They agreed to go tomorrow. Life hadn’t arrived yet, but his vast family and court came ahead of him, for they found it easier to pierce the veil and enter the mortal pne in preparation of him. The temple district contained plenty of space for gods and their courts when they passed by, so finding where Callistis resided while awaiting his love’s arrival was not going to be a challenge… But the sun was already hanging quite low by the time they exited Theodora’s manor.

  The walk back was quiet. They all had their own thoughts to unpack; Maia at the forefront, hood pulled up and eyes turned downwards so that no-one would see even a hint of her pallid skin as she considered the whims of fate.

  She was to convince another beloved of another god- the sibling to her beloved- to try and reconnect with a family long lost due to that love. She wouldn’t have such issues, since her whole family had passed on. They were true mirrors. A man who abandoned his family to dally with the representation of all that was alive, and she a woman who had no family sought out by a lonely representation of all that had once been alive.

  What worry would she have? She wasn’t ordered to try and tear two divine lovers away from each other. Her instructions were to make a delivery and to have a talk and that that’d be it. Then her goal would be realized, and she could spend the coming week mentally preparing for the trials they’d face at the actual ceremony.

  But her mind hung heavy with dark clouds even as they got back to the Gallivanting Galnt, and those stormy thoughts wouldn’t dissipate even with food in her belly nor with the chance to sleep, eyes wide open as she just gazed and gazed at the ceiling, like a terrible fear had struck into her mind and torn her skull open to seep it into every pore and vein.

  What terrified her so?

  Was she scared to meet a potential future of her own? She could become Death’s consort, if she so wished. The god had accepted her love and kissed her, and she- well, no, she was not ungrateful, she felt deeply honored to be loved by Death, and she resonated with those feelings, yet- she hadn’t truly thought of what that sort of thing would involve.

  She would have to leave this world behind and live under the whims of her beloved, wouldn’t she? No, that made it seem… Imposing. But she understood vaguely that consorts of gods often uprooted their entire lives. To love and live with a god is to abandon mortal possessions, for what use is wealth when you’re at the side of divinity? Life’s rge family all lived with him in his realm, and she knew that War’s occasional consorts traveled the world with them to do battle.

  Such stories were often the source of much romantic derring-do in stories as passed on by her parents. She’d never thought of them as more than that, but now she herself was facing that destiny, if she continued on her path… Maybe fate had set this meeting aside for her as a final test.

  Did she want to uproot everything for the God that she loved so?

  Eventually Maia drifts to a restless sleep with no memory of the events leading to it. Worry, dark clouds, doubts and eventual resolve find her as she awakens on the floor, having rolled over with a thud that was only deafened by Homer’s incessant snoring. Aymanah has gone out the window early again, but this time they were nice enough to come back for breakfast.

  “You really ought to leave us some message when you do that,” she remarked while at breakfast, which just resulted in a shrug.

  Not like they could write in the nguage of humans yet. They’d have to spend some time learning.

  She had not dared to bring her feelings out to light. Oh, no, my fellow travelers-I am scared of what it will be like to become the consort of an ever-powerful divinity, with all my needs taken care of and eternal life promised!

  She sounded selfish and insane in her head, and thus she spared herself from sounding selfish and insane with a man headed to die and a harpy who seemed to just have come along due to unbound curiosity. This fight was hers to tackle… And so deep in the war was she that she didn’t even realize Homer was idly watching her through all of breakfast, a worried glint in his eye.

  They set out to the streets once more, this time in the opposing direction.“The temple district isn’t really just all temples and cathedrals… It depends on the god. Worship can be performed in many ways. Death has no presence besides a graveyard for the holiest, where her occasional prayers are spoken. Life has a grove dedicated to him tended to by descendants of his dalliances with mortals who didn’t join the traveling court, War is only worshiped on fields of battle…”

  And so on. Cathedrals existed, of course. Aymanah had spoken of the ones they saw while out flying. Those were for more ‘general’ worship of all the divinities and their blessings upon the nd. One could call them humanity’s temples for their own sake, worshipping themselves and their efforts to appease divinities in turn…

  She’s gd Homer would expin most of this, because she wasn’t in the mood to make herself seen or heard right now. Too many thoughts to contain, too much effort spent hiding herself- now that they were in the temple district, she had to pull her hood up and hunch a little, keeping her eyes aimed on the floor. One priest spots her and it’d be a bothersome quarrel at the least, an outright scandal at worst if they decided to be a firebrand…

  They even managed to convince Aymanah to walk on the ground with them instead of flying above, since their presence likely attracted far more attention than Maia’s. Harpies weren’t completely alien to the city, but they were bizarre enough that most of the attention coming their way was focused on Aymanah skulking, clearly displeased with being earthbound.

