The Half-Lives of Gods
Prologue
The Ochre Palace was meant to be a place of peace, not a place for peace talks. When the god of earth had first carved out his dwelling-place, this cathedral-cave within a stone monolith, he had only wished for it to be a safe harbor to any living creature in need, for any reason. Mothers with ailing young, seeking shelter from predators; broken limbs and wings in need of time to set; the hungry, the weak, the lost. All were welcome to find refuge there, under the protection of the great Ochre God.
The Palace would still be serving that purpose, granting protection from harm, but there would be no families or rescue cases dwelling in its chambers tonight. That was one of the conditions of the peace talks, along with the ceasefire. Complete evacuation of the grounds, to ensure no hidden reinforcements, no spies or assassins. Also to prevent collateral damage, should things still go awry.
Rose was adamant about this, when Ochre was still negotiating the terms between her and Indigo. “The sick and injured shouldn’t be anywhere near this. They must be taken to the City of Trees and remain there until… this is finished.” She had a truly sorry look on her face, a compassionate smile. “Were there not any… conflicts of interest, I would take on their care myself, but…”
Again, Ochre tried to tell her that it wasn’t necessary, none of this was necessary, but she shook her head and dismissed him, like she always did, and went back to the next clause in her list of terms. Even though this was just a talk with Indigo… who also dismissed Ochre, at every turn, unless they kept things strictly business. They were both in the same situation, unable or unwilling to believe that either side wanted peace and coexistence, to return to the way things were before… Before they were isolated in echo chambers like this by the logistics of the war.
Once the three of them were together in the same room, without any outside interference, they might finally listen to Ochre, and listen to reason.
Because this whole war was nothing but a game. It was just the newest game between two goddesses, the Red Hag and the Empress Blue, forever on opposite ends of the spectrum, never agreeing on anything, and bringing everything else into their fights. And this time… they had roped in their own children, Rose and Indigo, setting them against each other to add another aspect to their endless conflict.
Ochre was born with earth for brains and metal ore for bones, an ever-evolving creation of the goddess Green, but these earthly roots did not mean that he was dim-witted or lacking in awareness - far from it. Being removed from familial attachments only made it easier for Ochre to see that the two goddesses of light were engaging in a proxy war, and his loved ones were nothing more than instruments of influence in the game.
The Lady Green, Ochre’s creator, had little interest in these games. She was so occupied by her studies on the Green Plane that he rarely saw her, much less spoke to her. As far as she was concerned, the Green Lands were his to rule as he saw fit… but he was no ruler. He was only a guardian, a god of the earth, created to serve humanity. So, too, were Rose and Indigo born to serve humanity, to shepherd early civilization out of fearful potential and into greatness.
But this - this war, these raids and invasions, the purges of cities - none of this was in service of humanity. This was just escalation for the sake of escalation between two old and bitter goddesses looking to spite each other.
All of this suffering over nothing more than hearsay and rumors - and Ochre knew this. He had heard enough and seen enough to notice the contradictions, the leaps in logic, the sheer amount of what just didn’t make sense… but because all of these suggestions and suppositions came from a god, they had to be true somehow.
Ochre was born with dirt for brains, but he knew that gods could be liars.
This is what gave him the idea for the peace talk, the only thing that Rose and Indigo would both agree to, a thing of facts and negotiation, not emotions and sentimentality. They could dismiss Ochre’s insistence that the war was pointless, but could not so easily deny an opportunity to discuss things directly as a group. Whatever it took to make that arrangement, somewhere away from the Empress and the Hag, Ochre would meet them there. If any of the goddesses of light even tried to manifest during the proceedings, they would have his presence to contend with. They would all have to contend with each other, eventually and ideally, settling every matter and ending all of the games… but very large matters required very small first steps, and this was one of them.
Ultimately, all Ochre wanted was for his loved ones to be safe, and for the pointless war to end. If evacuating his Palace was what it took to get Rose and Indigo to meet for this, it would have been worth it. Shuffling around the place, looking for any stragglers who may not have heard the final evacuation notices, gave him something to do to relieve his anxiety - even if that only meant he was directing his anxiety elsewhere. He knew it wasn’t going away until all of this was finished, and Red and Blue were no longer poisoning the lives of his loved ones with their presence.
“It’s not too late to call this off, Ochre.”
