Night had come, and Liana had nestled in her outdoor corner with her book and chamomile tea, invisible to any outsiders. She liked to have an overview of the world, but also to be an unobtrusive part of the background herself. In the meantime it was becoming way too dark to read with only a tiny tea-light candle as a light source. As usual, she watched the stars slowly appear one by one in the darkening sky. She could more or less predict which star would appear where, and knew all shapes of constellations and the names of some as well.
It was long past bedtime, but she was plagued with insomnia from endless thoughts going in all directions, and the stars provided her a lot more stability than the human world. A breeze had started to blow, and the huge black forms of the poplars swayed in the wind, with next to it in the darkening sky her favourite constellation Orion low above the horizon. It was now fully visible, including the smaller stars around it. Liana loved the silence which this edge of Doodzout had: save for the distant rustle of cars and the erratic screeches of a frustrated bird,it was as good as silent, so far as this world knew silence that is. And she needed some silence now. Just being in the village and communicating with people for a few hours had left her feeling worked up tonight. Or was it mainly the absence of certain people, especially her parents?
Her little uneventful life here was actually quite complicated if she came to think of it. How had she lived her whole life here in this world without going crazy? Sitting here alone she often did when she didn't want to nag people. And she needed to be alone, even with the few people she'd seen and not seen but chatted with since she'd arrived. Her heart was currently still half in other worlds and even the stars reminded her of last week's adventures; and she apparently still had mild withdrawal symptoms from being in other worlds. Kavanderra's gloomy night sky had looked so different from a completely unfamiliar starry sky, but Nuanderra's was almost identical, only a lot brighter and more alive than her own view now, probably mainly because of the absence of light pollution.
She sipped her cooling chamomile tea slowly and slowly she finally became calm inside. Ever since she was big enough to stay up late, she'd been sitting in places like this regularly, and no one had bothered her here, except her idiot brother. Still, there were times when she hadn't been alone but also had very different company. Fortunately she didn’t only have the gift of noticing presences that most people didn't even believe existed, but she had also the ability to make herself relatively invisible for them in the invisible dimension, just as she could in the human world. But she didn't have complete invisibility, there were just very few people who were interested enough in her to notice and seek her out. Strange how people were sometimes little different from those invisible presences she'd never even had a proper name for.
And this night he was there again. Oh yes, that too. He came closer from somewhere behind the poplars, invisibly, but she could feel it clearly with a sense she had no name for either. “I know you're there!” she said to the silence, and then she was silent again. The stars and poplars didn't answer, yet she knew she had been heard. After a time of calm silence, he continued: "What are you looking for, god of atheists and secondhand noodles?" There was no answer, but she could feel his irritation now. She didn't really care what he thought of her. It was he who had come to harass her now, and he had no right to her and he knew that. It had been nearly a year since she had first encountered this strange creature in the exact same spot. He pretended to be a god but had only atheists as believers. Somehow she had always felt sorry for him, it must have been a paradoxical and exhausting existence to be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. She certainly wouldn't worship him, but she shouldn't leave poor Luigi completely out in the cold either. "He's only human," she would almost say, but that wasn't quite accurate. Her friends in the other world had given her a word that worked better, because at least he was a kind of nawa, just like she, the forest women, the Drotnira, and probably a list of creatures she didn't know who had a certain rationality.
Finally the being spoke, without using words. "Ah, there you finally are!" Liana suddenly realised that the Flying Spaghetti Monster communicated in much the same way as the Nummerfa did when they were not using spoken language, via kah-yito. Liana was pretty sure he couldn't invade her mind right away if she didn't want to, and she'd spent the last week practising protecting against that with far more dangerous invaders like Andira so she really wasn’t worrying about him anymore. This creature wasn't that powerful, and it probably still depended entirely on the thought-field from which it had come into existence. If she had to use that terminology, her friend Inaya, despite her objections to the word, was much more of a goddess than this pitifully awakened heap of thought-energy that roamed the Earth aimlessly.
“You were gone, from the world, little mortal. I've been looking for you." Liana sipped her tea, which was almost cold. Apparently someone else had missed her after all, even if he wasn't really human. “Yep, I was gone, gone from this world indeed. But that is my own business.” she replied, and in the invisible dimension, Luigi looked strangely down on this little creature who so regularly broke all categories of existence, sometimes just by existing and being herself. "Why were you looking for me?" He didn't answer right away. In the distance a rooster screamed, otherwise it was quiet.
“Liana, am I a god to you?” There they went again… Liana took another sip of cold chamomile tea before answering. “You've always told me that you are. And who am I to contradict the gods?” she replied rather sarcastically, with a question in return to which he did not respond. She decided not to say everything Inaya had said about him, but something along those lines. “Listen, I have no idea what so-called gods are and what you. But if I go by the old stories, most of them are just a bunch of idiots who are worse than humans: Zeus, Apollo, Eris, Thor, Loki, Poseidon, or that weird bunch that messes with Gilgamesh all the time, you name it... Sometimes I think people are always looking for the most powerful person they are afraid to submit to, and that's why gods are so interesting.”
