Revaramek the Resplendent: Chapter One Hundred Twenty Six (Patreon)

When dawn broke, Etchka walked Rain down to a secluded part of the oasis. His sleep had been mercifully free of dreams, though he doubted that would last long. As dawn’s fire chased away the sky’s purple blush, Etchka and Rain washed the ashes from each other’s faces. Etchka told her about the vision he had, during the pyre, and Rain found it further evidence that the gods were showing the prime shaper that they were all part of something greater. Like a story told, over and over, a cycle of life and death and life again. And that meant, someday, they would get to know their son, even if it was in another life. Etchka was glad Rain seemed to take comfort in that.

Later, Rain asked him to Etchka to tell her more about the dreams. He had shared them with her in the past, but not always in detail. So as they lay together, on their bed, he told her about Vakaal. Though in the dreams, the pup never had a name, Etchka was more certain than ever it was him. They had known him before, or they would know him in the future. Or maybe he'd just dreamt of the life that should have been.

Etchka told Rain all about him. How he was gray, just like his father, and in the dreams, about half his height. He was full of joy, and song, and in the dreams, he danced across the sands. Etchka even admitted that he saw him now and then, even when awake. The pup seemed to know him, and he could never be sure what was memory and what was hallucination. He recalled then, that the first time he remembered seeing Vakaal, the pup told him it would all happen again. Maybe then…maybe then they’d get to watch him grow up.

They spent a month in mourning. Each gave their duties to one of their apprentices, and spent much of their time together, but away from the tribe. They stayed home somedays. Other days they took water and juice and ventured into the desert, as far as a day’s travel could take them. Out in the sands, the dreams returned to Etchka. They were simple and happy, often nothing more than himself laughing and watching his pup, half grown now, dance across endless dunes. At the end of the dreams, just before he woke, the pup hugged him and smiled, or whispered into his ear that everything was alright. That one day, things would make sense. One day, they’d be together.

After each dream Etchka awoke awash in uncertainty. The dreams were happy, as if the pup was trying to tell him it was alright to let go. And yet Etchka could not help but feel a deep sense of longing, as though the pup was meant to be them, here and now. Some days, a gnawing sense of guilt came with it, as if it was his fault that poor pup did not know life.

One morning Etchka awoke to find a figurine adorning a small table, near the build. The figurine was made from sand, yet hard and strong as stone. It depicted an urd’thin pup, seeming in mid-dance. The pup’s arms were out, his ears perked, and a happy grin parted his muzzle. His tail stretched out behind him, as if blowing in the wind while he danced.

Etchka was at a loss for words. It was Vakaal, he was certain. Someone in the tribe must have made it for them, but he had not described the pup to anyone but Rain. When she awoke, he thanked her for it, and told her it was beautiful. She was confused, as she was certain that he had made it, the night before. But he could not remember making anything the night before. Perhaps he’d shaped it, without realizing it, in his sleep. Yet how had had it come to adorn their table?

Perhaps, Etchka suggested, it was Vakaal’s soul, come to greet them.

Rain gave him a worried look, and hugged him tight.

A few times, they talked about whether or not they should try and have another child. Both were afraid to try again. Not only were the terrified of the emotional risks, but neither was sure how Rain’s body would handle it. They spoke to the chief midwife about it, and she seemed concerned that Rain might not be able to safely carry a child to term. That there were a couple other females in the tribe who had not yet conceived, and it was starting to look as if some small number of them, male and female, were either infertile or unable to safely carry children.

How did I miss this?

So hasty…

So desperate to live among them…

“Etchka?” Rain squeezed his hand. “Are you alright?”

“How did I miss this?” Etchka’s voice was a wandering murmur, lost and confused.

“It’s not your fault.” Rain pressed his muzzle to his nose, and stroked the back of his head, fingers wandering up along an ear and back down. “You did everything you could.” She took a breath, and glanced at the midwife. “There was…something wrong. Inside. He…he fixed it, so I could…” Rain sighed, trailing off.

The midwife squeezed Rain’s shoulder, then clasped her hands in her lap. “It’s…possible that…If the gods did not wish some of us to bear children, then…”

“The Gods.” Etchka snorted, baring his fangs. “They were hasty…”

The midwife glanced back and forth between them a few times, her gaze settling on Rain again. “I know this sounds harsh, but…when we go against the gods’ will…”

“I understand…” Rain lay her head against Etchka’s shoulder.

