Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

Overeager Gate-Rammer stood behind me.

He was grinning. Of course he was grinning. His brown hair was slightly messy, like he had run his hands through it one too many times—or possibly wrestled a small, enthusiastic Zilgath (a six-legged furball from the Nebula of Endless Shedding). His eyes were crinkled at the corners. His hands were in his pockets. He looked, in that moment, like someone who had just done something he absolutely should not have done and was experiencing zero percent remorse.

"Look at you," he said. "Didn't even fall that time."

I stared at him. My heart was doing something illegal by the laws of the Celestial Council. My face was doing something unconstitutional under the Sacred Edicts of the Void. My hands, which had been clenched at my sides, suddenly became hyperaware that they were not holding anything. That they were empty. That they were hands. And that hands were the things that lesser beings used to—

I cut that thought off before it could request a Void-writ (the celestial equivalent of a permission slip).

"You pushed me," I said.

"You were standing at the gate again. For, like, a full minute. Just standing there. Staring." He tilted his head. "What would you do without me pushing you in?"

"I would cross the gate on my own. In my own time. Without the assistance of—" I stopped. I was going to say lesser entities, but something in his face stopped me. Something in his grin, which had softened at the edges, which was looking at me with an expression I did not have a word for. Probably something stupid, like endearment.

"Seriously, Piglet," he said, and his voice was different now. Softer. The kind of soft that makes your internal alarm-gargoyles screech. "You can't keep doing this. Standing at the gate. Not moving. So, I'm going to be here."

He stepped forward.

One step. That was all. One step that brought him close—closer than he had been before, close enough that I could smell something on him. Something clean and fresh. Something that reminded me of the Realm of Eternal Spring, where flower fairies emerge each morning when the air is still and the water is pure, and the flowers bloom in colours that have no names in any language I know.

Spring flowers. The absolute nerve of this boy. He smelled like spring flowers.

He bent down.

His face was level with mine now. His eyes were brown. So brown. The same brown as the earth after rain. The same brown as the bark of the ancient trees in Thornveil Hollow. He was looking at me. Looking at my face. Looking at my eyes. Looking at—

"You know," he said, his voice now low enough to be legally classified as a Sonic Disturbance of the Seventh Order, "you look different today."

I could not speak. My throat had closed for ethereal restructuring. My lungs had filed for a dimensional separation (the celestial equivalent of divorce). My heart was beating a rhythm that was not the rhythm of a celestial being, but rather the rhythm of a small, panicked Thrumble-drum being played by a caffeinated Gloom-spark (a tiny jittery creature from the Caves of Perpetual Fidgeting).

"You seem less pigg-let-ish than before," he said.

My mouth opened. "Less—less what?"

"Pigg-let-ish. You know. Like less than a piglet." He was still close. Still looking at me. Still smiling that infuriating, crinkly-eyed smile. "Less scrunchy. More—" He paused, searching for the word. "—more something. I don't know." He shrugged and scratched the back of his head. "You look nice."

I made a sound. It was not a word. It was not a sentence. It was something between a squeak, a wheeze, and the death rattle of a very confused Whistling Kettle-Grub from the Steam Pits of Gargabon. It was the single most embarrassing sound I had ever produced in my entire celestial existence, and I once accidentally belched a small nebula during a council meeting with the High Fae.

Gate-Rammer laughed. A warm laugh. A real laugh. The kind of laugh that crinkled his eyes and showed his teeth and made something in my chest do something that was absolutely, positively, definitely not normal. Probably a soul-hernia.

I felt my face burning. I quickly slapped my hands onto my cheeks like I was trying to smother a miniature star-core. Why is my face hot? And why—WHY—am I even noticing these things?! I, the Celestial, Supreme Entity of Cosmic Indifference, should not be noticing anything less than the alignment of galaxies. This is unbecoming. This is undignified. This is… ugh, I need to be deadly.

But no. Here I am, blushing like a malfunctioning binary star because of this boy. The sheer audacity. The unmitigated gall. I swear on the void itself, I shall learn an incantation so powerful, so humiliating, it will smite him properly and good. Maybe something that turns his shoelaces into Fizzleworms—those translucent, squeaky little horrors from the Seventh Snailhole of Eligataton that wriggle aggressively and emit tiny, judgmental hums. Good luck explaining that to his mortal friends.

Also, adding to my list of "What Incantation I Should Learn to Burning Gate-Rammer Whenever I Feel This Hot":

1. Reverse his blood flow for exactly 2.7 seconds. (Just enough to make him dizzy. Not fatal. Probably.)
2. Make his tongue forget how to spell his own name. (Let's see him say "you look nice" after that.)
3. Summon a small, very disappointed cloud of pure Surazone to follow him around and whisper deeply unsettling poetry about lint (lint being the celestial term for existential dust bunnies).

This list is growing. And so is my face temperature. Curse this boy. Curse him straight into a mildly inconvenient dimension.

---

"You're cute," he said. "See you later, Sera."

Wait—what? What does cute mean? Is that a threat? A challenge, perhaps? Some kind of secret incantation ingredient he's hinting at? Cute could be code for a rare herb from the Twelfth Bog of Blazingness that only blooms under a lunar eclipse. I must add it to my list. Right between "Fizzleworms" and "mildly inconvenient dimension."

He turned. He walked away. His hands were still in his pockets like some sort of infuriatingly casual shadow-serpent. His shoulders? Relaxed. Completely, disgustingly relaxed. He walked like someone who had all the time in the world. Like he had just done exactly what he meant to do—which was obviously to psychologically destabilize a Celestial—and was perfectly, insufferably satisfied with the result.

I glared at his back so hard I think I melted a small crater in the air.

Cute.

I need Moo Moo. And a new list entry: "Incantation to make his pockets permanently sew themselves shut."

I stood at the gate. I did not move. I could not move. I had become a statue of pure, unadulterated celestial confusion.

---

"Cute," Human Sera breathed beside me. "He called you cute. Oh my void. Oh my void. He likes you. He definitely likes you. He pushed you and called you cute and he likes you."

"He does not like me," I said, but my voice was strange. My face was warm. My hands were—

"You're blushing," Human Sera said.

"I am not blushing."

"Your face is the colour of a ripe ember-berry from the Caves of Eternal Combustion. A very ripe, very embarrassed ember-berry that just got proposed to by a salad-construct from the Salad Dimension of Gorg."

"It is the sun."

"It's still cloudy."

"The clouds have—there is a phenomenon known as—"

"He called you cute, Sera. Cute. And you squeaked. You squeaked. Like Moo Moo. You sounded exactly like Moo Moo."

"I did not squeak."

"You squeaked. It was adorable. I'm going to tell Moo Moo."

"You will tell no one. Or I will turn your shoelaces into Fizzleworms. Do not test me."

"Sera."

A voice. Different. Deeper. Coming from behind me.

I turned.

Oh no. Not again.