We wanted to pretend to be as inconspicuous as possible. Clearly not possible now.

“Hello," I say to Ferrus.

"I thought you two had a day off," she says.

"Yes, we do," Camellia says. "And we are enjoying it."

"On this hill?"

"Yes."

"It's generally understood that, when certain translators of the Guild are doing important work of diplomacy, anyone not involved in that case has to stay home."

"We were… concerned," I say flimsily.

"Great excuse," Ferrus says. "Go home now. You know we notify the rest of the Guild when we finally need their help in matters like these and–"

"Actually, Ferrus," Camellia interjects, "it just so happens that Lavan's cat here had ran off."

"To this hill? And neither of you mentioned it at first?"

"You surprised me," I say, shrugging. "I got nervous." Somewhat true.

"Fine, I'll assume you're not lying," she says, presumably thinking we're lying. "How do you manage to communicate with the gods if you're that nervous, anyway?"

"The gods have some predictable patterns," I say. "The mobile gods at the borders and near checkpoints more than the stationary gods, though they're all much more predictable than humans and with easier to understand codes of conduct and–"

"Okay, okay, I got it," she says, shaking her head. "We'll say you were only here for the cat. We'll say that you—" She looks at Camellia. "—were just here to help him. Even though you have a history of doing things which are…"

"Yes, yes, I know, the Guild hates it when you put any real effort into your job and thinks it's insubordination," Camellia says, rolling his eyes.

"Sad that you didn't shut up just now, Cam. I was about to ignore how we all could hear the Eldest Brother god speaking. Right before I found you here."

"I'm guessing you didn't hear what he said?" I ask, knowing that the gods can "concentrate" the sounds they make to a very narrow area, essentially sound-proofing it.

"Of course we didn't," Ferrus says. "If he didn't control his voice there would be earthquakes everywhere."

"Of course." I do not know what else she wants us to say?

"He was just angry because Loaf stepped on his living skin!" says Camellia.

"Loaf meaning the cat? And he didn't say anything about the…" She hesitates. "The ichor thieves?"

"Yes, the cat is Loaf. No, he did not say anything about the ichor thieves," Camellia says. "We had to explain that the cat is tiny and stupid–" Rude! "–and simply made an unwise misstep."

"Hm." She looks at all three of us for a few seconds. "Okay. Go home and stay home till you're notified. We'll have a story ready for the gods about what happened with the ichor thieves. Why they did this. Most diplomatic approach. For the sake of peace."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"For the sake of peace."

"For the sake of peace."

Loaf looks around at us all from my bag.

"Goodbye now," Ferrus says.

So we leave. And once we're a bit away, I say to Camellia, "Hey, notice how she avoided saying 'witches'? And she stopped a bit before saying 'ichor thieves'."

"Yes, I guess people have some specific ideas about what a 'witch' is. Planet-birth-era type, 'makes even rocks come to life', maybe they don't want people making assumptions about their abilities."

"Yes. Maybe the ichor just… enhances them or something. Enhances their human abilities."

"Yes. I doubt they'd be 'harvesting the gods' power', not in anyway that would be similar to what the gods can do with sprouts and all."

"Yes, definitely." I have my doubts. But, "definitely," I say.

We walk a bit more in silence. My house is closer by than his and he'll just have to go north from there, so I'll see him off from that.

"Also, Lavan, you do know she was making fun of you, right?"

"When?"

"When she asked about the nervousness thing. It wasn't a real question."

"Oh. Makes sense." I'm bad at catching things like this. At least the gods don't do double meaning, at least they're direct.

Silence for some seconds. Oh, I think he's waiting for me to say more than that. Very patiently, too. Alright. "What else was I supposed to say? She said it like a question. So I took it as a question. And I answered it as a question."

"Eh, you're right, better to take it like that than to actually get hurt by it."

"See, at least the gods just throw stones at you if they want to hurt you. That's not a good thing, obviously, but at least it's more direct."

"I also like getting rocks thrown at me better than talking to the Guild members."

"We are Guild members."

"You know what I mean, the…" Technically there is no hierarchy in the Guild. Technically. "The ones who just so happen to be seen as better."

"The ones who actually do have more experience, but you also have some problems with them. Those are the ones you're talking about, yes?"

"Fine, yes. I guess there's a few experienced ones I don't hate– I mean, dislike that much. Cuprum is okay."

"Even Ferrus is mostly okay. I mean, she and the others have been working on the maybe-witches type conversations with the deities for a while. Listening to the gods who had… concerns. Grievances."

"Yeah. Sure. Did you know some of those gods were of the god-gut tunnels?" I stop in my tracks as he says this. "Yes. And you know how they already don't trust humans down there? You know how some people try to extract information from them in ways which– they're already basically malformed gods, barely even gods at all, and–"

"Stop," I say. "I remember being in the god-gut tunnels. They screamed the entire time about being…" Each word they shrieked had overlapped with another. 'Stupidity', 'deformation', 'painful existence', 'promised a gift and given a curse'. And the walls of flesh and tears… "You don't need to describe it."

"Sorry. But my point is, some of those gods down there were talked to about this."

"They can barely talk."

"But they can talk, I nearly made it work in a great and calm way and–" How? "–and it doesn't even matter now, they really won't trust anyone."

I try to ask him what do you mean, what did the Guild members do, what does this have to do with the ichor thieves. To no avail. He stays shut down. Simply pats Loaf's head when we separate ways in front of my house. She stares at him as she leaves, then stares up at me, and then I am left alone with my confusion. As usual.