Danna had spent the last few days from Gi's perspective recovering from the Father's attack. The Otters had been spawning much faster than previously and their work to convert several of the new monsters that had been brought into her clan helped a lot.

She'd gotten enough power to create a small realm attached to Noctua's own that would allow her otters to stay there while she decided on their next course of action. Using a small portal of light, Danna watched Gi as he went about making preparations for his attack on the Spiked Eagles.

"Still feeling guilty?" Noctua asked and Danna nodded. "The Father's strength was surprising and I think we will need quite a bit of my remaining Divinity to do any damage to him. With any luck, it will slow him down and you'll have a better opportunity after I'm gone to get yourself in a better position."

She understood what opportunity he meant. Though they couldn't read the future, they had millennia of a pattern to understand much of what came next. "You never told me about why this time is different than the past. There's something blocking me from understanding as well. Is it another god?"

Noctua shook his head. "Danna before we go to battle together, there is something that I must confess. It's something that you need to understand before you agree to truly work with me."

Danna gave him a quizzical look. "If you tell me you're the Father in disguise, I'm leaving."

He gave a half-hearted chuckle. "No, nothing so dramatic as that yet perhaps something closer to your heart. Let me start with the history lesson first. You know the First One, yes?"

She nodded. "Most gods blur the river of truth naturally, but knowledge of him is exposed. He's the God of Monsters, correct?"

"Yes, but he was a human once. Many of the mortals believe that the first one created monsters because he is evil, but that's not true. Arrogant, powerful, lacking empathy? Yes, but monsters were created to raise up gods. The First One worked with the others to create the system and use it to build an army."

"An army for what?"

"There are older beings than the gods that haunt existence with their presence. Perhaps they are the genesis of reality or the termination of it, it's hard to say."

"So I'm supposed to be part of this army then? If so, why haven't I heard anything about that?"

Noctua shook his head. "No, you weren't meant to be part of the army. You're a nascent god. You can barely affect one world with the amount of followers you have. Frankly if it weren't for the height that Siht had reached, I'd be the same. Monsters that step from the mortal realm into the divine come with much more power than one such as you."

As a goddess, Danna was infinitely patient, but even with that, it was taking Noctua a long time to get to his point. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought the god was stalling. "I get that I'm weak. I still haven't heard anything personal yet."

The god took a deep breath. "I'm getting to that. Part of the First One's system is bringing souls rich in experience to these artificial worlds such as Gi's. While I am too weak to truly change it, what I can do it point it in a direction that I want. I am... the one that reincarnated Gi as a monster."

He seemed to expect her to be angry, but more than anything, she was just confused. "Why?"

"I've told you before that I tire of existence, but it's been difficult for me to end it. Several worlds no longer think of me as anything but a dead god, but the monsters have been tenacious in their belief. I needed an agent to stop my followers."

A rock appeared beneath him and he sat down slowly before continuing. "First, I converted Hillin and he spent a long time doing my bidding, but ultimately, he struggled to finish the work so I looked elsewhere. What I needed was a god that hadn't been pulled into the First One's war. What I needed was you."

"Me? How could you have..."

"Your husband was a flawed person, Danna. Barring the problems near the end of his life, he worshipped you even then. For him, you were already his goddess. I told you how gods are born, right? The combination of faith and distance? All I had to do was point the First One's system towards him when he passed away and then preserve his memories enough that he would remember you. Frankly, it worked way better than I expected. I hate to say this, but your husband seems to constantly seek approval outside of himself."

Danna sat down herself without even thinking and Noctua conjured one of his soft rocks beneath her. It was strange to hear that her mentor had orchestrated both herself and Gi into the places they now were. All the violence and struggle that Gi had gone through.

She wanted to be angry. She wanted to rage and smash things. If she was a human still, she just might have. However, she wasn't a human. Yes, Noctua had manipulated both her and Richard, but what was the outcome?

