Prompt# 244- Nonsense- Hope - Tekia - original

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Hope
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Nonsense
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Summary: When the god king preys to the gods, they listen, but sometimes, help comes too late.

Suppiluliuma woke in his bed with a start, his heart pounding. The room was lit only by the numerous stars littering the night sky outside his window. He sat up slowly, groaning as his old bones creaked and cracked with his movements. With his feet finally on the floor, he blinked around the room.
What had woken him so suddenly?
Oh, yes, that dream. He dreamed of fertile fields and fresh rain. He dreamed of hope. His heart began to settle in his chest and a smile was curving his lips before he remembered more of his dream.
He dreamed of hope for his race.
His eyes widened and he shot to his feet. Quickly, he was across the room and startling his guards.
“Quickly, man, to the temple. The Mother has spoken to me.”
The two guards fell instep with him as he rushed down the hall of his palace and then to the temple placed several corridors away. He sent one of his guards to fetch Pamba, then, when he met another on the way, him to fetch candles and priests. Hope, he thought, over and over, like mantra. Hope.
Hope.
He entered the temple, pausing a moment as the guards lit lanterns around him. The temple was just as he had left it the day before, silent and empty. The altar was filled with offerings to the missing god, and the lanterns filled the room with a golden sort of light.
Suppiluliuma approached the alter and knelt. He reached out and touched a finger to a goblet of gold and felt something inside him crumble. Tears filled his eyes as he realized that the gods hadn’t sent him hope, only a dream.
Nothing had changed.
It had been only a dream.
He bowed his head and quietly recited a prayer.
Pamba arrived and the guards stepped outside the door, letting them have the room. Pamba offered a prayer at the altar, then knelt beside his king.
“Great King, did the Mother speak to you?”
He shook his head. “I want hope for our people so bad, I think I fool myself.”
Pamba stared at him a moment, at a loss for words. Together, the two old friends sat in the temple, letting the emptiness fill them. After a while, Suppiluliuma broke the silence,
“I dreamed that Telepinu had come to us. To save us.” He slowly shook his head. “I know, awake now, that even if he did appear before us, it is too late. The Sea People have come to kill us, and the people of the cities have lost faith in our laws and protections. Our very city is starving and so little food reaches us from the outside.” He closed his eyes and tilted his face up toward the dark ceiling of the small temple. “We have to see to it that our people escape the clutches of the Sea People, at the very least.”
Pamba licked his lips once, then nodded. “I will tell the priests outside to begin the delectations.”
Suppiluliuma sighed. “We were great once, Pamba. Great enough that the gods lived in us. We stood on the top of the world, and now look at us.”
“We will raise again, Great King.”
“Not without Telepinu.”
Just then, a groan echoed in the room. Both men froze, then looked at each other. Pamba put a finger to his lips and silently gained his feet, his hand going to the short dagger hidden in his boot. A sigh followed the groan and the two men turned their eyes to the altar.
Suppiluliuma stood and walked around the altar, ignoring Pamba’s warning.
There was a youth laying face down on the stone ground. He was clearly in some pain as he groaned and carefully cradled his head in his hands. After a moment, the youth tried to sit up, only to have his limbs disobey him and he slumped back down to the cold stone. Suppiluliuma waved Pamba’s knife away, his eyes wide as he stared at the youth.
“Pamba,” he said slowly, “Do you feel that?”
Pamba’s shoulders lost the tension as he realized that he did feel what his king was referring to. He breathed, “A living god.”
Suppiluliuma nodded. “A living god.” He smiled sadly. “The Mother Hannahannah brought to us Telepinu.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he heard the soft rumble of thunder, followed quickly by the welcome cadence of rain falling on the roof overhead. He blinked away tears. “Our hope has come, Pamba, but its too late for us.”
Pamba felt something heavy move within him and he straightened his back. “Then you must perform the ritual without delay.”
Suppiluliuma frowned, “Nonsense. We must prepare properly.”
“You said so yourself, Great King, there is no time. With every delay, we grow closer to being destroyed by the Sea People.”
The king looked at his companion, his champion and advisor, then to the young man laying on the cold stone floor. He had black hair and pale skin. His clothing was odd, but he seemed healthy, albeit weak from Hannahannah’s summons. There was a angry red blotch on his neck and there here heavy shadows under his closed eyes.
The rain was falling heavier now and Suppiluliuma finally nodded. “You are correct, Pamba, we must see that our culture survives even if we all die. Help me lift him onto the altar.”
Together, the two old men lifted the youth onto the stone slab, knocking off candles and relics in the process. One the man was in place, Pamba sent one guard to fetch clean water. He ordered the other to guard the door, to make sure that nobody with mal intent discovered their actions.
This was a time of tumult and there were so few that could be trusted.
He retuned to his king’s side to discover that Suppiluliuma had already begun the ritual of sealing the god into the host body. He murmured the words carefully, his tongue twisting over the ancient and long forgotten language easily as if he had been born to it. As Great King, Pamba supposed he had been. As the king’s voice filled the small temple, Pamba closed his eyes and let the voice, the chant, wash over him. It drew him back to a time not so long ago when the god was sealed within him.
His ritual had been very different, though. His was a warrior god, a champion of Teshub and thus there had been no sweet words that soothed the soul in his ritual. There had been blood and chanting, and the sensation of something filling him. Then there had been the moment where he realized that there was another being inside his body with him. Then the panic and fear of that god taking him over.
With time, he had become used to the god within him, but he had been prepared for that moment his whole life. He wondered about the boy before him now. He was slim and looked weak, as if he had never held a sword in all his life. Pamba wondered how the god would fit in such a small body, and how the young man will adjust.
Suppiluliuma finished the chant and lowered his hands to the boy’s chest, his eyes slowly opening. He leaned forward and turned the youth’s face toward him and sealed his lips in a kiss.
Instantly, the man’s eyes opened and his body tensed as the ritual sealed his fate as a living god. His back arched off the altar and his fingers clawed at the stone. The king backed away and as he moved away, he seemed to take the life out of the boy, as his body flopped down to the stone, still as night.
Suppiluliuma wiped the back of his hand over his lips, eyes wide as he stared at the newest member of the circle. He was breathing heavily.
“I have seen our future in him.”
“Great King?”
He shook his head slowly. “We must hurry. We have far less time than I had first thought. Summon the priests.”