Intended Purpose | Glowfic Constellation

Ow.

She attempts to push back up with trembling arms, but they give out and she collapses again.

Well, that's all right then. No more electric shocks for the seven year old. She can just stay down for now.

Yeah, she's just going to stay curled up here.

When it's time to go pray again, she can just about manage a walk.

Excellent.

What is she going to thank Maeverine for today?

Oh no she has no idea she is too tired for this... at least kneeling is appropriate, she doesn't have to keep standing. Ellie drops down to her knees and lowers her head. Uh. Notes? Right.

"Maeverine. Thank you for letting us run around; I don't really do it that much." (because it's so terrible and everything hurts ahh whyy) "I like the books you left for me. I think if I had some paper and charcoal to take notes with I could learn what's in them better."

"I'll see about getting them for you," says Maeverine, agreeably. "Poor child, I know you've had a hard day. It's all right, it'll get easier. Why don't you go to your room and I'll bring you dinner?"

"That sounds, nice. Thank you."

Wobble wobble back to bed, collapse therein.

Food appears shortly after, neatly on a tray nearby.

It is quite delicious.

Ellie is too tired to pay much attention to the flavor.

After she's done eating, she considers whether to go back to the books, but sleep ambushes her before she can make a proper decision.

That's fine.

The next morning she wakes up tucked in, pillow under her head and shoes off of her feet.

"Good morning, Ellie. You can have today off, I know you're exhausted from yesterday. Don't worry, I'll bring you food, and you can make your daily prayers here."

Isn't that nice of her.

"Thank you, Maeverine." Ellie attempts to stretch, but all her muscles groan in protest. She aborts the attempt.

"You're welcome. I'll always take care of you, so long as you serve me."

Breakfast!

It's pretty plain, again.

Ellie wasn't serving when Maeverine killed her parents, oh that must be it. She needs to remember that.

She finishes breakfast, and reaches for the geography and history books again.

They are just as interesting as before! Is there a time period she would like to focus on learning about?

She wants to know about the transition period, from menacing gods to caring gods.

Apparently it wasn't completely pleasant, and didn't happen all at once. A few of the menacing gods just died on their own - sort of like a flame that consumes all of its fuel, only to die out. At one point, though, several of the menacing gods made an alliance together, to attempt to return to being able to terrify people without interference. The caring gods responded by making an alliance of their own. The caring gods' alliances proved to be more stable than their peers'. When the mean gods inevitably betrayed each other at pivotal points to try to gain power and territory, their enemies swooped in to pick up the pieces and persuade the people that had been worshiping them to leave. With better options available, the menacing gods' followers quickly converted, and the gods' support network collapsed underneath them. Then they died, starved of followers and bereft of power to persuade new ones to fear them.

Maeverine seems to sort of straddle the divide. When did she pop up?

Relatively recently, actually. She's taken advantage of her isolation to quietly gather power over the past century, leaving the mountains that make finding her more difficult.

Hmm.

Ellie thinks she might not fall over if she gets up now. Her legs are stiff, but don't complain quite so insistently as she takes a walk around her room.

"Maeverine? Can I have some paper now, please?"

"You may."

And then there is paper, and a stick of charcoal.

"Thank you."

Ellie sits back down with them, and records what she can remember from reading the history book last night. Drawing out the maps helps with that.

Then back to the books. More recent history, this time.

Perinixu is the most major of the more recent gods; a goddess of healing, though the way the book describes her, she sounds rather similar to Maeverine. Perhaps not with the torture and murder and kidnapping, but she seems very controlling of her followers. Apparently there's a sort-of alliance between her and Raezenoth, but the book doesn't expand on why this sort-of alliance has occurred. This is likely to his benefit, because he and Varkalosix very famously hate each other, and are waging a long-term, low-key war that doesn't look like it'll end anytime soon. In comparison, Opedist and Kalandax are waging a less low-key war, much further away. Apparently on Kalandax's side, it gets a bit messy. Cartalomir tends to ignore other gods if they leave him alone, and he can probably afford to; no one particularly wants to poke the behemoth in the north.

There's a number of minor gods and goddesses as well that are new and relatively untested. Tamaryse is the oldest, and a goddess of renewal; apparently her most noteworthy characteristic is that it rains a lot in her domain. Bereth, a forest goddess, seems to be taking a page out of Cartalomir's book and focuses on healthy harvests and a safe domain. Sivuari is a lake god, and the author isn't quite sure what he does. Or even how he's still alive. He keeps to himself, is notoriously quiet, and generally doesn't bother anyone. Tisvetaia is a goddess of some kind of tropics, and her focus seems to be preservation, whatever that means when applied to a domain and the people in it. Then there's the decay god and the god of hunting, but Tisvetaia seems to have taken issue to the former, and Raezenoth keeps stealing bits of land from the latter. (How a desert god manages to win any people over is something of a mystery, the book still doesn't clarify what his strategy is.)

Notetaking, notetaking.

Some of these places and gods sound interesting. Ellie doesn't like this swamp. Even a desert would be better. (She is very careful not to write this sentiment down.)

This is for the best, Maeverine probably wouldn't appreciate it.

Dinner arrives on another tray.