Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2) (13 page)

Her hope sustained her, and she grew
toward that sky.

Their struggles
disturbed the water as they were the only things moving in the
water with such strength, fury, and purpose
,
mainly to escape, or not,
as the case may be. They churned the ocean with their powers, and
the water was riled up all the way down to the ocean floor as the
ocean recognized them as outsiders
,
children of Day and Night. While
they struggled, rain and stars fell from the sky, and the sun and
the moon shone over the ocean
,
and at this point, the ocean
realized they were meant to live in the sky. The powerful forces
were commanding it to let them go. They could not die down here,
out of the sky, and the ocean had to get rid of them before the sky
got angry at the ocean for losing them.

So the ocean floor
rose up to meet them at this point, and take them to the sky when
the water could not hold them. Loqwa, who was still diving when
this happened, did not want to surface when the ocean floor rose up
to greet him. He continued going downward
,
this time digging as he
created valleys, trenches, and canyons in the ocean floor in his
attempt to escape life. But as he did so, however, he opened
holes
,
holes to other dimensions, and other worlds, that he could
look through and see what was on the other side. And so he knew
that death was not the end of life, but rather the beginning of
something more. He was interested in this, in finding out more
about the other side, even as they came closer to life.

Popo, meanwhile,
started urging the ocean floor to rise higher and faster with his
powers. As he realized what was happening, that they were being
saved by the ocean, he wondered why they were being
saved
,
what purpose they might have in order to live. Yet as he
created mountains and hills in this manner, their peaks rising
above and beyond his sight, he realized that he had a higher
purpose in life, not death; by attempting to escape death, he had
used his powers, and those powers were greater than himself. And so
Popo called himself a god because of those powers, the very first
one as he thought he deserved to live and use these powers for the
greater good of the world he might help to create.

Even though Menthar
was being saved by the ocean, he was still angry at the water, and
burned even hotter and faster as they got closer to the
surface
and air. He boiled the water
around him, and as he did so, microscopic creatures that lived in
the water
,
and had lived there even before the sky had been
created
,
were sparked with new life, real life as they started growing
into the creatures of land and sky. The ocean creatures that were
created wiggled off the rising ocean floor, and back into the sea,
although a few creatures would live in between.

Menthar burned
minerals in the water as well, which got embedded inside the rock
and land that was forming and became gems and precious materials
buried deep inside the earth. Yet Menthar did not realize what he
was doing as, so furious still, he could not fathom the life being
returned to him, only of the bad that had been done to him, and his
thoughts could not rest so long as he lived in remembrance of the
hatred he had felt and of what had happened to him. And these
thoughts would eventually lead to his undoing as, affected by such
bad thoughts, he would do more to spread evil throughout his
existence than to dispel it. For though the evil that he was about
to deliver was not natural to him, in the sense that he came down
from the sky just as pure as his brothers and sister, he was still
infected by the demon of hatred and envy. Loqwa might have released
this demon when he was digging deep into the ocean floor, and
opened a hole into another world that Menthar’s liquid
fire
,
lava,
flowed
through, and entered out of, but Menthar’s mind
was still the source of this demon.

And his acts would not be forgotten by
others, nor would he be alone in doing such acts, for the creatures
that had grown because of his rage and his fury would be affected
by the warmth of his immortal fire in that water for the rest of
their lives. They would feel passion and hatred for each other, and
feed upon each other to stay alive all of their existence, and the
evil would spread.

Mila realized that they were being
saved when she felt the ocean floor bearing her up alongside her
brothers. But she did not question this event as she knew that the
sky must have intervened with the ocean to save them. Instead she
thanked the sky for his help, and then went to the task of setting
things up for the return to the sky; namely, she started growing
the underwater plants into trees and the forest as she thought to
herself that the trees would be necessary for helping them to
breathe on the surface, making air for the sky. And the ocean floor
broke the surface at last, becoming land.

The four gods inhaled deeply and then
stepped out, looking around at each other and at the land
surrounding them. It was fully formed, with mountains, hills,
forests, rivers and lakes (where the ocean had not completely
drained away), valleys, and more. The four gods were closest to the
forest that Mila had made as they realized that only part of the
ocean floor had risen up with them; the land was surrounded by
ocean. And though there might be more land in the distance, where
the ocean had attempted to catch and find them in their struggles,
still it wasn’t quite so big. And the sky was still above them;
they reached up to the sky, hoping to be taken back up into the sun
and the clouds, but Day and Night were yet negligent of their four
children.

Popo, Mila, Menthar and Loqwa realized
they could not expect to be rescued any more than they already had,
and so the four gods turned to face one another. While underwater,
they had been so concerned about themselves that they had not taken
notice of each other enough to think about the others as
individuals. Instead, they had been aware that there were siblings,
or other relatives, struggling close by just like them, but not
enough to know what their characters were.

Popo could now see
his siblings in broad daylight, and he appraised them as he assumed
that he would be their new leader now, and he needed to know who he
would be dealing with here. They were a ragtag bunch, especially
Menthar and Loqwa
,
when his two brothers seemed sullen for some
reason
,
but at least Mila was pretty enough and seemed pleasant
enough to be a good companion for him. Popo assumed he would be
paired with her when the other two weren’t so pleasant to be
around, and she might side towards him out of fear of the others or
empathy for him.

