A Summoning, Part XXXVII

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Part XXXVII
~Magician~

Sol was sitting in his usual chair, in front of his usual desk—but it was empty: No documents, no phones, no monitors, keyboards, mice or tablets or anything else. Its surroundings were even emptier, with a black void engulfing the space more than a yard or two from his own personal glow. He sat waiting patiently, leaning slightly forward with his elbows on the desk supporting hands clasped together. After a moment there was something conceptually similar to a door opening and someone walking inside, and a separate circle of light appeared a short distance away, opposite his desk with the visitor at its center.

She appeared to be an entirely unremarkable young woman in nearly every way: Casual clothes, brown hair, average height, modest figure. The only things that mundane humans would've found out of place were her feline ears and tail, along with her brightly glowing yellow eyes, which seemed almost like the only part of her that could be the source of the light surrounding her. She walked in front of the desk and slightly to one side, summoned a metal folding chair precisely across from the sun god with a wave of her hand, and then slumped into it with all the grace of a bored high schooler.

"You wanted to see me for something?"
"Well, I don't normally dream when I rest," Sol said, and then carried on without a pause: "I met with the new one this afternoon." Bastet really wasn't fond of non-answers and conversational time-wasting, which was something he personally admired.

His host sighed. "Given that she's still around, I'm sure it went swimmingly."

"Oh, certainly. I filled her in on a few important matters the fox didn't see fit to mention—you know, just in case they come up. It'd be a real issue if she started a fight with the fae."

"I would've figured out she visited you without a personal message," Bastet said dryly.
"Well, it was more than just me dispensing information," he said. "I explained our role in keeping our world safe and maintaining the veil, and she expressed strenuous objection to the latter."

This got the dream goddess's attention; she snapped slightly more upright. "On what grounds?"

"Primarily the potential of magic to save lives, medically speaking. It's true, there are plenty of humans we could really stand to keep around, and it'd be convenient if it weren't so tricky to make them immortal—or at least young and healthy again."

"So we won't have a majority if we let her vote."

"We don't really have a majority now," Sol said. "Is it the fox or Eros you're not counting?"
"He told me he liked it the last few times I asked."
"...You mean two centuries ago?"

Since Bastet looked off to one side and didn't answer, she didn't want to continue this train of thought. So Sol softly cleared his imagined throat to signal a shifting of subject. "Anyway, I used her concerns as a springing-off point to make a proposal that could remove her from power with her doing all the hard work."

"Whenever you introduce something as a simple solution to aaallll our problems, I end up hating it," Bastet said bluntly. "Just...get on with it."

He explained the agreement they had made that afternoon—the rebirth program, which he'd more or less already set into motion. Both of them had accurately enough predicted her immediate reaction to this, as she looked angrier with him the farther he got into the explanation.

By the time he paused to let her speak, she was absolutely livid. "Yoooouuuu—what were you thinking?! Why did you not run this by the rest of us first?! Or at least me?"
"Well, I didn't think you'd understand."
Bastet leaned in, placing her hands on the desk and baring her teeth—which all temporarily turned quite tall and razor-sharp. "You thought, it'd be easier to ask forgiveness than permission!" She raised her right hand and started pounding it on the desk for emphasis on certain words: "She gains power. From people being grateful. To her. More gratitude, more power. And last time I checked, mortals tend to be pretty grateful when their lives get saved!" This last part she emphasized by sitting back up again and sweeping her arms out and upward for a second before abruptly dropping back into an angry slump with her head still tilted up just enough to glare at him.

"I took a gamble," Sol said calmly. "Saving someone's life like this is costly, no matter whose power is doing it, so it's a question of efficiency. If Zotha can survive her power being used as extensively and frequently as I intend, then we probably had no chance of getting rid of her in the first place. And if she does fizzle out, I still get to save some human lives. Besides that, it is meaningful that she agreed to it with fairly little deliberation. It means she isn't chaotic to the point of being unmanageable—she has guiding principles she believes in, at least some of which are noble, and will act according to them."

"..Did you ever really oppose keeping her around at all? Or just hop to our side of the fence so we wouldn't feel lonely without La Lune?"

