50

When our eyes meet he winks, totally aware of how aware I am of him.
The heat in my cheeks travels to my chest. My response is totally hampered by the fact that my knees have turned into Jello.
He locks the door behind him and I exhale. My time in the tub is short. I'm dressed in pyjamas and in his arms thirty minutes later.
"What if we can't prove ya're Leza's kid?" I ask, just a shade too curiously. My question is so out of the blue that he startles.
"Hey, hey," he says, sounding genuinely confident. "We can do anything."
Oh Leza. Why can't he see it through my eyes? Nothing ever goes my way. Maybe we were doomed before we started. Nothing seems to be working out. We are at a stand still while the Essence Thief is striving.
"D'ziko, these people hate ya. They think you broke into Sword Universe. They could --"
"I'm not gonna die," he says, though his eyes have dulled.
I arch my eyebrows but I hope they don't say "ya ignorant fool" because that's what I'm thinking. If he thinks he's going to survive his identity being revealed before we catch the Essence Thief then D'ziko is a damn fool.
"Ya don't know that."
"I promise--"
I shake my head. "Don't promise. Don't."
"I do."
"D'ziko, we aren't normal. I don't think I want to live a life in secrecy."
He sits up. "What are ya saying?"
I think hard, aware that the wrong word might ruin everything, be taken out of context. "I'm not saying anything, not yet anyway. I'm worried."
"How do we convince them then?" he asks, leading me away from the bed and into the table where our snacks await.
"Are ya even sure ya're Leza's--" I cut myself with an effort. Great. Could I have sounded like a bigger jerk? "Don't get me, wrong. I... don't doubt ya, I just... I want to know how ya knew?"
Thankfully, it doesn't seem like D'ziko is offended. He sits across me and meets my gaze. "Dad pays me a visit once a year on my birthdays."
To assemble my thoughts, I close my eyes and drink half the glass of water, trying to pretend it tastes like merryz juice. When I open my eyes, D'ziko is placing a plate in front of me.
"But Gods aren't allowed to interact with humans--" I hasten to reassure him. To remind him. Doesn't he know? "He's not allowed to come here."
His eyes find mine again. "They're not allowed to interact with humans, ja, but I'm not human."
D'ziko might be living among us but that doesn't make him any less of a God. He smiles.
"And my father has never been one for rules." He takes two bites off his peanut butter and jam sandwich, chews and washes down with water. "Breaking them is dad's forté”
"That's so cool. What does he look like? When's yer birthday? What do ya guys do together?"
My voice comes out breathless.
"Woah, so many questions." He pauses. "Dad says he looks like me. But I'd like to think I look like my mother. He's too...him. Ya get what I'm saying?"
I answer him with a frown.
"On my birthdays he takes me to the Saboni world-"
My frown deepens. "Why?"
"Because my birthday is on Halloween and to them it's normal to see a masked guy on that day. They don't even look twice at us. Ja, they get impressed with these guys wearing these God costumes but that's about it."
He's right. Every October there is a thunderstorm so strong, so loud that we all cower indoors. It's the kind of weather change that can only result from a God's doing.
"What kind of world is it?" My voice rises in pitch. "The Saboni world."
D'ziko finishes off both his sandwich and mine and empties his glass. Moonlight pouring from the window glints on his hair. His dreadlocks have grown an inch or two and unlike mine, the blue stripes on his hair are real. The gold and silver in his eyes is real too. The Bakantwa really is the sword of D'ziko.
Silence descends on us.
D'ziko leans in, and whispers, "Like Noddon but way lacking in technology but vast in knowledge."
He's voice is filled with wonder and mystic. Now I'm curious about what lays outside of Noddon. Of course, I've heard about Cape Town, about Johannesburg, about Zimbabwe, about Africa as a whole. I've even heard about America, a world that doesn't seem real from here. A world that is forbidden from Noddon. These Sabonis, do they speak the same language as us? What do they eat? What would they think about Noddon? With our technology years into the future, would they think us aliens? Try to study us? Try to make sense of our magic? Our metals?
"I'd like to go there someday."
He grabs my hand and leads me to the bed. We just stand at the edge. His eyes find mine. The gaze burns it's way down my throat, heating me up from the inside.
D'ziko finds the pins holding my wig into my hair and unfastens them. "Ya can come along on my birthday next year. I'll introduce ya to father."
I stand, frozen in disbelief for a several minutes, just watching his strong arms move above, feeling my hair come undone. But Thor is a God! He's the god of thunder, Leza's life mate, D'ziko's father. Did I mention he's a God? Oh, where do I find a manual which will help me navigate my first meeting with my future father-in-law(who so happens to be a God! A freakin God!)?
I don't remind him that God's shouldn't interest with humans. He did say his father is one to break the rules.
"What if he doesn't like me?"
I hear the smile in his voice. "Oh, don't worry dad's too chilled for that. I hear Ma was too uptight. Too serious. Ya'd have worried if Ma was still alive."
Thor? Chilled? Huh! Would ya look at that? And Leza? Is that why she's been staring at me lately? Does she not like me? Does she think D'ziko can do much better? Does she wish she were still alive?
If that's the case I'm so glad she's not alive. No! I didn't mean that. Okay, fine, I meant it but just a tiny bit.
"Is yer father remarried?" I ask. "Does he have anymore children?"
"No." He gently tugs the wig off and places it on its cap on the dresser. "He's still so in love with Mom even though I gave him 'permission' to date other woman if he wanted."
"I've never met a white person before. What's that like?"
D'ziko smoothes my afro down and crawls into bed. He props pillows under him, so that he's half sitting, half lying down. "Dad's black."
I suck in an enormous gulp of the cold night air, feeling faint. There's so much I don't know about this world. About Gods.
"But the books--" I shake my head at the surrealism of it all.
"That's all mythology." D'ziko rolls his eyes. "All Gods are black."
I crawl in in front of him and wrap a blanket over us. "So?"
"So what?"
"What kind of man is he?"
I inch closer to him, trying to get close enough to hear the ridiculous pounding of his heartbeat. Our bodies are touching, burning with some invisible flames. He doesn't move away. Good.
He shrugs. "Dad's cool, I guess. He's a very brave, dedicated man, not only to his family but to the community as well. He can be overprotective sometimes but--" he actually throws in an eye roll. D’ziko talks about Thor. And rolls his eyes! As he continues, I realise he's describing a normal guy. A man ya'd pass on the street and not think twice about it.