A Loyal Companion

It was almost dawn by the time the meeting ended. Gin decided to continue the discussion tomorrow night. It was still raining outside. I stood in my room, by the window looking at the raindrops, and listening to rhythm of the rain.

I sensed energy stopped outside my door, I knew it was Gin. As much as I wanted to talk to him about my dreams, I couldn’t, because I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t even remember much about them.

“Come in” I finally said. Gin never knocked my door. He would wait in front of the door until I let him in. He knew that I could sense him.

Gin was still in his all black clothing when he came, only the red tie was missing. He sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me, the worry in his eyes was still there.

“I didn’t know anything about Aranthias”

He gave a soothing smile, like he always did whenever I felt uneasy.

“I know… I was surprised when you said the name… even I have forgotten that name a long time ago”

I sat on the spot next to him.

“Tell me about him”

“Aranthias was a myth… he was the Prince of light according to the myth, he wasn’t born, he was made by thoughts of his people. When the people worship gods, Aranthias was light. Not the sun, but simply light… light in people’s hearts, in other words, he was hope”

“If Aranthias was something important like that, why was he forgotten?”

“Aranthias wasn’t forgotten… he was consumed by people’s greed… which eventually darkened people’s hearts. When he was first made, he was a symbol of hope. Then a terrible war happened. It wasn’t human war, it was our war. It was the war between Absolon and our world, there used to be a portal between the Absolon and our world, made by Anglo, the dark prince, who died, killed by Grenwynn, a werewolf warrior who sacrifice his life in doing so. Everyone at the time thought that if the dark prince was dead, the portal would disappear, but it didn’t. Since then, no one could close the portal, no one knew how, many had tried and never returned. During the war, people lost faith… our people depended on our own power, and did not worship the power of the gods. Tales of Aranthias was slowly forgotten because people were too busy telling stories of their heroes and warriors. Aranthias was slowly fading”

Gin looked at me again, as if he was making sure that I was listening.

“According to a witness - ”

“Wait, there was a witness?” I interrupted.

A chuckle came from the older man, he tilted his head in a way that said ‘sort of’.

“A seer looked into an old artifact left behind near the site of the portal, presumably it fell off the owner when she was taken. According to the seer, a witch named Zae with a mission to close the portal found a baby in the woods during the war, which was believed was Aranthias in a human form according to the witness. Zae saved the baby and took him with her, but she was overpowered by enemies. She was taken into the underworld with the baby. We all knew what happens when we stepped in the underworld, we would go insane because there was no hope, no light, everything in the underworld was so miserable that even if you bring a plant there it would die once the air touches it. No one knew what happened, the seer could only see what happened up to the moment she was taken, and said that moments after Zae and the baby was taken, a blast came from the portal before it disappeared, leaving only death on its immediate surrounding. It was said that all plants within ten meter radius from the portal withered, and birds that happened to fly within that radius dropped dead. Many has attempted to re-open the portal, with no result”

I knitted my eyebrow at this, it didn’t make sense.

“Why would they want to re-open the portal?”

Gin smiled at me, seemingly happy that I asked the question.

“That is because what Zae did, brought back Aranthias in people’s heart, they wanted to find Aranthias and bring him back to this world”

“So why haven’t I heard the tale of Aranthias if he came back to people’s heart?”

“Time went pass, and after awhile with no one succeeded to re-open the portal, people starting to believe that Aranthias died in that blast… the world turned into a living hell, with greed, corruption, and war, not just our war, but the Normals too as you already knew... and people forget Aranthias”

“Do you think he is alive?”

“No one knows. Some said that he died, some said he was reborn on earth again, but some said that he still lives in the underworld being a slave, couldn’t escape because he didn’t know the nature of his powers, he was tortured but could never be killed because he was protected by Zae’s last hope… it must’ve been around about the time you were born that the later theory was developed. But people hardly spoke about it at the time anyway, they decided that the myth of Aranthias should die with their generation and stop giving their children false hope, and faked the story of the underworld was inaccessible”

I sat cradling a glass of whiskey in one hand, I needed something stronger than tea to help me sleep that night. I was still unsettled, still restless, something was wrong, I felt it in the pit of my stomach.

Shifting my eyes to the window I gaze across to admire the magnificent display of the light from the city of Avon. I sighed as I saw a plane took off from behind the hill, silently wishing them safe travel.

“Normals… they had no idea how easy they have it” I turned to face Payne, who was pouring a glass of whiskey and soon joined me by my side.

“Human nature” I shrugged, agreeing with him. Most Supers served in the human wars, and it was no different than our wars, we lost people, we killed people. For what? More power?

“How are you anyway? I haven’t seen you for awhile, Roan was asking about you” he asked, he had sat down on one of the couches by then, sipping his drink while keeping an eye on me. I took a deep breath and sat across from him, and gave him a small smile.

“Been busy, trying to work freelance while keeping patrol for any rogue Supers could be challenging”

“If you need a change of scenery, you know where to go” he raised his glass. I raised mine and drank to that. Maybe I’d take him up on the offer once all these portal business was over.

“I’m retiring” he suddenly said. I looked up, I knew the news was coming.

“After this mission, I’m handing over my position to the new Alpha” he added.

“Roan?”

He nodded and took a sip of his drink.

“I thought you’d like to know”