Nana stooped down and tried the flint again. As she struck it, it slipped from her trembling fingers and fell into the cooling ashes of last night's fire.

“Sodding Shitslick piece of horse turf!” Nana spat on her hand and reached into the heart of what had been her fire. “Gods damned stone” She muttered as she dug, “I’d burn this whole damned drafty shack down to stay warm if everything wasn’t so sodding wet.” Nana finally located the flint chip and gave it another go. Once again, the smooth stone fell out of her shaking hands. This time it struck the stone fireplace itself and shattered.

“GODS DAMNED BASTARDISED EXCUSE FOR A CANTRIP!”

Nana clutched her shawl tighter, breathing heavily. She glared at the rain dampened wood. Last night's storm had been one of those creatively enthusiastic storms that somehow managed the trick of raining sideways and getting all the way under the eaves. It had left her home cold and damp. She had woken up numb, too numb apparently to even get the fire going again.

And then she was a god. Nana blinked. There had been no pomp, no flashes of obscene light, no booming voice declaring her godliness to the heavens. One minute an old woman, with cataracts and a bad back. The next minute a god.

She straightened up as best she could and looked around. No one had seen her become a god, no one was there. She peered into the darker corners of the room, in case there was some god-making imp or something hiding behind the china cabinet, you never knew. Then, ever so carefully, she drew in a deep breath and bellowed “STEVEN!”

****

It was summer in Somerdon, home of the gods, mountain of mountains and father of all cities. It was always summer in Somerdon. From here, the gods looked out over the world and judged it along their own strict demarcations. Every house was a palace, flavored and decorated by the god that lived inside of it. Like foppish caddisflies they gathered those things that best represented their domains, and so glittering palaces rubbed elbows with stolid fortresses in a raucous kaleidoscope of architecture and color. Llosul, god of the night sky, lived in a tower of marble and opaled birch. Its top adorned with a silver orb representing her dominance over the moon, and all its light touched. By contrast her sister, Imrada, god of the harvests, lived in a jasper fortress, its stones cut and mortared to resemble the brick silos she watched over. On the edge of Somerdon, fires always burned in the home of the god/inventor Burtasrakrayhin.

Let the mind's eye play over the patchwork quilt of themed architecture, the precious stones, the often garish colors, until one comes upon the abode of the god of love, Rylan. Her palace resembles a large, roughly rectangular plantation mansion, set back in lush gardens haunted by bumble bees and topiary. Its walls and halls are lined with innumerable tapestries and statues. All of which are created to highlight her mastery of love, and are quite pleasant, so long as you don’t look at them too closely. When people think of a love god, they tend to think of beautiful legs and rosy cheeks, and forget about all the sticky and furtive parts of love that also involve beautiful legs, and rosy cheeks.

In the central chamber, reclined upon her gilded chaise lounge, Rylan watched. Like many of the gods, Rylan had felt the change in the texture of reality. Now she was searching, looking over the vast lands of Quin, attempting to trace the ripples in reality to their source. Delicately she stroked a long ruby fingernail along the surface of a crystal ball, causing the vapors within to shift and resolve themselves into a new image. Rylan let out a laugh as soft as velvet and smiled.

****

Breathless, and red faced Steven arrived. He was a middle grandchild in Nana’s set of twelve. He would have been quite handsome had it not been for his acne, straw-like hair, overabundance of knees, and well, been anyone other than Steven. His sides ached from running all the way from where he had been chopping firewood for his father.

Steven had expected to find his grandmother sprawled out on the floor moaning, or at least cursing the cat. Instead she stood in the center of the room, a walking stick in each hand trying to look behind her wardrobe. She hadn’t noticed him come in, or at least gave no hint that she had.

“Is everything alright Grandma?” Steven panted

Nana grunted and turned to look at him,“Steven, I have become a god.”

“Well that’s good, so long as he didn’t get hurt either.”

Nana shot a glare at him,“What?”

Steven shook his head, he’d still been thinking about the cat. It was the only logical thing she could have said. “I’m sorry Grandma, what did you say?”

“I said I am a god, boy, don’t you listen?” Nana stumped her way over to him and hit his shin with one of her canes. “A god, a bone-y fide god, like my father before me.”

Steven suppressed a sigh, “Oh Grandma, not that story again” He gently took Nana’s arm and tried to lead her to her bed in the corner of the room. “Why don’t you have a lie down Grandma,” he said soothingly “I’ll make you some tea. Is your wood still wet? I can get you some of ours. A lot of it was in our shed during the storm, and it’s only mildly damp. I’ll make you up a fire, shall I?”

