Ah, I see Anthea is trying to pull a Piri. Let's hope it goes well.
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox
- Thread starter arianedartagnan
- Start date
Don't worry, Piri is there to save the day!
Anthea's spent so much time around Piri that it had to rub off sometime!
Piri has exactly the same questions, and she's going to want some answers out of Anthea!
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Chapter 148: Matriarch of the Temple to the Kitchen God
Chapter 148: Matriarch of the Temple to the Kitchen God
Matriarch? Of the Temple to the Kitchen God?
Even if I didn't have the foggiest idea what that raccoon dog was up to, the gullible crowd in the courtyard had no doubt it was the next Big New Amazing Thing. At Anthea's announcement, they went wild, clapping and screaming and chanting Lodia's new title.
"Matri-ARCH! Matri-ARCH! Matri-ARCH!"
I raised both wings like eyebrows at Katu. As Lodia's closest friend, he must have known about this farce beforehand and failed to warn me.
Except that he looked as bewildered as I felt.
"What is the 'Matriarch of the Temple,' Pip?" he asked. "Is that another leadership position?"
Based on Anthea's phrasing, it had to be. Personally, I thought that it was nonsensical in the extreme to call a woman who'd never borne a child a "matriarch," but this was Anthea, so what could you expect?
At the top of the steps, Anthea beamed at the crowd and hissed something at Lodia. The girl lifted a reluctant hand and waved it once. She seemed to fear a vulture demon (or an angry sparrow) would swoop down and bite it off.
The crowd didn't care. They screamed even more loudly and started picking up armfuls of shredded firecracker wrappers and flinging them into the air to rain down like plum blossom petals. Surely some noble lady would take offense at having burnt bits of paper land on her coiffure, I thought, but no one objected.
All right. This farce had gone on long enough. Flying around behind Katu, I used my forehead to bump him between the shoulder blades and push him forward.
Time for your speech, High Priest.
I thus propelled him onto the steps next to Lodia. She practically leaped backwards to let him take center stage, forcing Anthea to step back as well. It was that, or drag the girl forward again, which wouldn't have been a good look.
"Loddie? What's going on?" Katu whispered as he passed her.
She made a small, helpless gesture with her hands. "I don't know. Her Ladyship told me to come out here with her so she could make an announcement and then – oh, Pip! There you are! Oh, thank goodness!"
I could have killed Anthea for sending Lodia into this panic. Yes, here I am, Lodia. Katu, give your speech. I'll sort things out here.
He raised his arms in that now-familiar gesture and, surrounded by a cloud of glittering butterflies, began to expound upon the glory of the Divine Intercessor. I'd heard variants of this speech so many times that I didn't bother listening.
Inside, I snapped at Anthea.
She actually obeyed, instead of staying outside just to spite me. That meekness said scrolls about how guilty she felt over the mess she'd made.
Perching on Lodia's shoulder, I fixed Anthea with my fiercest glare. All right. I have been patient long enough. Explain yourself.
Her mouth pushed out in a pout. "You're planning to set up a whole network of Temples all over Serica, aren't you? Someone needs to oversee them. I thought Lodia would be the ideal candidate."
You thought Lodia –
I cut myself off before I could shred the girl's self-confidence, stuff the shreds into a firecracker, and blow them up.
Did you consult with her beforehand whether she wanted the appointment? I asked instead.
Under my claws, Lodia tensed.
Anthea's chin jutted out defiantly. She knew she was in the wrong. "Aren't you the one who's always trying to push her forward, to reach for more, to dream of more? What – are you trying to curb her ambitions now?"
Her ambitions – or yours? You want control over the Temple, don't you? You don't think you can control Katu well enough, so you're setting up a rival leader. That's what this is all about, isn't it?
At the words "rival leader," Lodia choked out something so soft that even Anthea looked at her uncomprehendingly.
I forced my voice lower, into a more soothing register. We didn't quite catch that, Lodia. You don't need to be afraid to tell me what you really want. Tell me, and I'll make it happen.
My mind was already racing for ways to retract such a public announcement, made at such a historic event. People's memories were short, though. All I needed to do was engineer a different, equally historic event, and the second would erase awareness of the first. But what sort of situation should I engineer –
Lodia hunched her shoulders, making me flap my wings to catch my balance. Under the circumstances, I opted not to reprove her.
Just barely loud enough to be audible, she whispered, "…don't want…rivals…rather work with him."
What?
While I blinked and tried to parse those phrases in any way other than the obvious – which was that she intended to accept the position that Anthea had forced on her – the raccoon dog brayed with laughter. "There you go! You asked her what she wants! Well, she's told us what she wants! She wants to be the head of all the Temples to the Kitchen God in Serica!"
That did seem to be the implication of "rather work with him," but –
Lodia? Is that correct? You want to be the head of all of the Temples in Serica?
I flew around to the front so I could see her face. But she didn't look intimidated by her employer, or overwhelmed by a role for which she was utterly unsuited.
Her chin dipped and rose.
Was that a nod?
"Of course it was a nod!" Anthea said triumphantly.
It doesn't count if you throw her into something and dizzy her with options and don't give her a chance to think them through.
Ignoring Anthea's "Hmph! As if you don't do the same thing!" I hovered in front of Lodia's nose and checked again.
Was that really a "yes," Lodia? Is this really what you want? You don't need to be afraid to tell me what you really want.
Anthea stepped forward. "Now who's trying to lead her to the desired response?"
Lodia's shoulders hunched again, then straightened. Her chin came up. She met my eyes. "Thank you, Pip, truly, for your concern. I – yes – I would like to work with Katu at the Temple. I would like to be the Matriarch."
Well. After all the fuss I'd made about helping her achieve what she really, truly wanted, I couldn't tell her "no" now, could I?
"You should have told her 'no'," Floridiana informed me. "What were you thinking? That girl is going to be caught between you and Lady Anthea and she is going to get smashed into – into meat paste in your power games!"
I know, I know, I get the point.
"You obviously don't, because you let it happen!"
Well, what was I supposed to say? I was convinced she didn't want it and it was all Anthea's doing! And then she comes out and says she wants to be the "Matriarch"!
I hopped in an agitated circle on Floridiana's desk, soon to become just a spare desk after the mage left. The thought didn't improve my mood.
Matriarch. Could Anthea have come up with a more ridiculous title for a teenage girl?
"I like it! It sssounds fancy," Bobo offered.
It does have a certain ring to it, Stripey agreed, not helpfully at all. What would you call the position of the head of all the Temples?
"The Glorious Commander of the Temples to the Kitchen God, Guardian of Commonfolk," put in – who else? – the self-proclaimed Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders.
"Dusty," Floridiana warned.
"I like it," said Steelfang from the doorway.
Who invited the demon? I was muttering to Stripey when the wolf padded all the way into the room, followed by Pallus the manul and the foxling.
A peanut gallery. Just what I needed.
"You're supposed to be circulating through the crowd, spreading praises of the Kitchen God," Floridiana reminded them. "What are you doing here?"
Pallus sat down and swept his tail around his paws. "They insisted on petting me. It is unbecoming of my dignity." He blinked his big, amber eyes. "Prince Pouff enjoys it. I left him to satisfy their adoration."
Indeed, through the window drifted a high-pitched cry of, "Kitty!" The happy purr that followed rattled the lattice.
"Pouff," warned Pallus without raising his voice.
The volume of the purr dropped. The window lattice settled back into place.
And you? I demanded of the foxling. What brings you here? If she planned to tell me that she ran away from a bunch of humans because they wanted to pet her tails –
"It's too hot. If I'd stayed out there any longer, I might have begun to sweat." She pouted in a cringe-inducing facsimile of what she must have seen in some painting of me. From her tone, you'd have thought that sweating was the most abhorrent bodily process available to living creatures.
But that I could actually almost empathize with, if I strained myself. The lowlands were significantly warmer than the Jade Mountains. I, too, recalled needing to adjust to the clime of the City of Dawn Song, and that lay far to the north. Its heat was nothing compared to the humid, late-summer boil of Goldhill.
Not that I was going to tell her that, of course.
Do you really believe that you are the first demon to come down from the Jade Mountain Wilds and discover that it's hotter than you expected?
My scathing question made all of her five tails perk up. "Did Lady Piri…?" She couldn't quite bring herself to apply the word "sweat" to her idol.
Well, neither, for that matter, could I.
Any major life change will require an adjustment period, Sphaera. You must learn to accept that reality.
Stripey's eyes rolled so hard that they could have been children's marbles, but the foxling bobbled her head, grateful for any advice that I saw fit to divulge.
"Of course. Yes, yes, I see. It was foolish of me to expect otherwise." She scanned the workroom until her gaze settled on Floridiana. "Mage, I require the Four Treasures of the Study."
The mage stared right back with no obvious intent to move any time in the near future.
"What are the Four Treasssures of the Ssstudy?" Bobo whispered.
Paper, brush, inkstone, inkstick, Stripey whispered back. I was about to ask how he knew when he slanted a mischievous glance my way. We robbed a shipment intended for Baron Claymouth once. Fetched a pretty copper too, when we sold it to the Water Court of Black Sand Creek.
You dared sell stolen goods to a Dragon King? I asked in astonishment before I realized that of course the duck demon bandits did. They'd even robbed Yulus' pearl farm. What was the sale of illicit merchandise compared to that? Did he know?
Nah. I'll bet Prime Minister Nagi guessed, though.
Yeah, she probably did.
Well, it wasn't my problem if the water snake spirit wanted to accrue negative karma from sponsoring the plundering and pillaging of human merchants.
"Mage," repeated the foxling more loudly. "I require – "
The Four Treasures of the Study are just that – treasures, I informed her. For what purpose are you requesting to use the Temple's supplies?
At the reprimand, all five tails drooped to the floor. "Oh. Oh. I just wanted to record the Lady Piri's Words of Wisdom. For posterity, I mean. Not because I will ever forget them. They are engraved in my mind!"
In that case. I nodded at Floridiana, who heaved a gusty sigh and pushed the writing supplies across her desk.
While the foxling wrote down the words supposedly engraved in her mind so she wouldn't forget them later on, I returned to our original discussion. I repeated the same question Lodia's family had once asked of her: So what are we going to do about Lodia?
Stripey shrugged his wings, nearly clipping Steelfang in the head. The wolf glared but didn't dare snap at the bird. Why do we need to do anything with her? Why can't we just let her find her own path?
But she doesn't know her own path!
She seems to be doing a good job of figuring it out.
"You've only just met her. You don't know her," Floridiana backed me up. "She's shy and naïve. She's going to get smashed between Pip here and Lady Anthea."
Well, it's going to take both of them to smash her between them, and Pip doesn't want to smash her at all. So I'd say it's looking good for Lodia.
"The only thing I can sssee is telling her that ssshe can't be Matriarch," Bobo said slowly. "But ssshe wants to be. Ssso wouldn't it be worssse to tell her ssshe can't?"
That's what I've been trying to tell Floridiana this whole time!
The mage threw up her arms and waved them. "Fine! Do whatever you want! I'm not going to be around to see it anyway!"
Privately, I thought it was less a matter of what I wanted and what Lodia had decided she wanted. When I'd crowed that we should let her embroider her way to a greater role, this had not been what I'd envisioned.
A discussion like this had also not been how I'd envisioned spending the Festival to the Kitchen God that I'd spent so long organizing. By the time we exited the study, the food was nearly all gone, the offering tables' legs were cracking under the weight of all the gifts, and it was nearly time for the fireworks display.
As I perched on the upturned edge of the roof next to Stripey and Bobo and watched the fireworks explode overhead, I allowed myself to forget my plans. For a while, just a little while, I allowed myself to enjoy the moment with my friends.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Matriarch? Of the Temple to the Kitchen God?
Even if I didn't have the foggiest idea what that raccoon dog was up to, the gullible crowd in the courtyard had no doubt it was the next Big New Amazing Thing. At Anthea's announcement, they went wild, clapping and screaming and chanting Lodia's new title.
"Matri-ARCH! Matri-ARCH! Matri-ARCH!"
I raised both wings like eyebrows at Katu. As Lodia's closest friend, he must have known about this farce beforehand and failed to warn me.
Except that he looked as bewildered as I felt.
"What is the 'Matriarch of the Temple,' Pip?" he asked. "Is that another leadership position?"
Based on Anthea's phrasing, it had to be. Personally, I thought that it was nonsensical in the extreme to call a woman who'd never borne a child a "matriarch," but this was Anthea, so what could you expect?
At the top of the steps, Anthea beamed at the crowd and hissed something at Lodia. The girl lifted a reluctant hand and waved it once. She seemed to fear a vulture demon (or an angry sparrow) would swoop down and bite it off.
The crowd didn't care. They screamed even more loudly and started picking up armfuls of shredded firecracker wrappers and flinging them into the air to rain down like plum blossom petals. Surely some noble lady would take offense at having burnt bits of paper land on her coiffure, I thought, but no one objected.
All right. This farce had gone on long enough. Flying around behind Katu, I used my forehead to bump him between the shoulder blades and push him forward.
Time for your speech, High Priest.
I thus propelled him onto the steps next to Lodia. She practically leaped backwards to let him take center stage, forcing Anthea to step back as well. It was that, or drag the girl forward again, which wouldn't have been a good look.
"Loddie? What's going on?" Katu whispered as he passed her.
She made a small, helpless gesture with her hands. "I don't know. Her Ladyship told me to come out here with her so she could make an announcement and then – oh, Pip! There you are! Oh, thank goodness!"
I could have killed Anthea for sending Lodia into this panic. Yes, here I am, Lodia. Katu, give your speech. I'll sort things out here.
He raised his arms in that now-familiar gesture and, surrounded by a cloud of glittering butterflies, began to expound upon the glory of the Divine Intercessor. I'd heard variants of this speech so many times that I didn't bother listening.
Inside, I snapped at Anthea.
She actually obeyed, instead of staying outside just to spite me. That meekness said scrolls about how guilty she felt over the mess she'd made.
Perching on Lodia's shoulder, I fixed Anthea with my fiercest glare. All right. I have been patient long enough. Explain yourself.
Her mouth pushed out in a pout. "You're planning to set up a whole network of Temples all over Serica, aren't you? Someone needs to oversee them. I thought Lodia would be the ideal candidate."
You thought Lodia –
I cut myself off before I could shred the girl's self-confidence, stuff the shreds into a firecracker, and blow them up.
Did you consult with her beforehand whether she wanted the appointment? I asked instead.
Under my claws, Lodia tensed.
Anthea's chin jutted out defiantly. She knew she was in the wrong. "Aren't you the one who's always trying to push her forward, to reach for more, to dream of more? What – are you trying to curb her ambitions now?"
Her ambitions – or yours? You want control over the Temple, don't you? You don't think you can control Katu well enough, so you're setting up a rival leader. That's what this is all about, isn't it?
At the words "rival leader," Lodia choked out something so soft that even Anthea looked at her uncomprehendingly.
I forced my voice lower, into a more soothing register. We didn't quite catch that, Lodia. You don't need to be afraid to tell me what you really want. Tell me, and I'll make it happen.
My mind was already racing for ways to retract such a public announcement, made at such a historic event. People's memories were short, though. All I needed to do was engineer a different, equally historic event, and the second would erase awareness of the first. But what sort of situation should I engineer –
Lodia hunched her shoulders, making me flap my wings to catch my balance. Under the circumstances, I opted not to reprove her.
Just barely loud enough to be audible, she whispered, "…don't want…rivals…rather work with him."
What?
While I blinked and tried to parse those phrases in any way other than the obvious – which was that she intended to accept the position that Anthea had forced on her – the raccoon dog brayed with laughter. "There you go! You asked her what she wants! Well, she's told us what she wants! She wants to be the head of all the Temples to the Kitchen God in Serica!"
That did seem to be the implication of "rather work with him," but –
Lodia? Is that correct? You want to be the head of all of the Temples in Serica?
I flew around to the front so I could see her face. But she didn't look intimidated by her employer, or overwhelmed by a role for which she was utterly unsuited.
Her chin dipped and rose.
Was that a nod?
"Of course it was a nod!" Anthea said triumphantly.
It doesn't count if you throw her into something and dizzy her with options and don't give her a chance to think them through.