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She paused. No, her life was in no way normal. Was she here having a therapeutic talk with the Flying Spaghetti Monster? If she ever said that to her class atheist Izabel… “So I don't care what you are. I can't deny your existence, but it would be foolish to worship you… Don't you have anything better to do than harass sceptics like me if you are a god and all?” she asked. “What else can I do? I just exist because people believe in me. And then it turns out that they don't believe in me at all… I was at a conference this week because someone there kept using my name all the time. Without taking me really seriously. Now he can't help but take me seriously…” Luigi grinned invisibly and went on apologetically. “He asked for it! Can I help that he freaks out if I manifest myself to him? And the great thing is, he can never tell anyone. I can't exist… I can do whatever I want and no one will ever believe him…”
Liana didn't know what to say back to that. She already knew Luigi's games, and didn't know how to react to them. She disliked this kind of atheism as much as she disliked the gods, and the idea that only what science could describe really existed had never really been an option for her given the world she lived in. She would have needed a completely different science at least for that. Both rational thinking and empirical observation would yield the opposite of the materialistic scientific orthodoxy for her… So she couldn't muster much sympathy for that either, certainly not for the more extreme dogmatic version of it. And yet she objected to the way Luigi dealt with these people.
“Leave those people. They don't know any better! I also have a classmate who does that, Izabel. She's very goth and all, but she's also always making irritating comments about anything she doesn't think is scientific enough. And she actually swears by the Flying Spaghetti Monster sometimes.” She said. “Ah, then I must visit that one too!” Luigi said firmly. "No you will not do that. Leave her alone! She is under my protection!” She suddenly had a lot more authority in her voice, even though she was whispering. He relapsed into his old power games, but Liana shrugged. “She's under my protection, I said, even though she's annoying at times. Just keep that in mind.” It was completely unclear what she might do, but Luigi seemed to resign himself to it. He went back to an earlier topic.
“So you were really outside of this world?” Liana nodded. “Yup, meeting with creatures a lot more powerful than you in Nuanderra, then fighting madmen who wanted to wipe out humanity on Kavanderra and stuff. Isn't that what everyone does with their weekends?" Luigi clearly didn't believe her, but he had apparently heard of the names. “Those worlds are only whispered about, but they are unreachable even for most of us. Even the old gods don't talk about those things openly. And you say you just casually walk in?” She shrugged her shoulders. “A person has to do something against boredom, huh...”
Luigi's interest was now aroused. “You've been in the second world, little mortal? Were there gods there too?” Liana had to think about how she would answer that question. "Not that I know. There must be some kind of priests, or even priestesses, but I haven't seen them, and I have no idea what they do exactly. They said I would make a good priestess. But no one worships any other creature there as far as I know. My good friend Inaya from Nuanderra would easily crush you in single combat I think, if she really used her powers, and she is part of the soul of the oak forest as she says herself; but she shudders at the idea that she could be a goddess in our world. Not everything that is powerful wants to be worshipped in all worlds. Everyone is part of Al-Elyehdinn's web, she says, but I think that's untranslatable. Only in this world are there so many beings who walk beside their shoes and are worshipped, and idiots who want to worship and sacrifice.”
Luigi was clearly impressed by this little speech. "You speak in riddles, even to me, little mortal," he replied. “Life is therefore a mystery, my invisible friend.” She said. That last word seemed to resonate in his nonexistent head for it had changed the whole atmosphere. "What do you call me?" Liana shrugged. She'd used the word "friend" casually without thinking and, of course, partly ironically, but it hadn't been a lie completely, and Luigi hadn't missed that. Words have power, Liana thought, and friendship and worship were worlds apart. The little bit Luigi had given away about what his kind was had seemed a description of an almost Darwinian competition system in which the weak did not survive long, and everyone fought for a rung higher up the ladder. His modus operandi seemed to consist largely of aggressive power games, both over humans and between the 'gods' themselves. It was a world she herself would find hell in whichever part of the pyramid of power she was placed in. Equality and friendship, which she prized so much, seemed rare in such an environment… She could easily get rid of it now with a joke, but she felt that would be very wrong. This pathetic wannabe god was somehow a nawa like herself, to use Nuanderran terminology, and a very lonely one too, with a lot of existential baggage and no friends.
But you know how dangerous people are in relationships when they go wrong. If you ever use me in one of those stupid power plays of yours with my kind, you better not show your ironic noodle head on the same continent as I'm walking around on anymore, because I know where to find you!" Liana felt like Luigi was doing the equivalent of a human swallowing. He seemed to be thinking.
“Okay, we're friends then. I don't think I've ever had a better offer really."