Summary: "The day you meet him, you're just a tiny bird, barely bigger than a newborn kitten, but your many eyes are all-seeing, spread all around your body. He is a small thing, dressed in rags that barely do anything to keep his thin, shivering body warm.
He looks at your feathery form without fear, hugs you to his chest, careful not to poke your eyes with his bony fingers.
You vow to cherish him."
___
Dirk is no god, and Jake is his Favored, reincarnating again and again to stay by his side.
Content warning
Implied rape/non-con (not between dirkjake).The Soul God and His Favored
Posted: 21/02/2023
Status: Completed
Author's note: Heed the tags.
The day you meet him, you’re just a tiny bird, barely bigger than a newborn kitten, but your many eyes are all-seeing, spread all around your body. He is a small thing, dressed in rags that barely do anything to keep his thin, shivering body warm. An orphan, your eyes tell you, with no family nor home, who has to steal to eat, often ending up being beaten as a consequence of his hunger.
He looks at your feathery form without fear, hugs you to his chest, careful not to poke your eyes with his bony fingers.
You offer him food and warm clothing, and he looks at you like you’re a god on earth, wide eyes the color of your forest, shining with emotion.
You vow to cherish him such that he stops looking at you that way.
You have no name, so he gives you one. You are now Dirk. It is a kind of blade, he tells you, from a country quite a ways away. You could know it just from looking at him of course, your eyes see all, but you love listening to his voice. He likely knows.
Dirk, and Jake.
Your names fit together quite well, you think.
The little boy grows, and so do you. Your regular offerings of nourishment have made him stronger, healthier. He is much taller, and his muscles are protected by a healthy layer of fat. He visits often, keeping you company and helping you expand your nest to better fit your growing body. His smile is bright, and you love listening to him talk about his days working for the local woodworker.
But you know he has no friends, your eyes tell you as much.
“I keep disappearing into the forest for hours on end,” he explains one day, his smile somehow upsetting to you, “they think me bewitched.”
“That’s nonsense,” you tell him, your feathers ruffled, “you are my friend. Should friends not visit each other? Should they not take care of each other?”
“They do not see it this way,” he says simply. You don’t like his expression. It is too sad, too hollow.
You spread your wings, now almost as big as he is, and bring him closer to you. He yelps as he suddenly finds himself cocooned by your feathers, but quickly relaxes in your hold, and lets himself fall asleep under your watchful eyes.
As you grow, your body becomes more human in nature. Perhaps it is a consequence of spending so much time with a human, that your body and mind would mold themselves to better fit the species you frequent the most. Yes, you think this is it, it makes sense in your mind, as all things your eyes tell you do.
You are still quite feathery, with no less than three pairs of wings sprouting from your back, one more on your head protecting your ears, as well as talons for hands and feet. And of course, your bright orange eyes are still scattered everywhere. But your face, and the middle of your body, are much more humanoid. You lose feathers in those places, to be instead replaced by barely visible hair, exposing your light skin to the sun. You notice your hair is thicker and longer atop your head, above your main pair of eyes, and over your groin, but aren’t sure why.
Jake shrugs and tells you humans just grow hair in strange places, but it’s different for everybody. You look at his forearms, and at the stubble around his jaw, and accept this as another strange fact about humans.
You notice he tries really hard to avoid looking at your chest and nether regions, and tell him there is no need for him to be embarrassed for you. You’re always naked, after all.
For some reason, this just makes him blush and sputter.
One day, he asks you how much you understand human concepts. You tell him you know all that he knows, even the things he only knows subconsciously, though you don’t always understand what he knows. He thinks it’s neat. You think it’s a bit confusing sometimes.
You tell him you understand the concept of gender, and though you never thought of it before meeting him, you think you’re a boy.
You understand from looking through his memories that humans with your body type often are women, but you don’t really care. He doesn’t seem to care either.
He still gets terribly flustered whenever his eyes wander a bit too low, and you find it infinitely amusing how embarrassed he gets by a little nudity. You have never worn clothes, and aren’t planning to anytime soon.
He’s getting popular in the village. You can see why, he is strong, friendly, and objectively good-looking. It would be stranger if people weren’t interested in him.