"Of course I did," he said. "I am opposed to whatever may bring harm to humanity. At the outset—with the people she was ascended by especially—there was a real risk that she would be an entirely destructive force. If she'd been a passive person, doing what those around her expected of her, it's difficult to imagine the amount of harm that could have come to the world. Instead, she took control of everything from the beginning. That had its own risks as well, certainly, but I'm at least convinced enough to want to test her on grounds other than her moral character at this point.

"If I may..why did you and Ouroboros come out so strongly against her?" he said.

"You'll have to ask him, but I'm sure you can guess. As for me—I hate change." She sat up again. "People are at their best when they are stable and at peace, and we recently had almost a decade where things weren't terrible." She held up an index finger to count to 'one' for emphasis. "One decade, that's it. A change from peace is war; a change from happiness and stability is chaos and destruction. I didn't think you wanted that, either! Better, at least, that people decide for themselves what changes they like, and not have a supreme being making those decisions for them! It should at least be masterless, if it cannot be stopped altogether. If someone with that aspect grows strong enough, she could even change us! How are you still so unconcerned!?"

"Well, I've never feared change so much myself," he said. "I arise every morning not quite the same as I was the day before. Or have you not noticed how different I am now from a few decades ago—or especially a century or two? Long before she ever came to be, my nature, my people, my opinions: All quite different from even as recently as the eighteen hundreds. Really, Bastet, can you truly say you are the same now as when you first came to be?"

"..Neither of you have any idea what it was really like," she said quietly, with a hint of pain, shaking her head slowly. Then, actually facing him: "There is a difference between choosing a new direction for oneself, and being forced into change from the outside."
"Yet human progress requires both," Sol said. "I don't believe Zotha has any intention, nor will ever really have the power, to determine the nature of all change. Not any more than I can alter the color of sunlight."

"Yet people will look to her for it, once they know. And she is too generous, and her nature encourages her to be even more so. Imagine—every horrible thing that someone wishes were so, all of the unhealthy dreams and desires in the world, and the wish-granting machine just doooles it all out to earn their gratitude and make herself ever more powerful by it!"

He nodded. "That is why I feel it's important that she has some moral compass of her own. I think we're fortunate there."
"Her 'compass' will change! If her primary aspect is, as you say, too chaotic to control, then it will overtake her," Bastet said—no doubt speaking from experience.

"That's why, if she sticks around, it's important we don't antagonize her too much," he said. "Those of us with more stable personalities would at least have the opportunity to keep her on the right path."

"And if that doesn't work? If she decides to upend every last one of us and take control of everything? Who or what is going to stop her then?"

"Well...

"I don't think you'll like my answer to that, either," he said.

"What—? That thing? That..thhhiinng?!" She made her disgust emphatic in her words, and with an aggressive, forward-sweeping gesture with both hands. "That is your trump card in case of impending apocalypse?!"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say 'mine', but..if he can simply tell my power 'no' without even being aware of it, then I don't imagine Zotha will ever really be strong enough to do any better." He shrugged. "But honestly, I don't think it's ever going to come up. She has another anchor besides us, anyway."

"You really think her human toy will be any help?"

"Likely. As a human, she isn't subject to the nature of a deity; she has a close, deep connection to the aspect of change, but is shielded from its direct influence. And the two of them are close in more ways than one, including being able to share thoughts directly. It almost seems to me like Zotha instinctively sensed the risk and made things this way on purpose. But I suppose time will tell."

---

La Lune's reply on Thursday morning was very short and to the point, consisting of only a set of coordinates and the brief message "Head north after sunset. Please bring your plus one!" The coordinates in question pointed to somewhere deep in the Amazon rainforest, the kind of place that most humans would have real difficulty even surviving a successful journey to reach. Zotha could just teleport, of course, but she'd never done it at such a distance before, nor with just a latitude and longitude to work with. Naturally, Jess was worried about this.

"Well, let's just give it a try," Zotha said, rubbing her hands. "Oh, but first—hmn." She ruffled Jess's hair, making her grow some floppy doglike ears and a fluffy tail—simultaneously giving herself some similar but more wild and wolfish features. Meanwhile her horns grew a little longer and curlier, and her wings turned back to being batlike, with fur. "Thaaat feels about right. Maybe she'll even appreciate it?"
"Rr~rfh...uh, m-maybe," her priestess said, blushing.

