A sprout forms, right next to Loaf. The Eldest's main eyes are still on us, but this sprout doesn't have eyes at all. Just a pillar with a flute, a harp, a pair of drums, and a pair of hands for each instrument.

"Greetings, fragile humans. You have no clue what you have stepped into."

It's speaking in the modern gods' language, so maybe the whole thing of using the old language was just a limitation of using the main head?

Camellia already has his harp out and he says, "Greetings great Eldest Brother God. Kindly clarify your statement, thank you."

"The puzzle pieces have been set. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later, and the patterns in how the world works are delightfully predictable. The small creature understands this better than you do, being crucial in this turn of events."

"I would love to–" Camellia messes up on the harp, and sings a small apology. His hands are shaking. Badly.

"Greetings, great Eldest Brother Gods," I say. "We would like to know what events in particular you are referring to. We would also like to know the significance of the cat."

"Odd that your companion ceased to talk. How weak." How I wish to tell him to shut up.

"I would–" Need to be polite even if I don't want to. "I would greatly appreciate it if you answered my questions. Are you referring to the ichor trail from–"

"Yes, the ichor trail from the sad little Arc god. The type who don't acknowledge their origins, their beginnings, the sheer powerlessness of humans and how they ascended from such a form and how impermanent it all is. They do not understand the fundamentals of their being, so they do not understand their strength nor their weaknesses."

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I barely know what to say. This isn't exactly a practical negotiation.

Camellia whispers, "Let me take it now." So I let him.

"It appears the–" He uses that long compound word, "horrible magic people". "–have seized enough strength to injure a god. Did you predict such a thing as well?"

"The gall of a creature such as you, when I could crush you with a boulder with a thought, kill you in a landslide. At least, I can do that now, in the present. All that's true is this: Power shifts and flows."

The god-sprout crumbles. I look at the god's main face and the eyes are closed too.

Loaf is quietly making her way to me, so I stash away my harp and pick her up from the god flesh. Some of the flesh and ichor is still on her fur. Nothing to clean it up with at the moment, though.

"The Eldest," Camellia whispers. "The Eldest, the Eldest, the Eldest, the Eldest…"

"Are you–"

"Lavan, listen, the Eldest. I haven't seen one talk to a human since…" He's murmuring, lost in his own head. "…but that was a senile god, losing her mind, but she said something about patterns too…"

"So there was an Eldest god before this who has said something about… power shifting?"

"But she was technically not an Eldest since she slept for a couple decades and she was definitely going insane and–"

"You're talking to yourself, man. Be clear."

He goes silent. Half a minute or so and he seems to figure out what to say.

"Firstly, my hands don't usually shake that much."

"I know, I wasn't even going to ask about it." Since I know he'd hate that.

"Yes. Well. They don't. Not usually."

"You had something more important to say, yes?"

"Yes." He kind of rolls his eyes(?), some type of exasperation(?), maybe he's bracing himself for his own words. "Everyone who said it was witches? I guess they were right."