The Fallen

Greetings Inkers! Another week another batch of lovely pieces to read. I'm a little late and haven't read half as many of the entries as I should have by now, so I'll remedy that later.
I challenged Kerry who wrote the awesome: The Universe Isn't Evil. I was challenged by Cedar the prompt is at the end of this piece. Before you read this I want you to know that it was a colleague at work who helped balance my creativity with a comment, and an amazing Indie Inker who said a few choice words (that Inker will remain nameless but they did also say: "I'm always happy to give my opinion but my disclaimer is that I have no credentials to make me any type of resource!"). I thank them both for making this piece what it is as I ran the risk of being completely stumped and not writing anything at all! 

I SALUTE YOU BOTH, ABUNDANTLY!

It’s thought that gods choose not to dream, why would they? They blessed the world with such a privilege in order to keep hope alive, balance fears and keep progress at a steady pace.
What the gods didn't account for were other gods making ungodly decisions.

 -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Since he was a boy he'd chosen to remember the day of his birth, this meant dreaming of falling for an entire day and an entire night knowing that in spite of his lineage he'd survive, broken, weathered, and eternally scarred. Falling was the result of being thrown, he hadn't forgotten that either.

"Tell me about your parents?" The little boy asked.

He shrugged the question off with a grunt and continued hammering the heated metal into shape. He didn't know his mother and father in the traditional sense. He knew where he'd come from, how he'd been tossed to the mortals thousands of years ago, but stories about being held, tucked into bed at night or sitting on his father’s shoulders; never actually happened so they’d be no stories for the boy tonight.
The man wasn’t sure if it was his mother or father who had done it in the end. Seeing their child's disfigured features angered them. How could Gods produce offspring so tainted? The only option was to cast out the child immediately.

The piece of metal cooled as he hammered harder. The anvil had sunk into the floor a few inches under the weight of each blow and the boy continued his barrage of annoying questions. If it wasn’t the boy disturbing him it was an ominous black cat that had taken a sudden interest in his work. Where it had come from he had several ideas but no real proof. It did enough to distract him over the last few weeks by perching on freshly made shields or rubbing itself against the blunt edge of a sword, it even tried to take a peek at a bolt of lightning he had stashed in a lead lined box.

"Why do you spend so much time in here mister?"

Feeling a bit guilty - an ungodly trait - he thought of a rhetorical answer. "Your mother prefers me to do my work in the barn away from you children. My work is dangerous and little boys like you could get hurt for just being nearby.”

Unhindered in his pursuit, the notion of danger failed to send the boy back to the house. "What you making mister?"

"My name is V or Mister V to you."

"Sorry V, I mean Mister V. Erm, what is it?"

"The last piece of a very large puzzle, child."

"Well ... my name is-."

"Not my concern,” he said, cutting the boy off. “Fetch me that skillet of water over there and shut the door before that darn cat comes back. The boy did as he was told.

“Why aren’t you out fishing with your father?”

 “He isn’t well and my uncle has already left the harbour with his boat and won’t be back for weeks.” 

“So I’m stuck with you?” V rubbed his jaw more thoughtfully than frustrated. “Well, make yourself useful and help me move this.” 

The boy followed V’s gaze that fell upon a large half finished golden throne. “I need that over here young man, think you’ve got the muscle to move it?” 

The boy grinned flexing his pea-sized biceps and jumped down off the bundle of hay he was sitting on, ran over and pushed the throne easily into the spot Mister V was referring to.

A very useful young man. V thought to himself. “Tough little lad aren’t you?” 

The boy nodded, no words or questions this time, which made V happy and he patted him on the head before the boy jumped back onto the bundle of hay.  

“What does a boy like you do with secrets eh?” 

The child gave V a smile that turned into a very devious grin a moment later, and served the facial expressions as his answer. 

“Good! Knowing when to listen will serve you well later, never forget that,” V was slowly beginning to like this child. Out of the nine orphans that lived in the main house, this one was by far the quickest study of the lot ... “I’m building a trap of sorts. The idea came to me a while back, the irony of it rang like that large bell above Jago’s Well.

“How do you catch something that can’t be caught and keep it there?” V asked.

The boy thought on in puzzlement at Mister V’s question. He couldn’t answer because he couldn’t figure it out. This played up to V’s vanity and he began explaining. “Well, what you have to do is make the prey catch itself and then design a trap that holds it as securely as the very strength that prey has; to break free. The more they struggle the more effective the trap. Brilliant, I know!”

V wondered why the boy hadn’t asked an annoying question yet and turned his attention from the throne to the boy, the bundle of hay he was sitting on and, the cat he was now stroking.

“I told you to shut the door!”

“I did, I have no idea how it managed to get in.”

“Arrggh, strange how it just seems to turn up. Well it’s here now, keep it out of my way. What was I saying?”

“Trap/brilliant/ego.” The boy replied.

“What was that?!”

“Oh nothing Mister V, carry on ... secret?”

“Yes ... I’m going to hold my mother hostage and in time educate the gods themselves.”

“But how?! The gods will never let that happen.”

“I’ve made many thrones over the years for those arrogant immortals, each with its own little surprise for its owner."

The cat nimbly jumped onto the stacks of hay behind the boy and scaled the wooden beams leading to the roof. The smell of a good home cooked meal wafted in through an opening and the cat squeezed its body out and fell to ground below; minus a life. It looked around as though making sure it wasn’t being watched and when satisfied it didn’t have an audience, it jumped high into the air, transformed into an eagle and flew toward the heavens.  

In the barn the proverbial cogs and bolts in the boy’s brain began aligning. “You’re going to kill the gods aren’t you?” he asked.

“No, just give them the chance to think like mortals for a little while.”

“Sounds like dangerous fun, can I help?”

V laughed, the red patch of bloated skin on his face went an even deeper shade. “I’m sure your father will have something to say about all this.”

“He’s laid up in bed; he doesn’t have to know does he Mister V?”

“I’m sure if he knows the nature of his son he already suspects you to get up to mischief. Pass me those springs by the pig pen,” V watched the boy collect the springs. “I must tell you a story that will help you to understand the truth. You orphans call that man father but soon you’ll have to accept where you all really came from.”

“What do you mean, Mister V?”

“Sit down, and don’t interrupt, you’ll want to hear every word of what I have to say.”

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

The eagle landed on the outstretched hand of the most feared immortal and the immortal immediately felt the presence of his half-breed son. Unable to get up from his throne or send word of what danger the bird had delivered, the wielder of lightning, the bringer of life and death could only sit petrified in place and wonder how as gods they’d managed to get it all so wrong.

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The Indie Ink Challege prompt for this piece was: The god Vulcan, a barn cat, and a child