Hineni holds a tuft of ash cupped in one of his hands, staring down at it through the slits between his scarf and his hat.

It is late at night, so essentially, it's the middle of the afternoon for a night-owl like himself.

They had come back home a while ago. Rhine had asked for permission to use the bath before going to bed and Hineni told him to do whatever he wanted. If there is any room that is safe from flooding, it’s the bath. Apparently, the boy really is staying here. It’s not that he minds, it’s just a little weird. But then again, Rhine’s parents don’t seem to care. As long as nobody comes to arrest him for kidnapping, it’s probably fine.

Worst case he’ll just say that he works for a god. So, morally, it’s okay. Funny how the world works.

He stares at the thing in his hand. This is old ash. This is still from back then. It must’ve been a speck that Obscura missed during her cleaning spree. Perhaps it was beneath the floorboards that the carpenters had ripped out and replaced? The new floor really is beautiful, like fresh soil over an old grave.

Hineni walks over to a pot inside of which a flower had once bloomed, ten years prior, dropping the little tuft of ash inside of it.

Sockel, unsure if she is in danger or not, has opted to spend some, but not all of her time here. She still has to go to the guild for critical tasks. A lot of the low-level adventurers are counting on her. She’s their lifeline for money, for quests, for information, much the same as she is for him. But without Beni to sign off on everything, she can only do so much right now. There’s only so much money lying around outside of the guild’s bank accounts. Though, the elf is asleep upstairs now too. She’s been feasting on sleep, ever since having gotten the opportunity to do so.

Hineni stares around the room.

It’s odd.

Being around people, having people who are relying on him, who are looking up to him, who are living their days based off of the choices that he himself makes in his. It’s all so sudden. A month ago, he was just… himself. But now, nary a month later, Hineni is Hineni. He doesn’t know how those two things are different, exactly. But they are.

The man of the house is awake. Obscura has yet to return. They’ve handed out all of their daggers and he intends to make more as soon as he finds whatever it is that he’s looking for out here, in the middle of the night. He doesn’t know if his efforts have helped any, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t continue to try. This new thing that he’s doing, this new person that he’s trying hard to become, it’s worth not sleeping to keep this ball rolling.

People are counting on him and, as odd as it is to admit, he doesn’t hate it. The pressure of that fact, he doesn’t hate it. People’s lives are in danger, they’re at grave risk. But…

He doesn’t hate it.

It’s like the ash thinks Hineni, looking around the giant hall that is now only illuminated by the dim light of the moon, its soft glow shining in through the large, clean, glass windows. It’s like the ash, his ash, this danger, this threat can bring great calamity to his house and to these new people in his life, but at the same time, ash nourishes the soil.

Hineni pats down the tuft of gray dust into the old dirt of the flowerpot, making a promise to buy a seed for it tomorrow morning. His mother used to love all of the flowers that had once covered every windowsill, desk and counter and this building.

The forge glows alight, throwing a vivid shine of radiant orange upwards, casting a long shadow as it washes over his muscular, heavily scarred body.

The hammer rings out as it strikes down again against the metal on the anvil.

His long cast shadow, rises up and crawls, wavering left and right from the combined shifts of his movements and the dancing of the fire in the forge. If one were to look inside now from the door, a more imaginative person than himself might perhaps feel that his shadow were trying to crawl away, to climb up to the high windows of the room so that it might sever itself from its troublesome master.

But it achieves no such thing, drawing back downward again, back towards his body, as the hammer strikes down once more.

Ash-magic belongs to the domain of the god of fire. In a sense.

Rhine, as a water-based caster, falls under the domain of water, obviously. There are many water gods, each with their own levels of power and domains. There’s a god of oceans, a god for each ocean, a god of lakes and even a god of rivers. But also, there is one mighty entity, one who sits at the top, the goddess of water, who lives at the great lighthouse, near to the sea. It’s an easy calculation to make. A caster always ‘belongs’ to at least one god.

Rhine ‘belongs’ to the water goddess. Though that is only by rigid standards of old law that is only used by the gods themselves, when they find someone of particular interest to their goals.

The hammer strikes again.

The god of fire, who lives in this very city, at the heart of it, is one of the primordial gods. The true gods, like the goddess of water or the god of fire or even the god of death. These ‘primordial’ gods, are the oldest, most pure forms of a god. They were said to be there back when the world itself was made. They’re beyond human scope, yet they choose to remain here for their own purposes and ends. Boredom, mostly.

But lesser gods, like a river god, for example, or an ocean god, also exist. They still hold considerable power and fame amongst the living races. Despite not being as old, their power is still far more than frightening for any simple mortal creature like a human.

Ash-magic however, has a catch. Like poison-magic being stuck between the domains of water and nature, Ash-magic also belongs to two domains, to two gods.

The hammer strikes again.

The primordial god of fire and the primordial god of death.

He has been claimed now, his soul marked by Obscura who has made him his. So another god can’t have him anymore, even a more powerful primordial god, for which he is thankful. He is spoken for. Though, he supposes that if one had ever wanted him, they would have come already, long before he found her.

The hammer rests.

