"Sky!" Arelvi cried, squirming in Telf's arm. "Big sky!"

'Yes,' Telf thought. 'Big sky.'

She set her restless sister down, and joined her brothers in gawking, silently, at the endless, cloudless, perfect blue, stretching in all directions.

<Never forget that it was you, your strength, that got your family here. We only gave you a map and a place to go,> the Messenger said. <I am sorry that no one is there to welcome you, but we are overwhelmed at the moment, and you happen to be close enough to the Goddess to find your own way there. When you are ready, take a right. Now, I must focus on helping others. Farewell!>

Telf just nodded, dazed.

This place...this place was Safe.

There were no supervisors here. No impossible quotas. No beatings. No humiliating 'worship.' No 'clergy' stealing from her family and calling it an offering. Nothing so ugly could happen in a place so beautiful.

Telf and her siblings had appeared on one of the last platforms in a long line of them, which stretched off mostly to her left. As she looked that way, she saw a few people pop into existence on other platforms, in the distance. Many more were milling in the walkway. Some of those were wearing all-blue, but not Emmoyer blue.

Across from the series of platforms, on the other side of the walkway, was a row of shelves filled with more of the Sky Goddess' creations, both the shelves and their contents carved from sky. Everything gleamed with Her blessing, including the platform Telf was standing on.

Thankfully, Gwell and Vellum seemed to have figured out themselves that they shouldn't touch anything--they were just staring in wonder--while Arelvi was giggling and squealing, doubled over in glee, instead of getting into mischief. Less than an hour ago, before the Red Goddess had sent Her Love, Telf's sister had been clinging to her, scared stiff and silent. That time was now forgotten, a bad dream from a different life.

Telf exhaled and, for the first time since she was old enough to remember, stopped worrying. Stopped worrying about anything, anything at all. She collapsed to the sky-floor, strings cut, and wept silently, staring across the walkway at nothing in particular.

"It's alright," she croaked, before her siblings could get too upset. "Just relieved. Not sad."

They gathered round and group hugged her.

Being here in this spotless, gleaming place really highlighted how much jungle muck everyone was covered in. The area they had been standing in was already smeared with it, a little black smudge on the endless blue.

"Thank you," Gwell said after a while, for all of them. "For everything. Ma and Pa would be proud."

Well, Telf was already crying.

"We're sorry that you had to starve all the time," he mumbled.

While Telf was trying to think of something to say, she noticed music, coming from the right. It was not long before she recognized the song: the lullaby that the Red Goddess hummed, but played on strings.

"We should go towards the music," Telf told her siblings. There was certainty, and there was whatever this feeling was, which certainty dreamed of becoming when it grew up.

Strength suddenly restored, she pulled herself to her feet, shuffled off to the right, and tried not to worry about the stinking jungle muck they were tracking everywhere. This Goddess already knew, and had invited them anyway.

She barely glanced at the contents of the shelves as she went. What were sacred treasures compared to Who had made them?

Telf rounded the corner of the row of shelves, and there She was, the Sky Goddess, seated on a stool carved of sky in the middle of an open area, and surrounded by an audience almost entirely of children in the same age range as Telf's siblings. She was strumming a stringed instrument as blue as Her stool. As blue as Her.

Telf couldn't help staring. The literal Sky Goddess, sitting there, not thirty paces away. This Goddess, this One right here, was on her family's side. And so were Her Sisters.

It could not be more obvious Who She was. She literally glowed the color of the sky, everywhere, and everything about Her was that very same color, from Her features to everything She was wearing. Her sky blue hair was tied back behind Her ears with a sky blue band, so that small copies of Her instrument could be seen dangling from each ear. Thin blue lines gleamed underneath Her eyes, and there were little blue dots all over Her cheeks, like freckles. Her clothing was made of strands of sky, and Her nails, on both fingers and toes, were made of shards of it. Everything, absolutely everything about Her...She even floated above the surroundings, disconnected from them, like Her Sky floated above the world.

The fakes were so fake. Real Goddesses could not be mistaken for anything but Who They were. Anyone who saw Her would hear: 'Hello! I am the Sky Goddess, and I am Good.'

Everything was going to be fine. Everything.

Telf and her siblings sat on the sky-floor, and listened, as spellbound as the rest of the audience, until the song finished.

