“Theoretically, if I wanted to accept this rather bare and open attempt at bribery, would reconnecting with my divinity be . . . painful? Like ‘feeling’ like you are being dragged bare-arsed through a rose hedge, burned alive or some other horribly inconvenient but ultimately non-life-threatening pain? I mean I’ll still do it . . . probably, but I’d like to know beforehand, so I can prepare myself, or you know, talk myself out of it. Whichever seems better at the time.”

Her father raised an elegant eyebrow, a human would have to go to a beauty parlour for a similar effect, but he could probably wake up looking like that. She paused, is that why she never had bed head? As if gods just don’t do sloppy appearances? Or if they do it was likely intentional . . . maybe. She looked back to her father’s eyes, who was looking back at her with amusement written on his face, she blushed, Jillian said she had a ‘face’ when a new or random thought would pop up in her head, one that said she was off in her own world of thought. Her father didn’t mention it, clearly trying to stay in her good graces, as he responded to her question, his voice and posture now relaxed with a poorly disguised mirth.

“No, from others that have re-synced with their godly domains we have observed that it is a mix of an itch and maybe something I guess that could be described as a ‘good’ pain, similar to a wound on its way to mending. Though that is not absolute, merely what we have so far observed, with only one notable exception, though given the domain he was reconnecting to it is completely acceptable. This is quite ‘cutting edge’ as mortals might say, theory, which is another reason I delayed appearing to explain everything to you.

“Blatantly selfish I acknowledge, but I have grown remarkably jaded and indifferent to the opinions of most others over the centuries. Especially when it will be my child that would bear the price of maintaining my good repute, I have had more than enough of my children die due to ‘following’ in my footsteps or ‘living’ up to my reputation. It is empty and hollow, with nothing but fleeting platitudes and apathetic glories that do nothing to comfort, only to remind me that my children are still dead, and it was for an ultimately petty and small reason. Especially in comparison to what could have been.”

His voice had transformed halfway though, from having only a hint of bitterness to being consumed by it, it was cold and grim by the end, harsh and grating to hear and spoken as a whispered hiss, aching with pain and regret. Aine stared at her father, his shine gone, and a gloomy oppressive atmosphere now surrounded him, the smell of ozone present in the air around him, the air feeling charged. As if a storm that had swallowed the previously clear sky and bright sun and was now about to break out, terrible in its potential and threatening violence as it sat on the skyline of wrath, on the cusp of roaring its pain at the world. It was a cold hatred, one that had been supressed and pushed down, compressed and restrained, losing any of its previous heat, no matter how hot, as it coiled tighter, the danger of it increasing as it waited, slowly trying to find its breaking point.

She was terrified.

Aine swallowed nervously, a chilly drop of sweat slid down her spine as she stared at a volcano, one that if it went off would unleash a new ice age and a decades long blizzard. All it needed was a spark in the right place, a hole in the armour, a reason to vent, with the only things holding it back being a worn pride and good heart.

But they were quickly beginning to tarnish from the harsh indifference of time and cruel neglect of solitude. He was lonely, desperate and growing increasingly dangerous and indifferently selfish in response, with an ever-growing fear of emotional loss. Aine wasn’t a psychiatrist or a therapist, in no why a mental health expert or analyst but sometimes you don’t need to be one. Sometimes it is just instinct, that feeling in your chest clutching your heart like a stress toy, the thing in your guts twisting them out of shape or the numbness and cold you feel in your legs when you freeze and lock up in place.

It tells you to be careful, to take caution needed here, to stop, think and then act or it simply cripples you.

Here, at this moment as she stared at her father, as she truly sees the dark thoughts and emotions he possesses, Aine knows he is at the edge of sanity, that his grip, tight and crushing, was about to shatter the cliff he is hanging from. She had sensed it, his joy of her accepting him as her father, even if they were not that close or familiar with each other yet, he has hope. Which also meant he was at his most vulnerable emotionally. She had a feeling that if something happened to her, he would not cope, he would simply let go and explode in a self-obliterating suicidal frenzy. Suddenly, instinctively, she glanced at the blackened and scorched street light outside the café, almost threateningly close to where they were sitting, it had certainly been dangerously close to the public.

Her thoughts rolled back to something he had just said, ‘blatantly selfish I acknowledge’, she thought he had been angry over the danger to the public or over the gesture itself, but she realized that it was about her.

He had been furious at perceived threat to her, his daughter, possibly his last and only, whether the threat was real or imagined was unimportant. She could tell that he had had other children, but what happens when you keep losing them and have only stories and legends among mortals to console you? She had not read or even heard of many tales or stories of either Lugh Lámhfhada or Lleu Llaw Gyffes having children, or even the rare grandchildren that were born, that ever lived past their relative youth.

