AN: Don't ask me, I don't know. He just wanted to retell his story. And whine. He's good at that. Please read and review!

Gods don’t bleed.

I had never though about that before, when I was human. I hadn’t though about in when I was young, first learning my powers. In fact, it was several years into my godhood before I discovered that I could no longer bleed.

It was nerve wrecking. I could make the skies roar, the earth crumble, and the seas revolt, yet I could not do something as basic as bleed. It was then that the anger of being turned without my permission turned to anger that I was human no longer.

All my life I had been something different. An orphan in a village that treasured family, skin several shades lighter than the palest villager, wrong color eyes. The object of a cold hearted god’s affection.

And now... now I was a human with godlike attributes, a god with human tendencies. There was no place for one such as I.

All my life, for as long as I could remember, my fate was laid out before my eye, whispering along the air into my ear, becoming tangible in my dreams. I feared where life would lead me and was tendentious to thwart it in every way I could. Immortality was not an option. For all my differences, I was still human, thus mortal. I was beyond the reach of fate, for I was sure to die long before the things I saw came to be.

Until the day he turned his eyes upon me and I recognized that soaring ache within my chest. When he asked me to spend forever with him, with soft kisses and gentled touches, I declined. As much as I loved him, my death seemed far more preferable than facing my destiny.

Then, in a night of panic and urgency, when my mortal death was so close to me, freeing me of the pain that had made itself home within my body, slowing sapping my strength, eating my flesh, burning my mind, he took that welcoming surcease away from me. That vague fear of my fate suddenly blossomed into a very possible happenstance.

Discovering the absence of blood was a heavy blow to my already delicate state of mind. It takes something special to physically hurt a god, and so much time passed before I was injured. In fact, it was a knife provided by him that lead me to my discovery.

I vaguely remember the panic that swelled in my chest and coated my mouth and throat. I remember several days, weeks? spent enwrapped in the warm embrace of the goddess of peace, my loving sister. If I close my eyes in the darkest of nights, far from any human, and concentrate very hard, I sometimes think I can still hear the echos of her voice whispering soothing words in my ear, singing softly songs that I have long forgotten. I believe the pain in my chest is my human part telling me that I miss her embrace still.

At that time, for many years after, I was convinced that my life was no long my own. I was being controlled by fate, pushed about by powers beyond my control.

Once I was sure enough in my own powers, I ran away, no long able to face him daily. The urge to scream, yell, throw objects in displays of childish rage had grown until I feared myself. I escaped my family, the village that had worshiped me for several generations by then, and my fellow gods. I was again pushing off fate, believing I could never escape no matter how far I ran.

It hurt so much to leave them. I hadn’t traveled far before I broke down, crying, ripping at my divine flesh, trying to ease the pain in my heart. I cannot count the number of days I spent holed up in my own agony, crying for what I lost and for what was taken from me.

With me, I took his knife, and for a while, I was obsessed with cutting my flesh. A single drop of blood, I thought, would sooth me. Proof of my mortality lost. I so wanted death to come, to release me from the fate I saw in my dreams.

Days, months, years went by in a haze of internal pain and senseless tears. If any mortal saw me in my insane state, I don’t remember and doubt they escaped unscathed. What would seeing an insane god do to a mortal mind?

And then I was suddenly aware of myself. I was a mess, mentally. I calmed myself and looked around me. I was the world. I saw humans and the lives they lived. Then I felt stupid, foolish, and childish. My fate lay far ahead of me and I was pouting over having to face it, while the humans had such a short time.

I began to avidly watch them. The feeling of loss never went away, nor did they fear of my destiny. Neither did my anger; although, I did forget why and to whom my anger was directed. Memories of my home, of my mortal family, began to fade. Familiar faces were replaced by strangers. I forgot humans as quickly as I met them.

I gathered knowledge to me and stored it away. I was bored with existing. Nothing held my interest after a while and humans began to annoy. I made it a point to avoid gods and never stayed in another’s territory for long.

Then I was drawn back to the one place I had always avoided. Something had a hold of me and was pulling me back, and no matter how hard I resisted, how much I feared returning, return I did. Coming back was like walking into a dream. I was home and everything was the same.

