“WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!” shouted Suamalie at situation unfolding before us. “I need Someone to tell what’s going on right now!! How are the Gods in my… our, dream? Why are they here? Are they real? When did they get here? Are there any more here?” She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, and mumble something along the lines of who, what, when, where, and why before nodding to herself.

A few moments went by with no one saying anything, but I could tell that both gods were looking at Suamalie. It was easier to tell where Gaia was looking as Luna was an actual phase of the moon. Realizing what she had just done, and to whom she just outright interrupted, her pupils got very small and she looked at me with panicked eyes. I tried my best not to laugh, I mean, her reaction was rather expected.

Becoming as small as she could, she tried her best to hide behind me, not that there was a lot of me to hide behind, but she did a fairly decent job at it.

“Right…” came an almost shocked voice from Luna. “Was not expecting… wait. Adamas, are you Dream Walking right now?”

Without waiting for my answer, she did a quick turn before continuing. “What in the many Hells… how did you even end up with this power? This isn’t even an ability the manifestation which Sainted you should have had access to.”

“Ahhh… so this is the mistake,” came the voice of Gaia. “And I see that it’s a much bigger one than what any of have guessed at. Except for…”

“Don’t even go there Gaia, you mention him and he shows up every time.” Even as a simple phase of the moon, I could tell that Luna was treating Gaia as a sister, and sensing the emotional exasperation she was speaking with. “The last thing I need is to be told how big this really is... seeing as how he has abilities he really shouldn’t, the last thing I need to hear is an old looking young man sneering ‘I told you so’s and ‘You should have listened’s at me. I get enough grief from Sol about this currently.”

“Fair enough young Luna,” Gaia responded. It was this response that I actually heard, and realized that the voice was coming from all around us but from no particular angles at any given point of speech. Realizing this, I looked up, and in response I saw Gaia give me a knowing smile; she had sensed my first visit and knew I was coming. Great, I guess all God’s have their bad habits, and Gaia’s is peering into her followers dreams apparently.

“Umm… Luna. She didn’t know that I was here initially. I mean in this dream. She knew I was in her territory, but had no knowledge of me until I’m assuming the Gobose attack?”

“Right you are young one. I was peering into the dreams of a potential late divine vessel. This one has been of great interest to me as she comes from a great bloodline on both sides of her heritage. All she has completed, she did under her own power. Young one, pick up her bow and attempt to pull it back.”

Luna turned to me and rotated, as if to say ‘go ahead’ without saying anything. Walking over to the bow, leaving a slightly shivering Suamalie in my wake, I bent down and picked it up. “Here goes nothing I guess…” lifting the bow up took more effort than I thought it would given how easily Suamalie made it seem. And then when it came to pulling the string back, the thing wouldn’t budge at first which took me entirely by surprise. It actually caused my to stumble a bit due to the effort that was required, effort of which I was not prepared for in the slightest. Dropping my arms and taking a few deep breaths, I reposition my feet and prepare myself for the effort I need to exert. Bringing the bow up once more, I all but yank on the bow string, and it starts to finally give way.

With my left arm fully outstretched and my right arm straining against the resistance the bow put up. By the time the string was brought back to my check, there was a steady trickle of blood running down the length of string coming from my fingers. Not even fully pulled back, and I’m bleeding. I don’t know if I should be impressed with the strength Suamalie showed off, or disappointed in my inability to even pull it back once. Not long after that, my fingers gave up and released the string. A resounding TWANG, and the bow snapped back to its original shape. Dropping the bow to the ground and grabbing my fingers, I couldn’t even sound off in pain as I turned to look at Suamalie. “She… was using this thing… in real life as well as in her dreams? What kind of mental fortitude does she have?”

“It was not my initial intention when I first set my eyes on her, but it wasn’t long after that when I noticed her reaching her limits but not stopping. She pushed through until she had to slow down but kept going, and when she fell she crawled, and after she crawled she clawed until her fingers bled. Only then did she stop, and then she repeated this process every few days after she recovered. She was not talented, but she never knew when to quit. I liked that about her. The rules of nature fall under my domain, and while the best usually perseveres to the next generation, even the best can be dethroned by one who challenges themselves almost daily, to find new walls to tear down, to find new limits.”

Letting her statement sit in the air for a little while, Gaia continued speaking. “And that, young one, brings me to why I began talking to you to begin with. The Gobose. Most look at them and think that they are fearies. This could not be further from the truth, they are a group of faery I made specifically to enforce the survival of the strong. While not necessarily strong individually, they make up for by leaps and bounds with simple strategy and large quantities. They constantly weed out their own weak and overzealous alike, meaning that they are the best at what I designed them to do during any given generation. In fact, there have been times when those on the receiving ends of their attacks have been utterly wiped out. And while it does pain me to see my followers die in droves like that, many of them understand that it happened simply because they weren’t strong enough. While nature is beautiful, it is also unforgiving to those the wilds deem weak.”

Gaia’s words hung in the air far longer than I would have liked, Suamalie was actually the one who broke the silence first. Still shaken from seeing her God in a semi physical form, she began. “So… those… things, they were made that way and not influenced by any outside factors?”