She quickly glanced back to him, he was like her, he had moments where he retreated into his own mind, lost in his thoughts as he was now, except that his thoughts were dark, lonely and painfilled. Trapped with his regrets and for who knows how long he would remain so, she swallowed her fear, terror even, even after she thought she understood, as she reached out to touch a man trapped in the darkest and most nightmarish place a person could be. She was not only afraid of him erupting, but also of him and his rejection of her help, her comfort. It was scary to offer something so new and fragile, her hope, to someone, to risk them casting it aside for whatever reason.

Perhaps due to pride? Shame? Guilt?

But he was trapped.

He was alone.

If she didn’t help him, isolated from others as they were by his power, even as his grim presence now began to drive others even further away, she touched his hand again. The effect was immediate, he looked at her, not in a lost pondering way, not really seeing her, but intensely, focused like a laser, the darkness in his eyes, now steel grey, like lightning skittering across her skin.

Before it was gone.

Drawn away and locked down, viscously crushed and wholly compressed into a small quiet place, to slowly coil tighter and grow ever more dangerous.

The sun was back. Seemingly breaking past and annihilating the gloomy storm

The bright summer green eyes full of joy and mirth, the kind and fatherly smile on a youthful and handsome face, his golden glow and warm presence.

All of it was back, all in an instant, like the dark terrifying loneliness had never existed.

Like it was all in her head.

Aine stared at him, her expression hardening, the fear in her still there, driving her to confront him about it, if not for his own wellbeing, then for her own peace of mind.

Just so that she never had to feel this cold sweat of fear and the knee-numbing sense terror from him ever again.

Not from her own father.

“You cannot and should not hide it, from others or yourself. I imagine even gods can break, if pushed far enough, is there really no one you can trust, who you could talk to, who would understand?”

He didn’t answer, his smile remaining unaffected and just as sunny, like she had not said anything, and he was still waiting patiently for her to talk, which she guessed was answer enough. He didn’t reject her, not obviously at least, merely pretended like she never offered.

Which strangely made her feel worse.

Even more than she thought outright rejection would. At least it was clean and honest.

This . . . this was just festering and unhealthy.

And so, she got up and walked away, heading for the café door.

“Weakness is exploited, my Alannah Aine, even by those who are our friends, so never give them the option, the option to betray your trust. It is common among mortals, I know you have seen it, heard of it, the higher you go, the more common it becomes and between gods it is at its most verdant. And it is brutal and savage. A constant cycle of survival of the fittest, the problem being, you don’t get to die. You linger so long as you are remembered”

His voice came from behind her as she walked away. Yet she found herself slowing to a stop at the sound of his voice, the smooth timbre of his voice and her own longing for a loving father holding her there, binding her in place. His warm tone and gentle voice were worth basking in.

Just like the first rays of sunshine after the chill of night.

Yet she knew it was an illusion, because this was his mask, when he was at his most controlled, it probably wasn’t to begin with.

He had probably been like this in the beginning. Radiant and warm, handsome and kind.

But that was what made it the perfect poker-face.

Especially if he did just as he just said, hiding the changes in his personality, hiding his weaknesses and concealing his grudge against . . . seemingly everything, from his past to the present.

Maybe, she thought, that she was the only exception.

But then that could also just be her own wishful thinking.

“I . . . have my regrets, I can tell you that even now they . . . provoke my other emotions, stoking the embers of my pride, my anger, whispering recriminations and self-pity. Most recently they were responsible for the ‘how’ of your birth, along with my over-confidence, my own arrogance. You can probably tell, you are more . . . insightful . . . of my emotions, my weaknesses, my regrets, than I confess I would like. So, you can no doubt guess that the ‘how’ of your birth is now another of my regrets and now a sore topic of conversation for me.

“Which in turn led me to try and avoid the topic, even if I did promise to explain it. The reasons of it touches on those very weaknesses. I’m old and I’m tired my Alannah Aine, I come from a time when family, clan and bloodlines were at their most important, things like national or even cultural identity were distant ideas, far into the future. But unlike others in my pantheon and outside of it, despite or indeed maybe because of my heroics, my talents, my prowess and even my luck, my fate, I have nothing tangible to show for it.

“Before you, I had no children currently living, what sparse descendants I might have are now so far removed from me that they have little if any of my heritage left in them. As for these children I have from an ‘I or me’ from another world or multiple worlds whatever the case may be, it is salt ground into an already raw wound. I reacted . . . poorly.”

He stood, the sound of his chair being push back accompanying his ascent, his footsteps drawing closer to her as she faced away from him.

