Homer looked her over one more time. She had her robes still, but he’d actually helped her prepare for the arduous trek ahead. They’d gotten her a new backpack to carry her dried food and roots in alongside a walking staff, since they’d found out her gait was a little cking. Carved from fine and solid oak, it even had a slot for a magically attuned crystal.

  “I don’t know any spells, ahaha… I know I look the type, but…”

  That’s what she’d said when they bought it, but Homer had just let out a gravely belly ugh and bought it anyway. Didn’t need to know how to cast if the crystal did the job for you, he said. Maybe they’ll find one in the Sawbone Range, since crystals tend to pop up there from time to time. She doubted it, but hey, he was the one paying for it.

  Her companion was a bizarre find alltogether. He seemed to thrive and then waste away, going through cycles of life over and over again that she couldn’t fully grasp; one hour he was standing tall and straight like a mountain, the next he’d slumped and quieted down to merely a hill among many. Maybe his godsblood had to do with it?

  “I’m a distant sprout, ss. Long gone from the source.”That’s what he said when they were finding her proper boots for the long trek ahead.“Godsblood passes from mortal to mortal. Not all of us are fine nobles living in fancy castles. Longer you dilute it, the more you lose power from it ‘till it vanishes. My granddad said his dad was a minor noble. Had him as a wild oat. Was taller ‘n me.”

  That she knew. Godsblood only kept strong if it was guarded well, as the saying went. Nobles married others of godsblood to ensure that theirs intermingled and kept strong, but the offspring who didn’t diluted, until eventually it disappeared…

  And Homer was one of those offshoots near the end of the trail. Yet he was taller than any man she’d ever seen and definitely wider too. The power of Gods was amazing.

  “Are y’one, ss?”That’s what he said when they were buying food for the journey. Her bug-eyed gaze and rapid blinking made him chuckle.“You’re no necromancer, ss, so that was my second guess. Godsblooded of Death are rarer ‘n rare, though… Suppose that was my mistake.”

  She? Godsblooded? Definitely not. She had to expin that her features had only gotten so ghastly very recently, and that made the giant of a man ugh again, stroking his chin with a twinkle in his eye. She had to guess that he had no idea what the hell was wrong with her and this was just his way of pying off his ignorance and overreach.

  But he meant well, so it was fine.“Why do you want to challenge your sire, then? I know stories of godsblooded who rebelled against their sires, but they’re always treated as vilins in the stories my parents told me.”She sleeps on the one bed, Homer’s taken the floor, the ceiling of the inn room much cleaner and neater compared to the ceiling of her hovel. They ought to rest before leaving, since the trip would be quite uncomfortable- in Homer’s own words.

  “War’s in my blood, ss. It boils and burns. Since I was born, it boiled. Kicked my first bully’s teeth in and it boiled. Killed my first man at fourteen and it boiled. It just boils, ss. Even now when I’m older and calmer, it boils. I’m tired of it. Blood shouldn’t dictate how man lives. It moves us and makes us breathe, but going as far as to order us?”

  She can see Homer reaching from the ceiling even from her bed, his rge fingers grasping at air before closing into a fist. Like he’s trying to pull something down from the ceiling- no, the heavens above it.

  “The blood is divine, though. We’re all living in service of it.”Maia’s voice is clear, even if tired. She drifts between being asleep and awake, between the border of life and death, and she feels odd crity.“So shouldn’t you be happy about that sort of impulse? It shows you’re more divine than those around us.”

  Homer doesn’t reply. Not even one of those gravely ughs always does when he has no answer. For a moment she thinks he’s done with the conversation.

  “Are you happy with the way you are now, ss? Grey and withered? You’re searching for Death to find answers, aren’t you? So spare the hypocrisy.”

  She didn’t think she was being hypocritical: she still can’t really conceive the idea that her current state of being has anything to do with the god of Death herself, and more- more…… mmm. She feels the desire to see her, to discover why. That’s all she’s sure of. But she does not see herself as divine. She’s just some girl.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry, just… I’ve been taught that the gods are infallible. My parents raised me to respect and love Death, and they taught me all about the other gods. How can you not be happy with having the blood of one? It’s just inconceivable to me. What I’m going through is reted to Death, and… I’d be happy if it was her blessing. I’d like that.”

