It was Lodia. She had already donned the bright, colorful robes of the Matriarch that she had designed and embroidered herself.

Coming from her, it was an awe-inspiring display of initiative, but she was already wilting under everyone’s gazes. Before she could droop too far, mumble apologies, and retreat, I zipped over to her.

That’s a great idea! But why didn’t you tell us ahead of time so we could go over your speech together? I added in a lower voice.

I knew it was the wrong thing to say when she winced. “Sorry, I just – I wasn’t planning to – but then I saw everyone here, having fun, and I thought maybe it would be a good time....”

Impulsiveness – no, let’s call it spontaneity – seemed to be contagious. I shot Floridiana a dark glare, tallying up all the times she’d served as a poor role model. She’d abandoned her students in the Claymouth Barony so many times that they’d had to prepare a replacement headmistress. She’d dragged Den away from his post in Caltrop Pond twice already, and at some point Heaven was bound to notice that one of its dragon kings had gone absent without leave.

That was, if they hadn’t already.

He’d missed that annual draconic conference in Heaven, hadn’t he? The one to which Yulus had taken me, where I’d seen Den for the first time, attempting to impress some star sprites? I added “enticing a dragon king into criminal neglect of his duties” to Floridiana’s list of trouble-generating actions.

Then I finished it off with her and Dusty’s wild gallop into Flying Fish Village, utterly spoiling the grand triumphal entrance I had planned. Yep. A bad influence on the young, for sure.

Lodia’s face was growing increasingly stricken as she waited for me to scold her, so I hastened to reassure her. It’s a great idea! When people are in a good mood, they’re more inclined to listen, more receptive to new ideas. You should keep that in mind for the future too. (On her litter, the foxling perked up and whispered something to a handmaiden. Two rosefinches brought over her notebook and writing utensils so she could record these words of wisdom too.) Anyway, off you go, Lodia!

Flying around behind her, I pushed her forward (with her cooperation, of course).

Everyone! I called. Your attention, please! The Matriarch of the Temple to the Kitchen God would like to lead a prayer of thanksgiving to the Divine Intercessor!

Perhaps Lodia had laid more groundwork for this speech than I’d realized, because there were no puzzled questions as to what a Matriarch did, or who the Divine Intercessor was, or why anyone would bother to give thanks to him. Instead, an expectant hush fell over the villagers as they all faced her.

Lodia’s shoulders twitched. At first I wondered if she were quaking with nerves at addressing her first large-scale audience, but no, she was making an aborted attempt to raise her arms the way Katu did. High drama really wasn’t her style, though, and she must have realized it too, because she folded her hands in front of her neatly.

“Good people of – of Flying Fish Village, we are gathered here today to give thanks for the harvest.” Her chin bobbed as she gulped. “And for peace throughout the land.”

Here she broke off as if she hadn’t planned what to say beyond this point, or as if she had but the words had vanished from her mind as thoroughly as if Flicker had dunked her into the Tea of Forgetfulness. Still, the villagers waited patiently for her to collect her thoughts.

“It is all thanks to the Divine Intercessor, who dwells in our kitchens and watches over all that we do.”

If I hadn’t been scrutinizing her audience, I might have missed the slight downturn of the elders’ lips. They knew their gods. They knew the Kitchen God watched over us not so much to shield us from harm, but to report our doings to the Jade Emperor.

Perhaps Lodia also registered her audience’s skepticism, because she clasped her hands more tightly. “He sees all that we do! He understands all that we do! He forgives all that we do!” she insisted, a convenient re-framing of the Heavenly spy’s role if I ever saw one. “So that, when the New Year and the Jade Emperor’s day of judgement come, he can intercede on our behalf before the throne of Heaven!”

She’s doing well, Stripey whispered.

Phrasing could use more polish, but yes, I agreed. Overall she’s doing well.

“Overall?” Floridiana repeated incredulously. “I’d say she’s doing a marvelous job! You don’t want to use long, elaborate sentences with enough clauses to fill a paragraph. You want to use simple, direct sentences that mimic the patterns of everyday speech.”

