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She lounges indolently on the nearly bare floor as if the single cushion somewhere under here was a throne and not a square of fabric and stuffing. Her haori flaps open to partially reveal a plain green yukata that betrays something of its cost in how parts of it glint and glimmer in the dying sunlight.
Opposite her, another woman, younger in the faded indigo of workwear that contrasts sharply with her orange hair, sits more stiffly on her own cushion.
“You came to seek a favor, young godling?” Asks the woman on the floor.
“Yes.”
“A favor from me? They’ve warned you about me, I’m sure they have, the Inventor — Life Gone Mad for Answers None Can Know. She who sought to create a bridge between that of gods and that of Hollow-Hearted Spirits. They say that they have erased my name from their tongues in penance, for all they make good use of me when their chosen and beloved go on quests.”
She smirks.
“Or perhaps they told you nothing of the sort, and you’re here of your own volition unknowing of who you seek aid from.”
“I’ve…heard some of that. A bit.” The younger woman clenches her hands in her lap, but her voice remains steady.
“And?” She hoists herself upright to inquire, and in doing so drawing the haori back around herself. Her pale, pale eyes staring into her own.
“Well,” the other woman pauses, “you haven’t done anything to me yet, so I guess even if you do experiment on me, it’s fine, as long as my friends and family are safe and well and happy.”
She clicks her tongue, “Oh, you don’t know what I could do with an offer like that, but payment will come latter. Now tell me, what are you here for?”
“My friend has been kidnapped.”
“Oh? A friend is it? And kidnapped? From the breast of the mountain itself? I would think the others would have roused themselves from their petty squabbling over their divisions and patrols to assist you in your quest if that were the case. No need for little old me, in exile as I am.”
Her voice trails off mockingly, as if her exile were the universe’s joke, to which only she knew the punchline.
But she is well known to be near omniscient — what is life without knowledge? How to breathe? How to drink? How to eat? How to grow? How to feel — joy, rage, despair, jealousy, love, friendship?
How could she not know, when a seed of her rests at the core of every being still alive?
“Well. Not quite from the nursery,” the other woman continues with slight hesitation.
“Aaaah,” she says, “not quite from the nursery?”
“No.”
Life’s smile widens until the other can see her teeth peeking out from fine, blood-red lips.
“Then how did she disappear, little one? How did she come to her current fate?”
“She’s not a godling, not really, not just yet,” she blurts out, fidgeting. “She was sent patrolling, as part of her final quest and, well, she came across one of the creatures that was plaguing one of the towns a few leagues from the mountain.”
“Not yet a godling and yet on patrol? Oh my,” Life muses, placing a decorative fan over her lower face as if in an attempt to hide the edges that lurk in her eyes and the eye teeth of her smile even as she feints scandal. “Her family must have confidence in her skills or else wish to see her dead before her Ascension. “Continue, little godling, with your friend’s tale. And how you find yourself searching for her.”
She gulps. “That town was. Mine.”
Gales of laughter bounce off the walls of the small shop the Goddess in Exile calls home.
“OH, Oh, oohhhh! You must have been a surprise to your friend, a diamond in the rough and a fellow godling — pardon, person of ichor — to boot!”
Life leans closer, over the table as if transfixed by the paltry scrap of a tale that’s been told, as if she suspects the godling before her is a liar as much as a petitioner of some sort.
“Tell me more, little godling,” she rasps, “tell me more.”
“She found me before she found the monster. She’d been sent to patrol, but was also assigned to bring down one of the Fishbone Hollows that had been encroaching on the town with its hunts.”
“Like calls to like, once more I see, if she found you first. Continue.”
The younger woman clenches her hands even tighter, as if pressing the bones from her skin will make up for what she has to say.
“She explained a little about where she was from and what her duties are when she realized I could look at her clearly, but. The Hollow came to my house then, and attacked my sisters.”
“Blood sisters?”
“Yes.”
The Goddess taps her fan against her lips. “Too much ichor can warp even the strongest wards for hiding, yes, I can see how that may have happened.”
“And then,” the other says without prompting, “I couldn’t just let the Hollow eat my sisters, so I attacked it.”
“And she let you?”
“Well, no,” the younger grimaces. “She tried to bind me with a simple spell, but it didn’t take right, so I left the house to attack the Hollow.”
She slumps slightly, posture yielding, as she states at her hands. They fidget, as if searching for something to grasp and only finding each other. “But I’m not trained in swordsmanship or anything and the pitchfork only did so much. And the Hollow was fast.”
“Did she defend you, little godling?”
“She did. She took the blow meant for me, and it meant she could no longer fight.”
“And so what did you do? With your sisters and friend to defend?” Life breathes. She knows the answer.
“I was given an option: take her powers or die. So I did.”
“Did what, little godling?” She knows.
“I…took her powers,” but she doesn’t explain further as to how.
“And defeated the Hollow that wounded her.”
“Yes.”
“Aaah, I see.”
“And she stayed for a month, recovering, until one day she vanished. I found her before she had gotten too far, but her brother and friend descended the mountain to claim her from my family and arrest her like she was a criminal for helping save my sisters. For helping me.”
Life is silent in the face of the distress of young godling before her.
