Broker-Chapter 221

Thunder rumbled overhead, it was still muted, but it felt closer, more insistent. It nearly drew her attention but the man before her reached forward to rap his knuckles on the table. She looked back at him, possibilities and questions bounding about in her head like so many pinballs. She shifted in her seat as the compulsion to answer his question became too much to bear. She didn’t have the precise answer he wanted, but the fact that she had any form of answer was enough to trigger the feeling.

“I don’t know,” she said, “Eight thousand years? Longer?”

He frowned, looking a little taken aback by her statement.

She rubbed her neck and slouched in her seat, waiting for the feeling to wash over her as Titania punished her for saying too much again. Another century this time? At least a few decades. She sighed and… nothing happened. She blinked and looked up, confused, and met the old man’s gaze. The elderly man leaned back in his seat and whistled appreciatively. “Your best guess then, curious. Have I been forgotten?” he asked.

She honestly hadn’t expected the conversation to continue after her answer, the uncomfortable feeling of getting away with something she shouldn’t have weighed on her shoulders. She shifted beneath his stare and glanced again towards Loki and Pandora. They were sitting now, Pandora’s face still tense but she was drinking and conversing with less hostility than before. He rapped his knuckles on the table again to draw her attention and she felt her thoughts grow clearer, like a fog lifting.

She looked down at his hand, “You’re doing something there.”

“Do not think too hard on it or it will help you less,” he said, “Focus on me, girl. Answer. Have I been forgotten?”

She furrowed her brows, she didn’t like being told not to think about something. That feeling caused her stomach to twist. She felt like she was forgetting something. It annoyed her as that clear headed feeling grew more intense. She was getting a headache, the pounding coming in time with the crackles of thunder in the distance. Then she felt something she realized she hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. Her instincts. They screamed at her to heed him, to focus on his voice and not get distracted. She barely trusted her thoughts these days, but she trusted her gut. She cleared her throat, “You haven’t been forgotten, not really, you’re just a myth. Just a part of a religion that has long died out.”

He squinted at her, “...religion? I am unfamiliar with the word.”

She raised her eyebrows and turned to look at Loki again, then back at him, “You… don’t know what a religion is?”

“No,” he said, “Explain it.”

She mulled it over, Might as well go textbook, “The worship of an otherworldly power or force. A belief system that defines a person's life and practices. It usually includes a god or gods. In one such religion, you are a rather important deity.”

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He leaned back as if he was struck, disgust on his face, “Deity? God?” he spat on the ground, “There is no such thing,” he rumbled, the wrinkles on his face smoothing as his anger rose. His eyes turned yellow as he leaned forward, “You say that this ‘religion’ has died out? What of the people that practiced it?”

Why is he so angry? She wondered before answering him, “The civilization that practiced it is gone, though the descendants of that civilization still exist.”

He scowled before letting out a breath, his wrinkles returning and his eyes turning dark again. He relaxed, “I see, that is good.”

Maybe it was her clearing head, but her curiosity got the better of her, “May I ask a question?”

“Why those words filled me with ire?” he asked for her, “It’s quite simple. There was a great one who rose past mortality a long time ago, staking a claim like the rest of us through his acts and deeds. We care little for cruelty amongst ourselves, violence towards one another is quite normal and our duels and acts can be terrible,” Set explained, “We war with one another but it just a matter of course,” he gestured to Loki and Pandora who were now laughing, “We let slights go fairly quickly.”

Torture is a slight?

He cleared his throat and continued, “This man did not visit his cruelty on his peers. He struck downward. He demanded worship from those who only knew a wisp of true power, mortals with little power of their own. Floods, storms, plagues, unchecked wrath on those he saw as lesser than him. He called himself a god. His acts gave birth to a power within him that allowed him to take strength from their worship, to steal their gifts, to spread more suffering that only abated when the people he delivered it upon swore themselves to him.”

Sonya leaned back, a chill running up her spine, “What happened to him?”

“The Great Courts joined together and brought him down with the aid of the Arbiters,” Set said flatly, “His brutality was… monstrous. He had become like the beasts that rise from the mystic places. Unhinged and aimless in his violence. When the fighting was done many of our kind saw their last days,” Set said with a sigh, “My father among them,” he shook his head, “A pact was made with the world through the Golden Queen of that time, all of the courts agreed to the pact. That such violence and interference would never be delivered upon the mortals again, that we would fight our own battles, the Arbiters and the Golden Throne were charged with enforcing the pact.”

“A pact with the world?” she asked, struggling to process what she was hearing.

“The world is not alive, it is not conscious, but it is the source of mana, of power, of life, so it has a pseudo will, if you could call it that. To pact with the world is to change it and is not something that can be done lightly, easily, or without consequence. The current Golden Queen ascended her throne as a result of the pact, her mother trading her life for the safety of the mortals,” he said with a sad smile, “There is no act more worthy of respect among our kind than such sacrifice.”

Sonya looked down at her knuckles as he leaned back in his seat, tapping his fingers on the table before grabbing his mug and taking a sip. He set it down with a chuckle, “The fact that you seem so surprised about these things is quite telling about the world you know.”

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Sonya looked over at Pandora again. History remembers Pandora as a betrayer who threw humanity to the wolves. She looked up at Set, But this man would have remembered her very differently. She looked down at her hands for a moment as something stirred in her chest, a small, tiny, infinitely small, spark of hope. A chance to feel something more than the misery of this place. She looked up at the ancient being in front of her who sipped casually at his mug, looking at her over the rim with a small smile, “This old man has been talking a lot, why don’t you tell me a story?”

Permission.

