Archaic Era, Year 784

Fereshteh POV

Had someone told my younger self, years prior, that my talent in channeling would bring the God of Healing and Protection, the Hero of the Burnt Hands, the Son of Crown Naruune, Hallow Elian, to my bedroom door so that he might impart to me his own long-forgotten past as a human youth… Well. First, I would have thanked them for speaking so highly of my talent. My parents and Shahin did their best to instill courtly manners in me and (unlike the lost cause known as my twin brother,) succeeded!

I would have seriously doubted its roots in reality, but it was truly a nice thing to say! Imagine my excitement and bliss upon realizing that such a thing could become reality! A scant hour ago, I was certain this would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! But alas, my dream rapidly shriveled up to become a nightmare, as the awful, horrible truth dawned on me.

Hallow Elian really, really, really sucked at telling stories. I had no doubts his ‘friends’ Talon and Nania were far greater channelers than him, if he was this bad after 500 years more practice than I’d ever have access to!

…Oh, crap. I’m so sorry, Crown Naruune! Please don’t smite me for blaspheming your son, he’s a very good god and delightful person in all other respects, he just…well…

“Let’s try this again. What’s confusing you?” Elian asked, breaking me from my reveries. Despite repeated offers to bring out a chair, he had chosen to sit on the floor, petting one of the palace dogs, while I laid on my comfortable bed. The alabai dog he was currently petting was elderly, a retired guard dog turned oversized lapdog, more than content to lay its head in the god’s lap as he kept stroking it.

“A lot,” would have been the honest answer to his question, which I did not speak. But as my eldest brother Shahin had accidentally taught me by allowing me to eavesdrop on—ah, listen in on some of his diplomacy meetings, ‘sometimes it is better to lie to someone to spare their feelings.’ Particularly when the other party was an immortal deity.

So instead, the answer I gave was “Who’s Lordrin? Didn’t you become king, why is he king? Is he evil? He sounds evil.”

“He wasn’t evil. Gresha actually would’ve considered him a much better king than I ever was,” he admitted.

“So why’d you fight him? Was he doing something evil?”

“He was doing something I disagreed with. He had captured Talon and Nania.”

Like a dying man in a desert, teased by glimpses of a fickle yet verdant oasis, I sprung into a sitting position. “How’d they get captured? What was he going to do? Why weren’t you there too, how’d you stop him, how’d you overthrow him—”

“Whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah,” Elian interrupted, waving a hand as if to part my torrent of questions. “Slow down. We’ll get to all that.”

“How’d you become king anyways? I thought you said only the son of the King and the Head Priestess could take the throne?”

“And what do you think they do when one of them dies or early, or is impotent? Or if the King is incompetent? They got plenty of contingencies, no one wants to deal with a power vacuum.” Elian waved his hand dismissively. “In my case, though, I beat him in a duel. My goddess happened to favor me more than him.”

“Is that how you gained Crown Naruune’s favor? Battling Lordrin, and not Talon?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “As for how they got captured…I never really found out. Nania didn’t talk about it much, and I didn’t ask, and as for Talon…” he sighed. “We didn’t, really…I mean, after that, I…” then shook his head, and briefly returned to running his hand along the alabai’s spine. There was an occasional thump, thump, as the dog contentedly wagged its tail against the floor.

I didn’t say anything, allowing him his moment as I compared the story my mother had told me and my brother every night, against the story Elian told me here, now. It was…different. Pulling details from the god was much like pulling teeth. And yet, when he did speak…he spoke with such passion and fondness.

Nania and Talon. His two friends.

“I’m sorry, I know this ain’t as interesting as you were hoping it’d be,” he said. “They always were better at channeling and storytelling than me.”

He’d said a lot of stuff like that. They were braver, kinder, wiser, stronger, smarter… If I told people the story of his past the way Hallow Elian did, they’d assume I made up fake people to make the Hallow look bad for some awful reason. It was frustrating, yet also intriguing. How did he care so much for the person immortalized as his eternal hated enemy? The bogeyman hiding under every little kid’s bed, and the Sun Fiend’s most wicked henchman?

I didn’t voice any of these musings, though. I lied to spare his feelings again. Shahin taught me well. “No, no, it’s an excellent story, Hallow Elian!”

“Elian,” he corrected. “Hey, Princess?”

Previous times he used the title, there was a teasing edge to his words. But now, his tone seemed more somber. Melancholy. That wouldn’t do at all. “What is it, o Noble Hallow?” I fired back.

“What do you think creates a hero? What is a hero?”

“What…creates a hero?” I blinked, thrown by the question. “Well…they create themselves, don’t they? Through heroic deeds. They’re someone who helps people and saves people, inspires and teaches people, who people tell stories about.”

“Is that what they are,” was Hallow Elian’s response.

“Well, what are they to you, then?” I snapped.

“Nevermind. Just a silly question,” he said, a carefree grin stuck on his face.

“Hey, Hallow Elian? Why did the Goddess choose to make you a god, if Talon and Nania were so much greater?” I asked. “Or why couldn’t she make all three of you gods?”

He shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

I crossed my arms and glared at him. The god didn’t seem to care, though, and simply rose up off the floor, stretching his joints and limbs. The dog whined, and gazed upon him with betrayed, heartfelt eyes.

“Welp! I think it’s bedtime now, yeah?”

I squinted in suspicion. “Do gods really have bedtimes?”

“Not for me, Princess.”

“H-hey! I’m thirteen years old, I’m long past the age for bedtimes!” I stammered out, but Elian began to hum. Channeling sleeping magic with a lullaby…now that was just playing dirty.

Still, dirty or no, it didn’t stop my eyes from growing heavy, or my mind from filling with sheep’s wool. My last thought before my head hit my pillow was a strange sense of pride, that the Hallow’s apparent favorite style of channeling was also my own.

I shared something with my childhood hero. Even after spending an evening or two getting to know him, it made me strangely giddy to know.