The Awakening of the Gods (Forgotten Ones)

by M. H. Hawkins

  Lilly glanced down at Fenrir’s limp body then over at Nisha, and she realized that her moment was over. Her red ribbons elegantly shortened themselves and reeled themselves in until they rest along her shoulders and dangled just behind them, like a well-laid scarf would. Lilly gave a playful hmmf and said, “Just like new. Nothing like the blood of gods, you know, to regrow a body part… or two.”

  Lilly glanced over at the other four anointed wolf-gods then over at Darius who was still standing on the other side of the room. They all looked particularly passive, defeated, and submissive; Lilly was far from impressed. “Huh,” she said, realizing why. That’s why Fenrir did it. He’d already driven too far, too long in the wrong direction. His family, while he loved them as much as he could, they failed him—and he failed them. They were all lost souls, mortals, at one time, and Fenrir took pity on them and gave them the second-life. But his softness got the best of him, and he chose incorrectly. They weren’t strong enough—they would never become strong enough, not enough to survive the Cleansing. And you can’t fix a shattered mirror. Although… Lilly turned towards Nisha and saw the angst-ridden look on her face. It made Lilly sad as well. Dear child, Lilly thought, there is much work to be done, perhaps too much work.

  Nisha was still buried beneath the pile of banshees while they awaited orders from Lilly. Her armor was still scraped and scratched up and looked like a used-up cutting board. The deep slashes that covered her face were healing slower than before, slower than they should have. Some weren’t healing at all.

  Through the pile-on of banshees, Nisha’s was still reaching for Fenrir. Her armored forearm was covered with puncture wounds, like it was hit by a shotgun. Some of the wounds were still bleeding, and it seemed that her injuries had finally overpowered her healing ability. Although, at the moment, she barely felt them. She barely felt anything at all. Her eyes were red, wet, puffy, yet still angry. “Fenrir,” Nisha muttered as her exhausting hand opened and closed, reaching out for her father and at nothing at all. “Father,” Nisha whimpered, “Please, come back to us.”

  Huh, Lilly thought, that young lady has certainly tuckered herself out—quite the fighter though. Lilly chuckled and thought, I see why she was his favorite.

  Lilly gave her a small, fleeting, bittersweet smile. “Let her go—Now. C’mon, get off her. Let her go.”

  The banshees hesitated. Given the fight that Nisha had put up, it was hard to blame them. And the banshees were somewhat confused by the order and hesitated. Nonetheless the look in Lilly’s eye told them that she was serious, and while being incredibly careful and cautious, the banshees did as they were told. It was like someone releasing an angry tiger, and as the banshees began peeling off the pile, they scooted away from Nisha as fast and far as they could.

  Nisha didn’t give them a second look and instead scrambled over to Fenrir on her hands and knees. Finally reaching him, Nisha wiped the tears from her face and pulled her dying father into her lap and cradled him in her arms. Stroking his hair, she tried to understand. “Why? Why did you do it? W-w-why… why didn’t you fight back?” Fenrir didn’t respond, so Nisha moved onto holding his pasty, pale cheek in palm, pushing his thinning hair out of the way. Fenrir finally gasped, but it hit her, just then. He was almost gone. Nisha bit down on the side of lip and painful shook her head, trying to snuff out her emotions for the moment. “Hey,” she whimpered. “Hey, you’re still here. You’re still alive. It’s okay. It’s me; it’s me, Nisha, your daughter. You’re okay. So c’mon now. C’mon, open your eyes.”

  After a few wheezes, Fenrir did as he was told and finally opened his eyes. His eyelids lifted as slow as molasses, and his once-gleaming sapphire eyes now looked more like dirty ice cubes. Despite how weak he was, Fenrir still managed to crack a smile. “My daughter, Nisha. My kin. My… heir.”

  “No, no, no,” Nisha sniffled. “You—you’re going to be okay. You—“

  “—No, I’m not. I’m dying.” Fenrir let out a lowly gasp and an even longer wheezing sound. “Nisha,” he whispered, “a pack needs a leader. It needs an alpha… But it doesn’t need me. You don’t need me. But the pack… the pack does. It needs you, for what’s to come. You’ll need to be strong, to survive… stronger than I was.”

