“I usually wouldn’t ask Vim, since you’ve already said your intentions several times… and I know you’re not the type to just break your word like that… but I worry all the same, since this is the Society we’re talking about. And monarchs, and saints, which are even more weird when you’re concerned,” I said carefully as we rounded a half-broken tree. It must have snapped in one of the recent storms, based off the fragments lying around and the pointy pieces of bark and wood on the broken ends. They were sharp and bright white, not dull and rotten.

“The only reason I’d harm her, or kill her, is if she tried to threaten our Society or plans to aid a monarch in wreaking havoc. Far as you, and Lilly, have told me that is not a concern. So you need not worry Renn. I promise,” Vim said as he stared ahead. He didn’t seem bothered at all by our current conversation, or my slightly rude worries.

I did trust him. I really did. But that same trust was counter-weighted by the reality that Vim would do anything he needed to as to protect the Society and those within it. Even if it meant breaking my heart, he would do it.

I knew a day would come it would happen. It was an inevitable eventuality. But I hoped this was not that moment.

Which was why I had asked, to verify… even though we were only a day or so away from our destination.

“What if you find her wanting though Vim? Would you just… do the deed, or would you at least talk to me about it first?” I asked.

Vim frowned and slowed a bit. “You mean… in the off chance it actually happened? That I needed to take action?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Hm…” Vim pondered that for a moment and then nodded. “I’d likely act without speaking first… but that would require her to say or do something extreme. So extreme even you would not be able to get truly upset with me. So let’s say she did something just a tad offensive… like for instance, tell me of her plans to give birth to as many saints as possible or something, then yes. I’d sit and talk with you. To find a solution we can both live with, within reason,” he said.

“Why would giving birth to more saints be something to force your hand, Vim?” I asked, unsure if I should be bothered with that a lot or just a little.

“Well… I just wouldn’t like it, I guess. Giving birth to as many saints as possible implies you’re trying to once again force the world to bend to the divine rule… It was just the first thing that sprung to mind that would cause me great concern, but not so much I’d not kill her on the spot if I heard it,” Vim said, shrugging as he did.

Great. Why was he so strange? “What would be wrong with the world once again… bending to the divine rule?” I asked carefully.

Vim hummed softly, and I was glad to hear it. It was the hum he had when he wasn’t bothered, or concerned. In fact it was the same one he usually had when we were talking about something not very important, and sometimes silly. “Well, to do so would require the gods return. Though I really don’t know how they’d accomplish it, saints or no, I’ve honestly always wondered if it was possible,” Vim said.

My brows furrowed in frustration as I tried to comprehend what he was talking about. Gods returning, made sense I guess. But that implied they were gone, or had left. And that they could be brought back? Or he thought they could be? Enough so to make him worry over someone trying?

And them returning was a bad thing. At least to Vim.

I firmly believed Vim’s parents had been gods. Or some type of them. Maybe something like what had ruled over the Summit at one time. Beings we called gods, but Vim said weren’t.

If it was they who he spoke of… why wouldn’t he want such people back? He seemed to really respect and cherish his parents, from what I’d been able to tell, so…

“You didn’t have to go all quiet Renn, I was willing to talk more about it,” Vim then said.

I blinked and went still for a small moment, and with small glance at him I nodded. He was serious!

“Okay. Uh… have there been other saints? Or people, I guess, that have tried to bring them back?” I asked.

“Of course. Most saints feel the desire to, so I’m told. Though as far as I am aware none of them know how to accomplish it. A few have tried to claim that saints are the gods’ eyes and ears. Their way of seeing and monitoring our world. So a few have tried to use such information as to draw out their gods or their wrath at least,” he said.

“Their wrath…?” I asked. What did that mean?

He nodded. “Saints are either revered or hunted. More than a few I’ve found, being used, suffering from torture and other such things. By people, or even other saints, who believed that a suffering saint would be the needed beacon, or alarm, for the god they are connected with to act… sometimes they genuinely hoped the gods would return with anger, since even if in anger it was better for them to return than not at all. At least in their opinion,” he explained.

The sad fact that I could see very well how someone could resort to such disgusting methods made me sick to my stomach. “I could imagine how some of the more… fervent believers could do such a thing,” I said.

“It wasn’t just the believers, Renn. It was the insane. The atheists too. Some just used it as an excuse to torture a saint, a holy figure. People are cruel and disgusting sometimes, it’s just a fact of life,” Vim said.

I sighed and nodded. “If saints are such pitiful existences, from what I can tell, why do you hate them so much Vim? Is it just because of what they represent? Their prophecies?” I asked.

