theninjagoose

  The m, they woke before the sun rose to get out of sight before the valley's inhabitants started roaming around. Shiloh removed the silver neckce from Viktora's neck, much to everyone's surprise but nobody's obje. Viktora looked the most shocked, but Shiloh insisted that if she was going to be helping them, then she shouldn't be forced to give up her natural strengths. When Ara began leading up the mountain, however, Viktora was quick to stop them.

  "Where are you going?" She asked, looking fused.

  "Over the mountains." Ara replied, looking equally fused.

  "Why?"

  They all looked at her now.

  "We o leave the valley." Shiloh said carefully. "Do you know of another way out?"

  "There is a cave system running uhe mountains, which leads all the way through to the southern nds."

  "You've got to be kidding me." Beck sighed. "Why didn't we know that?"

  All eyes turo Twil. "The caves are well-doted, but unmapped. If we got lost, it would take far loo get through the mountain than to go over it."

  "But we wouldn't have had to climb a gods-damn mountain or freeze our tits off for the st week!" Beck whined.

  "I get us halfway through the caves." Viktora said. "My mother told me where she met with the Third who sired me and, acc to her stories, that pce is roughly halfway to the other side."

  Shiloh smiled at her, and the vampire blushed. "That would be fantastic, Viktora. Thank you."

  With Viktora now in the lead, the party made a wide detour through the forest until they found arao the cave system, nearly rown by the underbrush. If she hadn't beeo show them, Shiloh was sure that they never would have seen it.

  A few minutes after they ehe cave system, they were forced to stop a some nterns lit. Elnor and Viktora could see just fine in the low light, but the rest of them were struggling not to bump into one ahe cave system was dank and damp, with water drops eg as they fell from stactites into puddles on the floor. It was thankfully tall enough and wide enough that they weren't very cramped, but the echos boung dowunnel kept them on edge. If there was anything down here, it would know about them far before they would know about it.

  They walked for several long hours uhe crushi of the mountains in total silence, save for the echoes of their footsteps or their armor. Another be to the rge tunnel was the prevention of custrophobia. Shiloh could almost fet that there were miles of stoting on top of them, waiting to colpse and crush them to dust.

  Wheopped for lunch, Viktora pulled Shiloh aside and walked back up the tunnel until they were almost out of sight of the others. Wheuro face him, she kept looking over his shoulder at the rest of the party, as if cheg to see if they were trying to listen in.

  "Is everything okay?" Shiloh whispered, trying not to look amused at the vampire's nervous gnces.

  "Yes. No. I don't... Who's in charge here?" Shiloh raised and eyebrow and she huffed. "You know what I mean!" She insisted. "I thought you were the leader, but then I found out the rest of them are like me. Nobody seems to be the one in charge of all the decisions. They all seem to defer to you, but you always want everyone else's opinion. It's a madhouse."

  Shiloh couldn't help the small chuckle he let out, whily exacerbated Viktora's frustration. "Nobody is 'in charge' in roup, Viktora. We are all equals who are w together to achieve the tasks id before us, and that includes you."

  She snorted. "Equals? If you were all equals, then there wouldn't be such a strength disparity. The rest of them are all strohan you, yet they still allow you to make decisions. Do the weakest members of the pack lead where you're from?"

  Shiloh looked at her very seriously. "We are not equal in strength, I won't argue that. I won't even argue the fact that I am the weakest member of our team. We are equal in value, though. I love each of them with all that I am, and I know they love me iurn. None of us are more important thahers, so we want to know what everyohinks before making big decisions."

  "Don't lie!" Viktora snarled. "You untied me. You removed the silver from my neot because of what the others thought but in spite of it. If you are the leader, then own it. I don't uand why you put up this facade of colboratiohey all seem perfectly fiing you make the calls."

  Shiloh was stunned. He couldn't refute her points. He'd made several decisions uniterally, and the girls had all gone along with it, evehey didn't agree. Was he being disrespectful to them? Did he truly value their opinions the same as his own? His morality, o shared by the inhabitants of Glitnir, often demanded a or ina trary to their own. How were they to bahat?

  Viktora looked smugly up at him, being just a few inches shorter than he was, and waited for a reply that he didn't have.

  "I don't know." Shiloh finally admitted. "I don't think of myself as the leader. I want their input ohing, but sometimes I just know what the right thing to do is, you know?"

  He started back towards the others, and heard Viktora padding along quietly behind him. They looked up as he approached, and remained silent while he tried to figure out how to broach the subject. Eventually, Viktora sighed and stepped forward to be level with him.

  "Who is the leader?" She asked the group at rge.

  Without hesitation, without so much as missing a beat, the rest of them responded in unison. "Shiloh."

  His head snapped up and searched their faces. Ara and Beck were amused, as per usual. Elnor and Katerine were fused and slightly affronted, as if the question was imperti. Twil was impassive as always, though even his Mistress had said that he was the leader. Viktora looked at him with even more smugness in her face.

  "Well?" She asked.

  "Well what?" Shiloh mumbled, still not sure what to make of this.

