“There’s sothing I don’t understand,” Ehtra said. “You said that the Twilight Twins were banished from the Middle Empire after the Warring States period, yes?”
Lulu nodded. The Heavenly Jade Empress sat at the edge of the white stone ring. Had it not been for Gaia’s constant repairs of it, the centre of their duels would have been grinded into dust by now. Instead, everything was suspiciously clean. Gaia was nice enough to even nd their clothes between fights, just so they kept fighting for her entertainnt.
That being said, even they got tired, hungry, and thirsty. Currently, they were enjoying a water break. John stood at the side with Ehtra, the Creator Puppet needing just as little nourishnt as the First of Hatred.
“How does that make sense?” Ehtra asked, the disbelief swinging accusingly in her tone.
“How does it not?”
“I was around when the Middle Empire was shattered. That was before even everyone got crazy about the ‘ssiah’.” The First of Hatred crossed her arms – over her boobs as John could not help but notice. “And from what I hear, the Sengoku Jidai was about one and a half millennia later – not twenty years as you claim.”
Lulu scratched the side of her head with her fan. “How do we put this delicately…” she mumbled, then clapped her hands. “China has a tendency to explode like a fish bowl dropped from a third floor.”
The Gar burst out laughing. “You really have a way with words.”
“I do write my own speeches,” Lulu joked.
Ehtra sneered. “Your nation is a ssed up knot of contradictions. You are the latest embodint of a chain of practically immortal rulers and you’re telling your people just keep on killing each other?”
“Such is the cycle of history.” The imperial tomboy kicked the air, first with one foot, then the other. “What the mundane call the Warring States period is but the last they shared with us. “
“Explain, green creature.”
“As you say, we are the latest of a chain of embodints of the Mandate of Heaven. Ours is the body, ours is the might of the great jade dragon, ours is the fate tested by the eighteen trials and the seven speeches. What do you think happens when none worthy to hold the Mandate surfaces?” Ehtra had no imdiate answer to that, so the Heavenly Jade Empress continued, “The title of hegemon brings with it certain difficulties. Ours is a nation that can turn in on itself, for the punishnt it may receive for civil strife is minimal. So it is, when Tianlong refuses to bestow its blessing to candidates short of perfect, that all that see themselves as worthy turn on each other until one who fulfils the Mandate of Heaven is found again.”
“And sotis that happens to be a foreign invader,” John summarized. “In the rare ti that soone actually does manage to swoop in from the outside.”
“In most ti periods, even our shattered states are stronger than their neighbours.” Lulu shrugged. “It will not be an issue in my lifeti.”
“Why was it an issue that Serestra and Peranthis stirred the pot then?” Ehtra demanded to know. “If you’re so ready to eat each other alive anyway, their actions shouldn’t be of consequence.”
“Because they were foreigners, weighing in on the affairs of the Middle Empire,” Lulu answered evenly. “Because they did it in a ti of unity. Because they are not the arbiters of our nation’s proper ruler – Tianlong is.”
“But-“
“Ehtra,” the Heavenly Jade Empress interrupted, her smile as still as a dagger in the dark. “Your questions on history we are most willing to answer and we respect the last survivors of the first empire, it is why we accepted their council in the first place. However, if you wish to make the argunt that the Middle Empire should have been the place for your siblings to find their king candidates, bite your tongue. China is governed by the traditions and heritage of the Chinese. We do not exist so that your kind may extract their monarchs.”
The jade dragon rose from the dress of its host and spoke in its own, genderless voice. “We are the arbiter of the sovereigns of the Mandate of Heaven. We are the sovereign of the Mandate of Heaven. We are the Mandate of Heaven. So, it has been for millennia and so it shall be until the traditions crumble and magic becos dust.”
Ehtra took the rebuttal with a slow and respectful nod. “You’re right, of course. I just… nevermind. I said all I wanted on this matter.” She glanced at the rest of the current fighting party, still in the middle of their break, and declared, “I’ll take a walk.”
“Mind if I tag along?” John asked.
Stopping in the middle of turning away, the First of Hatred glared at him from the corner of her eye. Her thought process remained figuratively impenetrable, both on her face and in her actual mind. Every day that passed, she was getting better at putting the barriers up. John would always remain able to pierce through if he asserted himself enough, such was his privilege as holder of the contract, but she could make it harder.
