☼ ISHAK ☼اسحاق
"Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go"
"Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go"
”I don’t know,” Ruth says.
You wait a moment, staring into the fire.
She continues. ”I’m not Pilate, or Adonai— ” And thank Solis for that. “I don’t need to show devotion, I suppose.”
You don’t miss the emphasis on need. You don’t miss that it’s not quite an answer to your question.
Need: it’s a funny word, isn’t it? You hear it so often. Young debutantes at noble parties all atwitter about how they need the latest fashion; noblemen discussing how to fulfil their need for more signos. How often is the thing needed actually necessary? How many of the glittering jewels in Solterra’s noble houses know what it’s like to be one more bad day away from starving?
How many of them have written a contract, have said this horse needs to die?
Maybe it was even true. They needed to die to feed you.
Enough about your blood money. Enough about the blood money you’re likely living off of even now. (Even were all the Ieshans’ hooves clean, they’re still a noble family. At least Ruth’s hooves are bloodied from hospital floors.)
“I don’t expect a response, but I wonder if there would be repercussions if we don’t come.”
Solis is an avatar of pride as much as he is the midday sun. Ruth could be right. It is not so great a leap to a conclusion. His personal, physical appearance puts it into the realm of possibility. Still.
“In those places where they live by the sea, when the tides pull out…” you look at Ruth, “do you think the tsunami cares if they’ve prayed?”
You shrug, and continue. “They keep living there. The tides will keep cycling long after they’re gone.” You look away from Ruth, to the mouth of the cave, and past it where snow is falling. “They’re unnecessary. The tides don’t need anything from them.”
The gods have the capacity for malevolence. You know this the way you know how to sing, how to breathe. If they had not, would you have ever been born? If Caligo had not retreated to the southeast in pain, if Solis had not left to the northeast in anger, there would be no courts. You can’t even begin to imagine what the world would look like without them.
(The ocean doesn’t. You feel fairly certain in this. Snakes, the ocean, the physical sun itself as opposed to the gods that embody it. These are things that lack the capacity for malevolence, for ruthlessness.)
Out amongst the flurry, you see a fork of lightning. A mere moment later, a peal of thunder. The storm is upon you.
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