GRP Chapter 37

"...A curse?"

Mariaeks was too preoccupied with the word to manage indignation. Garthe waited until the meal had progressed from the tongue tip to the tongue proper before he resolved the question that had been building inside her.

"They say it makes you tell lies."

The tension left her all at once. Mariaeks let out a small breath. Lies. Just lies. He had clearly delayed his answer on purpose to make her tense. Humans really did have dreadful personalities.

"Oh—I forgot to mention."

When the meal was finished, Garthe opened his mouth once more with that same unhurried, insinuating tone.

"I suspect the reindeer you ate was probably one of those that followed you around so enthusiastically. One of the ones that kept licking your face."

"......"

"Was it good?"

"......"

"Hm?"

Garthe remained attentive to the matter until he had extracted from her the admission that yes, it had been delicious—and only then did he tuck the candy between her lips.

"...Prick," Mariaeks murmured, timidly.

As if on cue, condemnation descended.

"No, that's not it at all!"

"Greatly displeasing!"

"Tsk—weak! So weak!"

Ryaia, Quille, and Akote called out in turn.

The shocking breakfast had ended, and they were on their way to the temple with the Paldoa sisters. Mariaeks had felt uneasy from the moment they declared they would make her into a woman without blood or tears—temper her, train away that weakness. Since then they had started making strange demands at every opportunity. Suddenly asking her to make a threatening expression. To spit. To curse.

After repeated failures, she had taken Akote—the youngest—as her reference and carefully prepared a crude insult. Today, she had deployed it with considerable resolve. The result had not matched that resolve.

"Was that supposed to be a curse, Mariaeks?"

"The cry I let out when I was born was more threatening than that. This is serious."

"You need to put more feeling into it, Mariaeks."

She had thought of Garthe and put quite a good deal of feeling into it. Perhaps the standard for passing was simply too high.

"Mariaeks, glare at me like you want to kill me."

Mariaeks glared at Ryaia with everything she had.

"This is serious."

"Too cute."

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Mariaeks. A warrior has no use for being cute."

Mariaeks wanted to say she had never been a warrior.

"You were about to say you're not a warrior." Ryaia had cut her off before she could. "No, Mariaeks. Every living being, from the moment of birth, is a warrior fated to do battle with this harsh world. Remember that."

It sounded like nonsense and yet somehow looked magnificent. That would be the effect of that distinguished, elegant appearance.

"The problem is the aggression—there simply isn't any."

"It's as though the thought of fighting doesn't occur to you at all."

"You have to fight regularly for it to improve. It's a matter of experience."

Ryaia spotted Salenoke at the far end of the corridor and her eyes lit up.

"There's prey. Mariaeks. Go hit him."

Before Mariaeks could open wide eyes and voice her objection, the Paldoa sisters had already widened their own eyes to a razor sharpness.

"Are you hard of hearing? We said go hit him."

"But why..."

Why should she have to hit the completely innocent Salenoke?

"You think he has no reason to be hit? You know nothing."

"This world is full of unreasonable things. Not every event that happens to you will be something you can understand."

"Any of us can face such incomprehensible events at any moment. And Salenoke has just met that moment. Go hit him, Mariaeks."

Mariaeks looked at them with eyes that had given up entirely. They really were... crazy humans. Under the force of the sisters' razor gazes, Mariaeks ultimately had no choice but to kick Salenoke's leg and extort money from him.

"Look. What's in your hand right now, Mariaeks?"

Mariaeks opened her hand with a dazed expression. A gold coin extorted from Salenoke gleamed there.

"A gold coin..."

"That's right. Just a few minutes ago there was nothing in your hand. But now—as you can see—you're holding a gold coin."

The memory surfaced: Salenoke sighing in resignation and handing it over like alms. Mariaeks felt miserable again.

"In the end, if there's something you want, you have to fight for it. Remember that, Mariaeks."

Ryaia escorted Mariaeks to the temple entrance, delivering words that were indistinguishable from nagging or prophecy until the very last. She stood with the sun at her back and her white wings spread as she spoke, which lent it, somehow, the quality of a sacred divine revelation.

A single white feather floated softly down onto the head of Mariaeks, whose body and mind were thoroughly frayed.

'A gold coin... I'd never once wanted one before...'

Mariaeks tightly gripped the gold coin—today's spoil of war—and lifted her head. The enormous temple entrance greeted her.

"Lady Mariaeks."

Samthyeon appeared as if he had been waiting. That was why she had tucked herself under Ryaia's arm for another flight. Samthyeon had asked that today's research take place at the temple. Mariaeks fell into step behind him as he started walking ahead.

They passed through a long corridor and entered a wide hall. A domed ceiling of considerable height made the space appear even larger than it was. Unlike the rest of the fortress, which was densely ornamented, only two enormous statues occupied the space—and yet it did not look empty at all. The statues were so precisely rendered that they seemed to breathe, and drew all attention entirely to themselves.

The left statue was a full-figured woman holding branches laden with fruit. The right was a man with eight arms, each carrying a different weapon. The authority and force of his grimly distorted face were so overwhelming that even knowing it was a statue, one instinctively stepped back.

"These depict the two gods our Thul'Mhoriae Alliance serves."

Samthyeon had stopped at some point and stood beside her, looking up at the statues as he spoke.

"The Father of All Things, who became the world's foundation, and the Only Mother, who made that world breathe with life. The Father possessed the power of destruction; the Mother, the power of creation."

He finished and fixed her with a long, expectant stare. She met his gaze and blinked. When the silence stretched on, Samthyeon's chin gathered into a walnut crease and he turned away. Something had displeased him again.

As they walked down the corridor, Samthyeon spoke again.

"The reason I asked you to come to the temple today concerns the mediation you provided during the yak god's attack."

The memory brushed past her—the young god's soul dissolving into the black night sky. The god's voice, like a blizzard driving through—still clear.

"The vast majority of gods deep in nature do not speak human language. Heimdrykze, being entirely inaccessible to humans, has an unusually high proportion of gods whose voices are close to the sounds of the natural world."

It was as Samthyeon said. Many gods conveyed their meaning through the sound of a massive ice block crashing from a cliff, through the roar of an avalanche, through fierce wind, through the crystalline sound of ice striking ice.

"What this means is: communication is entirely impossible. The great gods would have no difficulty, of course, but humans cannot possibly comprehend such elevated intent. Only those with divine power on the level of a hero, or an extremely rare few who are messengers, can manage it."

"Messengers?"

"Those with the ability to understand the voices of the gods. But messengers cannot understand all divine language—generally they hear only the voices of gods from their own region. And there are almost no humans born in Olgidphaenn remaining."

Samthyeon thought of Garthe and paused briefly. The one who might as well be the only Olgidphaenn-born hero—but someone who refused communication even with humans who spoke the same language. He would hardly trouble himself to communicate with beings whose language he couldn't understand.

"Rarely, even in Olgidphaenn, there were gods who responded with some measure of calm. But without language between them, it always ended in kill or be killed. This time was no different. If you hadn't interpreted the voice and mediated, it could not have ended this peacefully. On behalf of the fortress, I thank you."

Of course, some dozens of regressors had become ash in the interim—but that counted as peaceful by Olgidphaenn's standards. The yak god had been unusually powerful even among creatures that had approached the fortress; without Garthe, the damage would have been immense.

"The request I'd like to make next is also related to what you helped with. Perhaps because they can discern the will of the gods, many messengers can also interpret ancient divine language. But that too cannot compare to the ability of a great god."