"Now then." She went with placing a portal in front of them in the dorm room to step through, and then led the charge, peeking her head through first of all to make certain she hadn't just opened a way to somewhere up in the air or out in space. But she found herself exactly where she expected and wanted to be instead: Somewhere deep in a wild, thick jungle. So she made her way through and looked around while Jess followed, quietly using some magic to shield both of them from the heat and humidity of the place. It wouldn't do any good to make their fur all sweaty just from the short walk..north, apparently. Real canines didn't have this problem, since they didn't sweat...but panting at the moon goddess seemed rude in its own weird way.

"Uh..which way even is north?"
"This way," Zotha pointed, and started off in that direction, gently using a little bit of her power to push plants aside out of their way without harming them. A nature goddess also might prefer she didn't burn or cut a bunch of nature to reach her, after all.

How do you think 'normal' humans haven't stumbled onto this place by now? Jess wondered. I mean, there's lots of scientists going out into the wild to set camera traps and check population numbers and tag animals and stuff...

It's probably some 'lost woods' kinda thing, where you either zip right past her domain to the other end or go around it in circles unless you've been 'invited', Zotha said. After a few more steps, she stopped. ...Woof. You feel that?

I dunno how I couldn't. They were standing in front of something resembling a curtain of vines, and there was a familiar sort of intense pressure coming out from it—faint, yet not failing to convey the full extent of the power behind it. This was obviously the right place, so Zotha carefully pulled the vines aside and walked through into a landscape that seemed like it belonged in a dream or a painting.

The oppressive heat and humidity of the Amazon was gone in an instant, replaced with a cool, crisp nighttime air. They were standing in what seemed to be an endless garden, paths of soft grass crisscrossing flowers and trees placed all around. It was all alight with a soft, silver glow, despite the lack of any apparent light source big enough to create that kind of light. The vines were no longer behind them from the moment they stepped through—only more of that garden. That sensation of 'godly pressure' was still there, and much stronger now that they were actually in the domain itself, but it was of an extremely different 'flavor' from Sol's power, or that of the Ruler of Foxes for that matter. It didn't push downward to keep them rooted, nor outward to intimidate them; it simply was, hanging all around them like a calming scent in the air. Neither of them could help breathing a small sigh of relief.

As undirected as it seemed at first, the 'scent' of La Lune's power nonetheless did point them gently in a particular direction, like a soft breeze on their backs. Zotha went that way, walking along the grassy path with Jess beside her, until their host came into view. She looked like a late-teenage girl, or maybe a grown woman somewhat on the short and petite side—yet quite graceful, with extremely long silver hair and a peaceful smile on her face. She was sitting cross-legged in the center of a wider circle of grass with a slightly larger-than-normal wolf covered in similarly silver fur curled up next to her, seemingly asleep. The silver of the hair and fur appeared to glow like moonlight itself, bright enough to feel somehow like it was the source of the ambient glow the rest of the massive garden enjoyed.

On their approach, the wolf raised its head and growled briefly, until the girl reached out a hand and gently placed it atop its head, which seemed to calm it instantly and tell it to go back to sleep. "Welcome, heheh. I hope you didn't find the way here too inconvenient?" She sounded as young as she looked, the slight giggle not really helping this impression.
"No, no trouble. A short walk after the teleport," Zotha said. "Unless you wanted us to fly a plane out this way?"

"Pffheeehee...That would've been funny, but nah. Here, take a seat please!" she said, gesturing at some of the open space in front of her. They did as invited, Jess sitting cross-legged like the moon goddess while Zotha put both of her legs out to one side under her.

"Now I know what you're thinking: 'She's a lot shorter than her brother'. Actually, it's just that we're getting kinda close to the new moon at this point, and my size changes throughout the month," La Lune explained. "It'd make shopping for clothes rather difficult—if I had to do that, I mean. Oh, and this is my other half," she added, patting the wolf's head. "He's not as intelligent as yours, but we can do a neat trick. Look:" The wolf got up and pounced into her, causing her to grow several inches and shift into a slightly more mature-looking and muscular full-werewolf form, complete with her clothes vanishing into the silver fur. "Neat, huh?" Her muzzle grinned brightly, her tail wagging cutely.

