When she took the small family back to her forest, the parents followed, twittering their distress. Only one of the birdlings survived, thrashing about in the twisted corpses of her stillborn siblings, fulfilling the kin-sacrifice required for godhood to Csialeide’s excitement. One by one she pushed the other chicks out of the nest, her parents focusing solely on her as she grew. Her parents grew sickly, the sparsity of food in Csialeide’s forest wearing on them.

Eventually they didn’t return at all, either perished or abandoning their last remaining chick. But tenacious thing that she was, she crawled out of her nest, leaving her decaying siblings behind her, desperate to retain the life she had been given. She fell, caught in the eye cavity of one of the skulls in Csialeide’s shell, sticky slime holding her in place. ‘Eat, little one,’ Csialeide cooed, eager for her fetal daughter to consume the godseed contained in her shell. Gradually she grew there, consuming both slime and mineral godseed to survive, transforming her small bird body, taking on the human form of the skull she had been enveloped in. Until finally she emerged, whole and perfect. ‘Mother.’ She said, looking at Csialeide as if she were her whole world. And she was. It was a heady, overwhelming sensation she had not entirely been prepared for. A being entirely dependent on her, that needed her in a way no one else ever had. Csialeide smiled down at her daughter. Her perfect one, her only child. Her Una.

Her daughter was a curious child, constantly flitting about, retaining so much of her bird-like origins. And the questions. ‘Can I eat this Mother?’ ‘Why does the pool shine Mother?’ ‘Why can’t I leave the forest Mother?’ She had deliberated on letting Una leave the forest for quite a while, worried about the humans being so close. It could be dangerous for such a frail godling to go about on her own. Novem, the god-eater was always on the prowl, as well. ‘When you’re older my loveling,’ she replied, humming softly to sooth the child. The child was not soothed. She pouted petulantly and stomped away to get into other mischief. Being a mother was much more intensive than she had expected, her time was not her own anymore. But she supposed she was more invested in her daughter than other gods were in their progeny.

She dived into the pool, sending fluorescent algae splashing out of the waters, blinking in distress. ‘Look Mother, I’m a good swimmer now! Even though I’m a bird!’ Una’s idea of swimming was to remain floating on top of the water, she had not quite grasped that she could use her limbs to paddle about. Silly child, Csialeide thought indulgently, her thoughts echoing in the glade. Una grinned up at her, gap-toothed as, missing some baby teeth. Csialeide had been collecting them, precious mementos of her child’s growth. She wouldn’t be a child forever and Csialeide wanted to treasure her youth. She wasn’t sure what she would do with them yet, but she couldn’t bear to throw them away.

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Little Una collected things as well, little flecks of crystal that came off their larger counterparts, mushroom spore prints she made on stones, flower petal ink, smeared over her hands and face in markings whose meanings were only known to her. There were no animals in the forest for her to play with, but she still had her plants, almost all of them Csialeide’s acolytes, they would have to be to survive in her wood. They were acolytes by accident, rather than design, and they mostly kept to themselves. They quietly lived in the way only plants can, their deep inner lives only communicated with each other. Una did her best to coax them to play with her, but it was futile. They were set in their ways, though they did view her with the fondness of a rambunctious younger sibling, the soft thrum of their thoughts a soft undercurrent to Csialeide’s own deep hum.

Unlike the plants and Csialeide’s own thoughts, Una’s thoughts, when they occasionally flared with her proximity to her mother’s shell, were indecipherable. Part baby talk, part bird, they defied Csialeide’s interpretation. But it was good for her daughter to have some privacy, she thought. ‘Will I have a little sister, Mother?’ Una asked her one day. ‘A sister, my loveling, where did you hear such a thing?’ Una was braiding her downy hair, still fluffy like a baby bird’s, her concentration focused on not creating more knots than it already had. She had taken to insisting she could do it herself, slowly gaining her independence, Csialeide thought, with some wistfulness. ‘The orchid flower by the pond called me little sister, she said she was the big sister.’ Csialeide peered at the flower, which drooped slightly, cowed. She had not considered having another child, was very happy with this little one she had. Una had come from her body, grown from her flesh, an intrinsic part of herself, she felt that place in her being that her daughter occupied intensely. And raising Una was her joy. She had never expected that she could gain so much happiness just from another’s mere existence. Of course eventually Una would go off on her own, to live her own life, and Csialeide had accepted this assured outcome with some dismay, but for now Una was still a baby godling, still in need of her Mother.

‘You will be my one and only daughter, my Una.’ she replied, her words filling the entire forest.