Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

"Moo Moo," I said finally, pulling back to look at him. His face was a mess of tears and fur, his nose was running, his eyes were so swollen with crying that he could barely see. He was, in every way, the most pathetic creature I had ever encountered.

I had missed him so much it hurt.

"Why are you here?" I asked. "How did you come here? Did you—did you follow me? From the heavens?"

"Moo." He nodded vigorously, his ears flopping with the motion. "Moo moo moo moo Moo Moo."

"You followed me," I translated. "You saw me fall, and you—you jumped after me?"

"Moo."

"Through the void?"

"Moo."

"Without any safety precaution?"

"Moo Moo."

I stared at him. He stared back. His eyes were still streaming, his little body was still trembling, but there was something in his face that I had never seen before. Something that looked like determination. Something that looked like love.

"You're an idiot," I said.

"Moo."

"A complete and utter idiot. You could have been destroyed. You could have been scattered across the void. You could have—"

"Moo." He reached up and patted my cheek with one stubby paw. His touch was gentle. Soft. The touch of a creature who had spent his entire existence being afraid, and had jumped into the void anyway, because I was there.

I pulled him back into my arms.

"Good boy," I whispered into his fur. "You're a good boy, Moo Moo. I missed you. I missed you so much."

He cried harder. I let him.

After a long moment, Moo Moo pulled back. His crying had subsided to hiccups, his face was a mess, but his eyes were clearer now. More focused.

"Moo," he said.

"What? You need to go back?"

"Moo."

"Back where? There's nothing here. There's no—"

"Moo moo." He pointed with one paw toward the door, toward the hospital, toward the world outside.

I frowned. "There's someone? Someone you came with?"

"Moo."

"A little girl?"

"Moo!"

"Terminally ill?"

"Moo moo moo." His ears drooped. His eyes filled with tears again.

"Lily," I said, and the name came from somewhere deep, somewhere I hadn't known existed. "Her name is Lily."

Moo Moo nodded. His tears were falling again, silent this time, streaming down his furry cheeks and dripping onto the floor.

"You decided to be with her," I said slowly. "You found her, and she was alone, and she was scared, and you—you decided to stay."

"Moo."

"For how long?"

He shrugged. His small shoulders rose and fell, and the gesture was so human, so Moo Moo, that I almost laughed.

"Until the end," I said. "You'll stay with her until the end."

"Moo."

I looked at him. At this small, green, perpetually terrified creature who had followed me through the void and landed in a world he didn't understand, who had been found by a dying girl and decided to love her anyway.

"You're a better being than I am," I said.

Moo Moo blinked. "Moo?"

"I mean it. You fell into this world and you found someone who needed you, and you stayed. You didn't hide in your room for four days. You didn't call anyone a peasant. You just—" I swallowed. "—you just loved her. Because she needed you to."

Moo Moo tilted his head. He was quiet for a moment, considering my words. Then he reached out and patted my cheek again.

"Moo," he said softly.

"I'm not—"

"Moo." His paw pressed against my cheek, gentle but firm. His eyes met mine, and there was something in them that I had never seen before. Something that looked like wisdom. Something that looked like forgiveness.

"You're right," I said. "I'm learning. Slowly. But I'm learning."

He nodded. Then he pointed toward the door again, more urgently this time.

"Right. Lily. She's waiting for you."

"Moo!"

"And you need to get back before she finishes her—" I paused, searching for the word. "—dialysis?"

"Moo."

"Then go." I set him down on the sink. He was small, so small, a tiny ball of green fur in a world that was too big and too bright and too hard. "Go back to her. Be with her. When she needs you."

Moo Moo looked up at me. His eyes were still wet, his nose was still running, his fur was still a mess from crying. But he was smiling. I could see it, underneath all the tears. A small, wobbly smile that said I am scared and I am sad but I am also happy, because I am here, and you are here, and everything is going to be okay.

"Come find me tonight," I said. "When she sleeps. I'll show you where I live. I'll—" I stopped. Swallowed. "I'll introduce you to my family."

