No community is entirely without things to learn, but Leshy has been getting bored nonetheless; not much is happening. So he bids his temporary neighbors goodbye and heads out along the road. It looks like the sky clears out ahead - savanna, he was told. He heard the name Iabeltha, but not many details.
So he walks on alone, watching the surroundings, pinecone sewn into a bag around his neck. And waits for someone to call to him or something.
The terrain changes sharply in the way it does where gods show their edges: it's grass, up ahead, with a few trees singly or in small clumps, each big enough to offer a decent patch of shade.
"Probably a little friendlier than most savanna," he mutters quietly, painting some shorthand notes along his arm, "Especially keeping good shade near the road."
"All the savannas I know of are friendly. But many things can be surprising," says the pinecone.
There's farms, in the savannah. Here's a field of peas. Nice tidy rows. Farmhouse in the distance.
Then he will say hello to a farmhouse! Hello, farmers. Here is a wandering traveler who would like to hear about the places you live and the times you have lived through. He will trade you stories of his own, most of them certified almost certainly true.
The guest-greeting farmer - a lady meets him at the door with a baby and she also has four older children and a sister and a husband and an uncle on hand - blinks at him. "Certified almost certainly true? What a peculiar thing to say," she says.
"Well, the thing about stories from history is that most of the people who recorded it aren't around to ask, so it's hard to say if they were telling the whole truth. But it's close to true, at least, and where our library heard it from more than one place, better than that."
"The library of the goddess Baborakon. Paper and ink from the forests, learning from her people, and collecting stories from across the continent from her scribes and her acolytes. I've come out this way to hear about the countries and gods, and collect more stories to bring home."
"Ooh, a library goddess! That's very concrete. Our Iabeltha's a goddess of efficiency, which is much more abstract than that."
"Usually she says she's a goddess of learning, and there are schools and things too she helps with back home. But her biggest temples are all libraries. What are Iabeltha's like?"
"The little ones are also waystations - with little maps in them, pointing out what's which way - and the big ones, I've never been but I hear they're often multipurpose, when there aren't church events people will have parties or classes or meetings and things there. Sometimes they're hostels too."
"It's good to have them be useful. One of Baborakon's neighbors has a city full of big magnificent temples but they're all empty except for worshiping - or admiring the architecture, which is maybe the same thing to him - and it always feels like a waste."
"He's a grandiose fellow, is Sargothal, says he's a god of 'Majesty.' Very nice city, though, in a river delta and has merchants bringing things from everywhere. I like the forests better, but I also like the road best, if I was stuck at home I might rather the city."
"There's a neighbor god who's a river god. The news says Iabeltha's thinking about letting him cross her."
"Rivers can be very good neighbors, good for the crops and the travelers. The news, you say? Traveling criers?"
"Hmm, who does do the writing...? I'll be sure to see it in person soon, anyway, so if it's dull to explain don't mind me."
"I think some priests have it as part of their ministry? I don't really read bylines."
"That would make sense." The copying and distribution seems like the interesting part, but he can ask at the temple. "And that's how you hear about things from across her territory? Do you hear much from further away?"
"Anything that manages to get across the border in the first place, sure. What with the talking to the river god some of the news is from quite far indeed, though if you ask me I don't see what we're supposed to do about any of it if it's that far off."
"Well, you might decide to go and see for yourself, or your neighbor might. Knowing more about the world rarely hurts."
"That'd take a mighty long time and by then whatever it was would likely as not be news any more. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad there's traveler types out there like you, but it's not me."
"Oh, absolutely. If we were all travelers, there wouldn't be much to travel to. But I think it's good to show people little glimpses of other places. Sometimes it gives them ideas about what to do closer to home."
"Not that I've heard, but you might learn something else that helps you out. About... raising children, or dealing with arguments with your neighbors."
"What've you got about raising children, then?" (The children, except for the sleeping baby, have been spending this conversation playing with dried empty peapods and a straw doll.)
"Hmm, I didn't have anything specific in mind...", he says, but pulls a book out of his satchel.
He slowly flips pages, forward and backward. "No, no... Less useful with the little trees here..."
"There's bigger trees some places but this area's mostly clear for the farms."
"That one was about kids climbing trees - it can get them in big trouble with tall pines, and there are a lot of little boys who are damn hard to discourage from trying to climb them until it's gone wrong for them. But the trees here grow more out than up, and I don't know if there's other things that are a similar kind of tempting."
"Huh, one of the girls is our climber."
"I can get onto the barn roof!" beams the gaptooth girl.
"And you can get down again safely? That's the real trick, with the big pines."
"Well, if you're not worrying your mother too much with it, then good for you. I bet you can see people coming a long way, from up there."
"That's good, too. You're fine to get down if you nap a little too long and get stuck up there in the dark?"
"That's never happened."
Her mother cuts in. "There's a trapdoor above the hayloft, she can get in that way if she wants."
"Then you have none of our problems with our tree-climbers and might as well enjoy yourself." He flips another page in the book.
"Not quite. I can use it to look through Baborakon's libraries, and write straight back into them like making an offering. All her acolytes carry something like it, especially when traveling."
"Ooooooooh, that's so cool! Is that her acolyte power?" says the uncle, who's apparently been eavesdropping while minding the fire.
"It's most of it, yes. It makes sure we never lose access to her knowledge, and we never lose the ability to give ours back."
"Cooooool. But if it's the acolyte power I guess you can't just leave a book in a church or anything."
"Indeed. If I left the book here it would, well, just be a book. A poorly-organized one, too."
"Anything you want me to look for? It works just fine for now, and curiosity is a virtue."
"Oh, I'd like foreign novels or something only I imagine it'd be tedious to read us a whole book."
"Quilt patterns!" says the sister. "I'm bored of squares."
