A Summoning, Part XLI

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Part XLI
~Hermit~

Zotha woke up—except that she didn't.

It was a very strange sensation, to be fully aware of her body still lying down in the bed, arms wrapped around Jess, but for her to also be standing up inside of what seemed to be...some kind of hallway, standing in front of a door. It occurred to her as she looked around in that hallway, getting her bearings, that ever since her ascension...she couldn't remember having a single dream. Not before..this, which was apparently how she was going to be experiencing dreams from now on. She had always maintained a certain level of awareness even while asleep since then, so in hindsight, it shouldn't have been a huge surprise. But it was still..quite a new and strange experience.

There was something indistinct about the hallway itself, the farther she looked along it from her own position. It was like the lights everywhere except directly above her were dim, but that dimness also made those areas seem...blurry and sketchy, difficult to visually concentrate on. Trying too hard to look that way made her mind spit out that whatever was in those directions was unimportant, and so deserved no further investigation. What was important, and much more distinct and clear, was the door she'd appeared directly in front of. It had a square window of frosted glass, with a metal placard placed right under the window; the placard had nothing written on it, but the entire arrangement felt distinctly like this was the door to..someone's office.

Placing a finger just under her lips and thinking about it a little harder, Zotha realized what specific office this door most reminded her of: the principal's office back at her high school. It wasn't exactly the same, even if the placard had had his name on it, but it still had the distinct sense that that was the kind of place this door should lead to. Well, there was no use keeping the person on the other end waiting any longer—so she walked up and gently pushed the door open, making her way inside.

It didn't feel at all surprising to find an office on the other end. Well—Sol's chamber in his space-base domain could be technically called an "office" too, but this fit practically an entirely different meaning of the word. It was a small room, maybe the size of her own dorm room, with a messily-stocked bookshelf across one wall and a few filing cabinets and a little card table jerry-rigged into place to hold a drip coffee machine and a few mugs lining the other. Directly across from the door was a rectangular desk, its surface currently cleared of contents, with the owner sitting behind it in a budget computer chair; a couple of folding chairs were on Zotha's side of the desk.

The owner was Bastet, obviously. She looked..strangely ordinary: A very average-build, average-height woman with dark hair, semi-casual clothes, no imposing aura or presence whatsoever, nothing 'supernatural' about her appearance aside from some glowing yellow eyes and the dark, catlike ears and tail she had. Her expression seemed...tired, and mildly annoyed. Everything about this felt like...walking into a parent-teacher conference at a low-budget high school, except that there wasn't any parent actually accompanying the visitor.

"Hello there?" Zotha tried, coming a little farther inside and letting the door swing itself shut behind her. Bastet replied with a small sigh.
"I wonder whether you had any idea what you were asking." Her voice was dark, fairly mature, and carried the weight of that same tiredness her eyes showed. "Can't imagine La Lune would've bothered to warn you, either."

"How do you mean?"
"You wanted to me to visit your dream?"
"Yes," she nodded.
"Where do you think my realm is," she said, the end of the sentence falling too flat to be an actual question.

"...Ah. Somehow that didn't occur to me," Zotha said, coming up next to the chairs. "May I...take a seat?"
"Go ahead."

Once she was seated, Zotha said, "I guess I should be glad you're in a good enough mood to not squash me here on the spot, huh?"
"I wouldn't dare risk making her angry," Bastet said. "But it doesn't matter. No one may hurt another through dreams, and I don't do double standards."

"So, you are not allowed to hurt me here?"

"I don't allow myself. Dreams are mine, remember? Thanks to magic, the possibility has existed for a long time for anyone with the right skills or equipment to visit another's dream. In principle, there's nothing preventing that 'visitor' from harming or killing their 'host' while doing so; in practice, there's me. Can you imagine the chaos that would result if people could be assassinated in their sleep, right past every conceivable attempt at self-defense?"

"That...definitely doesn't sound pretty," Zotha agreed, and Bastet nodded.

"And so, as far as most people know, harming others through dreams is 'impossible'.

"...Are you offended that your 'pet' isn't here?"
"Huh? Oh, you mean Jess. Not particularly; I mean I didn't ask for you to visit both of us in the first place. She might not like it, I guess, but it's clearly your prerogative who you want to meet with."

"Good. I really don't want to put my self-control to the test right now."

"Meaning...?"

Bastet's ears twitched a few times. "This entire situation. That we're dealing with, right now? Practically entirely her fault. I would not be feeling particularly civil in her presence, to put it lightly.

"So. What is it that you want?"