His kindness was rewarded with a resounding crack across the forehead by one of Nana’s canes.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Talking to me like I’m some old biddy. None of you may believe it but my father really was Great Schul!” She sniffed “ Go ahead and get some dry wood, and make the tea, but don’t you dare talk to me like that again or it’ll be the flat of my hand next, boy.” Steven scurried out. Nana’s canings were bad enough, but the flat of her hand had once laid out a mule.

A few minutes later he arrived back with a double armful of mostly dry wood and dropped it by the fire. Nana watched him replace the damp wood she had been trying to light and cup his hands around the tinder. She glared as he muttered the incantation for the cantrip known as Spark and got an answering flash of blue light. After a moment of blowing, Steven got the tinder alight. As he gently fed the cold embers fuel, Nana got the kettle filled and the teapot ready. When she judged the fire to be good enough she passed the full kettle to Steven who hung it on a hook inside of the fireplace to heat. He threw another branch onto the flames for something to do, dreading it, but asking anyway.

“What do you mean you’re a god Grandma?”

“No more wood Steven, or the fire will be too high to grab the kettle. I mean I’m a god. Thought that statement is pretty clear.”

“But,” and here Steven struggled with all the things he could say. Things like;‘ That’s impossible’ or ‘how could that even happen?’ were favorites among them. Who had ever heard of a mortal becoming a god? Now, a demi-mortal, those near-godly offspring of mortals and gods, yes. There had been stories of them almost becoming gods. They never ended well for anyone involved. But a normal person? Let alone an inoffensive old woman?

Steven thought for a moment and added to himself, even if she does have a backhand like a carriage wheel to the jaw.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He finally settled on “But, that sort of thing doesn’t happen. Even if Great-Grandpa Seth had been Schul, he was a mortal. He died, gods don’t die. Besides, if he was a mortal, then where did all his power go? Where was it while he was a mortal, and how do you have it now?”

Nana opened her mouth to respond but was brought up short. The boy made a fair point, and the fact of the matter was she didn’t know. She just knew she was a god. She knew it like other people knew they had bones in their arms. She wasn’t insane, she couldn’t be. Insane people didn’t know they were something, they just believed they were. Nevertheless, she didn’t have the faintest idea of how it had happened or why.

“Because, well, it had to go somewhere didn’t it?” She rubbed her knuckles against her chin, creating a faint rasping noise. “Power’s got to go somewhere hasn’t it? Just because it wasn’t in my father didn’t mean it just up and disappeared. It probably hung around, sort of like a dog with nowhere else to go, until a new master showed up.”

“So why didn’t it just go pick a new master when great grandpa became a mortal?”

“Oh, probably couldn’t.” Nana guessed wildly. “Probably wanted someone of his bloodline.”

Steven looked unconvinced, but Nana was saved from further fabrication by the sound of the kettle coming to a boil.

Steven busied himself with getting the kettle and pouring the water into the teapot. He seemed inclined, for the moment, to let discussion of her qualifications for godhood lie.

Nana watched him work for a minute or two. When she was sure he was occupied she surreptitiously rummaged around in the recesses of her shawls until her fingers encountered warmed metal. She removed a battered tin flask and quietly uncorked it. Trying to explain her gut feeling was giving her a headache, and she needed a drop to heal it.

“Grandma, you know you’re not supposed to be having that. How much have you drunk today?”

“ Nothing!” she slammed the cork back into place and glared at him, “I’ve been cleaning and trying to keep that damn fire lit so you can just get off your high horse and leave a poor woman alone!”

Steven did not argue. He quietly poured her some tea and handed the cup to her. She noticed, with some annoyance, that he hadn’t poured himself a cup. She blew on the tea and took a sip. “Tastes good, why don’t you make yourself a cup?”

“It’s ok, I’m fine.”

“Damnit, make yourself some tea.”

Steven obediently poured himself a cup.

“I know you don’t believe me. You think Ol’ Gran’s lost her mind, along with all her teeth. Well I’ll tell you what, boy, I am a god and that’s that. I don’t need to prove it, I just am.” She sat back and gave him the haughty look of someone who had shot the final volley in a debate.

“Yes but, how-”

There was a light knocking at the door.

Steven glanced at his grandmother who returned it with a look that clearly stated she did not know who it was, and would not be the one finding out. Steven slid off his chair and went to the door.

“Who is it?” he asked, opening the door a crack but also remembering to set his foot right up behind it. Through the open crack he could make out a figure draped from head to foot in a white woolen cloak. Their face was lost in the folded depths of the hood.

“Please dear sir, I wish to come in and speak with the lady of the house.” The voice was pure honey, and it hot wired Steven’s vertebrae as the words slid a finger down his back.

He tried to speak, but could only manage an incoherent “ug” or an “ah”.

The figure extended a hand like a porcelain angel and gently pushed on the door. Steven was absolutely powerless to stop it from opening. The figure stepped in.

