Somewhere, very far from anywhere important, in a village no one ever wrote songs about, on a night when even the stars seemed too embarrassed to show up properly, Derrin of Drizzle was born. It wasn't a proud birth. No prophecies were carved into stone. No wise men arrived bearing improbable gifts. Mostly, there was an argument about whether the midwife should wear her "unlucky socks," and a goat that witnessed the whole affair and has refused to speak of it since.

  The child was wrapped in a slightly damp blanket, carried to the Offering Tree, and left there, "just in case the gods wanted a return policy."

  They didn’t. But he stayed anyway. Because sometimes, even the gods forget what they leave behind.

  Drizzle was not a village where important things happened. In fact, the villagers took a certain damp pride in that. No great heroes hailed from Drizzle. No armies marched through it. The last census had accidentally missed it altogether, which suited the locals just fine, because they hadn't finished their paperwork anyway. The Offering Tree — a crooked, sullen thing that looked like it regretted growing there — had accepted many gifts over the years: baskets of fruit, woven charms, one slightly haunted cheese wheel. It had never, until this night, been asked to babysit. The village council, such as it was, gathered around the tree, shivering under the miserable drizzle that gave the town its name and personality.

  They stared at the bundle.

  The bundle stared back.

  The air smelled faintly of mildew and regret.

  “Well,” said Old Burk, who qualified as the village elder mostly by surviving. “It’s either cursed or unlucky.”

  “Or both,” muttered Greela Cobb, who ran the bakery when she felt like it.

  The council entered into a heated, murmuring debate: Should they touch it? Should they bless it? Should they just... walk away slowly and pretend it was a very ugly root vegetable? In the end, fairness prevailed. They drew straws. Marla the Midwife drew the short straw and several long, muttered curses. With a sigh deeper than the local well, she trudged forward, plucked up the child, and squinted suspiciously at him, as if he might explode.

  He didn’t.

  He just blinked up at her with wide, solemn eyes the color of overcast skies. This, Marla thought grimly, was how it started. Over the next few weeks, certain patterns emerged. The crops, which had been mediocre at best, withered dramatically. Three of the village’s prized cows wandered off cliffs that hadn't previously existed. (Later, it was discovered the cliffs had sprouted overnight. No one was sure how.) The village well began to taste inexplicably of onions.

  The child — officially unnamed, unofficially called "That Wretched Thing" — was rotated between households under the Official Drizzle Care Plan, which was written in smudged ink on a damp napkin. Each family kept him for a week, grew increasingly unlucky, then quietly begged the next family to take him early. By the time he was two years old, he lived alone in a sectioned-off barn stall that smelled strongly of hay, mildew, and one very judgmental chicken.

  Food offerings, once warm bowls of porridge and crusty bread, became smaller and colder. Eventually, they dwindled to the sort of things that could best be described as culinary afterthoughts: half-burnt toast, mystery stews, and what one hopeful villager optimistically labeled "spiced roots" (they were not spiced, and may not have been roots).

  No one hated him, exactly. That would require energy, and Drizzle didn't like expending energy if it could be avoided. Instead, they simply tolerated his existence the way one tolerates chronic drizzle: with a weary sigh and a thicker cloak. For all that, Derrin — for eventually, someone had grumbled, "Fine, call him Derrin if you must" — grew. He grew small and awkward, with stubborn cowlicks of dark hair and knees permanently smudged with dirt. He grew hungry for something more than cold stew and damp straw.

  And most dangerously of all, he grew curious.

  By the time Derrin was five, he had wandered through nearly every corner of Drizzle — and there were, to be fair, not many corners to conquer. The village boasted three muddy lanes, a temple that leaned slightly to the left as if tired, one shop that sold mostly disappointment in burlap sacks, and the official square, which was perfectly round. He knew every cracked stone. Every slumped fencepost. Every puddle that refused to dry, no matter how fierce the sun.

