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Labor rental outfit. Could be a disaster if it's for fetching and carrying, could be all right if she's hired out for writing, could be mediocre if it's for caring for people's invalid maiden aunts, could be intolerable if it's code for "whorehouse" - and there are more girls than boys in the batch she's currently shackled in a wagon with. Aya's debating whether to start a conversation with the slave next to her to see if she knows more when -
An embroidered bear that looks like it's wearing a suit of lace-bordered plate armor and has tiny useless metal wings to match and is at least four times its likely original size charges the horses, who startle madly and go completely out of control.
The wagon goes over. There's a fence, at the side of the road, there's posted warning signs, beware Magic in this ravine until post marking its end, but the wagon with all the slaves in it crashes right through the fence. Gravity's upended, everyone's screaming, some of the screams cut off abruptly as they tumble end over end down the slope. Aya flings manacled hands over the back of her head, feels a familiar snap in her arm as something strikes it - that's broken; and now her nose is too - there's a splinter of wood through her calf and her ear's ringing and wet with blood and she's got to have cracked a rib -
She's completely unharmed, unperforated, not even embroidered as far as she can tell. The steel around her wrists and ankles is gone. She doesn't see any of the other slaves - no, on second though, maybe she does, there's a bright orange snake with a tail that splits into five fish-finned ropes and a beetle the size of her head with the lyrics of Midnight Lightning written across its wing casings in block letters and a surprised-looking rabbit with wheels for forefeet and a broom-end for a tail. Everyone else is either much less recognizable or vanished entirely. But she's fine.
(She checks her heel. It's still marked. So she's unrestrained and unsupervised, but not, technically speaking, free.)
She needs to get out of the magic soonish, before it gets bored with its minimal alterations of her person, decides she'd be prettier as a glass music box decorated with butterfly wings, or a leather-upholstered down pillow that drinks blood, or a goose with windmill blades spinning around its neck. She's not, however, sure that she can climb the hill. It's likely she'd get just far out enough to count as having exited the magic and then fall, taking her chances a second time, and while this occasion she was lucky, nobody else was - she doesn't think she's been lied to all her life about the general safety of the environment. She'll have to go out the other way. She wades into the waist-high grass, routing around the clump made of swords and the clump made of swaying violin strings and the patch that might just be pitch-black flora but might be something else - but most of the grass seems only to be grass; plants tend to be safer in magics than animals. She winds up startling a dozing bird-eel-cat hybrid so thoroughly mixed up that she has no best guess as to what it was originally. It flap-flop-flees.
And then, when she hasn't seen an embroidered plant for a while since the shrub that appeared to be growing assorted national flags for leaves and onions by way of fruit, and thinks she might be close to the edge, there's a door.
It is freestanding in its frame, painted bright and glossy red with a few words in other colors on it running in various directions ("entirely", "yellow", "jump", "choristers", and "melting"), has pink fringe growing out of its hinges, and has where a handle might normally be, a slender open jar affixed with its mouth pointing up which is full of small-denomination coins, dried cloves, and what looks like it might be olive oil.
Aya has no idea how big this magic is. She doesn't know if drinking the water or eating anything vaguely appetizing that she finds around it will be taken as a second invitation to turn her blue or centipedal or dead. She could turn back and try to climb out the way she came, but - then what?
She's nowhere near the border.
Her legal owner is the employer of the fellow who was driving her and the others to the labor rental office.
The magic hasn't given her a set of papers and it has not unmarked her heel, and provoking it is more likely to make things worse than better.
And she's never heard of a door in a magic before.
She gingerly touches the jar, which is cool under her hand - and she pulls - and the door opens, tufts of pink in the hinges squeaking, to reveal what looks like a bar, which definitely isn't behind it if she peers around the frame.
Aya takes a deep breath and she walks in.
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namesthesky
namesthesky
"That is not where my contraption came from, although if you prefer I can depart your domain contraption and all. I fell into a magic in my home world, and instead of harming me it healed the injuries from my fall and removed my chains and offered me a door, which I opened, and it led to a place between worlds, where I was able to purchase anything I chose from any of those worlds with a loan from a native of this world who I found there, and this was what I wanted."
"I see. You have the smell of Raezenoth on you, was it there that you fled to?"
"Mm. You decided to come here, after, or is this pure chance?"
namesthesky
"I asked for a list of all of the gods around once I learned that there were real gods here and decided to come here, although I'll leave if you don't like me."
"And what brought you here, over all other gods?
This sounds kind of wheedling, like she's expecting a very specific type of answer.
This sounds kind of wheedling, like she's expecting a very specific type of answer.
namesthesky
"I liked the sound of a god who chooses to use that power on something like healing. It is one of the most straightforwardly good things there is to do. So I thought I might like to meet you."