Etchka stroked her ear. “I can fix this…”

“Some things, Etchka, you are not meant to fix.” The midwife put her hand atop Etchka’s. “As difficult as that is to hear, it must be the truth. Trying to fix everything, trying to…solve every problem with their powers? That is what doomed Those Who Came Before. The Gods-”

“You don’t even know who they are.” Etchka stared at her hand, his vision swimming. Something suddenly felt wrong, in his head. As that strange crack in his mind was not only leaking memories, but something far more insidious, someone else entirely. “I came before.”

“What?” The midwife tilted her head.

“Are you alright?” Rain lifted her muzzle, nosing his cheek.

“Sorry, Mica…” Etchka rubbed around the base of a horn. “Feels like…someone’s in my head. Or…or I’m in theirs. And…it feels like…” Etchka lifted his hand, and it was as if he could perceive all the village, and every life in it. All a part of something greater. Something that could be… “Like he can fix anything. Even our son…”

“Etchka?” Rain’s voice sharpened, and she gave his hand a knowing squeeze. “Let’s get you home, alright? So you can rest.”

“Alright, Mica…” Etchka’s voice sounded distant, even to his own ears. Etchka rose up, blinked, and the voices around him changed.

“How long has he been like this?”

“Off and on, since the night he saved Ibba.”

Etchka found himself lying in bed. He could not recall how he got there. Rain sat on the bed next to him, gently stroking his arm. Their house was packed, the midwives were there, along with those he had trained in healing, and those Rain had trained in medicine. He bolted upright, sucking in a breath.

“What the hell?”

Rain jumped, startled. She cooed to him, and nudged him back against the pillows. “Easy, easy…you’re alright, Etchka.” She glanced over her shoulder at the others. “It had gotten much, much better, but then…after…” Rain whimpered and glanced down. “Been getting worse, ever since.”

“Whatever problem he had before, the emotional trauma you two have been through has gravely exacerbated it.”

“Where are we?” Etchka reached for Rain’s hand, and she gently squeezed it.

“We’re home, Etchka.” She smiled at him, leaning forward to nuzzle him. “We’re home. I’m Rain, remember? Your mate, Rain?”

Ice trickled down Etchka’s spine, and the shivers it brought left his fur bristling. Why would she tell him that? Unless… “Of course you are. But…how did we get here?” He lifted his eyes, ears flattened back. “We were just at the midwife’s, talking about…if it was safe to try for…”

Etchka trailed off when everyone in the room exchanged worried glances.

Rain sniffled, and the tears shining in her dark eyes both hurt and frightened him. “That was a week ago, Etchka.”

“Wh-what?” Terror built in cold layers in his belly, rising towards his heart. “What do you mean?”

The chief midwife came forward to settle on the bed, next to him and Rain. “Your mind is not whole, Etchka. Do you remember, the night you saved Ibba’s life?”

Etchka nodded once.

“You called your mate Mica, that night, do you remember?”

Etchka turned his head to gaze at Rain. “Vaguely…”

“That was also the night you told me we would have a pup. The first time you…” Rain licked her muzzle, and glanced at the others before returning her gaze to Etchka. “Saw him.”

“Whatever you did to save Ibba, whatever shaping you called upon, or whatever gift the gods bestowed upon you, it was…something beyond what we are meant to know. Let alone to handle. It…did harm your body, but, we think it damaged your mind. Made you see things that were not there, made you dream in the day. Fused your memories, with your stories, our histories, and the fictions you spin us.” The midwife put her hand on his head, just between his horns. “This malady of your mind has gotten worse. Lately you’ve…been calling your mate, Mica. The high priestess from our history tales. And talking about…building our world anew, so that your son…”

“What if he could, though?” Rain cast the midwife a quick glance, caressing Etchka’s ear.

“Rain, having that discussion again is…it’s not good for you, emotionally or mentally. What has happened is past, it was the will of the gods.”

“I’m sorry…” Etchka reached up and took Rain’s hand again. He kissed it, then stared into her eyes. “It was my first time being mortal…” That wasn’t even what he meant to say, but the words got all jumbled up in his head, and something else slipped out. And no sooner had he said it, then he couldn’t recall what he meant to say, at all.

