Junogloris’s cave was not much to look at but, compared to mine, it was practically a palace. A bed made of wood, leather, and bone stood on the far east side. Opposite it was a table of roughly carved stone, upon which rested a massive bow, one whose bowstring was thicker than my arm, and whose arrows were better described as feathered harpoons. A tanning rack lay on the far end of the cave, resting upon the massive pile of rocks that cut off access to the cave’s inner sanctum. Bones and skulls of various animals were pinned to the walls, arranged in what I can only assume is an attempt at artistry. He’d even dug a fire pit in the middle of his room.

“Would you care to eat, Mistress Luna?” Junogloris said. He reached for the boar that was roasting over the blazing fire. He tore an entire leg off, his hand unburnt by the flame, the pleasant aroma of freshly cooked pork filled the cave. Juices dripped unto the cave floor, fat glistened in the dancing flames as he offered the leg to me.

“I’m a goddess, Junogloris. I don’t need to eat.”

“I am well aware.” he said, still holding the leg up to my face.

Oh, what the hell. I grabbed the leg, and bit into it. My eyes shot wide open. By the gods, it was even tastier than it looked. A symphony of flavour filled my mouth, just the right amount of char to give it smokiness without bitterness, perfectly moist meat that fell apart in your mouth, and… was that salt? Where would he even get that here? Do I even care?

“It is good to see you, Mistress Luna. Friendly faces are hard to come by, here more so than others.” he said, bringing me back to reality. The bone in my hand had been stripped clean.

“L-Likewise.” I said. I felt my face heat up as I tossed the bone to the side. The flickering flames danced wildly in the darkness of the cavern, painting our faces with a shifting medley of light and shadow.

“How long have you been hiding here, anyway? The last time I saw you was-”

The scent of burning flesh, the sound of agony as eternal life was cut short. The messenger’s sword blazed with the flame of judgment, annihilating all in its path.

I shook my head, willing the memories to go away. My sharp breaths was all I could hear. My eyes met Junogloris’s, his downcast eyes betrayed his sorrow.

“Since the Battle for the New World.” he said, gaze distant. He picked at the leg in his hand, idly throwing scraps of meat into the fire.

“I haven’t even heard of you since then. Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding here for the past 500 years?”

“We lost, Mistress Luna. What else needs to be said? El’s grasp chokes the New World, his messengers roam the skies wherever his followers reside. It is only in the forests untouched by man that we remain safely beyond his reach.”

“500 years ago, I’d have called you a coward.” I laid down on the dirt. Motes of dust floated by, seemingly suspended in the moonbeams that filtered in from the cave’s entrance.

“Indeed you did. I believe your exact words were ‘that I should have worn the skin of a dog if I wanted to live like one’.” he said with a wistful smile, which soon faded as his gaze grew distant.

“More’s the pity. We did all we could, fought til our bodies could move no more, bled until our very souls ran dry. All for naught.” He tossed the boar’s leg away, his eyes were locked on the flickering flames, but he saw nothing but the past. “I am but a shadow, Mistress Luna. A pathetic existence whom glory rightfully shuns.”

He slumped down, and, with a sigh that bore the weight of centuries, tore another piece from the roasting boar. Never had I seen him so defeated before. Humanity’s most revered hero, such was his fame that the power he wielded was like that of the Ancient Ones. He whose deeds, whose labours, so impressed divine and mortal alike that he was granted the ultimate reward, a place among the divines, not as a servant, but as an equal.

To see the greatest of us reduced to so lowly an existence stirred something in me, and, before I knew it,

“What if I told you it wasn’t over?”

I said something I could never take back.

Neither of us dared to move, neither of us could breathe, the dancing shadows of the flickering flames were the only proof that time was still flowing. Junogloris stared at me. His face inscrutable, yet his gaze bored into me, silently urging me to continue.

It was the height of foolishness, the very embodiment of folly. Knowledge of the First God was dangerous, and the less that knew about my quest, the better. Yet something about Junogloris made me falter.

It wasn’t pity, nothing so insulting. But to see his sorry state, knowing who he once was, and knowing that I could give him a chance, no matter how small, of reclaiming the glory of yesteryear. That instead of the miserable shell of a man before me, he could be Junogloris once more…

I told him everything.

