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When Sage was a human, there was no lonesome god that one prayed to. Instead, people in her village prayed to the gods, the Greek ones, hoping they would bring crops to their dying plots--sacrificing their food in hopes that the almighty Zeus or compassionate Demeter would bless them with gifts greater than themselves.
Sage never believed in the gods. If there was a god out there, then she would not have had to sell her soul or her body for a peace of mind--would not have had to sacrifice her whole life to help her family scrape by.
If there was a god out there, Elis would not have gotten her killed.
And perhaps she was bitter, because there was a time where someone gave up their son to Poseidon for betraying him and found that his horses were flourishing the very next day, but no one had ever helped her in the way she needed.
But she had heard the tales of a lonesome god, a god shamed and ridiculed by those closest to him--his very mother.
He was ugly, the village whispered conspiringly. So ugly that he was thrown off the very peak he was born on.
Forced into a relationship with a goddess who did not love him, he was cast aside like he was nothing, seen by no one yet worshiped by all.
People feared him still because a god scorned is a god feared. Vengeful in his anger, he would hunt for the least suspecting family, the one with the baker's daughter who hurt the farmer's son, and punish them harshly.
No one wished to be cursed by the god Hephaestus, so they prayed to him, but did not anger him, keeping clear of the god who could make fire rain down from the heavens.
Sage found a kindred spirit in him, instead. It was foolish to seek out a god who had punished multiple people in her village, who others had cursed at and cried because of, only because she saw how no one loved him and connected with it.
Her entire life, no one had loved her for the right reason. There was her mother, who loved her because Sage kept her healthy, kept food on the table and helped their father when he was too drunk to function. Her mother's love was a flower you touched and realized the blossom was fake; it bloomed but it did not grow.
There was Elis, who Sage thought loved her more than anything in the world. Sage thought there was no one else who could love her the way Elis did, unconditionally and without reserve. His love was a waterfall, refreshing in its newness and continuity--or so she had believed before he betrayed her and showed that it was only the rocks at the bottom of the ravine, jagged and sharp. Ready to kill.
He had loved her to a fault and that fault killed her.
And then there were the men in the village who called to her, the husbands' beds she slipped into to keep food on her table. There were the women who smiled serenely only to drop dung on her when she had her back turned. There were the bakers and the barterers and everyone in between who never loved Sage, no matter how much she craved it.
