You come into the temple once again, bearing the heavy weight of a dozen pints in your hands. Though you get a few strange glances from some of the acolytes still coming around, most of the gods just give you a subtle nod, knowing exactly who your delivery is headed for. You find him where he always is - in a forgotten corner, away from everyone else. Every visit to him… stings a little bit. When you round that corner, in the back of your mind you can almost imagine the Ethan you knew confidently striding over to greet you, telling some slightly flirtatious joke about your hands being occupied. But you never see that, not anymore. You find him huddled in the corner, wary and afraid, haunted and disheveled. It hurt to see so many of the things that made them who they are simply… gone, replaced by fear and trauma.

You want the old Ethan back. You want to rid them of all the pain they experienced. You want the Ethan that could walk outside with drowning in fear. You want the Ethan that could never even imagine saying the words 'I hate you'. Gods, you just want the both of you to be okay, is that so much to ask?

And now you have a way. A flick of a paintbrush and his pain would be gone. You don't quite know how it works, whether there would be unpleasant consequences… but after watching them reach for 'Oblivion'… watching them nearly choose to erase it all just to rid themselves of the grief and pain… you just couldn't leave him be. Just the thought that he might simply snuff out every bit of emotion felt for you, every memory you shared, that he might one day look at you and feel nothing, fail to even recognise who you are… you couldn't live with that. You… you don't know what you'd do. Perhaps you'd fall into oblivion too…

So you sit by them and pass over a few mugs.

You hope these will not be the last you share with him.
A bee buzzes
You both begin to chug your beers in silence, neither of you knowing how to start.

“…I wonder if you can beat me now.” - you hear Ethan speak as you are halfway through the first pint.

“What, feeling a buzz already?” - you respond after finishing with the first round. A bee buzzes in response.

“No… I was just thinking… how much of me was my power… my skin. I wanted it gone so bad, and I feel only relief that it's gone but… it makes me wonder.”

“Ethan, you're… you, no matter the powers. You're more than a way to get a couple of pints or a buddy to drink with, you always were.”

“But still… I'm different now, aren't I? No longer jovial, no longer joking. I…”

He drains his second mug, hesitating before finishing the sentence.

“I can see that… dismay in your face every time you come by, seeing… what's left of me, what's left of the person you loved.”

“No. That-that's not it. I love you, Ethan. Even as you are now. I just…”

You drain your second mug as well, misliking the sorrowful turn the conversation is taking.

“It just hurts, Ethan. Every time I see you cower and hide because some fucking bastards decided they were entitled to a piece of you.”

You drain a third trying to cool the anger that starts welling up inside of you the moment you remember why it ever even came to this.

“I know… what it's like to be twisted up and spit out, to be hurt, to lose something of yourself… I-I don't want that for you. Not when you have another choice.”

Ethan doesn't reply for a while, drinking his third pint instead. They stare out into the distance after finishing, failing to look at you as they answer.

“It just… feels like I'm broken in a way that'll never be fixed. And that… scares me. The idea that this might just be forever, that I might live on only to be a painful shard stuck in your heart. I don't know… if I'll be able to go on if that turns out to be true, Sammy.”

You pale at just how… weak, how fragile Ethan seems now. A fourth pint to wash down the emotion before you answer him.

“It'll work. We'll get through this, one way or another. You'll get better… and even if you never go back to how you were, I'll still love you regardless.”

Ethan chokes on their words, looking away from you as tears start to form. He quickly picks up the fourth mug and drains it. In almost a whisper he speaks to you.

“If it… if it kept hurting you… I'd wish you stopped loving me.”

You can barely squeeze out a reply

“I could never bear to stop loving you.”

You both finish the last pint at the very edge of tears.

It's time.

You take out the paintbrush, your hands shaking.

Ethan looks over to you, a tear streaking down their cheek.

He puts his hand on yours, trying to steady it, yet you find him shaking just as much as you.

Still, he looks into your eyes and very quietly says - “I love you.”

An embrace and a kiss, then he closes his eyes and waits for you to act.

So you do.

---

My name is Ethan Steelhart.

I run a small tavern by the outskirts of Ytic, serving travellers heading to distant places.

I.. used to be a god, years ago now. God of booze, with a single acolyte…

So much had happened since then, so much had changed… though much of it I no longer remembered. They told me of the calamities that befell Ytic, week after week back then. They gave me such pitiful looks as they explained how the gods had been stripped of power in such a cruel manner, left helpless, some even harvested for their skin. They told me how I was flayed, made to suffer at the hands of others while blind and paralysed.

Yet when I thought back to those days, all I could remember was drinking merriment… and love.

There were gaps of course, where… memories were excised… for my own good.

It all felt so distant… like it all happened to some other person, someone who wasn't me.

An maybe that was the case. Even if Sammy told me I was worrying for nothing… I couldn't help but think if I was… the same person they fell in love with…

It kept me up some nights…

But most nights I was just happy to be here.

What people told me of those days… made me appreciate I was still around at all.

I could… ignore this.

I could ignore the strange looks Sammy gave me sometimes.

I could ignore that itching feeling that I was missing something I couldn't get back.

I could live with this.

So long as he was happy.

---

My name is Samphire Steelhart.

I wander around, working with the Royal Guard - keeping Ytic safe and getting into the occasional brawl.

And every evening I'd return to the same tavern to see the face of the one I loved.

It'd worked. They were free of all the pain and suffering the world had unfairly drowned them in. And they still remembered me, still loved me.
A bee flies by
I had the love of my life, friends that had seen me through thick and thin.

I watched the world bloom after it had been ruined.

I was happy.

He was happy… yet so often I was reminded that a part of him was gone.

The way he'd stare at me in slight confusion, that lack of comprehension, whenever we ended up talking about those days.

The way he… lost that slight… something, from those days the two of us were the only thing getting each other through the day.

It felt… a little like they were a different person.

I loved them still, no less than before… but…

Gods, this made me feel sickeningly selfish, but a part of me grieved what was lost.

The pain we shared was forgotten, even if the love shared was not.

And I was the only one that would remember.

I still had nightmares some nights… no longer of visions, but of those days instead, of what they made of Ethan…

But most nights I was just happy he was safe.

It could have gone far worse, I could have lost him.

I could… ignore this.

I could ignore how they seemed to know me a little less for what they'd lost.

I could ignore how I could only suffer through those memories alone now.

I could live with this.

So long as he was happy.