then it becomes, it becomes, it becomes a problem, then--

[monzun]

Monzun watches over their people. They teach their Creature. That was all they knew and all they really wanted initially, when they were freshly-created, and perhaps it ever would have been if another god's cruelty hadn't cut in.

Their goal had never been to be the only god. It was that, and then it had been surviving to oppose Nemesis, and now he was gone, and it seemed they were the only regardless.

("Eh, screw 'em! What've other gods been but trouble for us, huh?")

("Well...It is a bit lonely. And Khazar's actions are the only reason we're around today, isn't that right?")

The power of the Creeds trickle back alongside the power of the people. And then torrents, and a flood. The Miracles they use grow stronger beyond even Wonders' assistance.

Generations of their people live and proliferate and die, and Monzun's strength doesn't waver, but increases even as the populations settle lower than the war efforts and post-war burst their levels to being.

("Yeah! We're badass! Even if it could use a lil more fireballin' to make all this peace more exciting, Boss.")

 Their Creature and people are safe. They revel in being only gentle without consequence but worshippers' occasional disrespect, and they find they care little about that--unless they harm others in their village, and then Creature gentle scolding or abrupt relocation across the land tends to work nearly as well as lightning would have.

Their intervention is needed less even as they notice more. Little beacons where their people were, somewhere well beyond the seas, still worshipping where it once couldn't reach. 

And something else. A shard of someone.

Another...another god? Near their people? The numbers waver, some converting to the other, fewer converting to Monzun, as reasonable without them there to demonstrate their power. 

They need to look. 

("Could be a fresh threat we need to squash.")

("Or they may be a new god in need of a Guide?")

A fragment of them even hopes...

...

...Nemesis' brutality means their consciences say nothing while their Teleports are slowly practiced until they look something closer to a Vortex the old gods used.

It's not quite as large. Redder. But far more than a simple Teleport.

The day comes where they reach across the Lands and place it where they sense their lingering people and that god.

("Let's go!")

("It's so exciting! But we don't need to rush quite yet--")

Monzun takes some time to look over their nearest people and discuss. Khazar brought them Disciples; they could bring some possibly willing to convert to another, although they seem confused by the conversation. Do any of theirs know Miracles? Oh? Yes? One of Sable's decedents picked up the Wood Miracle, they hadn't realized that was possible--

A part of them is distant, distant, distant.

Monzun reaches for their Creature and finds they stare down into the Vortex.

Ah. 

It seems their impatience was noticed and acted upon.





In another part of Eden, a Vortex opened on the side of a mountain that Monzun's old Temple still stands on. The air splits with a shocked bellow as a massive Leopard Creature steps onto nothing and tumbles down into the water.

Ouch.

Only a little ouch. It wasn't that far, but Sweetheart wasn't expecting it. She stands and shakes the water off a little--oooh, fish. Scoops up a handful of fresh fish to eat, and then turns around to claw up the mountain to peek over the edge.

There are a few people! Worshipping wrong, or maybe just frightened. That's okay. She's pretty different now. She doesn't mind when they take off running when they un-freeze.

...Most of the trees she grew are missing. She doesn't like that, she worked hard on those.

She climbs up all the way--oh, the Temple's smaller, or she's so big as to match?--and immediately gets to Miracle Watering the withered ones in the worship sites left.

Comments

[monzun]

Perhaps he would not have battled with them so harshly without Nemesis, but Lethys' prior insistence on realms being won and alost leaves Monzun somewhat skeptical. "Our circumstances were not natural," they acknowledge, at least.

It's their turn to be mortified, this keeping them from dwelling upon that. "...I did not? Truly? I thought I was obvious upon my arrival!" Their glow, kept sharp throughout the stress compounded by their self-made emergency, flickers muted.

Sweetheart's presence is quite obvious, as it always is. Monzun, used to her wandering off-task and hearing of no deaths to need diverting her back, waits until she's close enough to acknowledge her with a small pat to her back.

The Creature rumbles and sits, as if she's going to tell stories to humans.

Instead of a story, though, she just cuts into whatever the gods are talking about by poking a claw in the direction of shining blue and says "Lethys tell!" with all the dignified tones of a child tattling on a creche-mate.

[lethys]

"You made your tolerance clear."