Ignoring Anthea's "Hmph! As if you don't do the same thing!" I hovered in front of Lodia's nose and checked again.
Was that really a "yes," Lodia? Is this really what you want? You don't need to be afraid to tell me what you really want.
Anthea stepped forward. "Now who's trying to lead her to the desired response?"
Lodia's shoulders hunched again, then straightened. Her chin came up. She met my eyes. "Thank you, Pip, truly, for your concern. I – yes – I would like to work with Katu at the Temple. I would like to be the Matriarch."
Well. After all the fuss I'd made about helping her achieve what she really, truly wanted, I couldn't tell her "no" now, could I?
"You should have told her 'no'," Floridiana informed me. "What were you thinking? That girl is going to be caught between you and Lady Anthea and she is going to get smashed into – into meat paste in your power games!"
I know, I know, I get the point.
"You obviously don't, because you let it happen!"
Well, what was I supposed to say? I was convinced she didn't want it and it was all Anthea's doing! And then she comes out and says she wants to be the "Matriarch"!
I hopped in an agitated circle on Floridiana's desk, soon to become just a spare desk after the mage left. The thought didn't improve my mood.
Matriarch. Could Anthea have come up with a more ridiculous title for a teenage girl?
"I like it! It sssounds fancy," Bobo offered.
It does have a certain ring to it, Stripey agreed, not helpfully at all. What would you call the position of the head of all the Temples?
"The Glorious Commander of the Temples to the Kitchen God, Guardian of Commonfolk," put in – who else? – the self-proclaimed Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders.
"Dusty," Floridiana warned.
"I like it," said Steelfang from the doorway.
Who invited the demon? I was muttering to Stripey when the wolf padded all the way into the room, followed by Pallus the manul and the foxling.
A peanut gallery. Just what I needed.
"You're supposed to be circulating through the crowd, spreading praises of the Kitchen God," Floridiana reminded them. "What are you doing here?"
Pallus sat down and swept his tail around his paws. "They insisted on petting me. It is unbecoming of my dignity." He blinked his big, amber eyes. "Prince Pouff enjoys it. I left him to satisfy their adoration."
Indeed, through the window drifted a high-pitched cry of, "Kitty!" The happy purr that followed rattled the lattice.
"Pouff," warned Pallus without raising his voice.
The volume of the purr dropped. The window lattice settled back into place.
And you? I demanded of the foxling. What brings you here? If she planned to tell me that she ran away from a bunch of humans because they wanted to pet her tails –
"It's too hot. If I'd stayed out there any longer, I might have begun to sweat." She pouted in a cringe-inducing facsimile of what she must have seen in some painting of me. From her tone, you'd have thought that sweating was the most abhorrent bodily process available to living creatures.
But that I could actually almost empathize with, if I strained myself. The lowlands were significantly warmer than the Jade Mountains. I, too, recalled needing to adjust to the clime of the City of Dawn Song, and that lay far to the north. Its heat was nothing compared to the humid, late-summer boil of Goldhill.
Not that I was going to tell her that, of course.
Do you really believe that you are the first demon to come down from the Jade Mountain Wilds and discover that it's hotter than you expected?
My scathing question made all of her five tails perk up. "Did Lady Piri…?" She couldn't quite bring herself to apply the word "sweat" to her idol.
Well, neither, for that matter, could I.
Any major life change will require an adjustment period, Sphaera. You must learn to accept that reality.
Stripey's eyes rolled so hard that they could have been children's marbles, but the foxling bobbled her head, grateful for any advice that I saw fit to divulge.
"Of course. Yes, yes, I see. It was foolish of me to expect otherwise." She scanned the workroom until her gaze settled on Floridiana. "Mage, I require the Four Treasures of the Study."
The mage stared right back with no obvious intent to move any time in the near future.
"What are the Four Treasssures of the Ssstudy?" Bobo whispered.
Paper, brush, inkstone, inkstick, Stripey whispered back. I was about to ask how he knew when he slanted a mischievous glance my way. We robbed a shipment intended for Baron Claymouth once. Fetched a pretty copper too, when we sold it to the Water Court of Black Sand Creek.
You dared sell stolen goods to a Dragon King? I asked in astonishment before I realized that of course the duck demon bandits did. They'd even robbed Yulus' pearl farm. What was the sale of illicit merchandise compared to that? Did he know?
Nah. I'll bet Prime Minister Nagi guessed, though.
Yeah, she probably did.
Well, it wasn't my problem if the water snake spirit wanted to accrue negative karma from sponsoring the plundering and pillaging of human merchants.
"Mage," repeated the foxling more loudly. "I require – "
The Four Treasures of the Study are just that – treasures, I informed her. For what purpose are you requesting to use the Temple's supplies?
At the reprimand, all five tails drooped to the floor. "Oh. Oh. I just wanted to record the Lady Piri's Words of Wisdom. For posterity, I mean. Not because I will ever forget them. They are engraved in my mind!"
In that case. I nodded at Floridiana, who heaved a gusty sigh and pushed the writing supplies across her desk.
While the foxling wrote down the words supposedly engraved in her mind so she wouldn't forget them later on, I returned to our original discussion. I repeated the same question Lodia's family had once asked of her: So what are we going to do about Lodia?
Stripey shrugged his wings, nearly clipping Steelfang in the head. The wolf glared but didn't dare snap at the bird. Why do we need to do anything with her? Why can't we just let her find her own path?
But she doesn't know her own path!
She seems to be doing a good job of figuring it out.
"You've only just met her. You don't know her," Floridiana backed me up. "She's shy and naïve. She's going to get smashed between Pip here and Lady Anthea."
Well, it's going to take both of them to smash her between them, and Pip doesn't want to smash her at all. So I'd say it's looking good for Lodia.
"The only thing I can sssee is telling her that ssshe can't be Matriarch," Bobo said slowly. "But ssshe wants to be. Ssso wouldn't it be worssse to tell her ssshe can't?"
That's what I've been trying to tell Floridiana this whole time!
The mage threw up her arms and waved them. "Fine! Do whatever you want! I'm not going to be around to see it anyway!"
Privately, I thought it was less a matter of what I wanted and what Lodia had decided she wanted. When I'd crowed that we should let her embroider her way to a greater role, this had not been what I'd envisioned.
A discussion like this had also not been how I'd envisioned spending the Festival to the Kitchen God that I'd spent so long organizing. By the time we exited the study, the food was nearly all gone, the offering tables' legs were cracking under the weight of all the gifts, and it was nearly time for the fireworks display.
As I perched on the upturned edge of the roof next to Stripey and Bobo and watched the fireworks explode overhead, I allowed myself to forget my plans. For a while, just a little while, I allowed myself to enjoy the moment with my friends.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Piri will never admit it, but she does have a soft spot for Lodia.
Chapter 149: Floridiana and Dusty Actually Leave
Chapter 149: Floridiana and Dusty Actually Leave
Floridiana and Dusty were leaving. At long last, they were actually leaving.
Early in the morning, before the sun rose above the roofline of Goldhill, the two of them inspected their wagon one last time. We (well, Temple servants) had packed it with bolts of silk for bribing Baron Claymouth when he got unreasonable, pouches of dried lychees to share with the Jeks and Den and all our other friends, the finest colored inksticks that Camphorus Unus could find – and paper.
So much paper. Stacks and stacks of different types of paper, ranging from thick and creamy to fragile and translucent. They were wrapped in oilcloth and stamped with spells to keep out the humidity.
Floridiana tested the ropes that tied down the packages, while Dusty snuffled at them uselessly.
Your saliva is going to soak through the wrapping and ruin the paper, I warned from the wagon seat.
He flared his nostrils and blew at me, but not hard enough to knock me off. I supposed he was going to miss me too.
Floridiana lingered over the last rope longer than she needed to. None of us rushed her.
"Look what Lady Anthea sssent!" called Bobo from the door. She slithered down the steps, a heaping platter of white sugar rice cakes balanced on her coils. Stripey hovered, ready to catch the plate if it slid off. "Ssshe sssays to eat them fassst becaussse they'll ssspoil in this heat."
Floridiana picked one up but didn't seem to see it. "You're sure you don't want a ride home, Bobo?"
"Uh-uh. Thanks, but I'm sssure. Ssstripey's here, and Rosssie too! Sssay hi to everybody!"
"Will do." Floridiana nodded without surprise, then scanned the courtyard as if she were memorizing it. She'd already sketched the Temple thoroughly, from all angles, using her new colored inks, and written down copious notes about everything, so she didn't need to trust her fallible human memory. But I opted not to point that out.
Footsteps pattered up the street and through the front gates: Lodia, out of breath, clutching a parcel, with Katu in tow.
"Oh, thank goodness, you're still here! I thought I missed you!" She thrust the parcel at Floridiana, suddenly shy again. "I made something for you. As a thank-you present. For, um…." She gestured at the spectacles on her nose.
"Why, thank you, Lodia. Or, should I say, Matriarch?"
"Oh, well, I…." Lodia lifted her hands, as if to twist them together, but then deliberately straightened all ten fingers and dropped her arms again.
Floridiana gave her an encouraging smile. "You'll do just fine. You'll make a fine Matriarch, Lodia."
She unwrapped the parcel to reveal a silk purse, embroidered with lotuses and – a playful sparrow that looked very much like me. The mage's lips twitched when she saw it. In amusement, I thought.
"It is beautiful, Lodia. I will treasure it forever."
Mumbling that she was glad Floridiana liked it, Lodia backed up until she bumped into Katu. He put his hands on her arms to steady her, then kept them on her shoulders as he, too, said his farewells.
"Thank you, Mage Floridiana, for everything you have done for the Temple. Please accept this as a token of my gratitude." And he proffered a small book – containing the collected hymns and sermons to the Kitchen God that he had composed. "We intend to distribute this throughout Serica, but this is the very first copy. I hope you will share it with those in the Claymouth Barony and use it to teach them the proper mode of worship of the Divine Intercessor."
At the thought of establishing a new Temple when she'd barely escaped this one, Floridiana's eyebrows rose. Still, she replied, "Thank you, High Priest. I'm sure the people of the Claymouth Barony will…appreciate the wisdom contained in these pages."
Behind me, Stripey strangled his laughter.
After that, the priests whom Floridiana and Dusty had recruited from the slum swarmed them for their own good-byes, the child-priests climbing all over Dusty and petting him from mane to tail. Less close to them, Miss Caprina and the bears said their farewells in a more decorous manner, while Camphorus Unus and the rest of the staff bowed gravely.
At last, Floridiana detached a sobbing child-priest from Dusty's neck and turned to Bobo, Stripey, and me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lodia guiding the others back towards the steps to give us privacy.
"Sssafe travels!" Bobo wrapped her front half around Floridiana's torso and her back half around Dusty's neck. "I'm going to miss you ssso ssso much!"
"I'll miss you too, Bobo," wheezed Floridiana.
Dusty attempted to toss his mane with arrogant dignity, which was a lost cause when a bright green snake was coiled around it. "I shall also think of you fondly, spirit."
Stripey waddled forward and nodded at them both. It was good to work with the two of you again. I wish you all the best in Claymouth. Especially with Taila.
Floridiana and Dusty snorted in unison.
And then Stripey was ushering a sniffling Bobo away, leaving me alone with the mage and her horse. Under the slowly brightening sky, I studied the pair of them, remembering the first time I'd seen them. Dusty had been an ancient, broken-down nag, sold and resold with doctored paperwork so many times that no one realized just quite how ancient he was. As for Floridiana, she had been half-traveling mage, half-con artist, barely scraping by with her "rain summonings." And I had been a catfish, a caged pet in the Water Court of Black Sand Creek. Look how far all of us had come from that first time.
Dusty stamped a hoof. "Well."
"Well," said Floridiana.
Well, I echoed. And then, since neither of them seemed to know what to say, I told them, Travel safely. Watch out for bandits. You're transporting a lot of valuable goods. Don't camp in the wild. Make sure you find inns – reputable inns – it's not worth getting killed in your bed or stable because you were too stingy to –
"I know," Floridiana snapped. "I've been living on the road since before you were born – " She cut herself off, realizing how inane it was to say that to a former demon with memories stretching back over a millennium.
There, there. I'm sure you have.
Just to annoy her one last time, I landed on her shoulder and thrust my beak into her ear, making her yelp and swat at me. Dodging her hand (which wasn't moving hard or fast), I zipped over to Dusty and gave him a peck on the cheek. One large, brown eye regarded me balefully.
Good-bye. Try to not get too…dusty.
He stomped his hooves, nearly cracking the freshly-repaved courtyard. "My name is The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders! You will address me by my proper name, bird!"
There there. I already told you: I'll call you that on the day I take over Heaven.
I gave him my sweetest chirp and darted back so his big, blocky front teeth snapped shut on thin air. (Okay, fine, I did lose a single tail feather that was loose and about to fall out on its own anyway.)
Floridiana climbed up into the wagon seat and Dusty pulled the wagon out of the courtyard. The rest of us clumped up in the gateway, waving and waving until they rounded a corner and vanished from sight.
No one felt like talking after that. Silently, we walked to the Temple dining hall, where we found the foxling and her chieftains already seated at the banquet table. They were two-thirds of the way through devouring the breakfast that was meant for all of us.
Demons!
On the road:
Clop clop clop, clop clop clop. Whoosh!
The road flew by under the hooves of the Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders. With his awesome might, he left all the other carts and carriages choking in the dust.
Clop clop clop, clop clop clop. Whoosh!
Behind him, on the wagon seat, Mage Flori hauled on the reins and screamed at him to slow down. But he could tell that she was enjoying the speed because when she wasn't screaming at him, she was shrieking with laughter.
"Dusty! What was that all about?" she croaked on the second night, when he finally pulled the wagon off the road into what looked like an adequate campsite.
Mage Flori's voice came from the depths of the wagon bed. She seemed to be having trouble unlocking her knees so she could stand. Or maybe it was because she was crammed in between a barrel of pork jerky and a whole trunk of stationery supplies.
The Valiant Prince came to her aid. He closed his teeth on the back of her tunic and hauled. There was a rip. Out she popped. Like the prince among horse spirits that he was, he lowered her onto a nice, soft patch of grass.
"What was that all about?!" she snapped. "Why were you running like the wolves of the Wilds were after us? Did you really think Piri would send them to drag us back?"
The damsels in distress who got rescued by the valiant princes in the old tales were never cranky. Not that Mage Flori could be a damsel in distress, of course. She was too old for a mortal, and too young to be a spirit. In a fairytale, she'd be the side character whose sour personality highlighted the virtues of the rescued damsel.
The Valiant Prince endured her ingratitude with dignity becoming of a hero. "I was attempting to take you home as fast as I could. I thought you were worried about the school."
She tried to push his nose away but nearly fell over. She started massaging her joints one after another. "It's not going to do the students any good if you kill their teacher on the road!"
"I wasn't trying to kill you." Drat, that came out sounding sulky.
"Then slow down! And stop for a rest more than once every two days!"
"Okay, okay, fine! See if I try to help you out next time!"
He didn't talk to her again for a while, and she didn't try to talk to him either.
It wasn't until their fourth day on the road that she asked out of nowhere, "Did we make the right choice? Going back, I mean?"
Now she got cold hooves?
"What do you mean?"
He glanced at her out of the corner of one eye, but that just made her shriek at him to keep both eyes on the road. He was going to revise her role in the fairytale. She was clearly the evil stepmother. Wait. Did that make him the damsel in distress? No, that didn't make sense –
"We were making a real difference in Goldhill."
"Huh?" He almost asked what that had to do with character archetypes.
Good thing he didn't, because she was talking about something completely different, which he figured out when she said, not patiently at all, "By organizing the Temple. We completely altered the political landscape of South Serica. And it's going to change even more, I can tell. She's there. She has plans. Not just for South Serica, but for all of Serica. And we left. To go home and teach the three R's to ten-year-olds."
"Don't you always say that education is the most important thing you can do because you're shaping the next generation of young minds?"
Silence. The crabby kind, he thought.
"Do you want to turn around and go back?" he offered.
More silence. Definitely the crabby kind.
At last, she said, "No. Let's go home. I need to see how much the students have forgotten."
"Probably everything."
He didn't think he deserved the swat of the reins he got for that.
