I spent some time watching the workers continue on with their work as Miana went off to talk to someone, or do something else related to her domain. From what I could sense, Raine and the others were starting to climb up onto the plateau somewhere, and Muir was restlessly sleeping. When I checked in on her inside my Domain, my newest Vicar was somehow thrashing around in the pool at the base of the waterfall, as though struggling to climb straight up through the waterfall itself to reach the cliff above. I am not... actually sure what that metaphor was supposed to mean, except that she was doing something the hard way. I did check to see if she was in danger of drowning or anything of the sort, and I there did seem to be some problem associated with staying drenched in the waters themselves, but I wasn't sure what.

Xechi's ghost form wasn't doing anything to help or harm, just standing by and watching, and neither did she resist when I set my hand on Muir's head to try to reach her. Muir's dreams were... shadowed, I suppose. I could tell there was something to it, a Truth within the dream that had meaning, but I couldn't find it, at least not with Muir sleeping and weakend from what I could tell was vastly overused magic--it felt like she'd burned something inside by letting loose with raw emotion and intent. I watched her thrash around for a minute or two, then tried to stop and consider the metaphor again, but somehow, I couldn't wrap my head around it. Most likely, I'd figure it out later, but something about my conversation with Miana was making me feel stupid.

After standing there and considering the scene for a bit, I saw an unfamiliar face in my Little God's Room, recognizing it belatedly as Herdy, the enchanter. Unlike anyone I'd seen but Alanna, he seemed to be walking around my Domain with eyes wide open, observing things like... like a Mage who was actually in on the whole illusion. It actually kind of creeped me out a bit; while I understood that Godhood was a magical thing, a mage studying me felt... sacreligious.

It wasn't like I didn't get the irony, of course, I just... didn't like feeling like I was vulnerable to a mage, even one who was brought here to help. Somehow, while he poked around, everything seemed thinner, more illusory, less tangible and less meaningful.

I appeared before him, floating effortlessly in the air before him, and to his credit, he went to one knee out of respect.

"Anything I can do to help you?" I offered, tilting my head to one side and regarding him a little curiously.

"Ah... no, my Lord, I am only thinking and measuring things." Herdy glanced around, and placed a hand on the ground curiously. "Is it true you can change this place as you will?"

I gave him an odd look in return. Surely he knew how thin the veneer really was? "Yes," I said, "though I like to keep it as a metaphor for things that are True."

For some reason, his eyes were drawn immediately to the river. "Yes," he said, "I got that sense. But I was wondering, if it wouldn't be any trouble, if you could use this place to Show us what it is you are thinking for your Temple?"

"Us?" I looked at him. "Can all of you mages see this place?"

"Oh, well, anyone can be taught that, my Lord Xethram," he said quickly. "But the picture is always clearer for those of us who... keep a certain elemental Balance. If you don't, it skews your perception, and things are muddy, foggy, or missing. Magical senses are always like that. Well, perhaps not for gods; I wouldn't know." He seemed a bit chagrined. "What are you thinking of for the Temple?"

So I produced what I was thinking of over the river, a tallish building with a big circular glass pane window looking out over the cliff. Although I didn't really put the detail in, the circular window ended up with an iris pattern made out of straight lines, one which ended up giving the window a look not unlike a swirling storm.

"Not exactly subtle," sniffed Herdy. "We can do it, of course, but perhaps something shorter?"

After an hour or more of messing with the Little God's Room, including sketching out an idea for cliff dwellings in the eyes and mouth, a vague plan for deeper caves, and a rough first draft of what Erika's hydroelectric generator would require. Herdy made some comments and forced me to scale back a lot of the volume for practical reasons, but also agreed readily to adding internal "plumbing" channels from the stream, for baths and waste disposal.

He backed out and returned a few minutes later with the other three workers, and they poured over the image we'd built up--but then Miana, seeming to sense something, showed up, and she had some questions, and then comments. She seemed... subdued, and frustrated, but she didn't seem to be hostile, and she didn't give me any more shit.

She did, however, manage to shame me with a single, simple question. "Did you ask Alanna her opinion?"

I... some part of me honestly didn't want to think about why I was nervous asking Alanna to critique my design sense. It wasn't like my design was anything like perfect--it wasn't, and I knew it. But also... on Earth, the homes and buildings where I'd seen evidence of "a woman's touch" were about 50-50 on whether or not I liked the decoration, and usually carried the marks that every change was done with intent, no matter how awful I felt the result was. While I'd seen terrible choices out of men as well, the few friends I'd had mostly in the "forgot to put that away before you got here" school of decoration, and to a certain extent, I liked that. It felt more natural; honest, in a way. People too busy to make the right choices...

But as those thoughts passed through my head, I could feel myself deflating. While I kind of wanted that forced honesty, there was a substantial price to pay if I didn't do things right here and now.

So I let out a sigh and tugged gently at my connection to the other Goddess.

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Alanna had gone by enough names and faces at this point in her life that she was able to separate them with little effort. Ever since she had first learned to live in multiple bodies at once, she had been forced to learn how to separate the feelings, thoughts, memories, and personalities of each, while each had its own place within her. Most of those bodies live different lives than "she" did, but they all were one in the end.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She found it comforting that 'Lucile' was not the only part of her to feel a little betrayed to be called in by Ryan and find him chummy with another goddess. Lucile was a body she had groomed to be more innocent than the rest--epitomizing the "gentle and pure light after a storm" myth that many found so endearing. She would be upset about it; that much Alanna could take for granted. Lucile was interested in love, eager to trust, and would be crushed if things didn't work out--without all of Alanna herself being too deeply affected.

