Mejias started, ‘Nobi?’ She called out, causing Sja to cock her head, ‘your parent? Perhaps I should give you two room to reunite.’ She said with an acute intuition for the intensity that suddenly overtook the room. With that she gave a subtle signal, leading the others in the room to depart out a gilded side door, no less grand than the rest.
A moment went by, then another as Mejias stared at her absentee parent. ‘Why did you leave me alone? I needed you, and you weren’t there,’ she said, her hands closing into fists, angry tears welling in her eyes. She blinked them away harshly, ‘you abandoned me. You made me kill you and then you didn’t come back. Didn’t you know how scared I would be? I thought you were gone! I thought, I thought,’ she stuttered, the shame making it hard to get the words out, ‘I thought you made me a murderer for real! You made me feel guilty for nothing! How could you do that to me?’
Iseult placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her, but Mejias brushed her off, ‘Why weren’t you there!’ she demanded, her raised voice echoing, dozens of accusations surrounding them. Orikka tilted their head, their expression difficult to decipher with their features blurred by the swirling universes within their form. ‘You no longer needed me, you barely needed me to begin with,’ they said, the galaxies within their form fluorescing with each word. Iseult’s heart dropped. Oh. Oh no. All this time Iseult had mistaken Orikka’s loneliness as emotional disinterest. Had she been a contributor, or even the cause? She had noticed the distance growing between them, but instead of addressing it, she had clung more closely to Mejias, leaving Orikka behind. It had been so much easier to identify with the human Mejias than the god Orikka. ‘I’m so sorry, Nobi,’ Iseult stepped forward, ‘I’m sorry for leaving you alone all this time, I should have realized how hard being human was for you.’ She reached to take Orikka’s hands in her own. Orikka leaned their head down, resting against Iseult’s shoulder, their faux curly hair wispy against her cheek. ‘It’s ok, I’m here now. You don’t have to be alone,’ she whispered to the old god.
Mejias looked, her expression still hostile, but something like lost confusion crossed her face. ‘But, you orphaned me. Didn’t you feel anything about leaving me like that, right after I had killed you? You weren’t angry at me? Why didn’t you love me enough to come back?’ she said in a small voice, the previous anger more subdued, fragile. ‘You were just, just lonely?’ The revelation seemed to confuse her more, twisting the hurt in her like a knife. ‘It was about you, not me? Didn’t I count for anything?’
It was always a revelation realizing how imperfect your parents were, Iseult thought, watching the girl look up at her parent’s face searchingly. ‘I was here. You didn’t have to be lonely, you had me,’ she sounded so forlorn. ‘Wasn’t I enough?’ Iseult sighed, not without compassion. ‘Sometimes parents need things too, different things than their children need, things that conflict’ she soothed the girl gently. ‘It doesn’t mean Nobi doesn't love you.’ Mejias seemed a little doubtful. ‘I couldn’t stay there any longer,’ Orikka said, their usually neutral voice thinner, reedier than usual as they wrapped their arms around themselves. ‘That house, that life, it was stifling me, I couldn’t breath living there, acting like something I wasn’t, living as a human. I can’t go back. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, you are my precious daughter,’ Orikka said, reaching past Iseult for their youngest, embracing her. ‘I can’t promise not to leave again, but I do promise I won't ever abandon you.’ Mejias lip trembled for a moment as she stilled in her parent’s arms, and Iseult was uncertain whether the half-apology would be enough. But the need for a parent’s love and approval won out and she embraced her parent, gripping them back tightly, burying her face in her parent’s chest. She was still so young, Iseult marveled sadly, uncertain whether the lack of half-finished closure was a good thing. Mejias had changed the entire world, but still craved her parent’s attention, their affection, enough to even accept an insufficient apology.
‘I’ve brought the first of our family to try the gate,’ Orikka said afterwards, taking Mejias’ hand, as if sensing her lingering need for care, and leading her through the door that the king and Zichu had passed through. Opening it, they called to the king, ‘would you please lead us to my child Sieni?’ King Sja guided them to a wing of the palace that was clearly for guests, a series of bedroom suites alternating along each side down a grand hallway, flowering cherry blossoms pruned in the shapes of animals potted between rooms. ‘I’ll leave you here, please let me know if you need anything more,’ she politely excused herself from the gods, returning back the way she had come, her courtiers leaving with her, only Zichu and her acolytes remaining.
