I’m back. My apologies for the delay. You can read the details when you reach Chapter 492
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The goddess’s sudden voice in my head made me jerk in surprise, in turn causing Ceria to spring up, instantly on guard.
“It’s fine!” I assured her right away, since startling an adventurer is mean, and a bit dangerous. “Just give me a moment. I’m speaking to someone.”
Rhea’s amused voice came to me again as I sat up in bed in order to hug my Servant. [After this many times using a spiritual voice, I should think you would be used to it.]
Ceria was pouting and sulking a bit, now. I kissed her forehead in apology, patting her back.
[If possible, for the sake of my heart, it would be good to come up with some warning signal that you are about to speak,] I told Rhea.
I only received an amused chuckle in response.
[I have to control the [Sky Lotus] at the very least, Goddess,] I replied
[As I see how it works, I shall take care of it for you. As everyone around you keeps trying to tell you, go to sleep!]
I really was hearing it from everyone, and it was annoying me. How could I sleep when…
Suddenly, I no longer controlled the [Sky Blossom] that Diur was holding. Rhea had intercepted it from me.
[One characteristic you unfortunately failed to retain from your years as Robert Stewart was the ability to delegate tasks.]
I protested, [What are you talking about?! I…]
I shut up. I had just heard the same thing from Rod, hadn’t I?
[Little Sen, you were much better at it back in the Elder Age, too. This is a characteristic you have adopted from the original Tiana Pendor, much to your own detriment. You need to control it.]
With a frown, I began trying to figure out a counter-argument, but with Ceria now nuzzling my ear, it wasn’t easy to concentrate. I fully understood why I needed to sleep, but this was a task I couldn’t have delegated to anyone but Rhea. She wasn’t being fair.
Rhea disagreed. [The fairy warriors could have found that child with a few simple directions from you. Diurhimath could have, as well.]
Well, okay, but I hadn’t thought of that yet.
[You hadn’t thought of it because your starting position is always that you must be the one to take care of things, so you don’t even look for an alternative. You were even ready to go with him yourself just now, rather than sending one of your healers. Despite the fact that the crude and rather risky way to protect your babies that you conjured up so that you could cast [Purification] was at best shielding them from ninety percent of it. Don’t do that again.]
I had no plan to do so, I muttered in my own thoughts. Although I’m sure she heard.
While Ceria grew more aggressive, Rhea lectured, [It all boils down to a fundamental failure to trust your companions to be able to handle things in your absence, Little Sen.]
Fortunately, my horny lover abruptly began mostly behaving herself once more. I think, thanks to my failure to respond to her fondling, she realized I was still deep in conversation. She began contenting herself with cuddling.
[But I needed to make sure no mistakes happen when they pick her up! They barely have any information, and there would be distrust on both sides, and I need to give instructions to the people at the castle, who don’t know what’s coming.]
Rhea’s initial response was cold silence. Had she not heard me?
After another heartbeat, she finally answered, [I heard. But what I heard was more nonsense that didn’t deserve a response.]
I tried to project my frustration at her directly. This was a serious issue, you know?
Patiently, she answered, [Diurhimath is an Elder, so I can safely speak to him. I have instructed him to have Pasrue hold that child on board her craft until morning, when your people can make arrangements. I can work with Mireia to ensure that your mortal husband is fully briefed on the details and will lend his authority.]
With a sigh, I said, [At least let me keep an eye on things.]
[I will keep an eye on things for you,] Rhea assured me.
Something from Senhion’s knowledge tickled my awareness. The details were hazy, but it was enough for me to have an ounce of doubt.
[Can you really? Aren’t you only able to keep an eye on me so closely because Mireia is nearby?]
For a moment, I imagined I heard her clicking her tongue. It had to be my imagination, right?
[I actually need a better view of things,] Rhea admitted. [If Mireia had gone on the flight, I could extend my awareness through her, as my priestess. I’ve been planning to contract your Melione as another priestess, but I need your cooperation to do it.]
I grew… Well, distrustful is not the word, since I trusted Rhea. Uneasy would probably better describe it.
Thanks to some general knowledge recovered from Senhion before, when I first learned that Rhea had made Mireia her priestess, effectively adopting her from her prior goddess in her old world, I had a basic understanding of what it entailed from Rhea’s point of view.
Priests are a bit like divine routers, or hotspots, that allow an Immortal to penetrate the boundary between Mortal and Immortal realms for a short distance around the mortal contracted. It doesn’t give them the ability to communicate directly with the mortal. The mortals that force the issue and initiate that communication from our side are called oracles, and they are typically driven somewhat mad from the process. But Immortals can grant their priests and priestesses visions, to at least give them some hints, and can extend other benefits, as repayment for the view of the mortal world that they provide.
But it can be very dangerous for the mortal as well. They can suffer health effects, and changes to longevity. Sometimes to their benefit, but more often to their detriment.