"Well...I sincerely wanted to meet you, first of all," said the goddess of change. "The other gods I've met all said different things about you, and none of it seems like it can be entirely true—or at least not the whole story. I thought I'd get a better picture of things from your own mouth. Besides which, hearing your opinion of them is only fair. But I won't pretend it's not self-motivated, either."
"You want to convince me to keep you around."
Zotha shrugged. "Eventually, I guess, but I don't expect that from this meeting. I'd just like to know, from you, what it is I'd have to do for you to..tolerate my continued existence? And, you know, you're apparently also the only person who could get me an audience with Ouroboros—who I'd like to meet for pretty similar reasons."

"Fine, let's do the easy part first," Bastet said. "What have you heard so far?"
"Hmm...in summary, you're the goddess of cats, mystery, dreams, and fertility. You..uh, 'make' children, who are 'cat spirits', pretty much accidentally. You owe La Lune some kind of debt, but she didn't seem to feel comfortable explaining what was going on with that. La Lune goes out of her way to argue with you, and Sol thinks you act angrier than you really are and just want the world to be peaceful so you can go back to sleep."
Bastet actually snorted at this last part. "He would. Listen, Zotha. You're a functional adult. I'm sure you know very well what the natural result of 'fertility' is among, at least, mammals."
"I guess you mean..children?"
"Parenthood. Neither of those 'celestial' gods really understand the concept very well, and the fox probably doesn't care enough to mention it—she has her own 'children' to look after."

"So, you mean to say that's another of your domains."
"Right." Bastet leaned back a little in her chair. "What a mother wants for her children isn't the same thing as 'happiness' or 'survival', or even 'thriving'...nothing on such a grand scale. I worry after the fate of each and every person alive, and somewhat especially my own 'descendants'. If you really think about that, I'm sure you can work out why I get so angry with them all the time."

Zotha nodded. "Just hearing them talk about you made us feel kind of sympathetic...sorry, me and Jess I mean. But from that perspective, it does seem even a little bit worse. But...you support the veil?"

"Of course I do."

"Hm. Okay, at the risk of making you angry myself—what kind of mother wants to outlive her children?"

Bastet sat up a little bit. "Explain."
"You really need me to? All kinds of potential medical advancements are locked behind just knowing magic exists! You can literally magic people younger and healthier. I know because I've done it, and my 'people' have too. It can't just be a 'me' thing, right?"
"Hmmh." Bastet leaned forward slightly, an even more intense weariness showing in her expression. "You're still quite young, even by human standards—let alone those of an immortal or a god. I don't really expect you to understand what I mean when I say: To live forever is to suffer forever. Ultimately...I did not want that for you, either. But at this point, I guess neither of us may have a choice in the matter."

"Sol and La Lune seem pretty happy with their eternal life."
The cat goddess glared, folding her ears back; it felt like she was going to hiss or roar. Instead she said, "They are not like us! There is a difference between a force of nature 'putting on' personhood, and a mortal creature being ascended into permanence. The sun and moon were going to be around for billions of years either way; neither of us was made to last more than a hundred."
"So, you like senescence? You think people are better off dying of old age?"

Bastet took a deep breath, visibly forcing herself to calm down, and then sat up slightly. "...Even 'immortal' races don't really live forever. Certain rare accidents, or intentional attacks, can take a life in a way which no magic can curtail, and across a long enough life, even the exceptionally unlikely becomes the inevitable. But I have seen celestials throw themselves into battle hoping to finally die; ancient, once-noble demons grow nihilistic and mad; and even nine-tailed foxes grow bored of living and beg their Ruler for a swift end to their lives. And then there's..."

She slumped again, looked over at the bookshelf for a moment, and then returned to facing Zotha. "You wanted to know about my debt to La Lune? The best way I know how to tell it, is through a story."
"Okay." Zotha nodded for her to go ahead.

"...When the world was young, humanity was small, and the beasts upon the land were many, great and powerful. The humans made one of their number into a god, to give themselves power and influence—and it worked. This god held in his hands something which was essential to all life, and so his power grew quickly. With his help, the humans slew the beasts who had once threatened them, and soon became dominant over all. With their numbers, their intelligence, and their newfound power, they threatened to wipe out the beasts entirely.

"Seeking their own source of help and protection, the beasts elected one of their own to godhood as well—a cat. But she was young, as gods go, and lacked the power to help her people truly fight back against the humans and their god. Her best efforts—giving the humans nightmares, forcing them to experience the brutal deaths they were causing from the beasts' own eyes—only seemed to infuriate and embolden their efforts to hunt every down last wild thing and destroy them for good.