After silently forming his question with her lips, the grey angel clicked her tongue. “Do what you want,” she stated, abrasive as ever. She whirled around and almost hit him with one of her wings as she did. That she did miss him and that her feathers were a soft gown rather than grey blades spoke volus.
John let her set out in a direction, before catching up to her with large strides. By the ti that he did, they were far enough from the rest of the party that she could hiss at him without being heard.
“What’s your angle this ti, inquisitive creature?”
“Can I not just want to talk to you?” the Gar asked.
Ehtra stared at him absolutely flabbergasted. She did not find a lie in his words. John knew because he hadn’t presented one and he always knew when he was trying to fool soone other than himself. “What – are – you?”
“A third of a mind so vast I sotis have to remind myself I used to be the person that shouted at a screen about stupid hitboxes when I knew that skillshot actually hit .”
The sneer Ehtra regarded him with had an extra layer of contempt. “Can you speak human, creature?”
John made a tossing gesture, putting that joke in the bin. “I’m a friend, Ehtra, or at least I want to be a confidant. Do I need to reiterate all the reasons I care?”
Ehtra clicked her tongue. The two of them walked for a bit. “I’m annoyed.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed.” The sarcastic comnt slipped out before John could stop it.
A venomous glare was all the First of Hatred gave in response. A much more positive response to the joke than John would have asked for. She continued on as if he hadn’t said anything. “I don’t know why I would have asked of Lu Zhi that her country should beco the crucible of my sister’s design. In the first place, I do not think that a proper king is forged in war.”
“How do you think a proper king is forged?” John wondered. They had plenty of talks about her nostalgia for Akkad, but he couldn’t recall them having ever talked about what she actually wanted in a ruler. Best he got was her thought that a ruler had to be mighty or wise and that was less a personal opinion and more a statent of fact.
“Nature and nurture,” Ehtra answered plainly. “A good king cos from a line of kings and is raised to be a good king. A good king is made by the society around him.” She stopped for a mont. Deliberately, it felt, she kept her eyes away from him. “Those that found a lineage have to prove they’re good kings by ruling through wisdom, only using might to squash the rebellions of the unwise.”
John managed to swallow his smug prodding on whether or not that did not accurately describe him.
“Whatever the case may be!” Ehtra declared a bit too loudly for casual conversation. “I just don’t know what I expected from that conversation…” she petered off into a mumble, “…maybe I should apologize for being pushy..”
“Maybe you should,” John agreed. “I can guarantee you Lulu won’t hold it against you if you don’t, but you’ll probably get along better if you do. You will feel better too.”
“What do you know about how I feel?”
“More than you give credit for, even without Observe or peeking into your mind. You’re not exactly a withdrawn person, you know?” John teased her. “I’m really paying attention to you. You’re cute.”
“HMPH!” Ehtra turned her face away from him with such force her side braids went flying. “Only ever got sex in that brain of yours.”
“I assure you, you being cute is a matter of fact I can state without being horny about it.” Ehtra smacked him with a twitch of her left wing. It was like being slapped by a particularly soft towel. “That’s your rebuttal?”
“S-shut up!” Ehtra stamred. The extended wing stayed as a divider between them. No matter how much John tried to peek around it, he did not manage to.
It was getting easier and easier to get her flustered. He couldn’t credit himself getting better at it much, teasing was an art he had mastered months ago. The alternative, that she was getting more susceptible, was a lot more fun. After all, what could make her more vulnerable except for his words getting through that disdainful shell of hers.
“Are you just going to keep walking next to ?!” she suddenly snapped at him.
“You told to shut up,” John pointed out.
“Since when do you do what I tell you?”
“Well, you know-“
“Well, you know,” Ehtra interrupted him by mimicking in a mocking tone. “Do you have a speech impedint? The amount of tis you start a sentence with ‘well’ is just embarrassing.”
“Said the creature.”
“You insolent crea- URGH!”
This ti John sidestepped the swing of her fluffy wing. Ehtra’s face was a flushed, embarrassed, shy, surprised display of happiness. She was trying to keep that smile from her lips with all she had, but she just did not manage it.
John was trying not to flirt and he absolutely failed. Before he knew it, he had tackled the grey angel. “Look at you grinning away,” he pointed out, sitting on top of her, squishing the cheeks of her chocolate face.
“You absolute cre-…tin!”
