“Go east,” Acela told D’Argen one day out of nowhere without even a hello.

D’Argen choked on the apple bite he had crunched off and Lilian thumped him hard enough on the back that he spat it back out and he had to cough before he could breathe.

“What’s east?” D’Argen asked when he could finally speak.

“A problem,” Acela answered, the corner of her lips twitching up. “One of us, I am not sure if you met with him yet, has started a whole religion out there. But he has no idea how to control it.”

D’Argen nodded along as she spoke but he gave up on the apple. When he noticed Lilian staring at his hand, he handed it over without thinking. Lilian snatched it up and started crunching away.

“And you want me to what? Bring him back?”

“No. Just see what the problem is and report back to me. I want to know what is happening before I make a decision.”

Lilian made a sound that had D’Argen raising his hand to thump their back like they did his earlier, but they shook their head quickly and chewed loudly. D’Argen dropped his hand and raised an eyebrow instead. For some reason, Lilian was not a fan of Acela. Not like the mortals that started their day with singing her praises and went to sleep with thoughts on her surrounding them. D’Argen had heard many of those thoughts, whispered in the dark in reverence.

“So, I am to observe and report only?” D’Argen asked to confirm.

Acela nodded. “I know we are having you running all over the place for—”

“No, it’s fine,” D’Argen interrupted then realized Lilian had stopped chewing to stare at him with wide eyes. He thought back to his words and his own eyes widened. “I apologize,” he said and rose from his seat, lifting his chin at Acela. “I did not mean to interrupt you.”

“It is fine,” Acela waved him away, but her voice was strange. Clearly, this was something new for her. “When can you go?”

“Lilian?”

“Ah, no,” Acela spoke up before Lilian could swallow their bite and respond. “Just you this time. I will need Lilian here with me for another task.”

“Then, I can go now.”

“Alright.”

They both stood in silence and only when Acela tilted her chin just slightly down did D’Argen realize she was waiting for him to leave.

“Ah, alright. I will… I’ll be back. Bye!” D’Argen jogged away from the great hall and then out of the circle of wooden houses until there was nothing in front of him but an open path. There, he opened his mahee as wide as he could, and he ran.

When he ran with Lilian, as much as he enjoyed it, he could never run this fast. Without Lilian surrounded by his mahee or with their weight on his back, he felt swifter than even the winds.

Acela had said east but not much else. It took D’Argen a few months to find the group she had spoken of and even then, he was surprised by what he found.

“Oh good! She sent someone! That is amazing. Thank you. Thank her,” the man speaking to D’Argen spoke almost as fast as him, his entire body frantic. “I was starting to get worried. Thank you. You are… you are the runner? D’Argen?”

D’Argen nodded but did not dare to speak. It was good he did not because the other started speaking again before D’Argen even finished his nod.

“I am Abbot. God of Light. Or, at least, that is what the mortals here call me. I mean, my mahee creates light, so I guess it makes sense, but—anyway! There is something happening, and I need help with.”

When the silence was long enough, D’Argen asked warily, “What is it?”

“I have to write a speech. Oh, wait, one moment.” Abbot reached into a pouch at his waist and produced a wooden pipe and some crushed tobacco. “This calms me a bit. I am nervous. Good timing, really. You should be called the God of Good Timings. Anyway—” he finished packing his pipe and then used a flint stone to light his pipe. His head was immediately surrounded by heavy smoke as he puffed away before he spoke again “—do you have any followers? I mean, I do not know how it works when you do not stay still, but I have thousands here and they have started looking to me for advice, not just… not just light.”

“Uh huh, and?”

“Well, I guess not. If you had followers, you would know it is not that easy. You see, they… when they pray to me, my mahee is stronger. But it is also… not? It feels stronger, but not more. Does that make sense? I am not sure how to describe it if you have never felt it yourself and—”

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“What is it?” D’Argen interrupted the man’s ramblings, trying not to be insulted. It did not sound like Abbot was trying to do anything other than tie himself in a knot with his worries. “I am to report back to Acela before I do anything, but maybe—”

“How do you write?!” Abbot suddenly interrupted him and then took to puffing from his pipe to the point where D’Argen barely saw his face from the smoke.

“What?” D’Argen asked, to confirm the question.

“I never learned to write. Not their language.”

“Is it not… your language?”

“They spoke it before I came. I speak it too. But I speak all languages. So do you. To us, they all sound the same, but to them—anyway! I have written a few poems before, scribbles in the sand, something beautiful, and the mortals that have seen it all stare at it in awe but cannot read it. I…”

When Abbot trailed off, D’Argen realized his worries and smiled. Even without Acela’s guidance, he knew what to do here. “Bring me something they have—” he stopped his own words when Abbot thrust a heavy pouch at him. D’Argen took it and felt the weight of the stone tablets immediately. He sat down, opened the bag, and took out what looked like broken pieces of rock with engravings on them. At first, he did not recognize the strange shapes either, they jumped at him and twisted, and his vision got blurry, and his head started to hurt. But then he recognized one, two, five, and after a moment he realized it was the same as the writing the mortals from Sky Mountain used but mirrored. He did not question it.

