It just doesn’t make any sense.

Okay, sure, he can accept the existence and the following death of the horse-god. Those are both reasonable enough things. But if the horse-god is dead, then why was its influence over this reality so strong?

Why was the number five a factor? Why was the list of names, starting with his own, a factor? And what does that even mean? Does it mean that the universe changed their names to bring them together just for that line-up? Or does it mean that… everyone else on that list just wasn’t real and they were all just part of a cosmic quirk, existing solely so that they could be there as names on a sheet of paper?

Surely the god of horses can’t be more powerful than any other entity with five letters, such as ‘death’ or ‘water’? So how can it have such strength over the full and total manipulation of reality, especially considering that it’s… you know, dead?

Hineni looks around the room, where the guests are standing and whispering amongst themselves, likely because of his clear lack of social decorum. Gods hardly live in the normal world, even if they’re on the mortal coil. They spend their days amongst the rich and the noble and as such, they live according to those principles of life.

— But something’s wrong, isn’t it? This all feels wrong. It smells wrong. It reeks of… well, not frogs. But of something.

A hand clutches him from behind, and Hineni looks at the owl-god, who stands there, tilting her head. She lifts another hand, stroking his face. “Poor Hineni, he suffers, yes?” asks the god, clicking with her mouth. A soft hand runs over his cheek. “It has been a lot for the Hineni man’s human mind.” She shakes her head. “The god-ways are very tiring,” she explains, lowering her palm to rest it against his chest as he turns around. “And his heart aches for his fairy, does it not?” asks Obscura.

Hineni rests his hand on top of hers. “I just don’t get it,” says the man, rubbing his forehead with his other hand. “You know?” he asks. Obscura softly hoots. “I thought I had it all figured out, but now…” He stops and shakes his head. “It was like all of the pieces fit together and I had a nice clean puzzle to look at, but…” Hineni frowns. “Now it’s like… like I looked closer and I noticed that one of those puzzle pieces is squishy and soggy and it doesn’t fit right.”

She shakes her head and nods. “Come. We will retreat from all this, yes?” she asks, looking over the party. “The Hineni-man and his Ob~ scu~ ra~ will find a quiet place and they will rest.” She looks up at him. “That is what he needs most now. Not this game of many words.”

Hineni looks at her golden eyes, feeling his heartbeat moving through her palm and back into his own fingers that rest over it.

It has been a lot.

Maybe…

Maybe he really is just in some grief induced delirium, right?

The man sighs, the tension in his shoulders loosening as he exhales.

He smiles, lifting his gaze again to look at her, to look at Rhine and Sockel. They’ve always come for him. No matter what happens, no matter where he’s been taken and for whatever reason, they’ve always come for him.

He squeezes her fingers.

These are his people, and they’re good people. They’ll cross heaven and the world to find him.

— Something latches onto his back. “Ribbit~” says the big-frog. “I’m coming too!”

“FROG!” screeches Obscura, spinning back around, having just been in the process of leading Hineni away. She points at Nekyia. “I have spared your life because I will not dirty my home with your vile intestines,” says the owl-god, clicking with her mouth. “But you will release my Hineni.”

“Spared?” asks Nekyia, looking over his shoulder. “Pretty sure I was plucking you bald when we fought.”

“Frog-lies!” hoots Obscura angrily.

“Knock it off, you two,” says Hineni. “If I don’t get to freak out, neither do you.”

Obscura hoots with a long, prolonged hoot, narrowing her eyes and squeezing his hand. “Nekyia. I’m just gonna… I dunno, take a nap. I think I need five, you know?” says Hineni, stopping himself as he says the sentence. There's that number again. His eyes wander to the ground, running along the floor in random patterns as he thinks for a second. “You keep an eye on things for me here, okay?”

She ignores his request and looks past him towards Obscura. “I’ll give you the smelly owl-tree in the south back if you get out of my Hineni’s life,” offers the frog-god.

Obscura hisses, her eyes going wide. “I will have my tree and my Hineni,” says the owl-god. “Obscura has no need to give away what is hers to receive what is also hers.”

Hineni rubs his face as the two of them argue. This is a whole mess that needs to be sorted out somehow. But maybe…

Wait.

What was he doing?

Hineni blinks, looking around the room. He came here all angry and bothered, didn’t he? Asking about the horse?

Yeah.

The man rubs his eyes and looks down at himself as the frog, wrapped around his shoulders, and the owl, holding his arm, devolve into a spat.

Hineni looks around the room again, counting as his eyes wander over his people. Himself, one. Obscura, two. Hineni looks at Sockel and Rhine, who are standing in the back like a pair of silent wallflowers. Sockel has her arms crossed and her head down. Rhine has a single boot kicked back behind himself against the wall. Rhine, three. Sockel, four.

Four.

Not that he has too much against the number, as Nekyia is clearly mentally unwell and that needs a certain amount of understanding, but it isn’t a number that is his.

Number five is missing.

Eilig.

“I will not warn you again, frog!” hoots Obscura. “Release him, or lose what limbs that remain of your disgusting body!”

“Unlike you, I’ll give up everything for my Hineni!” argues Nekyia.

The man clenches his fist. What kind of crap is this? He’s supposed to believe that this is reality? He’s supposed to buy that Eilig made a deal with the god of death to babysit him and then… she just kind of fucked off and died? Without a fight?

— The fairy, his violent, over-brimming with life and snark sister just… gave him a peck on the head and let herself be taken back to the spirit-world? No questions asked? No fighting and kicking? No blasts of magic and no alternative plan? Even if she surely knew what would happen once the two of them worked their way through the illusions of death?

“Horseshit,” says Hineni. The two gods stop their spat and look at him.

Five. She’s missing. This is wrong. It’s all wrong.