  Homer does not ugh. Instead he sighs, long and deep, like a howling sound from some long abandoned mine as wind flows through the dusty tunnels, empty and sorrowful.

  “Let’s hope that Death is kinder to you than War to me. But let me tell you this, ss; War was born from Death. Two of a kin, mother and son. All that foul need for violence, all that rage, all that desire for blood… It comes from her too. War is one face of Death, and it’s an ugly and unpleasant one.”

  With this, their conversation dies down. Once more she finds herself staring at a ceiling instead of sleeping, thoughts a messy jumble of knots and contradictions. She knew of War and Death; most gods originate from either Life or Death, who in turn are born from Time… But surely, War’s sins were not that of Death’s? Children are not their parents.

  So what does that make her?

  She sleeps not a wink for the whole night, eyes wide open and bloodshot when Homer rises in the morning, the pnks of the floor creaking in pain as a mountain walks among them. She’s come to realize that she hasn’t prayed to Death in quite some time. Since she left her hovel. Two days??? She’s pretty sure it’s two. She’s prayed daily for so many years, but there was no altar in the forest, and the preparations-

  aaah.She really should…

  Yet when they exit the tavern and prepare to leave, Homer ughs boisterously at her innocent question.“A church of Death? None here. You won’t be finding altars either. The best you’ve got is the local cemetery, and praying there is forbidden. Makes people think necromancers are about. Legal or not, nobody wants to see that out in the open.”

  The puffing of her cheeks just makes Homer ugh more, no matter how much she tries to defend herself. Ugh. Maybe she should just make another straw idol and nail it somewhere. Death needed no grand ceremony, no rge alters. Merely intent and a voice, for she is everywhere.

  … Maybe she could nail it on Homer’s back too. He’s as broad as a wall anyway.For whatever reason, Homer keeps casting her suspicious gnces when she starts making the straw doll as they walk.

  “Eyes on the road, ss. We’ll be walking the whole way. It’ll be comfortable for the next few days, but once we start hitting the Sawbone Range, we’ll be going through gravel and muck for a month and then some. You keep crafting whatever you’re crafting now and you’re going to fall face first, and I’m only picking you up the first time.”

  All she can muster to that is her sticking her tongue out at him, which just results in a bellowed out belly ugh.

  “Fuck me, ss, you’re actually pretty funny when you put your mind to it.”

  Her? Funny?! Her parents had always buckled when she started acting petunt, but this ogre of a man just finds it funny?! That just makes her sulk even more as they walk, refocusing on her straw doll. It wouldn’t be as big as the one she weaved for her home, but it ought to be about as big as a fast, and it needs to be recognized as human-like.

  It could be an animal too, maybe, but human death felt more meaningful. She wasn’t quite sure if animals comprehended the gods.

  The human shape made it easier for Death to hear her, or so she was taught. By nailing it onto a surface by the heart, you could easily channel the ‘lifeblood’ of the vessel into the lifestream, from where Death would hear your prayers. It was an old folk tale, she was told, and it worked- according to her parents at least.

  It isn’t supposed to be painful to the doll, though. The death becomes instant by pressing the needle to a certain point of the heart. Death does not care whether the dying are in pain or in peace, so one should lean towards the tter; after all, undue pain is nothing but cruelty. There is no virtue in a painful death. Even a simple gesture such as this means much to her.

  These sorts of lectures float in her mind for the thirty minutes it takes to craft the small idol. She has to tie it together with small strings, but she’s just about done when they hit the crossroad. She almost walks down the wrong fork before Homer casually grabs her by the head and turns her around to waddle in the right direction.

  She just mumbles a busy thanks as she searches through her pockets for a needle. Homer has been letting her go through her nonsense in peace, perhaps aware that this is genuinely important for her. With the small, sharp piece of metal in her hand, she lines it up, shoves it in- and speaks a single, short prayer.

  “I am not scared of Death, for I know she awaits me with open arms.”

  In that one moment, her voice so quiet and gentle, the needle sunk deep- something shifts. No-one can see it or feel it, but the air trembles, nature itself groans out in a sigh of wind, and something in the sky opens. An eye stares down, unseen by mortal eyes, burning a hole into the fabric of reality so that it can find her.

  For two days, Death had lost her only constant voice in the dark, and she’d searched so feverishly, so embarrassingly hard;

  I’ve found you.