"Do you know how would wake me up when he was younger?"

She practices her sword as I watch her, laying on the bed.

"Nathaniel?" She grunts, thrusting her sword forward she takes a step back.

I nod. "He didn't know I didn't sleep and I didn't want him to, so when he was a little thing I would go into my room and close my eyes for eight hours while he slept."

"And when he would get up he would toddle into my room, climb onto the bed, get on my chest, and force my eyes open with his little fingers, and peer at me and tell me it was time to go."

She chuckled, pausing before working her strokes again.

"That's kids for you."

"Father father, let's go practice swords let's go let's go," I smiled, "every morning."

Monika runs through her drills. I watch the muscles in her body work. She stops for a moment, wiping her forehead, her feet leaving the ground as she hovers, taking a deep breath, her breasts heaving as she does.

How is someone so attractive?

"He loves you. He always has," she says softly. "They all do, Slade."

I sigh, but I don't argue. Instead, I watch her in silence, as she follows through her strikes perfectly, even as she begins to levitate.

"Ah, keep your footwork straight," I admonish her. "In the air you need even more stability, lack of concentrate can make your power flicker, so prepare for that."

She grins with a nod.

• • •

I head back up to the summit early. The temple is erected once more. There's some things to take care of. I step inside, the long hallway held up by carved columns.

I step into the throne room, sitting at my designated spot. Everyone who cares to be here is here. About 2.0 gods. Most new, young and nameless.

I don't mind them. Youin, Fringella, and Orion are all I truly care about, the only ones who are powerful enough to inconvenience me.

Orion stays away from me, a blessing, because I've grown tired of him. I do this for diplomacy. I do this so that I don't have to fight for my family.

But I can.

Orion clears his throat. "Slade, you know you're very violent."

I raise my brow waiting. Fringella swallows. "Let's all calm down."

"Someone took my wife for 3 minutes," I state. "Come forward and I will spare your life and only destroy your corporal form."

Orion frowns. It goes quiet. Youin cocks his head looking at me as if asking for some additional information.

I look down. "Many of you are too young to know this. But eons ago, before Orion, and most of the rest of you existed there were three. Me, Youin and Fringella."

Fringella shifts. She knows. Youin perhaps has forgotten. Orion frowns deeper, stepping forward. I've elected not to take my godly form.

I like that I look smaller than them. Makes something like this easier to swallow.

"Slade-" Fringella stands. "I am sorry to hear about your human-"

"She is no longer human," I inform her. "She is a goddess. That makes any action against her subject to an act of wrath."

We don't get together often, the gods. We are not family, not related, not friends or even acquaintances. We all know our purpose and we complete in silence. The only time we speak is when something like this occurs.

Something that shifts the balance. Something that interferes with someone else's duty.

My children don't technically do that. This is all a clever ploy of Orion's to attempt to put my down a peg. Which is absolutely absurd. But I am going to crush that, right here, right now, in front of everyone.

It's the last mercy I will give him.

Fringella knows what I'm going to do. She Wanda me not to, I can tell by the way the flowers in hair bloom wildly as if to warn me against it.

It doesn't matter. I will not have my name desecrated again. These gods will serve as my witness that I gave a through warning.

Whatever happens next is up to him.

"I warned you, didn't I? About what's off limits to you," I swallow. "So this is the last time. I am Slade. You know me as a god of war. I am Slade, God of Death, God of War and God of Destruction."

I smile. "If you come near her again, if she does not kill you, I will."