A Real Goddess Would Let Nobody Die

"If it will make You think better of Yourself, then I will stop worshipping Your Sisters, and belong to You alone," Telf answered, deadly serious. "Your Sisters can talk to Gwell, instead. He's been helping me a lot, and knows me well enough to answer Their questions. He loves the Red Goddess, so he will be excited to talk to Them."

Prosperity's teasing grin was gone. Good.

"Telf..." She said softly. "It's not that They cared less about you than I did. If They were here, They would have answered your prayer, and done a better job. You wouldn't have needed to take any risks, or walk through the jungle."

Telf's earrings flapped back and forth as she shook her head.

"That's not it. I love all Your Sisters, too. I worship all of You, every day, wholeheartedly. We, the children and me, we pray to all of You, at every meal, and before bed. And in the morning, I..." She waved at the door to the nexus. "It is such a blessing to be a, a Helper, a real priestess of the True Goddesses. This is my...what I want to be. My right life. I am so thankful to be able to spend all of my time, every day, doing holy work, in a holy place, actually preaching the True Scripture, and...it is such a luxury...to have so much time to pray...and worship...all of You..."

She was getting off track, and the urge to kneel was overpowering. It always was, when Telf thought about how thankful she was to the Goddesses. Her knees were wobbling.

Prosperity absorbed Her sky-stool, knelt on the sky-floor, and patted the space in front of Her.

"I apologize for being too flippant," She said, still speaking softly. "Speak your mind. I will listen."

Telf exhaled in relief. She knelt facing her Goddess. This felt better.

"I worship all of You," she repeated, in a smoother voice. "But if I need to worship only You, for You to know that You are enough, to know it not just on the surface, but deep inside," she tapped her chest with sky-painted fingers, "then that is my choice. I will belong to You alone. Proudly."

She had to make Prosperity understand that what She had done for Telf was not some dismissible nothing.

"I offered my soul to anyone who would help my siblings, and I meant it," Telf told Her. "Many times, every day, I begged, and I meant it every time. If Your portal had taken my soul as payment, I would have thanked You from the bottom of my heart. Instead..."

She searched her home, her Goddess, and herself, for the words. What could she even say?

"Instead, everything gleams." Telf's voice cracked. "I don't know what this feeling is called, but it means You are my Goddess. So, I get mad when You give Yourself too little credit, like You don't think what You have done for me is worth much. To speak with all Your Sisters would be yet another blessing. To thank the Red Goddess for Her Love, and the Violet Goddess, for the portals, would..." Telf's earrings flapped again. "But I belong to You. That is my choice. If I speak with Your Sisters, it will seem like I wasn't really serious, only trying to cheer You up, and...and I don't want to see You, with Them...treating Yourself like You're, like You're lower, or something. I don't know the words. Like You feel bad that You don't do enough."

Telf's Goddess, the True Goddess she belonged to, glowing and gorgeous and Good, was less than an arm's length away. What a ridiculously blessed life she had now.

Because of Her.

"I understand what you are saying, Telf," She said. "I wish to explain. It is not that I think what I have done for you isn't worth much. I am glad that I have been able to help you, and I am proud. But I am sad a thousand times over for all the others whose prayers have not been answered. If I had gone west, first, instead of south, you would not be here, with Me. You would not be calling Me your Goddess. There are many people in that situation, many more than are now free. I worry for them. It hangs over Me, constantly. And, I mourn those who gave everything so that others might be free."

Yeah. The True Goddesses were True Goddesses because They thought like this. Telf felt the same way--after all, she had chosen to devote herself to helping Them, eagerly--but she had been too thrilled with her new life to dwell on it so much.

"My error, My bad habit for which My elder Sisters often scold Me, is turning those feelings into a negative attitude toward Myself," Prosperity concluded. "I apologize for hurting you, as a result."

"I'm glad They scold You," Telf said.

Prosperity smirked.

"A big sister to the core! You know, if you met with Them, you could help My Sisters scold Me."

Telf looked down at her lap. That was a good point.