Hearing the sound of his creator’s voice behind him, Ochre felt a pit of dread fall into his stomach. She was not one for sudden entrances, usually announcing her presence with a whisper in his ear, a suggestion on what to do with what she’d made - but this wasn’t concerning anything she had made.
Ochre turned around to better address her as he spoke: “My lady!”
The light-form of the goddess Green had the appearance of a young girl - not by any definition a woman, but certainly not a child, for children are not that tall. Even Ochre, at least a head taller than the tallest of humans, was smaller in her presence. Most of her body was comprised of her skirts and her hair, which was bursting forth from the edges of her veil with curls in every texture. All of her was made up of pure light, every color within the spectrum of her name, one-third of all the color in the world.
“I’m being serious, Ochre, you should at least postpone this. Something isn’t right here,” she continued, when she met eyes with him; her voice had a lyrical quality to it that was almost conversational, but it was laced with urgency. “Red and Blue won’t just let things end like this.”
Ochre paused, then exhaled a little. “It has to end somehow…” he began, reasonably enough. “They’ll just have to accept that things have ended once Rose and Indigo have declared peace.”
The goddess shook her head. “It’s not that simple, Ochre…”
“It is that simple. We are the gods of the earth,” Ochre replied. “And you are gods of light. Respectfully, maker… you have less power here than I do. It’s a fact of nature.”
Green looked back at him with an inscrutable expression on her face, before she extended a slender arm with a trailing sleeve to pick up a small potted plant nearby, a succulent. Though her form was made of light, the divine precision of her wavelengths granted her a physicality like flesh and blood, enough to move the plant around, and bathe it in her radiance.
“Less power here, maybe,” she said, with an agreeable tone.
The little succulent in the pot was becoming more than a succulent.
“Rose and Indigo don’t have to put up with being part of Red and Blue’s games,” Ochre said, his voice growing firmer. “If they want to bicker with each other, they can do so on the Plane of Light, and leave their creations in peace. Ours is not their world to play with.”
A strange bud was forming atop the plant that no longer resembled a succulent, but it did not bloom, remaining firmly pale, unripe. “The Plane of Light is not a place for games,” she said, with a smile. “Where else will they play?”
All Ochre could do was shrug, after much thinking. “If they must play, perhaps just in the world, and not… with the whole world at stake?” he attempted, the only reasonable thing to say.
Green did not blink, but her gaze softened as she set the strange plant down. “If you somehow manage to make that happen, I might actually enjoy coming up with a little game to play with my sisters,” she said. “That’s how we made the world, after all.”
“Let’s… focus on ending the war, first,” Ochre said, scratching the back of his neck.
“Hmm.” The goddess looked down on him with an expression that was perhaps fondness or appraisal. “You seem prepared enough for it, at least. Wise of you to evacuate, too, in case anything goes wrong. Don’t be hard on yourself if they can’t come to an agreement, though, hm? At least you got a ceasefire for a while.”
“We’re ending this war today,” Ochre declared. “Indigo and Rose are going to take their power back, and we’re going to go back to the way things are supposed to be - without Red and Blue getting in the way.”
Green pursed her lips, and tilted her head, and said, “Good luck.”
And then the goddess was gone, as quickly-vanished as a candle’s flame.
And then, another voice from behind, from a doorway: “Father?”
There was no pang of dread in response to this voice, for it was a voice Ochre had been waiting to hear, and he turned around to greet his son with a relieved smile. “Orange, my boy, there you are.”
The young man lingered in their typical embrace somewhat longer than usual. “The… evacuations are complete,” he said, as he finally began to pull away. “I just ran my final checklist.”
Like his mother, Orange had a face that was worn with compassion, a passive smile no matter how grim the situation, no matter how much they were hurting. Like his father, he found relief from the helplessness by aiding in efforts like these, anything to foster peace.
Orange’s twin brother, Violet, did not have the benefit of a neutral party for a father. Rose’s love had been truly split between her suitors, and the miracle of her twins’ birth made that clear, with the colors they were born into. Proof that she loved them equally, not forced to choose based on who received an heir first.
With Indigo on the other side of the war, under the thumb of his grandmother Blue, Violet could not choose. Neither Ochre nor Orange had heard from him since the official declarations were sent out from the Diamond City and the Leaden Island, that the war was on. Ochre could not blame him, but he missed the boy so.
Ochre was always one for long hugs, but he was especially willing to give them now, in the absence of so many others he wished to embrace. “They’re all evacuated?” he asked. “The staff and the patients?”
