Sold my soul to the calling, sold my soul to a sweet melody

[darlingdatura]

Mikh'tan had no idea if Loki could hear him. On the Source it was simple enough. On the First, on this other world, he didn't know. It just made him feel so incredibly lonely, though his habit didn't change. He still lit his candle, still spoke as though the god could hear. Left his offerings. Loki was never predictable. He had other things to do surely than hang on the words of one single follower. He just had to trust that his words reached the god. It was all he felt he had as things spun further and further out of control. As the lines between right and wrong blurred even more.

It wasn't unlike back on the Source at the base of the problem. Powerful creatures terrorizing the populace wreaking destruction. But here it was more desperate in a way- the world was already nearly entirely flooded with Light, almost entirely absorbed by Order and Stasis which was warping and creating the horrible creatures they were fighting, the creatures that used to be people before the Light warped them beyond recognition.

He wondered if it would happen to him too in the end. Every one of the Lightwardens he destroyed restored balance to the area it had staked out, allowed the return of night, lessened the hold of the Light, but he could feel the excess aether, white-hot and bitterly cold as it seeped through his soul, and like a vine climbing a wall, the roots drove deep, to the point where he could almost swear that each pulse of the aether let him feel the cracks starting to spread. It was something he could almost ignore when he had other things to worry about, distracted by the fight, by helping others, by the million and one things that took up his day.

But night fell leaving him alone and he felt the pulse of Light almost like an infection in his veins, tasted the cold burn of the aether on back of his tongue as his vision whited out briefly. Unable to help the soft little keen of distress, ears pinned against his hair as he tried to focus enough to press past the pain and swim of vertigo. It would pass as it always did, as it had to. He had to be okay. He couldn't afford to be consumed, not knowing what would happen.

He'd feel more confident about his chances if he could keep his hands from quaking long enough to light the candle for that evening's prayers, but such was life.