"Now, about Me being your Goddess. I want to make sure. Do you remember that you and I are the same, except I was born with powers and opportunities that I did not earn?"

She could not be serious! Telf was frustrated.

"Yes, and I know the rest of Scripture, too! You told me! I know You all accept worship! So why are You--, You think I must be, be stupid, because I want to worship You most of all? This is what I mean! I don't--"

All at once, Telf finally realized what the problem was.

"Every Helper before me joined because of Your Sisters, didn't they? You've never had Your Own priestess? I'm the first?"

Prosperity's sheepish nod would normally have doubled Telf over with joy, at having such an incredible honor, but she was too fired up now.

"You. Are. My. Goddess," Telf said, staring straight into Her sky-eyes. "If You didn't want me to spend the rest of my life worshipping You, then You shouldn't have answered my most important prayer and made me gleam and been so...so..."

Telf sighed. Literally radiant? Inhumanly beautiful? Perfectly compassionate? Effortlessly miraculous? Impossible in every way?

"Divine."

The sky-eyes stared straight back.

"It is not that I reject your worship. Like you remember, from Our Scripture, We all vow to accept it, and I take My vows seriously. It's just, until now, I've always felt at least partly like a kind of representative, an ambassador, like the adoration I was receiving was, in truth, for all of Us collectively, and My role was to accept it on Our collective behalf. Since you have made it so clear that your feelings are targeted at exactly Me, it's different. I wanted to be sure that you are not misunderstanding what I am. Since you are not, I must now meet sincerity, with sincerity."

There was a heavy pause.

"I accept you, Telf." Telf shivered. This...tone. If Prosperity ordered Her enemies to die, would the graves also dig themselves? "You follow The Creed, and you claim Me as your Goddess, so I am. I belong to you. I can be taken for granted. It is that simple. You will never regret placing your faith in Me, for I shall relentlessly remind you why I earned it."

While Telf was still reeling, her Goddess hugged her.

"Never forget that the awe is mutual." Back to soft compassion. "Never forget that I dressed you in My color so that everyone would know: This Helper was chosen by the Sky Goddess."

Safe, and Loved.

"I think you already know this," She added. "But just in case: My Sisters will be perfectly happy with you thinking of yourself as belonging to Me, more than Them."

"Yes, I know," Telf assured Her. "If I didn't know that They are all like You, just as Good, I would never have worshipped Them, too."

"Good. I thought so," Prosperity said, and pulled away. "So, now I have a big problem. If My first ever Helper refuses to meet with My Sisters, I won't be able to show her off. What am I to do?"

Telf blushed. When She put it that way...

"...Will You promise never to think of Yourself as worse than Them?"

"I've been building up the willpower necessary to make that promise, to make it and be able to keep it, since I realized that you were scolding Me, and why. And that you have a point."

Another heavy pause.

"I promise never to view Myself as subordinate to My Sisters, or inferior. This promise, like all promises We make, is sacred."

Prosperity took a deep breath, smacked Her Own hips a few times, then stood up, and held out a hand for Telf.

"Keekee and Izzie will love you--They are the Ones Who often scold Me. Mennie will squeal over how adorable you are." She spoke each syllable sharply. "Best start bracing yourself for Twilight. She tends to be very...enthusiastic."

Telf could only partially follow, but at least her Goddess seemed to be taking everything seriously.

"The rest of your report can wait," She said, once Telf was on her feet. "Let's start breakfast, before We face Arelvi's wrath. The meeting is scheduled for tonight. I'll come back to hold today's lesson, right before."

----

"This is the character for 'water,'" Prosperity explained. Three short vertical strokes of Her Essence hung in the air, the middle one slightly higher, and another longer horizontal line was beneath the others. "It was originally supposed to be rain falling into a pond, but it has been greatly simplified from how it started. Many characters are like this."

Telf could kind of see it. It wasn't too hard to understand and remember a single character at a time. The difficult part of reading and writing was remembering many characters when they were all next to each other, to make sentences.

"I've seen that on the casks of water," Telf remembered. "But it's always next to a circle?"