  A flash of light, that only he saw, blotted out Fenrir’s vision, and in some strange sort of near-death experience, he smiled widely and brightly. “Wow,” he exclaimed. “Nisha, my father was right. He was right. Nish—Nisha, the blood, the blood is… it’s poison.” Fenrir grabbed Nisha by her armored collar. Now sounding manic and deranged, he said, “Don’t let it. Nisha, don’t let it touch the ground. Don’t let it soak into the earth. Nisha, it’ll spoil it. It’ll spoil everything. The world. The blood, don’t let it corrupt them. Don’t… Protect them. Protect them, Nisha.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, confused. “Father, Fenrir, how? How do I protect them?”

  “How?” Fenrir said, echoing her question. Then, mercurial as can be, Fenrir released Nisha’s collar and went back to sagging limply in her lap. A fool’s smile—wide, exaggerated, and toothy—crept across his face. “How?” he echoed again.

  Nisha shook him back to lucidity then said, “Yes, how. How do I protect them.

  Fenrir blinked away the mania and became somber again. “How?” he pondered. Then pausing, he chuckled, like someone chuckling at an inside joke, until it was quickly replaced by a dry, painful cough. “How, my dear daughter? That, I do not know. It’s strange. We gods… We believe that we are above the mortals, but now, as I lay here dying, I see the irony. Like the mortals, we are forced to atone for the errors, and the errors of our parents. In part, we suffer or succeed off their failures and successes, and our own as well. And now, just as I had to deal with my father’s failures and learn the lessons of them, you are left with mine. I hope, one day, that you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me, your father… for my shortcomings.”

  Still confused, Nisha asked, “How? Father, what do I do? How do we survive the Cleansing?”

  As slow as a dying man, Fenrir reached up and touched Nisha’s face and smiled lovingly at her. “That, my precious daughter, I do not know. Nisha, I failed our family, time and time again, too many to count, I failed them. But you will be better than I was… because you are better than me. You’ll learn, and so will they. But for now, you’ll need to protect them…” Fenrir’s words faded, and he again let out another low, stretched-out gasp. He went silent and turned still, and Nisha was about to start shaking him back to life. But…

  Fenrir snapped awake, suddenly alert and sucking air with an exaggerated gasp. Suddenly wide-eyed, he wailed, “Protect them! Nisha, protect them from the poison! Nisha, pro…” His eyes closed, and his body went limp. Then, like Blackwell had done before him, Fenrir broke. His armor cracked like brittle paint and began crumbling away. His unarmored hands and face cracked as well, and the edges of his skin drifted away like ashes from an abandoned campfire, and Fenrir died in Nisha’s arms.

  Lilly watched and pursed her lips fleetingly. Goodbye, Fenrir. Then she went back to admiring her new arm. Sighing, she said, “He’s right, you know,” not giving Fenrir or Nisha so much as a glance. “The pack will need a new leader, a new alpha,” Lilly added, emphasizing the word alpha, like it was a curse word or a death sentence.

  With Lilly looking away, she didn’t see the rage boiling inside Nisha and anger smeared across her face. Nisha, with her hair a mess and her face twisted, looked more like a feral animal than a god. Right now, she did not want to hear any of Lilly’s propaganda, not after Lilly just murdered her father.

  Lilly was still talking and waving her hand carelessly around in the air with a certain amount of misplaced, ill-timed arrogance. But Nisha hadn’t heard a word she was saying. Her ears were filled with a different noise, the ringing sound that often accompanies reckless rage. And with the chiming bells of fury singing into her ears and clouding her rational mind, Nisha’s anger was back with a vengeance. She kille
d my father.

  Nisha leapt onto her feet and charged Lilly. Bursting through Fenrir’s ashes, she let out another shrill cougar-like scream and slashed through two banshees that got in her way. When two more appeared, a well-timed, well-aimed punch sent the first one crumbling. As for the second one, Nisha ducked its swinging hand then grabbed it. Then, unleashing all her built up anger and with her bare hands, she tore it in half then kept on going. Charging forward recklessly, ration was gone. Nisha was on a warpath. She wanted to hurt someone (to make them feel what she felt).