Vim for a moment didn’t answer, and I wondered if I had finally strayed too far from what he was willing to talk about… but instead Vim shifted his shoulder, and then pointed at himself. “Do you think I’m a god, Renn?” he asked me.

I slowed a little and shook my head. “No,” I said. I believed he was the child of something great, and thus great himself, but he was no god. He made too many mistakes to be some kind of higher power. Too flawed.

“How about the saints you’ve known? Your Witch. This descendant of hers. Or Narli. Do you think they’re above you? Greater than you?” he asked.

Hm…? Where was he going with this? “Greater than me…? I wouldn’t say that exactly, if you’re trying to ask if I think they’re more important than I am or not… because in a form I guess I would say yes? But that’s because I treasure them. I’d have thought the same whether they were saints or not, since they’re my friends and I love them,” I said.

Vim frowned at me but nodded. “So to you they’re just people.”

“Special people, I guess, yes?”

“Ah. Special. But how so?” he asked.

I lifted my hands, as if to display just how… but obviously had no way of doing so, so I simply shrugged and waved them about a little. “They have special powers, Vim! If they use them properly they can do so much good! They can heal, or foresee terrible disasters, and who knows what else? It’s far more than I can do, or anyone else. Even you can’t heal with a touch, Vim,” I said.

He chuckled at me. “No. I can’t.”

“So…? They’re special then. In their own way,” I said, nodding at the fact.

“I suppose,” he said.

“You don’t agree. Do you?”

Vim’s face looked neat for a moment as he seemed to frown, yet a smirk was tugging at it all the while. He oddly seemed to be enjoying our conversation. “I suppose I do have to agree that yes, their abilities can make them… unique. And thus, special, in a certain sense. But what I was trying to say is… well…” Vim slowed, and then we came to a full stop.

I stopped walking next to him, and studied the way his eyes lingered on the ground nearby. He was lost in thought for a moment, and I was enjoying the way he seemed suddenly conflicted.

He had wanted to make a point, yet was now acting as if unsure what point that was in the first place. Maybe he had lost the true point of his topic, or I had distracted him somehow.

Or…

Shifting my head, I listened a little closely to the way his heart beat within his chest. It was a slow, quiet heartbeat, but noticeable. Especially in this dense, but empty, forest. Especially now when the world was somewhat still, without any heavy winds.

He was of course not strained, nor was his heart beating quickly or anything… but it did seem a tad off from his usual heartbeat. Was he upset? Anxious? Maybe this conversation, or rather all of them for a while now, had been bothering him more than I had thought?

“Basically Renn…” Vim found his thoughts, and turned to look at me. I stood up straighter as our eyes locked and my own heartbeat tripled. “A saint is akin to a monarch. They have a heart, similar to how a monarch does. That heart grants them powers, their abilities, just as a monarch gets from theirs. The factor of power varies from individual to individual, but the one constant amongst them all… even the weakest of saints, are their prophecies. Their dreams,” he said.

I nodded slowly, transfixed, as he continued.

“Those dreams. These prophecies break any and all rules of foundation. To be able to see into the past would be one thing, since it’s come and gone. It’s set in stone, but to see into the future is something… far beyond any and all reason. It’s the same rule-breaking power the gods had. It breaks reason. The laws of physics, even. Because they don’t just see what does happen, but what can happen,” he said.

“What can happen…” I mumbled, as I thought of the prophecy Celine had given me. The one I had burnt after Vim had asked me to do so.

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He nodded. “Yet they’re normal people. As you’ve said. They’re corruptible. Influenceable. They can misunderstand what they’re seeing. They can misinterpret what they know. They can be led astray just as easily as the rest of us, yet they are burdened and host to a corrupted power that even the gods themselves couldn’t properly control,” Vim said.

Ah. So he hadn’t lost his point. At all.

He was telling me why he hated them. Why he had hunted them. Why he himself despised saints, in their purest form.

“You hate them because you pity them,” I whispered.

He nodded gravely. “Yes. They suffer, or they make others around them suffer. Because they are tainted. They are corrupted, and don’t realize it or don’t want to. I’m… not saying all of them suffer, or fall prey, to their abilities. Narli is a good example. She’s a sweet girl, who does her best to ignore any and all prophecies as much as she can. Thanks to her mother, she now knows the full price of believing in them,” Vim said.

My ears fluttered as my heart sank. Poor Narli and Berri!