Thunder roared over her head but she followed her gut and ignored it. She felt that paying it any mind would take this chance from her. She looked down at her hands again and took a breath, “There was a girl,” she said hesitantly, “Who lived in a world without mana. One day it came back and the world became dangerous for everyone. So many people died. She was weak, but she tried to help. The world broke,” she felt a lump form in her throat, “Everything fell apart. People who had promised to protect the world fought among themselves, the uh… mystic places burst everywhere, everyone died.”

Set put his mug down, his expression turning grave, “Go on.”

“This girl was given a chance to turn things around. To go back and set things right,” she said shakily, “She accepted. She went back to the day it happened and realized just how daunting a task she had in front of her. She realized the only way to stop those people from turning on one another, to hold the world together, was to become more wicked than any of them. To do terrible things, some of those things leading to the deaths of many uh… mortals. Acts of cruelty against others with power. Antagonizing them, manipulating them, pushing them. All because she wanted so desperately to save the world from itself,” she said, clenching her hands together. She didn’t hear the pair of footsteps approaching from the side as her words tumbled out.

“That girl wanted to save everyone so badly that she was happy with whatever punishment came after. She was okay with dying for it. If it meant that humanity survived, she’d go through with it. She’d let the world hate her for the rest of history, she’d die in the grizzliest way, she’d be the enemy of the world. That was okay, for a while, but she crumbled…” she choked and looked up at him, tasting something coppery on her lips as something warm streamed down her cheeks.

I don’t want to die. I want to see the world I’m trying to make. I don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to leave everyone behind, but I… I deserve it. Don’t I? I deserve this.

The old man regarded her in silence, making a small gesture with his hand as he held her eyes. He sipped at his mug before looking down at her own mug, “Drink.”

She shakily picked up the mug, staring at the liquid before downing it in one gulp. She’d never spilled her guts like that to anyone, never told anyone the full truth. Marta and Chunhua knew, to a degree, how she felt but she’d been so careful to hide how scared she was. Just because she was okay with dying didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid. Of course she was afraid. She was terrified. Her sense of justice just couldn’t see any other outcome in the end, though. She’d tried and tried so many times to see things the way the others did, to feel that it was okay to live. She let herself enjoy life as much as she could but it just felt wrong. How could she enjoy life when so many people suffered because of her?

Set checked his mug in silence before turning and pouring it out onto the snow with a grave look in his eyes. Behind her, she heard two more streams of liquid pouring onto the ground. She spun and saw Pandora and Loki mimicking the old man’s gesture, their eyes downcast.

“What-”

“To a true peer,” Set said, “Blood may be shed, flesh may wither, bones may break, but the soul is eternal. To sacrifice the soul is to give more than one’s life, the world owes that woman a debt. Ah, the songs Osiris would sing about her.”

Sonya pressed her lips together and hung her head, clinging to the mug in her hands. Above her, thunder crashed and roared, it felt like something was trying to push through an impassable wall. A hand landed on her shoulder and Loki slipped into the seat next to her with a grin, “I think that woman needed a little advice from someone who does things people don’t like a lot,” the trickster said and leaned against the table. Pandora huffed at her right, slipping into her own seat.

Loki shot Pandora a grin and waggled their eyebrows, “I do things for the outcome, I know my goal, where it’s all going, but often people can’t see that. Kind of the point,” Loki explained and let out a breath, “So I figured a long time ago I might as well have fun with it if I’m going to make enemies everywhere I go. If you’re going to live, live, and keep living, hold onto it as long as you can and deal with the aftermath afterwards.”

“Irresponsible,” Pandora scoffed next to Sonya. Sonya looked at her and didn’t miss the ghost of a smile on the woman’s face, “But I suppose someone in such a situation would need to find enjoyment where they could,” she looked down at her own empty cup, “That said… chasing death is the path of a fool. Unless there are no alternatives. If I- if anyone else could find a way to have their feast and eat it too, they most certainly would.”

“A martyr drowning in their own misery is just a training construct, taking a beating to better someone else,” Set snorted, “That isn’t living.”

Loki raised his mug, “See the path.”

Set chuckled and raised his own, “Take it to the end.”

Pandora sighed and raised her own, “Stand at the peak.”

Sonya looked at the three of them, overwhelmed. That lump in her chest felt smaller, less tight, malleable. Maybe they were right. Maybe it wasn’t about expecting that terrible end. Maybe it didn’t matter whether or not she deserved it. She knew it was okay to enjoy life as it came, but guilt and the weight of her actions just made it so hard. Was setting that aside immoral? Did it matter? It was her choice, right? If that girl wanted to get away with it, wouldn’t that be far more impressive?

It was a small brightness, a delicate glow that she held onto desperately. She knew that this was all the hope she had left to squeeze out of herself, the last of it, brought forward by these wonderfully strange people. She looked at them again, they still had their mugs in the air. She stared at them in confusion, “What on earth are you still doing that for?” she snickered.

“It’s an old Asgardian thing,” Loki said with a chortle, “Raise your mug! Raise it!” he urged her.

She genuinely laughed at this point, “Okay! Okay! Do I say anything?” she asked, holding up her mug to the others.

“The last part is, ‘And look back with pride’,” Set chimed in.

Sonya felt a chill as a bubble of laughter rose up in her chest, a happy tingle on her skin as she leaned forward and pressed her empty mug against the others. Every moment spent with these very special people made her feel lighter, they reminded her of where she needed to be, what she needed to do, and why she did what she did. “Okay okay!” she laughed, “And look back with pride!” she shouted as the thunder over her head raged so ferociously she felt the muteness blocking it crack.

For a moment, a wonderful moment, nothing happened as Pandora and Loki laughed with her. It was the shock and anger in Set’s eyes that finally brought her to her senses. She couldn’t help it this time, she looked up.

The world around her turned black as Titania’s voice filled her ears.

“That’s enough of that.”