  She was so close. Nisha cocked back her right hand and spread open her fingers, and it puffed up and darkened, transforming into a gnarled werewolf’s claw. Its razor-sharp, black nails extended out of the ends of its fingers. Extending further, her talons curved into sharp-edged crescent moons, and the edges of them sparkled in the cavern’s light. With a powerful yell, the talons came swiping towards Lilly’s back, ready to slice through her like lunch meat.

  It was useless. Almost lazily, Lilly ducked the attack. Then she became a blur of motion and snatched Nisha by the throat. Handling her like she was an oversized ragdoll, Lilly spun Nisha around, bounced her off the ground (to calm her down) then flung her aside.

  Slamming backwards into something hard, Nisha felt like she got hit by a train. The pain shot through her back and rattled her bones along with every single one of her nerve endings. Her head snapped backwards and slammed into something else that was hard and painful, and everything flashed black. That one felt like getting a harpoon in the back of her head. Nisha finally opened her eyes, winced, and blinked away her blurry vision. Now she saw train that hit her—a thin, long, glossy black arm covered with a swirling red ribbon.

  And now there was a rope around her neck, tightening with each passing moment, it felt like the air was being yanked out of her lungs. Nisha finally looked down and saw it, the rest of Lilly’s arm and the hand that was currently wrapped around her windpipe, squeezing the life from her.

  “Hey,” Lilly said. “Calm. Down.”

  With Lilly’s hangman’s noose of a hand around her neck, Nisha was still gasping for air but managed to remain fairy calm. Lilly on the other hand, with her newfound strength, her hand was still tightening around Nisha’s neck, and even after she had said “Calm. Down.” Lilly’s face had remained almost entirely without emotion—like a parent’s face waited for their child’s tantrum to pass. Eventually it did pass, and aside from her pawing futilely at the stranglehold of Lilly’s hand for a few seconds, Nisha’s anger simmered down, and Lilly loosened her grip.

  While keeping her hand where it was, Lilly leaned in and whispered into Nisha’s ear. “Listen,” she said, “this is what Fenrir wanted. He lost his will to live. He was done for—you saw him. He was tired, and he was discontent with this world and the people in it—and you know it. But not you, he was never disappointed in you. He protected you. He wanted you to live. He wanted you to lead. He sacrificed himself for your, so that you could lead them, and hopefully so that your pack can survive, that you’d have a chance to survive.”

  Lilly paused to see if Nisha was getting it. Seeing the look on Nisha’s face, Lilly realized that she was (getting it). Using the index finger from her new hand, Lilly pushed Nisha’s hair out of her eyes and behind her ears then continued. “Look,” Lilly huffed. “This pack… it’s disorganized. It’s disconnected. It’s too dysfunctional to survive the things that are coming—and Fenrir knew that. And you know it too. Look, Nisha—it’s Nisha, right? Isn’t it? Look, if this pack is going to survive, it’s going to need to be united.” Lilly jabbed her finger at Nisha’s chest. “You. You need to unite them. And it’s going to need an alpha, a strong alpha, to lead them. Fenrir knew that too, and he knew that it wasn’t him, not anymore.” Lilly huffed and finally removed her hand from Nisha’s neck.

  Aghast, Nisha’s fingers squeezed the stone edges that were suddenly and surprisingly resting beneath her arms, and she sighed. “Why me?”

  Lilly huffed. “If not you, who then? One of them?” Lilly bobbed her head subtly to the side, gesturing at Nisha’s brothers. “Him?” she asked and lightly nodded towards Darius. Then, starting to get frustrated, Lilly huffed again. “Look, if it’s not you, this all a wait of time. This is what Fenrir wanted—for you to take over. Look, I get it. You’re not ready; you don’t know what to do; it’s so much responsibility; blah, blah blah. But it has to be you. Look around, out of all these wolves, you were the only one that attacked me, the only one who was willing to fight and die for their family. The only one. Now, if you don’t lead them, if you don’t lead your family… they’re dead—that’s all but certain. And Fenrir, his death, his sacrifice… it won’t mean a damn thing.”

  Lilly took a step back, away from Fenrir’s stone throne, the same one Nisha was sitting on, that she hadn’t noticed that she was sitting on. “So,” Lilly said, “what’s it going to be?”