"Mmm, good," Prosperity praised her. "A simple ring is the character for 'clean' or 'pure.' Put the two together..."

"Clean water, for drinking," Telf said. It felt nice, to understand this kind of thing.

"Right."

Telf had pointed out that it seemed wasteful for the literal Sky Goddess to spend Her time giving reading and writing lessons, but She had insisted. Apparently, it was simple enough that She could do it while doing other things--today, trying out some designs for shrine sky-carvings of Herself--and She considered caring for these children personally to be a sacred responsibility.

It was hard to argue with the results. Her students paid perfect attention.

"What is 'Sky Goddess'?" Pientir asked.

The Goddess Herself smiled slightly.

"I am reluctant to apply this world's character for 'goddess' to Myself, because it is tainted," She explained. "The false goddesses use it for themselves. How about 'Sky Glowing-Clean-Immortal-Woman'? Putting existing characters together like that is how new characters often begin."

Her Essence formed into what She had proposed, in order, one stroke at a time so they could follow the steps, then repeated. 'Immortal' was the most complicated character Telf had yet seen.

"It's missing 'Good,'" Czel pointed out.

The Sky Goddess' smile broadened enough to show some teeth, and Czel blushed. She inserted the extra character, which they had all learned at an earlier lesson.

"And 'Beautiful,'" Gwell added, despite blushing as red as a human could. Telf's jaw dropped. Not so long ago, Gwell had only been able to look at Her knees and stammer!

Right as he reached that age, the only adult woman her poor brother regularly interacted with was the literal glowing Sky Goddess. Well, and his big sister, who was some kind of gleaming holy sky priestess, regularly blessed by her Goddess. Her poor, poor brother.

The Goddess outright giggled at Gwell's addition--really not helping--and glanced at Her package.

"Had you ever seen My Sister, Beauty, you might feel like that one needs to be reserved for Her," She said.

Prosperity had tried to describe Her Sister for Telf, but 'sparkly' and 'impossibly delicate' and so on, plus little sky-carvings, weren't enough for Telf to understand how Beauty could possibly be any more beautiful than Prosperity, never mind that much more. Telf would believe it was just another case of her Goddess thinking nothing about Herself was truly impressive, except that Her elder Sister was, literally, the True Goddess of Beauty.

"I've been wondering," Telf said, trying to change the subject to spare Gwell from answering. "Does everyone speak our same language?"

"Only on this continent," somehow-not-Beauty answered. "Although, the accents can be hard to understand, far from here. Those are the beginnings of new languages. Languages tend to change, over time."

"Even on the Sacred Garden?" Ginta asked. "Is the Language of the Goddesses like ours?"

Prosperity spun towards Ginta, beaming.

"That's a special case! Because My Sisters have always spoken the Language the same way, and everyone follows Their example, it hasn't changed at all for many thousands of years! And, everyone on the Garden speaks the Language, sometimes in addition to a local language. And, it's not much like this continent's language. For example, when written, it has a small set of characters that represent sounds, instead of many unique characters for different words. Here's My name."

Her Essence spelled out Her name, written in the Goddesses' Language. The characters were simpler, on average, but there were more of them.

"This seems like a good place to end, for today," She announced. "I need to borrow Telf from you all, for some special work. Gwell, can you get everyone into bed tonight? And stay with Arelvi, until Telf is ready?"

Gwell shot to his feet.

"Yes!" A mission straight from the Sky Goddess!

Once everyone had filed out, Prosperity closed the door to the sky-home's chapel, and unwrapped Her package. It was a sacred item, glowing with Her blessing, in the form of a small sky-statue of a woman. Her elbows rested near Her sides, and Her hands extended forward and up, with Her palms pointing toward Her face.

Chills ran up and down Telf's skin. The woman was wearing the same style of tunic as Prosperity, but was not Her. Her hair was too straight, Her features too dainty, and She was wearing a lot of jewelry shaped like Suns. And what was clearly Divine Essence spiraled all around Her. Even though Telf had only ever seen little sky-carvings of Her, in different outfits, she could make a guess.

