you will?” Nico breathed.
“I -- I cannot let anyone else die, just -- just to save my humanity,” he said. His voice shook, but, beneath the fear, it held a strength born from moral conviction. “I am...but one person, and my comfort is -- it’s not worth whatever destruction would result if I refused.”
Maris and Nico stared at him, their jaws dropping and their eyes wide. All three members of the Gods Council nodded.
Tamsin smiled. Relief flowed off her in sharp contrast to Breccan’s own turmoil. “In a week’s time, we will contact you. We need that much to prepare everything,” she said.
“Alright,” Breccan said, managing another small nod. He looked down into his coffee again and took a sip, though the drink had long grown cold. He needed to taste something real, something human. Could he truly accept ascension?
Breccan had no choice.