“Etchka, we want you to take Star’s Blessing.” The midwife waved her assistants forward. “We wouldn’t normally give it for something like this, but we believe your mind has been poisoned, somehow. And Star’s Blessing has been known to ease maladies of the mind, as well as of the body. Whatever foul thing has tangled your mind, we…we believe this will untangle it. We’re going to make it into a tea, for you. Every dusk, for a week. You’re to drink all of it before bed. It is…very potent. It will likely impair you, or put you to sleep. That’s why you’ll take it in the evening. Alright?”

Etchka ran his hands down his face, whimpering. “If you all think it’s best.”

“We do, Etchka.” The midwife took the dried flowers, and put them in a drinking vessel to steep with hot water, heated above a small cookfire outside.

“We just want you to get better.” Rain kissed him, then rolled over to cuddle up against him in bed. “I’ll be here, the whole time.”

When the tea was ready, the midwife passed it to Etchka. He took the vessel in both hands. It shook, and Rain steadied it for him as he sipped it. The hot liquid was bitter and astringent, and left his whole throat tingling. He scrunched his muzzle, then licked his nose as if to clear the taste.

“I know, it’s not very pleasant.” The midwife tipped the cup back, watching to make sure he drank it all. “But it will help. In a few days, it should start to take effect.”

Rain glanced at the midwife while Etchka drank. “How will we know?”

“If it works?” The midwife smiled. “He’ll know which memories are real, and he’ll remember who he really is, again.”

*****

Etchka’s dreams were strange, and vibrant, filled with colors that should not exist, and things that should not be possible. All night long, his head was filled with someone else’s dreams. He dreamt of the stars and cosmos and the great spiral that bound it all together. He dreamt sand in an unfamiliar desert, of beige fur and tragedy and a spear in his chest that somehow did not kill him.

People spoke to him, called him someone else’s name. Some loved him, some cursed him, some asked for his blessing, others called him, begged him to save their loved ones. Some asked for rainfall or food or medicine. As if in his dreams, he could hear the voices of everyone in need, across every tribe.

Through someone else’s eyes, he watched himself, walking across the desert. He looked to the left, and there he was once more, amidst his tribe. Etchka looked right, and he saw himself yet again. As if wherever he looked, he was gazing upon another day in his own life. In each instance, something was different. In one, he wandered the desert, alone. In another, he helped Rain weave new mats for their home. In the third, again he was weaving, but this time he was teaching his son how. Rain was not there. When next he gazed around, he saw the whole tribe around him, first begging for his help, them demanding he help them. Fix this, heal that, slay them, and on and on. The gods gave him nearly infinite power, how dare he not use it to solve every problem they faced, to end illness, famine, drought?

Why did not save every life in danger?

The questions swirled around in his mind no matter which image he gazed upon. Etchka had heard such questions before, after he saved Ibba. They had quieted since then, and now, in the dream, Etchka wondered the same. Why didn’the save everyone’s life?

What good did such questions do him? He couldn’t even save his own pup.

Etchka awoke, shaking and smothered by a cold, lingering dread. Rain held him and stroked his fur, kissed his ears, told him he was alright. He clung to her, like a frightened pup to its mother, until the worst of it had passed. Then he told her of his dreams, to see if she could make sense of them. Rain could not, but ventured a guess that he was perhaps, glimpsing other lives. More than ever, she had come to believe in her own theory, lately. Rain believed that these memories Etchka had were from other lives, that when they died, the gods would sent them back to the world, to live again as someone else.

Etchka went with Rain and bathed, and then she took him for breakfast. The tribe had a central area where food was prepared, and that morning they had a selection of fruits and roasted roots, along with a few bits of dried fish. Between the dreams, and the Star’s Blessing tea the night before, Etchka’s stomach was unsettled, but he managed to keep down a few bites of food.

While he ate, several of the other tribe members came by to squeeze his shoulders, or ruffle his ears, and offer him a hug around the shoulders. Some expressed sympathy, others support, or beliefs in his strength, that he could get through even this. Etchka wasn’t entirely sure what they were even talking about, but at least he didn’t lose himself while they talked. Still, something in the way they looked at him made him feel strange. Flickers of urd’thin bowing to him on hands and knees, muzzles pressed to the sand flashed through his mind.

