Foolish lays on the bank of the creek, sprawled out along the clay, staring up at her shadow against the moon. He spends the night there, taking deep breaths and feeling lighter than he’s ever felt in his existence. For the first time, he lets himself relax, just a little. He did it.
The years go by, and Foolish is lighter than before. He has companions who kind of understand his burden, share some of it even, and these newfound friends allow him to focus on what wants to do instead of what he has to do. He can focus on his buildings, his creations, his followers! No icky paperwork to look at for trade routes or patents, no shepherding souls around the world every waking moment, none of that!! He is perfectly content with this new environment he created and the fact that he created it, so much so that he doesn’t entirely notice when they start falling apart.
Ender Lord is drifting further and further away from him, secluding xemself from the overworld and from Foolish’s influence, which he notices but doesn’t move to stop. Xey’ll come back, xeir power stems from him after all! It’s not like xey can go far beyond their domain anyway. It’s minor to Foolish, so it doesn’t really matter.
Death is his main comfort. They’re a pair, really. Exploring the world together, following different mortals around on occasion. He teaches her about his creations, and she eagerly hangs off of his every word, and that makes him feel more like a god than anything else. They share everything, and it’s when she starts closing up that he grows a bit more concerned. Things are great, the world is operating smoothly, they have fun together! What could be bothering her?
She couldn’t be hiding anything from him right? Foolish dismisses the thought with haste and distaste. Hardly, he’s the most approachable immortal of the three of them! The god of almost everything, but most importantly of Life. Death is the scary one, not Life!
When he approaches her about it, it is done with the tact of a man who already expects to be answered wholly and truthfully. When she flits away like one of her precious birds ( his creation) and responds just as directly, he cannot help but snap.
“If something is wrong, let me fix it! I’m the one with the power to do it, and we’re friends, right? If I can complain about that stupid fucking chandelier for a decade surely you can tell me what’s bothering you?”
She pauses, still too far away for his comfort. Is she leaving like Ender is? His thoughts scream at him to keep her close, fix it, fix it, fix it and the intensity must have shown on his face because she winces and recoils more.
“Well, I don’t want to be ungrateful Foolish..”
Ungrateful? “For what?”
“You’ve given me such power, such gifts like what you have, but…” she sighs, turning away and looking at his- her stars. “There are so many of your creations, I cannot keep up with all of them.”
He lets out a startled laugh, trailing off awkwardly. “That’s it?” he can’t help but blurt to fill the silence, the distance.
She bristles and he feels the air get colder around him as she whips back around to face him, staring him down intently. “Well, when there’s tens of trillions of living organisms, it gets a bit overwhelming.”
He blinks, before blurting out “I did it. I mean, I did it first.” She bristles even more and he sees the grass under her feet wither and he hurriedly continues, “So I know what you mean, about it being overwhelming that is.” The silence weighs heavy on him as she considers him, and when she sits down on the shriveled grass he hurries to sit as well, bouncing his legs as he forces himself to stay quiet to let her consider because he nearly messed up so he’s got to give her time so he’s staying quiet. His hands fiddle with the grass, pulling it higher so he can properly weave it together while he waits for a response.
“...So you aren’t mad?”
“Should I be?” He tilts his head to the side, looking at her again and stopping his weaving.
“No, well, maybe, but….UGH I don’t know!” She throws herself backwards, laying down with a thump. “It’s just that, it’s a lot. I’d like someone to help but you’re very busy and have a lot on your plate so it’s not like I can ask you and Ender isn’t around as much these years and is also really busy so I can’t really turn to anyone about it? I guess? I don’t know if that’s making any sense.”
Foolish continues weaving the strands of grass around him, trying to do the same with his thoughts. “I...I think it makes sense. You’re just, you’re overwhelmed. I get that! Um, we could do the same thing I did when I was overwhelmed, if you uh, if you want?”
Still sprawled on the dead grass, she lifts her head up to look at him. “What did you do?”
“I found someone that could handle it, and when I couldn’t find one I...made you.”
She jolts upright with a blinding grin. “Really?! Could I have a brother!! Or sister, or sibling or just a friend but I’d really like it if we could do that!”
Foolish startles at her enthusiasm and accidentally crushes the braided grass in his hands and his smile is just as stable when he says “Uh sure! How about we think about it first... and we can come back to it when you- we have ideas?”
She’s back on her feet before he can set down his crushed project, already shooting off ideas at a hundred miles an hour. “Nature, animals and monsters, maybe hybrids? Ooh, what if he helped you with the nether! I know you’re always too busy to work on your builds these days-” and though he feels like he unleashed a beast, he can’t help but nod along.