Noah had lived a better life without them. With Noah excelling more than Richard ever had, he hadn't even had much conflict with the Father. Noctua hadn't done them a disservice. "You provided us a second chance," she said softly.

"You're calm," Noctua said. "Not that I don't want you to be, but let me explain one more piece about gods that you might not have learned yet. All gods are beings of faith. Not only do they gain their power through it, but they are shaped by those that believe in them. The First One, for example, is considered heinous and evil by humans and the ultimate progenitor to monsters. At times, he reflects that."

"So I'm more calm, kind, and understanding because that's what my followers believe me to be?"

"Yes."

Danna nodded. Maybe it was just because of her nature now, but it didn't seem a bad thing. Her thoughts were still her own. "I'm not upset with you nor does this change anything for me. Like I said, it's a second chance. Maybe Gi is too far gone, but as some point, I'll get to talk to him and that will have to be enough."

Noctua studied her with sad eyes. "I'm assuming that means your attempts to communicate have failed?"

"I put my apology directly into my Word which he should have known from the Religion skill, but he so rarely uses it. The dreams I've tried to show him don't stick as he barely remembers them. He hasn't taken any mind altering drug other than alcohol and even that he's barely touched. The only time I could have truly appeared to him was when he was under the effects of the Illusor Clan Progenitor's Skill, but the Father saw to that chance going to waste."

The light view showing Gi still hovered in the air from where Danna had been watching him. Noctua stepped over and studied him as Gi made his way across the Barrens. "Your husband is a strong monster, but a weak person."

"I disagree," Danna said.

"I don't think that's an objective statement."

"It is. The problem is that you're seeing into his head. You see the intense self focus that he gained from having all his flaws thrown in his face. You see the paradoxical importance he places on the opinion of himself from the eyes of others. He gained that from The Father's rare praise. You see the bouts of anger when he feels helpless or the pain he feels now at being rejected by me. Even with all that, what did he accomplish?"

Danna joined Noctua to watch her husband. Even now as a monster, he wasn't so different from the man she knew. "He graduated school, got a job, and raised a family. He might have taken the permanent way out, but it was me who fell apart after he died. It was me that neglected Noah and didn't have strength to do anything."

"I've viewed your history, Danna. With the chemical imbalance, I don't think-"

"And since he's been a monster? He rescued Poe and reigned at the top of the Infant Stage. He passed the Child Stage against other heavily entrenched races that had traits from their Progenitor well beyond that of him as a Child. As an Adolescent, he suddenly had to deal with a human mind in a monster's world where he was used as a pawn by Jalx and Elizabeth. And what happened?"

"He defeated his first Ground Clan."

"Damn right. His first. Ferra was in the same position that he is now. A small Ground Clan who grew too fast to have a chance to build up their forces. Where she fell, he thrived. He demolished not one but two other Ground Clans. Now, he's in the process of planning an attack on a Sky Clan and he might just do it."

So, I suppose you're right. He is weak, and yet, look at all he's accomplished in spite of that. I have always seen him as a mouse carrying a boulder and I look at him with the same awe and adoration today that I did so long ago."

The two of them sat in silence for a moment until Noctua broke it with a soft laugh. "Perhaps if I had something like that, eternity would be bearable after all."

"A stronger person might be able to achieve more, but they could never achieve as much. He always gave more than he had. In hindsight, I just wish I'd set better boundaries. I wanted him to succeed so bad that I let him have all of my emotional energy. When life got tough and I needed it back... neither of us handled it well."

Maybe it was because she'd been disintegrated down to her bare essence or that she'd had to watch Richard feel the hurt of her actions inside of his own mind, but a certain melancholy lingered despite her godly composure. Perhaps, it was that melancholy that Noctua understood and could empathize with more than any other emotion, but he placed a scaled hand on her back and rubbed it as the two watched Gi run through the cracked earth.

"We need to speak more, but let us take a second to reflect on what we will lose and what we have lost."

She placed an arm around his shoulders and the two of them sat there like two old friends sharing a beer on the porch and pondering on all of their regrets.