Chapter 43: Chapter 43: There are secrets kept between us, but there are also secrets kept for ourselves.

The air in the corridor feels much thicker, much heavier than it did only a moment ago.

 

The dust particulate, drifting through the dark, stone hallway with no windows feels like it is coming together all by itself, to fill the space between the two of them with something, anything, now that the kinder, happier, softer presence, which they had brought back here with themselves, in to this secluded area, seems to have vanished in only an instant.

 

“At this point,” says Hineni. “I need to know. We’re in too deep, there’s too much happening,” he explains, looking at the owl who is sitting high up on the rafters, clearly displeased, given the sharp look on her face. The fact that he has learned how to read a bird’s expressions is something he only spontaneously realizes he can now do, mid-thought.

 

- Life sure is odd.

 

Obscura, her body tight and rigid, stares down towards him for a moment, clicking angrily with her beak as her eyes dart around the hallway, as if his sheer mentioning of the entity’s name could have summoned it here.

 

“I don’t know anything,” explains Hineni, holding his hands out to his sides. “I don’t know where you’re from. I don’t know why we’re doing this. I don’t know why we’re in danger and why there are people worried about us succeeding, about us helping you.” He shakes his head. Forty-four days have come and went, since the start of their life together. “Please,” says Hineni, bringing his case to an end.

 

Obscura changes her form, shifting back to her humanish shape, but stays up on the rafters. “Hineni wants, yes?” she asks. “He wants to know of Obscura, yes?”

 

“Yes,” replies the man.

 

She nods her head to the forge, flying off by herself towards it. The man watches her go and then, looking over his shoulder to make sure they’re alone, he follows her into it.

 

Immediately, a pair of giant talons wrap themselves around his arms the moment he walks into the room, spontaneously ripping him off of his feet and into the air. Somewhat surprised and wary, he looks up at Obscura, who flies to the currently closed windows of the forge tower, flying to one spot in particular. She sets him down onto the high ledge, where the metal owl sits and then lands next to him, shifting back into her humanish form. She scoots back, leaning against the opposite wall of the windowsill. Hineni, somewhat nervously, looks down at the forge. It’s a long drop from here.

 

His gaze turns back towards her. “Why are we up here?” he asks.

 

Obscura lifts a long talon. “The ground is for frogs. They hide there, the hop there, dirty, NASTY FROGS!” she hoots angrily. Hineni looks at her for a moment and nods. He supposes that she just feels safer in a high place. It likely comes with the territory of being part owl. Especially if they’re talking about something like this.

 

The talon of her index-finger taps against the wooden shutter that covers the window. She runs it along the material, thinking for a moment. “From the elf-place,” says the owl-god. She lifts her finger, pointing at herself for a moment, before tapping against the wood again. “I am.”

 

“The south?” asks Hineni. He had assumed as much, given Beni’s outburst and Obscura’s nature as an owl-god. The south is nothing but forest. Many nature-based gods stem from there in some fashion, but they all seem to wander towards human civilization eventually, in search of more followers, of more comforts, of more power as they compete with one another.

 

The quiet life isn’t often an option for many gods, as, given the always existing presence of another rival, they need to stay up in strength. If the god of rivers becomes too weak, the god of lakes might overtake him and steal his domain. If Avarice, the god of wealth, slacks, then another god, like the god of fortune, might overtake him and take his place. It’s a never ending race for power amongst the older gods and then amongst the newer ones as well, who are born from the changing beliefs of new generations of men and women which gives them life.

 

He nods to her. “Why did you leave there?” he asks.

 

Obscura’s talon taps against the wood a third time. “Power,” she hisses. “I want it.”

 

“Power for what?” asks Hineni, already knowing the answer. The big frog.

 

She turns to look at him, her finger still held against the boards, knowing that he knows the answer to the first part of his own question. “Owls eat bad frogs,” says Obscura, her nail scratching along the wood, but having never left it as she is unable to tap against it a fourth time. “It is the way of things,” she explains. Hineni nods, following along. That makes sense. The food-chain is what it is. Her talon digs into the wood as she spins her finger, apparently unsure what to do with it. The owl-god stops, not having explained further as she begins to scratch deep grooves into the wood, drawing something.

 

It takes a few minutes, but eventually, she is done. Hineni would have yelled at her if she had done so with any other wood in the house, like the floors or the walls. Especially after the expensive repairs. But up here and during a moment like this, he feels like he can let it slide. He stares at the three crudely drawn blobs that resemble owls. Two bigger ones and one smaller one. With a long drag of her talon, she runs through the first two, striking them out.

 

“But the frogs changed the way of things,” she says, finishing her explanation. Hineni stares at the three owls, minus two. So, the frogs, getting tired of being eaten by owls, had some sort of fight for survival and killed the previous owl-god and its partner, her parents, leaving only one of three remaining. Hineni recalls her mentioning before, as they were laying in bed, that she had inherited her title of ‘owl-god’, which seems to usually be passed on to a male apparently. Hence the rigid title of ‘owl-god’ rather than ‘owl-goddess’.

 

“Obscura left and found the big-now-small forest and was lonely there,” says the owl-god. “And then, lonely Hineni found lonely Obscura.” She points at the metal owl that sits between them. “And now, the two who have become one, three in total, are both sought by the unnatural frogs.”