  Sometimes, he passed the other children. There were three: Jory, a boy with freckles and a permanent scowl; Mina, who could climb anything she could reach; and Pip, whose full name was lost to time but whose skill at whistling was widely feared. They did not hate Derrin. Hating him would have required a degree of emotional investment that no one in Drizzle was prepared to offer. Mostly, they accepted his existence the way one accepted sudden rain showers or surprise taxes: inevitable, annoying, and best endured quietly.

  He would trail them sometimes, at a safe, yearning distance. Jory and Mina and Pip would race along the muddy paths, shouting invented rules for games that changed so quickly even they forgot them. Sometimes Derrin would call after them, awkwardly waving, a hopeful lump in his throat.

  They never shooed him away. They simply forgot to wait for him. Which, somehow, hurt more. At the bakery, Greela Cobb would glance up from kneading a lump of dough that looked deeply suspicious of its own existence. If Derrin lingered long enough, she'd sigh and toss him the ugliest roll — burnt at one end, still doughy at the other — with a muttered, "Don’t say I never gave you anything, barn boy."

  Greela Cobb had a certain reputation in Drizzle. Not for her skill at baking — which was, at best, suspicious — but for her ability to weaponize guilt like a seasoned siege engineer. She ran the bakery with an attitude that suggested the bread owed her money. The loaves leaned heavily to one side. The pies occasionally whistled when stabbed. The muffins were more theoretical than edible.

  One gray afternoon, while wandering the village square in search of something more fulfilling than existential disappointment, Derrin made the tactical mistake of lingering too long near Greela’s stall. Greela, catching his wide, hungry gaze, scowled. She wiped her flour-dusted hands on an apron that looked like it had lost several battles with time and rage.

  Without a word, she snatched something from a tray and flung it at him. It hit Derrin squarely on the forehead with a muted thock.

  He blinked.

  The villagers nearby didn’t even look up. There was an unspoken rule in Drizzle: When baked goods are used as projectiles, mind your own business. Derrin scrambled to catch the object before it hit the muddy ground. It was, by Greela's generous labeling, a muffin. By more objective standards, it was a small, dense artifact of despair. He clutched it to his chest like a prize and scurried back toward his barn stall, dodging puddles and judgmental chickens.

  Seated on a bale of musty straw, Derrin tried to eat the thing. He really did.

  He gnawed. He pried. He considered using a small rock to assist. The muffin refused all efforts at consumption. It was roughly the consistency of an old horseshoe and had a vaguely defiant smell, as if it resented being food at all. After several futile attempts, Derrin paused, peering at the muffin in the weak light.

  It seemed... to have a face.

  A vague, craggy impression on one side — two dents like eyes, a shallow line like a grim mouth. It didn’t look particularly happy to be here. But then again, neither did Derrin most days.

  He stared at it. It stared back.

  With solemn gravity, Derrin cradled the muffin in his grubby hands and whispered: "I think... I shall call you Morinxandar."

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  Thus, Morinxandar was born. And Derrin, for the first time in his small, battered life, had a best friend. Morinxandar was tucked carefully into a makeshift pouch Derrin stitched out of an old feed sack, slung proudly over his shoulder wherever he wandered. He spoke to Morinxandar often, sharing his grandest hopes, his smallest victories, and all the important news, like how many worms the chickens had found that morning (three).

  Plans were drawn up — mostly in charcoal on bits of barn wall — for a bed, a wardrobe, and, once he could teach himself how sewing worked, perhaps a dashing little cape. Some villagers — seeing the boy talking animatedly to what appeared to be a large, sullen scone — shook their heads and muttered that it was a shame.

  But Derrin didn’t mind. Morinxandar always listened. And when you were six years old and the world had mostly forgotten you existed, sometimes a surly muffin was more than a friend. It was proof you still mattered.

  At the smithy, Old Varn hammered away at dented horseshoes with the grim determination of a man wrestling his own bad decisions into flatter, less embarrassing shapes. He didn’t speak much — and when he did, it was mostly to his anvil, in the universal language of exasperated grunts. Sometimes, if Derrin lingered quietly enough, standing barefoot on the soot-stained stones with his patched sack swinging at his side, Old Varn would grunt something that might have been approval. And — very casually, as if hoping no one noticed — he would nudge a small object toward Derrin’s feet: A bent nail. A twisted scrap of wire. A misshapen bolt. Small treasures, in a world where Derrin owned nothing else. Derrin accepted them with a solemnity usually reserved for royal honors. Each piece was inspected, polished on his sleeve, and tucked reverently into his feed sack alongside Morinxandar.

