Neophyte World Builder

SENA

“You’re quite the difficult woman to find.”

Sena’s words merely caused an ear twitch from the elf, but by now she knew enough about elven body language to know she’d been acknowledged. Eyssa remained sitting on the edge of the tiny island floating in the sky, as if she were looking down upon the land below. It was a trick Sena had seen Muerve use once or twice—the afterlife itself shadowed the world to allow the gods to keep track of their followers in a visual manner.

They could also do so through mere feeling, apparently, but Muerve had failed to properly explain how that worked. Possibly that was one of the differences between those who had been elevated to proper divinity, as opposed to her presence as a mere soul. Her curiosity was strong, but Sena knew better than to snoop into an area beyond her ken.

Since there had been no attempt to dismiss her, Sena took a seat next to the petite elf. The tapestry of colors beneath her gently flowed and twisted, presumably with Eyssa’s will making tiny adjustments. The afterlife in this section was shared, so Sena could feel the subtle nudges of the goddess to the environment, and made no attempt to override them.

“I’m a busy woman,” Eyssa finally replied. “… is what I would say, but the truth is I just like my thoughts to myself. Upside has been in a lull in exploration of late, so it’s been quiet for me. There’s an upswing, but nothing like a few lifetimes ago. I’m surprised you’ve stayed here in our domain so long.”

Sena shrugged and stared at the distant image below her, flexing her toes. “We haven’t had a chance to talk much, even though I’ve been here over twenty years. I thought we should talk. Kenta told me several stories about you. You were his sister when he was a mortal, were you not?”

The statement brought a more energetic ear twitch to the goddess, and a surprised glance.

“Yes,” the elf confirmed. “Part-sister. Or half-sister, as some call it. We shared a father, though Tastka was always closer to him than I was. She told stories of me to you? I wonder if I should feel special. Did she mention the others?”

“Of course!” Sena laughed. “He mentioned you, Solen, Fisk… all of the group. It was a little strange, hearing that he’d been a woman, but he treated it like it was just… I don’t know. Like he’d worn different clothing, and might do so again. It was disorienting to someone like me.”

Eyssa’s ears lifted slightly with an amused chuckle. “I can imagine. It would have been strange for me, as well, when I was new to being a goddess. Over time these things don’t really bother you. I have domain over exploration and travel, and because of how elves are, that mostly means I am worshipped as I am… but there are some who envision their god as a male, or even genderless. I can appear as those, and it doesn’t bother me.”

Her tail flicked absently to her side, as if gesturing to another place. “Solen has clung much more tightly to her female identity, and dislikes taking those forms, even going so far as to try to influence her worshippers. You’ve seen Muerve, who embraces their ambiguity. Is that what’s bothering you?”

Sena shook her head, “No, no… well, perhaps it would have, in my younger days, but I’ve grown far too acclimated to Kenta’s oddities to think this is strange. I was more curious about what he—or she—was like as a mortal. Kenta said that was a kind of life detached from what he does now. Living a full life, I mean. I admit I’m a little envious of someone who had a full lifetime with him.”

Eyssa’s eyes lit up—literally, with a green glow—and she laughed. “Ah. Yes, she acted a little differently, yet also the same. If that makes any sense. I suppose having an actual purpose changes things, but in a lot of ways I still see her in what she’s become. I guess I’ve also changed as a goddess, though.”

“I have questions about that, as well, but I’m curious what you mean,” Sena said with a smile. “I don’t think you’ll surprise me as much as you think. He is always doing impressive and powerful things, but once I got to know him… well, Kenta has never been the most organized person, and often doesn’t quite realize how he projects himself to others. It’s been both humbling and terrifying.”

“Ah,” the elf sighed. “I see. You knew them well enough to see through it, too. Tastka was the same… she was always a little more than the rest of us, but never quite realized it. She had a unique class, of course. She knew that, but she never quite grasped it in a way that let her realize she was the second leader of our group.”

Toppling back to stare upward at the nearby moon-construct, Sena grunted. “I think I understand that. He does make a good leader, but not by himself. It’s a different kind of leadership. I’ve seen it a few times in my mortal life… not exactly a leader of competency, not in the way most think of it, but almost leading by incompetence in a way.”

“I’d call it more insecurity,” Eyssa argued. “That’s the difference. Fisk was a leader, too… and a very good one. In his second life, he founded an empire! He led through competence, confidence, and force of personality. Much like Wanderer, Fisk was someone who took control of a conversation. Wanderer does so through his sheer enthusiasm, while Fisk viewed everything as a challenge or competition.”

Sena almost agreed, but other than a thump of her tail to the ground, she remained silent. Eyssa was finally talking, best not to interrupt.