Menthar was scowling at everyone,
especially Popo and Loqwa when his two brothers seemed too solemn
and serious. But he softened at the sight of Mila, who seemed to be
warm and forgiving--easy to bend and easy to break, perhaps, if he
wanted to get close to her.

Loqwa was uncertain
about his siblings. He saw some strange looks being exchanged
between Popo and Menthar
,
angry, hateful
looks
,
before their eyes were all directed at Mila, almost hungrily.
He did not comment on their behavior, but only watched, as he felt
like he shouldn’t intervene. For one thing, his brothers seemed to
ignore him out of natural instinct
,
like they wanted to look away
from him and not acknowledge him out of fear of acknowledging the
inevitable, death. He did not quite like that. He was no worse, and
might even be better, than they were.

Yet he did not intervene in this
situation now because he wanted to be attended to and paid
attention to just like Mila was, but that would only happen when he
was needed in this situation. Then he might be acknowledged as
being just as important as any of his siblings. Meanwhile, Mila was
a little uncertain about her siblings as well. For though she could
not know that she was the cause of the tension beneath the surface,
she knew that something was amiss, and that she might be the target
of it. Her brothers had been affected—especially Popo and Menthar,
who seemed to be circled around her, and staring at each other—and
she was afraid that whatever might happen next, she would be
affected as well, and changed like they were. She turned, and saw
Loqwa staring at her with a sad look in his eyes. She edged away
from him, closer to Popo and Menthar, and then realized what she
was doing.

Habala stopped
reading Basha’s copy of
Legends of
Arria
at this point, vaguely
uncomfortable, as if the myth with Menthar and Popo and Mila
reminded her of
…
she could not imagine what
exactly, although it pulsated in her mind, the two brothers and the
girl they both loved. She did not like to think about that part of
her life, when she had been so young and naive, and it had been so
long ago that she was an entirely different person now, or so she
hoped.

She would like to think that she had
changed since then, and that she could excuse her actions then as
those of an amused, whimsical girl whose perceptions, narrowed as
they were by years spent living in the forest, had broadened only
after her mistake. She would rather shutter off that part of her
memories and of herself to another part of her mind, somewhere she
could forget about them, but she could not really. She had to
remember so that she would not make that same mistake again.

In any case, she
closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and left the boys’
bedroom, shutting the door behind her and turning around, only to
nearly collide with Brigga. Brigga stopped, clutching a hamper
basket of bed linen close to her that she had just brought in from
the clothesline, and curtseyed as best she could. “I am sorry,
ma’am,” Brigga began, eying the floor, “I should have watched where
I am going
.
”

“
Instead of watching
where I am,” Habala said, and then stopped herself. “No, I am
sorry, I
…
how is Nisa?” She asked.

“
Recovering slowly,
it was a bad illness,” Brigga said, nodding as she looked up. “She
eats very little now, but at least she’s managing to eat, and keep
it down in her stomach, which is a relief to me.”

“
Good, glad to hear
that,” Habala said, slightly disgusted by the description as she
started to turn and head for the back door and the
kitchen.

“
However, I think she
might be considering not coming back for a while longer.” Brigga
said over her shoulder to Habala in a low voice.

“
What do you mean?”
Habala asked, turning back and staring at her.

“
I mean that when
Nisa is well, she might to decide to visit her cousin, a few miles
away from here.” Brigga said, turning to Habala. “She just had a
baby
.
”

“
A baby? Her cousin?”
Habala asked, arching an eyebrow. “Is this the truth?”

Brigga sighed. “What is wrong with you?
Of course it is the truth.”

“
It’s nothing, I’m
just wondering, that is all,” Habala said, looking down at the
floor as Brigga started to leave. “What is the name of your
daughter’s cousin, your niece I imagine?” She asked.

“
Hestia,” Brigga
said, going towards the common room and the stairs up to the guest
rooms.

“
Hestia.” Habala
muttered, shaking her head. “Right, Hestia.” She went outside,
deciding not to follow Brigga for now, especially when she had her
own chores to take care of at the moment, but she would have a talk
with her childhood friend soon about Nisa. Brigga could not keep up
with this lie.

The Old
Man was
out on patrol as he
usually was during the day, maintaining the magical shield
surrounding Coe Baba and making sure that nothing was amiss, when
he had stopped for a moment to watch as Brigga took down dry bed
linen from the clothesline in the inn yard. She had gone to work at
the inn, just like Nisa had said she would, that was good, the Old
Man thought to himself vaguely, but mostly, he watched Brigga’s
fluid movements as she untied the twists on the line, folded up the
linen, and placed them back in the hamper basket. Though she was
not as young as she once was, having spent years at work and
raising a child on her own, she was just as beautiful, perhaps even
more so, than she had been as a young adult, not long after her
childhood years.

Brigga
was an exceptional woman, the Old Man thought to himself, able to
stand up to any challenge that stood in her way, and
remain undeterred. She always had
been that way, it was what had attracted her to him and him to her
in the first place, and he had thought then that she might be able
to handle…he shook his head, and sighed to himself. He never should
have assumed that she would be able to handle a long-term
relationship with him, especially when it was so
strange.

T
he age differences
between them was phenomenal, lifetimes’ and generations’ worth that
the Old Man had lived through, and he felt that age difference
whenever he was with Brigga, remembering all of the people that he
had loved so long ago, and now they were gone, nothing more than
dust. One day, Brigga would, most likely, be nothing more than dust
in his hands, and he would be left alone once more. He did not want
to live through that pain again.