“That is quite the tale, Mistress Luna…” Junogloris said. The once delicious boar was now a charred husk, and the flames that cooked it now nothing more than faintly glowing coals.

“This man of Aegyptus… Are you certain that he speaks truthfully?”

“As much as I’d like to say no…” I said, even as I felt a chill crawl up my spine at the memory of his smile.

“You play a dangerous game, Mistress Luna.” said Junogloris, his face grim. “One whose odds are monumentally stacked against you.”

“I know.” I said. “But I don’t have a choice. Not anymore, not when I’ve already killed a Messenger of El.”

“Indeed.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I knew that it was only a matter of time before one of us sought to wage war upon El once again. But I never expected that it would be you.”

“Are you calling me a coward, Child of Thunder?”

“Only if I were as foolish as brother Ultor as to mistake prudence for cowardice,” he looked into the starlit sky, eyes misty, face forlorn, “and a death wish for bravery.”

The night wind gently blew into our cave, its light touch caused the remnants of our bonfire to crumble, the once stalwart wood now mere ashes swept away into oblivion.

“And here I thought that you’d understand.” I said, he looked at me with with a smile that strained under the weight of memory.

“The wages of war are nothing more than misery and death, cloaked in a thin veneer of fleeting glory.” He said, even as he failed to meet my gaze. “I have more than had my fill, and I thought that you would have been the same.”

“So, I guess asking you to join me…”

“Is out of the question. I apologize Madame Luna, but I cannot be of service to you. Not for this. Not against El.”

Silence. Nothing more needed to be said.

Clouds gathered, and the brilliant tapestry of the cosmos was shrouded in darkness.

The early morning sunlight streamed into Junogloris’s musty cave, the cheery calls of carefree birds a cruel injustice in light of what happened the night before.

“Just head north until you find yourself upon the river bed. Once there, then simply follow the water’s flow, you shall no doubt return to the world of man in less than three days’ time.”

I began to step out into the wilderness; each leaden foot fall a resolution. I felt the weight on my shoulders almost forcing me back, my backpack heavy with chunks of pork wrapped crudely in leaves. His last gift to me.

“I guess this is goodbye then.”

“Madame Luna, wait.” he said. Though my back was turned, the silence was more than enough for me to know the turmoil that raged within him. Taking a deep breath, he spoke with measured tones.

“For what its worth, I do not think the blame lies with you. I’m sure none of us do.”

“Junogloris, I-” I choked on words that needed to be said. Words that would immediately change his mind. Words that would lay bare the extent of my failure.

“Thank you.” I said, biting my tongue. “And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a coward. Not for this.”

“My thanks. Though my hospitality may have been lacking for one such as you, please remember that you shall always be an honoured guest, should you ever find yourself in these woods once again.”

“Farewell, Moon Indomitable, may your light never falter.”

I’m being watched.

It has been three hours since I left Junogloris’s cave, three hours of moving through the underbrush, intentionally going towards thick masses of greenery, hiding my route as much as I possibly could. Yet I still felt eyes on me. The same eyes that I’ve felt since I woke up here.

But they were different from before. What once was a mild feeling that I could have easily mistaken for paranoia, now the gaze upon me was unmistakable. Palpable.

Predatory.

“There’s no sense in hiding, show yourself.” I said, even as I drew my laptop from my bag.

I heard the shaking of tree branches, the almost imperceptible rustling of leaves in the thicket before me. And then-

“Uwaaaahhh!!!”

I heard a snap and a loud crash as my pursuer fell from a tree right in front of me.

“Ow ow ow… Jeez, I don’t get paid enough for this.” My vaguely familiar stalker said to herself. Where have I seen her before?

The mousy looking girl, wiry black hair laden with twigs and branches, looked at me and breathed a sigh of relief. She rushed towards me, only to stumble on an exposed root.

“Um… you okay? Do you need help or something?” I said, looking her over. She looked up, glasses miraculously unharmed from her fall.

“Um yeah, yeah, totes fine. I don’t need help, you need help! Um, er… I mean, not like that but, y’know-” Her words threatened to dissolve into inelegant blubbering if I didn’t do something.

“Slow down. Deep breaths.” I said, even as I looked at her panicked form. Surely this couldn’t be the person following me, right? Nothing about her seemed the least bit threatening, from her outfit that looked more suited to sightseeing than exploring, to her constant furtive gazes, like a particularly nervous squirrel.