And yet, he remains alone.
You ask him why, once. He is getting all sorts of propositions from women and men alike, surely one of them would strike his fancy?
He gives you a sheepish smile.
“You already know why,” he answers.
You do, your eyes told you so, but you don’t understand.
“But why? Jake, you must realize by now that we’re very different. Would you rather not be with a human? Someone who will understand you better?”
Someone who will match his lifespan, you do not say. You have known, ever since you were aware enough to recognize your reflection as your own, that you would outlive him. That, ultimately, his presence in your life would be but a short instant, soon to be forgotten along the millennia.
His eyes soften as he looks at you, his smile barely qualifying as one anymore.
“Nobody’s ever understood me like you have.”
His life might end up being dreadfully short compared to yours, but you don’t care. You vow to make sure he never makes that lonely expression ever again.
If humans aren’t going to appreciate him beyond his looks, then you will.
He is always careful with your feathers, carding his fingers through them while making sure not to touch your eyes. You have no need for preening, your plumage is as magical as you are, always in order, always clean, always soft.
All the same, his hands on you feel heavenly, and he knows just where to touch to make you shudder. You sigh as his skilled hands turn you into putty, melting you down and building you up again and again.
It makes you feel things your previous form could never have felt, warmth in your belly and electricity all over, and while you are always facing away from him when he is handling your wings, you know he feels similarly.
Neither of you make mention of it.
Jake doesn’t visit every day. He has work, and some days trekking the whole way through the forest is too much for him. Other times, he just needs some alone time. It makes you feel a bit lonely, but you understand, that’s just how he is.
But he’s never stayed away for this long.
When he finally stumbles into your nest, you’re horrified to learn the reason.
He is pale, trembling, his clothes torn into rags and stained with both blood and something else you wish you didn’t recognize from his memories.
He looks haunted, and you feel your entire being going cold.
You spread your wings wide, and bring him to your chest, and he shatters in a million pieces. You clean him up, heal his wounds, and give him new clothes. Then, you cocoon him in your feathers, hide him from the world that hurt him.
With your eyes, you look through his memories to find those responsible. And wait.
When he is deeply asleep, you make appear what you know are his favorite blankets, bundle him into them so that he is comfortable and warm.
And then, for the first time in your life, you fly out of your forest.
Dark clouds form, electricity fills the air, and the villagers look up in both awe and fear at your appearance. You pay no mind to the terrified prayers and calls for mercy, and focus on your targets.
There were five in total. Three perpetrators, and two enablers. The perpetrators are struck down by pink lightning, torture is meaningless, all they deserve is death. The enablers are ran through by electricity. They will not die, but their souls will be no more. They will serve as example for the rest.
No one harms your Favored and gets away with it without grave consequences.
You tell the villagers so. Many go down on their knees in fear. You pay them no mind and go back to your nest, to Jake.
It storms severely for three days and three nights, only your forest is free from the elements. Jake doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t wonder about the thunder he can hear in the distance, about the simmering rage in your eyes, all of them. He lets you take care of him and curl around him protectively every night.
He doesn’t express any wish of going back to the village, and you can’t fault him for that. You tell him your nest is his nest, and his smile, although a bit crooked, is the highlight of your week.
When he finally leaves the forest to go back to his house (not his home, he says, because that’s you), you follow him out. Your previous frightening display of anger may have scared away the villagers from misbehaving, but you still worry about him.
He spots it first, focused as you are on him and not your surroundings. At the edge of the forest, a small wooden shrine was built. On its altar are all sorts of offerings of food and precious items.
Offerings to you, for your mercy.
They name you Yaldabaoth, the keeper of souls.
They call Jake your Favored, as you had called him when warning them, and look at him with the same awe as they do you.
It’s…uncomfortable. You didn’t like the worshipful glances when Jake did it, when you met, and you like it even less from them now. You are no god. Sure, you can perform some minor and major miracles, and yes, you’ve found out you can easily displace and destroy souls…but you are no god.
You’re just Dirk.
Jake makes it a point to call you by your name when he visits you, and you appreciate it.
