A Jaded Life

It was a strange sensation, seeing the world through a scrying construct no longer completely under my control. It wasn’t truly unpleasant, if anything it was somewhat reminiscent of my experiences in Lady Hecate’s realm, but that didn’t make it any less confining.

Luckily, I didn’t have to wait all that long, maybe half an hour, it was difficult to tell the time while embodying a scrying construct, for something to happen. There had been a few things I had been expecting, mostly anger or rage coming from Lorgar and his allies when they found out that I had consecrated the house I had built as a shrine of Hecate, but sitting there, on the statue, I realised that their reaction would likely come later. To the best of their knowledge, I had been sleeping peacefully through the night and would now make my exit from the village, unhindered, as promised by Joshua. They might have made plans to make a ruckus, trying to annoy me, but intruding into the house would break the guest rights, sending them into deep trouble.

Thus, I was quite surprised when the door opened slowly, while Joshua’s voice was calling out for me, as if making sure that I was up and about. Even without a response, Joshua made his way into the building, softly muttering under his breath. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, at least not at first, but I could make out a few words, hearing something about a dream, Queen Frigga and it being strange. Without context, I could only guess what he might be talking about, but there wasn’t a lot of time to think, so I focused on watching him as he stepped into the main room of the house, now shrine.

His eyes widened in an almost comical fashion when he saw the statues, especially the one of the Mother, as it wore my image, just formed from solid stone. I had no idea what he might think, but the whispered question of whether I had been petrified gave me a fairly good idea about his thoughts. If I could have, I might have laughed but the construct I was inhabiting didn’t have vocal cords so laughing took a surprising amount of focus as I needed to use Wind Magic to create the correct sounds. Not a really useful method for spontaneous utterances but it worked reasonably well for deliberate communication.

However, in this case, I had no interest in communicating. so I remained quiet, watching his confusion to my amusement. Sadly, the confusion didn’t last as long as I had hoped it would, just a few minutes of quiet muttering and inspection of the statues, until he apparently decided to do what he had come for.

To my surprise, he fell to his knees, not facing towards the statues of Hecate but the other direction, towards a conspicuously empty wall. Strangely, I remembered that I had placed a few of the lore tablets against that wall, allowing people to read them with ease, but now I could see that the tablets had been moved away, including the shelving I had made for them, leaving me a little confused. I was fairly certain that nobody had entered the shrine, nor had it been desecrated, so I guessed that Lady Hecate had altered the shrine to her specifications, though I had little idea of her motivation. Other than maybe that it had something to do with the actions I was watching right now.

My surprise only grew when he started to pray, his voice clear and quite strong as he called upon his deity. Calling upon a deity while within a shrine consecrated to a different deity, especially one that belonged to a different Pantheon sounded like a horrible idea and yet, it was exactly what he was doing. For a moment, I wondered if I was supposed to attack him, even if it would be incredibly difficult due to the distance between us, but before I could really consider my options, the warm, fiery glow around Joshua was met with an equally warm, welcome glow coming from the Mother’s statue the raven construct was sitting on.

Looking around, I could see the glow coming from a pair of crossed torches engraved on a stone tablet held in the statue’s other arm, while the one my raven was sitting on was now holding a pair of keys. The light came from the torches, ignoring the fact that they were made of stone and, well, just an engraving. Magic, obviously, and by every metric I could understand, divine magic, directly used by Lady Hecate, welcoming whatever Joshua was doing into Her shrine.

It was fascinating to watch the light around Joshua coalesce into something physical before slowly shifting towards the wall and morphing into something else, namely, into a statue, similar in size to the one the raven construct was resting on. But where the statue of the Mother, created in my image, depicted the image of the Mother as that of a teacher, a guiding light at the crossroads of life that eventually unlocked the path of knowledge, this statue was different. It also depicted an image of the Mother but with a very different focus. Wide hips and a bosom that would look utterly ridiculous on my own slender frame, carrying a sheaf of crops in one arm while her other hand was stretched forward, a golden ring visible on the stone grey fingers. This wasn’t a teacher, it was both a symbol of fertility and a good harvest but also a mother of nations. Not just giving birth to people and guiding them but also giving birth to nations and she would guide her children into the future.

For a moment, I could feel another presence within the shrine, settling into the stones and rocks just like the divine presence of Hecate had, making me wonder just what was going on here. To the best of my knowledge deites didn’t share shrines, especially not if they weren’t closely aligned. And yet, Hecate was obviously accepting Frigga into her shrine, presenting the same concept in two different variations and with a different focus.

My earlier amusement was soon rekindled when Joshua finished his prayer and opened his eyes, taking in the statue he had formed. Involuntarily, a single word escaped his lips, an utterance of ‘Mother’ that would have had me in stitches if I had lungs to laugh. It looked like, where Lady Hecate was using my face and physique for Her statues, Frigga was, at least partially, using that of Joshua’s mother, or at least enough of his mother’s appearance that he felt the recognition.

I remained a little longer, watching as Joshua put a few more of Frigga’s touches on the shrine, while also making sure that none of the parts I had prepared with Hecate’s blessing were disturbed. It truly was a shrine to both of them, or maybe to motherhood in general, though if it was that, I wondered if there’d eventually be a statue of Hestia in here, too, and whatever other goddesses embodying different aspects of motherhood. Though maybe Hestia would be too close to Frigga, I wasn’t sure how that would work as both had, to the best of my knowledge, very similar domains.

Luckily, I didn’t need to bother with those parts of divine politics, the closest the Asgardians had to Lady Hecate was Hel, sharing a few of Hecate’s less pleasant domains, especially the domain of necromancy. So, not my circus, not my monkeys, as the saying went.

An angry shout caught my attention and now, I was truly sad that I couldn’t watch what was going on outside, though I could hear enough to know Lorgar had been taking a look at the house again, running into Joshua as he was just leaving.

I wasn’t sure what had set Lorgar off, but from the shouting I could hear, I knew he was accusing Joshua of some rather unpleasant things, mainly suggesting that I had been seducing the Valkyr, the mere idea sending a shiver of distaste through my mind but the shouting didn’t stop there. It continued on and at some point, Lorgar seemed to have noticed the divine magic shrouding the building and that was the moment he lost it completely. His shouting made an incredible amount of noise until it cut off, leaving only silence in its wake.

Uncertain of what had just happened, I lingered for a little longer until I decided that I likely had heard everything there was to hear. Lorgar was, quite obviously, incredibly angry but whether his anger would focus on Joshua and the shrine or whether he was planning to try hunting me down, I had no idea.

Either way, I was quite some distance away and wouldn’t get close to New Dawn again, so the only way he could realistically find me was through the people I had given directions to, so I could meet them in the mountains. I would have to make sure that those meetings didn’t go sideways.