Blood and Elixir - Curse of the Old Gods

Razkel

This used to feel like bliss, a piece of heaven he had reigned hell for, had challenged the Old Gods themselves for.

He used to feel at peace here. The heat from the fireplace warming his skin, crackling with the logs he had cut himself this morning along with his son. His wife's voice soothing in its normalcy as she pitter-pattered around the house cleaning up after yet another day. The house warm and cozy, quiet now after a long day of activity, his children's laughter and voices still hanging in the air.

It didn't seem much but it had been hard earned. He had paid a very high price for what would appear to be a boring and mundane life to the untrained eye. But then he had made sure that no eye, untrained or otherwise would ever fall on them. It was a stolen life he had carved for himself and he had gone to great lengths to make it happen, to ensure it would never be threatened, never need protecting or defending. And lately, it had started to feel like a trap.

The wind howled. The dog barked. And as his wife continued her daily charade about how she wished they lived elsewhere, a big city, or hell even a small town, somewhere closer to other people, not like nomads in the middle of the forest, where he had kept his family captive in the middle of all this wilderness with just animals as friends, he suppressed a grimace. Everything was just as it should be.

Until a few years ago, her very same words would have gotten a rise out of him, left him raging and reasoning - trying to get her to see sense with as much honesty as he could spare her. Danger lurked out there, amongst the people, cloaked under those friendly smiles and neighbourly concerns. Eyes constantly watching, keeping tabs. He used to warn her about monsters hidden inside men, but never about monsters amongst them. That knowledge was his curse to bear alone.

Monster, he had learned quickly was a very loose term for 'people', the common folk on this realm. Anything unsavoury, frightening, complex and confusing, contrived, morally dubious, slightly dangerous (well, slight for him), of the Other kind - anything that didn't fit into the set order and norms of mainstream society was conveniently deemed a monster. He loved that word. Loved it for its insignificance and magnitude. It didn't take much to become a monster for this race, and under the cloak of that term, they had efficiently (albeit naively) taken care of hundreds of their own and built a fear around hundreds of Others from different realms. Or they would if they knew of it. Which the majority of them didn't and for good reasons, he supposed.

They were a harebrained race, ruled by fear and insecurity. Having their staunch belief that they were the only ones in the galaxy, the smartest life forms to exist, shattered would have a similar effect as that of scattering ants running amok after having their ant hill trampled. Fun and amusing to watch but a pain in the ass to control. He knows that's why no one ever messes with their kind and their illusions. Too much hassle for a few moments of amusement. They were insignificant in the bigger picture and yet believed themselves indispensable. It was far more fun to watch them as they were. Caught up in the small intricacies of their lives, believing this to be the be all and end all of everything. Their curiosity was cute too, he thought. How they always wondered about The Big Void, made ventures to explore it, reach out, contact other life forms but always coming back empty-handed, bewildered and surprised.

It was no coincidence that they had never met any of the Others. The Order had made sure of it. It was a universal ploy, an inter-realmic agreement to keep them existing as they were in their small bubble. There is nothing more dangerous than a fool who believes himself wise. And here was a realm full of them. And it was this very reason that he had chosen Earth, that she had chosen Earth for him.