“I’ll not deny, Renn, that my hate is… tainted too. I hate them because they’re offspring of the things I despise. Just like monarchs. I’ll not pretend and say my hate is entirely justified… but at the same time I’ll also not allow my pity for them to stay my hand. Most monarchs are simple beasts. Without reason. Like the one that had plagued Landi’s nation. That thing had no words to speak because it had no concept of them. Yet look at all the chaos it had wrought,” Vim said with a small wave around us, as if we’d even now see lines of dead bodies. “Landi can be blamed for antagonizing it, of course, but it would have risen eventually anyway. It would have found its way to the world, and done the same thing it had done, because it knows nothing else. Some would argue with me that hating them is wrong, because they’re pitiful. They’re creations, just as us, suffering from their creator’s malice and stupidity. But how can I not hate such evil? Such wrongness? Saints are the same. Other than a few rare exclusions, most of them do far more harm to the world around them than good. And their reach is far beyond a normal person’s ability, even when taking into account us non-humans,” he said.

A little stunned still, since it had been a very long while since Vim’s been so open and honest with me, especially about a topic such as this, I did my best to resist the urge to step forward and wrap him in a hug. He deserved one, after having spoken so deeply about something he hates to even think about, but I knew the conversation wasn’t over yet. If I hugged him now, it’d end… because then he’d focus on me.

“The world had suffered at the hands of the gods, Renn. They had saw this world as not a thing to keep safe, or upright, but rather something to destroy. Something to play with, like a toy without value. Like a cat with a full belly would a mouse,” Vim said with a small smile.

I was going to tease him back, saying he was the mouse in this scenario, but instead I asked a daring question.

“Is that why you destroyed them?”

Vim’s eyes, which had been holding my own for more than a few moments, narrowed at me.

My tail went still behind me, and I held an apprehensive breath as I waited to see what he’d do. Turn and start walking again? Continue talking as if he hadn’t heard me? Tell me to ask another question…?

“Yes.”

The world went oddly fuzzy for a moment as I blinked, unable to believe what I just heard.

He nodded, and I found his eyes still held my own. They hadn’t left mine. They hadn’t unfocused, or looked away. “I did what I had to, Renn. You can claim my hate for saints, or monarchs and others, is unjustified… but trust me when I say, my hate for those who made them is not.”

I gulped, and wondered what had changed. Why was he suddenly being so open with me…? Originally I had simply asked about Elaine’s safety out of concern. Yet here we were… talking about things he’s always tried to avoid, or tip-toed around.

“Back at the Summit. There’s a mural. On a mountainside, or a cliff I guess now,” Vim started to say, and I smiled at him.

“I saw it. Oplar showed me,” I said.

He frowned at me. “Really? They seem to think I don’t know about it, so I had figured they’d keep it a secret from even you… what with you being my wife and all,” he said with a small smile.

I nodded, a little proud to have surprised him… even in such a little way as this. “I had wondered how you hadn’t known of it. It’s huge, and you always walk all around every location each time you visit. All those years and you never passed by it? I had found that hard to believe,” I said.

He smirked and nodded. “Yes. I avoid it on purpose now. Let them have their silly little secrets, if it keeps them happy.”

Hm… I nodded, agreeing.

For a few moments we were quiet, and then I realized why he had brought it up. “Are you saying their god’s cruelty had been on display there in that mural?” I asked. I had noticed it had looked like they had been implying such a thing, but it had also more so seemed to be a representation of Vim’s actions. How they had felt about what he’d done. They knew it had been necessary, but felt he had been too cruel about it. That he had done the deed without any respect, for their god or them.

“Well… somewhat. Those at the Summit had been victims, more than most. They had been created from guinea pigs for a reason, after all,” he said.

Hm. He had said something similar once. “I don’t know what those are Vim, so I don’t know your meaning,” I said.

He nodded. “I know. They had been created to be experimented on. Cruelly. In rather disgusting ways. Many gods had abused their creations, but few had done so out of pure malice and debauchery. Imagine being created for the sole purpose of torture. For debase means. That god, her experiments, had been so disgusting there had even been other gods who had tried to stop her in the beginning. As far as I’m aware she’s one of the few who their own had turned on,” he said.

Gosh!

“What?” Vim noticed my burst of emotions, and I tried to hurriedly get them under control.

If I did, I couldn’t tell, as I shook my head. “I’m just… shocked, Vim,” I admitted.

I was shocked not just over what he had said, but all the information laced within it. He has lived a life beyond what I could imagine, hadn’t he?

Compared to him…

“Hm… My point though, was those gods are the source of a saint’s power. A monarch’s power. They are the source of all a saint is. So you tell me how something good can come from something like that?” he asked.

My toes curled as I held back a groan.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t argue, and not just because I wasn’t fully aware of the rest of the circumstances or situation.

He was saying a saint’s power was sourced from something evil. Something cruel. So then, by extension, they became cruel too. Though he wasn’t claiming the individual, the saint herself, was evil. He was saying they got corrupted, or did evil without realizing it, thanks to the power within them.