"Sure. Is..uh, is the wolf part of you, or a separate entity?" Zotha asked.
"Oh, I didn't mean to mislead you," La Lune said. "'We' are the same being. Like any werewolf, I've got a 'tame' side and a 'wild' side. It's just that we can occupy different bodies if I so choose.

"I appreciate the canine looks, by the way," she added. "You didn't have to, of course. I appreciate all kinds of animals and beastfolk."

"I guess I'd describe it as 'what I felt like wearing'...if that makes any sense," Zotha said.
"Mm-hmn. I'll admit to being a bit jealous. I don't get to decide how I look, apart from messing with my clothes and separating-or-combining...the latter of which deprives me of the clothes."

"You..can't wear clothes like that?" Jess asked.
"Well, I'm not incapable of it, but it's awfully uncomfortable to say the least—in more than just a physical sense. Our natures can be really inconvenient in a lot of ways, you know. You should appreciate getting to stay a human, li'l Jess; you don't even have to worry about the level of urges a dragon or youkai faces, after all."

"Youkai?" Jess repeated.

"You know, like Kitsune," she clarified. "Something between a spirit and a human—partially bound to a particular nature, as something of a price to possessing substantial power. Spirits have it even worse than we do: Much less power and much more stuck with a nature. No wonder animal spirits so often wish to become more human by merging with one."

"..Even though I feel like I already knew that, it's like the information in my head came from nowhere," Zotha said. "Makes me feel less insane to hear someone else saying it."

"You wouldn't be a very good goddess if you didn't know the basics," La Lune said. "And your worshipers want you to be a good one, so you are. Annoying, isn't it?"
"I don't know that I'd call it that just yet. But, definitely weird sometimes."

"Heheh." La Lune's 'wolf half' slipped back out of her, and she shrank back to a clothed human form while he went and curled back up into seeming sleep.

"So, so—did my brother ask you for something? A test of some sort? Spill, please~," she said cutely.

"Er..yes. I told him I don't like how the veil making magic unavailable to billions of people is blocking them off from getting help with, you know, staying alive. And he proposed using my power to, more or less, secretly semi-reincarnate people who'd otherwise die. It's a compromise, I guess...also it might make me 'implode' if I'm not able to get enough 'back' from the people we help."

"Sounds to me like you accepted?"
Zotha nodded. "I want to save lives, even if it risks my own. I've..started to feel the pull of requests for my power trickling in, and no issues so far, but I'm sure it's just the beginning."

La Lune nodded. "He's a pretty 'go big or go home' kinda guy. But I'm sure you'll do just fine! The world wanted you, so it's not about to just let you fall apart."

Jess tilted her head, and the goddess of change asked: "The world wanted me?"

"Well, how else does one explain your ascension?" the moon goddess replied. "Kooks have been doing weird rituals in the woods since time immemorial, dear; it wouldn't have any effect at all without the support of something far stronger than the belief of a mere few dozen people. Many humans have come to desire change and transformation, the latter especially among those not made ignorant of its possibility by the veil. The nature of transformative magic itself has been in the process of changing for several decades, from something typically baleful and painful into the benign and even pleasurable. You are a natural consequence of that trend, as far as I am concerned."

"I..guess that explains why a 'goddess of nature' is on my side?" Zotha said.

"Ohh, that, and you make people really happy," she replied. "I'm not one to meddle like the fox, but I've been enjoying your antics ever since you gained your power. It's great that you're not the awful, megalomaniacal demon queen your little priestess wanted you to be at first. Instead, you're actually nice! And you've gone and helped a few of my own people on top of all that."

"Right..." Zotha nodded. "That thing you wanted to borrow my power for. I guess it went well?"

"So far~! I'm hopeful that Eros will give them the last few pushes needed, but there's no controlling nor predicting that man. I'd actually love to have your permission to give something like that to a few more of my people—you know, from time to time."

"You aren't going to start making every werewolf able to change sexes at will, are you?" Zotha said. "That might really mess with people if and when the veil comes down."

