Chapter 2
In which Ambrosia teaches Tamashii to make sand sculptures
AMBROSIA
I awoke with a feeling that something was out of sorts, but I couldn't really pin things down. My daughter Tamashii asked me if everything was okay. Tamashii, a cute little girl with deep purple hair, was a Soulfire. This meant that from the age that she was born, she had psychic powers, and she was able to walk and talk right out of the womb. I told her, "I had a dream that didn't agree with me, and I can't remember it now." Tamashii looked concerned, and I could see her mind working to find something to cheer me up. At this time, she was only two. "We coud go to the beach?"
I nodded. I did indeed want to go to the beach, as I had an affinity for a lot of water-related things, especially fishing. I also had blue hair. No, I didn't dye my hair or my daughter's. That would be strange to do that to a two-year-old. Thousands of years of genetics made it possible for unique hair and eye colors. In any case, since our farm was within walking distance of the beach, I was fond of visiting for recreation.
Tamashii is a cute kid, but remarkably precocious. As someone who always goofed off in school, I honestly can't understand how she got to be so brilliant at such a young age, but for some reason, I don't want her growing up to be harsh and cold. So we give plenty of fun and love in her life, but also teach her to be kind and accept constructive criticism. We train her. We don't want her growing up like Captain Marvel, cold and perfect, wanting to smash the patriarchy. Nor should she be an entitled prick. A child should be a child, and have some hardship to her life.
Right now, for instance, she learned that while she can psionically deflect water, some of it always knocks her over. And then I realized that even though she could walk at age two, it didn't matter if the waves were much higher. "Tamashii!!!" I scream, seeing a wave much taller than her bowl her over, and other waves threaten to suck her under. I dive in, swimming at full speed. It isn't like I'm concerned about her or anything...
TAMASHII
I awoke, spitting out water. Mom was always so calm and deadpan. She looked completely composed right now, even though I had just almost drowned. "So let's teach you how to make sandcastles," she said. She walked over to the water line, and scooped up up some sand and added some seawater from the waves. "So first, let's teach you how to make a drip castle." She reached her fingers into the muddy sand and used her index, middle, and thumb to slowly squeeze out water and sand. The sand slowly stacked to form a fairy story castle. Ambrosia also showed how to make castles from molds, and manage different moisture levels to get the sand to set properly. She explained that most sand on the beach was too granular and lacked the needed component of silt to act as a binder. We were living on the outskirts of Opening at this time, and Opening had plenty of silt in its sand due to the nearby quartz mines used to make the walls of the city.
She packed it together, showing how to make incredibly realistic sculpture of a woman, using carving tools the scrape layers into smooth lines. This woman looked like Mom herself but there was a sort of look to her that I had never seen on my mother. She also wore fancy clothes and carried a staff with a triangular crest on the top. I was amazed at how detailed and well packed this was, but all of a sudden, I noticed that Ambrosia's eyes had a sort of trance-like quality to them, as though she was lost in thought about what she was seeing.
AMBROSIA
Suddenly, I remembered our visit to Atlantis, and how there was a set of hands molding sand depicted on a stone tablet there. And then I remembered my dream this morning. And then my mind revisited another memory. About two years or so ago, God had sent me on a quest to stop the demon Belial. I had met a bunch of friends, like Nevras the swordsman who I later married, Aqorm the half-elf (who later became a full elf thanks to other elves tinkering with her bloodline), Elias the scholar priest, Azrael the exorcist, Zoe the druid, and there were an angel, demons, and sorcerer in my group. The sorcerer Yazim Jianne had made a bargain to release the demon Belial from an urn, having been tricked by him with promises that he would revive his wife. Never mind that resurrection spells did exist and even miracles from God were possible (so long as a person didn't die in certain ways like old age), this insane goofball wanted to make a clone of her soul because he thought that she might possibly enjoy the afterlife. While resurrection was possible, what he asked was not restoring life to a corpse but creating life out of nothing and making an artificial soul. We set him straight eventually, and he traveled with us to the city of Atlantis, where we met the more-than-slightly insane merfolk named Selqui. This seal girl was trying to summon an Elder Formless when we first met her. It was here that we saw the stone tablets. But all of this was after I had gone back in time after a breakup with Nevras made me so moody that as Oracle of Tao, I couldn't use my ultimate attack properly. The Tao spun out of control and killed me instead because I was in a shitty mood. Anyway, the second try, we totally kicked his ass. And then it happened.
Belial had at last been defeated. His body had been pulverized to an evil spirit and a bag of bones, and then the spirit had been drained of its potency. “Yay! He's dead!” I shouted with joy. All of a sudden though, I felt something weird. You know, you're watching a movie and there's something scratched up with the video and it skips? Anyway, that's what seemed to happen, there was a sort of ripple, and the villain disappeared from stage like a frame stopping. “What just happened? Guys, what do you think...?” I looked around. Nevras was gone too. So were the others. “Guys??? What happened? You're... gone. Why?” And then everything fell apart.