  He told himself the gifts were for repairs. For emergencies. But deep down, he knew the truth: They were for Morinxandar. Over the following weeks, the muffin’s “life” improved dramatically. The first bent nail became Morinxandar’s Royal Scepter — because every muffin king needed one. A curled bit of wire, painstakingly straightened with Derrin’s teeth, was fashioned into a travel crown. (It slipped off a lot, but Derrin decided that was due to Morinxandar’s "restless spirit.") The broken bolt, once polished until it almost shone, became a “shield” — strapped to Morinxandar’s side with string scavenged from the bakery's rubbish pile.

  At night, in his barn stall under the lopsided beams, Derrin would whisper stories to his friend: Tales of daring quests, noble battles, glorious feasts (mostly involving slightly less burnt bread). He described, in vivid detail, the castle he would one day build: a proper home where Morinxandar could have not just a pouch, but a bed. Maybe even a throne. (And yes, once Derrin taught himself to sew, Morinxandar would have a full set of ceremonial robes.)

  In the gray mornings, he would tuck the muffin carefully into his feed sack again, and wander the village, dreaming of better things. Most people thought the barn boy talking to an increasingly bedraggled muffin was just one more reason Drizzle would never make it onto any important maps.

  But Old Varn noticed the careful repairs Derrin made to his "treasures," and Greela Cobb, when she thought no one was looking, baked an extra lump of something even harder the next week, and muttered that maybe she’d try a new recipe. (Maybe.)

  No one said anything, of course. This was Drizzle, after all. But in their own awkward, lumpy, half-hearted ways, even the village had started to stitch Derrin into the edges of their world. Just a little.

  The temple priest, when awake, occasionally muttered blessings in Derrin’s general direction. These often included conflicting prayers for prosperity, chastity, abundant harvests, and successful goat racing, depending on how deep into the sacramental wine he was. It was not cruelty that shaped Derrin's childhood. It was something softer, slower: the patient erosion of a soul that knew, from far too young, what it meant to be unnecessary.

  And so, he wandered. He mapped Drizzle not in streets and landmarks, but in silences. In doorways that did not open. In glances that slid past like rain on stone. In the hundred small ways a village can raise a child by not raising him at all. Some nights, after the third or fourth "forgotten" supper, Derrin would sit by the well (still faintly onion-scented, a testament to the lasting power of bad omens) and watch the stars smudge their way across the sky.

  And when he was feeling particularly brave — or particularly foolish — he would whisper to them: "I'm still here. I’m still trying."

  The stars, being what they were, did not answer. But somehow, Derrin always felt a little less alone for having said it anyway. At night, when the village slept beneath moldy quilts and leaky roofs, Derrin would sneak to the crumbling temple at the edge of town — a building so forgotten even the rats filed for abandonment — and stare at the faded murals of gods long since retired.

  He didn’t know their names. He didn’t know their prayers. But he knew, somehow, that someone had once listened here. And maybe, if he was stubborn enough, foolish enough, he could make someone listen again.

  The first time he discovered the temple he noticed it stood at the far edge of Drizzle, leaning slightly westward, as if hoping to tip over and be done with it. Built centuries ago by settlers with more optimism than sense, it was now mostly visited by crows, mildew, and whatever small gods still remembered it existed. The adults didn’t much bother with the temple anymore. The priest — when sober — sometimes muttered that the gods had better things to do than listen to the likes of Drizzle. Everyone else seemed to agree.

  Which meant, naturally, that Derrin was very interested.