Do you? Cassius’s courtiers would have laughed her out the palace gate.

“Yes.”

She was so emphatic that I gave her the benefit of a doubt. She had seen more of Serica than I had, after all. Cocking my head to a side, I examined the villagers again. Their faces weren’t blazing with fanatical passion like Katu’s audiences, but they were watching Lodia intently, the older ones with proud smiles as if their own daughter were participating in an oratory contest. It wasn’t the awed reverence for the Matriarch that I’d envisioned, but warm parental support wasn’t such a shabby substitute.

I brought my attention back to Lodia’s speech right as she finished it. “And with the blessing of the Divine Intercessor, we shall spread good harvests and peace throughout all of Serica, so that all may live in a land of rice and tea and plenty!”

I blinked. Wait. Did she just – ?

Yep, Stripey confirmed. She just announced the beginning of our campaign to reunify Serica.

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

But she had done more than that. By announcing the reunification herself rather than letting the foxling do it, Lodia had not just given the campaign the (putative) sanction of the Kitchen God. She’d established the Temple’s authority to announce the Kitchen God’s sanction of such campaigns.

By accident – or had she observed and absorbed more in Goldhill than I’d realized?

Looking at her small smile as she bobbed her head at the elders and stepped back into the crowd, I rather suspected it was the latter.

----------------------------------------

Up in Heaven:

“Flicker! Come quick!”

A star-child runner skidded into Flicker’s office right as he was reviewing a Yellow-Tier soul’s file.

“You can’t just barge in!” he chastised her. “Reincarnation is supposed to be a private, confidential event!”

“Sorry! But you have to go to the West Gate right now!”

She dashed back out without shutting the door, and he could hear her charging into his neighbors’ offices with the same message.

I can wait here, offered the Yellow-Tier soul. That sounded important.

“You don’t mind the delay?”

The yellow ball of light rotated gently. It must be fated.

The soul was putting a lot of faith in Lady Fate, Flicker thought but didn’t say. Out loud, he thanked the soul, shut its file, and hurried into the hallway. Other clerks were exiting their offices too, looking just as confused as he felt.

“What’s going on?” they asked one another, but no one seemed to know.

“We’re supposed to go to the West Gate,” Flicker said.

“The west gate of what?”

Although the star child hadn’t specified, there was only one logical location. “The West Gate of Heaven. I imagine something’s happening on Earth that we’re meant to witness.”

“What could possibly be so important that they need all of us clerks to witness it?” someone grumbled.

“Who knows?” someone else replied. “But I guarantee that we’re not getting paid overtime for this.”

“Nah, they’ll just tell us to work faster to make up for it.”

Grumbling, they filed down the back paths from the Bureau of Reincarnation to the West Gate. In the distance, between buildings and on the far side of gardens, Flicker glimpsed flashes of palanquins. The gods and goddesses, it seemed, were also processing to the West Gate.

“They didn’t order us to serve foods or organize dances,” he mused. “When was the last time they assembled everyone in Heaven just to see something – ” The very starlight in his veins ran cold.

He remembered what the last time had been.

The last time had been Piri’s execution. The Jade Emperor had commanded every being in Heaven to watch it and learn what happened to anyone who transgressed in so catastrophic a fashion.

Please don’t let this be about Piri. Please don’t let this be about Piri, he prayed, to what god he didn’t know. But what was the point of prayer when Piri was involved?

At the West Gate, he found absolute chaos – gods and goddesses milling about on clouds with no assigned seating, literally rubbing silk-clad elbows with black-robed clerks. In all the confusion, Star materialized next to him, with a nearly imperceptible crease between her perfect brows.

“What’s going on?” he asked, softly so no one else would realize that a clerk was addressing a goddess first.

The crease deepened for an instant before it vanished. Serene mask in place for the benefit of any observers, she answered in an equally soft voice, “It’s the re-founding of the Serican Empire. She’s re-founding the Serican Empire.”

There could only be one “she.”

“Her? Now?”

