#in which Belxari realizes that Lysaro had friends three thousand years ago

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 17 | original fiction | 518 words

“There is just something about him when we discuss the matter,” Belxari mused over her mug of hot chocolate. “They’re all filled with regret about it, but there’s something notable about his grief.”

The witch in the seat across from her took a sip from her own mug, but said nothing, listening intently — probably — to the goddess speak. Her visible eye reflected the fire from the fireplace. The other was hidden beneath a loose eye patch that covered the bulk of the left side of her face. Belxari had never asked about it, and she likely never would.

“They were friends. They were all friends,” Belxari continued after a sip of the spicy cocoa. “It makes sense that maybe some of them were closer than others, right?”

She thought over the moments that had alerted her to... something. A little too much emotion in a statement here, an odd choice of phrasing there. The slightest twitch of his hand when someone accidentally insulted her sacrifice. An expression when he thought nobody was looking. 

Was he upset that she had gone? Or perhaps he was angry that nobody would let the topic drop. That his expressed reluctance to perform the act had been a ruse. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had simply decided she was in the way of some greater scheme he had. 

“I’m overthinking it, right?” she asked, glancing up at the witch. The witch did not respond except to continue to drink from her own mug. “I’ve been known to overthink things on occasion.” There was something to be said for her reaction too, though. The halberd — Time — Ephemera — also acted differently around him. She had openly mocked him in front of the entire Council — his offered test, his intelligence, his scythe of all things.

Perhaps it had to do with her lack of memories. She seemed to know Meyrin well enough. In fact, she acted almost motherly toward the red moon, which was a thing Belxari never thought she would see anyone do. Her interactions with Yumia and Quraura had been practically nonexistent in comparison.

She hadn’t been paying as close attention to the gods other than Lysaro. Their activities had never been as particularly interesting or disruptive to her own plans as Lysaro’s had been. She had an idea of where Meyrin stood on the whole matter, but she had failed to consider Quraura and Yumia. She hadn’t learned as much of them as she should have over the years. Maybe their reactions had just gone unnoticed by her. 

“I’m missing something.”

Or perhaps she wasn’t. She pondered the possibility that it was not missing something so much as hesitancy to recognize what she saw. It was what she had been trying to emphasize over the last few years. Was it possible she had simply missed the signs? His reasons for pulling her away from her friends, perhaps more complex than she had realized? More personal? Protective? Something downright human.

A mischievous grin spread across her face as Belxari chuckled. Maybe he had been soft all along.