Jake loves touching you. This is nothing new to you, you’ve known it since he first held your small feathery form in careful, trembling hands. Jake is tactile with you, always touching you in some way, hugging you, petting your feathers, holding your hand.
He kisses you. On the cheeks, at first, then the forehead, then your hands, your neck, your lips. His kisses are sweet, but deep. Languid, making you feel warm inside and out. Sometimes, his touches get a little more heated. Big hands, calloused from manual work, roam over your chest, cupping your breasts, wandering down to your stomach, your legs. Sometimes he kneels between your open thighs and presses his tongue into your folds, making you see stars.
He loves touching you, but he freezes when you try reciprocating. You know why, of course, and though you eliminated those who harmed him, the consequences are still present in him now. It shows in how he doesn’t like physical contact he hasn’t initiated, in how he gets nightmares, sometimes. In how, when you wake him from said nightmares, his eyes sometimes stay glassy, and he doesn’t recognize you, scrambles away from you as if burned.
So you work around it, don’t initiate contact but encourage him to do so, to search for his own pleasure and not just yours. He seems unsure at first, worried about being selfish, about hurting you in the process.
(Just like he had been.)
“If I didn’t want something, I would tell you. And you would listen.” It is no suggestion, nor an order or even a question. It is a fact, something you know for sure.
And it works.
(It has the somewhat humorous consequences of making you quite lazy during such activities, which he likes to tease you about. You’re fine with it. It works for the both of you.)
The village grows into a small town. Offerings are aplenty, but you have neither need nor desire for them, so you give them to Jake, who redistributes them to those who need it most. They consider it another godly act of yours, proof of your divinity and goodwill. It’s really not. It’s just proof of Jake’s own generosity towards those who had the same childhood as him.
You offer minor miracles sometimes, nothing big. A healed cut there, a little drizzle when the weather is particularly arid. Nothing too grandiose that would have them start depending on you. All your major miracles are for Jake, and Jake only. You made your intentions clear from the start, and they’ve accepted your decision.
You begrudgingly accept that, while you are no god, they sure do see you as one. So long as they don’t step foot into your forest or harm Jake, you will leave them be.
Jake grows older. His hair is turning gray, one strand at a time. You think he looks quite handsome like that, with his beard and laugh lines.
But it’s a glaring reminder of his mortality.
Nobody has ever touched your heart like him, you don’t think you will be able to love anyone else after he passes. Likewise, he doesn’t want to leave you alone, surrounded by people who adore you but don’t understand you. The inevitable heartbreak hangs over you like a guillotine, aimed straight at his head and your heart.
Until a witch comes into town.
Her hair is light like yours, almost white, and her eyes are a deep, unnatural purple.
She has had dealings with the eldritch, your eyes tell you.
She tells you you’re no god, and you agree with her. She doesn’t know what you are, but her “sources” tell you there’s a way for you and Jake to be together, always.
“Tie your souls together, and his will keep existing so long as yours does, you already know the way to do it,” she tells you, her words strange and echo-y. Likely being used as a mouthpiece for the true gods, the Old Gods.
You’ve never dealt with the eldritch, but you know there are always catches to their “helpful advice”. So you ask.
She smiles, a cold, dangerous smile.
“His body will remain human. He will die, and be reborn, again and again. But he will remember you, that I promise.”
You don’t see the witch again, but you bring the idea up to Jake. You’re reluctant to go through with it, you don’t know how this will affect him. But he’s enthusiastic about the idea, and you just can’t deny him anything. So you take him to your nest, lay him down, and reach your hand into his chest, right into his soul.
Your eyes see all. All the threads coming from his soul, a captivating gold you’ve never seen on any other living being. How and where to make knots with the wisps coming from your own soul. It’s slow, methodical work that takes multiple hours. Doing this any faster could cause irreversible damage to the both of you, so you take your time, and Jake lays there, gaze hazy while you mess with his very being.
And by the end, the two of you are linked in a way no other beings have been linked before. Above both your hearts, on your chests, is a symbol in the form of a winged heart cut in half. You like how it looks, despite your previous reservations about the ritual.
He blinks back into consciousness, then smiles a radiant smile.
“This is kind of like marriage, is it not?” He grins, and you lightly smack him over the head.
It really is, isn’t it?