Without thinking, D’Argen reached for his sword, only to find his waist empty of scabbard or hilt. He looked over Abbot and saw no weapons on the man. He did, however, see that Abbot was wearing a similar collar to the one D’Argen had worn when he fell. It had jewels in it but no engravings. “Give me that,” he ordered without thinking.

Abbot hesitated for a breath, then his face fell, and he nodded. He was able to undo the laces holding his collar quickly enough to show he was used to removing it.

“Come here,” D’Argen ordered again, and Abbot hesitated once more before kneeling beside him in the ground. “See, can you read this?” he shifted the collar around as best he could to reflect the writing. After a moment, Abbot exclaimed loudly.

D’Argen smiled and leaned back on his arms, giving the other man space to examine the tablets on his own. The smoke from his pipe was making D’Argen lightheaded and floaty. He faced the sky and closed his eyes.

“—and then he jumped off!” the sudden applause startled D’Argen out of what felt like a dream, and he looked around him. He was in a small house made of clay with only a single animal skin covering the entrance of it.

Laughter followed the applause and D’Argen reached for his sword, only to find it was not there. He crawled toward the house opening and then startled back when the skin moved.

“Ah! You are awake, good,” Abbot said as he entered then let the animal skin fall closed behind him. “I hope we were not why you awoke.”

D’Argen was so confused. “What happened?”

“A lot of drinking is what,” Abbot answered with laughter and then dropped so sit on the ground beside D’Argen. Without pause, he threw one arm around D’Argen’s shoulders as if they were old friends. D’Argen did his best not to flinch but the weight was uncomfortable, so he shrugged.

“Here, have some more,” Abbot held out a skin to him. “They finally opened last year’s vintage and it is much better than what we drank this morning.”

There were so many things wrong with that sentence but D’Argen had no idea where to start. When the scent of the sour drink hit his nose, he remembered drinking with Abbot that morning in celebration of the rising sun. Abbot had taken to his role as the God of Light very seriously and encouraged all the mortals to drink and laugh and celebrate every time the sun appeared.

For some reason, though, the memory was faded. The drink probably. But so were the memories before that. He remembered when he first met Abbot out here, over five hundred years ago, as if it was yesterday. Yet, yesterday, he remembered as if in a fog.

“Here, read this,” Abbot took the skin of wine from his slack fingers and instead thrust a piece of paper in them.

D’Argen expected it to weight as much as a stone tablet and was surprised by both how light and delicate the paper was. He almost ripped it, trying to grip it tight. The symbols on the paper made his head spin and he had to close his eyes as nausea assaulted him.

“Feeling sick?” Abbot asked and that huge hand D’Argen was so familiar with started rubbing warm circles on his back. He did not shrug it off this time.

“I’m just… whatever we drank last night, my friend, is not agreeing with me today.”

“Ah. Do you want to sleep a bit more?”

D’Argen looked up when he heard music outside. It was strange and different and for some reason it felt like the first time he heard it even if he had been dancing along to it drunkenly the previous day. Then he realized it was not animal skin at the door of the small clay house but woven cloth. The same weave as the paper in his hands though from a different material.

“I probably should,” he finally answered, still confused and wary of his surroundings.

“Alright. An hour though, at most. You said you wanted to return before the next nightfall. And who knows? If you are too late to return, Acela will take it out of my hide, not yours.”

“Return?”

“Come now. You did not drink that much. Did you?”

D’Argen thought back and then remembered that yes, he was only supposed to visit Abbot for a few days and see how his people were living before bringing the news back to Acela. As with every time he had visited Abbot in the past few hundred years, the God of Light was able to drag D’Argen into a drink in the morning and a night full of celebrations and too many narcotics.

This time, though, he was truly going to be late even if he pushed his mahee to its limits.

“No, no. I should go now,” D’Argen answered and staggered up. “Any messages to send?”

“Oh! Yes, yes. I have a few, but this one—” Abbot rummaged through a corner in the small clay house. This was his house. The one the mortals built for him when he came to this particular village to be with them “—this one is for Lilian’s eyes only. Promise me.”

“Always,” D’Argen replied with a smile and stuck that small scroll against his breast while the rest of the papers went into the satchel hanging from his hip. “Anything else?”

“Visit again soon?” Abbot said but it sounded like a question.

D’Argen nodded. He left the house to a round of cheers and loud music and waved at the mortals before jogging away. Once safely away from any mortals that could be hurt by his speed, he opened his mahee and ran back to the field of the gods and the city that had started growing there over the past few centuries.