But Ryan was a strange duck, and Alanna found herself interested in seeing what he would do with himself. So far he had been reckless and foolish, and now the situation had turned far darker than they had been anticipating, and he was... this couldn't be him taking things seriously. She refused to believe that he was that stupid.

And this woman, clearly the new goddess of blades... in all the ways she'd been thinking that he fit with Lucile, he didn't fit with her. It was no more than a mental exercise for now, but it didn't stop her from being somewhat affronted by the idea that that woman might be her equal.

Alanna let a mask fall over her expression and studied Ryan.

As often happened, Ryan seemed relieved to have her here. Most people found Lucile comforting, which was of course a large part of the point. But he also seemed chagrined, and it wasn't clear from his mindset why--whether it was his relationship with the Goddess of Blades, or the temple work he'd envisioned behind him, or some other problem.

"It's good to see you," he offered as an opener. "How are things?"

Lucile made a face and waved as if to say, whatever. There was no point in talking to him about those things, not yet. "What did you need?"

Ryan briefly explained that the Patron's people were here to build his temple and he went over the design he'd sketched out in his Godly Domain, explaining his reasoning in brief as he got to each piece. To Alanna, a lot of the justifications seemed thin, but she couldn't argue with the plan as a whole--a hidden place in the cliff that nobody would find, a fake town, a temple to another god, and the whole place designed to hide gods from the Necromancer, so that even if the worst happened and all who lived above were slaughtered, the gods themselves could remain.

The Goddess of Blades did not like that part of it, but she said nothing.

Alanna-Lucile studied the layout in silence for the most part. She could tell Ryan was immediately under the impression that she hated it all, which wasn't exactly true--but not exactly false, either. As the silence stretched on minute by minute, finally she spoke.

"You need to be careful of creating a myth which other people will misunderstand."

Ryan blanched like she had physically struck him, but she continued on after only a moment's pause. "The face in the cliff gives the impression of an ancient dead thing, which might be a boon for disguising your home... but few people if anyone really want to think of themselves as parasites living in an ancient dead thing, and the people who like that thought are going to invent stories about that dead thing and worship it. Even if you try to turn that worship to you, sooner or later an Angel of yours will realize that there is a gap there and insert themselves into the myth, taking power for themselves."

"Similarly," she gestured to the top of the cliff, "this metaphor you have going about height and perspective is dangerous. Someone will take it and think that they need to build a high tower, that reaching the heavens will mean ultimate power. Some people will build towers and dedicate the top to you, just in the hopes of gaining a little power from the connection. Which might--might--work out for you, but only if you really can offer them something in return that costs you less than you get out of the link."

"Meanwhile," Lucile pushed lightly on the illusion, re-centering the three gods in the temple, "this design with the Church only looking out over the cliff is honestly upsetting in its single-minded focus. Do you really wish people to turn a blind eye to the world around them in exchange for seeing far? Because that is what this layout will inspire them to do. And all of that is without criticizing your choice of building on top of a river, which is something that will someday destroy your temple, make no mistake. I am astonished your builders have not said as much."

"I knew it was a possibility," admitted Ryan. "Or rather, an inevitability. I suppose... I just assumed magic would be able to handle that kind of strain. Reinforce the banks, not just the foundation; whatever it takes."

"When I arrive, I can tell you whether the river is a serious danger, but I would generally assume so." Lucile loosened an old binding she'd slipped in place, studying the image of the river with a power she had never earned nor wanted--the power of the Goddess of Rivers, whose key she'd inherited. Generally speaking, it interfered with her own domain and complicated her image, and all for powers she didn't want. Those powers suggested the river was fairly limited--meltwater from a few mountains, maybe a couple springs, but the river didn't seem to flood very often. She packed the power back away without comment.

"If you really think the cave structure doesn't belong, that's fine," said Ryan after a moment. "But I have a thing for the concept of cliff dwellings, and I had always intended that the face was supposed to be mine--if I could pretend that I was an old god recently resurfaced rather than a new one, you know. This would be 'a place that no eyes could see' because it is where the God of Eyes went to die, or something."

"If the God of Eyes died, then you are no more than a replacement, like Miana is," pointed out Lucile. "There will be those who worship the dead older god instead of you, no matter how you spin it, and that is dangerous."

Ryan sighed, and Lucile felt he was defeated. But... "I think I'll still have the two eyes, just not the mouth. It won't look like a face, but it will remind me of what I intended." He seemed to nod at that. "After all, this is my Holy Place."

Lucile felt a little stirring in her at the words, a bit of whimsical nostalgia. It brought to mind a cliff by a river, by the sea--back when she had been in love with the place. No, she supposed she still loved it. She let the mask slip just a little, only mostly on accident. "And that is important. But are you sure that this image is going to remind you, forever, about what you love in the world?"

Ryan studied the place from above, but then swirled the Godly Domain so the three of them were standing on the cliff, looking out over the world. Suddenly, Lucile felt a strong wind blow off the cliff, one that smelled of far away places, distant storms, as well as trees, the waterfall, and many other things. For a moment, behind her, she thought she could make out a small town's worth of voices laughing and carrying on, but when she turned, there was no one there. Beneath her feet, she could almost feel certain, was something hidden, something calm and safe.

She glanced at Ryan, and he stood there with his eyes closed, drinking in the sensations.

"Yes," he said simply, as he reopened his eyes and turned to look at her. "Yes, it will."

Alanna could easily keep Lucile's feelings separate from her own, even as Lucile's heart raced, and the mask she kept over Lucile slipped further... once again, only mostly on accident.