You’re more than fine with it.
He lives a long time, kept younger by his active lifestyle and good health, so when he leaves you, even temporarily, you’re already prepared. He lies his head in your lap, frailer than he’s ever been, and you both know that, when he tells you goodnight, he falls asleep for good.
You should have asked the witch how long it would take for him to be reborn. A full century later, the town has grown into a large city, of which you are now the guardian deity. Your eyes scare the people away, so you’ve taken to keeping them all closed, save for the one pair on your face. It severely restricts your ability to read people, but they are more relaxed when you do things this way. You still refuse to wear clothes, but you do use your middle pair of wings to hide your body. You don’t like how some look at you when you uncover it, like Jake did, but wrong and unwanted.
You feel it when he’s reborn, can feel his soul stirring from its sleep, can feel its threads tugging on yours. You don’t know where he landed, exactly, and almost consider asking a witch to track him down for you, but you decide against it. He is known as your Favored. Often, it means he is elevated to the same godly status as you are, but you don’t trust people not to hurt him in order to get to you. You’ve seen the ugliness in people’s hearts.
Instead, he comes to you, young again but otherwise looking exactly like he did before. Rich skin, forest green eyes, dark hair, blinding smile. He shows you his mark, though there is no need, you recognize him immediately.
You don’t know how this could have happened, how he managed to keep his appearance the same, but you don’t complain, you unfurl your wings, every single pair, and open all your eyes to fixate them on him and him alone. Unlike the others, who seem intimidated by the gesture, he is delighted, and throws himself at you.
“Sorry for making you wait, love,” he murmurs into your ear, hugging you tightly, mindful of your many eyes.
“It’s okay, you’re here now.”
And it’s the truth. That century of waiting was worth it, just to be able to see him again, touch him again.
He tells you he was reborn into the English family, a family of wandering, multipurpose merchants. From botany to metalworking, they did a bit of everything. His mother didn’t make it and his father had no interest in keeping him, so his grandmother, the matriarch of the family, Jade, raised him instead and taught him everything she knew. She gave him the childhood he never had in his first life, and she believed him, when he told her he had been reincarnated.
He saw a lot of cities while traveling, many different people and cultures, and tells you all about them with great enthusiasm. You missed this, listening to him blabber at you about all sorts of things, missed the rich tone of his voice, his wide gestures, his smile.
Jake introduces you to Jade. She’s an older lady, her long hair completely gray and her eyes a light green. She looks a bit like Jake, and you wonder if he landed in her family by coincidence, or if he was purposefully put into a family with similar genes to his by some higher powers to better fit in.
You don’t know, you’re no god, despite what people tell you on the daily.
You like Jade, she doesn’t treat you like you’re special, she just treats you like one would treat their child’s partner, which you kinda are, technically. She shakes your hand firmly, and doesn’t bat an eye at either your lack of clothing or your eyes. You appreciate it.
You learn, mostly by accident, that Jake was reborn in a family of werewolves, when he shifts mid-coitus.
He looks as surprised as you are, and you later learn that the Englishes tend to be late bloomers, and that Jade had planned on telling him everything the day he first turned, as is tradition.
You think it’s a stupid and low-key dangerous tradition, and tell Jade that straight-out. She takes it in good humor, but agrees that they should probably start telling children earlier that they’re werewolves. Less panic this way, probably. Less shifting at unfortunate times, too, she teases you both, and Jake blushes bright red despite having technically lived much longer than her.
When the English family leaves the city, Jake makes the decision to stay here, though he keeps one of their messenger birds and promises to write.
He spends the rest of this life at your side, and the next, and the next, and the next.
The city keeps growing, and becomes a kingdom.
Sometimes, he finds you earlier, sometimes much later, depending on which part of the world he landed in that time. Once, he was born onto another continent, and had to take multiple boats, then carriages, to get to you. It took him years, but he told you all about the scenery he saw on the way with that cute grin of his, and all was well.
He makes love to you each time you reunite, it’s almost become a tradition for the two of you at this point.
You’re definitely not going to complain about that.
The kingdom makes many advances in both technology and magic. Offerings to Yaldabaoth dwindle, their beliefs moving to the factual rather than the divine. It feels strange after so long, but you enjoy the peace.