The space around me fell away completely leaving only openness. I looked around, and saw the floating triangular form of God. I believe I can answer that, God said to me. As I watched however, the recognized form of God fell away, and I stared at my own face, identical except for clothing. She carried a long robe and a stylized staff tipped with the Trinity symbol. In fact, it looked remarkably like the sculpture that I was working on.
“Or, should I say,” she said in actual words, “I believe I can.” God looked had an intense stare, like someone who had seen the universe. Yet she looked like me. How could this be?!? Yet I managed to share my indifference. “You're me? But...” I sighed, “oh, nevermind. After evil twins, nothing surprises me anymore.”
God shrugged, “You should be at least a little surprised. After all, this will be hard to take at first. You've heard, I gather, about the First Oracle?” I recited from memory, “Of course. The Oracle completed his training and then went off to face Belial, but he disappeared and...” But then something occurred to me. I said, “He ceased to exist! Don't tell me what Belial was trying to get me to believe earlier was true?” For context, Belial told me that nothing was real, especially my existence.
God shook her head, which felt strange after seeing God for so long in only triangular form, “No. But here's what I'm telling you. The First Oracle disappeared because he saw what all Oracles see, that human existence is a Dream. It's time for us to Awaken.” Images suddenly flooded into my head of of my experiences as God before even time existed. How she invented all sorts of stories to keep her company, and even developed video games for herself to play long before humans (especially Zelda and Okami), but watching stories of people she made up was no good. That's right, actors are not real people.
I remembered grasping the Void, and weaving it into stuff to keep me company. But it was never enough for my (her?) loneliness. I felt her connection with the Void because it too had nobody and nothing, since it was nothing. It was not good to be alone.
God continued some more, “The Void is never one thing in particular, so it could be forged into anything. But nothing made from it lasts, as all things return to the Void. I began to realize that I existed to create others, and because I existed, the Void loved me. My first creation was truly horrible, they were soulless robots crafted by my hands. They could neither love nor hate, nor did they have any desires. So I discarded them as a failed creation. Like humans, I could sleep, so I dreamed of this world and the humans in it. They were just as I wanted, only they weren't real. But... But... now it's time for you to become part of me, and for us to wake up!” I saw myself working on robots and then smashing them apart with a sledgehammer.
And then I saw death. Not as living things see it, but to see it from a perspective of an immortal. To explain it would be like explaining sight to a blind person, so different was this experience from anything a mortal encountered in their daily life.
I remembered the stone tablets in Atlantis, and how they depicted not only someone sleeping but the image of someone molding sand. No wonder humans were so prone to dying, they were like sand sculptures which take hours to make, toppled by the waves, and then rebuilt again. And then, my memories overlapped, and suddenly, I saw the memories of God instead.
GOD
My first attempt at humans rather than Drudges was much the same, only I wanted to see the male and female dynamic of humans. So I made two humans named Adam and Lilith. What's that you say? Lilith is a member of Ambrosia's group? No, different Lilith. And you biblical scholars tell me that it should be Adam and Eve.
No look, before Adam and Eve, Adam had another wife. Adam was a hermaphrodite at this time, as the term "rib" is a mistranslation. The actual word means "side", that is to say, humans originally had two sides and could become male or female simply by turning around. But while these were human, made in flesh of the dust of the earth and fashioned in my image, they were quite different in practice from the dynamics of human relationships today. Lilith wanted to be on top once in awhile, but Adam always to be in the male role. This led to a nasty argument, and eventually she ran off. My angels asked her to come back but she got all miffed and said she would curse any children that Adam had with death. I lifted that curse but she was pretty bitter about things for quite awhile, until I arranged her reincarnation in order that she might have a chance at new happiness. Hey you, don't accuse me of killing her. I concluded that the problem was related to the fact that the two of them were separate entirely from each other. So I put Adam into a deep sleep and separated his male side from his female side. He took one look at her and immediately fell for his "other half." And so he set to work naming the creatures of the world that I had brought before him. He had done some of this naming while she was with Lilith, but Lilith was a little weird. Duck-billed platypus? Gingko? Axolotl? Barreleye? Blobfish? Sea pig? Capybaras? Manatees? Narwhals? Naming assigned traits to the things of this world, just as naming a boy Sue gave them a complex about his masculinity. Yeah, like the song. Everything Lilith and Adam named together had odd traits because they were given weird names. But the things that Adam and Eve named together were beautiful and wondrous, not derpy like a pug.
TAMASHII
"Ambrosia? Ambrosia!" Nevras said. "Mom! Are you okay?" I asked. Mom blinked, as though she was reliving some kind of memories. Or having a blue screen of doom. After a bit, her mind was back, and she hugged me, "Sorry guys, I was kind of outta it."