Thanks to him, they were back in the Claymouth Barony before the farmers finished the harvest. There was an odd lack of kids helping out in the fields, though.
"Where are all the children?" Mage Flori wondered. The wagon seat kept creaking as she turned back and forth, searching for any sign of her students.
"Lord Silurus was definitely dead, right? He couldn't have come back and eaten them all?" The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders would fight the demon catfish if he had to, of course, but he wasn't looking forward to it.
"No, he was definitely dead. We ate him, remember? Plus the parents would look a lot more upset if all their children were dead." Spotting a farmer they recognized, Mage Flori called, "Good day, sir!"
He straightened, shaded his eyes with one dirty hand, and waved. "It's the Headmistress! Hey, everybody! The Headmistress is back! Welcome home!"
All over the fields and paddies, men and women dropped what they were doing. For some reason, they ignored the Valiant Prince, but he withstood the neglect with forbearance.
"Where are all the children?" Mage Flori asked anxiously. "What happened to them?"
"Oh, the kids?" answered the first farmer. "They're fine."
Another farmer said, "They're just in the river."
The Valiant Prince and Mage Flori demanded in unison, "In the RIVER???"
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Floridiana and Dusty were leaving. At long last, they were actually leaving.
Early in the morning, before the sun rose above the roofline of Goldhill, the two of them inspected their wagon one last time. We (well, Temple servants) had packed it with bolts of silk for bribing Baron Claymouth when he got unreasonable, pouches of dried lychees to share with the Jeks and Den and all our other friends, the finest colored inksticks that Camphorus Unus could find – and paper.
So much paper. Stacks and stacks of different types of paper, ranging from thick and creamy to fragile and translucent. They were wrapped in oilcloth and stamped with spells to keep out the humidity.
Floridiana tested the ropes that tied down the packages, while Dusty snuffled at them uselessly.
Your saliva is going to soak through the wrapping and ruin the paper, I warned from the wagon seat.
He flared his nostrils and blew at me, but not hard enough to knock me off. I supposed he was going to miss me too.
Floridiana lingered over the last rope longer than she needed to. None of us rushed her.
"Look what Lady Anthea sssent!" called Bobo from the door. She slithered down the steps, a heaping platter of white sugar rice cakes balanced on her coils. Stripey hovered, ready to catch the plate if it slid off. "Ssshe sssays to eat them fassst becaussse they'll ssspoil in this heat."
Floridiana picked one up but didn't seem to see it. "You're sure you don't want a ride home, Bobo?"
"Uh-uh. Thanks, but I'm sssure. Ssstripey's here, and Rosssie too! Sssay hi to everybody!"
"Will do." Floridiana nodded without surprise, then scanned the courtyard as if she were memorizing it. She'd already sketched the Temple thoroughly, from all angles, using her new colored inks, and written down copious notes about everything, so she didn't need to trust her fallible human memory. But I opted not to point that out.
Footsteps pattered up the street and through the front gates: Lodia, out of breath, clutching a parcel, with Katu in tow.
"Oh, thank goodness, you're still here! I thought I missed you!" She thrust the parcel at Floridiana, suddenly shy again. "I made something for you. As a thank-you present. For, um…." She gestured at the spectacles on her nose.
"Why, thank you, Lodia. Or, should I say, Matriarch?"
"Oh, well, I…." Lodia lifted her hands, as if to twist them together, but then deliberately straightened all ten fingers and dropped her arms again.
Floridiana gave her an encouraging smile. "You'll do just fine. You'll make a fine Matriarch, Lodia."
She unwrapped the parcel to reveal a silk purse, embroidered with lotuses and – a playful sparrow that looked very much like me. The mage's lips twitched when she saw it. In amusement, I thought.
"It is beautiful, Lodia. I will treasure it forever."
Mumbling that she was glad Floridiana liked it, Lodia backed up until she bumped into Katu. He put his hands on her arms to steady her, then kept them on her shoulders as he, too, said his farewells.
"Thank you, Mage Floridiana, for everything you have done for the Temple. Please accept this as a token of my gratitude." And he proffered a small book – containing the collected hymns and sermons to the Kitchen God that he had composed. "We intend to distribute this throughout Serica, but this is the very first copy. I hope you will share it with those in the Claymouth Barony and use it to teach them the proper mode of worship of the Divine Intercessor."
At the thought of establishing a new Temple when she'd barely escaped this one, Floridiana's eyebrows rose. Still, she replied, "Thank you, High Priest. I'm sure the people of the Claymouth Barony will…appreciate the wisdom contained in these pages."
Behind me, Stripey strangled his laughter.
After that, the priests whom Floridiana and Dusty had recruited from the slum swarmed them for their own good-byes, the child-priests climbing all over Dusty and petting him from mane to tail. Less close to them, Miss Caprina and the bears said their farewells in a more decorous manner, while Camphorus Unus and the rest of the staff bowed gravely.
At last, Floridiana detached a sobbing child-priest from Dusty's neck and turned to Bobo, Stripey, and me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lodia guiding the others back towards the steps to give us privacy.
"Sssafe travels!" Bobo wrapped her front half around Floridiana's torso and her back half around Dusty's neck. "I'm going to miss you ssso ssso much!"
"I'll miss you too, Bobo," wheezed Floridiana.
Dusty attempted to toss his mane with arrogant dignity, which was a lost cause when a bright green snake was coiled around it. "I shall also think of you fondly, spirit."
Stripey waddled forward and nodded at them both. It was good to work with the two of you again. I wish you all the best in Claymouth. Especially with Taila.
Floridiana and Dusty snorted in unison.
And then Stripey was ushering a sniffling Bobo away, leaving me alone with the mage and her horse. Under the slowly brightening sky, I studied the pair of them, remembering the first time I'd seen them. Dusty had been an ancient, broken-down nag, sold and resold with doctored paperwork so many times that no one realized just quite how ancient he was. As for Floridiana, she had been half-traveling mage, half-con artist, barely scraping by with her "rain summonings." And I had been a catfish, a caged pet in the Water Court of Black Sand Creek. Look how far all of us had come from that first time.
Dusty stamped a hoof. "Well."
"Well," said Floridiana.
Well, I echoed. And then, since neither of them seemed to know what to say, I told them, Travel safely. Watch out for bandits. You're transporting a lot of valuable goods. Don't camp in the wild. Make sure you find inns – reputable inns – it's not worth getting killed in your bed or stable because you were too stingy to –
"I know," Floridiana snapped. "I've been living on the road since before you were born – " She cut herself off, realizing how inane it was to say that to a former demon with memories stretching back over a millennium.
There, there. I'm sure you have.
Just to annoy her one last time, I landed on her shoulder and thrust my beak into her ear, making her yelp and swat at me. Dodging her hand (which wasn't moving hard or fast), I zipped over to Dusty and gave him a peck on the cheek. One large, brown eye regarded me balefully.
Good-bye. Try to not get too…dusty.
He stomped his hooves, nearly cracking the freshly-repaved courtyard. "My name is The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders! You will address me by my proper name, bird!"
There there. I already told you: I'll call you that on the day I take over Heaven.
I gave him my sweetest chirp and darted back so his big, blocky front teeth snapped shut on thin air. (Okay, fine, I did lose a single tail feather that was loose and about to fall out on its own anyway.)
Floridiana climbed up into the wagon seat and Dusty pulled the wagon out of the courtyard. The rest of us clumped up in the gateway, waving and waving until they rounded a corner and vanished from sight.
No one felt like talking after that. Silently, we walked to the Temple dining hall, where we found the foxling and her chieftains already seated at the banquet table. They were two-thirds of the way through devouring the breakfast that was meant for all of us.
Demons!
On the road:
Clop clop clop, clop clop clop. Whoosh!
The road flew by under the hooves of the Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders. With his awesome might, he left all the other carts and carriages choking in the dust.
Clop clop clop, clop clop clop. Whoosh!
Behind him, on the wagon seat, Mage Flori hauled on the reins and screamed at him to slow down. But he could tell that she was enjoying the speed because when she wasn't screaming at him, she was shrieking with laughter.
"Dusty! What was that all about?" she croaked on the second night, when he finally pulled the wagon off the road into what looked like an adequate campsite.
Mage Flori's voice came from the depths of the wagon bed. She seemed to be having trouble unlocking her knees so she could stand. Or maybe it was because she was crammed in between a barrel of pork jerky and a whole trunk of stationery supplies.
The Valiant Prince came to her aid. He closed his teeth on the back of her tunic and hauled. There was a rip. Out she popped. Like the prince among horse spirits that he was, he lowered her onto a nice, soft patch of grass.
"What was that all about?!" she snapped. "Why were you running like the wolves of the Wilds were after us? Did you really think Piri would send them to drag us back?"
The damsels in distress who got rescued by the valiant princes in the old tales were never cranky. Not that Mage Flori could be a damsel in distress, of course. She was too old for a mortal, and too young to be a spirit. In a fairytale, she'd be the side character whose sour personality highlighted the virtues of the rescued damsel.
The Valiant Prince endured her ingratitude with dignity becoming of a hero. "I was attempting to take you home as fast as I could. I thought you were worried about the school."
She tried to push his nose away but nearly fell over. She started massaging her joints one after another. "It's not going to do the students any good if you kill their teacher on the road!"
"I wasn't trying to kill you." Drat, that came out sounding sulky.
"Then slow down! And stop for a rest more than once every two days!"
"Okay, okay, fine! See if I try to help you out next time!"
He didn't talk to her again for a while, and she didn't try to talk to him either.
It wasn't until their fourth day on the road that she asked out of nowhere, "Did we make the right choice? Going back, I mean?"
Now she got cold hooves?
"What do you mean?"
He glanced at her out of the corner of one eye, but that just made her shriek at him to keep both eyes on the road. He was going to revise her role in the fairytale. She was clearly the evil stepmother. Wait. Did that make him the damsel in distress? No, that didn't make sense –
"We were making a real difference in Goldhill."
"Huh?" He almost asked what that had to do with character archetypes.
Good thing he didn't, because she was talking about something completely different, which he figured out when she said, not patiently at all, "By organizing the Temple. We completely altered the political landscape of South Serica. And it's going to change even more, I can tell. She's there. She has plans. Not just for South Serica, but for all of Serica. And we left. To go home and teach the three R's to ten-year-olds."
"Don't you always say that education is the most important thing you can do because you're shaping the next generation of young minds?"
Silence. The crabby kind, he thought.
"Do you want to turn around and go back?" he offered.
More silence. Definitely the crabby kind.
At last, she said, "No. Let's go home. I need to see how much the students have forgotten."
"Probably everything."
He didn't think he deserved the swat of the reins he got for that.
Thanks to him, they were back in the Claymouth Barony before the farmers finished the harvest. There was an odd lack of kids helping out in the fields, though.
"Where are all the children?" Mage Flori wondered. The wagon seat kept creaking as she turned back and forth, searching for any sign of her students.
"Lord Silurus was definitely dead, right? He couldn't have come back and eaten them all?" The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders would fight the demon catfish if he had to, of course, but he wasn't looking forward to it.
"No, he was definitely dead. We ate him, remember? Plus the parents would look a lot more upset if all their children were dead." Spotting a farmer they recognized, Mage Flori called, "Good day, sir!"
He straightened, shaded his eyes with one dirty hand, and waved. "It's the Headmistress! Hey, everybody! The Headmistress is back! Welcome home!"
All over the fields and paddies, men and women dropped what they were doing. For some reason, they ignored the Valiant Prince, but he withstood the neglect with forbearance.
"Where are all the children?" Mage Flori asked anxiously. "What happened to them?"
"Oh, the kids?" answered the first farmer. "They're fine."
Another farmer said, "They're just in the river."
The Valiant Prince and Mage Flori demanded in unison, "In the RIVER???"
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Pretty sure this means they're with the dragon's court, I don't remember his name due to how long it's been since we last saw him. It's nice to see the court having better relations with the barony as a whole.
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You're on the right track! You'll find out soon why they're in the river....
There Is No Frigate Like a Book
I started this Confessions-themed illustration of Emily Dickinson's poem "There is no frigate like a book" last year but never finished it. Since it's the start of summer and the travel season, it seemed like an appropriate time to finish and share it. Happy summer, everyone!
View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uuqgNHIGaAL34QjjmQbYQl5IDngc7tHs/view?usp=sharing
In case you can't see it, the image is also here.
View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uuqgNHIGaAL34QjjmQbYQl5IDngc7tHs/view?usp=sharing
In case you can't see it, the image is also here.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
That, or swimming for fun has become a thing.
Chapter 150: When Piri Is Right
Chapter 150: When Piri Is Right
The children were, indeed, in the river.
Or, to be more precise, jumping up and down on a path of dry riverbed and waving at the fish in the water that towered on either side. Some of the fish waved awkwardly back.
"What in the names of all the gods?" Floridiana grumbled.
Dusty prodded her hair with his nose. "Don't you mean 'in the name of the Divine Intercessor?"
"Piri's not around. I can say whatever I please." For all her tartness, she did feel a slight twinge.
She squashed it and approached the river. The parted waters reminded her of the first time she'd come here, when the farmers of the Claymouth Barony had hired her to bargain with the Dragon King of Black Sand Creek for rain. A dry strip of riverbed had appeared then too, leading straight from the riverbank to the gates of the Water Court.
This current path, however, didn't pass anywhere near the Water Court. It meandered along the center of the river before it curved back to the riverbank. There, a familiar figure stood with her arms crossed while she waited for the children to finish their educational tour of the river.
Floridiana broke into a trot, then a jog, and finally, abandoning any attempts at dignity, an outright run. "Vanny! Vanny! I'm back!"
Jek Lom Vannia, her first friend and confidante here, assistant at the school, and, not incidentally, mother to Taila and her brothers, spun. "Flori!"
The two crashed into each other in a big bear hug, laughing and crying and interrupting each other with questions until Dusty whuffled at Vanny's hair and asked, "Is the Water Court of Black Sand Creek running the school now?"
Vanny stepped back and wiped her eyes with a sleeve. Clean, new cotton, Floridiana noted automatically. It was a definite improvement from the stained rags that the Jeks had once worn, but a jarringly far cry from the fine linen and embroidered silks she'd grown accustomed to seeing in Goldhill.
By the Kitchen God, Piri was rubbing off on her!
To distract herself from that thought, Floridiana repeated Dusty's question. "Did King Yulus or Prime Minister Nagi take over the school in my absence?"
Her chest constricted. She felt a sense of – she wasn't sure what it was. Hope? Apprehension? …Hurt?
Because if they didn't need her here….
"Nope," Vanny replied in her blunt way, and Floridiana sighed. With relief that she and Dusty hadn't wasted an arduous journey, of course. Then her friend added, "King Den did."
"Den took over the school?"
Try as she might, Floridiana could not imagine her other friend and confidant playing headmaster. How would he even get the students to obey him? He was a dragon, true, and possessed control over water and weather that human mages would never attain, but he just wasn't very imposing. Floridiana tried to picture the little dragon bellowing at a class of unruly children to "Settle down!" – and failed.
"Yup," confirmed Vanny, but she then had to qualify it with, "Well, sort of. King Den has been kind enough to organize field trips for the students to see more of the world."
"To see more of the world?" Floridiana parroted in disbelief. "Where has he been taking them?"
"Nowhere so far as that! He just wants them to see that there's more than just their farms or the village shops. So last time, he talked to the Baron's second son and convinced him to let Seneschal Anasius take the students on a tour of the castle."
Anasius. The whistling duck spirit had been Stripey's nephew, and was as prissy as the ex-bandit was, well, not. Her first instinct was to rush up to the castle to tell Anasius that he didn't need to grieve, his uncle was back.
Her second was that under no circumstances should she ever tell him about Flicker and Piri and the Kitchen God.
Unaware of her thoughts, Vanny had continued to speak. "And this time, King Den talked to King Yulus and convinced him to open up his river so the students can see the fish and shrimp and oysters and stuff. It's supposed to be a natural philosophy lesson."
Her scowl said that she was very aware how well that was going.
Dusty said optimistically, "Well, they're learning how fish and shrimp and oysters and stuff react when they get waved at?"
Vanny snorted. If she'd been a spirit, it would have blown him mane over tail.