"In desperation, the cat cried out to the moon—ancient, wise, and powerful—for help, night after night. And, in time, the moon heard her pleas. The truth is, not every human hunted the beasts down; some respected them, wishing to live in harmony with nature, and those same humans revered the moon above all else, always dancing in her light and begging her help to grow even closer to the wild. And so, the moon gave those humans a blessing, and a task. They were given the power of moonlight and the strength of wolves, and asked in return to use those gifts to protect their fellow beasts. However, the moon was only able to grant a mixed blessing, something which could also spread as a curse among those humans less attuned to nature. Nonetheless, those who earned her blessing saw to their task diligently, fighting to protect the beasts in the name of the moon.

"The god of men saw that the beasts had the moon's favor, and—as his people were diurnal—he complained to the sun. 'Why should they have the protection of the sky, and not us?' For he remembered, as though it were still happening, the time when the beasts had hunted the humans down instead. After watching the conflict from the sky, day after day, the sun eventually replied to the god of men. He said: 'I will protect all of humanity. I will seek a pact with my sister for you. I will make protectors, swords and armor, to keep you safe from all other harm.'

"And so it was, the humans and the beasts were forced to make a truce, their own gods coerced by the very ones they had begged for help into ceasing hostilities and forgiving the harm their people had done to each other. Humans and nature have remained largely at odds ever since then, even as most beasts became more human, and more humans became as beasts—but never has there been an unending war like there was at the first. None of the gods would allow it. Even the cat and the man wished never to relive the trauma of their beginnings.

"...Do you understand?"

Zotha nodded. "It seems pretty clear-cut to me. So—you were originally the goddess of beastfolk too, but La Lune took that job from you?"
"I asked her to take it. And every day, every moment she helps those who are now her people in that role—that is the debt I owe. It isn't really something that can be repaid, but in conversation with her I feel compelled to speak as though it were. She can't explain it because it is a part of her nature, woven in before she was 'her'—when she was more a force than a person."

"And Sol's whole 'protect humanity and make it thrive' thing. Was similarly in his nature before he was really a 'person'?"
"More or less."

"So, where's Fox come into this story—I mean, the Ruler of Foxes? Or Ouroboros, for that matter?"
"Later. Nearly the entirety of a species of foxlike demons, lovers of jokes and tricks, but whose pranks nearly always proved fatal to the victim due to their own dark nature, sought to expunge that harmful part of themselves. They received the blessing of the gods in their task—for the simple reason that they would do far less harm if their efforts succeeded—and after many rituals, were finally able to seal a mutual agreement into their very being. Now their demonic nature is purged so long as a 'Ruler' presides over them, enforcing their agreed-upon 'law'—aside from the descendants of those who did not agree to that Deal in the first place, who are now few and far between.

"And: A prideful dragon wished to truly live forever, and used his immense power and influence to make himself a god. He did not take very long to regret that act, upon seeing his own instincts wreaking havoc upon the world. Only with the help of those gods he once ignored was he able to restructure those instincts, coming to consider the world itself his 'hoard', and harm to it 'stealing'."

"That all makes sense to me. You're a pretty good storyteller, you know?"
"Comes with the territory." Bastet looked away just ever so slightly; was she actually being bashful about the compliment?

"...You know, it sounds to me like you're a lot older than Egypt. But, they gave you your name?"
Bastet looked a little annoyed again—but probably not at Zotha. "My present name, at least. Their..disgusting breeding program altered my nature, and that of my 'children', for good. The thing you call a 'domestic cat' didn't exist before then."

"So before that, your 'children' were...what, just various kinds of wildcats?"
"More or less. My own physical form is, likewise, irrevocably that of a wild beast."

"And yet, you prefer to present yourself that way here, where—I'm guessing you can pretty much make yourself look like whatever?"

"This is how I would prefer to be seen: An ordinary person, just trying to get through another day of being alive. It's how I really feel about myself.

"...Let's move on. You want to meet with Ouroboros? That's only fair. He deserves an introduction not colored by my opinions. Give me some time to convince him, and then we'll arrange it. Definitely better than him waking up angry."

"That's..surprisingly nice of you?" Zotha said.

"I'm only being practical. Anyway..."

The cat goddess sighed, putting an elbow on the desk so she could lean the right half of her chin on that hand. Her expression was serious and deeply sad, but something about the glowing, catlike eyes made Zotha feel like she was being watched (hunted?) by a large, wild animal all the same. "Knowing what my priorities are, I'm hoping you realize by now: I don't dislike you as a person. Who you are..is just fine with me. I could even go so far as to say I'm proud of you, Zotha. But that isn't the problem.