Fine, then, he will explain. Lethys has a feeling he may be doing a lot of this fairly soon.

"To forge an alliance with you, I would expect somewhat more ceremony," he says, a hint of pointedness creeping in, "which we seem to have skipped over."

And maybe he would say more, but that confounded Leopard seems to have it in for him. As she's asked him to say more, he opts to say less.

"It does not matter. We are allied. As you wish, Monzun."

Lethys continues inland. When he meets one of Monzun's villages, its people fussing at the tail-end of the storm and beginning to pick up the pieces, Lethys pauses over their storehouse and considers how helpful a Miracle might be.

...Best not. It is too early in this alliance to risk their faith.

"What do you need?"

[monzun]

"I see," Monzun says sheepishly. "I thought...I did not realize there would appear to be a difference between the two." As he can obviously tell by now.

Monzun trails partway behind Lethys, this time, ever-so-cautious. The rain continues along the beach, but it seems...weaker. A few errant clouds reach for them, but the rest appear to have detached from their will.

"Lethys tell!" Sweetheart repeats, head twisting to look at Monzun. "He tell!" Her indignation shoves hard against Monzun's tentatively-reaching awareness.

"...Ah!" They sink again, settling their hand against the edge of her jaw. She grumpily rubs her teeth along their fingers. "It appears neither of you are pleased with me," they sigh.

[lethys]

"I am rarely pleased," Lethys returns. It is unusually casual for him. A joke? ...Or, if it's the truth, it is far more flippantly shared than his usual. There is some humour there, even if his tone is dry as a bone.

"It seems your Creature understands better than you do the strangeness of hearing a command from a strange god. Regardless of what was accomplished, I will not be so quick to give her orders again."

It occurs to him that there is no such tugging at his own attention, and has not been for a while. Lethys hangs still in the air for a moment.

"Laetes is up to something," he says, thick with suspicion.

[monzun]

Monzun is hesitant to respond. (Had missing something so small been truly so significant?) They suppose his lack of obvious anxiety is worth the broil of bemusement.

"Yooou?" Sweetheart says suspiciously.

"Yes, yes. The order was mine."

A tension in her shoulders visibly slackens. It was not bad to look at the Temple! But she didn't like it. She didn't like it at all. Knowing it was really her god's idea makes the thought less... itchy.

"It is only for big emergencies, I may request Lethys to this," Monzun tells their Creature, moving to scratch beneath her chin. A purr reluctantly rattles out. "But I will try to avoid it, since it bothers you both so."

Sweetheart perks up at her friend's name. Monzun's attention brightens and shifts back to Lethys as well. "Damage?" they ask instantly.

[lethys]

"I would prefer we came to an agreement beforehand," Lethys admits offhandedly. "I am an adaptable god. But much like alliances, manipulating another god's Creature is not an act to be performed lightly."

He isn't really thinking about that right now. He's more concerned with scanning the landscape for the familiar stooping shape of his Creature. Lethys floats up to the top of a mountain, pensive.

"There is no way to know until I have him in my sight." And then, just as quickly, he catches sight of him. "Laetes! Stop this!"

Caught red-handed with a torn-out tree in his paws, Laetes trots to a halt and snarls over the top of the leafy branches.

In the time it has taken Monzun's distress to be tempered, Laetes has been dedicating his focus to... repositioning some assets. A slight desire path of trampled grass and earth shows a just-barely-visible line stretching the long trek all the way between one of Monzun's carefully managed forests and the bare, uninhabited corner land overlooked by Lethys' temple.

It looks conspicuously less bare now; Monzun's manicured garden of trees, somewhat more so than before.

Lethys hovers directly over Laetes. The Wolf yips at a smart cuff around the head.

"That is not yours."

[monzun]

Monzun follows, their Creature springing up to follow in turn. This response puzzles them--ah, he may still believe it's only their own villages they feel concern about? The trails the massive Wolf left through his earlier were rather visible from a distance.

The damage is to only their Forest, it appears, though a few of their people nearest are watching in breaks between chores with curious caution.

"...Well," Monzun begins slowly, after the surprise of a partly bald mountain wears off, "if he would like--"

They are quite abruptly cut off by Sweetheart's late arrival. "TREE!" she bellows.

Immediately Laetes and his tree are absolutely drenched in an orb--not a rain, an orb, crashing down into a positive wave--of Miracle Water.

