Mother

‘Are you there, god? It’s me…’ she said in a hushed tone. There were a few people near in the middle of the temple but luckily nobody paid her any mind. The closest person was kneeling before the altar, hopefully wrapped up in his prayer.

The temple was well lit, the stone under her knees softened by a praying pillow— she couldn’t escape the feeling that all of it was too comfortable, too clean. Things like praying pillows made people too brave—they needed the cold, the pain, the discomfort to humble them, to make them remember their place. Comfortable people always asked for too much, they always thought, they deserved things. A little kneeling in the snow before a burning deer usually did the trick but looking around, she sighed once more. There won’t be burning deers around here. There weren’t anywhere for that matter in the past 200 years. This whole temple had a foreign touch to it— didn’t feel like home, as it used to, but it was good enough for what she needed it for.

‘It’s me’ she whispered again, picking up the nonexistent conversation. She had to say it out loud to get the message through, otherwise the god wouldn’t hear it. This was old knowledge, older than the temple walls, older than the practice to burn mirth, older than the liturgy.

It was an easy, stupid little trick.

‘Even their own mother cannot hear a mute child’s words’ as the god used to say. There were no songs, no golden cloaks over old men, and no candlelight when this was already known and with each passing year and new weaves in the fabric of faith it became forgotten. Nowadays people kept their prayers for themselves and sang their songs to everyone else. They did not remember that they have to speak in order to be heard.

‘I just wanted to let you know that I’m still here’ she said. ‘We’re still here, Em and I’ then paused to search for the right words. She wasn’t nervous but glanced around regardless— didn’t needed Nab on her heels, asking all his stupid questions.

She was still alone in the southern aisle of the temple, but in the nave, she recognized her companion. Nab stood there with his stupid the-queen-gave-it-to-me-so-I’ll-die-for-her sword on his back and the-man-who-saved-me-asked-me-to-keep-his-wife-safe look in his eyes. As said wife, she hated it vigorously. But he didn’t seem to be impatient. That was a first.

Em found this man in the woods – drenched in his own blood –, nursed him back to life, definitely moving some supernatural strings here and there, then told her to help him to get back to the palace and save the queen, because he is in love with her. To the question – why do you know shit like this and why on earth should I give a rat’s ass? – he said, because it’s romantic, and it’s the right thing to do and you should leave the mountains more often because it would do you good.

So she left the mountains they called home, the village people they called friends and the children they called their own, to lead home a wounded soldier to a monarch who started the war that almost killed him. He was noble, brave, heroic, naïve, he believed in the queen and wanted to save her, because he thought it’s his mission— so in one word, and idiot.

When they passed the temple, he said, he wanted to thank the gods that they led Em to save him. She bit her tongue and didn’t remind him that the gods left this place long ago, that they were gone after some of them were killed by the last of the half-gods who stood beside humans.

She wanted to wait next to the door, just to take a peak at the statues then the golden armor caught her eye and just walked right in, and lit a candle. Nab must have been looking for her before he settled next to the seats. He gave her a small smile and a nod. Her brow twitched.

Of course, she thought this is the first time he sees me as just another human, and not a horrible hag, isn’t it?

She knelt before the god’s painted sculpture, hands clasped in prayer by the lit candle before her. It might have been for the show, because only the said words mattered, but right now she looked like anybody else here.

She looked back to the god’s awfully glorified and terribly painted face. Blue undereyes, bright orange forehead.

In the last 200-something year’s they started to dress the statues of her in bright tunics. If she didn’t left this realm long ago she would have been livid— blood rain and all the nice and subtle signs she was so good at.

‘Listen’ she started again ‘I have a good life now. We rebuilt what you messed up and I have a family now and a war just ended and people are hungry and grieving and lost.’ She paused, this time not because she didn’t know what to say, but to keep her calm.

‘Life is good like this.’

She touched her forehead to her fingers, like the women who prayed for their sons to come back from war. She knelt on a pillow, in a warm stone building but knew better than to grow bold. She did not ask.

‘I will say this only once’ she said with her eyes closed.

‘Do not come back. Do not try and reach this realm.’

She breathed out.

‘Do not come back, or I will kill and banish you again. People have no use for you, the wars are less cruel now that they don’t try to impress you. They need no war god. And I...’ her voice wavered but she continued.

‘And I don’t need you anymore, mom. I killed you once and... just don’t make me do it again.’

She stood then, blew out her candle then left the statue of the god.

On its stone face a droplet of the blue paint started running.