About then, students began to emerge from the river, chattering about the carp guards and their helmets. At the sight of Floridiana, their voices petered out.
At last, one of them squeaked, "…Headmistress…?"
Another blurted out, "You're not a ghost or a stiff, are you?"
A ghost or a stiff? Floridiana raised an eyebrow. "Can anyone tell me how to identify a ghost?"
A hand shot into the air: a little boy with messy hair and scuffed trouser knees. "I know! I know! Ghosts look like crazy people! Like, their hair is crazy and all! And their skin is this weird grey, like mushrooms! Oh, oh, and they're waaaaay light. And they can change shape until you spit on them, and then they're stuck in that shape forever!"
"That is broadly correct, although do not go around spitting on people or animals just because you suspect they are ghosts. Now, what is a stiff?"
More students were emerging from the river by this point.
"It's a corpse!" called out one of the newcomers with relish. "It's a dead body. It's all rotten and stinky and the flesh and hair are falling off the bones – " In demonstration, he tugged on one of the girls' pigtail.
She spun so fast that he had to duck a flying pigtail. "It is not a corpse. It is the skeleton of a corpse. The skeleton turns into a spirit after one hundred years. And it can take the form of a beautiful woman if it wants. And then it tricks dumb men and eats them."
She snapped her teeth at the boy, who stuck out his tongue.
"Manners!" barked Vanny. "Your headmistress has just returned. Is this how you welcome her?"
"It's Teacher Flori!" squealed another familiar voice.
The final stragglers were coming out of the river. These students wore braided crowns of eelgrass, one held a bouquet of more eelgrass, and one clutched a – a tiny spear, like one of the weapons that the shrimp guards of the Black Sand Creek Water Court used.
Of course the student with the spear was Taila.
"Jek Taila!" snapped her mother. "Who did you get that spear from? Give it back at once!"
From whom did you get that spear? Floridiana corrected mentally, but she didn't say it out loud. For one, she didn't want to embarrass her friend in front of the children. For another, she didn't want to undermine her assistant's authority over the students. And for the all-important third – "Yes, Taila, where did you get that spear?" She held out a hand.
Pouting, Taila surrendered it. "I didn't take it from anybody. I found it. It was stuck in a crack. Nobody wanted it."
Floridiana examined the spear. Yes, it was definitely the same as the ones that King Yulus' shrimp guards used. "Be that as it may, this is a weapon, not a toy."
She was tucking it into her belt when something crashed into her back, as hard as a wolf demon.
"Floridiana! You're back!"
When she'd caught her breath again, she blinked at the pale yellow scales that filled her vision. They covered the underside of a long, scaly body that wrapped once around her waist, once more around her shoulders, and curved around behind her head. Three-clawed hands squeezed her arms in a big dragon hug.
"Den?"
"Yeah! It's me! It's so good to see you again!"
It is I, she mentally corrected, but again, she didn't speak out loud. Although that was less to avoid embarrassing her friend or undermining what little authority he possessed over the students, and more because she didn't have the spare breath to correct him out loud.
She tapped at his sides. "Can't – breathe – "
"Oops! Sorry!"
He released her so fast that she tottered, but he'd stayed coiled loosely around her and braced her until she caught her balance.
She reached out and petted his side, marveling at how much wider around he had grown, how much larger and harder each individual scale had become. And yet, the pearl he wore under his chin, the symbol of his authority as the Dragon King of Caltrop Pond, was still the same seed pearl as before. It was comically tiny in comparison to the rest of him. She had to push aside the glossy, luxurious strands of his mane to spot it.
"You can't switch this for a bigger pearl?" she asked, checking the silk cord that it hung on. It was the same scarlet as before, with no sign of fraying from rubbing over the scales' edges. It must have been freshly changed.
"Nope, not unless I get promoted to a larger pond. This is the pearl of the Dragon Kings of Caltrop Pond."
Promoted. The word hit Floridiana. She'd never given much thought to the draconic hierarchy, but of course there had to be some kind of promotion path for them. And unless King Yulus got promoted at the same time and Heaven decided to give his spot to Den, her friend would be promoted away from Claymouth. Floridiana couldn't imagine the barony without her friends. It was going to be strange enough visiting Honeysuckle Croft without Bobo puttering and slithering around the hearth. If Den moved away too….
As if reading her thoughts, the dragon flung out his hands and waved them. "Don't worry! I'm not going anywhere! I like Caltrop Pond. I'm happy here. I don't have to be this big! I can shrink myself to fit, see?"
And with a pop, the dragon king whose body was nearly as wide around as hers vanished.
From knee height, his voice called up, "Hi!"
Floridiana released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. It was one thing for her to travel herself, but another to come home to find that the place had changed and people were gone.
To come home.
Home.
When had she begun to think of Claymouth as home? Ever since her parents had sold her to the dancing troupe, she'd never stayed long enough in any place to call it home. But there it was: When she thought of Claymouth, she thought of the place where she belonged. She didn't want to give up traveling entirely, but neither did she want to live her entire life on the road, not anymore. It was good to have somewhere to return to, to look forward to returning to, people she looked forward to seeing, who looked forward equally to seeing her and hearing her travel stories.
Kitchen God and all the gods in Heaven above, she hated it when Piri was right!
With a mental eye roll, she motioned for the students to gather around. No time like the present to take up her teaching duties, after all.
"All right. Now that you have finished observing the flora and fauna of Black Sand Creek, who wants to tell me what you learned?"
Up in Heaven:
Bink the golden snub-nosed monkey woke in darkness. That had been scary! He'd been grabbed by a giant bird, which had flown high into the sky with him. He'd chattered and scolded until it bit off his head. And now he was in this dark place. Who had shut him up in this dark place? Not the nice lady who loved him. Where was she?
He chattered angrily.
Except – he didn't. What came out was a sequence of chimes, musical sounds that had never passed through any mortal vocal cords.
Oh.
Slowly, an older presence rose, overriding and absorbing the monkey's memories and consciousness. The soul that had once been Marcius and the Star of Scholarly Song settled down in an archival box in the Bureau of Reincarnation to await his turn.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
The children were, indeed, in the river.
Or, to be more precise, jumping up and down on a path of dry riverbed and waving at the fish in the water that towered on either side. Some of the fish waved awkwardly back.
"What in the names of all the gods?" Floridiana grumbled.
Dusty prodded her hair with his nose. "Don't you mean 'in the name of the Divine Intercessor?"
"Piri's not around. I can say whatever I please." For all her tartness, she did feel a slight twinge.
She squashed it and approached the river. The parted waters reminded her of the first time she'd come here, when the farmers of the Claymouth Barony had hired her to bargain with the Dragon King of Black Sand Creek for rain. A dry strip of riverbed had appeared then too, leading straight from the riverbank to the gates of the Water Court.
This current path, however, didn't pass anywhere near the Water Court. It meandered along the center of the river before it curved back to the riverbank. There, a familiar figure stood with her arms crossed while she waited for the children to finish their educational tour of the river.
Floridiana broke into a trot, then a jog, and finally, abandoning any attempts at dignity, an outright run. "Vanny! Vanny! I'm back!"
Jek Lom Vannia, her first friend and confidante here, assistant at the school, and, not incidentally, mother to Taila and her brothers, spun. "Flori!"
The two crashed into each other in a big bear hug, laughing and crying and interrupting each other with questions until Dusty whuffled at Vanny's hair and asked, "Is the Water Court of Black Sand Creek running the school now?"
Vanny stepped back and wiped her eyes with a sleeve. Clean, new cotton, Floridiana noted automatically. It was a definite improvement from the stained rags that the Jeks had once worn, but a jarringly far cry from the fine linen and embroidered silks she'd grown accustomed to seeing in Goldhill.
By the Kitchen God, Piri was rubbing off on her!
To distract herself from that thought, Floridiana repeated Dusty's question. "Did King Yulus or Prime Minister Nagi take over the school in my absence?"
Her chest constricted. She felt a sense of – she wasn't sure what it was. Hope? Apprehension? …Hurt?
Because if they didn't need her here….
"Nope," Vanny replied in her blunt way, and Floridiana sighed. With relief that she and Dusty hadn't wasted an arduous journey, of course. Then her friend added, "King Den did."
"Den took over the school?"
Try as she might, Floridiana could not imagine her other friend and confidant playing headmaster. How would he even get the students to obey him? He was a dragon, true, and possessed control over water and weather that human mages would never attain, but he just wasn't very imposing. Floridiana tried to picture the little dragon bellowing at a class of unruly children to "Settle down!" – and failed.
"Yup," confirmed Vanny, but she then had to qualify it with, "Well, sort of. King Den has been kind enough to organize field trips for the students to see more of the world."
"To see more of the world?" Floridiana parroted in disbelief. "Where has he been taking them?"
"Nowhere so far as that! He just wants them to see that there's more than just their farms or the village shops. So last time, he talked to the Baron's second son and convinced him to let Seneschal Anasius take the students on a tour of the castle."
Anasius. The whistling duck spirit had been Stripey's nephew, and was as prissy as the ex-bandit was, well, not. Her first instinct was to rush up to the castle to tell Anasius that he didn't need to grieve, his uncle was back.
Her second was that under no circumstances should she ever tell him about Flicker and Piri and the Kitchen God.
Unaware of her thoughts, Vanny had continued to speak. "And this time, King Den talked to King Yulus and convinced him to open up his river so the students can see the fish and shrimp and oysters and stuff. It's supposed to be a natural philosophy lesson."
Her scowl said that she was very aware how well that was going.
Dusty said optimistically, "Well, they're learning how fish and shrimp and oysters and stuff react when they get waved at?"
Vanny snorted. If she'd been a spirit, it would have blown him mane over tail.
About then, students began to emerge from the river, chattering about the carp guards and their helmets. At the sight of Floridiana, their voices petered out.
At last, one of them squeaked, "…Headmistress…?"
Another blurted out, "You're not a ghost or a stiff, are you?"
A ghost or a stiff? Floridiana raised an eyebrow. "Can anyone tell me how to identify a ghost?"
A hand shot into the air: a little boy with messy hair and scuffed trouser knees. "I know! I know! Ghosts look like crazy people! Like, their hair is crazy and all! And their skin is this weird grey, like mushrooms! Oh, oh, and they're waaaaay light. And they can change shape until you spit on them, and then they're stuck in that shape forever!"
"That is broadly correct, although do not go around spitting on people or animals just because you suspect they are ghosts. Now, what is a stiff?"
More students were emerging from the river by this point.
"It's a corpse!" called out one of the newcomers with relish. "It's a dead body. It's all rotten and stinky and the flesh and hair are falling off the bones – " In demonstration, he tugged on one of the girls' pigtail.
She spun so fast that he had to duck a flying pigtail. "It is not a corpse. It is the skeleton of a corpse. The skeleton turns into a spirit after one hundred years. And it can take the form of a beautiful woman if it wants. And then it tricks dumb men and eats them."
She snapped her teeth at the boy, who stuck out his tongue.
"Manners!" barked Vanny. "Your headmistress has just returned. Is this how you welcome her?"
"It's Teacher Flori!" squealed another familiar voice.
The final stragglers were coming out of the river. These students wore braided crowns of eelgrass, one held a bouquet of more eelgrass, and one clutched a – a tiny spear, like one of the weapons that the shrimp guards of the Black Sand Creek Water Court used.
Of course the student with the spear was Taila.
"Jek Taila!" snapped her mother. "Who did you get that spear from? Give it back at once!"
From whom did you get that spear? Floridiana corrected mentally, but she didn't say it out loud. For one, she didn't want to embarrass her friend in front of the children. For another, she didn't want to undermine her assistant's authority over the students. And for the all-important third – "Yes, Taila, where did you get that spear?" She held out a hand.
Pouting, Taila surrendered it. "I didn't take it from anybody. I found it. It was stuck in a crack. Nobody wanted it."
Floridiana examined the spear. Yes, it was definitely the same as the ones that King Yulus' shrimp guards used. "Be that as it may, this is a weapon, not a toy."
She was tucking it into her belt when something crashed into her back, as hard as a wolf demon.
"Floridiana! You're back!"
When she'd caught her breath again, she blinked at the pale yellow scales that filled her vision. They covered the underside of a long, scaly body that wrapped once around her waist, once more around her shoulders, and curved around behind her head. Three-clawed hands squeezed her arms in a big dragon hug.
"Den?"
"Yeah! It's me! It's so good to see you again!"
It is I, she mentally corrected, but again, she didn't speak out loud. Although that was less to avoid embarrassing her friend or undermining what little authority he possessed over the students, and more because she didn't have the spare breath to correct him out loud.
She tapped at his sides. "Can't – breathe – "
"Oops! Sorry!"
He released her so fast that she tottered, but he'd stayed coiled loosely around her and braced her until she caught her balance.
She reached out and petted his side, marveling at how much wider around he had grown, how much larger and harder each individual scale had become. And yet, the pearl he wore under his chin, the symbol of his authority as the Dragon King of Caltrop Pond, was still the same seed pearl as before. It was comically tiny in comparison to the rest of him. She had to push aside the glossy, luxurious strands of his mane to spot it.
"You can't switch this for a bigger pearl?" she asked, checking the silk cord that it hung on. It was the same scarlet as before, with no sign of fraying from rubbing over the scales' edges. It must have been freshly changed.
"Nope, not unless I get promoted to a larger pond. This is the pearl of the Dragon Kings of Caltrop Pond."
Promoted. The word hit Floridiana. She'd never given much thought to the draconic hierarchy, but of course there had to be some kind of promotion path for them. And unless King Yulus got promoted at the same time and Heaven decided to give his spot to Den, her friend would be promoted away from Claymouth. Floridiana couldn't imagine the barony without her friends. It was going to be strange enough visiting Honeysuckle Croft without Bobo puttering and slithering around the hearth. If Den moved away too….
As if reading her thoughts, the dragon flung out his hands and waved them. "Don't worry! I'm not going anywhere! I like Caltrop Pond. I'm happy here. I don't have to be this big! I can shrink myself to fit, see?"
And with a pop, the dragon king whose body was nearly as wide around as hers vanished.
From knee height, his voice called up, "Hi!"
Floridiana released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. It was one thing for her to travel herself, but another to come home to find that the place had changed and people were gone.
To come home.
Home.
When had she begun to think of Claymouth as home? Ever since her parents had sold her to the dancing troupe, she'd never stayed long enough in any place to call it home. But there it was: When she thought of Claymouth, she thought of the place where she belonged. She didn't want to give up traveling entirely, but neither did she want to live her entire life on the road, not anymore. It was good to have somewhere to return to, to look forward to returning to, people she looked forward to seeing, who looked forward equally to seeing her and hearing her travel stories.
Kitchen God and all the gods in Heaven above, she hated it when Piri was right!
With a mental eye roll, she motioned for the students to gather around. No time like the present to take up her teaching duties, after all.
"All right. Now that you have finished observing the flora and fauna of Black Sand Creek, who wants to tell me what you learned?"
Up in Heaven:
Bink the golden snub-nosed monkey woke in darkness. That had been scary! He'd been grabbed by a giant bird, which had flown high into the sky with him. He'd chattered and scolded until it bit off his head. And now he was in this dark place. Who had shut him up in this dark place? Not the nice lady who loved him. Where was she?
He chattered angrily.
Except – he didn't. What came out was a sequence of chimes, musical sounds that had never passed through any mortal vocal cords.
Oh.
Slowly, an older presence rose, overriding and absorbing the monkey's memories and consciousness. The soul that had once been Marcius and the Star of Scholarly Song settled down in an archival box in the Bureau of Reincarnation to await his turn.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Hmm, I was thinking that there's an older "self" associated with the soul that "wakes" in the Bureau of Reincarnation and incorporates the most recent life into its identity. I guess I didn't really explain that though....
Chapter 151: Solving Anthea's Problems for Her, As Usual
Chapter 151: Solving Anthea's Problems for Her, As Usual
In the throne room:
"You put your personal seamstress in charge of the Temple to the Kitchen God?"
In the hush that fell over the throne room, a courtier tittered and was quickly hushed. Standing at the foot of the dais, Anthea looked a long way up into Jullie's impassive face.
"Your Majesty," she replied steadily, "I placed the granddaughter of the Mage-Architect of Lychee Grove in charge of the Temple."