  They passed the abstract byrinth of the god of Travel, stopped to observe the eternally buzzling theater used to worship many gods such as Comedy, Drama, and so on- And then they stopped again to have a moment of prayer at the lone graveyard containing Death’s essence. She’s sure her patron could hear her, for she felt a cold hand stroking her cheek for just a moment before she rose.

  this was not a very smart move, as more than a few priests stopped to observe this peculiar trio praying to a god who almost never received them-

  so, they had to quickly move on and pray at a few other sites of note. War had no temples, but there was a monument raised for them anyway, depicting a nondescript soldier raising their sword into the air. Homer pced a prayer here, wishing for victory in his upcoming bout. And for Aymanah, they managed to find a gate decorated with wind chimes, lightning rods and other such tools that was clearly meant for the ever capricious, ever wandering god of Weather.

  Why Aymanah had settled on this one was unclear; she had no familiarity with any of the gods of mankind, and there were no shrines to harpy gods here, for their gods were far more abstract, composing things like the earth below and the sky above… But they seemed oddly content whispering some words of worship.

  Maybe the god of Weather still heard, because there was a nice, gentle breeze leading them on towards the center of the district, where their mark would be found. Life had the rgest temple of all, for his was the easiest to tend to: no buildings were necessary. All they had to do was take care of a beautiful grove in the middle of the temple district. It alone covered about a third of the entire district’s size, and grew a little each year according to Homer.

  “When I was a child and I came here, this was still a paved road leading to the deeper grove… Ha. But every year some noble wants to one up it. They pnt new trees, bring new animals to the grove, sometimes they do something exotic.”

  His finger trails upwards, to a peculiar tree sitting alone on a little, tiny hill. It had no branches, the trunk seemed strangely segmented, and the leaves hung high at the top… Alongside a little chattering creature that Homer referred to as a monkey. This palm tree had been brought from overseas and pnted here. The climate might’ve been unfitting, he said, but the regur visits from Life made it bloom and thrive anyway.

  The grove was also where the only god to have actually been physically born in the world of humans was given birth to. Life’s child, the god of Harvests, was born here to one of his lovers. They say the boy walked out of the womb on his own two feet, spoke his first words five minutes after birth and made the whole city bloom when he fell asleep in the grass.

  … Ever since then, Harvests has been eternally young. His aging stopped at a point where most human children would be considered pre-teens, yet he has not changed notably, besides for the wild growth of his hair that tracks behind him like a cape. Death is considered a natural enemy of Harvests in modern scripture, for is there no greater enemy to Death than the constant, wild growth of life? Especially with Harvests’ ageless nature.

  Maia wondered how Death actually felt about her nephew.

  They’d passed by the sacred birthpce some five minutes ago when they finally reached the very center, an open field that was kept pristine as Life’s pavilion. There were some people around, and Maia could recognize them as Life’s extended family. Spending a long time in his realm had interesting effects on the human body; many grew horns after some months, others went further and even attained the legs of a goat or a horse, some grew in size.

  But there was no sight of Callistis, at least no-one matching Theodra’s description. He had grown one long horn from his forehead and his legs had become like a goat’s, but he was still a cherubic man of some twenty years in age.

  Asking around didn’t prove much help. Life’s family was outright euphoric in their default state of being, more interested in drinking, pying and chatting than giving helpful advice. The best they got was that ‘brother’ Callistis had been here, but had gone off somewhere. After the fourth unhelpful goat-man, Homer sighed and leaned against the trunk of a tree at the very edge of the open field.

  “Feels like we’re jus-”

  But that’s all he can say, because when he leans too hard on the tree trunk it colpses, and he falls within- but there’s no thud. Maia and Aymanah both rush over and stare at a ripple in reality, hidden within the bark of the unassuming tree. There’s no view of what lies on the other side, but it swallowed Homer whole… And he’s not coming back out.

  “W-What should we-?”

  But then Aymanah casually walks in before Maia can finish, leaving her stuttering at empty air. This had to be a ripple between dimensions, the sort of thing born when gods travel between realms. Had Life’s family caused it? Aaaah, aaah, damn it!

  Maia has no choice but to push through herself, feeling like her whole body is rended in twain. This is much different from when she met Death, yet she eventually comes to, ying on a field of grass with a sky of beautiful hues above.

  “You alright, little dy?”Homer’s shaking her by the shoulder.“... I think we’re in the realm of the gods now.”

  Maia blearily blinks and lifts her head, taking in the sights-… gods, why can’t anything ever be simple?