Hopefully I won’t have to do anything like that again any time soon.
Mercifully, my former mace hasn’t mocked me as a crybaby or a limp noodle or any of the other nasty things I called myself after my outburst. Actually, she has been rather quiet, which only reminds me of how alone I am.
I haven’t been this alone since my first battle for Athens back in the day.
My first memories have mostly settled. The rest are still swirling about too fast for me to catch any one, although I can still get impressions. I still remember the facts about my life, even if I don’t remember the experiences. But for the ones I do have, I relive them once in a while, to think about what I can learn from them. In particular, I have been thinking a lot about that priest, the first person I ever killed.
I know almost nothing about gods — that was probably why Sharur passed into spirit form to help me out in the first place. Apparently, the gods had seen fit to burden me with responsibility, but I had no idea what my task specifically was. And if I complete it, then what? Is my job as a god over? Is Aoge assigned a new god? Or is this truly my new existence, not merely a temporary assignment? I don’t know if even a priest would know the answer to those questions — their job was to venerate the gods, not to guide them. Still, I wonder if the priest is having a good afterlife. Whatever the afterlife is.
Share, do you know what the afterlife is like? I don’t think I was able to witness very much of it before I got here.
The mace’s voice returns, reassuring me that she hasn’t left, she was just quiet. I suppose weapon spirits don’t have the same need for concentration that people do.
Anthema?
Through our connection, Sharur made a kind of grunt.
In the Principality as a whole, you mean?
Ah, right. I suppose the priest from that time did mention Rhoda, so she must have been one of the others in the city of Athens that Sharur was talking about. I feel another sudden pang of guilt, but I suppress it.
Thank you, Share.
Those are volunteers. They’re a series of hardy plants that colonize barren land after a disaster. They prepare the soil for the next wave of vegetation, and then gradually fade when their successors take all their resources. In this case, though, the topsoil is already fertile, so it shouldn’t be more than a week until they’re all gone. Do they really look that bad to you?
I don’t recall ever knowing so much about plants, soil, or webs of lives, before my death. Perhaps I wouldn’t know if I had, with the sorry state of my memories, but it feels like knowledge I just gained when I became a god of the land. I can see how it would be necessary.
Sharur hesitated.
What opportunity would a mace have to think about weeds, though...?
With all the time I’ve had to spare, I’ve been building a more permanent burrow for myself deep underground. It isn’t exactly warm down there, but it’s stable, and it’s hidden. So far I have been alone out here, but I know at some point my country will send a survey team, and they will likely come to the conclusion that a god has come to reside here.
I don’t know why, but I don’t want them to find me like this. I doubt they would try to hurt or kill a god of the land, or find out who I used to be, but… whether it’s shame, trepidation, or fear, it doesn’t feel like a good idea.
Oh, wait. I know what I’m afraid of.
I’m afraid I’ll try to help my country. But my duty is to the soil now. I can’t forget that.
I decide that I’ve put it off long enough.
I’m going to “give life”.
Sharur doesn’t really seem to understand how I’m supposed to do that either, so my only option is to follow my divine (?) instincts, which are telling me to… bite something. I have a feeling it would be dangerous and reckless to give life to something that’s already alive, so I’ll go ahead and amend that to “bite something inanimate”. It sounds… weird, but not difficult.
So, what shall I give life to? A stone? Some dirt? Actually, I already have a much better idea.
Along the riverbank, there are several places on the outside of bends where the water is relatively still, or even eddied. If I gave life to the water in one of those areas, whatever formed wouldn’t quickly flow away from me. But if it did, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, either. I truly don’t know what to expect, and having a way to quickly be rid of my creation, as callous as that sounds, feels prudent.
And so I find myself staring at one of those eddies, and I realize I’m seeing my reflection for the first time in this body.
I am, of course, an enormous snake. My face is somewhat shorter and broader than I’d expected; I’d assumed I would have a great diamond-shaped head like most of the snakes I’d seen in the field. The spiked or keeled scales I’d noticed all over my body extended right up to the end of my nose on top, and hardly any under me, and I wondered if real snakes who looked like me had problems hugging each other.
Probably… not? Probably not.
My eyes are great scaly circles of smoky quartz with pitch black slits in the middle. My eyes don’t close like lizards’ do, and I have taken several glancing blows to them already, so I think they must be covered in transparent protective scales, which is unique. It’s much harder to poke my eyes out because of that.
I admonish myself for becoming distracted by my own beauty, and plunge my head into the ice-cold mountain runoff. It’s absolutely freezing, but doing this makes me realize that I haven’t actually drunk any water since my death. I take a few gulps of the fresh water just to feel what it’s like, and it nearly empties the eddy entirely for a moment. It’s hard to be big and beautiful.
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With enjoying being alive out of the way, I open my jaws wide, bare my dagger fangs, and bite down on the river.
To my surprise, my jaws actually close around something, instead of merely snapping shut. Obviously I can’t see what it is, but I flex something I can’t see and pump something into whatever I’m biting. I suspect, if I were a normal snake, I would paralyze or kill my prey this way. I doubt I can have prey, as it is. But while I am once again contemplating the difference between myself and other women, whatever is in my jaws begins to squirm.
I quickly withdraw my head from the stream, keeping my grip fastened around whatever I’m holding, and toss it behind me into the air. I hear it splat gently among the weeds, and after shaking my head free of water, I turn to look at what I’ve wrought.
Wriggling peacefully in the grass beyond the river bank, I see a snake made of water.
