Chapter 405

Heaven and Earth sat at his table in the Nazarick Bar. A drink down beneath his eyes, ripples went back and forth against the inner rim of the horn. 'Heaven and Earth… what a stupid name.' He reflected on that, and reached for the little bowl in the center of the table, the little salty snack in there almost melted on his tongue. 'Pretzels… you could sell these to every bar in the Theocracy and make a fortune.' He tried to distract himself with the idle thought while the bread crunched between his teeth in the moment before they went soft and mushy. 'It felt so real… So. Damn. Real.' He repeated in his head as he recalled the vision or dream or whatever it was that he experienced.

'What a nightmare world, no way I'm brave enough for a time like that. Just… no way.' He thought and stared at his reflection in the amber liquid.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he barely registered when someone else entered, but when he was addressed, he did look up.

"You. Fought. Lord Ainz." It was the ice insectoid being, the one their intelligence agents reported spent most of his time in the Holy Kingdom…

'Cocksure… Cockyus…Cocktyus…' Tenjho plucked at the strands of memory for the name, "Cocytus!" He said it aloud when he was sure he'd gotten it right, and the ice creature cocked his head slightly to the left.

"You. Know. My. Name?" The question was a fair one, and hardly had a secret answer, so Tenjho gave it without hesitation.

"There aren't many like you, and we make it our business to know potential opponents." Tenjho admitted.

The ice being took that in without complaint, went to the bar, and a moment later approached the broad table where Heaven and Earth resumed staring into his horn.

The silence stretched out between them, but it was Cocytus who broke it. "May. I. Join. You?" He asked.

"I'm a guest… or prisoner… or prisoner guest… just do whatever you like." Heaven and Earth said with a broken whisper, though out of the corner of his eye he watched as the chair meant for a single person 'expanded' to allow the giant being to sit comfortably. In each of Cocytus's hands there was a different colored drink, red, green, blue, and yellow, all composed of ice and with long red straws sticking out of the center.

Seeing the strange look the Black Scripture member gave to his drinks, Cocytus chose to explain without being asked, "A. Drink. From. Another. World. Called. Icees. Flavored. With. Fruit. Try. One?" He offered and looked down reluctantly at the four drinks before extending the green one toward the warrior.

"No, no thank you." Tenjho said and tapped the side of the cream colored horn with the side of his finger. "I haven't even started on this one, and I should be grateful to even have this much."

"You. Were. Brave. To. Fight. The Allfather." Cocytus offered the praise and Heaven and Earth shook his head.

"No, I wasn't." He said and brought the drinking horn to his lips, flavor burst on his tongue from the mead and slid down his throat, it was only when he lowered the horn that he realized there was no way to set it down without it falling over. "How… how do I put it down?"

"If. You. Cannot. Finish. The. Contents. Give. It. To. One. Who. Can." Cocytus answered, and in an instant, Tenjho understood. He understood, and he laughed.

"Soldiers and their drinking… even here they find ways to make it a contest of wills." Tenjho said and threw the goblet up to his lips again and began to chug.

"Why. Do. you. Think. You. Were. Not. Brave?" Cocytus asked. "You. Fought. A. God. Is. That. Not. Courage?"

The bartender, seeing the horn empty, approached with a pitcher, he bowed forward, tilting his sightless mushroom head over the human in a half bow and refilling the horn to the brim. He stood by and waited while Tenjho drained the horn in draught after draught until the pitcher was empty… and Heaven and Earth felt unsteady even in his seating, and a vague 'lightheadedness' came over him. Cocytus only slurped through all four straws at once and waited.

"He fought four of us. And I attacked out of fear. Afraid. I was just afraid." Tenjho spat the words like bile.

"You. Could. Have. Run." Cocytus said, "Or. Surrendered."

"My friends might have died… no, we died anyway. And… in that thing… the vision… so real, I… we…" Tenjho struggled, fumbled for words through his foggy mind, the impressions were real, the feeling of pain, the shock on the eyes of his comrade, the pain in Zesshi's eyes and her betrayal when they came to kill her… "No, I'm a coward. I'm just a strong coward."

"Would. You. Be. Brave. If. You. Were. Invincible?" Cocytus asked.

"Yes, of course. If I had nothing to fear, couldn't be hurt, I-" Tenjho began to babble, but the blast of icy breath came out from between the creature's mandibles with such force that its winter cold caressed his face.

"No. Courage. Is not. Fearless. Courage. Is. Acting. Despite. Fear. The. Woman. Skana. Was. Brave. So. Was. Gazef. They. Were. Afraid. But. They. Went. Forward. Anyway. I. Saw. You. Fight. You. Are. Brave." Cocytus offered the warrior's praise and even gave a deferential bowing of his head, then brought his icees to his mandibles and slurped all four at once.

It felt oddly warming to be praised by someone who should have been an enemy. "In. Your. Vision. Why. Did. you. Support. Zesshi?"

"I… she saved my life, we fought together, trained together, we were comrades, even if I could never match her. I wasn't in control in that vision… not really, not for most of it… just carried along, but I had thoughts, memories, they felt like mine… I just… I had to, I knew I had to stand by her over the people who sent me to kill her." Tenjho answered and Cocytus quietly slurped until there was nothing but the sound of air pulling the last dregs of his frozen drinks into his mouth.

When there was nothing left but empty air in the cups, Coctyus set them down on the table and said, "You. Stood. For. something. Cowards. Stand. For. Nothing. You. Doubt. Your. Courage. Even. While. You. Display. it. Like. Most. Humans."

"But that wasn't real… or… was it?" Tenjho protested and drained the horn, it clicked against the table when he set it down and it fell over, no drop of amber liquid dripped free to stain the wood, and the bartender took it away, snatching it up so quickly that Tenjho didn't notice until the curious creature was already back in his position again, cleaning both it and the pitcher out.

"I. Think. Yes. My. Creator. Spoke. Of. Games. Games. That. Changed. The. Past. Perhaps. This. Is. The result. Of. One. Creating. A. Better. Future?" Cocytus proposed and shrugged his shoulders.

'Is that possible…? By the six, if that future came to pass…' The dragonid Queen of Demalbion was said to have had such a reputation among demihumans that they all but worshiped her now. And before that, humans were said to have feared her so much that her position was given to her specifically to have her die in battle. 'What if, in some other world, she rallied armies of both and turned them on us…?' The threat of being surrounded by enemies was never far from the minds of those who ran the Slane Theocracy, or who fought to secure it. Such a possibility was too closely aligned to what happened in their collective nightmares, and the earth seemed to open up beneath his feet to swallow Tenjho whole.

'But that didn't happen. Something changed… but if it did happen? If that world might have been?' It was a comforting thought in the most twisted of ways.

He raised his eyes to the face of the insectoid and said simply, "Thank you."