Moo Moo's eyes went very wide. "Moo?"

"Yes. Family. I have one now. They're strange. They're loud. They throw slippers at me when I'm rude. But they're—" I paused, searching for the word. "—mine."

Moo Moo stared at me for a long moment. Then his face split into the biggest smile I had ever seen on him. He bounced on the sink, his little body vibrating with joy.

"Moo!" he squeaked. "Moo moo moo moo MOO!"

"Yes, yes, you can meet them. But not yet. They're not ready. They're still getting used to the idea that I'm not—" I waved a hand. "—that I'm different."

Moo Moo nodded sagely. Then he hopped off the sink and landed on the floor with a soft squeak. He turned back to look at me, his eyes bright, his fur already starting to shimmer with the beginnings of his invisibility.

"Moo," he said.

"I know. Go."

He hesitated for just a moment. Then he ran back and hugged my ankle, quick and fierce, and then he was gone, a shimmer of green disappearing through the gap under the door.

I stood in the bathroom for a long moment, my hands empty, my eyes wet, my chest full of something I didn't have a name for.

Moo Moo was here.

Moo Moo was in this world, with me, and he had found someone who needed him, and he had stayed, and he was going to come find me tonight, and I was going to show him my new home, and introduce him to my new family, and maybe—maybe everything was going to be okay.

I splashed water on my face. I dried it with paper towels. I looked at myself in the mirror—at the bruises, the scrape, the red-rimmed eyes that had been crying in a hospital bathroom.

I looked terrible.

I was smiling.

I walked back to the waiting room with a lightness in my step that had not been there before. Mum and Dad were still sitting in the plastic chairs, Mum scrolling through her phone, Dad flipping through an old magazine.

"Are you okay?" Mum asked, looking up. "You were gone a long time."

"I'm fine," I said. And for the first time in weeks, I meant it.

Dad squinted at me. "You look different."

"Do I?"

"You're smiling."

I touched my face. I was, in fact, smiling. The expression felt strange on my features, unfamiliar, like a coat that hadn't quite been broken in.

"I have a friend," I said.

Mum and Dad exchanged a look. "You have lots of friends," Mum said carefully. "Jiyoung. Haejin. That boy from school who called you a piglet, apparently."

I opened my mouth to correct her—Gate-Runner was not my friend, Gate-Runner was an irritating mortal who had pushed me and called me names and then had the audacity to be helpful—but then I closed it.

"A different friend," I said. "An old friend. From before."

The look between Mum and Dad became more pointed.

"Before the accident?" Mum asked.

"Yes. No. Not before the accident. Before—" I stopped. How could I explain it? How could I tell them that I had a friend from a world they didn't know existed, a friend who was currently invisible, sitting with a dying girl in a hospital down the hall, a friend who had followed me through the void because he couldn't bear to be without me?

I couldn't.

But I could smile. And I could let them see that something had changed, something had shifted, something had opened up in my chest that had been closed for weeks.

"I have a friend," I said again. "And I think—" I paused. "I think everything is going to be okay."

Mum stared at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, she smiled.

"Okay," she said. "Okay, sweetheart."

And she didn't ask any more questions.

---

Later that night, after Doctor Kim had pronounced me "surprisingly resilient" and Mum had made soup and Dad had made jokes and Mina had drawn a picture of me with a very angry banana for a face, I lay in my bed and waited.

The house was quiet. The street outside was quiet. The world was quiet.

And then, from somewhere in the darkness, a small sound.

Squeak.

I sat up. The window was open a crack—I had opened it earlier, hoping, waiting. The curtains stirred in the breeze. And there, on the windowsill, was a small green shape, shimmering into visibility like a star appearing at dusk.

Moo Moo.

He looked at me. I looked at him.

And then he launched himself across the room and landed on my chest with a soft oomph and a flurry of squeaks and tears and the kind of joy that could only come from finding someone you thought you had lost forever.

I caught him. I held him. And I let him cry.

"Welcome home," I whispered into his fur.

And somewhere in the darkness, Moo Moo smiled.