"Thank you," says the goddess, not at all surprised by the compliment, but pleased all the same. "I prefer for things to remain whole and unmolested by disease."
"I think so, certainly!" agrees Perinixu. "Go well in my domain, little world-walker. Raezenoth was right to send you here."
And that seems to be a dismissal! She has goddessy things to do.
And that seems to be a dismissal! She has goddessy things to do.
namesthesky
Raezenoth didn't technically send her, but oh well.
Aya bikes onward in search of someplace to settle and collect some income, since it looks like she's not getting spontaneously handed an acolytehood for being shiny.
Aya bikes onward in search of someplace to settle and collect some income, since it looks like she's not getting spontaneously handed an acolytehood for being shiny.
Nope, that's not how gods typically work.
Aya has several options available for income gathering. She could be a farmhand, messagenger, laundry-woman, maid, and other things - but the job that will most likely interest her is working at Perinixu's temple, as an aide. It doesn't pay exceptionally well, but overall it seems geared towards helping people, if in ordinary ways than with magic.
Aya has several options available for income gathering. She could be a farmhand, messagenger, laundry-woman, maid, and other things - but the job that will most likely interest her is working at Perinixu's temple, as an aide. It doesn't pay exceptionally well, but overall it seems geared towards helping people, if in ordinary ways than with magic.
namesthesky
That does seem the most interesting of available options, especially, though not solely, because no one is interested in paying her to draw and her translation skills are now approximately useless and her dictation-taking well below par. Temple-ing it is.
Temple-ing doesn't pay well, and there are an awful lot of rules and regulations to it, including an obsessive hygiene regiment, but it consistently helps people. Aya is sent with medicines to the sick, bandages to the injured, and so on. Interestingly enough, the temple has more than just a focus on healing injured bodies. Priests and even acolytes of Perinixu are expected to listen to anyone's problems and offer comforting words, even if a direct solution to the problem isn't available. Aya isn't expected to listen to literally anyone just yet, but if she runs around in her temple aide garb - people will start offloading their problems onto her.
namesthesky
Aya considers exacting obsession about hygiene reasonable for any profession that spends a lot of time tending to festering wounds.
She is happy to do her best with advice, more and more as she gets more comfort with the language. She's much less competent at just listening while unable to do anything, although there the fact that she isn't fluent in Jorten actually helps her shut up and look sympathetic.
She is happy to do her best with advice, more and more as she gets more comfort with the language. She's much less competent at just listening while unable to do anything, although there the fact that she isn't fluent in Jorten actually helps her shut up and look sympathetic.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons why it's so strict.
Eventually, Aya is offered a vial of holy water and priesthood, after her hard work and dedication to helping people. It comes with more added rules, if she accepts it - stricter hygiene expectations, a well-kept uniform, well groomed hair, and some other things about silly vanity that probably have nothing to do with healing at all. On the bright side, she will get a blessing if the accepts the job. Perinixu will choose the blessing granted, but Aya can ask her to aim in a specific direction that will be most helpful.
Eventually, Aya is offered a vial of holy water and priesthood, after her hard work and dedication to helping people. It comes with more added rules, if she accepts it - stricter hygiene expectations, a well-kept uniform, well groomed hair, and some other things about silly vanity that probably have nothing to do with healing at all. On the bright side, she will get a blessing if the accepts the job. Perinixu will choose the blessing granted, but Aya can ask her to aim in a specific direction that will be most helpful.
namesthesky
Aya could not easily care less about what she wears or how she arranges her hair. If Perinixu cares, that's not a big deal to her. She takes the vial.
Aya would most like to be free of her apparently otherwise incurable clumsiness, if there is a blessing available to handle that. The hoverbike helps, but only out of doors.
Aya would most like to be free of her apparently otherwise incurable clumsiness, if there is a blessing available to handle that. The hoverbike helps, but only out of doors.
Perinixu can grant grace, actually. She seems to be somewhat vain, and dislikes the idea of her chosen being clumsy. Predictably, she grants the request. Aya is not as graceful as another person blessed with grace, but she is no longer clumsy.
Priesthood involves much of what was done as an aide, except Aya will be taught how to make the medicines necessary and give them out at her discretion, rather than at someone else's command. She also has the option of petitioning Perinixu for help with something if it's troublesome, but there is no guarantee that she'll answer.
Priesthood involves much of what was done as an aide, except Aya will be taught how to make the medicines necessary and give them out at her discretion, rather than at someone else's command. She also has the option of petitioning Perinixu for help with something if it's troublesome, but there is no guarantee that she'll answer.
namesthesky
Aya is as diligent as a priest as she was as an aide, and the grace blessing is useful for mixing delicate medicines. Aya is conservative with scarce things, cautious with those that have side effects, and generous with harmless common ones. She reliably tries asking Perinixu whenever something she can't fix herself comes up, but moves on apologetically when ignored.
