In retrospect I could kind of tell everything was going to shit well before it got there.

First of all, the season was rapidly approaching fall, and I kind-of knew that the invasion that was promised would be coming then and not in winter. Although we had pieced together almost exactly half as many troops as we needed--I eventually asked, and around here, a Company was ten Squads of ten soldiers, one of the ten being a squad leader, with an additional one to three officers--if they came early we would not have the full force we needed.

Mel and Bard seemed content to train the people we did have very hard, though, rather than making a strong recruitment drive. That told me that Mel believed, as I did, that the note in Manne's documents was an indication that the invasion was coming early. How he got wind of the enemy's activities was beyond me, but mostly, I didn't want to know. Anyway, Mel and Bard were preparing to leave with half as many people as they should have, but they also wanted us to have a decent shot at surviving.

As logistics officer--quartermaster, Bard called me--I was put in the position of rounding up a bunch of carts and preserved foods, among other supplies on a fairly detailed list. Bard gave me directions and a budget, and he knew what he was doing, so we had our supplies reasonably quickly, and kept them waiting in storage.

My Deific Body actually saw a decent sized army on the road off in the distance at around that time. They seemed to be dressed in colors very similar to ours, so I assumed that it was an army of Belma, just not from our town. I caught sight of at least five companies, but I wasn't keeping constant watch for them, so I assumed it was more. I felt like something else was there, but couldn't place it.

And then one morning the entire force we'd prepared was drawn up on the beach. Bard had said we would do exercises, but we just stood at attention until a trio of messenger schooners made their way into dock. Mel and Bard stood, I thought smugly, while Minne peered out creepily from the portmaster building.

All of this I understood. What I didn't understand was the person who walked off the ship. It was the same fucking half-avian who had backstabbed his captain after he had been caught wearing the slavers' ring and sailed away with his ship. Mel knew him instantly, but he disembarked with a good half dozen guards, and gave Mel the kind of challenging look that made me, let alone her, want to turn the thing to dust with just my eyes.

Having the power to literally do that was entirely too tempting, and I had to force myself to stop paying attention for a little bit and keep my emotions under control, because things would really, really not go well if I did that.

On the other hand, things didn't go well while I was distracted, either. Mel wanted the guy's head. Prenima didn't seem to mind on a personal level, but had to prevent it in some kind of official capacity. We certainly had enough troops lined up to take them, but Prenima made noises like they were all here as representatives of the ruling clan, and attacking them would be seen as open rebellion.

Mel made another prayer for insight, but nothing my Eyes could see made it better. Prenima hated the bird-man, but there was leverage against her, so she couldn't let things fall apart. The other ship captain was actively on guard against the bird-man if he pulled anything, but the whole lot of them had their hands tied. It was all decided somewhere else, and this bird-man and his definite anti-human bias were just here to tempt Mel into making another incident. Perhaps most importantly, not a single person who had come on any of the ships had any sympathy for the humans on the shore, and many were itching to fight us.

It occurred to me to be impressed by my own godly powers, at that. There were a lot of deductions and insinuations from not a lot of data. I wasn't pulling thoughts out of their head or anything; I could tell Prenima's opinion of the bird-man easily enough, but the fact that it was all decided elsewhere, that was a tricky thing to explain my reasoning on. It honestly felt like there was something hanging over them, and only the bird-man seemed to be unaffected by it. Still, he wasn't smug, or joyous; he seemed like he had gotten a talking to when he got back, but someone else had cleaned up the mess. As for his existence as bait... part of that was just a guess, but he was also not eager to be back here, and the excessive number of guards didn't make him feel better.

So Mel had to let it go. It burned her, and it burned me, and probably Bard, although he wasn't there at the time. It did take the wind out of her sails, though; when she got to the part of the discussion where they demanded a full company a season early and we only had half, she simply wasn't in the mood to gloat or hold anything over Prenima. The half-bird sneered a bit, but nobody let him talk, probably because Mel would have created an incident and a bloodbath if he had.

In any case, orders were handed over to Bard, and the Olissandra Half Company was officially working for the nation of Belma. We had three days to get to the gathering point, which meant leaving pretty much immediately.

Joy.

As the ships sailed away, Bard's first orders were for me to get all our supplies ready to march. To my surprise, overnight a bunch of flour had shown up in the warehouses where we kept the preserved foods, but I took it in stride. Food and cooking supplies, weapons and ammunition, armor, repair tools and supplies, locked boxes full of money, camping supplies, medical supplies, tailoring and cobbling supplies... it was an impressive list, with many things I wouldn't have thought of, but Bard had clearly made this journey before, or learned from someone who did. I made a quick detour to return books to Lucile, who gave me a solemn look and offered "don't die" as some kind of advice, but aside from that, we set to marching right away.

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Five squads of infantry (and about a half-squad of support) all marched on foot. The only horses we had pulled the carts, and although I might have sat on the cart, I would only have been more nervous. I was very glad for the previous exercise, as one hour became two, four, then six. That was all we could do the first day, but Bard--now Commander Bard--made it clear we would be doing more tomorrow.

Great fun.

