After the battle, I pointedly waited a few more hours, so I returned at just the sa ti as usual. There wasn’t any real reaction to my return, everyone was far too focused on the joy of having survived battle or they had already crashed and gone to sleep and thus unable to react either. Granted, they also hadn’t posted guards but after the fight, they might simply have been unable to. Without reserves, things could get quite hairy.
Sothing to discuss with them at a later ti, for now, I just checked in on Luna, making sure that she was alright and her sleep wasn’t disturbed before I went to bed myself. Playing overwatch for their battle had been fairly exhausting in its own right, especially when combining it with the need to conceal myself from even Silva’s senses. I wasn’t sure if that had worked, she had given a strange look when I checked on Luna, but she had yet to comnt on my behaviour.
Monts after falling asleep, I found myself in a very different place, one I recognised. It was the endless grey expanse Lady Hecate used to communicate with and the sudden, quite forceful, shift made my gut clench with anxiety. It wasn’t every day that a deity insisted on talking to you and sohow, I had a feeling it wasn’t to offer kudos for my actions.
Nothing happened the mont I arrived, nor soon after. Instead, I was left there, unattended and uninford of my circumstances, stewing in uncertainty. I had no idea why I was here, nor any information about what I was supposed to do, see or feel. Nothing but my own thoughts and considerations to go by and in this case, I decided to consider my recent actions once again.
For once, I decided to try looking at my actions and intentions from an outside perspective. What had I done recently and for what reasons? The big one, the obvious one, was that I had caused an attack on the place I was staying at.
The mont those words went through my mind, another conversation bubbled up from deep within my mories, a conversation with Adra about Guest rights and their importance. If you had eaten sobody’s food, if they had given you shelter under their roof, you did not harm them. On Mundus, that had been an almost culturally universal tradition, rooted deeply into the natives of the place, to the point that groups usually completely hostile to one another would ignore those grudges and get on with it. Or rather, they would ignore the presence of those they had a grudge with and stay peaceful.
If you broke the peace of the hearth, you could see yourself banished from all accommodations and while my intentions had been beneficial for the locals, wasn’t that what I had done here? Breaking the peace of their ho, even if it was done in an effort to keep them from losing that ho to the winter?
“I see you have realised the problem?” a hoarse voice asked from behind , not the usually tritonal voice of Hecate but a different one, unknown to . Turning around, I found myself confronted by a slightly unusual sight. It was an elderly woman, radiating age and gravitas, but the unusual part was that I recognised Her. She had the sa face as Hecate’s aspect of the Crone, at least if that aspect wasn’t shaped into the image of the Grandmother. Normally, there’d be two more faces on Her, the aspect of the Mother and the aspect of the Maiden but both were missing.
“I believe so,” I nodded, not quite sure what to do. Depending on how deeply the idea of the Guest right was woven into the Astral River, or if it was carried by the deities I had experienced on Mundus, I could be in fairly deep trouble. it was difficult enough to interact with people thanks to being, well, , and all the problematic social traits that ca with being and Morgana’s Legacy but if another was added onto that, especially one that sounded fairly powerful? I might be back to the point where I couldn’t enter civilisation at all without serious aural concealnt going on. Even now, I likely would have to start concealing myself around people sensitive to divine disapproval thanks to the divine Curse I was under and the Titanic Ambition Trait. Maybe even the Dragon-Touched one, I wasn’t sure how that would register. Likely similar to the Titanic one, dragons were generally not seen as allies of the divine unless they were subjugated.
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“And what is to be done about it?” the voice asked and I had no idea how to answer. From a certain point of view, I had acted horribly. On the other hand, my intentions had been good and my plans were made in such a manner as to reduce suffering as much as possible.
“I do not know,” I admitted, “It depends on who judges my actions and my intentions, especially whether the ultimate outco can be determined. It is my belief that the community housing us would not have survived the winter. It is on that belief that I have acted and while there are different ways one could have used to achieve the result I hope to have achieved, those ways are closed to , simply because I lack the ability to walk those paths,” I explained, almost certain that the figure before already knew all that but needed to state my thoughts, maybe only to myself.
“Judgent can be a difficult thing,” another voice, this one just as familiarly unfamiliar as the first, interceded and when I looked into the direction the voice was coming from, I could see the face of Hecate’s Mother aspect there, looking at with a mixture of compassion and pride. “Your intentions were honourable and sotis, the ends justify the ans. But was this one of those cases?”
“Especially given that there were other options for her. She could have taken over the community, even with her social troubles. She could have planned to hang around, to help them cultivate fields and easily bring them through the winter while making sure that they were safe and sound. But she chose a different path, one that minimised the ti she’d have to invest,” the Crone’s voice judged, making wince just a little.
“But why would she? They are not her responsibility, they are not her people. Not even her race, at this point. And yet, she decided to help them, only the ans she chose were a little… problematic?” a third voice, this one almost an expected one, piped up as the Maiden gave her own opinion, though, from the way her voice rose at the end, she wasn’t quite sure what to think about this situation. Granted, neither was I, but I wasn’t about to question the deity in her three aspects standing around .
“Maybe a small act of penance would be appropriate,” a fourth, and at least to completely unexpected, voice called out, making turn yet again as it had co from behind . Now, I was right in the middle of four figures and from the sensation I got, all four were so sort of divine figures or aspects. The fourth one, the unknown one, was most similar to the Aspect of the Mother, only very voluptuous, giving the impression of fertility, ho but also a burning passion to defend that ho.
“It would be appropriate. She is only spared the status of a howrecker by your grace, so if you want her to perform so task, I don’t think she would reject your suggestion,” the Crone suggested, sounding almost amused by it all. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea but I had a feeling I had little choice here.
“It’s not so huge task anyway and knowing You, you’d have given her daughter a similar task anyway. So why not combine the two, have her serve a penance while helping her daughter before they can carry on with their journey?” the fourth figure who I still didn’t know the na of suggested and sohow, I had the feeling that it wasn’t really a suggestion. I would do whatever she told , or else, and I had no desire to find out what ‘or else’ ant in this context.
“And what is that task you have in mind?” I asked, bending to the knowledge that these figures around were beyond . And, maybe, accepting that my actions, while well-intentioned, hadn’t been the best for the people involved. Maybe I should have tried finding another way, or even just shown them that such a way existed. Or, alternatively, I might have been better of to let them choose their own path, without forcing my conclusions on them, humans were nothing if not inventive under pressure.
“Your daughter will be tasked with setting up a shrine to us, a library just as she did in the Tree’s burrow,” now, all three aspects of Hecate spoke in one voice, the strange tritonal quality coming from all three aspects at the sa ti.
“And you will help her, while also helping my clerics set up a shrine to ,” the fourth figure added and now, I knew who she was. Hestia, Goddess of the Hearthfire and a few more things, most likely the one overseeing guest rights. Also, the patron of the clerics in the small community I had been visiting.
There was nothing I could do but nod and accept the task assigned to . Well, there were, but the things I might be able to do would co at a high price. Luckily, there were worse things to do than help my daughter.
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