“According to Lady Fate, this is the critical moment.”

On the far side of the assembly, a familiar voice boomed, “Ah, thank you, thank you! Although congratulations are a little premature, don’t you think? After all, I only have two temples devoted solely to dedicating offerings to me. For now.”

Flicker didn’t need to look to recognize his Director’s voice. “Even the Kitchen God came up for this? Did they summon all the gods from Earth?”

“I believe so.” Star’s tone had gone clipped, and it wasn’t hard to guess why.

Not far from the Kitchen God, the Star of Heavenly Joy, Assistant Director of the Bureau of Reincarnation after the shortest review process in Heaven, also known as the last emperor of Serica, was surrounded by his own posse of sycophants. They were showering him with congratulations on an achievement in which he’d played no part. Indeed, a braver star sprite might have said that the achievement existed solely because he’d refrained from playing any part in it.

As if that disrespectful thought had attracted his Assistant Director’s attention, the Star of Heavenly Joy advanced towards Flicker and Star. His passage through the crowd seemed to drag along those gods and clerks nearest to him, distorting the contours of his entourage.

Taking a half-step away from Star, Flicker bowed low.

“Cassius,” said Star in a light, amused voice, “what a joyous occasion this is. How momentous for us to witness the reversal of the...dissolution that began while you still sat upon the throne of the Serican Empire.”

The dissolution indeed. Flicker hid his smirk with a deeper bow.

“Yes,” the Star of Heavenly Joy bit out. “It is momentous, is it not? How Marcius, or whatever he’s called now, must be rejoicing that his time has come at last! To think, it only took his suicide, his expulsion from Heaven, and his birth into the household of a petty king for him to reach this point.”

“Indeed. How fortunate for you, Cassius, to witness your former cousin’s triumph.”

The Star of Heavenly Joy stiffened. “How fortunate for you, too, Aurelia, to watch your favorite nine-tailed fox, or whatever she is now, devote her life to benefitting my bureau.” Apparently noticing Flicker’s existence only then, the Star of Heavenly Joy tossed a fake smile his way. “With the bounty of offerings pouring in, I do believe that we shall give all employees of the Bureau of Reincarnation a bonus for the New Year. What say you, clerk?”

Flicker bowed again. Such largesse called for a full genuflection to properly express his gratitude, but he couldn’t bring himself to fall to his knees for such a god. “The Assistant Director is too generous,” he murmured.

“Yes. Remember that. Aurelia dear, I will stop imposing on your – oh, what would you call this? Consorting with a clerk?”

At the accusation, his hangers-on gasped and tittered.

“I call it conversing, actually,” Star replied.

“Of course. Do enjoy watching a fox proclaim herself Empress of Serica.” With that last jab, the Star of Heavenly Joy and his entourage swept off.

Straightening, Flicker offered, “We don’t have to watch if you don’t want to. There are so many people here, we could slip away – ”

But Star was shaking her head resignedly. “I can’t ‘slip’ anywhere in this gathering. Everyone’s watching him and me and the Kitchen God to see what happens next. We may as well stay and enjoy the spectacle.”

The cloud beneath their feet thinned, and they looked down through it at Earth, at a tropical beach where that young woman whom she had adopted was shakily praising the “Divine Intercessor.” The Kitchen God beamed and puffed up more with each word, seemingly oblivious to the jealous stares from all sides.

Heralds raced out the West Gate, bellowing, “Make way! Make way for the Jade Emperor!”

As all present prostrated themselves, the stamp of feet marked the arrival of the Jade Emperor’s palanquin.

Lady Fate’s voice rang out, “Lo! Behold the moment the Serican Empire rises anew!”

An instant later, the girl on the beach finally got through a full sentence without stammering. “With the blessing of the Divine Intercessor, we shall spread good harvests and peace throughout all of Serica, so that all may live in a land of rice and tea and plenty.”

At the Jade Emperor’s signal, everyone cheered. But the gods and goddesses were eyeballing the Kitchen God, whose worshipper had just arrogated credit for the reunification to him personally.