“I don’t know who he is. I think he worked in the stables. He was killed in a fight.” Nergal looked up from the corpse and caught his older brother’s eyes. “I didn’t do it. Honest.” He knew everyone else got angry when he killed people. He tried to not do it too much; he liked it better when he could make mortals kill each other. A whole bunch of people fighting made him really happy. He mostly just watched them fight. But when he got bigger, then he would fight with them.
“I watched and the other mortal killed him,” he said, finishing his explanation. “I think that’s his liver in there.” He brought the body back home so he could see how it worked. It only made sense that if he knew how mortal bodies worked then it would be easier for him to know how to kill them. And best of all, it was all neat looking and gross.
Nergal looked at his brother and suppressed a sigh. Nanna never liked to do anything neat and gross with him. They did other fun things together, but his big brother didn’t seem to like blood as much as Nergal did. No one in the family did. He thought they were a little weird.
“You don’t want to play with me, do you?” That didn’t really bother him too much. He didn’t always like playing the games Nanna picked either. His brother picked boring games that made you sit still and be quiet and think about everything. Nergal liked to run around and be loud and do what felt right instead of thinking about it first. He wondered if all big brothers were like that or if it was just his.