 

He doesn’t really understand everything though. If this is a quarrel between the frogs and her, then why was the elf, Beni, terrified of Obscura? Beni and Sockel are from the south. There were clearly stories about the local deities there amongst their old homes and in the case of the owl-god, clearly unpleasant stories, from what he has deciphered.

 

- Maybe frogs and two owls weren’t the only thing that got eaten in that dark forest?

 

There are more questions. Many more. At least three, in fact. But as Hineni turns back to look at Obscura, he decides that this is enough for now. “Thank you for telling me,” he says.

 

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And she nods to him, holding out her hand. He grabs it, expecting for her to fly him down now, but instead, they just sit there and she holds onto his hand, turning back to look at the drawings.

 

Hineni supposes that this is a complicated situation. If he’s understood right, the frogs, after generations of being eaten by something higher on the food-chain, fought back, successfully at that. In and of itself, an admirable feat that he can’t deny the subjective morality of. In nature, it’s eat or be eaten, after all. But that creature that was fought back against, the thing that is still being pursued in order to finish the job is the woman who holds his heart captive. The one who has allowed him this blessed, third life.

 

Right and wrong don’t matter here. He’s on her side. She saved him from ending up where he was going, so he’s going to do whatever it takes to keep her and his new life safe. His thumb runs over the top of her hand, as the two of them sit there on the high ledge together for a while longer.

 

---

 

It all looks so different.

 

Hineni isn’t really sure what to think, as he stands by the front door to his house, having just stepped back inside from his errands. A month and a half ago, it was dark here, dusty, cold… -

 

His eyes wander towards the rafters above his head, towards the ceiling of the room which seems much lighter than it was once before.

 

- Oppressive.

 

He isn’t really sure why, but for a brief moment, as he entered his home just now, closing the door behind himself, he felt like he had felt back then, back when he was a child. Only for a second, it was only an oddly nostalgic twinge of some feeling that is still inside of him somewhere, hidden snugly into some corner of his soul where it can’t be dug out so easily. A month and a half isn’t enough time to heal the damage of his youth, but it certainly is enough to pour some fresh dirt over it.

 

The man lowers his gaze, staring towards Rhine who is sitting on a bench, his fists clenched tightly in his lap in what looks like it might be sheer terror, given his stiffness of body and his ghostly pale face. Hineni supposes that he understands. Obscura is sitting behind the boy in her half-human form, her long, sharp talons running over his scalp, as she seems to be trying to neaten out his hair a little. Rhine’s clothes have always been a little dirty and ‘worn’, but his long hair had always been immaculately brushed.

 

Hineni assumes that it was his mother who did that, which brings him to understand the boy’s stiff posture. He isn’t scared of Obscura. He’s just been trained to be afraid in this situation, this brushing, through years of it happening. The long hair isn’t great for their work in the forge, but it’s fine if Rhine just ties it back like he’s always done. He’s hardly going to tell the boy what to do with something as personal as his hair.

 

“You’re allowed to come inside,” says Sockel from the side, sitting behind the counter with her feet up on top of it. Hineni looks towards her. “You live here, you know?” she asks, watching him standing there motionlessly by the door.

 

“I forgot for a moment,” replies Hineni jokingly, staring at her bare feet that are up on the wood. “Really?” he asks.

 

The elf shrugs. “Not like there are any customers,” she replies. “Besides -” Sockel points over to Obscura, who is clicking excitedly with her beak as she works, having found some indefinable joy in straightening Rhine’s long, azure blue hair. “The owl-god doesn’t wear shoes, so I’m just trying to live up to her image.”

 

Hineni blinks, turning his head to look at Obscura's long, fluffy owl legs and taloned feet. “Sockel…” he sighs. “She obviously can’t wear shoes.”

 

The elf shrugs again and then theatricality lifts her forearm to cover her forehead. “Ooooh~” she moans tragically. “I just want to be as beautiful and graceful as the owl-god!” she croons.

 

“Who~!” hoots Obscura from the side. “The sock-elf will one day find a grace like beautiful Obscura’s,” says the owl-god, clearly pleased, not having picked up on Sockel’s theatrics. “Hineni will not be cruel to Obscura’s loyal worshipers, yes?” she asks from the side.

 

The elf opens an eye, grinning smugly at Hineni as she wiggles her foot, which is still up on the counter. The man rolls his eyes, wanting to laugh, but deeming that it would be better not to. Is this a ‘testing his authority’ situation? He isn’t sure.

 

“So, you used to do some ‘stuff’, huh?” he asks, repeating what she had once told him. Sockel clearly knows how to work people and years of customer service experience have only honed that particular deadly blade.

 

She nods. “Yup.”

 

“It shows,” replies Hineni, shaking his head. “Just keep your feet off of the counter when we have business,” he says, trying to assert himself here in at least some fashion.

 

She leans back on her chair, crossing her legs. “You got it, boss-man,” replies the elf, flashing him a thumbs-up. “When are we opening by the way?” she asks. “The workers are done. The wood and the other stuff you wanted is here. Our bills are paid and we’re city-approved.”

 

Hineni turns to look at Sockel, feeling Obscura’s and Rhine’s gazes falling onto him as well.

 

“Tomorrow,” replies the man. “I just got back from Avarice. They’re drumming up the word right now.”

 

 

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