Chapter Text
It was lonely, to be a god.
To be a god long forgotten and hated by his own peers.
To be a deity locked away in deep caverns never to be found again. Not killed, not publicly beheaded then thrown in a volcano, just locked away from the eyes of those who only wished to be looked up to by their own believers.
Humans.
The other gods even took the time to disguise him as a lowlife human prisoner while he was chained in the heart of a mountain, so in the eventuality that someone came in here, no one would recognize him. No one in thousands of years could understand the importance that he once had.
He, left to rot there, unfed, alone, forgotten and with both wrists chained to the stone of the mountain, arms in pain from not moving for centuries. The chains burning from their own magic, marking the skin of his wrists.
DreamXD was hurt, hurting and angry. Angry at those who forced him in here. Angry at those who jokingly placed beautiful trees in front of him that he could never reach. He would curse every day those who once mocked him, who decided to create a beautiful paradise of eternal spring in front of him while he had to deal with the harshness of each weather by himself, wearing nothing but thin torn fabric.
He cried about the lack of life down there, nothing to manipulate, nothing to control, nothing to witness happening.
It was awfully silent. No wind, no birds. He knew the height of the sun in the sky while the only sunlight that penetrated the hollow of the mountain was only visible behind him, another sick joke.
He would count the days and weeks by scratching the stone that was his backrest, both his arms stuck above his head. He stopped trying to keep track, he just did. Shallow mark after shallow mark, so he would know how much time he spent there.
His mask was broken, lying beside him, out of reach.
As time passed by, his hunger grew. For human life. For blood. For divine blood.
He repeated the names of those he had to punish for tying him down like this, day after day, knowing that one day, he was going to be free. His chains will loosen and when that day comes, he will start an apocalypse. Something so quick and furious that all the other gods would witness all their followers die in less than a day.
Or he could make them all suffer. Kill them slowly with a plague.
Anything to soothe the growing rage building in his heart.
A day was near its end when something different happened.
A sound.
DreamXD, for the first time in years, moved. He moved his head, craning his neck towards the source of the sound. He couldn’t see it, whether it was because it was not in his line of sight or that his eyes finally decided to stop torturing him.
The god blinked several times. His surroundings had engraved themselves in his senses, he couldn’t really tell when they were open or closed.
What helped him see the difference was when something appeared in the corner of his vision.
He stopped moving altogether, waiting for that thing to get closer.
And it did.
It was a human, it was easy to guess. No god was foolish enough to get here.
A young male, seemingly lost.
“Woah!” screamed the little creature.
DreamXD turned his head to look at him.
He was young, healthy, dressed in winter clothes. With brown hair and brown eyes, he was shivering.
His mind smelled of weakness, the god’s favorite.
“A-are you alright?”
The god gave him no answer, just looked at him. Remembering the words of the other gods while his chains were molded into the stone, he took in the fact that this mortal only saw him as some miserable human.
The god did not have enough strength to make this human his obedient puppet yet. All his energy was left with the starvation and the only reason he didn’t disappear was the focus of his wrath.
Wrath wasn’t convincing enough when you could barely stand up, your arms held back.
But the god didn’t have to convince the human of anything.
He willingly came closer and knelt in front of him.
“You look freezing! Why are you dressed like this out there in the cold?!”
The god meekly moved his wrist trapped in chains, making them jingle.
“Oh. Right.”
The human would make an amazing meal. Just that one could be enough for DreamXD to recover strength and gather energy from the place, then the whole mountain, and then gather energy straight from the core of the world, swallowing everything true.
The human got closer, and just now the god noticed he shed his larger coat to wrap it around DreamXD’s shoulders. He was close enough for the first bite. A neck that looked juicy and tender, appetizing blood flowing in his veins.
“Are you hungry?”
The god grunted, his eyes focused on his prey.
His wishes for human flesh were tamed when the human got food out of soft silky fabric.
“It’s not much, but it’s a start.”
The human was holding the food with both hands, presenting it to the prisoner of the mountain.
DreamXD remembered well the last time he was given a human offering. A priestess sacrificed several young women, asking for fortune and health for a whole country. A wish he fulfilled, until other gods started arguing with his ways.
That was very, very long ago. Especially in human cycles.
DreamXD nodded, accepting the gift, and George fed it to him.
It was sweet, some kind of candy, and something other than pure boredom and hatred inhabited the god’s mind for a few moments.
Something sweet from a sweet human.
The human looked around him.
“Where are we?”
He gasped at the sight of the piece of heaven in front of him.
“Fruits? In the middle of winter?”
The god observed the human, and especially the fact that he wasn’t looking like he wanted to leave at once. He felt… safe…
“We are in the core of the mountain.”
The human whipped his head around.
“In?”
“Yes. Inside the mountains.”
“How… How are there flowers and fruits here…?”
The god tried not to roll his eyes.
“Gods wanted to punish me, and created this oasis to lock me out of it…”
“That’s cruel of them…”
The human looked above the god’s head, towards the markings on the stone.
“What… what is that?”
“I have been imprisoned here for a very long time…”
“I’ll get the chains off, it can’t be comfortable.”
The human stood up and grabbed one of the chains, hissing in pain and stepping back. He burnt his hand.
“Gods are more mischievous than you think… they really don’t want me freed.”
“What could you have possibly done to be treated this way?”
DreamXD stayed quiet.
The human looked around, then placed some of his belongings next to the god.