“All either gone back home or under proper care in the City of Trees, yeah,” Orange replied. “Time to spare for the deadline, so… that’s good, right? Every little bit helps…”
“Yes. That’s good,” said Ochre, managing to smile a little more. “What’s next for you?”
“For me?” Orange said. “I guess… I’m gonna head back home to Gray and Brown. If I go over one more checklist, I’ll never hear the end of it…”
“A fine idea. Ah! An idea of my own.” Ochre reached out to pick up the strange once-succulent that Green had brought into creation. The goddess had held the pot with both of her dainty hands, but Ochre only needed to use his fingers. “Why don’t you take this back as a gift for Brown? It seems like the kind of thing she’d like.”
“What is it?” Orange said, more curiously than warily.
“The Lady Green came to visit, and she created it as we were talking,” Ochre replied. “Completely unique.”
His son took the pot with one hand and examined the plant with his other hand. His fingers, roughened by fieldwork, lightly brushed against the mismatched leaves along the stem. “Yeah… She will like this.” Something resembling an actual smile cracked through the stiffness of his peacekeeper’s mask, but only for a moment. “Why… was Auntie Green here, though?”
“Just offering some last-minute advice,” said Ochre. “Nothing to worry about.”
Orange nodded, but he made an unconvinced, uncomfortable noise as he held the plant closer to his chest.
Ochre never had to think for very long when it came to finding ways to make his children smile.
“I have another idea,” he said. “I want you to tell Brown that this flower is a very special flower. When the war ends, the flower is going to bloom, and it is going to be the most beautiful flower she can think of. Can you tell her that? When that flower blooms, that means everything’s okay.”
“How can you be so sure?” Orange asked, that crooked maskless smile returning.
“She’s your sister,” Ochre replied, with a wink. “Give her something positive to think about.”
Orange nodded again, but this time with his eyes closed, an affirmative noise paired with it. “Got it. I’m sure she’ll be begging to show it off when I take her back here. When… all of this is over.”
“Yes. When all of this is over.” Ochre put a hand as large as a bear paw on his son’s shoulder, a prelude to another hug. “And it will be over soon.”
“This is all just… formalities. Terms they had to agree on, to… prove it,” Orange said, within his arms, as he had said so many times before. “They wouldn’t agree to this if they didn’t want peace.”
“That’s right,” Ochre affirmed. “Nobody wants war.”
Nobody on earth, at least.
“Yeah…” Orange pulled out of the hug, pulled his smile-mask back on. “When this is over, we’ll all laugh about how dramatic we were being. How none of this was necessary.”
“That’s right,” Ochre said again. “Do you need anything, before you go?”
“No… I think I’m set.” Orange briefly studied the plant in his hands before looking up again. “Well… I’ll see you soon.”
“Travel safely, my son,” Ochre said.
And then he was alone in his palace for many hours.
The evacuation was completed long before the scheduled time of the talks: the moonrise of a moonless night. Not even a sliver of reflection off the heavenly water-clock to grant the gods of light a foothold of influence over the world. The sky was blanketed with a tapestry of stars, constellations strung together as if embroidered by just-immaterial threads, there in a glance and gone in the next. The playful contributions of the Gray Shepherd, finishing touches to her weaver-brother’s finest work.
Ochre had not lit any of the braziers in the Palace, so it was only his inner radiance, like amber set aflame, casting light onto the murals of wild shapes and overlapping outlines - and from that light, their shapes seemed to come to life, phantoms of beasts from all over the world, flickering with grace and splendor. These murals would have been dancing in the light of real fires, braziers and kitchen fires, among the steam and the laughter, on any other evening; he’d be helping with the cleaning-up, if there was no other need for him. None of that, this evening.
This evening, Ochre kept a solitary watch, waiting for his loved ones to come back to him.
Indigo arrived first. He traveled alone, on foot, as agreed. Beneath his richly-dyed cloak, he was clad in armor, a hard figure cutting a soft shadow across the threshold of the Ochre Palace.
Ochre had been waiting just within the main entrance to avoid stalking the perimeter, giving off the wrong impression, and so perhaps he overcorrected in his entrance. “Indigo! You’re here!” He bounded forward and easily embraced him, though he could not ignore the feeling of metal seams beneath the velvet fabric of his cape. “Thank you so much for agreeing to this. For trusting in me.”
