“You know,” Camellia says, “your oven technically counts as a god.”
“Cool,” I say.
“I’m not joking.”
“Oh.”
There is a silence as I bring out our tea. We’re sitting outside my little house, and the cat is sleeping near Camellia’s feet. She warmed up to him pretty quickly, perhaps because of his cordiality towards the oven. She hisses and gets unusually quiet when I clean it out, too, so perhaps she and the oven have a connection. Not relevant right now though.
“Why do you think that?” I finally ask.
“Appliances don’t have to be sprouted from a god to talk, but… creating life?”
“Any old fool can do that.”
“Old fools who are human or gods, though.”
“The boundary between both can be pretty thin.”
“Only for young gods. We’re talking about old fools.”
“Don’t let the oven call you an old fool.”
“I don’t live with it, I can call it whatever I want.”
I do want to say, “I like having you around, so please be friendly with the oven and do not anger it if it is a god like you say,” but that’s a little… well, I just shrug. Shrugging is better.
“Anyway. I don’t think the oven is an old fool,” he continues, “but that it was sprouted from an old fool. Who is also a god.”
“Because it can make life.”
“And because it’s got that… tone of voice? That way of speaking?” He furrows his brow, tapping his teacup with his long slender fingers. “I swear I knew a god who spoke the exact same way it did.”
“Okay, I’m starting to believe you, but I did not ask you to come here for this reason.”
“Oh, right. The deity on the hill.”
“Yes. He was saying something about some… magic people.” I hum the melody of the parts of the word I do remember. “Very long compound word, I didn’t catch it fully.”
Camellia just takes a moment to stare into the distance. “Hm. Yeah, I can talk to it.”
“Thank you!”
“But if the word was what I think it is…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know, I think might be connected to that oven.”
“What are you talking about? Epiprocta seemed suspicious of the oven too.”
“Mm. She’s not the… actually, there’s something going on with the gods?”
“And is it perhaps related to why some of them are being particularly obstructive? Is it perhaps related to why I can’t just go back to the negotiating with the deities at the air travel paths–”
“We need more people with the stationary gods.”
“I’m horrible with the stationary gods, most of the disruptive ones are uncooperative pieces of shit and I can barely understand all the random words , get someone better!”
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I definitely yelled. I did not expect to yell, or to end up waking Ms Loaf, who is now staring at me alongside Camellia.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Well… you’re kind of right. They are pretty uncooperative. Much more than the ones at the travel paths. But, but. You might think you’re bad with the stationary gods, okay, sure. But we don’t have many people who are up to the job.”
“Wow, the bar is on the ground then.”
“Actually–”
“Anyway,” I try steering the conversation away. “So it’s confirmed that you’ll talk to that deity, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And the oven, uh…”
“Yeah, I should be straightforward: Whatever deity it has sprouted up from, it might have to do with… something which the deities are all angry about? It’s been hard for us translators to fully parse out what they’re talking about, they’ve had to make up new words for whatever it is and the whole thing might involve some… you’ve heard the rumours of a certain faction, yes?”
“The witches. Oh, wait.” Clicks into place. “Was that what that long ‘magic person’ compound word was? ‘Witch’?”
Camellia gives me the most awkward, most stilted, least casual shrug I have ever seen. “There’s no confirmation that the witches are real, per se? Or organized?”
“You mean you don’t believe it, and a couple of the other translators also don’t believe it. But there are some who do. And you’re all in disagreement.”
“Basically, yes. Also–” That awful shrug again. “–you’re right to be a bit careful with the oven. No clue what part it’s playing in the whole… unrest… but if there’s any incidents–”
“Yes, yes, you can interrogate the oven then.”
“Or it might give us the information itself. Who knows.”
I laugh. “No, no it won’t. Too cryptic for such a thing.”
“Cryptic, makes me suspect it of being a god even more.”
“I’m not denying that, but I can’t confirm it either. And neither can you, till that ‘unrest’ you talk of actually ends up leading to any of those… ‘incidents’. Oh, and be careful, “ I tell him. “The dragonflies are getting into your tea.”
“Don’t worry, it actually tastes pretty good.” He takes a sip of the dragonfly tea.
I laugh. “What is wrong with you?”
“The list is endless!” Somehow I doubt that, but I might end up saying something about him having really magical eyes and actually glowing whenever he smiles and having a laugh and face which– none of that is relevant, I mostly talk to this guy for the deity translation thing, which–
And then I realise I was completely silent for the several seconds it took to think all that! I think he’s waiting for a response. And so I cease to function, naturally.
Good job. Sip your tea.
“Ey, at least I’m not wrong about it. The tea, I mean,” he says. “It’s definitely edible, since there’s no poisons in these bugs. Pretty sure some got into your cup too.”
“Hm? What?” I un-cease to function a little and indeed. Dragonfly in cup. “Oh. Oh, you’re right.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“It actually tastes fine.” A little bit of a strange bittersweetness.
“But the pieces of the dragonfly wings aren’t so good, are they?”
“No.” I sip more. “I actually already knew that the dragonflies around here aren’t poisonous.”
“Really? It’s not common knowledge.”
“Epi told me. Ms Loaf needs dragonflies in her diet, since she’s not a normal cat.”
“Ah, right. Oven kitty.”
“Yes.”
The rest of the conversation is pretty normal. And nice. Both of us have the day off, and this is after a whole week of… a whole week of things we decide to ignore as we talk.
For the next couple hours, I tell him about all the little things I see every day which make me happy even on the worst days since they’re so beautiful, and he tells me about his sister. The games they’d play as they wandered around the strangest parts of the landscape. They didn’t even know the dangers of angering the gods. The gods where they were grew up were actually quite kind to children. So Camellia and his sister would have games where one of them would be on ‘weird land’ aka the gods’ bodies, and the other would be on regular terrain. And they’d sometimes listen to the gods’ song language. And then Camellia learned that that music was a language. Started learning it, started his path of becoming a translator.
All in all, it’s been a nice day.