The Goddess set down Her instrument, and stood, absorbing the sky that had made up Her stool back into Her.

"Welcome Telf, Gwell, Vellum, and Arelvi! I am glad you came!"

As She moved toward where Telf and her siblings were seated, the crowd scooted out of Her way. When She made it over, She knelt and spread Her arms wide, grinning wider.

"Well? Do I get My hugs? I've been waiting!"

The Goddess was in such a good mood, on top of the world, that Telf had to grin, too. Were They all like this?

Arelvi wriggled free of Gwell and Vellum, who had been holding her hands, and toddled toward the kneeling Goddess, arms raised.

As Telf watched, right before her waking eyes, the Goddess' soft blue glow swallowed Arelvi as soon as Her arms closed around her, and the muck covering Telf's sister from head to toe quickly evaporated, like a thin film of water in the face of the midday Sun. When the pair separated, Telf's sister was spotless, and the Sky Goddess was as impossibly clean as She had been from the beginning.

Telf understood what the Messenger had meant for her to understand. The dirt of the world was a big problem for the fakes because they were fake, but what was dirt to a True Goddess? Drops of water to a bonfire, was what.

"What a good hugger!" the Goddess praised Arelvi. "Thank you!"

She turned to the other three siblings, while Arelvi stared shyly at herself, stunned into a silence very different from the one earlier today.

Telf was sympathetic to Gwell and Vellum, who were blushing while staring at the sky-floor. Telf's expectations for a True Goddess' beauty had been high, but her imagination had not been cut out for the job.

Her poor brothers.

"Only Arelvi? Well, I won't force you."

A few loud heartbeats later, Gwell shuffled forward, as red as the sky was blue, and stood next to Her awkwardly. Soon enough, he was as clean as Arelvi.

"Thank you, Gwell! I'm glad you're here!"

"W-what is that song?" Gwell stammered. Telf was impressed. The elder brother was doing his best to set an example of bravery. "The Red Goddess sings it, too."

"She does! It is one of the Songs of Salvation," She explained. "When the White Goddess sings Songs of Salvation, they stop death! I am sorry that My version is not nearly so good as Hers."

Not nearly so good? Telf's imagination was failing again.

"Is She the Goddess of Clouds?"

Vellum had found his own courage, and the Sky Goddess shifted a few steps over, next to him, still on Her knees.

"No. She is the Goddess of the Sun, of Light, and Life. She is the best of Us. I am sorry that She is not here, and so is She. She wishes She could be here. I am doing My best to do what She would do, be Who She would be, in Her absence. I hope I will be enough."

Telf was glad that her siblings were distracted by the Goddess right in front of them, or they would think their big sister was a real crybaby.

"Is She coming?" Vellum asked.

"Yes." The Goddess nodded. "Everyone is coming, but not for a very long time. They are very, very far away. For now, only I am here."

As red as his brother, Vellum nodded at Her knees, and lifted his arms a little. Soon, he was clean, too.

"Thank you, Vellum!"

And now She shuffled toward Telf.

"Why?" Telf's question was barely audible. "I've always wondered, what are we, to You, to all of You, to real Goddesses, people like us? We have noth--"

The Goddess hugged Telf much more aggressively than She had hugged her siblings, and murmured directly into her ear.

"Listen carefully. There is a single significant difference between you and Me. I was born with privileges and powers and opportunities that I did nothing to earn. You were born with hardships that you did nothing to deserve. If you are in awe of what I am, what I have achieved, what I have built, then you should know that the feeling is mutual. Your siblings are cleaned when I hug them because of how I was born. Your siblings feel safe and loved when you hug them because of how you have lived. Which is more wonderful? I hope you can guess My pick."

And now Telf was blushing as bright as her brothers. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she ran her tongue across her teeth, amazed. They had never felt this smooth before.

The Goddess didn't give Herself enough credit. Telf was feeling pretty safe and loved right now, and what this Goddess did, how She acted, had as much to do with that as Her power. No hug from an evil god would feel like this. An invitation to the home of an evil god would not lead to tears of relief.

The Goddess pulled away, looked her over, then stared straight into her eyes.

"Better," She declared. "The outside is a little closer to the inside, now."

"Pretty!" Arelvi cried. "Pretty Telf!"