"Haahahah~! No, no, I only have the occasional, very specific, deserved blessing in mind. The rest will need to figure out their own ways if they want that. Can't risk changing the nature of my own blessing by hitting everyone with the same thing, after all."

"In that case, I don't really mind. Using my power involves 'asking me' about the specific case anyway.

"...There is one thing I'd like to ask you for, though. I mean—not necessarily in exchange, and only if it's not too much?"
"Oh?" La Lune tilted her head slightly to one side. "What could that be?"
"I wonder if there's some way I could meet with Bastet. I mean—talk to her, one on one, in a relatively safe way. I don't think walking into her domain uninvited would be a great plan."

"You think you can convince the cat over to your side? She's preeetty stubborn."

"Nothing quite that ambitious. It's just that I'd like to hear what she thinks of me, and what she'd want from me to at least tolerate my presence, from her own mouth. Sol told me a lot about her, but I'm not sure exactly how much of it to believe. I mean—not that I think he was lying, but I feel somehow like the picture he painted of her must be incomplete."

"She's a pretty complex kitty, for sure," La Lune nodded. "Well—she's the goddess of dreams, and she owes me a great debt. When I speak with her, I can demand that she visit you the next time you sleep."
"Hold up—no demands," Zotha said. "She's not gonna feel very charitable if she's talking to me because she has to. I just want you to ask her, on my behalf."
"Hmmn, okay. Well—I'll have to tug at the debt a tiny bit to get her here so I can make the request, but I was gonna do that anyway—she's overdue for a visit by now! I'll make it clear that she doesn't have to if she doesn't want to," La Lune said, nodding. "You're quite wise for your age, you know that?"

"That's..quite a compliment, coming from an ancient moon goddess."
"Heehee~. But I'm not always as wise as I ought to be for my age."

"Is it..that you also act younger when you get smaller, because of the phases of the moon?" Jess said.

La Lune nodded, "To some extent. I don't quite become a child in any way—my body is always that of an adult—but I know the way I talk shifts a little bit one way and then the other. But the biggest behavioral shifts come on the new moon and full moon themselves. I sleep all day and all night when the moon's not in the sky, and when the moon's full—my wild side takes over, and I need to hunt. My two 'sides' become one, and I crave something big and challenging to take down and bring back to my garden to eat. Ha~ahh, speaking of, I'm really hoping humans do enough to get elephants off the endangered species list soon," she added with an air of nostalgia.

"You ever have someone try to wake you up on the new moon?" Zotha asked.
"Ohh, yes." She looked off to one side, seemingly in embarrassment. "The results...weren't pretty. Let's just say, no matter how aware I am of my own lapses in self-control, I..can't always curb them."

"Like what you tried to tell us through Damon before, I suppose. If you were totally in control, then new werewolves wouldn't go insane and start attacking people."
"Mm-hmn," La Lune nodded sadly. "Among many...many, other things."

"You mentioned Bastet owes you a 'great debt', and Sol mentioned something similar, but said it was a secret?" Zotha said.
"Awh, it's no great secret. My stubborn brother just won't listen when we try to explain it to him. But since you'll be talking with her, I really think it's better you hear Bastet's take on the matter," La Lune said. "It's a little hard to explain exactly, but...she actually knows much more about it than I do. It's woven into my nature rather than being something I consciously think about. Soo, I can't give a very satisfying explanation myself."

"You're talking like it's a guarantee she'll meet with me," the change goddess pointed out.
"Well, Basty is really quite reasonable if you're not doing something to provoke her. It's just that Sol and the fox and I are always doing that, each for our own reasons..not to mention mister Mania, ugh. I earnestly believe that she'll relish the opportunity to talk to you one-on-one, even if she'll eternally deny it."

"What's your take on him, by the way? You were talking earlier like you liked him—or at least would like him to do something—but just now you sounded disgusted?"
"A gem with many facets," La Lune answered. "I have two natures and one-to-two bodies; that poor man has numerous natures all stuck in just one physical form. When he's nice, he's good, and when he's bad, he's just awful. But while the others often associate all of his sides with each other and hate—or at least dislike—the whole package as a result, I understand perfectly well what it's like to flip-flop unwillingly from time to time. So I just take each facet on its own merits instead."