"This is the White Goddess Menelyn, Source of the Light of True Divinity, as She looked when She was only a little over a thousand years old," Prosperity confirmed. "Technically, also the Black Goddess, but the White Goddess' body. Remember?"

Telf nodded a little.

"Long, long ago, before the first false god, the Red Goddess was as young as I am now. She could only hear prayers made nearby. In order to make it possible for anyone who needed help to call from anywhere on the Sacred Garden, My eldest Sisters designed these statues. Every village received one, and they became, usually, centerpieces of shrines."

Prosperity cocked Her head at the sky-carvings She had made of Herself, earlier.

"History rhymes," She said. "With these sacred statues, My eldest Sisters created a world of blessings, a world where Someone is Listening, and prayers are answered. Not ambiguously, not with riddles, not for a price, but by real benevolent Goddesses descending from the sky on a platform of Light, helping any who need help. If a non-mage--that means a person without divine power--grasps this statue with an urgent wish for Justice and Salvation, its enchantment triggers, and connects the user's mind directly to that of the Red Goddess."

Prosperity offered the statue to Telf, who accepted it with the same care as she had accepted newborn Arelvi.

"Haawk, ahhht," she gasp-choked.

Prosperity nodded in sympathy, and explained.

"The statue contains My full power. It is the strongest enchanted item I have ever made. This is necessary, in order to buffer the Red Goddess' power as much as possible, protecting the user's mind and keeping the statue itself from breaking. I have been filling it, a little at a time, since I finished it."

Telf sat for a while, in awe, while Prosperity waited. She felt so, so very small, with this...endless power, gleaming in her mind. So very small.

"Take your time, and get accustomed to it," Prosperity encouraged her. "The Red Goddess is much, much, much stronger, and the statue will only buffer so much."

"What is 'buffer?'" Telf asked.

"Absorb some of the strain caused by My Sister's power, so you don't feel it so strongly. It also means that you won't feel Her Love as strongly, but...It will be strong enough."

Telf sat holding the statue until she felt like she had grown as used to the feeling as she would ever be, and told Prosperity that she was ready.

"Alright, My Sister is ready, too. Lay down over here, next to Me."

Prosperity had made a pillow and mat, while She was waiting, and placed them on the ground. Telf laid on them, clutching the statue to her chest.

"It will be a shock, when you connect. Brace yourself. When you are ready, make a wish with all your heart for Justice and Salvation. I will join, once I am sure that you are okay. Remember: She Loves you, and will not hurt you."

Telf hummed the Red Goddess' lullaby to herself, in her mind.

Her Goddess was right there, kneeling next to Telf's little mat and pillow. Nothing bad could happen.

With one last, deep breath, she activated the statue.

...

Love. Big Love.

The world was Love. Telf's world was Love. All worlds were Love. Love forever. Love for Telf. Telf was Loved.

Telf was fuzzies. All fuzzies were in Telf. Fuzzies existed, so they could be in Telf. Telf was too fuzzy to move.

<Hello, Telf.>

Fingers on her scalp.

<It's nice to speak with you again, in better circumstances. And properly, this time around. But, if you don't start breathing soon, I will need to disconnect. Can you breathe for Me?>

With sheer force of will, Telf managed to take a breath, and moved her eyes to look at Prosperity. She was checking on the statue, and smiling reassuringly at Telf. Her fingers were not on Telf's scalp.

<Teeteeteet! My voice makes people feel that way, like a nice lullaby and head scratch. You're doing a good job breathing, now. Thank you!>

The fakes were so, so, so fake.

So, so, so, doomed. Doomed doomed doomed doomed doomed.

Damned.

<Mmhmm! They are, but not you, young lady. No, not you at all.>

Nope. Not Telf. Telf was not doomed. Telf was Loved.

Loved Loved Loved Loved Loved.

<I must say, Suri's judgment is impeccable. Her color truly is reserved for only the most gleaming of souls.>

Tears flooded down Telf's cheeks. What else could Telf do? Love had decided that Telf would feel Love, so Telf felt Love while waiting to find out what else Love had decided would happen to Telf.