Pantheon

Inder

Aaaaand they're in a treetop-town. Blessing again? Talk about a weird twist of fate, huh? But Inder is pretty tropical. So this was a good choice.

Wow, she still has no idea how intentional Thess's little teleportations are. She should ask, if some big catastrophe doesn't – oh welp she's being knocked over by a heavy flying projectile.

"MOA!!!!!"

"AUR!!!!" Moa laughs and pushes herself to a sitting position, and Aur promptly wraps around her chest. "How did you know where to find us?!"

"Haha, no idea!! Y'know, sometimes, people pray to me about things about luck. So that means that luck is a thing that falls under my chaos. So that means, sometimes, that I have the best luck in the universe."

"Oh, wow, yeah, how did I forget about that?! Man, why don't we use that power more?"

"This is a sometimes."

"I know. You want me to pick you up?"

"No!" Aur unwraps her legs and stands up, pulling Moa along with her. "I mean, you could. If you wanted to."

"Ha!" says Moa, and lifts Aur off her feet. Aur giggles. "So where'd your human friend go? They still on Ylt?"

Only then Moa remembers something pretty important, and drops Aur immediately.

"Hey, where'd Thess go?"

"Wow," says Aur.

"No, shush. They're gonna have a panic attack if I don't find them soon." Moa peers around the market-circle, standing on tiptoes to see over Aur's head. Way less busy than the last time they were here – of course, no temple. Instead it looks like some kind of art show? Oh, there's Thess, investigating one of the paintings. That's a relief.

"Hey!" she shouts across the circle. It's far from impolite on Inder. "Hey, Thess!"

"We're done being embarrassing!" Aur snickers.

Thess blushes, huffs in embarrassment, and hurries back over. "What is this, like, an art show?" they ask, desperate to change the subject.

"Ummm, looks like it. That's a pretty typical Inderin thing. I think this must be before they technically start, though – it's still morning here."

"Oh. So is it like – illegal that we're here?"

Moa shrugs. "Doesn't really m – "

"Mo'nuni!!" comes a high-pitched squeal. Moa jumps and whirls around. "Mo'nuni!" comes the shriek again, and Moa looks down to see a chubby, unsteady child racing for her as fast as his little legs can go.

The moment of shock resolves immediately, replaced by a surge of delight – little Rainingsong! She shouldn't be surprised he recognized her; she knew he was going to be perceptive. She crouches down in front of him and grins. "Spot on, little dude. Great job seeing me!"

"M-Mo'nuni!" he repeats again, and Moa sees he's on the verge of tears. "Y-you gotta help the s-show! It's the show t'day, Mo'n-nuni, come fix it, p-please, y-you gotta – "

"Hey, slow down, slow down, it'll be alright. What's up? Something with the show?" As she speaks, Moa looks around for any sign of a parental figure. She's not surprised to see nobody – on Inder, the Called are mostly allowed to run free for the years before their temple can come again and pick them up. Her Called, especially, because usually no one can stop them.

Rainingsong sobs and babbles out a long, emotional story that Moa understands maybe forty percent of. It's something about art class, and the clay being dead, and this girl in his class called Shrikefeather that he hates, and...the Blight...

Moa stands up slowly, and Rainingsong breaks off. W-we thought it wasn't gonna touch here. Th' Blight, he had been saying. But it d-did – it got us, it killed the clay, it killed the clay!

Of course! None of the statues in the art show are moving! Magical clay, also called living clay by the Inderins, only a staple of their creative culture, and only the biggest, fattest target for the Blight.

(She's started thinking of it as a sentient creature lately. It's kind of worrying, but it's so unpredictable, so strange, it's difficult not to.)

"The magic's gone from the clay," she announces bluntly to the other two.

"That's what I said!" howls Rainingsong from the height of her knee.

"That's not really an us-thing, though," says Aur. "That's more of a Lyr-thing." Lyr's the goddess of creativity and knowledge.

"No, wait," says Thess slowly, staring off into space and so probably deep in thought. "Let me try something."

"Oh wow cool," says Aur.

"Hey, uh – kid?" they say.

Right, they don't know his name. "Rainingsong," Moa provides.

"Oh, thanks. But, uh, where'd he go?"

Moa looks around. Yep. He's gone. She feels a little surge of pride. What a kid after her own heart.

"I'm over here!"

Rainingsong comes rocketing out of the circle towards them, clutching a little gray shape in his hand. "I went to get my Dirical."

It's a well-crafted, surprisingly intricate clay statue of a gaunt, birdlike creature, one of the other species of Inder. He waves it at Moa, who nods to Thess, who takes it, with maybe a wave of jealousy?

It's gone fast, though. There's no point in being jealous of a four-year-old for being a better sculptor than you. Thess hums a random note and drags their finger from the base of the Dirical's beak to the top of its skull, then taps it.

With a squeak and a wiggle, the Dirical breaks free, and Rainingsong barely catches it from shattering on the ground. He laughs in delight. "Thanks, Mo'nuni! And not-Mo'nuni!"

"Ha, yeah," says Moa, and taps Thess's shoulder. "Thanks."

Thess looks up and gasps.

Throughout the entire circle, every statue, every trinket, every blob of clay, is leaping or clawing or squiggling to life. Thess gives a startled giggle, and Aur joins in. Soon they're all laughing, watching the delighted chaos unfold.

"I just used the magic for bringing my drawings to life!" they exclaim, Ylt panic forgotten. "I had no idea it would do all this!"

Until people start looking over, and taking notice of the three distinct foreigners laughing like they caused this mess. That's way too many potential questions Moa does not have the answers to. "Hey, Thess," she says. "We should go. They'll start recognizing us soon."

"Oh, right! Of course."

Aur, suddenly taller, rests her forearm on Moa's shoulder. "Hey," she says, quietly for once, almost conspiratorial. "So. I have a theory."

"Let's go – " says Thess, and they're deep in the great Rriu ocean before Moa can react.