Everything had changed.

The village in which I had spent my mortal years was gone. Only a few grey stones where wooden walls marked any human presence at all. I had missed the rise and fall of my people, and now they were gone.

The temple where I served the four gods had been built up and withstood the test of time. And he was there. Suddenly all the years and pain were gone and I knew I loved him still. Time had effected him, turning smooth godly skin wrinkled with worry lines and pain. I wondered what he suffered.

I cried in his arms. I had been so stupid for so long. I begged for forgiveness I didn’t deserve. With a smile, he forgave me and expressed his love for me. After so long a time, the pain within me lifted for a short period. I loved him that day, in every way I knew how, and, with the morning sun shining down upon us, he died in my arms.

The pain returned, one hundred fold. Once again, I allowed myself to be consumed. I made that temple my home and spent many years locked away, there.

The outside world changed greatly, human conquered it all as I watched from my forgotten temple. Ages passed and the feeling of fear deep within me boiled, waiting for signs of my fate approaching me. I locked up my temple and hid from the world. Maybe it would forget about this bloodless human. At times, I thought of myself as more human than god, at others, more god than human. Spending so much time in one place, yet unaware of the passing of great amounts of time is very godlike. Fearing my state of mind after all that time’s passage is very human.

I sit at my window, watching the sun rise and set, watching the seasons change, watching trees grow. Time had no meaning for me. I was a god without religion, and that was unusual. Gods survived off human prayer, but I needed it not. I had nothing to distract me, nothing held my interest. And so I sat, watched... waited.

I closed my eyes and years passed before I blinked them open again. Slowly, steadily, anger began to build up within me once again.

I wanted death. L wanted oblivion. I didn’t want this endless sense of waiting. I didn’t want contact with any living, breathing thing. I didn’t want to do what fate said I had to do, yet I could see no way out.

For a while, I was calm, contemplating my future. As I realized the time was fast approaching, closer with each of my extended blinks, I developed nervous habits.

As if emerging from a dream, I began to reexplore my temple. The air outside my tower room was stale, but didn’t mind. This was my home and I’d rather have stale air than have humans invade. Then I began to clean.

I used my godly powers for such a mundane thing as cleaning. At first I started with water and rags found hidden away, but they were old and quickly dissolved under my rough treatment. I made more, but the area around me was always too filthy, and the physical effort wasn’t enough. It wasn’t clean enough.

So I resorted to using magic. Afterwards, the temple gleamed, not a speck of dust or dirt dared to settle in my holy place. It was more beautiful, more glorious, than ever before.

I felt horrible.

The beauty was blemished, the cleanness, fake. I hated it, but I couldn’t leave it. Once I started this habit, I couldn’t stop. Who can say how many years I put into cleaning this lonesome temple?

Quite suddenly, my solitude was interrupted by humans.

I had only, moments ago, just woken from one of my prolonged naps and was gauging the season when there was a loved explosion of sound ripping through the stillness of the tropical forest where I made my home. In the sky grew a trail of black and red smoke, streaking steadily downward. Form the pillar of fiery smoke emerged a mass of metal, glinting in the sunlight and engulfed in flames. I watched from my stone tower as the thing crashed in the trees and was lost in sight, the smoke the only indicator of where it lie.

Something inside me told me that humans were in that, humans that were probably dead now. Something else inside me told me that one of the humans was a decedent of a villager.

I couldn’t not help.

For the first time in ages, the stone door of my temple opened and I exited. Feeling much like a thief, I snuck from tree to tree, hiding in the shadows. I didn’t notice the smoke, for the scent of blood overpowered everything.

I froze where I stood, remembering once again that I could not bleed. Blood coated the bodies I found, still warm and wet, and I was helpless as, suddenly, I found myself kneeling on the ground, coating myself in the mortal’s blood. I tasted blood on my lips and it was heady sensation. I was then something I didn’t, couldn’t recognized. I was lost in the taste of blood, my first since becoming a god.

God’s don’t bleed. They live off the prayers of humans.

And we lust after mortal blood.