Entering a room after knocking politely, Zichu led them into the suite. A massive being was sprawled across the bed, the being had elected to lay on top rather than pull down the covers. Tresses of mycelium, draped across the fluffy geometric patterned bedding, faintly fluorescing as the being dreamed. ‘This is my child Sieni,’ Orikka said softly, approaching the being. They laid a hand on what Iseult could only assume to be the head, a gentle brushing away of the strands revealing a small delicate face beneath, at odds with the thick intertangled mycelial strands coming out in place of hair. Butterfly eyespot patterns dappled the cheeks and forehead of the being, outlining the contours of their face, mushroom-like gills corrugating beneath their cheekbones.
Iseult vaguely remembered now, having seen this god lay down for the eversleep, deep in one of the old gods’ forests, beneath a behemoth of a sequoia tree. It was the first time she had recalled having a modicum of sympathy for a god. Her time with Mejias had softened her feelings, Mejias’ heritage lessening her disgust with the beings, despite her and Orikka’s critical differences with the others of their kind. The kin killing. That Mejias had now taken part in as well. She supposed there must be others, similar to her sister, who had performed the kin killing under circumstances she had little right to criticize. She felt more open minded, less quick to judge. Was this a good change? Or were her morals slipping, had she just begun to find heinous things more permissible because she loved the ones that had committed the sin? She found herself a little scared of the answer. She, like many, wanted to think of herself as a good person. But her measure of what a good person was had shifted over time, and the person she was now might not be good by her old metrics. She wanted to like the person she had become, to have some continuity in her past present and future selves.
‘Wake up, beloved. I am here to grant your dearest wish,’ Orikka continued to stroke their tresses, fluorescence trailing in the wake of their fingers. The being’s long fluorescing eyelashes fluttered open blearily, revealing luminous green eyes, pupilless. Their mouth didn’t move, but their mycelium strands seemed to light up in some sort of pattern only comprehensible to Orikka. ‘That’s right beloved. I am here to release you.’ Orikka offered them a hand, helping them lift themselves out of the bed. ‘Poor Sieni,’ Mejias said, as they followed the others out of the room. ‘Wait, did you understand what they said,’ Iseult asked, surprised. ‘Of course, didn’t you?’ Mejias replied, a quizzical expression on her face. ‘Huh, must be a god thing,’ she shrugged, as if this particular eccentricity of godhood didn’t bother her at all. Iseult gaped wordlessly at her back.
They made their way slowly back through the palace, Zichu leading the way, all the way out the entrance doors and down the steps to the soulgate. The frame of it blazed, a crackling, electric cord of strings, individual strands warping in and out of space, here one moment and gone the next. Inside was an iridescent shadowy veil, the otherside out of focus, difficult to look through without feeling drawn in, like a compulsion. Stone workers were hewing at the base, creating a massive mandala surrounding the gate, a depiction of Mejias with a second sun in her hands during the eclipse immortalized into the marble, to be filled with gold when completed. They parted when the gods arrived, respectfully stepping back to see what wonders the gods would perform next, whispering excitedly from the bordering buildings.
Orikka seemed not to notice, but Mejias looked at them over her shoulder, flustered and unsure by the attention. ‘So, what do you think will happen,’ Mejias asked no one in particular. Orikka hesitated, ‘does the god of visions know?’ Iseult asked, directing the question to the two able to see her. ‘Zichu,’ Mejias asked, ‘have you seen what happens to gods when they pass through?’ Zichu folded her hands in front of her primly, tucking them in the long sleeves of her dress. ‘I have only seen that Sieni is the first to pass, not the result,’ she responded, unbothered by her lack of foresight. Iseult rolled her eyes. So helpful, she thought sarcastically. ‘I wonder if it’s different for demigods or acolytes,’ Mejias mused, ‘it makes sense, right, they are connected to a corrupted soul, but don’t necessarily have one themselves. Well, I suppose there is one way to find out,’ she looked at Sieni, a bit hesitant. It seemed a bit rude to hasten someone to their potential demise.