Monzun starts laughing too strongly to finish their thought.

[lethys]

There is a high yipe from Laetes, and both god and Creature freeze for a split second, processing.

Laetes is left sodden and dripping, the ground around him already turning to mud with the sheer weight of water. Immediately he shakes himself, a full-body rattle that showers the deluge around in an even wider area, and turns pointedly on Sweetheart with a furious snarl and his fur sticking out in all directions.

As a precaution, Lethys snaps the Leash to his Creature and holds it taut, keeping him from lunging just in case.

"Hm," he muses. A further pause, and then: "'Lack of discipline' was generous of me. Your Creature is unruly."

There is a soft, tell-tale creak of force-grown wood, as some of the Water made it to the exposed roots. The tree grows slightly heavier in Laetes' claws, and he tilts slightly before compensating with a foot forwards.

Laetes maintains direct, angry, glaring eye contact with Sweetheart and slides his claws down, crunching a fist around the roots and slicing-crushing them into splinters, then drags his claw out through them to tear little straggly bits out and scatter them. Before it can get any heavier, he whisks the damaged tree aside and hurls it against the ground branches-first in an obvious display of disgust.

Lethys watches this with mild disdain, but does not punish him.

sweetheart has known to speak for Two Days and already: puns

[monzun]

Gods need no breath for speech nor laughter. "I didn't realize she was capable of such!" is sprinkled with an echoed backing of ^ha_heh^heh_heh^hah and so on. "She is creative," they assert gleefully.

Sweetheart's shoulders slump with momentary disappointment. But! There are other trees! And several of those other trees were near enough to the deluge and Laetes' shaking it off to grow too.

Ignoring warning signs, she tromps over and tears a couple of the still-growing trees in her paws. Now she is showing off her strength somewhat, flexing her arms with their weight. "Laaaaeteees!" she sings. "Laetes, trees. Lae-treeeeees!" She swings one around to point towards the copse by the distant Temple. He wants some there, then? She can help with that easy easy easy!

[lethys]

Lethys feels a kind of sinking feeling, perhaps like mortals treading in snow that was deeper than it looked.

Laetes is not much better. In fact, worse. Humiliated, bewildered, and whipped into what would normally be a biting rage, but held back by the will (and Leash) of Lethys, he understands that is not the appropriate response here. He does not understand what is.

Still snarling and baring warning teeth at Sweetheart, the Wolf's tail curls subtly under and between his legs. This is a battle he is losing, or has already lost. He is unequipped to deal with jokes, let alone being the butt of them.

Frustrated and impotent, he whips his head around and begins biting and chewing on the Leash, spit wicking between his jaws.

Lethys wavers, alarmed.

"Laetes!" he scolds. "Go to the Temple! Await me there." He drops the Leash, the line of ethereal rope disappearing into nothing between flashing teeth.

Laetes rumbles in immense displeasure, and immediately - almost gratefully - begins to lope away.

[monzun]

"Lae-trees," Sweetheart repeats brightly, and trots after him with her haul.

A Forrester of Monzun's, previously gone unnoticed, wanders from the forest's hidden paths and towards the fallen tree, and quickly sinks to his knees into the muddy mess left behind. "Ah!" He throws his arms out, and then his axe to the drier grass.

He tries to tug his legs out. The mud squelches and doesn't give. "...Help?"

It's so confused as to barely be a prayer, but Monzun is right here, and they--still nearly cackling--sweep down and pluck him from the dirt anyway.

They drop a quick Heal when he starts limping off, laughter slightly subsiding when he continues on. They look a little closer--ah, his shoe's gone. That can't be helped without much more poking, and they're busy. He'll be fine.

[lethys]

Seeing Sweetheart begin to follow, Lethys can already envision how this will play out.

"Monzun," he calls, and they will feel a - probably fairly unfamiliar - jolt for their attention. "Retrieve your Creature."

As he watches their efforts to help the mortal man in such a menial way, it reminds him of watching them sometimes, when their territory had begun to encroach on his enough that they were nearby as he went about his own business; and he remembers judging their level of interference with distaste - despite some hypocrisy.

They are allied now, and he can recognise that for what it was. In the end, their methods were superior.

Still, they could stand to pay that kind of close attention to their beast.