Indigo just nodded, pulling away from the embrace.
Ochre noticed, with the hyper-awareness of a herd-creature, that his sword was attached to his hip. He had allowed for Rose and Indigo to bring one weapon each, and only one - the weapons that had been forged for them by their son Violet. And those weapons were then going to be entrusted to Ochre, so they were not misused. He hoped it would help remind them, of their priorities, of their love, but also so they wouldn’t come in feeling completely defenseless.
“You don’t need your sword, now that you’re here,” Ochre continued. “I can take it from you now-”
“Where is Rose?”
Indigo’s voice - cool yet warm, deep yet soft - had been pushed to its harshest edges, and the sound of it bruised Ochre’s eagerness like a thrown brick. “She isn’t here yet,” he replied. “You’re the, uh, first to arrive.”
“Hm.” Indigo’s eyes, the color of ocean horizons and mountain peaks, scanned the interior of the chamber despite Ochre’s words. “Good. Where are we meeting for the talks?”
“Meeting? I mean… I was hoping we could just talk, but…” Ochre exhaled the last of the hope. “Yes, I did have a space set aside per the terms of the agreement. An inner chamber. Shall we-”
“Take me there,” Indigo said, mid-reply.
So Ochre took him there, and he tried not to fixate on Indigo’s sword as they walked, or Indigo’s face, seeing how much the war had changed him. Who was this general with cheekbones like cliffsides and furrowed brows like barricades? Where was his poet with the pebble-smooth skin, with a beautiful thing to say about everything and everyone he knew? The venom of his mother’s words in his mouth had made him all too hard and brittle. A balm of peace would ease all of this.
The chamber for the talks had been chosen for a similar reason to the time and day - let there be no light. No higher gods to interfere and lead them astray, so long as they followed the light of their own colors, their divine inheritance of the sacred spectrum.
As they left behind the high walls of the antechamber and entered the lower-ceilinged hallways, Ochre could better see Indigo’s color coming off him, a deep and ethereal glow illuminating half of the wall. And when Rose joined them… all would be made clear.
When they came to the double-doors of that inner chamber, Ochre went to open them, and gestured Indigo inward. “There we are, see? Table, some chairs… I got refreshments, too!” Lit by his own glow, he went to a table with a jug of water and ceramic cups nearby, a distraction from Indigo’s face.
“That won’t be necessary,” Indigo said.
“I mean - sure, but…” Ochre exhaled again, holding out his arms in reassurance. “Indigo, it’s okay. Nothing bad’s going to happen, not while I’m here. We’re in my home. You can relax.”
Indigo had his hand on his sword, as if preparing to unlatch it from his belt. “You swore… no harm to any guest of your home,” he said, stiffly. “You… still swear?”
“So long as I live, so long as this is my home,” Ochre said. “Let me take your sword from you, Indigo.”
The sword that Indigo carried had been forged for him by his son Violet, many, many years before. There had come a day that Violet had got it into his head to repay his parents for the gift of life that they had given him, and so he created a pair of blades forged from the same star-dropped meteor - a sword for his father Indigo, and a spear for his mother Rose, with a spear-head that could be detached and used as a knife. They were blades of the finest, sharpest steel, hard enough yet strong enough to cut through any material with ease.
Fabric, paper, wood, metal, flesh.
Even god-flesh.
Indigo did not say anything until after the blade had pierced Ochre’s heart, with a heaving sob in his throat: “My love, forgive me…!”
Ochre did not experience pain the way he knew living things experienced pain. He reflex-gasped from the hit to the chest, groaning as he fell to the floor, but he did not feel any discomfort. He felt his fingers growing numb, his limbs going cold.
“Indigo… Why…”
Ochre could see his own color fading, Indigo’s color lighting up the room. The ichor bleeding out of him looked like it was shining, as if in vivid response, the light of his life draining away, his face and hands now completely numb.
“She must be stopped. There is no other way.”
Ochre could no longer see Indigo’s face, or his form, or his light. His whole body was numb. His words were going away. He was so, so cold.
He managed to say one last thing, before the words left him completely:
“But it’s not her…”
The last thing Ochre saw was the long shadow of another figure behind Indigo, the addition of another color, a warm color, mixing with the dying dusk of his sight.
The last thing Ochre heard was Rose’s trembling voice: “What have you done…?”
Ochre did not feel it when Indigo removed the sword from his body.
He was already gone.
This is where the Decay began.