"True!" the Goddess agreed, turning to smile at Arelvi.

Telf stared at her hands. Her nails were shining, spotless.

"So, let's answer the rest of your question," the Goddess said. "We were born with enormous power that We did nothing to earn, and a choice of what to do with it. We can help people, try to earn what We were born with, or We can let the world remain unfair, and abandon those who need Us. We can answer prayers, or ignore them."

This Goddess answered a prayer for a safe place to go with a portal to the sky!

Watching Telf's face, She nodded, earrings flapping.

"Anything less than answering prayers whenever and wherever I can would be unforgivable."

Through the end of that sentence, the Sky Goddess' voice and manner had been cheerful or compassionate. For what She said next...Telf almost felt bad for the targets of Her cold fury. Almost.

"But the false gods of this world have made a choice even worse than doing nothing, even worse than unforgivable. They have chosen to use what gifts they have to make this world even more unfair. They are filthy, filthier than the muck of any jungle. They are the muck that most needs cleaning, and not with hugs. I condemn them, We condemn them, and so they are doomed. Damned."

"Now? Today?" Telf asked, hoarsely.

"It starts today. I offer a choice to everyone who reaches this place. Those who want to fight, even knowing the risks, who want to help My agents to destroy the false gods, their minions, and everything they stand for, may take My tools of War from the shelves, and return to the Emmoyer domain, with My blessing. Some have accepted. Others have chosen to remain here, and the rest have chosen to go to a safe place on the surface, to live out their lives in peace."

"We can stay here?" Telf whispered, in awe, then she finished listening. "There's a safe place on the surface?!"

"Yes, and yes. You can choose any of those options if you want--I offer choices, freedom, never orders--but I don't think it's a good idea for you to join the fighting." The Goddess cocked Her head in the direction of Telf's siblings. "I have a special option for you, if you're interested."

She gestured this time to the crowd of mostly children behind Her, who had been listening to Her music, earlier, and were still watching Her, now.

"Some of those who choose to return to the surface and fight ask to leave their children with Me, here, in My personal care."

Telf understood, completely. If she had not been able to gather all of her family, that was exactly what she would have done.

"There are too many," the Sky Goddess admitted. "I need help, but My assistants are already struggling to keep up with welcoming people, giving combat training, helping those who have chosen to go to the haven on the surface, on and on." Her earrings flapped again as She shook Her head. "There's so much to do."

The Goddess looked over Her shoulder, to check on Her charges.

"They are all behaving themselves for now, but the awe will wear off soon."

Telf failed to hold back a skeptical snort, and put her hands over her mouth. Thankfully, the Goddess didn't seem to notice.

The awe was not going to wear off soon. Although they may not know the name of what they were seeing or fully understand what it was, even children knew True Divinity when they saw it. The Sky Goddess seemed to have some strange idea that Her having been born a Goddess meant that nothing She did and nothing about Her could ever be truly impressive. Nope. That's not at all how it worked.

"And, they need food. They're all starving." The Goddess turned back to Telf. "So, would you help Me look after them, here? What I most need right now is someone who can go get food, using one of My platforms. I can't use the things I make, unfortunately, and even if I could, I promised many times that I would stay here, with the children."

Personally chosen by the Sky Goddess to stay in Her home and help Her care for children that had just escaped from slavery? Telf was dizzy.

"What do I do? Where do I go?"

"Thank you!" Telf would have traded her soul to anyone who would free her siblings, and this Goddess was thanking her. "First, you will need a uniform, so everyone knows you're trustworthy. I hope you don't mind blue!"

There was nothing wrong with blue, as long as it wasn't--

Oh. Telf's outfit was not going to have the slightest hint of Emmoyer blue. None at all.

Her siblings were definitely going to think their big sister was a crybaby.

"I will show you to the platform I mentioned," said the Sky Goddess, as She casually created clothing from threads of sky made with Her bare hands. "It leads to a building on the surface, in the safe haven I mentioned. When you get there, tell the first person you see that I sent you to get food, and explain the situation. They will know you're telling the truth because you will be wearing My color, so they will show you where to go."

Slave in the morning, agent of the Sky Goddess in the afternoon. What a day.

"And make sure you eat your fill, first. If you come back with a cart of food still looking like you're about to starve to death, I'm forcing it all down your throat Myself."