[monzun]

They jerk and flash straight upwards--that is new! A prayer, not a prayer, a call. They circle back to Lethys, just on the edge of unsettled. The last they felt that...Khazar, perhaps, in their first few days of stumbling?

Still, their hesitance is temporary. "You do not wish for her assistance in gardening?" they wonder playfully, but snap the Leash.

Sweetheart stops in her tracks and twists back to face them, startled. "Noooooo?"

[lethys]

Their joke is coldly ignored.

...How to say Sweetheart is a bad influence without really saying it?

"Your Creature has not learned restraint."

The sound of Sweetheart's plaintive voice behind him gives the unaware Laetes a clue as to how close she was to following him, and his head snaps to look over his shoulder as he keeps moving, giving a nasty little yip-snarl back at her.

Lethys reminds himself exactly what kind of a god he is speaking to. And then reminds himself that patience may be needed. (Not his best asset.)

"Laetes is ultimately obedient to my orders. But I have rarely seen him so driven to retaliate, despite knowing it is against my will." He sharply puts this in plainer words: "Your Creature will find herself bitten."

[monzun]

Sweetheart would survive a bite, or several. Monzun would prefer her not to be harmed unnecessarily, however, and she would push beyond reasonable limits for her own sense of enjoyment. "It would be best to keep her from your Wolf near any villages," they say. It's an agreement. More or less.

She strains against the Leash a little, but ultimately trudges back when directed to re-plant the trees on the mountainside. "Laaaaaetes," she rumbles longingly, brushing dirt from her paws.

"He has gone home. Your Creature Games are over now," Monzun announces, scratching between her ears when her tone sadly pitches up.

[lethys]

The Villages are not quite what Lethys was concerned about, and he says nothing in agreement - but Monzun seems amenable to resolving the matter. That's good enough.

"You have more discipline than she," he mutters. "You feared your own control was lacking. Begin with her."

It is almost advice, given sulkily.

"I must return to my Temple. I must understand Laetes, and his sudden insubordinate behaviour." Spoken almost as an afterthought - though he has in fact been considering how to explain this for most of the conversation: "Request of me what you wish. I will do what I can to comply."

[monzun]

They're not fully sure what he means by this. "We shall review our training?" they confusedly concur anyway. There would be no harm, and she shouldn't go wandering quite so far anymore, they suppose.

Monzun snaps their fingers and Sweetheart reluctantly ambles away and into their Villages. "--I--do not have any? This...is not the same as expecting I am here to take your Land," they say, fluttering downward, because they realize this, and that they are missing something.

[lethys]

They would muddy this with confusion. Lethys makes a mental note to rehearse how to explain basic things.

"We are allied," he reminds them. "I do not expect there is much this alliance can offer you," frankly he doesn't really see why they wanted one at all, "your resources are many, your territory vast. I am nonetheless a resource to you."

[monzun]

Hm.

This is...similar to before, but different. They still do not understand how. It is preferable to his cowering, but they are most certainly...lacking...

"I have many gaps in knowledge," Monzun says bluntly.

A pause.

"I do not care for all you've told me about the way of things, but I learned much through war and lacked opportunities elsewhere." They draw a squiggling line on the ground, and then a crooked facsimile of their own Eye. "I didn't even know this was a possibility. And I...may...wish to know some information about Nemesis. Later."

Definitely not while there are still clouds drifting along the sea, where they could observe if only they float a little higher.

"So I may request information. In the future. Or I will--give attention, should you think of anything you believe I need to hear." Monzun intentionally doesn't say listen, as they might discard whatever he says, should it involve, say, Lightning. But they think they can promise that much.

[lethys]

Maybe another god might speak differently, maybe that would be easier for Monzun to understand. But Lethys is Lethys.

He observes their Gesture drawing without comment. Distinctly so.

Information he can give, in most cases - and it is less taxing than giving up actual resources. At the mention of Nemesis, his presence goes still and cold and withdrawn, but an agreement has been made.

"...As you wish," he replies, with the chilly courtesy of a polite bow.

"If you need me, you know where you may find me. I will not stray from this land unannounced."

With that, the soft glow of his symbol flickers into motion, and Lethys speeds away towards his Temple - where Laetes is doubtless licking his injured pride and sulking.