Night had fully descended upon Orario, a velvet cloak embroidered with the dazzling threads of magic.
From the bustling Central Square to the quiet, winding alleys, the city's myriad magic lamps flickered to life, each igniting with a soft pop and hum, casting a golden-orange glow that challenged the celestial display above.
The light of a three-quarter moon, a silvery wedge against a canvas of fast-moving, partly cloudy sky, filtered down, adding a touch of nuance to the vibrant, earthly illumination.
The southeastern region of the city was particularly vibrant this evening.
The air hummed with the collective excitement of a thousand souls, thick with the scent of expensive wine, exotic spices, and the rowdiness of open taverns.
Tonight was no ordinary evening; the Ganesha Familia was hosting a "Celebration of the Gods," an event that had turned the main thoroughfares and winding side streets into a catwalk of vanity.
Deities of all pantheons, dressed in clothing that shimmered like liquid jewelry, moved in a slow, rhythmic tide toward a singular destination.
Beside them, their mortal escorts…..top-tier adventurers, or simply the most beautiful souls in their respective familias…..walked with heads held high, though many struggled to maintain their composure under the weight of the presence surrounding them.
Among this sea of immortality and ambition, Draco moved with a steady gait.
He wasn't alone.
Claiming each of his arms were two figures who commanded the attention of every passerby: the goddess Bahamut and Aasterinian.
As they walked, the trio became a focal point for the wandering eyes of the divine.
Draco felt the heat of their stares, a prickly sensation that crawled across his skin.
It was more intense than usual.
The deities were not merely looking; they were dissecting, trying to parse the nature of the relationship between him and the two powerful figures flanking him.
There was an intimacy in the way they held him…..a proprietary closeness that defied the standard boundaries of god and child.
Despite the scrutiny, no one dared to approach.
Bahamut saw to that.
Her expression was a mask of frigid, regal indifference, her eyes scanning the crowd with a sharp, predatory clarity that promised a swift verbal lashing….or worse…..to anyone foolish enough to interrupt their stride.
To her, the other gods were little more than distracting noise.
Draco was grateful for her silent guardianship; he was well aware that his presence at her side was a provocation to the bored and the curious, but Bahamut's aura acted as a physical barrier.
Still, the whispers were unavoidable.
They drifted through the air like smoke, biting and persistent.
"Is that him? The one who walks between them?"
"Look at the way they hold him. Disgraceful… or perhaps enviable?"
Draco just smiled, staring straight ahead.
He had suggested renting a carriage to avoid this very spectacle, but Bahamut and Aasterinian had both dismissed the idea.
They wanted to walk.
Perhaps it was a display of power, or perhaps they simply enjoyed the feeling of the city beneath their feet.
Regardless, Draco felt like he was the centerpiece of the parade.
As they neared the heart of the southeastern district, the crowd grew denser, and the behavior of the idle gods grew more erratic.
With the constraints of their Arcanum...the divine power they had agreed to seal upon descending to the lower world...the gods were left with only their personalities and the prestige of their familias.
In Orario, the social hierarchy was a brutal reflection of a familia's success.
"Ah! Look over there!" a goddess shrieked, her voice dripping with artificial mirth.
She pointed a fan toward a man standing a few paces away.
"Isn't that the head of that dirt-poor Familia? Takemikazuchi! Oii! Hey, ooii!! Heh-heh!"
"Right!" another god chimed in, leaning forward with a cruel smirk.
"Isn't that the guy who earns so little money every year his face is caving in?"
The laughter that followed was sharp and jagged.
Takemikazuchi, wearing his weathered clothing, stiffened.
He didn't look back, but the set of his shoulders betrayed his humiliation.
"Quiet, you worthless vermin!" Bahamut's voice cut through the air like a blade.
The laughter died instantly.
The goddess with the fan blinked, her face flushed with sudden indignation that quickly curdled into fear as she met Bahamut's icy stare.
Bahamut didn't stop walking, didn't even slow down, but the weight of her disapproval was enough to silence the immediate vicinity.
Takemikazuchi turned slightly, catching Bahamut's eye.
He gave her a solemn, thankful nod before stepping away to join a group of his own acquaintances, disappearing into the crowd to find safety in numbers.
Draco couldn't help but grin, a small expression of amusement.
This was the reality of the gods in the mortal world.
They came seeking "stimulation," a word that often served as a euphemism for drama, conflict, and the exploitation of those beneath them.
In heaven, power was absolute; here, it was precarious, built on the backs of their children and the depth of their coffers.