Somehow after the day's march, it was easier for me to tell, when I switched over to my deific body, about which direction that cliff was compared to Olesport. I guess it was mostly... the fact that the link between my two bodies was changing direction slightly? In any event, I thought my deific body had to be north somewhere, and we were going east, so we were not likely to get close.

Once I was sure Bard didn't need me, I spent the evening trying to piece together a power I could offer to people in exchange for prayer. At least one person had to stand guard for every squad (the auxiliaries didn't count), and I knew that sentries would be tickled pink to have the help of the God of Eyes as they sat alone in the dark. I'd been planning on doing something, but it hadn't been urgent... you know, before.

That also brought up, again, the question of Names. Since I didn't want to use my True Name and I didn't want to use my Real Name, I ended up with Xethram--a name that I hoped brought to mind Xenma and Xerana as "old gods", since I wanted to pretend I had always been there but been quiet until lately. Alanna had mentioned fixing the name in place with flame, and that process was simple enough.

What she didn't mention was that the process came with a friggin' intervention.

I ended up in a shared godly space with a bunch of people ...obviously gods, I guess... who I'd never met before. It seemed like a very Mount Olympus, meeting of the elder gods sort of thing, with me on a small stone dais in the center of a ring of assorted gods sitting on giant chairs on a higher shelf above me, all of whom were very clearly bored when I arrived. Then, one by one, their eyes focused in on the room and they shifted their gaze to me.

Man did I feel small.

"Good evening, Rythva," said a small-looking old man (he was probably three times my size, but I mean proportionally, he looked like a small old man). He seemed to be reading off of a scroll, clipboard... something of the sort. "You are requesting a name change... hm? A first name? That's unusual."

I started to speak, but an overwhelming force--almost a force of nature, really--let me know that I would be told when or if I was allowed to do so.

"He has a lot of Gold power in him for someone so young." A larger, muscled man was appraising me; I was a bit surprised to find that he wasn't at all hostile, since he certainly looked like he enjoyed fighting. "Smells like... oh ho hoh, you got in an argument with an elder god and won? Xenma? That rat bastard. Wish I could have seen that."

A grumble behind me felt familiar, and I realized with a start that Xenma himself was there, seated among the other elder gods. He looked... awful. I mean, every time I'd seen his human face, he had looked awful, but this time he was gaunt, withered, even in his godly form. He offered the other god a glare, but only spared me a glance before closing his eyes and going back to sleep.

"Normally--pay attention" My entire being snapped to focus on the smaller old man who was talking, as though he had reached down with a giant muscled hand twisted my head around to look at him, but metaphorically with my entire attention span, not just my literal head. "Normally, requesting a change in name comes with certain... administrative tasks. If you do not like your name now, it will be difficult to change. Be... very certain, youngster, that you want to be known as Xethram for a long time, because this isn't something you can just let go of."

Except I wasn't sure. It was a stupid name, but I had no idea whatsoever what kind of name a god should have. The thought hung there, and I felt at least four gods lean forward and examine it, as though I had written it out on a piece of paper and held it up for them to see. I only knew Alanna and Xenma, and that nameless--

"Don't even think of that one," snarled one of the gods, I knew not which, because I couldn't look away from the small one. "We decided long ago to just consider him exiled." A snarl followed, which I felt but didn't see--actually, why couldn't I see other things? I was a god of Eyes. Yes, there it was, third god on the left.

That actually seemed to amuse the lot of them, and the small god let go of his grasp on me as they all studied me for a minute. "Well," said the muscled one, "that's an odd choice of godly Domain, but you seem like you can make it work."

"Given your... circumstances..." the small one frowned. "You aren't... actually going to war, are you?"

I felt I was allowed to respond to that. "Not a lot of choices, Your Honor." Seemed like the best title to use.

"Hm. Well, don't die. The Mystic Key can be ...given away, on accident, if you do." He sniffed. "Better to keep it inside your Avatar." Right, that was a better term than 'deific body', wasn't it? I should have thought of that. "But if you do that, you won't be able to do much with your real body. I still wouldn't die, if I were you. Much harder to gather power without that human body to work with, and we look down on people who just take one." He sniffed again. He seemed to like that particular affectation? "We weren't happy with Xenma's choice to take one for you, you know. But that's hardly your sin. As an elder god he has certain rights, but you? We would need to be convinced to allow you that kind of privilege."

"You should meet up with Ciel'ostra, goddess of blades." The muscled man glanced at me. "Actually, you might be Fated to do that anyway. She is a general commanding your forces as it is, and she would sniff you out in a minute. Perhaps that is simply how things must be--two foolish gods courting death in the same army, against, well," he laughed. "Against your enemies, yes?"

I felt like he had deliberately not said something important and it bothered me.

"In any event, you are needed, and we have no reason to deny your Request to be Named." The small god appeared a hammer and slammed it into the ground next to him, and I could swear the sound of it shook the whole planet, although most would not notice. "Let it be known, that Rythva shall be God of Eyes, and He shall be named Xethram."

I woke up to someone shaking me.

"Come on," said one of the cooks, "need your help with the supplies. Something is missing but the guards swear it was never there."

I groaned and got up to follow him.