“They took her, after I lost to her brother, as I lay bleeding on the path in near the woods.”
A moment of silence stretches.
“And I saw you bid me to come. You promised me help, Oh Exiled One, and I have come to take it.”
Life cackles. “Take it, take my help. Ah, what a good day today has been.”
She rises from the table, pale and terrible to behold, and the majority of the mercurial mood swings and theatrics fall away leaving the Goddess behind. The younger sees, awe write large on her face before she scowls at her own appreciation. Perhaps this is only yet another mask, anyways.
But the importance is not lost on the younger, so the godling stills, as her measure and worth are decided by the Goddess.
“Maa, Very well, you’ve passed the first part. Now come, little godling, first you must show me what you could do. Come.” And she leads the way from the room, the younger scrambling after her.
“Could do?”
“Oh yes, could do. Life quite frequently holds Fate in its grip, intertwined as we are at times, just like with Death.”
“That doesn’t really answer the questions. Besides, I don’t know what I’m of, regardless of what I could do – can do. My sword was – is – steel and steel alone.”
“But you’ve Ascended and now you must make the power your own before it burns you inside out.”
They stop in front of a different room and in entering, end up dropping over a thousand feet to reach the bottom. The younger screams, even though she knows that, she probably won’t die from landing, and the Goddess huffs, grasping her arms and flaring the haori that turns out to be concealing wings of a similar dark green. The oddly diaphanous wings glint green and something between gold and silver in the false light of the pit they’re falling into, just like certain parts of Life’s yukata had in the dying sun.
They’re almost distracting enough to make her forget about the falling for a moment.
“Always the screaming,” Life cackles gleefully in the other’s ear, bringing her out of her moment of appreciation. She jerks away from the hot breath on her ear and neck with a blush, but mostly just succeeds in wrenching her neck from the hold the Goddess has on her.
She would likely appreciate that the other didn’t drop her more if her blush wouldn’t fade sooner in the face of free falling once again.
They land with a gentle thump, and then the Goddess is across from her, haori settled over wings and arms free once more.
“Three days, I will give you in this hole,” the Goddess says, voice deep, as she gestures to the room of dirt and sky. “And you will Know. Or you will Burn.
“Or,” she chirps, mood changing like the quicksilver her eyes so resemble in color, sounding like one of the gossips at the market, “You might just burn and Know, what with your hair. We’ll see!”
“What?”
“Remember: three days! I’ll be back then!”
Once she ascends to the shop level, she can hear her voice calling, “Tessai-san! We’ll need your Spells for this!”
Know or Burn.
Helpful.
And as if corresponding to her thoughts, pricks of pain begin to light at her toes.
Three days pass, and when Life and Creativity open up the Training Room, out steps a Goddess in Truth.
“Ascension completed there, though you’re looking a little crispy!” Notes the elder.
“Shut up,” grumbles the newly minted goddess, brushing soot off her arms. At least her Ascension gave her new clothes. She didn’t Burn, but her skin certainly got hot enough to set her old clothes on fire!
“Well, Tessai-san, I do believe that I will be having a chat with our newest!”
Turning back to the newest Goddess, Life practically sings, “Back down the hole, Little One!”
This time, the younger has no need for the other’s wings. Even if she might miss the chance at feeling strong arms around her and a softer warmth at her back. That’s not important right now.
“Now, with whom do I make a contract, You who have Fully Ascended?”
The younger takes a deep breath and says, “I am Ichigo. I am the Protector and Destruction and the Hunger to Survive. I am the Icy Darkness of the Moonless Night, which I Rend as I Dance Through It.”
“Good,” Life purrs and takes off her haori, spreading her green gossamer wings for Ichigo to see, especially when they began to shimmer red. Something about her sweeping arm in a mock bow reminds Ichigo of one of the puppets that she could see when the merchant caravans would come to town.
“Now, let me state my name for your own knowledge: I am Kisuke, I am Life and Death, but not quite everything in between. I am Innovation, not Creativity, and of Quiet Deaths for the sake of Loyalty. I am an Answerer and a Questioner. I am One of the Exiled.”
Ichigo feels the weight of the other titles like a gathering of storms on the air. She breathes them in, tastes the titles and feels no surprise at the last one. She is the Protector, and Kisuke has people she Protects with her image and titles, and she knows too, in the darkness Kisuke works in, that the other has defended them with blades and blood as well as words and facades and the misdirection she played with throughout their second meeting.
After all, her friend knew some of the Exiled Goddess, reduced to a mere shopkeeper for the Gods and Goddesses of the Mountain. She had never mentioned any other Exiled.
And Kisuke herself had told Ichigo her most used and least liked title herself.
Life smiles at her and she grins back with teeth.
“Now, Protector, shall we contract to see your friend found and safe?”
“Yes.” Yes, her friend will be found, her friend will be safe.
“Then let us begin.”
.
.
.
(But there’s a reason she never asked for her friend to be well: Her friend will never Ascend, nor be as she was, now that Ichigo has with the extra power bound tight to her own, to better protect her own.
What is Ice to Protection, to Darkness, after all?
She is Survival, and her Survival is Hunger.)
And that's a wrap!
Comments and Kudos welcome!
Now I sleep because 6 day work weeks back to back suck.
~Fins