“Rain,” Ethcka said, when the others were gone. He kept his voice soft, wanting only her to hear. “If…I truly was someone else, before this. I was…different. A chief, maybe, or…” Etchka swallowed. “Something else…”

“You’re prime shaper, after all.” Rain took his hand and led him back home. “You must have always been someone important to the tribe.”

At night, he took his tea again, and lay in bed. Soon enough, it left his limbs leaden, he could scarcely lift them from the bed. Rain snuggled against him, stroking his fur, nuzzling his ears. She twined her fingers through his, and it took all the strength he could muster just to squeeze her hand. The walls of the darkened room wavered, as though distorted by a great, rising heat. Embers from incense clung to the ceiling, and soon, caught flame. He tried to warn Rain, but no words came from his muzzle. As the fire burned away their ceiling, scorched their walls to cinder, it revealed not the night sky and desert beyond, but all the vast cosmos. His body burned away last, leaving nothing in its wake but light, and consciousness.

Etchka floated through space, formless and aimless. He did not dream that night, only wandered the stars. He glimpsed worlds unknown, filled with strange creatures and peoples. All the while, he felt at peace. When dawn came, his body built itself up around him. Then their built assembled beneath him, the ground stretched out around it, and soon latticework sprouted from it like vines growing up a hand fruit tree. The lattice wove itself together, grew along it like, stretching to form walls. The ceiling came last, restoring itself as if an old wound knitting together.

“Did you sleep well love?” Rain was already up. She poured juice from a pitcher into a wooden cup. “You seemed like you slept peacefully all night, you didn’t stir or whimper or anything.” She padded over to him, smiling. “So I let you sleep in, and went down to the village. Here, try this. Some of the hunters came back from one of the far oases, and brought baskets full of berries.”

Etchka sat up, scratching at a horn base. “I was asleep?” He took the cup, and sipped the juice. It was cool, and sweet, but held a refreshing tart edge. “This is good. Is it red vine berry?”

“Yes, you were asleep.” Rain chuckled and put the pitcher aside before she sat down next to him. “And yes, it is. Their crop comes in before ours does. So…” She nuzzled at his cheek. “How do you feel?”

“Not bad, actually.” Ethcka took another long drink. “I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep until I woke up. I had this…long, continuing dream, that I was just…light. Wandering the universe. It was very peaceful.”

Rain smiled and gave him a lick, hugging him. “That sounds lovely. And I’m glad you’re feeling better. Hopefully, when your Star’s Blessing is done, your mind will stay at peace.”

“That would be nice.” Etchka kissed her, then leaned his head on her shoulder. He wondered, for a moment, if caring for him was helping her move past the loss of their pup.

Rain curled her arm up to stroke his muzzle. “I wouldn’t mind a dream like that myself. I think last night I kept dreaming I was building a little village, out of the sand, only every time I got it just the way I wanted, it would rain and wash it all away. Then I’d start again, and it would rain, and I’d build again, and it would rain. So finally I just dug a hole, and when it rained again, I took my clothes off an went swimming.”

“The end part sounds nice, at least.”

“What, swimming in a mud hole?” Rain giggled.

“More the part about you without your clothes.”

Rain laughed and nipped at him. “Now I know you must be feeling better if you’re making jokes like that.”

“A little better, anyway.”

“Good! Finish your juice then, and we’ll go get bathed.”

Etchka was happier that day. Rain seemed happier too, and Etchka could only hope it was genuine, and not a mask she wore to try and give him strength. He knew what sorrow must yet linger deep inside her, for it lingered in him too. But just as she wanted to be there to support him, he wanted to be just as strong for her, as well.

For the next few days, he fell into a simple, comforting rhythm. During the day, they bathed, and walked about the village, talked to a few of the others, and helped prepare food to give themselves a task to complete. Each night he took his Star’s Blessing Tea, and drifted off into peace. The tea helped him with the feeling of having a crack in his head, and it helped clarify his mind, and his memories. Strangely, everything seemed to make more sense to him when he slept, as if his dreams were reality, and his reality the dream.

