The only question left for Lesh was whether to kill himself. The old man was looking at the chasm, its bottom so deep it remained dark in the morning light. A few hours ago he sent a soldier flying down there, or was he a general? His hands grasping against the soil as he did, lifting a cloud of dirt.

The screams of those who realised what was going to happen were his favourite.

Such a peculiar reaction. By the time their feet are dangling over the darkness they know there’s no way up. But they yell and beg as if he’d change his mind or it would give them the strength to climb. Now wasn’t that funny? No matter what you did, once the chasm had you it was all over.

He managed to get the general’s men to turn on one another and he enjoyed it too. Lesh listened in the darkness as the yells got less and less. He heard the footsteps of the few that lived and escaped. Then he smiled at the sound of distant moaning as Morana’s white dress shone between the trees. A massacre is a marvelous thing, but still, the chasm was his favorite.

It wasn’t easy to send someone flying down there, he had to get creative. That soldier wouldn’t turn his back and run so he had to confuse him enough to forget about the drop. It’s enough to scare some people and chase them, they forget everything else. But he would never forget that woman who saw the drop, looked at him, thought for a moment then jumped. No screaming, no begging. An intentional jump. Now that was pure fear.

He’d never climbed down there to see what happens of the people who fall. He thought the chasm lead to Morana’s realm, that she carries the souls of the fallen down there. In a way he was right, it’s just that the journey down had an abrupt stop.

He raised on of his legs and moved it over the nothingness. If he made the step he would follow them. Was there anything else in life left for him? People didn’t come to the woods to tell him jokes anymore. He had to make his fun on his own and he was getting tired. As joyful as it was, he couldn’t chase after a legion for days. Back in the day he could make them all go mad and pierce their eyes out, now the best he could do was to spark a mutiny.

It was no fun.

It’s not the same since that other one came. How did they call him, the dead god? Maybe they’ll worship Lesh again if he dies too. But that brings him to the logical conundrum that he might get love but he won’t be here to receive it? Does it matter at all then? But is any love, even if not received, better than no love at all? It’s been decades since he had any.

Children from the villages no longer came to play in the forest, they scared them with tales of wolves and beasts. The traders ran away if he appeared and soldeirs attacked him. No on told him jokes, no one told him what was going on outside the trees. What else could he do but hide and steal a little fun for himself every now and then?

Times were simpler back then. But the sound of laughter was replaced with the rattling of steel and stomping of boots. Some years imperials, some years ours. In time they all became the same to me.

He missed the old days. The image of his friends’s massacred village still haunted him. The last friends he had in this forest, the ones who gave him ale, food and shelter. They had a love for the moon he couldn’t understand. And the moon loved them back but in a cruel way. But Lesh never trusted anything that shines only in darkness.

He forgot the moon was there, hidden up above behind the thick crowns of the trees. The moon and the stars, little sparkling eyes staring at him. Asking him if he was really going to do it this time. Trembling, laughing at Lesh and his suffering. But they’ll see, he’ll do it. He’ll jump.

The reasons not to make a step forward weren’t many.