A Real Goddess Would Let Nobody Die

The tropical climate of the Keyic homeland was as stifling as ever, but the clothing that Zyriko and Suri wore, constructed by her blue magic, kept things bearable. Zyriko was rather fond of his new wardrobe. 'Make sure you always wear my color' was the easiest command to follow that he had ever been given. That he had ever heard of.

"This is the nearest of the living quarters," Suri noted, as a very long, four-story structure emerged from the forest.

Zyriko could feel her shame through the link, and understood the origin. Her family lived in an opulent manor, befitting one of the most prestigious 'divine lineages' in the world, while the non-mages of their territory lived in what appeared to be tenements. He was about to provide reassurances--sturdy brick walls, intact windows, and a robust roof to keep the tropical rains at bay were well beyond normal living standards, not to mention the absence of anything resembling the Zyzz family's 'supervisors'--when some of the residents waved them over. Suri led the way to what appeared to be about three or four sets of grandparents and grandchildren, gathered beneath a canvas canopy attached on one side to the building, and on the other to the forest.

"Good morning, Miss Suri!" one of the grandmothers greeted her, but could say no more before Suri was surrounded by children.

One of them held an enchanted item toward her, in the shape of a small cylinder. Zyriko couldn't tell what it was meant to do, but it was evidently out of charge.

"Fix?" he asked.

Suri kneeled, and took it from him. Strangely, her guilt strengthened to the point that it buckled Zyriko's knees. He tried to make it appear as if he were kneeling to follow her lead.

"It still works," she explained, giving no outward sign of what she was feeling. "It only needs to be charged."

A moment later, and it had the strong blue sheen of a fully-charged item. She returned it to the young boy, who squealed and turned it on. It started chiming while making flashing light patterns.

<What's wrong?> Zyriko asked.

<My hand-me-down trinkets, worthless training items, are their greatest treasures.> Suri had expected the question. <Yet the 'goddess of goddesses' can't even manage to keep them all charged consistently. And that's now. In the future...>

<In the future, you will have less than one third of your mana available, and much of that, plus your time, may need to go to charging weapons. And we may be responsible for a larger population. I understand.>

<The Blue Goddess would not be so limited,> she growled.

As Suri said that, the same grandmother who had made the greeting asked teasingly, "Is this the one?"

"Yes," Suri answered, placid on the surface as always. "This is Zyriko. He can be trusted. I was giving him a tour."

The woman turned to Zyriko, looking him up and down. "So, what do you think of our Miss Suri?"

Zyriko was charmed. A non-mage treating a Zyzz with so much familiarity, so casually, would not end well, but no one here showed any sign of hesitation or concern.

Also, what a question...

"Well, I did ask her to marry me," Zyriko answered, smiling.

"So did a lot of idiots we never saw again. You the same?"

Zyriko's smile deepened.

"No," he replied. "They asked the Keyic Heiress to marry them. I asked Suri to marry me. They wanted to possess the 'goddess of goddesses.' I want to marry someone who treats people like people, and aspires for this world to become one where everyone does the same. And, I must confess," he turned to look at Suri, "sky blue everything does go a long way."

All the adults present cackled, while Suri, outwardly calm, inspected her nails. They were back to her usual color today.

"It does, doesn't it?" the same woman wheezed. "I can see why Miss Suri has claimed you." She waved at Zyriko's sky blue clothing. "Come, we need to show you something. Miss Suri would never tell you herself."

She rose from her chair and led the way around the corner of the building, indoors, and up the stairs to the roof. Hidden inside a ventilated brick enclosure, there was a sky blue enchanted machine, whirring away.

"Do you have any idea how miserable the climate is here, Zyriko?" she asked.

"Some idea. I expect that days like this are normal?" The Sun was still low in the sky, and it was already brutal.

"Mmm," she confirmed. "You know what this is?"

Zyriko looked it over. It was clearly replicating some kind of green magic. The Keyic manor had been quite cool, inside. He could make an inference.

"A copy, made by Suri, of a cooling unit originally installed at the main manor?" Zyriko guessed.

"Ha! He's smart, too!" Zyriko was buffeted by a wave of approval, coming from all of the elders who had followed them up the stairs. "And do you know how many housing blocks like ours there are?"

Zyriko didn't, but he could estimate. This one seemed like it might house about a thousand people, so given the population of the Keyic territory...

"Not exactly. Around three hundred?"

"I don't know the exact number, myself, but that's about right. How many is it, Miss Suri?"

"...Three hundred and nine." Zyriko didn't understand why so much sheepishness was flowing through the link.

"Three hundred and nine," the elderly woman repeated. "And Miss Suri made these, for all of us. We never even asked."

Zyriko thought about what a project it would have been to make three hundred and nine of the cooling units, and no longer wondered why Suri had been embarrassed. She had reacted the same way when the Red Goddess pointed out how remarkable her arsenal was.

"She changed 'em, too, so they just need charge packs to be swapped out to keep them running. You know what she says about that? She's sorry that we have to go to her to get the charge packs, because she can't travel to all of us all the time. Can you believe it?!"