Those who had failed to "make it big" became the target of those who had.
He adjusted his pace, listening to the snippets of conversation that drifted through the night air.
"Yo!"
"Eeeeh! Long time! How long has it been?"
"'Bout four hundred years, I reckon."
"Ohoh! That long? You've changed quite a lot since then! Last time I saw you, you were still obsessing over that goddess...what was her name again!"
Draco shook his head.
Four hundred years was a blink of an eye to them, a mere weekend trip in the grand span of eternity.
To a mortal, it was several lifetimes of history.
The disconnect was jarring, a constant reminder that no matter how close he stood to the figures on his arms, he was a creature of a different world.
"Sorry to change the subject on you," a god ahead of them remarked, pointing a trembling finger toward the skyline, "but is the Celebration really in there?"
Draco looked up, and even though he had seen it many times before, the sight still gave him pause.
Standing in the center of the block, rising forty meters into the night sky, was a structure that challenged common sense.
It was a massive, human-shaped statue with the head of an elephant, sitting cross-legged in a state of eternal meditation.
The base was surrounded by a sturdy stone wall, but the statue itself was the main attraction, puffing out its chest as if it were trying to inhale the very stars above.
Magic stone lamps had been strategically placed at the statue's base and on various tiers of its body, lighting it from below in a way that cast long, dramatic shadows.
The elephant-headed monolith stood out against the dark sky, a monument to the ego of its creator.
This was "I Am Ganesha," the home base of the Ganesha Familia.
It was famous for two things: inspiring a sense of unease in anyone who looked at it for too long, and being the single greatest drain on the Ganesha familia's treasury.
The god Ganesha, a dark-skinned man who claimed "handsome" was his middle name, had poured every spare Valis his children earned into the construction and maintenance of this monstrosity.
"Tsk, that idiot hasn't changed a bit," Aasterinian commented, her voice laced with a mixture of pity and annoyance.
"He still has poor taste in architecture. It's on the same level as Apollo's gaudy manor."
Bahamut nodded in silent agreement, her lips curled in a slight sneer.
Even the members of the Ganesha Familia were known to weep occasionally when entering or leaving the building, their hearts breaking at the thought of how many magic stones it had taken to pay for the statue.
But the true crowning achievement of Ganesha's design was the entrance.
The gods and their escorts were currently filing into a large, illuminated opening located directly in the massive crotch of the seated statue.
"What is Ganesha doing?" one god muttered, though he didn't stop moving toward the opening.
"Ganesha really goes all out!" another laughed, seemingly delighted by the sheer absurdity of it all.
Many other deities mirrored Aasterinian's sentiment, some openly shaking their heads, others rolling their eyes with disdain.
Yet, despite their complaints and their laughter, they all filed dutifully into the building, disappearing one by one through the massive manor door.
They had come for Ganesha's "Celebration of the Gods," and no amount of questionable architecture would deter them from their entertainment.
A Celebration of the Gods was, at its core, a grand, formal party thrown by one deity for others living in the mortal world.
There were no set rules of protocol regarding who hosted and who attended.
It was a purely whimsical affair, hosted by any god who desired to throw a party, and attended by any god who fancied coming.
As they reached the threshold, the air changed.
The warmth of the magic stone lamps inside the hall spilled out onto the street, carrying with it the sounds of a lute and the clink of crystal glasses.
This was the boundary.
Draco slowed his steps, gently disengaging his arms from Bahamut and Aasterinian.
"This is as far as I go," he said softly.
Technically, he could have entered.
He was a mortal, and while mortals were generally excluded unless they were members of the host familia, Draco had connections.
He was friends with Shakti and Adi, high-ranking members of Ganesha's Familia who were likely overseeing the logistics of the event.
They would have cleared his entry in a heartbeat.
But Draco chose to stay behind.
He knew what would happen the moment he stepped into that hall.
He would no longer be Draco; he would be a "curiosity.".....a topic of gossip and scrutiny for hundreds of bored deities.
He had no desire to be the centerpiece of their evening entertainment, nor did he want to distract Shakti or Adi while they were busy managing a room full of volatile immortals.
Draco stood alone for a moment in the shadow of the elephant god's stone knee.
He looked up at the moon, then back at the "I Am Ganesha" statue.
The streets were still busy, the night still young, but the weight on his arms was gone.
With a quiet sigh of relief, he turned away from the light and the noise, disappearing into the dark, winding streets of Orario, where the only eyes watching him were those of the cats and the shadows.