Bare feet splashed the surface of a river.

A child was sitting on a fallen tree, an old secret hideout. A favorite place to sneak out to – or at least it used to be, back when there was not one child, but two. Now, the fun had left that place, leaving behind only grief and bittersweet memories of the shiniest smiles and ridiculous games.

Delwyn kicked the water one more time, clouding the reflection.

Death was unfair.

What use were the gods, if Gwilym’s life meant so little to them? For Delwyn had prayed, and the gods never answered.

What had answered was an affront to gods. What answered didn’t get a chance to save Gwilym, in the end.

Why would gods come for a devil but not for a dying child?

The water lapped at Delwyn’s feet. First raindrops fell, tracing the tear tracks on his face and filling the forest with steady noise. The sky darkened quickly, and so did the river.

Had Gwilym been there, they would have pulled their shirts over their heads and sprinted back to the village, laughing and splashing each other as feet stomped into deep puddles. It would have been fun, another entry added to the daily adventure.

But Gwilym was gone, and Delwyn didn’t feel like going home. The tree trunk Delwyn was sitting on started becoming slippery and gross from the water, yet he continued swinging his legs back and forth.

He wasn’t sure what to do next.

Somewhere far away, voices sounded, calling his name, searching for him. Delwyn ignored them, not wanting anyone’s company but Gwilym’s, even as the water came up to his calves.

The rain didn’t let up. Delwyn’s clothes had long since soaked through, and as he caught himself shivering, he wondered if it would be better to return to the village and hide somewhere else, at the stables or in the cellar.

The ground was slippery as he jumped off the fallen tree, tripping him up into the now angry, violent stream. Delwyn shrieked as he was dunked into the icy water, liquid squeezing its way into his mouth, nose and ears, into his lungs, not giving him a chance to breath.

He should have struggled, perhaps. And yet, he seemed robbed of any movement, lost in the shock of the fall and the coldness. As he opened his eyes underwater, the darkness of it looked warm and inviting. It looked almost exactly like the embrace of the being that had answered his prayers to save Gwilym.

The darkness around him grew and pulled him in.

Delwyn closed his eyes and let it take him.

—–

Some super obscure lore for today’s one. In the setting of the world, both Gwilym and Delwyn were regarded as minor deities, but I never got around in the game to tell their story - so I figured I’d remedy that now.