Legend of Ransera

A wish, and a promise

When Kala felt the tug, she let it pull her out of her home and into—when she looked around—the interior of Freya's wagon. It all seemed less corporeal to her, and she to Freya, than last time. Perhaps the request for guidance didn't require a full manifestation. There was just so much she didn't know about what she was becoming still.

"Good night to you," she said to Freya and to Asteri by way of greeting, though the words usually presaged a farewell in Common. She had heard the prayer even as she was pulled through space and she could only respond with what she knew of her own people. "Likely being unable to feel his bond has been difficult. I don't imagine he can't feel it at all. The Obelisk is... quite powerful. But no handlers, no other Kathar. Even in Imperial territory, his travel companions are far from what he is used to."

She smiled, soft, wry, amused. "Even goddesses, and I would guess, dragonborn and star spirits, can grow accustomed to things and feel their lack."

Kala paused. It almost felt as though she had no body, but was just a shape made up of energy. This wasn't how it felt to be drunk on ghostwine, nor other, similar situations she had encountered. No, this was new.

"Are you worried? I would not push him for answers he doesn't want to share, but..." She smiled. "A dragon might be more determined to know than I am."

"Perhaps our aid has given him pause," she said, "or his treatment before you found him. A sea change in one's perspective is often unsettling in ways one can only articulate after some time. I would offer him my ear or my counsel, but I think you would be more likely to gain his trust. You are an oddity; I am The Enemy."

Kala smiled.

"I don't think it arrogance on your part. To think you were entitled to the secrets of his heart would be a sort of arrogance, I think, but I don't think that is what you mean. A part of me hopes he will change his mind ere the morrow. I have risked some knowledge of myself that he could take to his superiors. Eventually, I will not be able to act always from the shadows, but... I cannot force the Kathar out of bondage, only offer them an alternative and a means to take it. I think I was given functional immortality because the work will be longer than any one life."

The faint, ghostly form seemed to steel itself regardless. She sighed, clearly frustrated; it wasn't the first time, but perhaps the first time Freya had seen it.

"I want to sever his bond to the Obelisk so my hand will be the only thing that will keep him from drowning, but that is not kind. That is not just. The ends do not justify the means, not for me." Not yet, perhaps, because even as she was growing into a goddess, she didn't know the minds of the Gods.

"If you can dissuade him from returning, I would be obliged. Perhaps ask him to travel farther with you, give him more time to try to frame his new experiences with what he has always known until he realizes the truth."

The more-faint-than-usual echo of Kala watched her think. Perhaps she looked omniscient, but she certainly wasn't, nor was she employing her runic senses in order to know what Freya was thinking. Perhaps when she more fully ascended, she would bear less respect for the sanctity of another's mind, but she rather hoped not. If the demigods were bridges between mortals and the more unknowable Greater Gods, then it would behoove her to keep one foot in her mortality, at least until and unless she grew to such power that she became a Greater God herself.

"If you choose to look," she said quietly, "may the stars align to give you auspicious wisdom. And I hope he does follow you. I would feel better knowing you had an Avialae companion—not that you can't look after yourself, but well, I was Unity before I took on the starry mantle."

Kala smiled quietly too. Her eyes dropped to Asteri's.

"And then you can keep both of them out of trouble, eh?" she asked the stellar spirit.

After a pause, she regarded Freya once more.

"Do not punish yourself if the outcome is not as we might wish. Lucius has free will; we can only support his choices or attempt to steal that from him as the Imperium has done. Believe me: I understand how easy it is to take this personally, as a personal crusade even. But the geas was laid upon me; let me bear that burden and express my gratitude that you would seek to help me in this."

Kala nodded, then observed Freya as she considered. Perhaps this would be her role when she was fully ascended, holding space for people as they worked through their problems.

That Freya was bonded to a star spirit connected them. That she sought a sort of unity with the unfriendly Avialae was another, more powerful pull even. Perhaps, if Kala were rising to new heights of power and understanding, it was better she support and guide Freya and Lucius in making their own decisions. Free will, after all, was a gift of the Gods. She wondered whether it came from Eikaen or Naori, or somehow both. Everyone spoke of Order and Chaos as though they were irreconcilable opposites, but Kala had always poked at paradoxes, shaking them like puzzle boxes until she had the right perspective to understand the illusion and see through it.

Perhaps that was a seed of wisdom, even as being aware that no matter how much one knew that they didn't know the half of things, was another seed.

As Kala evolved, she could help others evolve as well.

"I cannot claim to know the future or the correct course of action," she warned. "But what I understand of Destiny and Fate are... we have been given the holy gift of choice. We are responsible for our choices, while the outcomes belong to the Great Gods. We control the means by which we do things, and Fate decides the ends. You want to help. You have helped. You will offer to help yet more. After that, the baton will have passed to him and you will have to respect his choices, and take comfort that you did what you thought was right given the situation and the context you had in it.

"For what it's worth," she added, smiling serenely, "I think you are doing excellent work. He is lucky to have found you, or, rather, been found by you."