She set it all up, dragging the corpses of different creatures across his world, bringing them to a clearing deep in the woods still unexplored by his more sentient creations. She built a towering pile of rot in this field otherwise full of life, and he watches with curiosity and a slight sense of foreboding as she digs out a circle around her morbid project. When she turns back to him with her sleeves rolled up and arms covered in dirt, knees scuffed and her hair tied back, he cannot help but be fond. He hasn’t seen her this happy in decades, and this is helpful to him, takes more off of his plate so he can focus on stuff that matters more to him, so it’s gonna be alright. He isn’t losing her, he’s bonding! Yeah, bonding. They’re doing a little project together, that’s all! They haven’t had a project since he taught her how to form his totems, so this is gonna be great. He’ll make sure of it.
Once she’s finished fretting about a setup he isn’t sure truly matters, Foolish lays down the last of the obsidian in the sunken circle around the somehow still bleeding corpses. Stepping back from the towering pile of slain creatures, he cannot help but feel that maybe she went a bit overboard. He sees all manner of creatures in the pile, big, small, ferocious, timid, sentient, and decidedly stupid. Death explained it to him before, how she wants the common thread to be survival and nature in general, but varied enough that they aren’t one-dimensional. Something of that notion at least, he tuned out at a few parts so he’s not sure he knows all the reasoning. He frowns at the corpses and refrains from decaying them himself. The scavengers typically pick bodies clean rather quickly, so the lack of decomposition is unnatural and unnerving.
Death finishes scratching out words into the obsidian and straightens up with a giddy chirp before hurrying over to Foolish.
“That was the last of it, I think it’ll be good to go!” She beams up at the large pile of bodies and stares down some circling vultures until they leave. “So how do you do this? Do we light it? I was thinking we light it.”
A bit late to ask, Foolish thinks a tad bitterly. “Well…” he starts to respond but realizes he can’t continue. His way would be to scrap this whole extravagant attempt at a ritual and teach her how to shape clay into human form, but it’s way too late for that. “I follow my gut. So if that’s what you think should happen, do it.”
She whips around to face him with a blinding smile and a dangerous glint in her eyes. “Yeah?!”
“Yeah. So, what do you want to do?” Please no fire, please no fire.
She pulls out her bow and one of her shooting stars, facing the circle full of bleeding creatures as the blood just keeps coming. Why hasn’t it run out? “I’m gonna light it and we’re gonna hope it works. Count me down?”
Foolish lets out a huff, prepares himself to call a rainstorm if the fire gets out of control, and steps back to let her have her moment.
“Five.”
She shakes out her body, and bounces in place for a moment.
“Four.”
Death raises her ebony bow, reaches up and pulls down a star from the heavens.
“Three.”
Death draws back, letting the star begin to build up heat and power.
“Two.”
Death steadies her breath, focuses. Shifts her aim just slightly.
“One.”
Death lets her power and her soul reach into the star, turning it void black.
…
“Fire.”
A streak of black shoots soundlessly through the air, trailing sparks and bending the grass below with its force as it streaks into the center of the corpses. All is still for a long moment, two.
Then suddenly a wreath of scorching fire bursts out of the pile in a ring, stopping and hovering above the obsidian laid in the ground. The flames flicker and begin to swirl, reaching inwards and climbing up the tower until the bodies are no longer visible, the blood sizzling and the flames turning white with heat towards the peak. Foolish watches with trepidation as the blaze grew taller and taller before suddenly freezing in place. Swirling flames cease their movement and stay in place heat disappears, and an onlooker could believe that the scene was a vivid painting.
An unseen first breath is taken and the moment shatters, flames cracking and folding inwards and releasing a wave of heat so intense the ground is scorched and singed in a wide circle. The once roiling flames vanish as if sucked into a vacuum and reveal the towering mass of corpses had been reduced to a large pile of ash.
When he suddenly exists and inhales, his first breath is fire. It is the taste of anger boiling in his veins, unchallengeable strength and destruction, a soul-deep ambition and drive that will never be quenched. He breathes in the shards of a soul that was split and given to him, and it might be calm in the storm but only adds to the confusion. He breathes in the ash and souls of the wild, creatures who did everything in their power to make it another day, to sneak and overpower and fight and flee in an overwhelming and indistinguishable mix. He breathes in their lawlessness, their wild nature, and their instincts. And the first thing these instincts tell him is get up.