[Melione would be safe,] Rhea assured me. [Your connection to her would shield her from the negative side effects. And becoming my priestess is as good as becoming Gaia’s priestess when it comes to the reproductive benefits. I can guarantee above-average children for her, at the very minimum.]
[She’s an unmarried girl of fifteen, Senior,] I reminded her.
[She won’t always be,] the goddess answered with a positively smug tone.
In most sects, the clerics are not celibate, although they generally must be monogamous, and wait for marriage. Sort of like Protestant pastors, I guess. But she wasn’t proposing for Melione to become ordained in some sect, per se. Most priests and priestesses are not contracted to their god. They are merely ordained to worship them.
The process that Rhea was proposing, the one that Mireia already completed, was not one that mortals are even aware of. I’m betting that those clerics who are also healers know about it. They are likely to be secretly contracted, though, since it is well known that priests and priestesses who can heal are usually quite powerful. It’s probably a closely guarded ‘mystery’ of the sects that organize religious activity on Huade that this power is coming from being contracted to a divinity.
Rhea continued, [Anyway, I cannot force her to leave you or choose loyalties between you and me, because Elder Servants are properly the priests and priestess of their mistress. I wouldn’t actually be taking her for my own, but borrowing her from you. That’s what I mean by needing your cooperation. I can’t take her away from you, Little Sen.]
Although I hadn’t thought about it until that moment, even though Rhea had previously mentioned that she contracted Mireia by ‘borrowing’ my channel with her, what Rhea was saying rang true. Effectively, all my servants were my ‘priestesses’, even though only two of them were healers. Gods might need Holy magic to break through the entropy barrier and form the contract, but Elders could form it with any mortal.
[But now you’re speaking as if this would be long-term,] I pointed out.
[I didn’t say I would just borrow her for today. We have been planning to ask for this for some time. We genuinely need more visibility around you, Little Sen. All portents show that critical events are gathering, and you are fated to be in their midst. You may have forgotten, but you came to this world as a result of such portents. The Immortals that you know by the name of the Hero Relocation department placed you here because of these.]
I blinked upon hearing those words. It had been a while since I had even thought about a hero’s mission, or the HR department.
[Despite the questionable circumstances involving certain secret moves on Oranos’ part, the heroic mission you have is itself certainly real, and quite critical, and you are the one charged with it.]
[And you can’t tell me what it is,] I replied, twisting my mouth.
[Because we don’t know, either. The flow of mortal fate is not something we can easily decode. We can only read the portents to try to untangle the intricacies somewhat, and those tangles point to you.]
The ‘fate’ of Fate Magic is not just a word, it’s the real stream of causality and interaction in the mortal world that the wizardry that Mireia cast was able to twist. Without the magic, it was still at work, funneling me toward some unknown destination. Yes, free will exists, but fate is the sum of everyone else’s free will. One’s free will doesn’t operate in a vacuum as long as one remains trapped in the mortal world.
[That sounded terribly pessimistic, Little Sen. Please don’t see this as your doom. It is merely your inevitable involvement in the outcome.]
“Lady, you are scowling really hard. Is something wrong?”
Ceria had been mostly behaving herself, although she was still finding various places to caress.
“A goddess wants to turn Melione into her priestess,” I answered.
Ceria’s ears twitched a bit, and her nose scrunched up as she thought about it.
“Is that a bad thing? Having a blessed priestess in your party is something everyone wants, you know?”
“It would mean the goddess would always know what she’s doing, though. I don’t know how she would feel about it.”
Ceria cooed into my ear, “I don’t know why that would bother her. We all grow up believing that the gods see what we’re doing anyway.”
Her hand curled around my breast and began playing with the tip, then she breathed into my ear, “That goddess you’re talking to can see me doing this, right? I don’t mind one bit if she enjoys the show.”
I heard Rhea burst into bright laughter in my head. But I had an additional anxiety to vent.
“I wish someone other than me could ask her!” I protested. “If I tell her, she’s going to say yes whether she likes it or not!”
[I will relay my request through Diurhimath, and have him fully explain it to her,] Rhea answered.
Half of me understood the need, and the other half simply couldn’t lose the suspicion that the real motive was to keep better tabs on me by co-opting two of my Servants.
[I am not co-opting them,] Rhea stated. [My interaction with them will not change their service to you in the slightest. And you, somewhere in your pool of knowledge from Senhion, know how to block me if you decide you no longer want me borrowing them. This process was something you and other senior Elders regularly allowed us to do in the past, You merely need to resurrect that knowledge if you decide it’s necessary.]
My companion was becoming friskier again, and I was losing the will to resist both her and to refuse Rhea’s request, which made perfect sense.
[I will make one spiritual transmission, directly to her,] I stated firmly. [I will tell her it is strictly her choice. I am neither telling her to do it nor telling her not to do it. I have to be sure she doesn’t think she needs to do it for me.]
[Your lover is becoming quite assertive again, Little Sen. I suggest you hurry.]