She'd only meant to bolster Lodia's credentials by pointing out that the girl, shrinking and terrified though she was, did come from a family that wielded some amount of political power. But as soon as the words left her tongue, she knew that she'd misstepped.
Jullie didn't need to comment. Her uncle did it for her.
"Lychee Grove," snarled the Earl of Black Crag. "The fief whose Lady has never acknowledged the Crown's authority? The fief that is a poison at the heart of this kingdom? The fief that should have been crushed and burned to the ground long before now? And you thought that the granddaughter of its Mage-Architect would be the best person to ensure that the Temple acknowledges the authority of the Crown?"
When he put it that way….
Ugh, this was why Anthea hated getting mixed up in politics! All she'd wanted to do was construct a replica of her long-ago, lost-forever home and live a facsimile of her long-ago, lost-forever life. From the start, she'd told Piri that she didn't get involved in politics. So what was she doing here in the throne room, pushing for her choice for the Matriarch of the Temple that Piri had established?
She should have remembered that her long-ago, lost-forever life had featured Piri's machinations very prominently indeed.
"In terms of personality, Koh Lodia is as unlike her grandmother as you can imagine, Your Grace," Anthea told the Earl of Black Crag, wishing it didn't come out quite so much like a protest. Protesting meant that you believed you were in the wrong. It was Piri who had said that, long, long ago. "Lodia has a sweet, docile personality – "
"Meaning that she will be the ideal vessel through which her grandmother and the Lady of Lychee Grove can wield their influence," finished Jullie's cousin. The Earl of Yellow Flame curled his lip, obviously irked to find himself on the same side as his uncle.
This was not going well. On the rare occasions that the two earls actually agreed on something, Jullie usually followed their advice.
I wish Piri were here. The thought slid into Anthea's mind like a dagger.
She jolted. She wished Piri were here? No. Absolutely not. She was not Koh Lodia. She did not need a demon mind to puppet her actions. She was well over six hundred years old (if she counted her mortal years, which she did), and she could win her own battles, thank you very much.
Anthea bared her teeth, letting their points go sharp. "Or – she will make the ideal vessel through which Her Majesty may exert her influence over the future of the Temple. Lodia is a member of my household." She stared straight up at Jullie, silently reminding the Queen that when all her other courtiers had fled, even her cousin and her uncle, Anthea alone had stayed. Anthea alone had tried to get her to safety.
Jullie's cool eyes studied her for a long moment, weighing the likelihood that Anthea might one day turn against her and leverage the Temple against her and her successors. That was a legitimate risk that a ruler had to consider. Anthea acknowledged it, even if it stung.
I'm your friend, she thought at the woman on the throne. I've been your friend since you were a little girl crying over the death of your father, who needed a fluffy raccoon dog to hug. Why would you believe that I would ever stop being your friend?
Piri would say that there were no friends at court, only temporary allies.
Anthea quashed that thought. She wasn't that little five-tailed fox, to record every inane phrase Piri uttered and to ponder it and impute wisdom to it that simply didn't exist.
At last, Jullie leaned back against her throne. "Very well. We accept your choice for the Matriarch of the Temple to the Kitchen God."
Her phrasing soured the victory for Anthea, but she would take the win.
In the Temple:
After Floridiana and Dusty left, the days passed in a blur of activity. Just as I had planned, people poured through the Temple gates, bearing offerings for the Divine Intercessor. They kept the priests so busy that we soon had a near-rebellion on our hands.
"'S too much work." The most quarrelsome priest cornered Katu in the main hall one morning. Right under the staring eyes of the Kitchen God's image, the priest demanded, "We need more priests or more pay. You pick."
Clumped up behind him, the other priests bobbled their heads and chorused their assent. What – did they think we were voting to decide Temple policy now? Floridiana should have left this man in the slum. Was it too late to send him back?
Before I could decide how much damage it would do to our image if we started firing priests, Camphorus Unus spoke up with his own concern. "High Priest, I would be remiss in my duties as steward if I did not warn you that the amount of perishable offerings we are receiving exceeds the Temple's needs and will soon spoil if not consumed."
After the offerings' spiritual essence was dedicated to the Kitchen God, the staff would remove them from the tables and transfer them to the storeroom. Which was apparently overflowing.
It was a good problem to have. And I was curious how Katu would solve it.
"Too many offerings…. Too few priests…," he muttered. His gaze traveled over the priests' and the steward's shoulders to the image on the altar. "What would the Divine Intercessor want…?" (More offerings.) "Oh! Of course! Take the excess offerings to the slum and distribute them. While you're there, recruit more priests."
Personally, I'd have thrown another massive banquet, but this wasn't bad either.
So our first cohort of priests loaded two wagons with excess food, made a visit home, and returned several hours later with two wagons of slum dwellers. I hadn't even told them to prioritize humans over spirits – they'd done it all on their own. Camphorus Unus got the new priests bathed, clothed, fed, and housed in the spare bedrooms.
Speaking of housing arrangments, Katu had long since moved out of Anthea's mansion and into a set of rooms at the Temple, but Lodia had not. That would never do. It was unseemly for the Matriarch to live in Anthea's mansion and not the Temple she supposedly ran. It implied to all the world that the Temple was not an independent organization, but the plaything of a courtier allied with the Crown. Between the demon invasion and the festival, I hadn't had time wrest her away from Anthea yet, but now it was time.
Katu, tell Lodia that we need her at the Temple for Matriarchal duties, I instructed. And tell her to bring everything she needs, because she's going to be living here from now on.
As I should have expected, it wasn't Lodia who showed up – but the raccoon dog.
Ugh. Anthea was going to fuss over losing twenty-four-hour access to her personal seamstress, wasn't she? Well, I had no sympathy. If she'd wanted to hang on to her Junior Wardrobe Mistress, she should never have pushed Lodia into the position of Matriarch to start with.
In my most saccharine tone, I greeted the raccoon dog. Why, hello there, Anthea. Did you wish to pray to the Divine Intercessor?
At the implication that she'd need to leave her own home to pray to her own patron god, she gnashed her teeth. They were a little pointy. Good. She was already on the verge of losing her temper. I gave her one more push.
I'm sure one of the priests would be happy to escort you to the main hall so that you may make your offerings and speak to the Divine Intercessor. We have only today recruited a new cohort of priests, so it will be good for them to see how it is done.
Claws slid out of Anthea's fingertips and sank back under her flesh. "You know perfectly well why I am here. Don't waste my time."
A most original comeback indeed.
But dearest Anthea, what other purpose could possibly have been important or urgent enough for the queen's most trusted confidante to come to the Temple in person?
She actually stamped her be-slippered foot. "I'm here because you're trying to steal Koh Lodia away from me again!"
Steal Koh Lodia? I blinked my bright, round sparrow's eyes at her. Whatever could you mean?
"I mean just that! You were the one who threw her at me. You were the one who got me to hire her as Junior Wardrobe Mistress. And I did, and now you're trying to steal her. You always do that!"
If she'd noticed a pattern, shouldn't she have tried to break it by now?
But dearest Anthea, I was content for her to stay in your household when she was your Junior Wardrobe Mistress. (Not least because I could summon her any time I wanted.) But surely you can see that to have the Matriarch living in the home of a single courtier, especially a courtier so closely tied to the throne as you –
I shook my head sadly.
You know, and I know, and I daresay everyone in the Temple knows, that nothing will change, no matter where Lodia lives. But the optics – the people's perception of reality. We are in the business of soothing hearts and minds, are we not? They will not feel soothed if they believe that the Temple is the queen's favorite courtier's plaything.
Anthea clenched her fists. "That is all it can be."
A passing priest gasped, then hurried on.
"Don't you see? Jullie's never going allow the Temple to grow into an independent entity that can challenge the Crown. She already sees it as a threat!"
Heads began popping out around doorjambs. The Temple staff was eavesdropping as hard as they could.
Keep your voice down, I admonished Anthea. You're going to demoralize everyone.
I didn't say "scare them off," but that was what she was going to do if she kept shrieking that the queen's wrath was going to fall on the Temple and separate all of the staff's heads from their shoulders.
Anthea, naturally, kept talking at full volume. "I had the most awful time convincing her to accept Lodia as Matriarch! The only reason she agreed was that Lodia lives in my household and is under my control, and I convinced her that she – I mean Jullie – can influence the Temple through me and Lodia!"
You did what?!
"I said, I convinced Jullie to accept Lodia's appointment as Matriarch – "
And what made you think that was a good idea?! Anthea! Did you learn nothing from watching me all those years? You NEVER ask for permission! You go ahead and do it, and you act confident that the world will accept your actions – and then it does!
A shaggy grey ear and a single white-tipped auburn tail poked out around a corner: Steelfang and the foxling. I had a feeling that more of my words were going to end up on the foxling's list.
We're setting up a Serica-wide network of Temples! How could you set a precedent where the monarch of South Serica gets a say in who heads the organization?
Wings flapped and scales rustled. Stripey and Bobo had arrived at last.
"What's happening?" Bobo asked. "What's going on with the Queen?"
The queen wants to control the Temple!
That seems natural, observed Stripey.
What?!
"There! What did I tell you?" Anthea crowed.
I rounded on her. We can't let her control the Temple. No one is going to trust it if they believe the royal government controls it rather than the Kitchen God, and if no one trusts it, they're not going to bring offerings!
Anthea waved a dismissive hand. "Of course they will. I'm the Queen's best friend. If they think it will please me, of course they'll bring offerings."
I stared at her. The courtiers, yes. But only until you fall out of favor with your precious queen. Or she dies. What I'm trying to do is guarantee that everyone will bring offerings in perpetuity!
"Only the courtiers' offerings are worth anything anyway."
If only we hadn't just emptied the storeroom to feed the slum so I could show it to her! Maybe the courtiers' individual offerings are worth more, but everyone else's offerings add up to far, far more. We just sent two wagonloads of food to feed the slum.
Anthea bit her lip as the gravity of her mistake finally dawned on her. "Oh. Fine. But what do we do with Lodia now? She certainly can't live here or at my place."
I let her stew in regret for a little longer before I offered the solution.
There, there, Anthea, don't you fret. We were planning to establish more Temples, were we not? What better time for the Matriarch to visit the site of the next Temple to the Kitchen God?
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
In the throne room:
"You put your personal seamstress in charge of the Temple to the Kitchen God?"
In the hush that fell over the throne room, a courtier tittered and was quickly hushed. Standing at the foot of the dais, Anthea looked a long way up into Jullie's impassive face.
"Your Majesty," she replied steadily, "I placed the granddaughter of the Mage-Architect of Lychee Grove in charge of the Temple."
She'd only meant to bolster Lodia's credentials by pointing out that the girl, shrinking and terrified though she was, did come from a family that wielded some amount of political power. But as soon as the words left her tongue, she knew that she'd misstepped.
Jullie didn't need to comment. Her uncle did it for her.
"Lychee Grove," snarled the Earl of Black Crag. "The fief whose Lady has never acknowledged the Crown's authority? The fief that is a poison at the heart of this kingdom? The fief that should have been crushed and burned to the ground long before now? And you thought that the granddaughter of its Mage-Architect would be the best person to ensure that the Temple acknowledges the authority of the Crown?"
When he put it that way….
Ugh, this was why Anthea hated getting mixed up in politics! All she'd wanted to do was construct a replica of her long-ago, lost-forever home and live a facsimile of her long-ago, lost-forever life. From the start, she'd told Piri that she didn't get involved in politics. So what was she doing here in the throne room, pushing for her choice for the Matriarch of the Temple that Piri had established?
She should have remembered that her long-ago, lost-forever life had featured Piri's machinations very prominently indeed.
"In terms of personality, Koh Lodia is as unlike her grandmother as you can imagine, Your Grace," Anthea told the Earl of Black Crag, wishing it didn't come out quite so much like a protest. Protesting meant that you believed you were in the wrong. It was Piri who had said that, long, long ago. "Lodia has a sweet, docile personality – "
"Meaning that she will be the ideal vessel through which her grandmother and the Lady of Lychee Grove can wield their influence," finished Jullie's cousin. The Earl of Yellow Flame curled his lip, obviously irked to find himself on the same side as his uncle.
This was not going well. On the rare occasions that the two earls actually agreed on something, Jullie usually followed their advice.
I wish Piri were here. The thought slid into Anthea's mind like a dagger.
She jolted. She wished Piri were here? No. Absolutely not. She was not Koh Lodia. She did not need a demon mind to puppet her actions. She was well over six hundred years old (if she counted her mortal years, which she did), and she could win her own battles, thank you very much.
Anthea bared her teeth, letting their points go sharp. "Or – she will make the ideal vessel through which Her Majesty may exert her influence over the future of the Temple. Lodia is a member of my household." She stared straight up at Jullie, silently reminding the Queen that when all her other courtiers had fled, even her cousin and her uncle, Anthea alone had stayed. Anthea alone had tried to get her to safety.
Jullie's cool eyes studied her for a long moment, weighing the likelihood that Anthea might one day turn against her and leverage the Temple against her and her successors. That was a legitimate risk that a ruler had to consider. Anthea acknowledged it, even if it stung.
I'm your friend, she thought at the woman on the throne. I've been your friend since you were a little girl crying over the death of your father, who needed a fluffy raccoon dog to hug. Why would you believe that I would ever stop being your friend?
Piri would say that there were no friends at court, only temporary allies.
Anthea quashed that thought. She wasn't that little five-tailed fox, to record every inane phrase Piri uttered and to ponder it and impute wisdom to it that simply didn't exist.
At last, Jullie leaned back against her throne. "Very well. We accept your choice for the Matriarch of the Temple to the Kitchen God."
Her phrasing soured the victory for Anthea, but she would take the win.
In the Temple:
After Floridiana and Dusty left, the days passed in a blur of activity. Just as I had planned, people poured through the Temple gates, bearing offerings for the Divine Intercessor. They kept the priests so busy that we soon had a near-rebellion on our hands.
"'S too much work." The most quarrelsome priest cornered Katu in the main hall one morning. Right under the staring eyes of the Kitchen God's image, the priest demanded, "We need more priests or more pay. You pick."
Clumped up behind him, the other priests bobbled their heads and chorused their assent. What – did they think we were voting to decide Temple policy now? Floridiana should have left this man in the slum. Was it too late to send him back?
Before I could decide how much damage it would do to our image if we started firing priests, Camphorus Unus spoke up with his own concern. "High Priest, I would be remiss in my duties as steward if I did not warn you that the amount of perishable offerings we are receiving exceeds the Temple's needs and will soon spoil if not consumed."
After the offerings' spiritual essence was dedicated to the Kitchen God, the staff would remove them from the tables and transfer them to the storeroom. Which was apparently overflowing.
It was a good problem to have. And I was curious how Katu would solve it.
"Too many offerings…. Too few priests…," he muttered. His gaze traveled over the priests' and the steward's shoulders to the image on the altar. "What would the Divine Intercessor want…?" (More offerings.) "Oh! Of course! Take the excess offerings to the slum and distribute them. While you're there, recruit more priests."
Personally, I'd have thrown another massive banquet, but this wasn't bad either.
So our first cohort of priests loaded two wagons with excess food, made a visit home, and returned several hours later with two wagons of slum dwellers. I hadn't even told them to prioritize humans over spirits – they'd done it all on their own. Camphorus Unus got the new priests bathed, clothed, fed, and housed in the spare bedrooms.
Speaking of housing arrangments, Katu had long since moved out of Anthea's mansion and into a set of rooms at the Temple, but Lodia had not. That would never do. It was unseemly for the Matriarch to live in Anthea's mansion and not the Temple she supposedly ran. It implied to all the world that the Temple was not an independent organization, but the plaything of a courtier allied with the Crown. Between the demon invasion and the festival, I hadn't had time wrest her away from Anthea yet, but now it was time.
Katu, tell Lodia that we need her at the Temple for Matriarchal duties, I instructed. And tell her to bring everything she needs, because she's going to be living here from now on.
As I should have expected, it wasn't Lodia who showed up – but the raccoon dog.
Ugh. Anthea was going to fuss over losing twenty-four-hour access to her personal seamstress, wasn't she? Well, I had no sympathy. If she'd wanted to hang on to her Junior Wardrobe Mistress, she should never have pushed Lodia into the position of Matriarch to start with.