“Right, right. Deep breaths, one two, one two.”

Several awkward minutes passed. I cleared my throat.

“Oh right!” she said with a start, “So um, yeah, I’m guessing you don’t remember me, and that’s okay! Totes understandable! I wouldn’t remember me too!”

So I have seen her before. I gazed intently at her face, studying each contour.

“Um ,can you, kinda… oh this is embarassing…” she developed a sudden intense interest in her boots as I continued looking her over. Until it clicked. She wasn’t wearing glasses before, but I have seen her before.

“Lindsey? My brother’s receptionist?” I could scarcely believe what I’d just said.

“Right! Wow, someone finally remembered my name… Focus Lindsey!” She slapped her face with both palms to psych herself up.

“Right, so, like, I said I’m here to help you. Or rescue you more like.”

“And he sent you as opposed to someone qualified because… Why exactly?”

“Hey, rude! I’m totes qualified.”

Somehow, I highly doubt that. Then again she did make it all the way here without help. “Anyways, your brother can’t exactly go all like ‘hello police, my sister’s missing somewhere in the amazon rainforest’ and have them be all like, ‘sure no prob’. ‘Sides, pretty sure you gods wouldn’t want mortals involved, what with the whole in hiding thing you guys have going.”

“So you know about us then.”

“Like, yeah, no duh. Why else would I be here?”

“Fair. But how are you supposed to be my rescue?” I asked. “More to the point, why should I trust you? My agreement with my brother doesn’t include this, and he’s not exactly one to go above and beyond.”

“Maybe boss man just changed his mind? You gods are totes fickle and all, and Haidragairus is one of the most unpredictable, right?”

“Ah. Well then, I guess I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Lead the way.” I said. Everything made sense now.

“Sweet! Let me just-”

“One last thing.”

“Yeah-”

I felt my laptop slice through the empty air where her head had been. She fell on her back, her eyes wide with shock.

“Who are you, and who sent you?”

“W-w-what the fuck, lady?! Are you insane?” She said even as she scrambled backwards, a perfect picture of fear.

“Maybe, or maybe I’m just foolish. That would certainly explain why I almost fell for your tricks.”

“What tricks? I told you- eep!” a deep gash along the ground where her feet were.

“I think it’s best you cut the charade, assassin. It’s embarrassing. For both of us.” I said as I moved my backpack into shield position.

“I admit you almost had me going. Thing is you messed up on two fronts. Firstly, you never once bothered to hide your bloodlust while you were stalking me. Secondly-”

A gust of wind blew past me with enough force to nearly bowl me over. The sound of splintering wood and shattering earth filled the air, as did massive plumes of dust from the explosion in front of me. When the air cleared, the tree in front of me was just gone, replaced by a crater, with a harpoon sized arrow embedded in it’s centre.

“His name is pronounced Hüdragürus, a fact you would be aware of if he was the one who tasked you with this mission.” I turned towards the voice, scarcely believing my eyes.

“Junogloris? But why? I thought-”

“So long as you are within these woods, you are my guest. And it would be remiss of me to allow my guests to be murdered under my watch, now is it?” he said, even as he nocked another enormous arrow. “Now on your guard, our foe yet lives.”

Clap clap clap clap.

I looked up and saw my would be assassin perched upon a tree branch, lazily clapping her hands and regarding the both of us with idle amusement.

“Ha! Of all the things to give the game away, had to be that, eh?” she spoke, her accent reverting from its affected New World to an unmistakable working class Brittania. “’s what I get for leaving all my revision to the last minute, ain’t it?”

She leapt from the branch and landed daintily on her feet.

“Guess I won’t be needing these anymore.” She took her glasses off and broke them in half. She seemed to shimmer in the sunlight and then everything about her changed. Long black hair turned into a brilliant white pixie cut, her unassuming clothing became a long trench coat, jet black military boots, and a dark green bulletproof vest. A semi-automatic pistol gleamed from within its holster, and a knife so curved it resembled a fish hook was strapped to her belt, it’s metal blade marred by a series of dark brown splotches.

“Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Luna Inwicta.” she said, rolling her tongue on my name, pronouncing it as properly as possible as if to mock me. Her emerald eyes gleamed with raw hunger.

“Let’s have a bit of fun, shall we?”