  Bewildered, Nisha looked down on at the throne she found herself on. She looked down on the seven wolf packs, then over at her brothers. Arrous, Ramus, Brontus, and Glenstark; they all had the same dumb look on their faces. While they were painted in fear and passivity, their wounds had healed. Their armor was flawless. Nisha looked at her crunched, dented, and scraped armored forearm and realized: Lilly was right. They didn’t even put up a fight. She turned her head towards Darius. His armor was flawless as well. While Lilly’s banshees were no longer restraining her brothers, Nisha watched as Darius shoved one away then ripped his arm away from another, like a spoiled child and not as a fighter. He folded his arms across his chest and shook his head, pouting like a sore loser. Both Nisha and he knew that, in fact, he had lost. His search for power was over, and he would never become the new wolf-god, not in this lifetime.

  At the moment, everything seemed so heavy, but Nisha’s leg itched. Looking down, she saw Lilly’s tail jammed into her thigh. It was strangely painless, and Nisha watched as Lilly’s black-and-red tail plumped up and emptied itself into her thigh. When it happened again, Nisha felt Fenrir’s blood—the same blood that already ran through her veins—fill them even further. And with the injection of Fenrir’s blood, her father’s memories emptied into her as well. All the while Nisha found it quite strange that was so calm about the process.

  “He’d want you to have it,” Lilly said, “but I’m not giving it all back… After all, I do need my arm, for the things to come. And that, I am most certainly not giving back.” Lilly’s tail had apparently finished and was now reeling itself in and retreating behind her, going wherever tails go.

  Nisha rubbed her thigh and took a few seconds to soak everything in. Now, with Fenrir’s blood pumping through her veins, she was reinvigorated. She was filled with strength, filled with power—so much power. Every inch of her felt like a pressure cooker, overflowing with power. Jittery, her hands shook, and she had to grip onto the stone armrests to steady them. It was all too much, and Nisha had to take a few deep breaths to calm herself. Looking out over the sea of wolves, she thought: I’m not a leader. What if I fail?

  Her vision was shaky—from the adrenalin rush of Fenrir’s blood—when she glanced over at her brothers. Observing the stupid, passive looks on their faces, she realized something. They’re weak, too weak to lead. Turning her head, she looked over at the other side of the room, at Darius. He had a snide, jealous look smeared across his face and over his mannerisms. Clearly he was still upset and pouting, and most likely plotting as well. A coward and a traitor. Darius would abandon us all—or kill us—if it meant more power for him, like Aslern had done.

  Seeing the flecks of ash floating around her, pieces of her father, Nisha thought about Fenrir. She loved him, as much as a daughter could, but Fenrir had overcorrected. Overcompensating for his father’s failures, Fenrir was too loving, too soft. He loved us too much, Nisha knew, and it made us weak. I won’t make the same mistake.

  Growing even more impatient, Lilly bobbed her head as she waited for Nisha to do somet
hing. Still, a small smile crept across her lips as she watched Fenrir’s blood fill Nisha’s veins and watched as Nisha’s wounds healed before her eyes. The holes in Nisha’s armor, from Lilly’s banshees, were quickly shrinking and plugging themselves. The scrapes and scratched that covered her armor disappeared, and its glossy finish returned. The scars that covered Nisha’s cutup face thinned and flattened then disappeared. Now Nisha looked even more flawless than she had. “So, Lilly said, “what is it? What do you need?”

  Lilly held out her hand, and Fenrir’s glaive tumbled through the air and slapped itself into her palm. Lilly stepped up to the throne “Every god needs their own weapon,” Lilly said. “It’s our way. I have my ribbons. Mea has her… swords.” She held out the glaive in front of her, for Nisha to take it. “This was Fenrir’s, and now it’s yours.”

  Nisha looked at the prestigious glaive, her father’s weapon. Hesitating at first, she finally reached out and took the polearm, and her twisted fairytale continued. Rubbing her fingers over the engraved shaft, the engravings lit up into a bright silver color before dimming to a gray one. The engravings shifted and squirmed beneath her palm and danced across the surface of the long handle. Melting down, the handle became smooth. New, different engraving appeared and shifted into a completely different design, one that resembled a metallic rose garden with petals molded from rubies.