You keep your eyes closed, maybe that was a mistake.
A myth about Jake is born, unrelated to his status as your Favored. He is cursed, they say, this endless cycle of death and rebirth is his punishment for a great sin.
You start to wonder if you, perhaps, did something terrible to Jake. Making him be born again and again, with none of the eternal rest promised to others.
He makes no mention of that myth or its implications, continues living as he always had by your side, seemingly not haunted by the same thoughts as you.
The kingdom has no need for gods anymore, so you retreat back to your forest, Jake in tow. You still find a couple offerings at the edge of the forest once in a while, but they are very few. All the better, you quite like going back to a more anonymous life, where you can just be Dirk instead of Yaldabaoth, and live peacefully with Jake.
You should have opened your eyes when you said your farewells to your (not your, the) people.
You really should have.
They come into the night, when you’re both asleep in your nest, cuddling together inside the massive, fluffy blanket that is your feathers. Your forest was off-limits, it’s always been off-limits for millennia. You barely have the time to register what’s happening that you’re being grabbed by the wings—
(They’ll sell for a pretty penny to the mages. The scientists will definitely want the rest as a live subject.)
—and they’ve knocked out Jake, except no, he’s not just knocked out. His head makes a terrible crunching noise, and you immediately feel his soul go unresponsive, preparing for a century of sleep before reincarnation. If he was just hurt, you could have healed him. But he’s dead, they fucking killed him. Why? Why would they do this? You supported them for centuries, millennia even! Performed minor miracles, healed their wounds and fed their young. Why would they turn on you all of a sudden?
Except it’s not so sudden, isn’t it?
If you had opened your eyes, you would have known, would have seen their shifting intentions.
Your eyes see all, and yet you’d closed them for the comfort of those who want only to make profit off of you, now that your main purpose has been rendered obsolete by progress.
And you liked them, is the worst.
You’d gotten used to their gifts and words of adoration, to the festivals they would throw as thanks for saving their crops, for healing their ills. It was overwhelming at times, but you appreciated their devotion to you, their dedication to make gods out of you and your Favored.
You’d gotten so used to their love, that you’d failed to notice they’d stopped loving you at all.
What a fool you were. How could you have forgotten? Humans were the ones to reject Jake, to wound him both physically and emotionally. And yet you forgot, blinded by their so-called adoration.
Your wings violently throw your assailants away, and all your eyes open wide. What a fool you were, truly.
Yaldabaoth is he, the keeper of souls.
Yaldabaoth is also he, who brings forth chaos.
Storms, droughts, lightning strikes, forest fires, earthquakes. Assailed by an unnatural amount of “natural” disasters, the kingdom falls.
Neighbors murmur tales of caution. Their ambition was their downfall, they said, they tried to control gods.
This is due punishment for their hubris.
***
Once, there stood a vast kingdom, at the edge of a great forest. What is left of it is now known as the “cursed land”. Nothing grows, the weather is arid, all that is left is sterile soil, ruined stone, and a few dead trees.
And among those dead trees, stands a single one, bigger than the others, still sturdy despite its death. In its branches is a large nest, inside which lies a cocoon of feathers, protecting its sole living inhabitant from the harsh sun.
As well as the bones of his beloved.
***
You feel empty, after your rampage. Inhuman in a way other than physical.
You know he will be reborn, you know it. So you wait.
You feel his soul stir.
He doesn’t come.
He is reborn again.
He doesn’t come.
Tired of waiting, you let yourself fall asleep, Jake’s skull cradled in your arms.
“Damn, they weren’t kidding with the whole “cursed land” shtick, huh?” Someone whistles.
“Heh, yeah,” someone else answers. “He sure did a number on this place. I can’t really blame him for it, though.”
“Yeah, I get ya. So, where we goin’? Because I’m all for keeping you alive and stuff but don’t ask me to find the way because I don’t know crap about geography.”
A laugh.
“No need, I can find my way, no problem! I’ve managed to find him even when I was thrown at the other end of the world, so this is a piece of cake. I promised him I’d always find my way back to his side, and it’s a promise I’m damn planning on keeping.”