“Your birth was complicated, due to my emotions, my plans and schemes, all of which stems from regret. You, my Alannah Aine, do not have only one mother, you have three, it is why your amulet is missing four corners of its circle, each of us have a piece, but and here lays the problem, my dear Alannah Aine, it was not our, or rather my, intention that you be so. To have a child between two gods is both complex and simple, the complexity rests in how you wish and plan for the child to turn out. What domains and traits do you wish for them inherit from you; how will those things mix with what your partner wishes the child to inherit from them.

“The simplicity is the act of procreation, similar in terms to most mortals, barring the unfortunate few and often most deserving. The ‘act’ for godly procreation resides in the divine nature of our divinity, often at the heart of our domains and divine territory, for some it is a divine fire, others a divine spring, perhaps a divine tree or even a divine rock. There are other forms it can take, too many to name all of them. However, whatever it may be, it is innately tied to your domains and territories, the act of drawing out a part of it and using it to form a new god with your partner doing the same is the ‘act’. From there you project the domains and traits of yourself you wish them to inherit to the new divine ‘heart’ or ‘soul’ if you excuse the expression, it is simply easier to explain if I use it, before gifting a part of your divine territory to them.

“These act as the seed for your child’s own divine territory, their own domains and their own divine . . . ‘source’, yes that sounds better and is a tad more accurate, and whatever future growth they may have. It is thus theoretically possible for a god to have more than two parents, but it isn’t necessarily a good thing, the more influences, the more variables and thus the greater danger of failure.”

His hand came to rest on her shoulder, warm and gentle, but regretful and sad at the same time.

“I, in my arrogance and pride, my hope, and my fear, chose to initiate plans with three goddesses. Due to rules the Council of Pantheons had decided on to prevent a pantheon from using our current crisis to expand their own power, they had to be from outside my own pantheon.”

Aine stared out the glass panel windows of the café, he was inching closer, as if afraid of what happens next, what happens if she knows whatever great truth he is keeping from. Stalling wasn’t doing him any favours in any case. He continued after taking a short breath. Steeling his nerves maybe?

“I had three children with them, my Alannah Aine, or more accurately, I had formed the potential for three children with them, because all three failed to form into a divine. I, in the belief that I was powerful enough in my other secondary domain, did not commit and offer the largest of my domains.

“I would have been fine if I had stuck to just two, but it was my greatest opportunity I couldn’t let go of the chance to have children out from under my curse, outside the fate of my own pantheon. So, I took the chance, and, in the end, I spread myself too thin, causing all of them to fail, the only thing left was to watch them wither and dissipate.”

She turned to look at her father, his expression blank, calm and collected.

His eyes, however, hollow and sorrow-filled, like an ocean full of tears, him too proud to allow them to fall. Those eyes stared at her, desperate for her to understand as he continued, like a car trapped on the train tracks, going too fast to even throw himself out, he was committed. Now or never, he had to tell her everything.

“I realized I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t watch more of my children die, I acknowledged that it would break me, these children didn’t even get to open their eyes, breath deep their first breath. All because I, their father, was greedy and a fool, a cursed fate is not so easily escaped, especially not when I blatantly thumbed my nose at it, dared it to try.

“I called in a favour, one I earned long ago, in times when I walked the world before I gained my godhood, to save what I could of the children I had so arrogantly damned by letting chance and fate have any say in their birth. There is a cauldron, of life and rebirth, able to bring back even the dead, if the conditions were met, fate however had always stood in the way whenever I had tried before, but this time . . . this time fate did not hold all the cards.

“This time my children were only ‘dying’, I still had a chance.”

He stared at me, his gaze sad and pleading as he spoke on.

“I gathered them in my arms, knowing that none of them would ever know their mothers or me, that whatever happened next, these tiny sparks of divine potential that I denied the chance at life, would now be the sacrifice for another.”

Aine shut her eyes, she was having her own regret now slap her across the face.

She just had to know why and how she was born. Curiosity kicked the cat to hell indeed.

He watched her, his expression knowing and bitter. But he wasn’t finished.

“I placed them into the cauldron, offered half of my strongest domain as fuel for the fire beneath and poured in the mist of sleep and dreams, the water of talent and skill and the apples of eternal youth. I offered everything I had, every treasure I had ever fought for, every gift I had ever received due to my gift in the damned art of war, everything I had ever gained from the fame I had built on blood.

“I gave it all back to fate. Hoping it would take all that it had given and let me have you, to hold you in my arms, for you to open your eyes, to take that first breath. My last attempt, my last desperate gamble. My last hope.”

He whispered it, his voice breaking.

“My Alannah Aine.”