In my most saccharine tone, I greeted the raccoon dog. Why, hello there, Anthea. Did you wish to pray to the Divine Intercessor?
At the implication that she'd need to leave her own home to pray to her own patron god, she gnashed her teeth. They were a little pointy. Good. She was already on the verge of losing her temper. I gave her one more push.
I'm sure one of the priests would be happy to escort you to the main hall so that you may make your offerings and speak to the Divine Intercessor. We have only today recruited a new cohort of priests, so it will be good for them to see how it is done.
Claws slid out of Anthea's fingertips and sank back under her flesh. "You know perfectly well why I am here. Don't waste my time."
A most original comeback indeed.
But dearest Anthea, what other purpose could possibly have been important or urgent enough for the queen's most trusted confidante to come to the Temple in person?
She actually stamped her be-slippered foot. "I'm here because you're trying to steal Koh Lodia away from me again!"
Steal Koh Lodia? I blinked my bright, round sparrow's eyes at her. Whatever could you mean?
"I mean just that! You were the one who threw her at me. You were the one who got me to hire her as Junior Wardrobe Mistress. And I did, and now you're trying to steal her. You always do that!"
If she'd noticed a pattern, shouldn't she have tried to break it by now?
But dearest Anthea, I was content for her to stay in your household when she was your Junior Wardrobe Mistress. (Not least because I could summon her any time I wanted.) But surely you can see that to have the Matriarch living in the home of a single courtier, especially a courtier so closely tied to the throne as you –
I shook my head sadly.
You know, and I know, and I daresay everyone in the Temple knows, that nothing will change, no matter where Lodia lives. But the optics – the people's perception of reality. We are in the business of soothing hearts and minds, are we not? They will not feel soothed if they believe that the Temple is the queen's favorite courtier's plaything.
Anthea clenched her fists. "That is all it can be."
A passing priest gasped, then hurried on.
"Don't you see? Jullie's never going allow the Temple to grow into an independent entity that can challenge the Crown. She already sees it as a threat!"
Heads began popping out around doorjambs. The Temple staff was eavesdropping as hard as they could.
Keep your voice down, I admonished Anthea. You're going to demoralize everyone.
I didn't say "scare them off," but that was what she was going to do if she kept shrieking that the queen's wrath was going to fall on the Temple and separate all of the staff's heads from their shoulders.
Anthea, naturally, kept talking at full volume. "I had the most awful time convincing her to accept Lodia as Matriarch! The only reason she agreed was that Lodia lives in my household and is under my control, and I convinced her that she – I mean Jullie – can influence the Temple through me and Lodia!"
You did what?!
"I said, I convinced Jullie to accept Lodia's appointment as Matriarch – "
And what made you think that was a good idea?! Anthea! Did you learn nothing from watching me all those years? You NEVER ask for permission! You go ahead and do it, and you act confident that the world will accept your actions – and then it does!
A shaggy grey ear and a single white-tipped auburn tail poked out around a corner: Steelfang and the foxling. I had a feeling that more of my words were going to end up on the foxling's list.
We're setting up a Serica-wide network of Temples! How could you set a precedent where the monarch of South Serica gets a say in who heads the organization?
Wings flapped and scales rustled. Stripey and Bobo had arrived at last.
"What's happening?" Bobo asked. "What's going on with the Queen?"
The queen wants to control the Temple!
That seems natural, observed Stripey.
What?!
"There! What did I tell you?" Anthea crowed.
I rounded on her. We can't let her control the Temple. No one is going to trust it if they believe the royal government controls it rather than the Kitchen God, and if no one trusts it, they're not going to bring offerings!
Anthea waved a dismissive hand. "Of course they will. I'm the Queen's best friend. If they think it will please me, of course they'll bring offerings."
I stared at her. The courtiers, yes. But only until you fall out of favor with your precious queen. Or she dies. What I'm trying to do is guarantee that everyone will bring offerings in perpetuity!
"Only the courtiers' offerings are worth anything anyway."
If only we hadn't just emptied the storeroom to feed the slum so I could show it to her! Maybe the courtiers' individual offerings are worth more, but everyone else's offerings add up to far, far more. We just sent two wagonloads of food to feed the slum.
Anthea bit her lip as the gravity of her mistake finally dawned on her. "Oh. Fine. But what do we do with Lodia now? She certainly can't live here or at my place."
I let her stew in regret for a little longer before I offered the solution.
There, there, Anthea, don't you fret. We were planning to establish more Temples, were we not? What better time for the Matriarch to visit the site of the next Temple to the Kitchen God?
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
- Location
- PA
Oh maaan.
Just ask Christianity how badly things go when you get politics mixed up in religion.
Heck, I bet half of why Buddhism and so many other religions in Asia still hang around and are popular is because they didn't mix church and state!
…The hilarious thing is what Piri said was wrong-Anthea moving with confidence is how Lodia became a Matriarch, but the world sure isn't accepting it!
The BIGGER problem though, is the 'keeps trying to steal Lodia bit.' Anthea…Frankly, Anthea didn't realize Lodia was ruining her vision working without sufficient light.
As for Julia…I can't help but think it's only a matter of time before she overreaches and kills the goose laying the golden eggs.
…Or maybe that should be Sparrow?
Just ask Christianity how badly things go when you get politics mixed up in religion.
Heck, I bet half of why Buddhism and so many other religions in Asia still hang around and are popular is because they didn't mix church and state!
…The hilarious thing is what Piri said was wrong-Anthea moving with confidence is how Lodia became a Matriarch, but the world sure isn't accepting it!
The BIGGER problem though, is the 'keeps trying to steal Lodia bit.' Anthea…Frankly, Anthea didn't realize Lodia was ruining her vision working without sufficient light.
As for Julia…I can't help but think it's only a matter of time before she overreaches and kills the goose laying the golden eggs.
…Or maybe that should be Sparrow?
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Oh, no, Buddhism does that too.
Ask what the Buddists did at the Japanese imperial court.
Yeah, the problem is that Jullia has kept her throne by being suspicious of everyone's motives, and from her perspective, the shy, politically-inexperienced Lodia looks an awful lot like a convenient puppet for Lychee Grove interests. The queen can't believe that a courtier would do something so genuinely impulsive as installing her personal seamstress as the head of the Temple....
I'd also assumed that Buddhism didn't get involved in politics - until I started listening to the History of Japan podcast and read The World of the Shining Prince. I guess humans are humans and will get political, no matter where you go!
Chapter 152: In Which We Discover That Lodia Talks
Chapter 152: In Which We Discover That Lodia Talks
Because I was such a magnanimous soul, I permitted Anthea to submit candidates for the location of the second Temple to the Kitchen God. (It helped that she knew South Serican geography better than I did.) Katu, naturally, had plenty of opinions, but it was Lodia who shocked us all.
I'd invited her to sit in on our meetings, assuming that she would hide in a corner and embroider while the rest of us fought. And, for the first several sessions, she did just that. She stayed as silent as a glove puppet, apart from the occasional breaks we took during which she'd show Anthea her progress and double-check the design or the shade of silk.
And then, in the middle of a fight over whether the next Temple should be in a port or inland city, Lodia spoke up.
It has to be a port, I was arguing. The Temple has to be close to the docks. Sailors from other parts of Serica will see it when they come ashore. They can make offerings before and after sea voyages to pray for or thank the Kitchen God for a safe journey.
Anthea snorted. "What sea voyages?"
What do you mean?
Different parts of Serica had always specialized in different resources. Maybe lychees had come north by express riders, but the best rosewood trees for furniture grew along the southern coast, and I was fairly sure that they'd come to the capital by ship. You could haul wood across or around the Snowy Mountains, but why would you risk the demon attacks and damage to the shipments?
However, when I pointed that out, Anthea snorted again. "Your knowledge is five centuries out of date. There is no sea trade between different parts of Serica to speak of."
Would you care to elaborate?
"Not really."
When I continued to stare at her, she heaved a pained sigh. You'd have thought I'd demanded that she roast her firstborn pup or her precious Jullie.
Or elaborate on economics and trade networks, I supposed.
Katu, naturally, was happy to oblige. "I don't know how it used to be, Pip, but we learned in school that the Dragon Kings of the Southern and Eastern Seas charged such high tolls for using their waters that we gave up on sea voyages. I'm not sure about the Dragon King of the Western Sea, because nobody in their right mind would sail west." He cast a nervous, apologetic look at the ex-demons from the west. "No offense."
Far from following our discussion, the foxling had pulled her chair right next to Lodia and was practically on top of the girl, jealously watching each new stitch. She glanced at Katu and shrugged, the motion rippling the fur on her tails.
I clenched my beak and looked away, accidentally meeting the bright yellow eyes of Steelfang. The wolf grinned, baring his long teeth. I hoped they all rotted and fell out.
No offense taken, answered Stripey, and I gave a start. I'd forgotten that in this life, he too had come from the west. There are no good deep-water harbors to speak of along the western coast. The mountains just plunge into the sea in steep cliffs.
Aren't you thinking of the northern coast? He could have been describing the seaside of my childhood.
I haven't seen the northern coast. Only the western one.
Pallus shook his head, making his shaggy ruff fly around his face. "We do have some natural harbors and fishing villages in the south. The fish further north are much more fun." He purred at the thought, rattling the table.
"Fun? Don't you mean delicccious?" asked Bobo.
"No. I mean fun. They're very feisty."
What Pallus means, Stripey translated, is that the Western Sea is full of fish demons.
"All members of my clan must prove themselves by defeating a great fish and bringing its carcass back."
I tried to imagine Prince Pouff dragging a rotting fish all the way from the beach into the mountains. Pallus was right: It was not a delicious image. I wasn't sure it qualified as fun either, but it definitely wasn't delicious.
All right, I said. So what you're all saying is that trade and communications between South Serica and, well, the rest of Serica do not currently exist. But that's all right. We shall reestablish them –
"When I reunify the empire!" blurted out the foxling. She clapped a hand over her mouth. "Forgive me for interrupting you, O representative of Lady Piri!"
I inclined my head, accepting her apology. Yes, exactly that. After the empire has been reunified, trade will naturally start up again, so in preparation, we must establish Temples in all the port cities.
"All the port cities?!" Anthea gawked at me. "Wait! Weren't we talking about where to put the second Temple?"
You think too small. That will be your downfall.
"You think too big. That was your downfall."
In the silent glaring match that followed, a tiny, trembling voice drifted from the back corner. "Um…maybe…we could put the Temple in…."
Lodia's embroidery needle had stilled, and she was leaning forward in her chair to follow our arguments. She gulped when all eyes shifted to her.
"She talks!" howled Steelfang. "I was starting to think she was going to turn into a doll so we can put her on the altar next to that other doll!"
"Of courssse ssshe talks," snapped Bobo. "And that's not a doll. That's the image of the Kitchen God."
Lodia shrank back as if she wished she could melt into the shadows. Which would have been difficult, given that Camphorus Unus had set a bright, spelled lantern right next to her.
Yes, Lodia? I prompted. What were you trying to say?
"I was thinking…." Her throat worked, and she cast a pleading glance at Katu.
"We're listening," he assured her.
"Lychee Grove," she choked out.
Lychee Grove?
"Lychee Grove?!" Anthea squawked. "That's the last place we can put the second Temple!"
Lodia cringed, apologizing furiously.
Anthea, don't scare her! I snapped. Lodia, keep going. Why do you think we should put the second Temple in Lychee Grove?
It took multiple encouraging nods from both Katu and Bobo to induce her to open her mouth again. "It doesn't have to be the second Temple…. It's just – you were talking about sailors making offerings before and after journeys…."
This time, when she stopped, it was Anthea who waved at her to continue. The raccoon dog had cocked her head to a side in a "thinking" pose.
"It's just that – that lots of traders come to Lychee Grove. To buy our lychees. And that's kind of like sailors and ships, isn't it…?"
"That's brilliant!" exclaimed Katu. "So the traders can give thanks to the Divine Intercessor when they arrive, and they can pray to him again for a safe journey before they leave!"
"Mmhmm! And I was also thinking, they go everywhere in South Serica – the traders, I mean – so maybe they'll tell people they meet about the Divine Intercessor and the Temple. And maybe those people will be interested in coming to visit one of the Temples or maybe even build their own…."
Yes! I cried, so excited that I launched straight into the air. Yes! That's exactly it! Lodia – I mean, Matriarch – you're a genius!
"I – I am?"
"Yep! You are! You've always been!" Bobo assured her.
"Hear hear," agreed the foxling, but her eyes were still fixed on Lodia's embroidery, as mesmerized as if she were staring at the peacock chieftain's tail.
Yes! We'll send priests along with the traders so they can spread word about the Divine Intercessor and how he saved Goldhill!
Stripey tapped a wingtip on the table and said, While you're at it, you might as well hand them images of the Kitchen God that they can set up wherever they want.
"And copies of the divine text," said Katu, who had labored long and hard with Floridiana over aforementioned text.
Yes to all of those! Yes! This is brilliant! You're all brilliant! This is going to work! This is how we spread the Temple over all of Serica!
"And there she goes again," muttered Anthea. "Putting her plan before her treasury. Pi– Pip, before you get carried away any further and fly off, have you already forgotten our biggest problem?"
Ugh, was she going to complain about finances again?
Queen Jullia, said Stripey.
"Jullie," confirmed Anthea. "She's already concerned that the Temple will challenge her hold over this kingdom. How do you think she is going to feel when you set up a power base for the Temple right in the heart of a fief that only pays lip service to her authority?"
Oh. That was a semi-good point. But it was Lodia's idea, and I loved the image of lychee caravans spreading both delicious fruit and Divine Intercessor Temples throughout Serica….
"No, it will work," said my loyal foxling. "Didn't you convince Jullie – "
"That's Queen Jullia to you," snapped Anthea.
" – that Lodia would be a good choice as Matriarch because Jullie can influence the Temple through you through Lodia?"
The girl emitted a strangled noise that was halfway between a gasp and a squeak. "I'm supposed to be the Queen's tool?"
Oh. I guessed no one had told her about how she had obtained and then retained her position as Matriarch.
"Of courssse not!" Bobo hastened to reassure her. "Nope nope. That's jussst what we're letting the Queen think."
"Oh, but…but…I saw what happened to my mother. I'm not sure I want to get between the Queen and what she wants…."
You won't, I promised. Because so long as we convince her that what she wants is also what we want, there's no problem.
Good luck with that, muttered Stripey.
The foxling cleared her throat in the most obnoxiously passive-aggressive manner. "Anyway, as I was saying, we can make the same argument as before for why we should build a Temple in Lychee Grove. Anthea just has to convince Jullie that she's establishing a royal institution there to counter the Lady of the Lychee Tree. Done!" She bounced out of her chair, swished her crushed tails, and beamed at all of us. "And I want that dress." She pointed at the one Lodia was embroidering.
Anthea bared her teeth. "You can't have it."
"But I want it, and you're only the adviser to the queen of South Serica while I'm the empress who is going to reunify all of Serica. So I take precedence."
"Pir– Pip, control your demons!"
Oh, I don't know, I think she has you there.
It was Lodia who broke the standoff. "Um, Fox Queen, this won't fit you." She held up the gown to demonstrate that it was cut for a much shorter, dumpier figure. "But I would be happy to make another for you."
"Wonderful! I want orchids on mine! No, cherry blossoms. No, maple leaves. No – "
We left her to her fantasizing.
The rest of us had work to do.
And that was how we ended up establishing the second Temple to the Kitchen God in all of Serica in Lychee Grove.
Lodia convinced her grandmother and father that being Matriarch had been her choice and was what she wanted, and they in turn convinced the Lady of the Lychee Tree to grant permission to set up a Temple. We made plans to purchase a townhouse that we could renovate into a miniature version of the Goldhill Temple. That would provide the local craftsmen with much work and the local economy with an influx of gold and rice, which would in turn make a good first impression on the residents. It wouldn't be a bad thing, either, to have a secondary Temple where we could send our new priests.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
But with the Temple on solid footing and in good hands, I was starting to get bored of the tedious logistics. Surely there was something more exciting I could be doing!