On the fourth night, he dreamt of being a god. He built urd’thin from the sand, and one of them slew him. So he brought himself back to left, and told her about the universes. He named her Mica, and she made herself his high priestess. He put his people’s fate in her hands, and she wove them a grand story. So he made more and more of them, until they were a great tribe. Then, in the dream, he went to another world, almost the same as the first, and began again.

As always, he always, he told Rain of his dreams. She thought they sounded delightfully epic, and exciting, and teased him that perhaps she would take the Star’s Blessing next, so that she might dream of being a great goddess. Etchka laughed with her, but he was not so sure. Lately it felt as if her theory about living other lives was true, and that there were barriers set up between those memories, so that the urd’thin would never know they had lived before, and would live again. Etchka wondered if using so much of his healing had somehow ruptured those barriers. Yet, while the Star’s Blessing might have been expected to fill in that crack, instead, it was dissolving the barriers. It helped immensely, but not because it further blocked off the remnants of those other lives, but because it made everything clearer. By the time he was drinking his fifth dose, he was starting to realize the barriers werethe poison in his mind. They were like scar tissue, dividing his memories, and the Star’s Blessing were erasing those scars, one by one.

That night, he dreamt again of being a god. But this time, the god was lonely. He longed to know life as mortals knew it. He longed to know loveas mortals knew it. He did not want to be a god, anymore. He wanted a mate, a family. But he feared what would happen if his many creations knew of his godhood. They would question, ask, beg, demand. Their lives would not be their own, and thus, they would not be free. Nor would he ever understand what it was like to live as one of them. So he had to make himself a mortal. He had to understand mortality, all its successes and failures, all its victories and hardships, all its love, and all its loss.

In his dream, the gold built himself a body, made barriers to seal away-

Etchka bolted up right, gasping. It was after dawn, and hints of the sun’s gaze crept into their home around the edges of their hide-curtain door. Rain stirred and sat up alongside him. She blinked at him, her dark eyes bleary, then nosed at his cheek.

“What’s wrong?” Her voice was soft, and grogginess still hung heavy within it. “Bad dream, again?”

“I’m…I’m not…sure.” Etchka’s tongue felt crusted in sand. He got out of bed, poured himself some water, and then sat down next to Rain. “I…I don’t think…” He took a drink. The cup shook in his hands. “I don’t think I should have any more Star’s Blessing.”

“Why?” Rain steadied his water cup with one hand, then twined her fingers through his after he set it down. “What’s happened? Isn’t…isn’t it working? You seemed…you seemed better…”

“No, it’s…” Etchka swallowed, then worked his tongue around inside his muzzle. He didn’t even know how to proceed, how to put his jumbled, frightened thoughts into words without sounding crazy. Hell, if sounding crazy was the only problem, things would be easier. But Etchka was far more afraid of making sense, of discovering in the end, he was right. He waggled his fingers alongside his head. “It’s working. It’s…definitely working. And now…now I don’t want it to work, anymore.”

Rain took a deep breath, and let it out in a long, slow sigh. She wrapped an arm around his waist, and hugged herself against him. “They said this might be difficult. That…well, they thought your mind might have mixed up your stories, and your histories, with your real life. That it was though your mind had created an imposter, living inside your head.”

Etchka took a slow breath. “They’re right, in a way. I think there is an imposter in my head.” He was quiet for a few moments. Rain stroked the fur across his side, waiting for him to find the right words. When Etchka spoke again, his voice was but a trembling. “Rain, I think I’m the imposter.”

“What?” Rain went still, then slowly lifted her head, easing back from him. “What…what do you mean?”

“I feel like…Like I’m living in a memory. That I’m really…someone else, remembering all this. Or…living it anew, hoping it changes. And if…if I keep taking the Star’s Blessing, it will keep…clearing things up for me.”

“But isn’t that what you want?” Rain took his hands in hers, gazing into his eyes, her ears flat with worry. “To sure all your…memories are the right ones? And the things you see are really there?

“I…I don’t know.” Etchka heaved a sigh, and lay his muzzle against her shoulder. “I’m afraid if I keep going then…if Etchka is the imposter, then…Then Etchka won’t exist anymore.”