John laughed and was thrown off. In a whirl, Ehtra was back on her feet. Wordlessly, she extended a hand to help him up. He took it. He did not know why he expected her to actually help him up, rather than let go halfway up. He plopped right back down into the grass and he heard the most happy little laugh of spite that he had ever heard.
He had to hurry on his own two feet, while she began to walk away. They were just heading further towards the horizon. There was nothing else in this green expanse.
At least that’s what John thought for a long while.
Past the horizon, way past it, he found sothing out of place. Ehtra spotted it too, so the two of them accelerated towards it. What they found was a plinth, about the height of John’s navel, and an urn on top. Both objects were a rusty red colour.
“You found it.”
John and Ehtra both looked at Gaia, who now hovered right next to the urn. She beheld it with a mixed expression. Pain and amusent, a combination that was not as rare as one might think, especially not for a supre deity that cared.
“What is ‘it’?” the Gar asked. Observe told him nothing.
“You could call this my Sanctum,” Gaia told him. “It is my go-to place when I want to store or do sothing. I have more than this one, of course, and… that’s besides the point.” Raising a hand, she pointed at a seemingly random spot in the expanse of verdant grass. “That’s where ‘Thana’ died.”
John rembered imdiately. The sensation of her cold, bloodless body in his arm. The fading heartbeat. The eyes that could no longer see. He grit his teeth and swallowed. Even at the ti, he had cared. He had cared because he just wanted to save soone and she deserved soone to try. Now, the sa loss was muddled with all of his current feelings for Eliana. It made the image of her lifeless body breaking down into red dust even more hurtful.
“That’s…” he let the question trail off, his voice laden with grief.
“That’s the dust, yes.” Gaia answered. “I gathered it up and put up this little shrine. Don’t worry, you won’t ever be able to reach here during your fights. I wanted you to find this – you, specifically.” She pointed at John. Her finger then wandered to Ehtra. “You’re here by happenstance.”
“Why?” the Gar asked.
“I don’t honestly know.” Gaia looked at the urn again. “Perhaps I wanted to show you that I did care. It’s not like I’ll give it to you. What are you going to do with it, show Eliana that you have her ashes in a jar? Bit macabre.” The supre deity let out a long sigh. “It’s a powerful magical ingredient, this dust, but I doubt you’d use it as that either.”
“No… It’s good that it’s here and here it shall remain.” John stood still for a few seconds, then gave the green-haired goddess a proper bow. This was sothing he had not thought about for almost two years. Yet, now that he saw it, its aning was profound to him. “Thank you.”
“Why did you spare us?” Ehtra asked, as soon as the Gar stood straight again. The First of Hatred was using the mont she had with the supre deity to ask her own question, sothing that he could not fault her for.
“I’m not su-“
“Don’t give that bullshit!” Ehtra interrupted the supre deity. Gaia took it in stride. She hovered there, her face a tranquil expression of patience, hands folded in her lap. Even as Ehtra stomped her feet and ranted, she remained like that. “You’re the head of everything, the creature at the top of it all. You can look down from above at our little problems and sort them out! You’ve had to have a grand plan to spare us! Of everything that you caused to end, of all the great works of Akkad and the empires that inherited its traditions, you let us be. US who helped Tiamat in the construction of the tower! Why?!”
“You will find that answer terrifying.”
“I need to know!”
“Because you were all that was worth saving.”
Ehtra imdiately repeated the words back to herself, silently as she always did. She did it over and over again, as if she could sohow taste Gaia’s lies like she was any other person. Perhaps the supre deity even let her. “Akkad’s history…”
“Survived, it did not need saving. The first empire is rembered better than most other realms in history.”
“Our great works-“
“All in decay, affected by the sa rot that Tiamat had settled into the minds of the people. The mont I tore the goddess of chaos out of the realm, it was dood. I undid Babel and, yes, I smote all those engaged with the plot to build and fuel it – but I was not the one that kept the land inhospitable for thousands of years afterwards. I did not make it a death zone for Abyssals.”
“The Lorylim…” Ehtra muttered. “…Mother Chaos… but why?!”
“You know why,” Gaia answered. Before she could be asked any more questions, the supre deity disappeared. She had already shared more than John would have dared hope to get out of her.
“All of it for a vessel for her return…” the First of Hatred muttered. “Why, Gaia, did you lock her away rather than killing her?”
“We’ll find out one day,” John told Ehtra and put an arm over her shoulder.
She let it happen.
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