The Gifts of Mortality

Chapter 1, part two

At the palace's exit, Samil stands at the peak of the path below and regards the flood of immortals coming toward him, each holding a parchment with a green seal. They're coming in a torrent up the cobblestone street. He sees them in their rainbow array of clothes and styles, but doesn't recognize any of their faces, friendly or otherwise.

Samil begins to walk through them, the sole fish swimming against a stream. He takes his time to look at each being he passes, and most look back at him with cool curiosity at his walking in the opposite direction from everyone else. As his distance from the palace grows, he begins to see more antagonists from the long-ago conflicts. Samil opens his mouth a few times to speak with them but takes the coward's way before he can utter a syllable. He imagines what it would be like to plead with them and literally hang on their clothes as they push past him toward the gathering. But he knows no one would favorably react to such actions on his part. His only reward for doing so much on behalf of the mortals would be curses and cuffs.

In truth, none of the other immortals tolerate him much. He might as well set his sights on the beings that hate Neven the most in hopes that the chance to go against her outweighs their indignation at dealing with him. There's a group of immortals at the far, far outskirts of their city. The Elementals despise Neven and her Celestials so much that their abhorrence may translate into disobedience.

The Elementals were the source of the conflict during the skirmishes when the immortals first began to settle together. They almost became the leaders of the city. They mirror Neven and her like in power and influence.

Of the two types of gods, the Elementals are the older. They amassed their essence and power from the very founding of the planet billions of years prior.

The Celestials came along much later, arising with the appearance of sentient beasts, Homo sapiens, capable of imagining and naming them. The immortals didn't create humans; instead, humanity created their deities when magic amassed from the very fact of their sentience. From this, the Celestials were born.

In the conflicts, the younger immortals rose to prominence just as the humans who created them became the dominant species on Earth.

But the Elementals have always considered the Celestials upstart fads stealing the positions of power that rightfully belong to the ancient immortals, those who were here before humanity and who will outlast them.

Nephias, God of the Seas, sits on the Council in the spot that Kashilla, Goddess of Water, covets.

Odar, God of the Heavens, takes the throne that Aesil, God of Air, believes is his.

Sattyph, Goddess of the Lands and Islands, is watched with envy by Duranna, Goddess of Earth.

And in the Elementals' eyes, Neven, Goddess of Life and Light, has stolen the crown and title from Mallock, God of the Sun.

Some say it was because of Neven's power and her implicit and explicit threats that the conflicts never devolved into outright war. Others say Mallock merely didn't have the right weapons at his hands to start a fight he could win. Those same immortals say he's biding his time until he gathers the strength and munitions he needs.

As Samil passes by more and more immortals who he knows won't help him, he begins to feel nauseous at the thought of possibly giving Mallock what he's been waiting for.

His general feelings of anxiety transform into an all-consuming panic when he sees the Elementals rounding out the flood of oncoming immortals. 

The minor gods and goddesses of their ilk lead the pack. Most are in their humanoid form and wear skin and hair that stays well within humans' tones and shades. Their clothing is a riot of greens, reds, blues, and whites to signal which of the higher Elementals the wearers fall under. A few appear in their true, divine form. Those signal their allegiance to a particular leader with limbs and bodies formed of the element under their dominion.