Rain hugged him again, rubbing his back. “Of course Etchka will still exist. You’re still here, with me. You’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m not suddenly not so sure. Words are…” Etchka buried his face against her fur, his chest tight. “Echoing in my head, and…they don’t make any sense. I keep hearing myself saying that…that…if I keep going, I’ll know, and…and it never works if I know…”

“If you know what?” Rain tilted her head, splaying her dark gray ears.

“Who I really am, I think.” Etchka closed his eyes, whimpering. “I…I don’t think I want to know, Rain. I don’t think I’m supposed to know. I dreamt, last night…that I saw our creation. Our people, built from sand, given blood and thought.”

“That…that sounds like your mind was…thinking about all the stories, about where we come from…”

“I dreamt I did it, Rain. I dreamt…I dreamt I made life.” Rain sucked in a breath, her body shaking. As soon as he realized how that might have sounded to her, he regretted it. A cold tine pierced his heart, and all his strength poured out from the hole. “No, I didn’t mean…”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant.” Rain shifted until she was staring into his eyes again, her muzzle and nose bumping his. “With all that has happened to us lately, how could your mind not drift to such thoughts? Even as your consciousness clarifies, your subconscious seeks an escape from…” She glanced down at her belly, tensing. “…Everything. How simple it would be, if you could but wave your hand, and make life?”

“Rain, if I am but a dream, than the dreamer can.”

“Now you’re just talking riddles.” Rain licked his nose, and smiled. “Besides, they say we are all but stories of the gods. How much difference is there if one of us is a dream, and not a story?”

Etchka managed laughter, shaking his head. Somehow, he found almost as much comfort in the way she took everything in stride lately, as he did in her smile. Leaning against her, his gaze around the room, from the jugs and pitchers for water and juice, to their spare clothes, to the incense burners, and the little figurines built of sand he must have made in his dreams. Rain put them all on a shelf, alongside the wooden toys he carved for their pup, before the stillbirth. Finally, Etchka stared at the jar containing the last remaining doses of Star’s Blessing.

“You know…if I’m even half right about this…” He caressed Rain’s fur, head resting on her shoulder. “If I finish that, whoever is dreaming me might finally awake. And then…then I’ll be gone…”

“You won’t be gone, Etchka. You’ll still be here. Will you suddenly vanish? Will you forget everything you’ve been through, everything we’ve experienced together?”

“I…I don’t know.” Etchka shrugged, flicking his tail against the bed mats. “I don’t think so.”

“Neither do I. Even now, even with everything you’re afraid of…” Rain stroked the back of his neck, twining fingers through the thickest tufts of fur. “You do not sound as if you are fading. Only that…some other part of you is…is waking up. And instead of fighting each other, you’re just…becoming whole, again.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” Etchka smiled, closing his eyes to savor her warmth, her touch, her scent. “I love you, Rain.”

“I love you too, Etchka.” Rain shifted just enough to kiss him a while. When their kiss broke, she leaned back to smile at him. “If what I say is wrong, please, correct me. If you do not want to keep taking it, I will respect that. I…I just want…I don’t know any other way to help you, Etchka. There has been a schism in you since the day you saved Ibba’s life, and-”

“I don’t think I was meant to do that.”

Rain cupped the side of his muzzle in a hand, still smiling. “It matters not. What I’m trying to say is, whatever powers you unleashed, they opened some chasm inside you, and from it poured another life, and that life has been intruding upon you ever since. When we…” She swallowed and glanced away a moment. “Vakaal. Since then, the only thing weighing heavier upon my heart than him, is you. Etchka…” Rain swallowed a few times, blinking away years, her voice shaking. “I have watched you disintegrate, since then. It…it tore my heart apart to lose him, but as the years pass, my heart will mend. You but…you crumble, Etchka, day by day. This schism is consuming you, Etchka, and if the only way to save you is to help you understand who, or what you are, what you were before, then that is what I want to do.”

Etchka whimpered, fighting back his own tears. He pressed his forehead to hers, horns bumping. “Have…I really been that bad?”

Rain only nodded. “It is why the midwives turned to Star’s Blessing. It is the strongest we have poisons, or…maladies of the mind.” She worked her hands around the back of his head, caressing his neck, and his ears. “Etchka, we cannot heal from Vakaal alone. We help each other, always, yes?”

“Yes, Rain, of course.”