  He chose his night carefully: damp enough that the village would huddle inside, but not so stormy that the old door hinges would shriek betrayal. Slipping past the square, past the well (still reeking faintly of onions), he padded barefoot through puddles and moss until he reached the warped wooden doors. They loomed taller than he remembered. Carvings of old symbols curled across them like scars: wheat sheaves, sunbursts, dragons in mid-snarl. Most were so weatherworn they might have been anything — flames, fish, exceptionally angry cabbages.

  Derrin pressed a hand against the door. It felt cold, heavy. Important, somehow.

  He gave it a push.

  It opened with a whuff of dust, the smell of forgotten prayers, and something faintly resembling wet socks. Inside, the temple was dim and sprawling. Moonlight filtered through cracks in the ceiling, sketching pale patterns across the cracked flagstones. The air was thick with the heavy, listening silence of a place no one had spoken to properly in a long time.

  And there — on the far wall — he saw them. The murals. Or what was left of them. Faded figures sprawled across the plaster, painted in colors that might once have been glorious but now looked like the leftovers of a particularly depressing stew.

  Tall gods with outstretched arms. Beasts with too many wings. Rivers flowing backward into impossible mountains. Half the details had peeled away, leaving some gods missing heads, arms, or (in one regrettable case) their dignity. But even in ruin, they were magnificent.

  Derrin tiptoed closer, heart hammering like a thrown stone in a well. He traced the faded lines with calloused fingers: rough, crumbling, real. Someone had believed in this. Someone had knelt here, spoken here, hoped here. From his tattered pouch, Morinxandar regarded the ruined murals with his usual stony expression.

  "Yeah," Derrin whispered, holding him up solemnly to face the wall, "it’s a bit of a mess."

  Morinxandar, being a muffin and a very patient listener, offered no argument.

  "I mean, it was something once, right?" Derrin continued, peering at the broken gods and flaking paint. "All these people... all these prayers. And now it’s just... dust. And pigeons."

  A pigeon, as if on cue, dropped something deeply unholy onto what had once been the forehead of a sun god.

  Derrin winced. "Sorry, mate," he said, and shifted Morinxandar slightly to block the view. The pouch-muffin regarded him in silence, as ever.

  "But maybe that’s why it’s perfect for us, huh?" Derrin said, a tiny grin pulling at his mouth. "A little broken. A little forgotten. No one else wants it. Like you. Like me."

  He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

  "We could... I dunno. We could believe in it again. Just a little. Together."

  He nodded, as if Morinxandar had given an approving grunt, and gently tucked the muffin back into his sling. Something shifted then. A faint scrape. A whisper of paper on stone. Derrin turned, instincts prickling. There — tucked behind the sagging altar — a book, half-swallowed by dust and damp. It looked... ancient. Forgotten. Possibly dangerous. Almost certainly unsanitary.

  In short, perfect.

  He approached it with the careful reverence of a child stealing sacred treasure from a dragon’s hoard. He wiped a hand across the cover, smearing dirt into slightly less dirt, and squinted at the cracked title. "A Modestly Comprehensive Guide to the Gods Who Gave Up."

  Derrin’s eyes widened. A grin — lopsided, stubborn, hopeful — split his face. He pulled Morinxandar out again and held him up so he could see. "There," Derrin said, whispering fiercely. "Told you there was still something here."

  The muffin remained stoically unimpressed. Which, Derrin decided, was probably the correct reaction to discovering ancient religious literature under a damp rock. Tucking both book and muffin securely into his pouch, Derrin settled down by the altar, struck a stub of candle against a rough patch of stone, and prepared to teach himself the ways of forgotten gods.

  It wasn’t much. The candle guttered, the murals cracked, the temple leaned a little further west. But it was his. For the first time in his life, something was his. And in the dim, crumbling silence, the boy and the muffin began their long, ridiculous journey toward impossible things.

  Outside, the drizzle thickened into something wetter and more committed. Inside, Derrin hunched over the tattered pages, mouthing clumsy prayers he didn’t know were upside-down, smiling a little whenever he recognized a word. And if anyone had been there to see it — anyone at all — they might have thought the boy looked oddly bright in the moonlight, as if the ruined gods themselves were leaning closer, curious about this absurd, stubborn thing who had come looking for them when no one else bothered anymore.