“Aww, cute.”
Something is tugging at your feathers, you shake them away, grumbling.
“Oh, come on, love, don’t be like that. I think you’ve had quite enough sleep!”
You grumble again, but the voice is stirring something inside you. Deep, deep inside you.
Hands go through your feathers with the precision of someone whose had centuries of experience, and massages just the right place to make your wings relax and slowly fall open on their own. Slowly, you start squinting your main eyes open, though the others also start opening. Damn, the sun is bright.
“Oh. Oh, dear.”
Blearily, your eyes focus on the person talking to you. You know this voice, have heard it so many times it’s engraved into your very soul.
”…Jake.” Your voice is rough from disuse. You’re surprised it still works, though whatever sound you just croaked out barely counts as a word.
It’s Jake. Looking youthful again and, most importantly, alive. You don’t recognize the style of clothing he’s wearing, and he now wears glasses in front of his eyes. He is looking down at you, or rather, at what you’re holding.
Ah, right.
The skull.
That’s probably gross to him, huh? You know he’s always loved skulls, but he was never particularly keen on keeping his own, preferring to have his various bodies be incinerated.
But rather than react in disgust for keeping his corpse, or anger for throwing a fit and destroying an entire fucking kingdom…he brings you close, and cradles you to his chest in a motion that reminds you so strongly of your first meeting.
“Oh, lovely. I’m so sorry for leaving you all alone like this,” he babbles into your hair, and you let his skull fall from your hands to throw your arms around him and hold him in a vicious grip, “I tried to get back to you, I really did. But this place is almost impossible to get to without strong protective magic, and I died a couple times trying to cross over like a complete blubbering idiot, which only made the wait longer! And, really, I’m so sorry, Dirk.”
Dirk, the blade.
That’s right.
You’re Dirk.
Not Yaldabaoth. Not the keeper of souls or miracle worker or bringer of chaos.
Just Dirk.
Some guy with too many wings, too many eyes, and who loves too much.
Dirk.
“Jake,” you repeat. “Jake. Jake, Jake.”
“I’m here, sunshine, I’m here.”
You’re just Dirk. And Jake is your Favored, your beloved, and he’s alive, he’s here, holding you again.
You’re Dirk, and he’s Jake, and your souls are singing together once more.
When you fly down, Jake in tow, from what barely even qualifies as a nest anymore, you see her. Light hair with unusual pink highlights, and hot pink eyes. A witch, and a powerful one at that. For some reason, her face looks vaguely familiar to you, but you can’t place exactly where you’ve seen it. You’ve met many people during your long, long life, many witches. She tells you she kept Jake safe with her magic all the way to here, that she was the only one just crazy enough to answer his request for an escort smack dab into the cursed land.
That was your fault, you think. You made the place so unlivable and dangerous that Jake couldn’t get here without help. It’s your fault the both of you were separated for so long—
As if reading your thoughts, Jake squeezes your shoulder, as always careful not to poke your eyes, and the whirlwind in your mind halts to a stop.
“Come on, love. What do you say about living in a nice little cottage in the forest? Built it with my own hands and all. It’s not a nest in a tree, but I’m sure you’ll like it.” He winks at you, and for the first time in centuries, you smile, softly.
”…Sure.”
(You ignore the witch’s coos at your blatant displays of domesticity, too overjoyed by the fact that Jake is here, with you. You will miss your old home, now reduced to nothing more than burnt sticks and ruined rocks, but it’s like Jake told you a long time ago. Home isn’t a place. It’s Jake.)
Author's note: Dirk : I'm not a god.
Dirk : *proceeds to kill millions in a fit of godly rage*
Yeah, checks out.
I'm planning of writing a little continuation to this, featuring all the alpha kids living as a family and getting into various magical hijinks. It'll be fun, daily-life stuff to make up for this emotional rollercoaster. :')
Oh, and by the way : "keeper of souls" and "bringer of chaos" are both real descriptions of Yaldabaoth as a mythological figure, based on the etymology of their name. Another description of them is also "bringer of new generations", as their name is sometimes theorized to contain the word "fatherhood".
I'm planning on doing something with that last description, in the sequel. :3c