The early spring air was cool and the cherry blossoms had already begun to bloom when the little girl first climbed onto the roof. Her stomach ached with a feeling she thought to be either excitement or nerve, but soon revealed itself to be hunger when a low gurgling sound echoed from her abdomen. She ignored it as she always did and pulled herself closer to the edge, weary of the people below her. Not that anyone would normally pay any mind to her. 

Life bustled underneath her bare feet, and the morning breeze danced around the silk fabrics hanging along the market stands. People pulled their coats up a little closer to their chins as they bartered lychees and pears. Children giggled on their way to school. Feet shuffled along the busy streets. Animals squawked and neighed as their owners led them through the stone road. The little girl kept her eyes on the school children, however. Their form-fitted uniforms and neatly brushed hair, their full bellies and hands sticky from sweets. 

The girl licked her lips as she stared down the ruby-striped candy in a young boy’s hand. Like a leopard to a hare, she made her way down from the roof, eyeing the boy as her bare feet kissed the dirtied ground. She slipped through the cracks of well-bathed villagers as her hand balled into a fist. It met the boy’s face and his candy found its way to the little girl’s hand like a lost dog returning to its owner. Before the boy could scream or the blood could even dot red from his nose, the little girl’s bare feet carried her away, not bothering to ease through the crowd again. She was no longer like water being held in a hand, no, she was crashing against villagers like a wave to a rock. She heard the voices yelling after her, screaming to abide by a law, any law, but she ignored them as she always did. You there! Little girl! Derelict! Lowlife! They called her. No one in the village knew the girl’s name, and she liked it that way. Made things like that easier. 

It was midday when she made it back to her shanty. Behind cherry blossom trees sat the dying stone of a temple once holy. It was a small little thing, like most of the others. Carried no grandeur like the echoing halls of Heira or Aquaria. It was circular in shape, with what used to be an entryway half blocked by fallen stone, stagnant and unbending. The inside was no larger than a wealthy merchant’s bedroom, but the echo of its former god still rang.

The little girl had not lived there long. She never stopped moving. Sometimes her eyes rested in an alleyway, or under the drips of the bridge. Either way, she made sure to keep herself far from the other villagers, until need be. She flexed her hand, knuckles sore.

Her only possessions were the clothes that stuck to the sweat of her back and a blanket, which laid awkwardly between the walls of the ancient temple. She knew of the pantheon and the war from her grandfather; he had tricked her into falling asleep by telling stories of the great heroes. But the girl’s wonder did not sparkle for many legends or tall tales; she was not alive to see such battles play out, and her grandfather was a mere child when the last battles conceded. Her family had been running from something left by the war, but the girl was never sure what it was. She heard stories of beasts still lurking in the shadows or in the corners of seas. She heard of the chaos that ran through the streets of nations fraught by a war not raged by them. The temples weren’t the only ruins that dotted the lands. 

The girl was only eleven, but the irony was never lost on her. There she sat, in a temple once worshipped and prayed upon, and the drips of her stickily sweet candy puddled the floor. She didn’t know the name of the god who once took offerings there, no one did. Such a thing was far too common in her village and in the rest of the lands, beyond the East Sea especially. 

The gods had been dying for centuries before the girl even set foot in the temple. It wasn’t just swords and guns that had painted them red, it was memory too. 

Gods often died twice, once when the blade met their skin, and twice when their name was whispered to for the very last time.

The little girl often felt bad she didn’t know the name of the god, she was living in his home after all. But she brushed it off like leaves to a doorstep; there weren’t any gods left breathing, and if there were, they’d be stupid to do so.

“What are you doing here?” a deep voice echoed. 

“Raising an army of rats, what do you think?” the girl turned around to find the origin of the voice but was met with mere air. 

“You shouldn’t be here, this is holy ground.”

The girl fumbled for a moment, still searching the open room for the voice. “Sorry, I got distracted by the huge crowd of worshippers and acolytes.”

“Attitude is unbecoming of a young lady.”

“Lucky, I’m not much of a lady,” she spoke back into the silence. There was no response, the voice had retracted from the halls. She spun herself around like before, trying to locate some other figure, a body to the voice. There was nothing. “Who are you?” she asked.

“The god of this temple, who are you?”

The little girl held her breath as she spoke. She’d dealt with angry shopkeeps and patrolmen, but never a god. She kept her chin high as she forced her voice not to break, “I’m no one–” she gave an awkward curtsey with the hem of her long shirt, “–Your . . . holiness.”

Then, there was nothing again. The voice fell silent, as if carried away by the wind sweeping through the trees. The girl stood still, looking out beyond the cherry blossoms, their pink hues akin to fluffy candy. A home she couldn’t quite reach.

That was when she heard the voice again. But this time, there was a body to it. “I see you like the cherry blossoms,” he said. 

“They’re okay, I guess,” she lied. 

The man, no, the god, approached her from his shadowy state between the halls. They stood side by side, staring out into the field as they talked.

“You know, back before the war, before a lot of it, people used to pray to these trees.” His face wasn’t old, no immortal could ever look old, but the girl observed the creases of his eyes, the purple below their almond shape. She saw the peppered hair. The droopy skin. He reminded the girl of her grandfather, although far younger-looking. “They were sacred, these trees. Holy,” he sucked his teeth, “Now they’re used for kindling.”

The girl brushed her bare feet against the cool stone floor. “Well, people need to keep warm.” The god leered a brow at her. “Isn’t it your job to help us mortals out?”

“Your precious little kings can help you. My kind isn’t welcome anymore.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Tension riddled the air with electricity. Both bodies stood tense. Letting their words linger like dust in air.

It took a few moments before the god could speak again.

“I know my people are rather, deeply flawed,” he took a breath, “But we never intended for any of this to happen, all the bloodshed.” He clasped his hands behind himself. It was just then when the little girl realized he was wearing acolyte garbs. Draped like a flag without wind, his clothes fell onto his skin with a level of calm. The pink tone of his robe had faded, and the ends had frayed like foxtail. It was like looking into the past. It was like he was stuck, trapped in a time before the war, before the kings, and before his temple had become forgotten. 

“I thought you had all died,” the girl forgot to hold her tongue. She was never all that good at keeping her mouth closed. 

The god merely chuckled. Like opening a bottle of liquor after a decade, he hadn’t felt joyous in quite some time. “We might as well have.” His face turned somber. He looked down at the little girl, her deep brown eyes reminded him of chocolate. He had been given chocolate once as an offering. 

“So why are you still here? The kings are gonna find you at one point or another.”

The god was quiet for a moment, collecting his thoughts like apples in a basket. A breeze flew between them, rustling the field of blush-colored blossoms. An echo of a wind chime rang through the mountainside. Finally, he spoke. “Why do bees collect honey?” His voice was hushed, like he was telling the girl a bedtime story. “Why do cherry blossoms bloom? Why do goldfish swim?”

The little girl turned her head towards him, but his head remained overseeing the expanse of pink before him.

“Because it is their nature. Their biological duty,” he looked at his feet, “Despite all the gifts and the worship, I’ve never been anything more than just a goldfish.”

They stood in silence once more, and even though they had just met, there was no unease. As if they had already been friends for as long as the god had lived, they stood next to each other, familiar strangers. There they were, a little girl and a god, both standing in ruins, watching the cherry blossoms breath in the spring air. 

“What’s your name?” the girl asked.

The god felt a pulse reach through him, he hadn’t said his name in generations. It felt like ash in his mouth, “Saki.”

“Hello Saki, I’m Akemi,” a smile beamed across the girl’s face and suddenly, Saki felt something he thought he’d lost a long time ago. Even before people forgot his name. Pride.