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Because I was such a magnanimous soul, I permitted Anthea to submit candidates for the location of the second Temple to the Kitchen God. (It helped that she knew South Serican geography better than I did.) Katu, naturally, had plenty of opinions, but it was Lodia who shocked us all.
I'd invited her to sit in on our meetings, assuming that she would hide in a corner and embroider while the rest of us fought. And, for the first several sessions, she did just that. She stayed as silent as a glove puppet, apart from the occasional breaks we took during which she'd show Anthea her progress and double-check the design or the shade of silk.
And then, in the middle of a fight over whether the next Temple should be in a port or inland city, Lodia spoke up.
It has to be a port, I was arguing. The Temple has to be close to the docks. Sailors from other parts of Serica will see it when they come ashore. They can make offerings before and after sea voyages to pray for or thank the Kitchen God for a safe journey.
Anthea snorted. "What sea voyages?"
What do you mean?
Different parts of Serica had always specialized in different resources. Maybe lychees had come north by express riders, but the best rosewood trees for furniture grew along the southern coast, and I was fairly sure that they'd come to the capital by ship. You could haul wood across or around the Snowy Mountains, but why would you risk the demon attacks and damage to the shipments?
However, when I pointed that out, Anthea snorted again. "Your knowledge is five centuries out of date. There is no sea trade between different parts of Serica to speak of."
Would you care to elaborate?
"Not really."
When I continued to stare at her, she heaved a pained sigh. You'd have thought I'd demanded that she roast her firstborn pup or her precious Jullie.
Or elaborate on economics and trade networks, I supposed.
Katu, naturally, was happy to oblige. "I don't know how it used to be, Pip, but we learned in school that the Dragon Kings of the Southern and Eastern Seas charged such high tolls for using their waters that we gave up on sea voyages. I'm not sure about the Dragon King of the Western Sea, because nobody in their right mind would sail west." He cast a nervous, apologetic look at the ex-demons from the west. "No offense."
Far from following our discussion, the foxling had pulled her chair right next to Lodia and was practically on top of the girl, jealously watching each new stitch. She glanced at Katu and shrugged, the motion rippling the fur on her tails.
I clenched my beak and looked away, accidentally meeting the bright yellow eyes of Steelfang. The wolf grinned, baring his long teeth. I hoped they all rotted and fell out.
No offense taken, answered Stripey, and I gave a start. I'd forgotten that in this life, he too had come from the west. There are no good deep-water harbors to speak of along the western coast. The mountains just plunge into the sea in steep cliffs.
Aren't you thinking of the northern coast? He could have been describing the seaside of my childhood.
I haven't seen the northern coast. Only the western one.
Pallus shook his head, making his shaggy ruff fly around his face. "We do have some natural harbors and fishing villages in the south. The fish further north are much more fun." He purred at the thought, rattling the table.
"Fun? Don't you mean delicccious?" asked Bobo.
"No. I mean fun. They're very feisty."
What Pallus means, Stripey translated, is that the Western Sea is full of fish demons.
"All members of my clan must prove themselves by defeating a great fish and bringing its carcass back."
I tried to imagine Prince Pouff dragging a rotting fish all the way from the beach into the mountains. Pallus was right: It was not a delicious image. I wasn't sure it qualified as fun either, but it definitely wasn't delicious.
All right, I said. So what you're all saying is that trade and communications between South Serica and, well, the rest of Serica do not currently exist. But that's all right. We shall reestablish them –
"When I reunify the empire!" blurted out the foxling. She clapped a hand over her mouth. "Forgive me for interrupting you, O representative of Lady Piri!"
I inclined my head, accepting her apology. Yes, exactly that. After the empire has been reunified, trade will naturally start up again, so in preparation, we must establish Temples in all the port cities.
"All the port cities?!" Anthea gawked at me. "Wait! Weren't we talking about where to put the second Temple?"
You think too small. That will be your downfall.
"You think too big. That was your downfall."
In the silent glaring match that followed, a tiny, trembling voice drifted from the back corner. "Um…maybe…we could put the Temple in…."
Lodia's embroidery needle had stilled, and she was leaning forward in her chair to follow our arguments. She gulped when all eyes shifted to her.
"She talks!" howled Steelfang. "I was starting to think she was going to turn into a doll so we can put her on the altar next to that other doll!"
"Of courssse ssshe talks," snapped Bobo. "And that's not a doll. That's the image of the Kitchen God."
Lodia shrank back as if she wished she could melt into the shadows. Which would have been difficult, given that Camphorus Unus had set a bright, spelled lantern right next to her.
Yes, Lodia? I prompted. What were you trying to say?
"I was thinking…." Her throat worked, and she cast a pleading glance at Katu.
"We're listening," he assured her.
"Lychee Grove," she choked out.
Lychee Grove?
"Lychee Grove?!" Anthea squawked. "That's the last place we can put the second Temple!"
Lodia cringed, apologizing furiously.
Anthea, don't scare her! I snapped. Lodia, keep going. Why do you think we should put the second Temple in Lychee Grove?
It took multiple encouraging nods from both Katu and Bobo to induce her to open her mouth again. "It doesn't have to be the second Temple…. It's just – you were talking about sailors making offerings before and after journeys…."
This time, when she stopped, it was Anthea who waved at her to continue. The raccoon dog had cocked her head to a side in a "thinking" pose.
"It's just that – that lots of traders come to Lychee Grove. To buy our lychees. And that's kind of like sailors and ships, isn't it…?"
"That's brilliant!" exclaimed Katu. "So the traders can give thanks to the Divine Intercessor when they arrive, and they can pray to him again for a safe journey before they leave!"
"Mmhmm! And I was also thinking, they go everywhere in South Serica – the traders, I mean – so maybe they'll tell people they meet about the Divine Intercessor and the Temple. And maybe those people will be interested in coming to visit one of the Temples or maybe even build their own…."
Yes! I cried, so excited that I launched straight into the air. Yes! That's exactly it! Lodia – I mean, Matriarch – you're a genius!
"I – I am?"
"Yep! You are! You've always been!" Bobo assured her.
"Hear hear," agreed the foxling, but her eyes were still fixed on Lodia's embroidery, as mesmerized as if she were staring at the peacock chieftain's tail.
Yes! We'll send priests along with the traders so they can spread word about the Divine Intercessor and how he saved Goldhill!
Stripey tapped a wingtip on the table and said, While you're at it, you might as well hand them images of the Kitchen God that they can set up wherever they want.
"And copies of the divine text," said Katu, who had labored long and hard with Floridiana over aforementioned text.
Yes to all of those! Yes! This is brilliant! You're all brilliant! This is going to work! This is how we spread the Temple over all of Serica!
"And there she goes again," muttered Anthea. "Putting her plan before her treasury. Pi– Pip, before you get carried away any further and fly off, have you already forgotten our biggest problem?"
Ugh, was she going to complain about finances again?
Queen Jullia, said Stripey.
"Jullie," confirmed Anthea. "She's already concerned that the Temple will challenge her hold over this kingdom. How do you think she is going to feel when you set up a power base for the Temple right in the heart of a fief that only pays lip service to her authority?"
Oh. That was a semi-good point. But it was Lodia's idea, and I loved the image of lychee caravans spreading both delicious fruit and Divine Intercessor Temples throughout Serica….
"No, it will work," said my loyal foxling. "Didn't you convince Jullie – "
"That's Queen Jullia to you," snapped Anthea.
" – that Lodia would be a good choice as Matriarch because Jullie can influence the Temple through you through Lodia?"
The girl emitted a strangled noise that was halfway between a gasp and a squeak. "I'm supposed to be the Queen's tool?"
Oh. I guessed no one had told her about how she had obtained and then retained her position as Matriarch.
"Of courssse not!" Bobo hastened to reassure her. "Nope nope. That's jussst what we're letting the Queen think."
"Oh, but…but…I saw what happened to my mother. I'm not sure I want to get between the Queen and what she wants…."
You won't, I promised. Because so long as we convince her that what she wants is also what we want, there's no problem.
Good luck with that, muttered Stripey.
The foxling cleared her throat in the most obnoxiously passive-aggressive manner. "Anyway, as I was saying, we can make the same argument as before for why we should build a Temple in Lychee Grove. Anthea just has to convince Jullie that she's establishing a royal institution there to counter the Lady of the Lychee Tree. Done!" She bounced out of her chair, swished her crushed tails, and beamed at all of us. "And I want that dress." She pointed at the one Lodia was embroidering.
Anthea bared her teeth. "You can't have it."
"But I want it, and you're only the adviser to the queen of South Serica while I'm the empress who is going to reunify all of Serica. So I take precedence."
"Pir– Pip, control your demons!"
Oh, I don't know, I think she has you there.
It was Lodia who broke the standoff. "Um, Fox Queen, this won't fit you." She held up the gown to demonstrate that it was cut for a much shorter, dumpier figure. "But I would be happy to make another for you."
"Wonderful! I want orchids on mine! No, cherry blossoms. No, maple leaves. No – "
We left her to her fantasizing.
The rest of us had work to do.
And that was how we ended up establishing the second Temple to the Kitchen God in all of Serica in Lychee Grove.
Lodia convinced her grandmother and father that being Matriarch had been her choice and was what she wanted, and they in turn convinced the Lady of the Lychee Tree to grant permission to set up a Temple. We made plans to purchase a townhouse that we could renovate into a miniature version of the Goldhill Temple. That would provide the local craftsmen with much work and the local economy with an influx of gold and rice, which would in turn make a good first impression on the residents. It wouldn't be a bad thing, either, to have a secondary Temple where we could send our new priests.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
But with the Temple on solid footing and in good hands, I was starting to get bored of the tedious logistics. Surely there was something more exciting I could be doing!
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Chapter 153: In Order to Escape the Rain
Chapter 153: In Order to Escape the Rain
Up in Heaven:
Another New Year, another round of parties to organize, including one to celebrate the promotion of the new Assistant Director of the Bureau of Reincarnation. Flicker couldn't tell from his Supervisor Glitter's increasingly deep scowl whether it was the extra work that so put her out – or their incoming boss.
Not that they got any say in who led their bureau, of course. The top positions were political appointments, determined by the gods and goddesses who headed the other bureaus. At no point in the process were clerks ever solicited for their opinions.
"Do you know how they pushed through the appointment so fast?" Flicker whispered to Wink as the star sprites filed down their dorm hallway. Every time they passed an open door, six more star sprites joined the column. "I thought it was supposed to take another century to appoint the new Assistant Director."
That had been Star's estimate, based on how negotiations on the committee were going – or, to be more accurate, not going. So what changed since the last time they spoke?
"How would I know?" Wink growled back.
He wasn't really a morning star sprite. None of them were.
Their column flowed outside and merged with the ones streaming out of the other dorms. For a quarter hour every morning, the back paths of Heaven were packed with black-robed clerks on their way to work.
"But something must have happened. They never appoint a new Assistant Director this fast," Flicker pressed. "Your office is close to Glitter's. Didn't you hear anything?"
"No."
One of the star sprites behind Flicker whispered, "My roommates were saying that the gods and goddesses are desperate to learn how the Kitchen God suddenly started getting so many more offerings. I'd guess the Star of Heavenly Joy promised to share the information if they appointed him."
Oh. Oh no.
"Do they really think that the Kitchen God will just let his subordinate leak that information?" asked another clerk incredulously.
"He's not here often enough to know if he does," pointed out another.
"Really?!"
Nearby heads swiveled towards Flicker and Wink, who both worked in the Bureau of Reincarnation. Flicker nodded. Wink grunted.
"Huh," said one of the clerks. "He'd better start spending more time up here then."
That would certainly be for the best, although it was hard to imagine. The Kitchen God had always spent the majority of his time on Earth, fulfilling his other duty as Heavenly spy. But if he wanted to protect his back in the Heavenly Court….
"What happens if he leaks the information, anyway?" one of the clerks mused. "Would it really be so bad?"
"Well," Flicker answered slowly, choosing his words with care, "depending on what the information is, and how easy the, um, strategy is to implement, they might all start using it."
He tried to imagine a separate temple to every god and goddess, all vying for offerings. Would that work? Was there even enough physical space in Goldhill to build a temple to each god and goddess? Could some of them be convinced to share a temple?
"If they're successful, that would mean more offerings to the other gods too," a clerk mused. "That means Heaven will become wealthier in general…. Hey! Think they'll give us a raise?"
"Banish the hope," said another. "It has nothing to do with us. They'll renovate the palaces and gardens."
For some reason, Piri and her long-ago pagoda popped into Flicker's mind. He tried to envision one of the goddesses demanding the Heavenly equivalent of that pagoda. It didn't take much trying. No, no god was ever going to propose that they set aside a portion of their newfound wealth for increasing the clerks' salaries.
"Well," sighed an older star sprite, "at least we get to see the palaces and gardens, so we get to enjoy them."
From afar, thought Flicker. After all, they didn't let just anyone into the most beautiful gardens.
Aloud, he said, "I'll settle for the Star of Heavenly Joy being an easy boss to work under."
"Hear, hear," agreed the other clerks, but not as if they believed it.
Wink snorted.
Aurelia still could not believe how the committee vote had gone.
"Did you foresee this?" she murmured at Lady Fate.
At the ball "celebrating" Cassius' promotion, Aurelia had arranged to find herself next to the other goddess in hopes of getting some answers. Lady Fate had been one of the committee members who'd voted to promote Cassius.
Lady Fate smiled enigmatically over the rim of her porcelain teacup. Her cat, Regia, stared equally enigmatically at Aurelia from her perch on the goddess' shoulder.
Getting straight answers out of Lady Fate was always an exercise in futility, but Aurelia persisted anyway. "I don't understand. You said that you foresaw that the Empire would rise again. Putting Cassius in charge of reincarnating souls cannot possibly benefit the founding of the new empire in any way, shape, or form. He'll just mess with him."
Having lost his own empire, Cassius wasn't going to accept anyone else ruling one, especially not the soul who had once been his straitlaced cousin.
Lady Fate held up her teacup and admired it. The porcelain was so thin that it was translucent and glowed from the elixir inside. "Ah, but the future emperor has already been reincarnated as a human baby, has he not?"
"Yes, but human babies die all the time." Aurelia had had personal experience with that. "Unless – you foresaw that he'll live to adulthood?"
Another enigmatic smile that Aurelia tentatively interpreted as a "yes."
A thought jolted her, so shocking that she lunged forward and grabbed the other goddess' arm. "Are you saying that the Empire is going to rise again in the next few decades?"
Regia hissed and extended her claws. Lady Fate deliberately dropped her gaze to Aurelia's hand.
Aurelia snatched it back, ashamed. "So soon," she marveled. "To think that it will happen so soon."
Then another thought struck her.
"You're using Cassius as a counterbalance against her, aren't you?"
It was starting to make sense now. Lady Fate wasn't going to stoop to political machinations merely for the purpose of obtaining more offerings. She had all the offerings she wanted. No, what she really wanted, what she would stoop to political machinations to obtain was –
"You're afraid she's going to wreck fate again, so you're going to use Cassius' grudge to suppress her."
The realization left an oddly sour taste in Aurelia's mouth.
"She is…erratic. Her presence makes the future difficult to divine with any degree of accuracy," Lady Fate proclaimed. "This time, there will be no…temporal fluctuations. The Empire will rise again on schedule."
On Earth:
After the unbearably muggy heat of summer, winter in South Serica turned out to be cold and damp, with day after day of fine, incessant rain. It was never enough to make going outside impossible, just miserably unpleasant. I purchased a townhouse in Lychee Grove that would do for our second Temple to the Kitchen God. While the rain made our workers balk at re-tiling the roof, I set them to work remodeling the interior. With that settled, we returned to Goldhill.
Brrrrrr, is it always this cold here in the winter? I complained one morning, reluctantly poking my beak out of my sleeping box.
"The temperature isn't actually so low. It's the humidity that makes it feel colder," Lodia explained. She cupped her hands next to the box, offering me a perch.
I stayed where I was, unwilling to leave my warm nest for now. Well, whatever it is makes my joints ache.
I tentatively extended one wing. Yep. Every single joint was sore. The deep, dull ache was akin to the winter rain: not impossible to deal with, but miserably unpleasant.
Stripey's head blocked out Lodia's hands. That, my friend, is what we call old age. You're getting old for a sparrow.