“I’ll get you some food from those trees. You must be starving.”
And the human left without another word.
The god observed him from afar, climbing trees with easy-to-collect fruits. His first entertainment since his deprivation.
It would’ve been too sad to kill his only source of amusement and food at first sight.
The god didn’t blink once as the human went and gathered enough fruits for a feast.
His movements weren’t as perfect and calculated as those of the goddess of beauty, and he lacked lightness on his feet, but it made it precious all the more.
DreamXD would define the human as one of the most fascinating specimens he was given to observe.
Those who used to give him offerings and pray to him were maniacs, easy to control, easy to tip over the edge of madness.
And the god didn’t notice how bored he was of all of it until he had a mortal caring for him as if he were a helpless infant.
The god rattled his chains, pulling on them, to test if the first bits of food gave him some strength back.
And it did. Some of the burning sensation in his wrist returned.
The feeling of weight in his chest returned too, right under the divine seal carved onto his chest.
Some messy work, since DreamXD wouldn’t sit still while other gods tried to bind him forever.
The human came back with loads of fruits in a makeshift bag of fabric.
He placed it down next to the god, got out a knife, and started cutting up some of the fruits.
The god didn't really like how quick he was to draw the knife out of its sheath, but he mentioned none of it.
Since he was close enough, DreamXD used the opportunity to trace a finger on his forehead.
The human leaned back, startled.
“You never told me your name,” the deity spoke softly.
The human chuckled. What an interesting sound.
“My name is George.”
“Where are you from, George? It’s not usual for travelers to come here.”
“I’m uh… from a village at the bottom of the mountain. I was… my mother is sick, and she needs medicine. And I was told I could find those white flowers on the top of the mountain and… I think I got lost…”
The god chuckled.
“Those flowers are only seen in warmer temperatures. The cold kills them. But you are in luck, some of those flowers grow on the bark of the trees you just went to.” The god was probably mentioning other white flowers than those the human was told to get, but he knew those would work as well, if not better than the original plan.
The god watched as the human turned back, and went to collect those flowers too, leaving everything in place.
The spell he cast on the human was a specific one. One not all gods had the ability to cast.
A spell to make him go unnoticed by other gods. It was good to secure his only way out, or at least his only messenger on what goes on on the surface.
The human came back, sat back down in front of the god, and wrapped preciously the flowers in thin fabric. He packed them in his bags, then returned to his previous occupation, feeding the prisoner.
The god was silent while being fed sweet and rich fruits, observing silently the mortal caring for him. Was that blush coloring his cheeks? He had trouble meeting the god’s gaze.
DreamXD found it amusing all the more. Especially when he licked the juice off of the mortal’s fingers and poor George stuttered so much.
The god thanked him after deciding he had enough food, and George packed the rest into his bags, slipping them back onto his back.
“I have to go, I can’t stay here forever.”
“Will you come back?”
“Yes, tomorrow. I will try and find something to get those chains out, too.”
“Just food is enough,” DreamXD remembered well the sound of George burning himself on the chains. He will heal those wounds later, he promises himself.
DreamXD indicated the way out, somewhere closer to the village George described rather than the way he went in.
The god felt a sense of dread when he realized he leaned on trust for the human to come back, instead of cursing him to come back each time the god wished for it.
Was the god that weak? Or was he starting to become crazy with the time he spent there? Just spending his time here?
Maybe he was just a bit surprised because it was his first human interaction in a while.
It reminded him of his early days. When humans started living and thriving from food, more intelligent and evermore interesting than the usual animals that existed before them.
But even his first interactions with humans were simple schemes of manipulation to invite humans to kill each other.
It was never that… simple.
Kindness was a stranger to the god.
He thought he preferred blood, screams of pain, and chaos… While this was nice. He didn’t know yet if he wanted to get used to it, but he’d lay with the human’s game for as long as he needed to get his strength back.
Then, once he was back, he would raid the temple of the gods and slaughter everything that got in his way.
But he could save that one human, for the mercy he showed to a simple stranger chained to the inside of a mountain.
The god missed his wings dearly. The divine energy embedded in the chains prevented him from shapeshifting and that included his four magnificent wings that he used to flaunt in indication of his power.
Unlike some other gods, he didn’t need constant followers to have influence. He was a threat to anyone just by existing. And he enjoyed every second of it.
The fear in their eyes.
The whispers that followed him anywhere he went.
The defensiveness even the mightiest gods took as soon as he talked to them.
He licked his lips, some remnants of the fruits he tasted melting on his tongue.
George. What a peculiar name.
A pliable mind, easy to convince. DreamXD could make him the emperor of the humans if he wanted to.
He could.
Anyone would bow in his presence.
But on the other side, it was unlikely that George embraced that role and became as cruel as DreamXD would need him to be.
He was too pure. Too kind. Too fragile.
It would be a miracle if he could go on like this and only die of time instead of a knife in the back.
As the night went by, DreamXD listened to the sounds of nature surrounding him, aware of anyone who came in.
If he was optimistic about his future relationship with the kind human soul, he still wasn’t stupid.
Some other god could notice something was off and seal the entrances to the mountain forever. Worse, they could kill the human and leave it there as a reminder of his eternal banishment from the mortal realm.
Under no circumstances he would let his little feeble creature get hurt.
He had a world to burn, after all.
And that was the only reason he cared about George.
Certainly not because that human was pleasant to listen to. Or to look at. Not at all.