“How long has it been, Vim… Since… uh…” I wondered how to phrase it… and after a few moments, Vim answered for me.

“At least a few thousand years.”

Jeez. He really was old.

Then was I really just… something to distract him? As so many in the Society seemed to believe?

His life, his deeds, were so great. What he’s been doing for the Society all this time alone elevated him to something astounding. Yet even before the Society existed, he had been doing all of that? Slaying gods, and facing such evil? Correcting it? Wiping it off the planet?

How could someone like me even stand beside him, then? How did he not get bored of me? How was I special enough to…

I tucked those thoughts, and fears, away for a moment since Vim took a small breath and continued talking.

“I’m just trying to say Renn… I’ve got thousands of years of wrath inside of me. Directed at beings, and creatures, of great power. Beings who use that power for cruelty and evil. So it’s… difficult for me to look beyond such details. Verily,” he said.

Nodding gently, I did my best to not laugh at him. He was being so honest with me, I would hate to make him feel like I had not taken it seriously. Because I was, and forever would. But his displeasure, his disgust, with saints all this time had been this? The simple fact they were related to gods? Creatures he despised? And he himself was willing to admit his hate was somewhat unfounded, since it was so engraved into him? That must be why he hated to talk about it, to admit it. Because he knew it was flawed, yet couldn’t get himself over it.

Although he had, obviously, good reason for such hate… it was such a very… human-like thing to be the way he was. To hate something so fiercely, yet not know it wasn’t entirely justified. It made him more normal, somehow.

He simply hated them because he hated their creators. The source of their powers.

Was… was this hate, and all of this, related to his big mistake? The one that had made him flee to those islands out in the ocean? To hide away, alone, for what had possibly been hundreds if not a thousand years?

Should I ask? It was risky, but… maybe he’d answer, right here and now, with the way he was being so open with me.

It’d make sense. This strange hate he had for those gods was something fierce. Even if it didn’t show the way a normal man’s hate would. He didn’t glare or speak through clenched teeth, but he may as well be. Since he, even today thousands of years later, occasionally had to stop himself from killing a saint on sight over it.

It was almost… scary, to think that Vim had such hate in him. He’s always seemed so gentle. Even when he acts out in emotion, such as when he killed Tim at the Crypt, he never seemed furious. Or wrapped in such fury, at least.

Though…

“Does that mean you hate all of us too, Vim?” I asked, unable to toss aside the earlier thought.

“Hm…?”

I shrugged lightly as I pointed at myself. “We were all their creations too, right? So…?”

He himself has said so. Not only has he told me such things, I’d overheard him saying similar to others. That we were indeed created by the very gods he so despised. Just like the monarchs.

That would explain his distaste for some of those in the Society. The way he hated how some of us were. Maybe it was more than just our moral failures, or personalities. Maybe it was more akin to his hate for monarchs and saints.

He smiled at me. “No, Renn. I pity you. You are descendants of monarchs, their first creations. I pity those like you with all my heart, just as I pity the humans who had suffered similarly,” he said.

Oh…? Had the humans suffered in a unique way, back during the reign of gods…?

A few memories of listening to my grandmother’s stories came and went. Back when she had told me how our ancestors had hunted humans, alongside their elders. Those like my great-uncle. The monarch. The one whose heart, at least possibly his heart, was in the little pouch on my waist.

For a few moments I considered Vim, and realized he was likely ready to be done with the conversation. He had finally looked away from me, as to look out into the distance… and he looked tired now.

I wanted to ask more questions, a lot more, but knew better than to abuse him. He was obviously opening up to me, far beyond anything before, so I just needed to take it slow… else he’d just bottle it all up again.

So instead of asking another question, or even changing topics, I stepped forward and did what I’d wanted to do for a while now.

Wrapping him in a hug, I felt strangely giddy as I pushed my head and face against him, as to angle my ears just the right way as to hear his heartbeat.

It thumped a little quicker for a small moment, letting me know my sudden embrace had affected him. Even if ever so slightly. It quickly returned to its normal, slow and steady thumping. If I hadn’t been paying attention I may not have even noticed the quick change since it had only lasted a couple of beats.

The sound made me smile, and feel a little weak for some reason, as I clung to him and he returned the embrace.

He sighed, but did so a little strangely. As if not in annoyance, but relief.

Squeezing him, I pushed my face into him and hoped one day to help him get over this strange hate he had. This pity. This hatred that had obviously caused him so much grief over the years.

Because, whether he realized it himself or not…

That same pity extended to himself.

He hated himself.

He pitied himself.

All because he was just like them. These creations of gods, as he called them.

“It’ll be okay, Vim,” I said as I tried to keep myself from crying.

He patted my back and I felt him nod. “It will, Renn.”

It would be.

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