45. Reflection

  “There, that’s one problem solved,” Atla said, manifesting back in his boy form by my side in the box with Di Tonilla and the other members of the tournament committee.

  My palm was pressed calmly to my face as I processed what had just happened. “Atla, what exactly do you think that you just did?” I asked.

  “I made it so that they won’t bug me when I’m a boy anymore,” he said. “No more weird statues of the real me. Now they’ll be making weird statues of Matla instead. And I can set up my earth-self-mind to pretty much handle the prayers that she gets without bugging my eidolon-self-mind with all of that. I’m actually really proud of this solution.”

  I forced myself to take a deep breath, reminded myself how young he was, how fast he was growing, and how little a planet could actually empathize with any of the creatures growing on it. His ability to manifest as an eidolon was amazing. The fact that he could manifest three distinct facets to his eidolon was beyond my wildest expectations for him.

  “You just started a religion,” I said.

  “Yeah. You said that I was already on the way to becoming a fertility goddess, but I don’t want to be a boy fertility goddess. It makes more sense for a woman to do that, doesn’t it? So I made a beautiful woman that represents motherhood and I—”

  “And you used Taimei as a base for your eidolon?”

  “What? No, no I didn’t,” he said, suddenly defensive. “It doesn’t look anything like her.”

  “Except for her breasts and belly it looks exactly like her,” I insisted. “How do you think she’ll feel when she walks into a church to you and sees a statue of herself.”

  Atla was quiet for a moment, sounding chastised when he hopefully suggested “Happy?”

  I sighed. “And she actually is pregnant right now too, adding another layer to the complication. Honestly, I’m sorry Atla, but so much about what you just did is...I don’t want to say wrong, but it’s so complicated and I don’t think you understand the half of it. You founded a religion today. With a head priest and a mission.”

  “So? People were already praying to me. Now I can give them rules,” Atla argued. “Now they’ll now why I’m punishing them when I punish them.”

  “You’ve been punishing people? We talked about that,” I said.

  “Yeah, and I understand that you think that it’s up to divine law about what happens to bad people, but the thing is that I’m the world. I have a say on what people do on me, don’t I? So if they don’t like me, then they can go to another world and follow that worlds rules instead,” he said.

  “Atla, mortals can’t just hop between worlds,” I protested.

  “They could if you let them,” he argued.

  “No, I don’t have any other worlds in my network to send them to! If they were to ascend, they’d be stuck coming right back to you. I told you that enforced morality isn’t true morality, it’s—”

  “Yeah, but you also said that children need lessons when they’re young and that as a parent it’s okay to tell them what’s good and bad without them understanding why. Well I’m following your lessons with my rules,” Atla insisted. “I’m just not explaining all of the details. And it will make so much more sense to people now that I have Toorah to explain things to them.”

  I sighed. “This is why I hate religions,” I muttered to myself, reflecting on the irony of that statement.

  I had, after all, spent multiple lifetimes as a devout follower. Including the one that had set me on this path which I now walked, in another lifetime.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Whatever,” Atla said, pouting at me. “You have more people praying in your name than I do in mine.”

  “I do not,” I said.

  “Wanna bet?” he argued.

  And then he abruptly did something to me that I wasn’t expecting. He reached through the Xian bond and fused with me for just a second, and I had a sense to feel what it was like to be him.

  He was aware of everything, everywhere, that was happening on him. From the tallest mountain to the deepest trench, to the magma flows beneath the crust and even the steady turning core that was his heart. He could feel us running around his skin like little bugs, and they tickled, and if he thought about it for a second he knew almost everything to know about every single one of those little bugs.

  But he especially knew me, for every few seconds someone would remind him of me. Someone would call out one of my names.

  “Worldfather, grant me strength!”

  “Po Guah, show me the way!”

  “Well aren’t you a precious little bug, my sweet child?”

  Everywhere throughout the world, people were using my name. They were swearing by me, cursing by me, praying to me for strength, courage, wisdom, or justice.

  It was overwhelming, and I realized all at once how incredibly correct I had been to not attempt to subsume Atla when he’d manifested. Not because he couldn’t take the merging, but because I couldn’t. This was only a surface level one-ness, and it lasted for but a moment, but I was completely overwhelmed.

  I gasped as I came back to myself.

  “Yeah and today is a quiet day since everyone is watching the tournament in the cities,” he said, yawning. “So honestly, you’re almost as much of a god as I am, I think.”

  I frowned as I struggled to catch my breath. I turned to Di Tonilla.

  “I need to think,” I said. “I cannot protect the fighters from themselves when I’m distracted like this. Pause the tournament.”

  “Yeah, I think maybe that’s a good idea,” she said, nodding. “What will you do?”

  “Go to my temple and think.”

  ~~~~~~~

  I was alone with my thoughts in the building that I had thought a gift of fear. The mansion that was built far enough from the city that the weight of my presence would not inconvenience anyone. I saw now the impressive architecture, the statues, the fountains, and the gardens that were already grown thanks to Atla’s interventions.

  It truly was fit for a god to live here, I thought to myself. Not that I would ever see myself as a god.

  I had been looking at this tournament the wrong way, I realized. I had thought that something important would happen, I was waiting for someone to emerge as a leader and make a clear choice that would catapult the future one way or another. My visions of fate had shown me as much would happen, but they hadn’t shown me who this great leader was.

  I understood why now. For there is no mirror that reflects ones own fate. I saw the paths, but could not see the forest I was walking through, for I was one of the trees.

  Or something. I wasn’t the best at metaphors as I realized that one of my quiet fears had come true.

  I didn’t want people to see me as a god.

  I closed my eyes, and I processed that emotion. I tried to look into the future, but it remained nebulous. There were too many possibilities left open for me to take, and for others to take, and I didn’t know which of them were most likely to happen, or more likely to happen. I couldn’t see which ones were for the best, or the worst.

  I was blind.

  Like a mortal.

  A knock at the door while I was scribbling my thoughts on a parchment, and I rose to answer it. Mai Mai, my mother, Taimei, Di Tonilla, Di Ram, Di Phon, and Toorah were all there.

  “Husband,” Mai Mai said. “Let me make you some tea.”

  ?