"Soo, we've got a schizophrenic god in our midst."
"I'm not certain it can be diagnosed as that precisely, but—no matter what he is, we are most certainly stuck with him," La Lune said. "Unless you want humanity to be instantly miserable and go extinct in the span of two to three generations. Attempts were made, long ago, to replace him—at his own behest—but they only added more facets, and generally not good ones."

"Why do you 'provoke' Bastet anyway?" Jess said. "It seems like you two must work together all the time..."
"That's more or less precisely why," La Lune said. "We have disagreements of opinion on a number of things—important disagreements in which I desperately want her side to help balance out mine. The only way for me to get her honest, best-thought-out advice instead of a neutral, passive agreement to get me out of her fur is to prod her until she's annoyed enough to give it to me straight. Also, she's cute when she's angry~," she added with a faux-innocent grin. "The fox thinks she's funniest that way too, and I don't entirely disagree!

"As for Sol—with him, it's more that he's got a habit of acting like he's the boss, doing what he thinks is 'best for humanity' without asking anyone else and just presuming on our opinions being a certain way even if he knows full-well they're not. Most of us know how to communicate with him in a way that keeps him from stepping too much on our toes...but the poor kitty-cat is the one who winds up with the sorest of digits the most often, and then her usual response is to angrily scream at and scold him—with that very same kind of honesty I want from her, but which totally fails to penetrate his innate stubbornness. If it gets really bad, she'll complain to me, and then I have to come up next to him a few days later and let him know why what he did was wrong in a way he'll actually listen to."

I think I'm starting to see why he described Bastet the way he did, Zotha remarked mentally.

I'm starting to feel really sorry for her, Jess replied.

You keep that emotion in mind if she gets really angry and starts threatening to hurt me. Not that I plan to provoke a reaction like that.

"I have to admit...The more I hear about how things work between you all, the less it sounds like a bunch of wise and powerful rulers, and the more it sounds like a semi-dysfunctional family."

"Pffheehee!" La Lune, thankfully, didn't take offense at this; in fact, she broke out into full-blown laughter for a minute or so. At the end of it she gracefully wiped a couple of tears from her eyes with an index finger. "Haa~aahahah..yes, it's true. None of us are as perfect as we pretend to be, especially when we're putting on a show for mortals," she said. "But we make it work somehow. No world-destroying god-wars yet, after all! In a way, we really are like a family: None of us really asked to be what we are—except Ouroboros, I suppose, but it's debatable if ever really weighed the cost first. And we're all stuck with each other, like it or not, for the good of our 'kids'. But if you ask me, even our pettiest of disagreements are preferable to us all having a singular, unified opinion on every single matter which might turn out to be wrong."

"The friction keeps you from complacently settling into what might be a problematic decision," Zotha said, nodding slowly.

"Keeps 'us', dear. If things go the way you and I hope, anyway."

"Right..." The idea of an all-gods potluck sounds a lot less outlandish at this point, she remarked.

Just don't invite Agape-Eros-Mania-whatever, Jess replied.

"Anyway, I can't think of anything else much to talk about. It's been pleasant, though—your garden is very pretty," Zotha said.
"Aw~wh, thank you~!" La Lune grinned wide, hopping up onto her feet; her 'wolf side' raised his head briefly to look around before plopping it back down again. "I work pretty hard on the aesthetics, and hardly anyone ever comments. Sure, I can make plants grow on demand, but arranging them takes some thought!"

Her guests pulled up onto their feet as well, and Zotha came closer to offer a handshake. "Any problem with me opening a portal for us to leave through?"
"Not at all~," the moon goddess said, giving the hand a gentle but eager shake. "And now that you've been here once, you should know the way to come back directly. You're welcome any night except the new and full moons. You might even run into one of my other regular visitors, depending on your timing."

"Thank you. I can honestly say you're the friendliest god we've met so far," Zotha said.

"I do try. But don't get too complacent around me; I'm sometimes more of a threat than I wish to be," La Lune said. "If you startle the wolf, he just might bite ya."

"I'll...keep that in mind."