Zyriko could believe it.

"It's alright to show Zyriko, but you still need to be careful to keep these a secret from anyone else," Suri urged them.

"Oh, we know Miss. Just like you said. Not a word from us," a man replied. "Visitors never wanna talk to us, anyway. 'cept Zyriko."

Another woman spoke to Zyriko.

"Make sure you have some kids like Miss Suri, or things'll go back to what they used to be, when our grandkids get old. It was no fun at all, 'round noon."

Zyriko struggled to restrain himself. 'Don't worry,' he wanted to say. 'The True Goddesses are also aware of that potential issue, and have taken measures to ensure that it won't be a problem.'

Amusingly, Zyriko's red magic told him that while these people weren't at the point of founding a literal religion and building temples, gratitude and reverence were already present, and they wouldn't be opposed to a statue.

----

"I am Zenik, Patriarch Zyzz. I wish to enter the domain of the Keyic divine lineage, in order to offer my son Zyriko, Heir Zyzz, to that illustrious lineage in marriage to its daughter Suri."

"You are welcome, Zenik of Zyzz. Your son shall be Zyriko of Keyic, with our blessing," Suri's mother replied. "May both of our lineages grow ever more illustrious in the ages to come."

"I am Sinnil, wife to Zenik, Patriarch Zyzz. I wish to enter..."

Zyriko hated this pompous nonsense so, so much, but there were upsides.

He got to hear "marriage to its daughter Suri" and "Zyriko of Keyic" a lot.

He had many opportunities to imagine introducing himself at all similar future events as 'Zyriko, husband to Suri, Matriarch Keyic.'

Zyriko's armor matched Suri's, and they wore matching circlets--the only real difference between their outfits was that Zyriko also had the Zyzz Heir's clasp attached to his chest. Zyriko and Suri were very obviously a matched pair, because she had made his entire outfit for him, because they were getting married. In two days.

Zyriko's parents turned towards him, tugging at the collars of their heavy Zyzz-style robes and capes, and trying in vain to fan themselves without making it obvious what they were doing. How humiliating! Sweat pouring everywhere, drenching their robes, reality mocking their attempts to present themselves as too transcendent to have such petty concerns. They could order some of 'their mundanes' to fan or shade them, but in order to do that, they would need to acknowledge that they were uncomfortable in front of their hosts, who were standing unperturbed in the open, and if they were willing to acknowledge that they were so ordinary as to be vulnerable to the elements, they wouldn't have stubbornly worn such unsuitable clothing in the first place.

Zyriko had never in his life rooted so hard for heat stroke. May Justice's withering magnanimity strike them down.

Amusingly, Zyriko knew that real deities did in fact get uncomfortable in heat. The Violet Goddess had shared that She preferred Their Temples in cooler climates, and that They all changed Their clothing styles to suit the weather.

Zyriko's parents believed otherwise, and so were trying to impersonate something that didn't exist! Although, to be fair, the True Goddesses' sweat was cleaned as soon as it appeared, as a side effect of Their powerful immortality magic. They always looked perfectly, impossibly clean, never sweat-soaked, never soaked or stained or marred by anything. That part of his parents' insecurity was accurate.

With a genuine smile born from a source they couldn't imagine, the perfect Heir bowed to his parents.

"Welcome father, and mother," he said. "I am confident that the united divine lineage of Zyzz and Keyic is destined to show all the pretenders how feeble they truly are. We will show them all the nature of real divinity, and the comparison will be most unflattering."

They were so pleased with that statement. They had no idea.

"Well said, mmm, well said," his father replied, nodding approvingly at both Zyriko and Suri. His pride was sufficient to prevent his voice from betraying his discomfort. Too bad. "I am curious, why are the orchards not being harvested? It looks like the crop is ready?"

"Ah! Father, the Keyics have made a most remarkable discovery!" Zyriko answered. "They find that their worshippers are able to produce the same yields more efficiently if they collect the harvest only at dawn and dusk, when it is cooler."

Zyriko's father frowned.

"What are the mundanes doing now, then?"

Zyriko wasn't sure how to phrase 'most field workers spend midday at home with their families, since they are gone in the morning and evening' in a way that would not seem odd to his parents. He turned to Suri.

"They are tending to their living quarters, and completing other tasks that can be done indoors. Our worshippers are simply too frail to endure this heat like we can." Suri indicated all the false gods and goddesses present. "The dead are of no value to anyone, so we discourage any acts of devotion that, although born from praiseworthy enthusiasm, would tend to be too dangerous."

Zyriko's parents considered what Suri had said. Her act had been disturbingly believable. Zyriko knew that if not for all of the red magic blockers present, he would have felt shame rolling off her for the duration. He would need to get better at these kinds of deceptions, so that she wasn't always forced to bear the burden. Zyriko only had practice at covering for himself, not explaining away Keyic customs.

