Deserted

"It's alright," Apophis reassured him. He gave him another smile, this one just as warm as his other ones. "The knife would remain until it was pulled out, but the wound would heal around it."

He paused, thinking over the first question.

"In the first one's case, his religion was a relatively new one, and we weren't sure what to expect - he's monotheistic. And there was no specific main temple for him to be created near, so none of us knew where to look. The second one is the first of his kind of god - he's not outright worshiped by most, but he's included in the mythology of our other friend. No one knew to look for him, and he stumbled on the other god by chance."

"Temples?" Kellach said, a little interested in shifting the topic away from what would happen if the god got stabbed. "The gods in my world have little shrines, or churches, or places where the really religious people live? Temples kinda sounds like a bit much, but you and the other gods in your world are real, so I guess that makes sense."

"We have those too," Apophis confirmed. "The terminology varies by religion. I've spent a good part of my life with the Greek gods, and their worshiper built them temples. In my friend's case, he would have had churches built."

Kellach took a bite out of his piece of cactus, spending the next couple seconds trying not to spit it out. It was a tad too bitter for him. A swallow and a grimace later, he dived back into the conversation. "Yeah, I guess it makes sense that different gods get worshipped in different places," he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I, don't really know much about that stuff - my parents weren't super into that, and then I spent a bunch of time on a ship. Everyone's a little too busy to pray or make offerings and stuff." The otter smiled sheepishly. "Unless something went really wrong."

"I feel like a lot of people are like that," Apophis agreed, giving a smile of his own. "I admit I don't know enough about it as I should. I never had a large following of my own, so I tended to do my own thing instead of pay attention to godly business. It's only been in the past thousand years or so that I've started to - one of my friends is the head of his religion, so he's usually complaining about all of the work he has to do."

"And your followers probably wanted you to end the world? Which I'm guessing you weren't a big fan of," Kellach said, laughing a little nervously. He'd had enough problems with people who wanted to end the world; he really didn't want to deal with that again.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "I like this world too much to ever want it to end."

Kellach let out a small sigh of relief. "How come your followers don't?" he said.

"They didn't know the real me," he admitted. "I tried talking to them when I was younger, but it was hard for them to believe me - even after I appeared to them as my actual self. They liked worshiping the person they thought I was, and not the person I really am."

"That kinda sucks," Kellach said, "But, I mean, why does somebody up and decide 'Hey, you know what would be great? Ending the world!'? How does that happen? I ran into plenty of people who wanted to end the world, but they all wanted to replace the world with something they thought was better. Is that what's up with your followers?"

Apophis gave a shrug.

"I tried understanding them when I first found out about them, but I eventually gave up trying to understand them," he admitted, following his comment with a quiet sigh. "I just knew to stop them from trying to end the world through magic or other ways. It's not really possible, but I did step in from time to time to stop them."

"How come you can't end the world? That's great and all, but what's stopping a really strong god from just, tapping a claw and cutting the world in half?" Kellach said, trying his best to sound calm. Ugh, he used to be so good at this keeping a straight face thing, but having boyfriends who liked his honesty had ruined it for him.

Apophis, sensing Kellach's lack of calmness, made sure to quickly relieve him of whatever worries he probably had.

"We're not that powerful," Apophis said. "We're essentially like normal people, save for the occasional responsibility and our immortality. There are some very skilled sorcerers among us, but gods who have to learn spells are almost always close with humans and the world - they have to learn the magic from somewhere. They wouldn't destroy the world, even if they somehow figured out how to."

Kellach briefly pulled his head back, scrunching his face in confusion. "Then what makes you and the others gods?" he said. "The dragons live for a really long time, and they're pretty good with magic and stuff, but they're definitely not gods."

Apophis shrugged.

"I admit I don't know," he said. "We just are. I think it's because we technically are the gods that people believe in, but I'm not entirely sure. I do know that we're the highest tier of magical being - there's some that shared technical immortality, but even that immortality isn't forever."