𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙧

edit; holy jeezums, thank you for the feature!

trigger warning; the following age contains mentioning and / or depiction of violence, abuse, and slavery. the topic of gods (without religion) is a concept heavily present as well!

𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙧                           

                    𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘦;

                   𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦, 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸

                   𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩,

                   𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘩 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘴

                   𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺.

The boy was barely six.

Already, he’d memorized the noise of a whip cracking in the air before laying agonizing kisses on the backs of writhing human beings.

He knew the anguished screams of boys and girls his own age, who often wailed for their mothers until their throats were too raw and abused to expel any noise past hoarse whimpers. He had already figured out a difference between crying and weeping.

His sister cried when she was hungry.

She wept when their mother slowly, but eventually succumbed to her wounds.

The boy was barely six, but understood perfectly that he had been born into a world that was cruel and insensitive. Praying was more of an exercise of hope; any god above had long since forsaken his people, turning cheek to their tear-stained faces and damaged voices. Or they had simply forgotten about them.

Nevertheless, he stopped praying over his meals, no longer asking for miracles before bed. Instead he taunted those supposed divines, demanding redemption, cursing them bitterly under his breath. Every morsel of food was in spite of their attempts to starve him, every turn of luck—as minute as some of them might’ve been—was in defiance of their ruthless neglect.

As far as he was concerned, there were no gods—not one, nor a dozen, nor a trillion. They were myths, legends, bedtime stories for the hopeless in need of motivation. If any such entity existed, they did not deserve their title, anyway.

He understood that his sister would likely be taken from him early on, whether it be by the will of filthy men or by the incessant hold on every life birthed by means of nature. He, himself, would probably die young—enraged and spitting fire, but powerless no less.

“Nikodemos,” a woman said, giving him a look he knew his mother would’ve if she’d survived her whipping. “Please, come eat. The bread will become stale.”

“It’s already stale,” he said pointedly.

Her resulting smile was kind. “Then it’ll become hard.”

“Hm.”

The boy stood on tall legs and followed her inside. He would’ve been much bigger, his mother told him once, if only he’d had enough to eat. But Nikodemos's body was thin and malnourished, stunted by the lack of nutrients received as a toddler. He was a tough kid, though, and had a hard time backing down.

If not for his sister, he might have been defiant enough to warrant being killed—perhaps whipped to death like their mother, or pummeled and kicked until his innards ruptured.

But he was also curiously beautiful in a way that perplexed his masters and milked a frivolous mercy from their wives and daughters.

Every smile, albeit rare and oftentimes forced for the sake of darling appearance, was a rich, saturated dawn breaking over ocean-dominated horizons. Eyes crystalline and attentive could convey emotions he had yet to even experience for himself, let alone understand.

Nikodemos swiftly grasped the venomous key to effortless manipulation and exploited it at every opportunity arisen.

And he decided very early on that he would use that to become what his people deserved, regardless of the simple blood in his veins or the status in which he had been born into.

The boy would accomplish impossible feats.

The boy would make himself into a god.

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a•n ─ aaaaa I'm back from a very sudden and unceremonious hiatus, and I come with unedited writing! :D I fell into a bad rut where my regular ions were no longer enjoyable, but I stumbled back into stride! I hope to be more active on here, though, and start my new streak with some backstory construction on a character I love-

so . . . howdy!