As an aside, Suri needed to refine her skills in discouraging dangerous acts of devotion if she actually wanted to prevent them. It had not taken Zyriko long to notice that many of the people living in Keyic territory would literally leap in front of a fireball for her sake. Naturally, Suri was completely oblivious. What good had she ever done for anyone?!

"I see. I can understand how this climate would be too much for the mundanes." Zyriko's mother had found a way out of her sticky situation, and she wasn't going to miss it. "It wouldn't do for us to make them stand out in it any longer. Let's get inside."

Zyriko walked with his parents to the door of the Keyics' manor as leisurely as he could, but to his disappointment, was unable to buy heat stroke enough time.

----

Zyriko sat across from Suri, their knees almost but not quite touching. They were approaching the two hour mark of their staring contest. It was the traditional pose, after all.

He felt bad for Suri's mother. She needed to do all of the inane droning about their prestigious ancestries and the blessing of perpetual divinity and on and on, while the couple to be married got to...do this, silently. Whoever had devised the continent's standard marriage ceremony had been on to something. The nonsense in the background, as endless as it was ignorable, was surely concocted by some ancient groom as a convenient excuse. Well done, distant ancestor. You were probably an unforgivable tyrant, but at least you got this right.

It had become clear that neither party was going to win this contest. Zyriko had collected enough evidence at this point to conclude that no reflected cloud would ever drift into view...but maybe...

Suri's mother discreetly nudged him with her toe. Cheating in support of her daughter?! The audacity!

"So it is with immense pride in my..."

Oh, no, Zyriko's part was finally coming soon.

"...I, Tyri, Matriarch Keyic, accept Zyriko, Heir Zyzz, into the illustrious Keyic divine lineage through marriage to my daughter Suri, Heiress Keyic, and offer my blessing. Do you accept?"

Thanks for the warning, mother-in-law.

Without breaking eye contact--yeah, not every old custom needed fixing--he recited the required line.

"I, Zyriko, Heir Zyzz, accept your blessing. You will be my Matriarch, as I shall be Zyriko of Keyic."

Zyriko was anxious to see if he survived the next part.

"I, Suri, Heiress Keyic, accept Zyriko of Zyzz into the illustrious Keyic divine lineage, through marriage to me. You are Zyriko of Keyic."

Zyriko waited a few moments to confirm...Good, still alive. Thanks for the emotional overload practice, Love Goddess. Couldn't have done it without You.

Suri had maintained her perfect public mask the whole time, never even blushing, but she had never stopped staring.

----

Zyriko transitioned directly from staring at his fiancée for hours during their marriage ceremony, to staring at his wife for hours while she worked on copying the Holy Regalia of the White Goddess. He could feel her focus through the link. Zyriko was pretty sure that being linked to him right now was massively distracting, but Suri had asked for it. She always did, the moment there were no blockers nearby.

<Don't worry,> she reassured him, without looking up from her work. <Being linked to you is the closest thing there is to being filled with the Love Goddess' mana. Life feels so dull without it, that it's more difficult to focus if I'm not linked.>

Say no more, dearest wife. If it is so necessary, Zyriko of Keyic can endure linking to you.

<Maybe some day I will be skilled enough to replicate what She does, but I'm not going to try it until I'm sure that I won't mind-wipe you or something,> Zyriko explained, then realized another issue. <Also, it would interfere with your casting, right now.>

She said nothing, but didn't need to. Zyriko knew she understood.

He sat and watched for hours. To the non-magical eye, she made no discernible progress, but Zyriko could see the color impression of the intricate mana flows she was assembling, atomic scale knitting crossed with chemistry crossed with systems engineering. Eventually, they would be locked-in physically, as sky blue weaves of enchanted fabric. Thankfully, the White Goddess had broken the whole process down into modular layers and stages, so Suri could chip away at the project a little at a time.

She needed to wipe tears occasionally, but the link told Zyriko that there was no cause for concern. They were not tears of frustration, or sadness. They were the tears shed by an artisan when beholding a transcendent masterpiece of her craft.

<It really is beautiful.> Suri had inferred what he was thinking. <Magnificent. I'm almost blindly following instructions without really understanding how it works, but it's...>

<So literally a divine artifact,> Zyriko supplied.

"Mmmm," Suri agreed, aloud. <Compassion and incorruptibility, the concepts, manifested as a magical item. Hope, too. I sympathize with Their followers, the ones who write the brochure.>

<Same here. No matter what the Black Goddess says, I can't do any better, either. Do you know how long it will take?>

<At least a month,> Suri answered. <If I even get it right the first time. I still have no idea how it is supposed to start casting on its own, just from how I'm arranging my own mana flows. If it was anyone but literal Goddesses telling me that it would work, I wouldn't bother trying. I can guess that any tiny mistake at any stage will be disastrous, and look how intricate it is.>

Zyriko shifted into his chair, and kept watching Suri apply a talent that no other blue mage had ever possessed, that Goddesses found remarkable.

'They already told you how it is possible that this will work,' he thought to himself. 'You are the Blue Goddess, and if it can exist, the Blue Goddess can make it.'