Once inside, their size became more apparent. The figure was huge. It stood in the middle of the dark hovel like a marble pillar holding up the ceiling of a barn. A ceiling which Steven knew was exactly eight and a half feet tall, because he had fallen off the ladder when they had been building the house,and broke his arm.

The figure looked around them before stopping on Nana herself.

“Are you the lady of this,” and here the figure paused ever so slightly, “house?”

“Yes.” Nana answered levelly, looking the figure right in the hood, “And you’re Rylan. Come to welcome me, have you?”

Steven spluttered.

The figure wordlessly extended two perfect hands from under her cloak and released its pin. The obscuring fabric fell, along with Stevens' jaw.

Rylan’s figure hit the male libido like a lead filled bat. Her skin was a healthy, yet somehow pale hue shading into a mild rose complexion around her equine cheeks. Her lips were full without being ridiculous and her white gold hair had a wild, untamed look about it. Rylan’s limbs were slender, long, and her breasts were full and carried the same rosy hue as her cheeks. They were supported by her second pair of arms that chastely covered their fronts from view.

Nana also noticed the short, slightly curved horns almost, but not quite hidden in her hair, and the fact that her legs were those of a goat.

“Yes, I am Rylan, and I have come to welcome you.” Rylan’s coal black eyes looked deeply into Nana’s, but Nana could out stare a cat.

“Well, thank you my lady.” Nana glanced to her side. “Steven, close your mouth.”

“Yes, welcome sister. For though you are such a little god with so few believers anymore I bid you a warm welcome. I have seen your plight, and have come to lend my aid to you.”

“That’s awfully kind of you. Steven, I said shut your mouth.”

“But for a few changes, you would find your bounty increase and could be welcomed to our home of Somerdon.”

Nana arched a bushy eyebrow. “Changes?” she said, like someone being told to ‘just sign here please’.

“Yes, you must admit that your own countenance is, quite frankly, ungodly. Your father preferred a set of curling rams horns and a neat black goatee. You, as a woman, may wish to forgo the beard. Nevertheless, I would still suggest a more godly change.You will have a hard time attracting followers looking like a crone.”

“I beg your pardon,” growled Nana, “Who are you calling a crone?”

“Your language is uncouth, your skin is sickly and wrinkled, splotched by time and misuse. Your hair and teeth have both nearly fallen out and what little is left of both is gray. You are stooped, you are weak.”

Nana pursed her lips and gave the god a look that made Steven want to hide behind the cupboard. He’d gotten that look exactly once, when he had tried to tell her off for fetching her own water and had woken up a few minutes later sprawled across her kitchen floor. Like animals sensing earthquakes hours ahead of their arrival, nature had seen to it that Nana’s descendants could easily read her moods. Rylans matter of fact tone was setting off all of Stevens internal alarms. That tone that quite clearly said “what I say is true, and there is no way it could be anything else but this”.

“I see,” Nana grunted in a tone as flat as a knife's edge. “Well, I hold no illusions about my body, ma’am, but I happen to be quite fond of it, and don’t see any reason why I should change to suit the opinions of a hopped up ewe.”

Rylan’s eyes grew as big and menacing as storm clouds. Nana had gone too far, she really had but it was out and gods don’t forgive.

Nana pushed on.

“So thank you for your opinion” she loaded the word with her own brand of venom “but I am quite happy as I am.”

“You should be careful how you speak to fellow gods old woman, continue on

your present course and you shall never be accepted upon Somerdon.” hissed Rylan.

“I don’t see where that’s any of your concern. Gods live on Somerdon, that’s like saying a duck couldn’t live in a pond.” Nana tapped one of her canes on the ground. “It’ll take me a bit to move house but I’ll get there, you mark my words.”

“I shall, old woman, and I warn you. You will never get there without the goodwill of the gods, remember that. You do not wish to make enemies now. Not when you have so little power.” It was a blatant threat and Nana took it like every other blatant threat she’d ever gotten for speaking her mind.

“That’s fair, and I’d tell you about the same.”

Rylan exploded, not figuratively as in she exploded in rage, but literally. There was a blinding flash of light that almost etched their shadows on the wall and a sound like two elephants being slapped together and then, Rylan was gone.

“Grandma,” Steven said when he could both hear and see again. “You shouldn’t have done that, you’ve angered a god!”

“So? Stuck up nannie deserved it. Imagine, telling me I wasn’t pretty enough to be a god. The nerve of some people.” Nana drained her cup and filled it again from the teapot. She then added a few drops of the amber liquid from her flask before sipping it with all the noisy sounds of appreciation. She glanced over at Steven who was gaping at her. “Would you like some for your tea too boy? You look like you could use it.”