Pantheon

Rriu

Thess inhales acidic seawater. It rushes into their lungs and they cough, but that only brings in more, constricting in their chest, burning in their throat and sinuses. They flail desperately upward, as pointless as they know it is, but there's dark spots in their vision and their limbs are cold and heavy and then suddenly there's a sharp pain in their neck and the cold's flowing out of them, oxygen swirling back into their chest, they can breathe.

Their hands fly to their neck. Gills. They grew gills.

"Hey nice," says Auricant approvingly.

"Don't look too freaked out," says Moanuni. "We would have rescued you if you needed it."

Thess tries to cough again, and it doesn't work, and they're not sure if it means they don't have lungs anymore or not. They look around for the first time, brightening immediately.

"Hey, I know where we are!"

"Oh, you do?" asks Moanuni. "That's wonderful! I was kind of hoping you would."

"This is Colony 68! See, the library is right there!"

"What, you want to go to the library?" says Auricant, gently teasing.

Thess's excitement drops. "W-well, yeah but – but...Radiya always said it was...an obsession. And. Unhealthy for someone called by Auricant."

There's a brief pause.

"Not like I Called you," Auricant says bluntly.

"That sort of thing is for kids who were picked up by the temples later, so they're already kind of used to non-Called life. It actually would be unhealthy, if you were actually Called. But you're not, so," Moanuni explains.

"Knowing universal providence, that's probably why we're here," shrugs Auricant. "So, uh, I guess we can stay until you're ready to leave?"

Which is how Thess ends up on the longest and most surreal library trip of their life.

They have no idea what to do with themself. It's overwhelming. They end up floating listlessly between the rows of shelves, scanning the titles of the scrolls but never pulling one out of its net to read. They simultaneously have too much time and too little, and too many options and too few.

They have no idea where the goddesses went. Which is exactly typical of them, they're starting to realize.

This is just...this is so weird. What are they supposed to do? What's the point in all of this?

(They know the answer would be something like "whatever feels right" and "I don't know either" for the two most trusted sources they have, but that doesn't really help.)

They've ended up in the theology section, all stuff they know, all stuff they've learned about or taught themself since birth. Not knowing what else to do, they pull a scroll from the shelf at random, and sink back down to the floor to read it. Merlie scrolls are made from the skins of long, shimmery coilfish, the tough scales protecting the words carved into the opposite side. It's pretty cool.

They grabbed a kid's retelling of the creation story. They could probably recite this word for word, despite never having seen it before. Long ago, before everything we know, there were the Darknesses. And in those Darknesses were the Seeds, and in the Seeds were the Goddesses. They slept for eons before their Calling, the first Calling, the greatest Calling – first vast Morannigan, and then the others behind her. They stretched out with joy into the universe, forming themselves into all creatures and all creatures into themselves...

When they come back to themself they're surrounded by the scrolls of half the theology section. Goddess. They forgot how incredible it feels to just read.

For a few hours, everything was just...gone. No bizarre powers, no Blight, no goddesses except as distant figures drawn in letters instead of divine flesh and blood. The universe had felt so much better when it was just their mind and their scroll. Suddenly, the shelves all seem as tall as the world, towering over them and isolating them from everything outside. They want to do this forever. They want to live here. They want to forget.

Thess stands up quickly, forgets they're underwater, and rockets up to the ceiling. Oops. They float back down, swimming for all the scrolls they scattered. They'd like to forget, but they can't. They know that. They're something bigger than their own desires, now.

Where do all of these scrolls even go?