Pantheon

Ward

"Igaaaan!" Moa calls, racing through the corridors of Envah with Aur on her tail. They skid around a corner, Aur nearly slipping in her socks. But it's only Qele, who looks up from his drawing and shrugs at them. With humans, the goddesses usually take feminine forms, to keep an aura of authority - just like in the temples, where feminine suffixes don't mean gender but instead seniority. Here in Envah, though, things are more complicated. Qele's radiating boy right now.

"Igaaan?!"

The cry echoes emptily through the crystalline hallways of the goddesses' private dimension.

Moa turns to Aur. "You're sure she's in here?"

"No, 'course not! But, I mean, Envah time – she's here eventually, or she was because she is. You know we'll see her." Sometimes Aur kind of just says things, and they only make about seventy percent of sense.

"That's not what I meant, she needs to be here from the right now!"

"Moa, I know! But we find her in here, she's gonna be closer to the right now than if we tried to look for her outside."

"No, but just waiting in here is – "

"Moa, did you need something?"

And bam! there's Igan. Right behind them, towering overhead, almost in a humanoid form to match the two of theirs – her typical guise, long salt and pepper dreadlocks, jet-black skin with freckled constellations shifting across it. Moa jumps. Igan's as stately and imposing as the void she's goddess of. No wonder she's their de facto leader.

"Weeeee found something," says Aur, rocking back and forth on her toes. The two of them find something and show Igan once every few years, and one time they found an actual literal black hole, so Igan pretty much always pays attention.

Igan crosses her arms and smiles teasingly. "You found something? What kind of something?"

"Come on, come with us!" Moa says, which is their usual response. They pull Igan out of Envah and onto the realm of Ai.

They're standing, invisibly and inaudibly, in a hospital ward in Ai's capital city. Ai doesn't rotate like other Realms. One side of it always faces the scorching day, while the other side is always hidden in freezing night. The humans on Ai live in the narrow habitable band between the two halves, with the ones who can afford it living in the tall cities in the center of the band and others in the underground mining towns stretching like tentacles away from it. The rest of the planet belongs to the Fair, the See-Me and the Un-See-Me courts, beings so strange and inhuman Moa doesn't really like thinking about them. She's going to stop now.

Aur starts to pull Igan's arm towards the end of the room, but Igan doesn't budge. "Hello, Rhun," she calls instead over Moa's head.

Moa turns to see the goddess of life, in a human form like a bag full of wrinkles with light shining through from behind, standing by a bedside with her face creased into seriousness. "Well met, Igan," she replies. "I was just considering whether to go find you. Take a look around, would you, and tell me what you see?"

Aur groans and leans her full weight away from Igan's arm, and Igan murmurs an apology. Moa huffs in disappointment, but now she's curious too. It wouldn't take much for Igan to prioritize over them, but she thinks Rhun wouldn't have interrupted if it wasn't something actually interesting. She turns into a fuzzfly and zips around the ward, glancing at all the patient's faces.

"All some of the wealthiest people of the city," she announces, landing on Aur's forehead. Something Igan probably didn't know, because she's not as fascinated with the humans as Moa.

"And all sick with the same disease?" Igan finishes. Rhun nods gravely. Igan frowns. "I suppose unknown and incurable, or you wouldn't be here."

"Quite right, at least so far. The humans have tried most everything, but they just don't know what to do. Of course I'm not Qele, but I'm thinking these are like no diseases we've ever seen. Sudden fatigue and confusion, severe shortness of breath, convulsions and then loss of consciousness, and afflicting far more than this ward – like a plague, but not contagious..."

"And...fatal?"

"Inevitably, yes. I can feel their energy slowing to a trickle...I expect I'll remain here until Ael has to arrive, though." Ael, delicate goddess of endings.

"Of course. Good luck with learning all that you can."

Rhun nods, and turns back to the bed, long, gnarled fingers gripping the bedframe with white knuckles. Igan moves her focus to the two of them, and Moa hops out of the fuzzfly to stand beside Aur. "I'm sorry," says Igan, though her face looks decidedly preoccupied. "I believe you wanted to show me something?"

"Nah, nevermind," Moa replies softly, sobered by Igan's conversation.

"Just, um – first living victim of the Fair – "

"Nothing super important, just gross and kinda cool, he's probably dead now." He's over in the corner with the blanket pulled over where his face would normally go. He lives/d in one of the mining towns but the doctors wanted him here for better care and study. Moa can't really tell if he's dead or not.

Igan drags her hands down her face. "Aur," she says quietly, like an idea's just occurred to her. "You don't think that the Fair could have something to do with this?"

"Um, no," says Aur. "I mean, I don't think so? Cause these people wouldn't have really interacted with them. They wouldn't come this far in, or all the towns would be underground like in the outskirts."

"Exactly. These are just the kind of people who don't have to worry about going outside." Igan looks frustrated.

"It's probably just a human thing. They're always coming out with new diseases," Aur shrugs. "Also, I'm late again. I gotta go talk to Radiya. See ya, Moa!"

She's gone before Moa can say "see ya" back.

Moa takes a deep breath. Her fingers are drumming against her thighs, like they always do when she's anxious. She really, really hates plagues.

Igan puts her hands on Moa's shoulders, grounding her with their comforting weight. "It'll be fine," she murmurs. "They'll find a cure. Don't worry."

Moa tries to find a smile. "Yeah, sure hope."