Pantheon

Earthstar

"No, no..." Thess still hasn't looked away. Moa hopes they don't hurt themself. "Why is it doing this, specifically, right here? There has to be a reason. Something wrong with the fuel cells?"

"Well," says Igan. "Yes."

"Oh? What is it?"

"They do not work."

Thess looks like they're about to say something, closes their mouth, and turns away to look at Igan. "...Really?"

"What is it?"

"That's really all you can give me?"

"Unfortunately so."

"But – you're goddesses."

There's a lot behind that that they don't say, and that all three of the goddesses take a long time not responding to.

"That's true," says Igan finally, with the weight of all of her unsaid answers.

Thess doesn't reply to that.

"From what I've seen," Igan ventures, careful and deliberate, "you do not need to know the exact nature of a magical problem in order to treat it. Please, Thess. Many, many lives are at stake."

Thess doesn't reply to that either.

They just keep staring at the fragmenting Earthstar, fingers twitching at their sides, body still.

Are they panicking again? Oh no. Moa reaches out a hand to them. "Thess...?"

"So FIX IT!"

They whirl on Igan, spinning close to her with the force of their velocity. "FIX IT, why don't you! YOU'RE GODDESSES! Why don't you fix EVERYTHING! Why do you keep having to tell ME!"

Igan floats back, expressionless.

"PEOPLE WILL DIE! YOU SAID THAT!" Thess explodes. "People will die and it's by your will! PEOPLE HAVE DIED BY YOUR WILL and yet you still claim to care! You're sad that people don't travel – so FIX THE TEMPLES! You're scared of the Myriad waging war – so FIX THE SOIL! You're scared of humans dying by the Blight! FIX! THE BLIGHT!!"

Aur's mouth hangs slightly open, half shock, half smile. Igan floats, immovable, impenetrable. This isn't the first time she's been screamed at.

"You're goddesses! GODDESSES! You could fix this at – at any time! You could make it so this NEVER HAPPENED! You CAN! You SHOULD! So WHY – WON'T – YOU?!" Thess howls. "Why won't you help us?! Why won't you save us?! Do you not care?! Is this some twisted experiment to you?! But isn't this why you EXIST?! If you really won't do this, then WHAT - IS - YOUR - POINT?!!"

Thess's final scream hangs in the void.

Igan is that same, silent stoicism.

Aur has the look of a helpless observer.

Moa takes a deep breath.

She knows what she needs to do.

"Thess."

The kid turns to her. They look so lost. There's tiny spheres of liquid floating by their face.

"Listen to me, Thess." Her voice is low and strong. Thess swallows and nods, like they don't know what else to do. Desperate for something to once, just once, make sense.

"I came from the darkness. You know the story by heart," Moa begins. "I existed, infinitely small and infinitely dense, thoughtless and formless. I slept in the darkness so deep it pulled the very void into itself, into me. I was nothing, and I was everything at once, everything there ever could be just waiting to happen.

"I don't know how long I was like that. I don't know if I can apply that question to what I was. I existed for as long as time as we know it, and before then and above then and beyond then. I wasn't sad, or happy, or hungry, or lonely. I just...not-quite-was.

"Into the being of that, into my being, something came. I don't know what it was. I don't know what it did or where it came from. But it called to me. It Called to me, Thess. It Called to me and pulled me out of my dormant seed, and out into the void. I came exploding with light and color, with heat and energy, with power too incredible to describe. I was out, I was free. And then...I was me. I had – a me. I didn't know who it was. But it was more than I'd ever had before.

"Igan was there. So were a few others, but I remember Igan. She emerged first, you know, and she waited for us. She showed us what lay outside our darkness – suns and galaxies, and beauty and life. I ventured to every Realm she showed me, one by one by one, learning and growing as I went, becoming more and more myself, until I knew that I could only ever be the feeling of exploring, of seeking new things, of travel. That's what I am. That's how all of us knew what we were.

"And yes, by your perception of time, I believe the entire process of our emergence and our becoming only took something like a half of a second," Moa admits. "But are you the same Thess who left Into the Unknown?"

Thess drifts, thunderstruck at all of Moa's implications. Moa waits. She knows what she's implying. She knows everything that the implications carry, too. Everything feels slowed down and unreal and like the universe is knitting itself slowly back into rightness.

"No," Thess replies, soft and final. "Goddess, no."

Thess reaches out their arm and fixes the bridges.

When they're done, they turn to Igan, almost smiling. "Where to next, Igan?"

Igan smiles back. "Wherever you want."