“Tastka, Crown, Kenta… none of them do that,” Eyssa continued. “They’re uncertain, they ask questions, they show respect in their own fumbling way. Fisk finds the person most suited for a task and says ‘do this for me,’ while Tastka would find the same person and ask, ‘how can this be done?’ Meanwhile, Wanderer just grabs them and yells, ‘Come on let’s do this!’ They attract different people, but they’re all effective.”

She fell silent, and Sena let the silence hang for a while before she prompted, “But people don’t see it as fumbling.”

Eyssa flicked an ear in the negative. “No, they don’t. Crown is more competent than he thinks, and people recognize that competence, so they assume he has plans where he doesn’t. Or sometimes he doesn’t even realize his plans. As Tastka, she knew what she needed to do, whether she realized it or not. We followed her, and she led us to where we needed to go.”

“But what was she like?” Sena asked quietly. “As a person?”

Eyssa glanced back, ears lifting slightly when she caught sight of Sena’s thoughtful face. “Ah. You really only saw them when they arranged it, didn’t you? I guess it makes sense.” She closed her eyes, letting her divine senses handle processing the world around her.

“Practical… a little distracted all the time. Playful when younger, but when older she was constantly poking at things,” Eyssa murmured. “Trying new things, I mean. If you want me to say she was a good person… I don’t know. She wasn’t a bad person, but could be a little selfish sometimes. I don’t think she was that way because she didn’t care, she was just wrapped up in her own thoughts and usually didn’t bother, unless someone was hurt right in front of her.”

Sena pushed herself up to listen, propping her elbows behind her to prop up her body. “Crown said they were a bad parent, is that true?”

With another laugh, Eyssa opened her eyes again and turned to stare down at the world below. “Not exactly. Tastka loved her kids, but she wasn’t very involved in their lives. That sounds bad to some in the modern age, but children were raised by the community in our tribe. Some parents were more involved with their children than Tastka, but her distance wasn’t strange either. She never gave me the feeling that she didn’t care about them… I think she’s just being hard on herself.”

“That’s a lot different than how he treats Akasha, though,” Sena pointed out quietly.

A flick of the elf’s tail dismissed the comment. “Not exactly. I think they’re still the same person, they just have a wider perspective now. Crown sees the whole world, and has more knowledge than Tastka. I think he understands responsibility more, even if it sometimes doesn’t seem like it. I know I do now that I’m a goddess. It changed my perspective right away… and over the many, many years, I’ve changed a little as well.”

Sena shook her head and sat up fully, staring down at the shifting colors of the land below. “With how long you’ve been a goddess, you should be completely different. Muerve and Akasha have talked about me becoming one, as well… but how do you stand eternity passing by?”

Another tail swish waved the question away, but Eyssa still answered, “It’s not that bad. You’ve already felt a little of it. We don’t experience time the same way here… when we aren’t focusing on something, our minds often drift off for a long while. Kelas says that souls change slowly when they aren’t alive, so it takes us a lot longer to change than it does for mortals. That’s why Muerve doesn’t encourage putting souls into punishment unless it’s something severe… it takes years and years for it to teach them anything, while putting them in a dungeon or just a situation they can learn from as a mortal can change them in a single lifetime.”

The frown that twisted Sena’s lips was thoughtful, but Eyssa wasn’t done speaking. The elf tilted her head to stare at Sena, then sighed.

“I don’t think you should become a goddess,” Eyssa said quietly. “Crown lets us speak our minds, especially Muerve, but we’re still all… part of the system. We’re subservient to him or her, however they choose to appear. That’s fine for us… we can argue with him and even lecture him, but in the end he’s the one who made us everything we are. You… aren’t like that, not if you don’t become a goddess. You are just a mortal soul, but that’s exactly why you can stare at him and tell him he’s wrong without hesitating.”

“And you don’t feel that you can do that, when you’re a part of the system that keeps the world running?” Sena asked. “Muerve has never hesitated to speak up. I do not understand why you can’t do the same.”

Eyssa’s ears flicked down in a negative. “Muerve is a newer god, but one of the ones with an ever present domain. They argue about anything that touches their domain because that is their nature, and it is why they were chosen for it. But outside of their domain they don’t consider much. They aren’t like you, who looks at a larger picture.”

“Do I?” Sena mused, curling her toes as she looked downward. “I did not realize that godhood came with such limitations. Are you incapable of speaking outside your domain?”

“No,” Eyssa corrected quickly. “It’s just that… we’re very aware of everything in our domain, but it’s hard to perceive anything outside of it. You, as a mortal, have an easier time seeing those things than we do. You shouldn’t give that up so easily.”

Sena closed her eyes and sighed. “I see.”

Nothing is ever simple.