  "How do they know you're the leader if you don't even know you're the leader?"

  "He's the avatar of Aphrodite." Twil stated logically. "Of course he's our leader."

  That's when it clicked. He heard Aphrodite's words resounding through time, from before he was reinated.

  Being an avatar means you’d have direct access to me, and there would be many on Glitnir who would give you a great deal of deference if they knew you were my avatar.

  He put his hands up and took a step backwards. "Whoa, okay. Hold on. Just because I'm her avatar doesn't mean I'm automatically your 'leader'. This is supposed to be a team, right? We're supposed to work through things together, to make decisions together, to take risks together."

  "We do all that." Ara said. "It doesn't make you any less our leader, though."

  Shiloh spluttered, and Elnor stepped in with her usual level-headed empathy. "Shy, I know that your world was vastly different than ours. I know that you're dealing with a lot of ges ing here, and you've done so admirably. There are many things that you don't know about Glitnir yet, though. One of them is that avatars of gods are essentially demigods here. They always get more powerful skills, direct access to the gods, and are often longer-lived than they ought to be. For these, and many other, reasons, avatars are revered on Glitnir.

  "If you were to walk into the pace of the emperht now and demand a fiefdom of your own to rule, with no prior experience or qualifications other than being an avatar, it would be grao you. The emperor himself would bow to you, to do what he to appease you and to stay in yood graces, though he and other nobles would also be trying to politically maneuver you into their er. Being an avatar essentially makes you the living embodiment of the will of whichever god you represent. How could any of us cim to be equals with that?"

  Shiloh was about to issue a biti regarding the dignity of all se life when a wave of calm rushed over him. He heard the voice of a divine being ringing in his ear, which he reized as the goddess of order and equality, Nemesis.

  Speak not ill to your es, Shiloh Sutton.

  "They're not my -" Shiloh tried to say, but Nemesis plowed on ahead.

  They have told you the truth. Just as a man has more value than a chi, so an avatar has more value than a man. To imply otherwise would be to insult your own patron, to make her equal to mortals and deserving of no more respect thahis is a truth you must recile within yourself. If you are at war with your nature, you ot achieve the heights of power required to fulfill your duties. Accept what you are, for it is part of who you are.

  Shiloh pted what she'd said. The world of Glitnir was obviously pying by a differe of rules thah did. If he were anything but an avatar, he would have insisted on equality among their group. He was an avatar, though. He was the avatar of Aphrodite. His as were in service of her will, and he was given knowledge and wisdom beyond the realm of mortals.

  But he just felt like Shiloh. He felt like the same guy who'd gotten hit by a train oh, except now his wildest dreams had e true. Was that ging who he was? Would it be a bad thing if it did?

  Shiloh vaguely reized his lovers expining his tact with the gods to Viktora, but he was too ed up in his owo tribute anything to the versatioually he stood and murmured, "I'll be back." He walked about twenty feet from their stopping point and sat down, leaning against a rock that had e free of the wall some unted years ago. He felt like he was having ay crisis, and he couldn't stop himself from spiraling out.

  His thoughts were rag a mile a minute; fears of what he'd bee, worries of what y ahead, ay over how he hadn't noticed any of it until it ointed out to him. He was on the verge of hyperventiting when he felt his smallest lover's hand on his shoulder. He looked up at Twil, who was nearly blurry beynition, and realized that he was g. He tipped over into her, and she stroked his head softly. Not saying anything, just being there for him to lean on.

  "What am I? Who am I?" He sobbed quietly.

  "You are miwil said simply, with the air of someoating the most basic facts of the universe. "You are my Shiloh. You are the stro person I've ever met."

  Shiloh s that. Even Viktora, who had known him for all of two days, khat each of them were strohan he was. His snort of derision earned him a sp upside the head from Twil. He looked up at her and saw anger in those shogly blue eyes.

  "What has happeo you would have broken a normal man, Shiloh Sutton. You have accepted the role of avatar, and I have watched you every day, fighting against your past and your demons and refusing to be anything other than the passionate, loyal, loving man that you are. The kind of strength that takes matters far more than who lift the heaviest fug rock, you idiot.

  "Even now, you've reized that the power you are wielding is ging you. Instead of seeking more power for power's sake, you were immediately ed by the fear that you wouldn't remain true to yourself or to those you care for. That fear will cripple you as easily as the Unbridled Sea, if you let it. So now, the only question that matters is this: do you trust us?"

  Shiloh looked back down and muttered indignantly. "Of course I trust you."

  "Then you must choose to believe that we will front you if you stray from the noble, honorable, g man that we fell in love with. You let us worry about that, and leave yourself free to do the tasks Aphrodite has entrusted you with."

  Shiloh sat in silence, letting the touch of Twil's fingers upon his scalp soothe the rest of the crushi of responsibility away. "No man is meant to stand alone, Shy."

  Her use of the affectation forced him to look up again. Her eyes were full of love, and she smiled sadly down at him. "Don't try to do it yourself."

  "Thank you, Twil."