"Ssstripey! That's mean!" protested Bobo.
It's true, though.
Is that what this is? I tested my other wing. Less achy. I wondered what made some joints hurt more than others.
"Grandmother's hands ache in the winter too," Lodia offered.
Being compared to an old human did not improve my mood. What does she do for it?
"Well, she has a pair of gloves that are spelled for warmth, and she drinks a lot of ginger tea and soaks in hot baths when she has time, but…." Lodia spread her hands. "It helps, but it's not a cure. It'll get better when it warms up."
Oh goodie. When does it warm up around here?
"Soon. In a couple moons."
A couple moons?!
I was going to have to suffer through this misery for a couple more moons?
This is still warmer than it would be in the Claymouth Barony, Stripey observed. Come on, up you get. You can't stay in bed for another sixty days.
Just watch me, I grumbled, but I did flap out of the box before he used his beak to dig me out. He'd do it, too, and mess up my arrangement of soft cotton. Do you think it's warmer in West Serica?
"We can asssk!"
Before I could stop her, Bobo slithered out of the room to find the foxling and her chieftains. The ex-demons were still hanging around the Temple, taking advantage of their free room and board.
"What's this about West Serica?" asked Steelfang.
The big wolf trotted through the doorway and thrust his head under Lodia's arm. She stroked his neck and scratched him behind the ears. She no longer jumped and shrieked when he poked her with his nose, which had been his original reason for doing it, but now he'd developed a taste for ear scratches. I didn't object. If the High Priest were associated with butterfly spirits, why shouldn't the Matriarch be associated with a wolf spirit?
Too bad Floridiana wasn't around to update our official text. If I told Katu to do it, he'd spend forever polishing the prose.
"Rosssie, I mean Pip, wants to know if Wessst Ssserica is any warmer!" Bobo told Steelfang.
"Or less humid," Lodia added. "So it's easier on the joints."
Hey! You don't have to tell him that part!
Just because I was semi-willing to let her know about my aging, achy, mortal sparrow body didn't mean I could afford to show weakness in front of an ex-demon. He'd eat me if he had a chance. Well, not that I planned to live to a hundred, because no way was I turning into a spirit as a sparrow, but if I were going to die by being devoured, then it had better be as part of a human's dinner.
Steelfang, however, didn't try to eat me. Most likely because Bobo was watching. He lifted a hind leg and scratched the side of his head. "Depends on where you are in West Serica. I hear there are some beaches in the south that are pretty nice in the winter. Hey, Stripey, shouldn't you know this? Don't you birds migrate south in the winter?"
Stripey shrugged his wings, not bothering to not clip the wolf's shoulder. My clan does not. It did not successfully claim territory in the south.
"Do humans live there?" Lodia asked curiously.
Of course not – I began, but Steelfang interrupted.
"In the south, yes. They can't handle the mountains, but there're some on the coast."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Had the joint aches begun to affect my ears as well? Humans live in West Serica?!
"Well, yeah. Humans get everywhere." He made them sound like cockroaches.
But why???
"Why did they move to West Serica?" His furry shoulders rippled in a shrug. "Dunno. It was a while back. Probably too much fighting after the Empire fell so they wanted to escape?"
And they thought that the best place to escape fighting was West Serica?
"Sure, why not? At least it's a different set of people fighting there."
The civil wars in the civilized parts of Serica had gotten so bad that humans had deemed it preferable to hide out in the Wilds? Thank goodness the Heavenly Accountants stopped tallying your karma after you died, because that would really have sunk me!
Well. But this was just the opportunity I'd been searching for, wasn't it? Something new I could do to earn positive karma?
I leveled a gaze at Steelfang. Summon Queen Sphaera.
He bared his teeth and would have refused, but a glare from Bobo sent him scurrying out the door. Moments later, the foxling swept in.
"You called for me, O representative of Lady Piri? Does the great lady have need of me?"
Indeed she does. I stood up straight on the edge of my sleeping box and lifted both wings. As the first step in the reunification of the Serican Empire, you have been tasked with taking control of West Serica. And I shall personally accompany you.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Up in Heaven:
Another New Year, another round of parties to organize, including one to celebrate the promotion of the new Assistant Director of the Bureau of Reincarnation. Flicker couldn't tell from his Supervisor Glitter's increasingly deep scowl whether it was the extra work that so put her out – or their incoming boss.
Not that they got any say in who led their bureau, of course. The top positions were political appointments, determined by the gods and goddesses who headed the other bureaus. At no point in the process were clerks ever solicited for their opinions.
"Do you know how they pushed through the appointment so fast?" Flicker whispered to Wink as the star sprites filed down their dorm hallway. Every time they passed an open door, six more star sprites joined the column. "I thought it was supposed to take another century to appoint the new Assistant Director."
That had been Star's estimate, based on how negotiations on the committee were going – or, to be more accurate, not going. So what changed since the last time they spoke?
"How would I know?" Wink growled back.
He wasn't really a morning star sprite. None of them were.
Their column flowed outside and merged with the ones streaming out of the other dorms. For a quarter hour every morning, the back paths of Heaven were packed with black-robed clerks on their way to work.
"But something must have happened. They never appoint a new Assistant Director this fast," Flicker pressed. "Your office is close to Glitter's. Didn't you hear anything?"
"No."
One of the star sprites behind Flicker whispered, "My roommates were saying that the gods and goddesses are desperate to learn how the Kitchen God suddenly started getting so many more offerings. I'd guess the Star of Heavenly Joy promised to share the information if they appointed him."
Oh. Oh no.
"Do they really think that the Kitchen God will just let his subordinate leak that information?" asked another clerk incredulously.
"He's not here often enough to know if he does," pointed out another.
"Really?!"
Nearby heads swiveled towards Flicker and Wink, who both worked in the Bureau of Reincarnation. Flicker nodded. Wink grunted.
"Huh," said one of the clerks. "He'd better start spending more time up here then."
That would certainly be for the best, although it was hard to imagine. The Kitchen God had always spent the majority of his time on Earth, fulfilling his other duty as Heavenly spy. But if he wanted to protect his back in the Heavenly Court….
"What happens if he leaks the information, anyway?" one of the clerks mused. "Would it really be so bad?"
"Well," Flicker answered slowly, choosing his words with care, "depending on what the information is, and how easy the, um, strategy is to implement, they might all start using it."
He tried to imagine a separate temple to every god and goddess, all vying for offerings. Would that work? Was there even enough physical space in Goldhill to build a temple to each god and goddess? Could some of them be convinced to share a temple?
"If they're successful, that would mean more offerings to the other gods too," a clerk mused. "That means Heaven will become wealthier in general…. Hey! Think they'll give us a raise?"
"Banish the hope," said another. "It has nothing to do with us. They'll renovate the palaces and gardens."
For some reason, Piri and her long-ago pagoda popped into Flicker's mind. He tried to envision one of the goddesses demanding the Heavenly equivalent of that pagoda. It didn't take much trying. No, no god was ever going to propose that they set aside a portion of their newfound wealth for increasing the clerks' salaries.
"Well," sighed an older star sprite, "at least we get to see the palaces and gardens, so we get to enjoy them."
From afar, thought Flicker. After all, they didn't let just anyone into the most beautiful gardens.
Aloud, he said, "I'll settle for the Star of Heavenly Joy being an easy boss to work under."
"Hear, hear," agreed the other clerks, but not as if they believed it.
Wink snorted.
Aurelia still could not believe how the committee vote had gone.
"Did you foresee this?" she murmured at Lady Fate.
At the ball "celebrating" Cassius' promotion, Aurelia had arranged to find herself next to the other goddess in hopes of getting some answers. Lady Fate had been one of the committee members who'd voted to promote Cassius.
Lady Fate smiled enigmatically over the rim of her porcelain teacup. Her cat, Regia, stared equally enigmatically at Aurelia from her perch on the goddess' shoulder.
Getting straight answers out of Lady Fate was always an exercise in futility, but Aurelia persisted anyway. "I don't understand. You said that you foresaw that the Empire would rise again. Putting Cassius in charge of reincarnating souls cannot possibly benefit the founding of the new empire in any way, shape, or form. He'll just mess with him."
Having lost his own empire, Cassius wasn't going to accept anyone else ruling one, especially not the soul who had once been his straitlaced cousin.
Lady Fate held up her teacup and admired it. The porcelain was so thin that it was translucent and glowed from the elixir inside. "Ah, but the future emperor has already been reincarnated as a human baby, has he not?"
"Yes, but human babies die all the time." Aurelia had had personal experience with that. "Unless – you foresaw that he'll live to adulthood?"
Another enigmatic smile that Aurelia tentatively interpreted as a "yes."
A thought jolted her, so shocking that she lunged forward and grabbed the other goddess' arm. "Are you saying that the Empire is going to rise again in the next few decades?"
Regia hissed and extended her claws. Lady Fate deliberately dropped her gaze to Aurelia's hand.
Aurelia snatched it back, ashamed. "So soon," she marveled. "To think that it will happen so soon."
Then another thought struck her.
"You're using Cassius as a counterbalance against her, aren't you?"
It was starting to make sense now. Lady Fate wasn't going to stoop to political machinations merely for the purpose of obtaining more offerings. She had all the offerings she wanted. No, what she really wanted, what she would stoop to political machinations to obtain was –
"You're afraid she's going to wreck fate again, so you're going to use Cassius' grudge to suppress her."
The realization left an oddly sour taste in Aurelia's mouth.
"She is…erratic. Her presence makes the future difficult to divine with any degree of accuracy," Lady Fate proclaimed. "This time, there will be no…temporal fluctuations. The Empire will rise again on schedule."
On Earth:
After the unbearably muggy heat of summer, winter in South Serica turned out to be cold and damp, with day after day of fine, incessant rain. It was never enough to make going outside impossible, just miserably unpleasant. I purchased a townhouse in Lychee Grove that would do for our second Temple to the Kitchen God. While the rain made our workers balk at re-tiling the roof, I set them to work remodeling the interior. With that settled, we returned to Goldhill.
Brrrrrr, is it always this cold here in the winter? I complained one morning, reluctantly poking my beak out of my sleeping box.
"The temperature isn't actually so low. It's the humidity that makes it feel colder," Lodia explained. She cupped her hands next to the box, offering me a perch.
I stayed where I was, unwilling to leave my warm nest for now. Well, whatever it is makes my joints ache.
I tentatively extended one wing. Yep. Every single joint was sore. The deep, dull ache was akin to the winter rain: not impossible to deal with, but miserably unpleasant.
Stripey's head blocked out Lodia's hands. That, my friend, is what we call old age. You're getting old for a sparrow.
"Ssstripey! That's mean!" protested Bobo.
It's true, though.
Is that what this is? I tested my other wing. Less achy. I wondered what made some joints hurt more than others.
"Grandmother's hands ache in the winter too," Lodia offered.
Being compared to an old human did not improve my mood. What does she do for it?
"Well, she has a pair of gloves that are spelled for warmth, and she drinks a lot of ginger tea and soaks in hot baths when she has time, but…." Lodia spread her hands. "It helps, but it's not a cure. It'll get better when it warms up."
Oh goodie. When does it warm up around here?
"Soon. In a couple moons."
A couple moons?!
I was going to have to suffer through this misery for a couple more moons?
This is still warmer than it would be in the Claymouth Barony, Stripey observed. Come on, up you get. You can't stay in bed for another sixty days.
Just watch me, I grumbled, but I did flap out of the box before he used his beak to dig me out. He'd do it, too, and mess up my arrangement of soft cotton. Do you think it's warmer in West Serica?
"We can asssk!"
Before I could stop her, Bobo slithered out of the room to find the foxling and her chieftains. The ex-demons were still hanging around the Temple, taking advantage of their free room and board.
"What's this about West Serica?" asked Steelfang.
The big wolf trotted through the doorway and thrust his head under Lodia's arm. She stroked his neck and scratched him behind the ears. She no longer jumped and shrieked when he poked her with his nose, which had been his original reason for doing it, but now he'd developed a taste for ear scratches. I didn't object. If the High Priest were associated with butterfly spirits, why shouldn't the Matriarch be associated with a wolf spirit?
Too bad Floridiana wasn't around to update our official text. If I told Katu to do it, he'd spend forever polishing the prose.
"Rosssie, I mean Pip, wants to know if Wessst Ssserica is any warmer!" Bobo told Steelfang.
"Or less humid," Lodia added. "So it's easier on the joints."
Hey! You don't have to tell him that part!
Just because I was semi-willing to let her know about my aging, achy, mortal sparrow body didn't mean I could afford to show weakness in front of an ex-demon. He'd eat me if he had a chance. Well, not that I planned to live to a hundred, because no way was I turning into a spirit as a sparrow, but if I were going to die by being devoured, then it had better be as part of a human's dinner.
Steelfang, however, didn't try to eat me. Most likely because Bobo was watching. He lifted a hind leg and scratched the side of his head. "Depends on where you are in West Serica. I hear there are some beaches in the south that are pretty nice in the winter. Hey, Stripey, shouldn't you know this? Don't you birds migrate south in the winter?"
Stripey shrugged his wings, not bothering to not clip the wolf's shoulder. My clan does not. It did not successfully claim territory in the south.
"Do humans live there?" Lodia asked curiously.
Of course not – I began, but Steelfang interrupted.
"In the south, yes. They can't handle the mountains, but there're some on the coast."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Had the joint aches begun to affect my ears as well? Humans live in West Serica?!
"Well, yeah. Humans get everywhere." He made them sound like cockroaches.
But why???
"Why did they move to West Serica?" His furry shoulders rippled in a shrug. "Dunno. It was a while back. Probably too much fighting after the Empire fell so they wanted to escape?"
And they thought that the best place to escape fighting was West Serica?
"Sure, why not? At least it's a different set of people fighting there."
The civil wars in the civilized parts of Serica had gotten so bad that humans had deemed it preferable to hide out in the Wilds? Thank goodness the Heavenly Accountants stopped tallying your karma after you died, because that would really have sunk me!
Well. But this was just the opportunity I'd been searching for, wasn't it? Something new I could do to earn positive karma?
I leveled a gaze at Steelfang. Summon Queen Sphaera.
He bared his teeth and would have refused, but a glare from Bobo sent him scurrying out the door. Moments later, the foxling swept in.
"You called for me, O representative of Lady Piri? Does the great lady have need of me?"
Indeed she does. I stood up straight on the edge of my sleeping box and lifted both wings. As the first step in the reunification of the Serican Empire, you have been tasked with taking control of West Serica. And I shall personally accompany you.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
- Location
- PA
…Yanno, I bet ascending to Spirit as a Sparrow is how you unlock Spirit flight, and if you can recall your past lives…Oh man.
Buuuut yeah.
Also oh dear, it sounds like the Kitchen God is about to get shanked because he has lots of wealth but not much friends in Heaven which…Apparently Fate's working to tear him down, so her plans can work, but Piri's becoming a problem for her divinations…
Woman quit lying she has ALWAYS been a problem! You're telling me you saw this coming when you tasked her to bring down Cassius? Screw that!
But the day when Piri gets to personally eat the Lady of Fate for her dickery is still likely a few centuries off at the earliest.
Buuuut yeah.
Also oh dear, it sounds like the Kitchen God is about to get shanked because he has lots of wealth but not much friends in Heaven which…Apparently Fate's working to tear him down, so her plans can work, but Piri's becoming a problem for her divinations…
Woman quit lying she has ALWAYS been a problem! You're telling me you saw this coming when you tasked her to bring down Cassius? Screw that!
But the day when Piri gets to personally eat the Lady of Fate for her dickery is still likely a few centuries off at the earliest.
Simple, he got himself a Piri.
Warning, side effects of Piri may include, but are not limited to:
- Discovering your calling in life
- Uprooting your previous life
- Involuntary appointment to high office
- Becoming lifelong friends with Piri
Aurelia here is clearly suffering from side effects #2-4
Even if Piri acquired spirit flight, she'd still be furious that she's a sparrow and not a fox. Because no matter how awesome other animals are, none of them can compare to a fox!
Piri's always a problem for Lady Fate. She's just too chaotic.
Haha! The Piri side effect warning label is hilarious and awesome!
Aurelia is definitely suffering from side effects #2-4. It remains to be seen whether she will develop #1 as well.