Chapter One: Gather

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is not actually told from Novis's point of view; the story will remain in third person for its entirety

Chapter One: Gather

‘When viewed from the sky the vast, flatness of a desert has a certain beauty to it.’ She inhaled another long breath of uncomfortably warm and dusty air. ‘But being in one is like hell.’ Burning hot sand covered the woman's bare feet every time she stepped before it was compressed enough to provide adequate footing. She smirked. ‘And I’ll be the last to ever have the displeasure.’ Searching her mind, she faintly recalled that this area had been full of life long ago; the grass had been tall and green, and healthy, happy animals had cavorted through the prairie. But after this long there weren’t even any loney tumbleweeds, or obligatory animal skulls; just sand. Not even the breeze would bother to caress this land after a millennia of abandonment and global warming had scorched it dry.

The sun passed overhead. Then the moon, and then the sun again before the cityscape came into view; the only remaining indicator of intelligent habitation in the massive wasteland. Most of its buildings had long ago eroded away into dust, and all of its inhabitants had a thousand years before that, but despite it being only a shell of its former self its scale was staggering. She watched the city as it came closer and closer, eventually filling up her entire field of vision. Suddenly a massive noise exploded into the stagnant air. Her eyes darted slightly to the left just in time to witness the spectacle: a building that stretched far into the sky finally gave way to the relentless pull of gravity, and began to fall, breaking into many pieces in the seconds before they collided with the earth. A massive cloud of dust riding a strong wind billowed out from ground zero, and rushed toward the woman with frightening speed. But it suddenly dissipated just before it reached her. Unfazed, and still moving forward, she pressed on to her destination.

Though the structures on the outer edges of the city were decaying, the further into the city she went, the more intact everything seemed to be. After about an hour she arrived at the monolith of glass and steel wherein her destination lied. The central rotary door, which was the main entrance to the building had rusted in place, and it took a surprising amount of force to break free. Just after she had entered the building a wind blew by, causing one of the other rotary doors to creak loudly as it turned. How frustratingly ironic; the woman narrowed her eyes knowing that this mild irritant was no coincidence. As she traversed the long maze of empty hallways another irritant arose, but this one had nothing to do with her suspect. She scowled; being in such a small, enclosed space made her feel puny. Like one of the city's previous inhabitants. Insulted, she forgoed the humility of walking and hovered just a few inches above the ground. Moving this way inspired shock and awe, or rather it would have if anyone was there to see it. Regardless,it served her purposes adequately. It hadn’t been too difficult to repress the strong anticipation of the events to come right up until she finally arrived at the door to the room which had been designated for the meeting. She stopped for the first time since she began her journey, allowing her feet to dangle next to each other. Collecting her thoughts, she took a deep breath, then blew the massive doors open, and stormed in.

After a few moments of silence the room’s lone inhabitant looked up, noticing her. “Well it's about time you showed up!” He was sitting at the head of a large meeting table, on which he rested his booted feet. Despite the sincerity of his voice, he didn't sound upset.

The woman narrowed her eyebrows angrily. “What do you mean? I came as soon as I received your challenge.”

A confused came over the man’s face. “Challenge? I’d never challenge you.”

“You would deny the words you wrote with your own hands!” She shouted angrily as she retrieved the paper she had received, and slammed it on the table at the man’s feet.

“Well?” She demanded as the man attempted to reach the note without moving his legs.

He frowned sadly as he realized that he lacked the flexibility to reach it from his current position, and reluctantly sat up straight.

After reading the note he glanced up at Aethria with a good-natured smirk and a raised eyebrow. “Ok, first of all, this challenge is signed by five of us, so you have no proof that these words were written by my own hand. Drama is meant to be an nothing more than embellishment to your accusation, and even then only in moderation; it certainly can’t act as a replacement for facts.” Aethria’s face darkened, and the man continued, obvious. “Secondly, and more importantly, I never wrote this; I’ve never seen it before in my life.” he said the last bit with a casualness that could burst a blood vessel in Athreia’s forehead.

“Don’t lie to me, you conniving little brat!” She yelled; her pride unable to tolerate his indifference.

Just then, two figures appeared at the threshold under the empty door frame, both female.

“Aethria!” the one on the left called out. “Of all of us, Bakano should be the least of your concern; don’t forget who your real enemies are.”

“Delfia! This is your doing, isn’t it!” Aethria yelled. “How dare you challenge me!”

Bakano cringed. “Again with the drama; for goodness sakes, you sound like an entitled six-year-old.”

“What do you mean, challenge?” A fifth person came up behind the first two.

Aethria narrowed her eyebrows. “I should have known you’d be in on this too, Terius.”

“Yes, you really should have.” Bakano said, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. “His name is signed on the challenge with the rest of ours. Here,” He said, standing up and approaching the three figures at the door. “She thinks we wrote her this.” He handed them the paper.

“What?!” cried Terius after reading it. “I’ve never seen this before, much less signed it!”

“Yeah, me neither!” Delfia said, awkwardly. She screamed inwardly; thousands of years to prepare for this confrontation, and she had spoken unnecessarily at the expense of her dignity.

“So you’re all going to lie about this??” Aethria shouted in anger and disbelief. “What's wrong with you people; you make no sense!”

“You're the one who doesn’t make any sense, Aethria;” Delfia retorted. “If were all liars then explain this!” She retrieved the note that she had received, and shoving it at Aethria. It told a very different story: Atheria had invited everyone to come and here her confession of all her wrongdoings, admission of fault, and formal apology.

“What!?” This time her voice was more dumbfounded than anything else. “But I never-’

Aethria opened her mouth to respond, but realized that she was completely cornered; now she realized that her accusations worked against her.

“Who’s the liar now?” Terius asked, condescendingly.

“Whats going on here?” Novis asked, approaching the group from behind.

Unfortunately he was too late to read the situation and realize the consequences of his question. Immediately the four retellings of the previous conversation assaulted him, each with a unique bias, and all undecipherable on top of eachother.

“SHUT UP!”

Everyone froze; none of them had spoken. The voice was loud, but not harsh, and unmistakably the voice of a child. But how could that be? This was impossible; they were the only six inhabitants of this planet. For the first time in thousands of years they all felt something new: Dread. The experience was completely foreign, yet oddly familiar; nothing had ever been a threat to their safely since they were mortal. Despite the feeling being rather unpleasant, its novelty was something they all secretly relished as they turned to face whatever had spoken.

“On wow, that worked fast.” said the little boy that now stood in the center of the table. He chuckled. “And they told me it’d be a nightmare trying to get you all stop fighting.”

The six gods starred in utter astonishment at this child, who must have been the source of the voice. The stunned silence continued, and showed no signs of ending until the boy, who was growing increasingly confused decided to break it.

“Do you all not know who I am?” He might as well have been talking vegetables.

“That's disappointing” He sounded genuinely sad.

“What are you?” Terius asked, finally finding his voice.

“Glad you asked!” the boy said, suddenly cheerful again. “My name’s Tet, and I’m a messenger; boy does god has some strong words for you.

Author's Note

Ok, BIIIIIIG edit coming soon. I think maybe. We'll see.