Being ignored does happen, but Perinixu usually answers promptly and briefly, and solves problems if they are solvable at all.
Aya will not get promoted to acolyte any time soon. But if she keeps up the good work, she will get some added blessings - immunity to plague, the ability to walk on water, and a sense of the best plants to use for medicines. How she uses them is up to her, but obviously she should stay the course on helping lots of people and generally listening to all problems ever.
Aya will not get promoted to acolyte any time soon. But if she keeps up the good work, she will get some added blessings - immunity to plague, the ability to walk on water, and a sense of the best plants to use for medicines. How she uses them is up to her, but obviously she should stay the course on helping lots of people and generally listening to all problems ever.
namesthesky
Aya works diligently and consistently.
She takes notes on everything. (They're in Esevi, because it's a glorious luxury to write in plain language and be illegible to non-deities both. She still draws to relax and to decorate her living space, but the drawings are empty of meaning.)
When there are problems that seem to come up in the same sort of way a lot, she notes the pattern, and thinks about how to destroy it at the root. She likes the part of priesthood that involves getting enough data to do that, even if having a real actual benevolent deity cuts down on a lot of the systematic issues that were a problem in Eseo.
She takes notes on everything. (They're in Esevi, because it's a glorious luxury to write in plain language and be illegible to non-deities both. She still draws to relax and to decorate her living space, but the drawings are empty of meaning.)
When there are problems that seem to come up in the same sort of way a lot, she notes the pattern, and thinks about how to destroy it at the root. She likes the part of priesthood that involves getting enough data to do that, even if having a real actual benevolent deity cuts down on a lot of the systematic issues that were a problem in Eseo.
Large-scale systematic issues are not so much a thing in Perinixu's domain, at least not from what she is able to affect. There are some issues with sewage and waste disposal that could help, but Perinixu already seems to be on the ball there, and is persuading officials to build sewage systems with a blessing or two (usually immunity to sickness or grace) - but there are some other problems that Perinixu has no hand in and could help with.
Violence in public is dealt with handily by guards and travelling knights for that sort of thing. However, there are some things going on behind doors that are just as bad, if not worse, and no current solution is offered aside from a place to run away to at the temple, and salves for any injuries. It's a treatment, not a cure.
Violence in public is dealt with handily by guards and travelling knights for that sort of thing. However, there are some things going on behind doors that are just as bad, if not worse, and no current solution is offered aside from a place to run away to at the temple, and salves for any injuries. It's a treatment, not a cure.
namesthesky
Having a place to run away to at the temple is a start, and a good one - the conditions for the runaways are good, the guards and knights can typically handle if it someone goes after them without already being in the same building. The problem is that, for one thing, it ever starts, and for another, that once it has, it's slow to be recognized and fled. Aya has no overnight solution, but she has a lot of notes from a lot of stories.
She writes a book, a sampling of stories safely anonymized in name and detail. It is blandly titled When To Run and in addition to enough adjusted case studies to give the entire phenomenon - color, relatability, depth - there are more general descriptions of the underlying patterns. How to spot it coming, some of the time; how much damage it does (this part she's hoping will reach would-be perpetrators as much as victims); and, in case anyone has managed to miss it, a description of what happens if one does run away.
This is not an overnight solution, but she wrote it to be accessible to children as young as ten, if they're the kind of children who read books, so maybe the stories will change in a few years.
She writes a book, a sampling of stories safely anonymized in name and detail. It is blandly titled When To Run and in addition to enough adjusted case studies to give the entire phenomenon - color, relatability, depth - there are more general descriptions of the underlying patterns. How to spot it coming, some of the time; how much damage it does (this part she's hoping will reach would-be perpetrators as much as victims); and, in case anyone has managed to miss it, a description of what happens if one does run away.
This is not an overnight solution, but she wrote it to be accessible to children as young as ten, if they're the kind of children who read books, so maybe the stories will change in a few years.
Sseveral fellow priests read the book, agree with the sentiment behind it, and work to get it more well-known to the general public. Literacy is reasonably high, but not one hundred percent - several aides are sent to read the book's stories to people of the right age, along with other aesop-like stories. The stories change - more people get out sooner, but it doesn't remove the problem entirely. It does certainly help, though.
Perinixu notices.
"The book was a clever idea," she tells Aya, one day.
Perinixu notices.
"The book was a clever idea," she tells Aya, one day.
namesthesky
"Thank you," Aya replies. "I wish I'd had an even better idea, but this one was worth the work."