“We heal together, day by day. And the same goes for you. Whatever you wish, to finish the Blessing, or not, I will stand by you, and help you in any way I can, and I promise you, we will get through this today. For a time, I wondered if…if…Vakaal was meant to live, and I was meant to-”

“Don’t say it…please, don’t say.”

“I don’t believe that, anymore. I believe that…that whatever comes next, we are meant to face it together. Whatever…no, whoever you are, suppressing it is only hurting you.” Rain eased her hands back to cradle his muzzle, a little smile spread over her own snout. “So we’ll face it together, you and I. Whether you’re the dream, or the dreamer, I will love you just the same.”

Etchka sniffed, but found a smile stretching across his muzzle, too. “Thank you, Rain. I would love you no matter who I was, and I know you would have made a wonderful mother. I just wish…I…” As Etchka blinked away tears, his gaze settled once more on the Star’s Blessing. “Maybe…maybe you still can be.”

“Etchka, what do you-”

“If I’m right, and I am what I’m afraid of…maybe I could fix all this.”

Rain flattened her ears back, tilting her head. “I’m…I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“When I saved Ibba, and when I healed you…it was as if I froze the world. It happened in blink, to everyone else, but to me…It was as if our…our story was just…waiting for me. To shape it however I saw fit.” Etckha pulled away from her, and pushed himself to his feet. He padded to the shelf where the medicine awaited. He stared down into the jar. Even dry, the petals of the rare blossom were black as night, riddled with vibrant, blue-white spots. “The night the brought this, they said I’d been talking about…building the world anew, ensuring that our child lived, and…you asked them, what if I could? Well, Rain?” Etchka lifted the jaw, glancing back at his mate. “What if I could?”

Rain rose and followed him to the shelf. She gently pulled the jar from his grasp, and set it back down. “Not now. You’ll overdose. Tonight.”

Etchka offered her a smile, and what he hoped she took as a joke. “Gods can’t overdose, Rain.”

She cracked a hint of a smile. “I ought to slap that grin off your muzzle, but…I don’t know what to think any more. But I won’t have you risking it. You’re already taking more than would normally be given. Tonight, you can take your regular dose, and then…then tomorrow we’ll see how you feel…”

Etchka flattened his ears back. “I was expecting you to remind me that I’m not a god.”

Rain took a deep breath, then let it out slow, resting her head on his chest. She traced circles through his fur with a dull claw tip. “You said yourself, you’ve stopped time.”

“It…only seemed that way.” Etchka flattened his ears, wishing he hadn’t said that.

“Etchka, you’ve always been the strongest. We just didn’t know howstrong, not until you saved Ibba.”

“I’ve always been good at healing.”

“Good at healing is mending a broken bone, love.” Rain shivered, gritting her teeth for a moment. “That poor girl…her fingers were…severed and laying on the sand, Etchka. Her entrails were…falling out. No shaping could save her, no healing could mend those wounds. But you? You took her in your arms, and she was mended. There was no…effort, no…slow closure of the wounds. You touched her, and she was whole again. I don’t think you’re a god, Etchka, but you’re not like us.”

Etchka sighed, resting his chin between her horns. “Sometimes I wish I was.”

“We don’t…get to choose what we are, Etchka, only how we dealwith what we are, only how we live our lives. And…whatever you are, I think…I think you have to embrace it, before it tears you apart trying to free itself.”

Etchka swallowed hard. “It is…hard to argue with such wisdom.” For a few moments they stroked each other’s fur, sharing silent comfort. An unanswered question still rolled around inside Etchka’s mind, and though she ignored it before, Etchka asked again. “Rain. What if I discover I can things? What if Vakaal could live?”

“Normally…” Rain’s voice was soft, and subdued. She did not sound thoughtful. Rather, she sounded as though she had already given this question a painful amount of thought, and could never find any answer but one that frightened her. “I would say, it was the gods will he did not survive, but…I still feel some…strange emptiness. As if he was meant to live. I would not argue with the gods will, only…struggle to accept it. But Etchka…if this is something you can do? You may not be a god, but…it must have been a god who gave you such a power. Why then, would they grant you such a blessing, if not to undo a great tragedy? Tonight, take your tea, and tomorrow…we will see what the truth holds for us.”