He recalls, back after they moved, the last time he had spoken to Eilig he had heard something, the ordering of their names, that alluded to the word ‘horse’.

He had wanted to look it up immediately after that. He wanted to ask Seltsam about it and instead…

Hineni stares, turning his head.

— Instead, he forgot, his memory going blank, and he spent the night walking around in the darkness with Obscura. Something knew he was on its trail. Something new he was about to find it and it stopped him from doing so.

His eyes, sharpened by months of time spent near the owl-god, shift around the room.

Something isn’t just affecting reality as a whole, it’s watching him specifically. There is some force in the universe still trying to guide him, as it has always been doing. It guided him away from the horse, but its magic was still breaking through reality, just like the magic of the owl affects threes and the magic of the frog affects fours, there’s something close to him and it’s still…

— He scans the room.

It’s still here.

It’s never left.

This whole life before was a set-up, that he thought he had just escaped from by defeating death. But what if the escape, the defeat of death, was also a set-up?

What if this was meant to pacify him and sedate him? To make him think that he had gotten out, that he had figured out the game being played? What if this whole comfortably sad resolution is meant to make him shut up and sit down?

Gods are really the fuckiest of creatures, aren’t they? Nothing is ever what it seems. There is never just a single, straight sentence.

His people have always come for him. He’s not going to sit here and play pretend, when his sister is out there without him. Eilig came to find him, she put everything she had into getting him out of this mess. He won’t just let her stay wherever she is.

Hineni looks at Obscura. “I need to know,” says Hineni, looking into her eyes. “Who was the horse?” asks the man. “He’s not dead.” Mutters come from around the room. Hineni lifts his hand, looking at it.

Obscura looks at him too, her fingers locking into his. “Hineni. You are following a human thought-hallway, but you are in a god-home situation,” she explains, clicking with her mouth. “Trust your Obscura. You must rest. Please,” she says. “I worry for you.”

“Don’t,” says Hineni. “I’m fine. But I’m only going to ask you one more time,” he says. “If you don’t answer, I’m asking Nekyia instead,” threatens the man. Something ribbits on his shoulder. Obscura hoots, her eyes going wide in betrayal. “This is about my sister, please,” begs Hineni with hurt eyes, looking at the owl-god. “I want you to answer me. What is this?”

“Enough!” says a man from the side. “We’re not here for this nonsense,” says the god, walking over and grabbing Hineni’s arm.

— Blood sprays across the room as the strange man’s arm, held in place by a long, sticky tongue, is cut off at the wrist by a set of sharp talons. He screams, stumbling back and holding his gushing stump. “You will NOT touch my Hineni,” screeches Obscura at the injured god. “Lesser thing,” hisses the owl.

“Damn…” says Hineni, looking down at the severed hand on the floor and then back to her as the other man screams and falls to the ground. “That’s kinda hot.”

“GROSS!” calls Rhine from across the room. Sockel just shrugs.

Hineni looks at him. “You’ll understand when you’re older, Rhine,” promises the man. The blue-haired woman, also standing at the sides, gasps in horror.

“I helped too, Nini~!” says Nekyia, still holding onto his back.

The man rolls his eyes. “Okay, and now it’s weird again,” sighs Hineni, looking back at Obscura.

“You must understand,” says Obscura. “That some secrets are best left in the dark places.” She tilts her head, her feathers coated in blood. The crowd moves around, several of them getting uppity for several reasons. “The Hineni-man has a strong glow, but the empty truth is beyond firefly lights.”

“I get it,” replies Hineni. “But that dark place is where Eilig is. I’m not going anywhere without her,” he says, lifting a hand to press his palm against her chest. “Just like I wouldn’t go anywhere without you.” He nods to Rhine and Sockel. “It’s everyone or nothing. That’s the deal.”

She clicks with her mouth. “You must be careful what you wish for,” says the owl-god. “Frog,” she says, hissing and narrowing her eyes. “You will serve my Hineni.”

“I mean, that’s the idea, yeah,” says Nekyia.

“Really?” he asks, looking over his shoulder. “Come on. It’s really getting kinda old now, Nekyia.”

“Want me to make it worse?” whispers Nekyia into his ear.

“I’m sorry to intervene in this, uh, private family affair,” says a voice from the side. Avarice. The man steps over the puddle of blood on the floor as the other god is dragged away. “But perhaps we can... focus on the matter at hand?” he asks, nodding to the collection of people. “Everyone is here now. We need to talk about the future going forward.”

Obscura clicks again and looks at him. “It is too late, lizard,” says the owl-god. “For I have redecided what the forward future will be.”

“Pardon?” asks the god of wealth, narrowing his eyes.

“Avarice,” says Hineni. “I thought you were on the up and up, after that whole ‘base reality’ and ‘not all business’ spiel. You really got me good.” He sighs. “You’re just one of them, aren’t you? This is just about power.”

“Whatever do you mean?” asks the god.

“Cut the shit. I know this here isn’t reality,” says Hineni, as several people walk closer towards him. “I’m out.”

Avarice looks at him. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Weaponsmith Hineni. You don’t know what you’re hoping to unravel here. Generations of lives have been sacrificed for this project to come to a close. We're so close now.”

“No, you’re not listening to me,” says Hineni, looking at the god of wealth and leaning in towards his face, as owl and frog hands press themselves against his body, as Rhine and Sockel and everyone else gather around him. “You gods never do. I said – I’m out.”

Hineni snaps his fingers.

(Hineni) has used: [Ash: Antichrysalis]

The room erupts into hundreds of horrific screams, and everything goes dark.

He’s going to find out what this all is, once and for all. No games, no illusions, no mind-control.

Just the eyes of a dead man, seeing what there is to see.