"What you are..is dangerous. Volatile. You have a human mind, just like he does, and those things can be very fragile across a timescale of several millennia. I gained most of my consciousness through ascension, and I'm barely keeping it together these days. Ouroboros was of a race that can live for a very long time, and yet has to take thousand-year naps to keep himself sane. I'm worried for you, yes, but I'm more worried about what happens to everyone else when you start to get worse. The aspects you carry could wreak even more havoc than 'broken love' ever has.

"You are a victim of circumstances beyond your control—in both an immediate, and also something of a cosmic sense—and you have tried very hard, so far, to make the best of it. Knowing that, it would be very painful for me to destroy you right after your ascension...but still far less so than what I now think will happen in the future. So...it isn't a matter of you doing something or not, you understand?"

Zotha nodded, and then after a pause said, "...I didn't think it'd be easy for me to earn your trust in the first place."

She sat up again, dropping her arm back to her side. "That goal is pretty much impossible. My trust has been broken far too many times, and those who still have it have been around for the majority of my existence. What you said the first time, 'tolerate'...that is something I'm pretty used to doing. I already see your continued existence becoming an inevitability, as beings I can't overrule and powers I've got little influence over conspire to maintain your existence. I have accepted many other things I dislike and can't control, so this is just one more...but getting used to it will still take me a very. Long. Time."

"Well then, maybe I can at least trust you. Since you know what it looks like when one of us 'goes bad', I'm sure you'd be able to warn me?"
"I don't think it will do any good. But I certainly will try."

"I find that reassuring," Zotha said with her best smile.

"...Anyway. I guess you must not like that other ascended human very much—maybe even less than the other gods seem to?"
"I think..very much the opposite. Yes, we hated each other when we were young. But it didn't take much hindsight afterward to realize that we'd both been trying to do the same thing all along. A peace in which neither of 'our people' were killing the other in droves was vastly better than either side 'winning' could have been. Now, I understand his pain better than anyone else...but I also know from direct experience how extremely dangerous it makes him. Likewise, I was angry at Sol and La Lune at first for 'betraying' us and forcing a peace nobody wanted at the time...but as I saw the generations pass and the old blood feuds die, fading from memory to history to near-forgotten legend, I understood the wisdom of their decision."

"So, they're the ones you really trust?"
Bastet nodded. "Sol is...aggravating. It's in his nature to take charge of any urgent situation immediately, which is usually great. But when he is wrong, it's nearly impossible to convince him to stop and think about what he's doing, or even listen to anyone else's opinion. And La Lune, I know, really wants to be friendly, but her mercurial nature has her intentionally provoking me to anger just as often as being civil and reasonable."
"And while we're at it, the Fox Ruler?"
"The present fox's behavior has been largely acceptable; she would not have kept her position for so long otherwise. Regardless, I never really worry about the foxes, since the position of a nameless enforcer of their Rules is a costly and dangerous one to hold. Eventually they grow weary of making that sacrifice—or make a terrible mistake and get annihilated—and someone new steps up."
"And..Ouroboros?"

"He was a foolish, prideful dragon who ignored all of our express warnings. Yet he learned quickly the price of his actions, and acquired a certain amount of humility as a result. Now, he is a solid pillar holding up the foundation of the world. And after his ascension, we were able to make use of his nature as a dragon to ensure that no other dragon can ever ascend again, preventing someone even more foolish than he was from making the same mistake."

"Wait—but, you can't do that with humans?"
She shook her head slightly. "Humans don't have a 'uniform nature' the way dragons, or for instance celestials, demons, or Kistune do. It would be like if you tried to specify an exact, different transformation for each one of two billion people spread randomly across the globe, and make them all happen simultaneously, except even more costly and prone to unintended side effects—and that's including your own nature's tendency toward those. Don't get me wrong, we closed off every avenue we could reasonably manage, but you are proof that that wasn't perfect."

"Okay, well that's pretty much everything I can think of. Anything else you want to say?" Zotha asked.

Bastet paused as if she hadn't expected this question, seemed to think about it for a moment, then frowned and folded her ears back again. "Tell Jess that I am very disappointed in her. I don't think she'll understand the gravity of that message, but you should deliver it anyway." Then, her expression returning to neutral/tired: "I'll be in touch when I've convinced Ouroboros to hear you out."
"All right. You want to end off with a handshake or something, or just—?"

Before she could finish that sentence, Zotha woke up—really woke up, this time.

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Another "landmark moment" of this story I've been looking forward to, with lots of little reveals woven into it. As eager as I was to get here, I feel like the story would get kind of repetitive and expositiony if we had too many "meeting a god for the first time" parts too close to each other, both in-universe and in terms of how many parts there were between. Hopefully this strikes the right balance.