So is Obscura a lesser deity? Like some… wolf-god? Or a god of forging? They’re certainly gods and certainly powerful, but they’re lesser, compared to something like a primordial god. Or is there something else at play here?

How strong is she, exactly? Who is she? What are her goals? She needs power and she wants to get it through him and his work. But why him? Because of their encounter in the forest? Is that the only reason? It was pure luck and happenstance, it only happened because he himself is an odd weirdo, who thought it was a good idea to hoot at a random owl.

But that’s all he had back then.

Hineni stares down at the half-finished dagger.

What exactly is the ‘big-frog’?

Despite himself standing there, unmoving, his shadow continues to dance.

Hineni wanders through the library, moving towards the ‘G’-section. At first he had looked under ‘F’ for books on frogs. But for some reason, many of the books in the ‘F’-section just seem to be… missing.

Most are still there, but there are many books that are out of place in the ‘F’-shelf, as if books from other shelves had been snatched and filled in down here by some wise creature, so that their absence wouldn’t be noticed.

Hineni looks around the library. He noticed. Did Obscura hide the books on frogs?

The man looks around the room, stopping by the ‘H’-shelf, laughing quietly to himself, remembering that she was looking here for books on ‘Hinenis’. What an odd creature she is.

Of course, he’s confused and suspicious about many things. But he cares for Obscura in a way that he didn’t know one could care about another person in. So, he finds his suspicions dampened and simply resigns himself to ask her directly why she would do that. Is she trying to hide information from him? Or did she simply take offense to the word ‘frog’ being present in the library? Honestly, he’d really believe the latter.

Hineni heads up the spiral staircase, noticing as he reaches the top, that he didn’t hesitate for a moment to climb up it. Satisfied with himself, he goes to the ‘G’-section and looks for books on gods. Obscure gods, odd gods, weird gods and old gods and forgotten gods. There are all sorts of books on gods and the different kinds of them that have come and gone throughout the course of history. There’s even one about the gods of the south. But he doesn’t take that one. It’s not that he has anything against elves. But, their cultural insistence on using wooden weapons just makes him feel weird. Sockel’s okay though. He appreciates that she’s carrying his metal knives.

Hineni blinks, wondering if he’s being weird? Is that weird?

The man shrugs and picks out an old book next to it. ‘The gods amongst men.’

Hineni does a weird thing.

Creeping down the long hallway, he quietly grabs the handle of the door to the room that Rhine is using and looks inside. The boy is asleep on the bed.

Nodding to himself, he closes it and creeps to the next door, opening it and peeking inside without thinking.

A dagger flies into the door just in the second that Hineni quickly slams it back shut.

“Sorry!” apologizes the man, realizing his mistake. “Just checking the house.”

Adjusting his scarf to get some air, he opens the third door of the room for rent and looks inside, making a note to knock next time he decides to be a creep.

Inside of the third room, there is nobody. Obviously.

He sighs, stepping inside and looking around the dusty lodging. In truth, he had of course secretly hoped that Obscura would be in here, as if his opening the third door were some kind of magic spell that could summon her back to his presence.

But she isn’t here and he stands alone in the old, dusty room that hundreds, if not thousands of people must have once slept inside of.

Hineni stares around, wondering; where did they all go?

Every person who had stood where he now stands, who had laid in the bed before himself; where did they all go? Where are they now? What are they doing? Are they happy? Sad? Are they alive?

His fingers run along a desk, where some frustrated hand had carved a slew of unsightly words into the wood, during what must have been a particularly troublesome night, some ten or more years ago. He doesn’t recognize many of the phrases, actually.

Where is that person now? What happened to this problem that caused this stranger such vexation?

Hineni shakes his head, heading back out of the room, wondering where he himself is and what it is that he’s doing? He’s always been a weird creature, of course. But ever since he met Obscura, that’s been amplified a little.

He closes the door and continues his patrol.

There are a few more rooms and then the door that leads to the staircase to the attic. He doesn’t like the attic though. He’s never been up there since then. It’s the only room he hasn’t looked into at all. But there’s a reason for that.

Hineni stands before the last door, his hand on the grip.

Maybe he should just go to bed instead? It’s late. He has to get some sleep so that he can work more tomorrow. But the thought of going back to the big bed all by himself gives him pause. The thought of opening the door and going upstairs to the attic, to the space that was once his family’s home and living space when he was a boy, gives him pause. He’s stuck between those two choices and so, instead, he stands here in the middle of the night and holds onto the door, like a weirdo.

“Can’t sleep?” asks a voice from behind him. Sockel.

Hineni turns around, looking at the elf who is peeking out of her door. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be a creep.”

She shakes her head. “It’s okay. I heard someone walking around, so I got nervous. Sorry about almost killing you.”

“We’re even?” asks Hineni.

“We’re even,” nods Sockel.

Hineni’s dilemma is worsened. Now, with someone there and watching him, he has to act. He can’t just… turn around and go to his room after standing here and holding this door handle for so long. He’d have to walk past her to do that. It’ll look weird. She’ll think he’s weird. So, there’s only one thing left to do.

Hineni opens his fourth door for the night and heads up to the attic.