It’s tremendously beautiful. It’s clear and colorless, and would probably be invisible if not for the glare of the sun lensing through it. Its shape is closer to what I would have expected my own to look like; round, flat head, beady little water eyes, and a smooth scale texture. All together, the water snake looks like a long, delicately cut jewel.
Hello, I think, as if talking to Sharur. The little snake looks up at me.
You understand?
The snake slowly bobs its head up and down, as if trying to figure out how its body works. It slithers closer to me (which is odd to watch, now that I know how it actually works) and touches my scales with its snout. At this size difference, its entire mass is about the volume of my head, but I’m quite large right now so it may be a normal snake, if only in size. Because of the difference in size between us, though, it has no difficulty weaving around my scales and climbing up my body until it is wrapped around. It feels cool to the touch, like the mountain runoff that I summoned it from.
Share, I call out in my mind. Share, what is this thing?
Naiad? The little snake wiggles through my scales, leaving a light trail of water as it passes.
I’m starting to feel like my own mace is making fun of me, but she continues before I can object.
Something bothers me about what she said, but she pushed past it before I could register or comment on it. I try to brush it aside. Maybe I’ll remember later.
So you may learn to talk later, then? Well, then, I won’t be so presumptuous as to give you a name yet, naiad, but I will talk to you as long as you need me to. I am Gather, the fresh-born god of Aoge. I will care for you, for the time being.
I shock myself briefly with the tone I take with the little snakelet. I don’t consider myself an especially friendly person, and I’m awful with pleasantries, but if anything I think my sense of decorum is usually far worse. And yet, with this nymph, I seem to talk as if I’m a real god, or even a mother. It doesn’t bother me, exactly, because I still meant what I said, but it does make me realize that I’ve changed more than I knew.
It might be a good thing that Sharur doesn’t have a body, or I might have tried to bite her.
The naiad’s ability, it turns out, is mostly to call rain.
I hadn’t realized it, but it hadn’t rained here at all since the storm that brought me, and that must have been a season or more ago, now. I wonder if the aridity of the soil contributed to the land’s inability to heal without a god; no, more likely the lack of a god over the cursed land was the reason the rain wouldn’t arrive to begin with.
And a naiad, by Sharur’s explanation, is something like a small god — smaller than I am, even. So I was only partially surprised when the little snake began to dance, and in doing so, summoned dark clouds even as I watched.
It felt oddly satisfying to just bask in the rain, letting it wash the grime from my scales as if I were taking a deep soak in the river the naiad came from. I got an impression of joy from the smaller snake, too, although it’s difficult to be sure. Perhaps it was starting to learn to broadcast its intent, after all, and it started with basic emotions. I wonder if something about my own deification has skipped the process required to learn. I feel slightly bad about it, like I cheated.
With the naiad’s blessing, the pioneer weeds quickly lost ground to the tall grasses and wild grains, and Aoge became a prairie again.
I think when I hatched, it was early summer, which meant it must be at least early autumn now. I feel somewhat cruel for having brought a snake made of water into the world just before winter, but I suppose I can’t exactly undo it. That means I’m going to have to figure out how to shelter my charge when the cold comes.
One option would be to simply let it live with me. Unfortunately, I don’t think my body is actually all that warm. It will be chilly in my burrow, though admittedly it probably won't be much chillier than it normally is. The temperature doesn't seem to vary too much underground.
I could try building some sort of fire lodge for myself and the snakelet, but this new body of mine isn't very well suited for building artificial structures. As for starting a fire, I think I could find a way, but I've been reluctant to try it out in a new prairie. Plus, god or not, I do not want to risk building a fire underground. It might be irrational of me, but foul air is still somewhat scary.
That leaves the simplest and best option, which I feel the worst about: leaving the naiad in the river overwinter.
In theory, that's a great idea. It will have the company of all the river fish that normally overwinter under the insulating layer of ice on the surface, and it won't be too cold, either. It will have plenty of fresh water to sustain its form, and will remain connected to its domain. I don't think it needs to eat or drink, but if it did, it could certainly do so in the river. The main issue is that leaving the naiad in its domain for the entire winter would feel far too much like abandonment, not to mention I would be lonely-
Ugh. That's the real reason, isn't it? There's no way I can justify doing anything else now.
I'll just have to sand down my shell and face the winter without another body nearby. I will have Sharur with me, but I know it still won't be easy, especially since I don't know if she would ever talk to me at all if I didn't talk first. I suppose the addition of another life sleeping near me reminded me of the companionship I'd held with my comrades while I was alive. I will have to forget that as soon as possible, since I won't be going back.
I wonder how the others would react if they could see me now. The uncouth one, the fighter, the reaper, reduced to sulking about her own solitude.
Oh, well. Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. It's still only autumn.
While she was certain the god-snake was asleep, the guide of the divine Sharur quietly contacted the naiad’s mind. The naiad stirred with a silent start, looking around for the source of the voice, but heard nothing — it technically had no source, after all.
Wordlessly and somehow dazedly, the snake made of finely textured water bobbed his head up and down. I am he, yes, he seemed to say.
The naiad nodded again.
In response, the naiad simply stared off into the middle distance, as if trying to determine what the mysterious voice was really asking, but if he received any such revelation, it didn’t show in his manner. Sharur sighed.
The naiad nodded slowly, seeming to ponder something. Sharur caught just a shred of his intent. Um… is she being punished? There was more, but the guide couldn’t quite catch the clarification for the question. Still, she answered, with all the confidence of a practiced pedagogue.