In a conference hall in Heaven:
"And that is why I believe that it is wrong for the Kitchen God – the 'Divine Intercessor,' as he now insists on being called –to circumvent all proper protocol to found a personal cult on Earth and reap its offerings behind our backs," finished the Goddess of Life.
Aurelia took a sip of tea instead of joining in the other Bureau Directors' and Assistant Directors' chorus of approval. Or, rather, disapproval of the Kitchen God's actions. If they'd bothered paying any attention to him over the millennia, she thought wryly, they'd have realized that he couldn't have devised the idea of a temple network or implemented it himself. But until recently, he'd been as close to a non-entity as any Bureau Director could get. He visited Heaven so rarely that his colleagues didn't bother to factor him into their rivalries and alliances.
And now they were scrambling.
The Duchess of Lightning, Assistant Director of the Ministry of Weather, offered the Goddess of Life a saccharine smile. "It is a pity, isn't it, that you left the Bureau of Reincarnation just before this windfall of offerings?"
At the reminder that the Goddess of Life could have shared in her erstwhile Director's newfound wealth if she hadn't fought so hard for her own bureau, the other Assistant Directors smirked.
From the way the Goddess of Life's fingers closed around her armrest, Aurelia guessed that she ached to call for her willow branch and cast the Duchess of Lightning into the cycle of reincarnation, just like Marcius. The Duchess of Lightning was another deified human, a young woman whom the Duke of Thunder had killed by accident during a storm. In His infinite mercy, the Jade Emperor had transformed her into a goddess so that she might illuminate the scene for the Duke before he hurled his thunderbolt.
"Where is your successor in the Bureau of Reincarnation anyway?" inquired the God of Culture, the Director of the Bureau of Academia – he who had petitioned to eject Marcius from Heaven in the first place.
For some reason, all eyes turned to Aurelia. Setting down her teacup so gently that the porcelain didn't so much as clink, she gave him a tranquil smile. "I have no idea. Perhaps the Star of Heavenly Joy is otherwise occupied. Or perhaps the invitation to this conversation among equals went astray." She arched an eyebrow at the Goddess of Life, who had sent aforementioned invitations.
The Goddess of Life returned a smile as serene as the statues of her on Earth. "I'm sure he is otherwise occupied, simultaneously filling in for his absent Director and overseeing the management of the cultists' offerings. I do empathize."
"We're getting off track. Didn't you call this meeting to discuss the Kitchen God's violation of protocol in setting up a personal cult?" asked the Minister of Agriculture, the Farmer God.
"There is nothing in the laws of Heaven against setting up a personal cult," pointed out the God of Examinations, the Assistant Director of the Bureau of Academia. "In fact, depending on how one defines the term, one might argue that all of us have cults devoted to our worship. It is simply that up until this point, they have been nebulous and unstructured and highly specialized to the individual human, who worships a multitude of gods and goddesses and who makes offerings depending on his or her current needs...."
They let him drone on in that vein while the star sprites replenished the tea and platters of little cakes. By the time the rest of them felt refreshed, he was winding down too.
YOU ARE READING
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox
FantasyAfter Piri the nine-tailed fox follows an order from Heaven to destroy a dynasty, she finds herself on trial in Heaven for that very act. Executed by the gods for the "crime," she is cast into the cycle of reincarnation, starting at the very bottom...