“That’s what I said, yes.”

A heavy sigh emanated from between Suamalie’s lips. Something told me that she just got a piece not quite world shattering news, but certainly world view shifting. My first thought was why would a God create creatures to purposefully kill their own followers? Though Gaia did say that she also embodied the thought process of ‘Survival of the Fittest’, so I mean that answered that question in a quite literal sense, I just don’t know why. I guess the thoughts of Gods are beyond me.

Now it was Luna’s turn to speak. “While that was a fascinating story about your twisted version of helping your believers out, not that I have any room to complain given the existence of blood moons,” the second half of her statement was said as under her breath as she could get away with. And even though she was a literal moon at the moment, I could also tell that she was trying to avoid eye contact with Gaia. Call it a Saint’s intuition I guess. Regardless, Luna continued speaking before anyone bothered to ask about what she meant. “The point still stands about you confining my Saint. With that point still outstanding, is there anything you can offer in recompense? Especially since no physical harm came upon him, I won’t take much, but something needs to be offered since you personally were involved rather than one of your subordinates. Adding on to the fact that my message hasn’t reached you yet…” she teetered off as she looked up to the sky.

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Using her powers to shift the surroundings as she rose skyward to avoid hitting any trees. The way space warped around her almost made me sick. She rose and everything obviously moved out of her way, however I could instinctually tell that nothing had actually moved. Knowing that nothing was moving yet seeing everything move around my God gave me severe amounts of nausea and brought me to my knees while holding the sides of my head. “Moving without movement… room where there was none…” was the only thing I could think of and say. I had no idea what it was that I actually saw, let alone how to explain how I knew, but it made me physically ill trying to comprehend that concept. Another example of the thoughts of Gods and whatnot.

While I was lost in my thoughts, Luna had begun her descent, and I tried my best not to look up, really didn’t to be brought lower by the feeling of my brain and body not agreeing on what I was in front of. Once I saw that the light Luna emitted had stopped moving on the ground, I dared to look up, and sighed when I saw that everything was as it should have been. Or at least as close as a dream world could look when in the presence of Gods. As Luna finished drifting back to her original place, I noticed that she hadn’t come back down alone. Flitting around her moon shape, I saw a silver sparkle softly bobbing up and down.

The sparkle slowly drifted away from Luna and came in my direction. When it got close enough I noticed that it was actually a light blue butterfly. It began circling my head, and then landed on my forehead where my ‘Moon’s Eye’ began to have a reaction. A brief flash later, and the butterfly floated back to an almost surprised Luna.

“Really now, Dazo. You don’t even know him and the first thing you do is try to form a bond with him. What were you thinking?”

In response, the butterfly flitted around some more. “Don’t give me that tone of flight little miss! I brought you into this world, and I can certainly take you out of it.” Followed by more flittering. “What do you mean by that? I’m not that bad. Seriously, you’ve been spending to much time with your uncle for you to be able to talk back to me like this…” shaking back and forth vigorously as one would shake their head in disbelief, Luna continued. “Anyway, why are you just now getting here? I sent you on this delivery several weeks ago.”

This time the light around the butterfly rapidly dimmed and then increased in brightness multiple times. “Not enough dreams? No… not that. Slow down, you’re speaking to quickly. From the top, Dazo. Uh huh… ok… ok. I got it. It wasn’t that there weren’t enough dreams, you just kept getting dragged around. Got it.” Luna turned to look at Gaia, “Well, I found your message that should have been here a while ago. As it turns out, not a whole lot of Faithless enjoy making the journey to your outer settlements to much, my messenger kept being dragged around because no one would sleep close enough to your forests to jump dreams. In fact, the only reason she made it here now was because of this dream in particular for a multitude of reasons.”

After a few moments of silence, Luna turned to the butterfly I now know as Dazo and spoke again, in that almost one person conversation way that made begin to wonder about Luna’s sanity a little bit... the thought quickly left as I got what I could tell to be a judgmental glare from the moon, which was definitely not something I ever expected to happen. “Well go on then Dazo, I’m not sure what you’re waiting for, but you still have to deliver the message… no, I am not going to deliver the message... Yes, I am here.... Yes, Gaia is in fact right there… I’m still not going to do it, it’s your job... Because I tasked you with it… Because I said so… Because I’m your mother, now go over there, and do what you were told to do!!”

Divine or not, turns out mothers are just about the same everywhere. A few more arguments like that, and Dazo will realize that life is just so much simpler if you do what is asked and then question after the fact.

My personal thoughts on the new introduction to Luna’s daughter… somehow, don’t really see the resemblance myself, but if she says so. Dazo flittered her way from Luna up to Gaia, where she flapped and fluttered around the face in the foliage several times before returning to Luna and proceeding to circle her. “I see…” was all that came from Gaia after receiving the message.

“Well, at least the message was delivered to you anyway, regardless on its timeliness or lack thereof. With that out of the way, I’m just going to drop my pretenses and fancy word usage. Adamas very much is not used to hearing me try and use a bunch of big and fancy words, so I’m just going to tell you up front. Can you provide him with a weapon or two, some armor that is more than the almost scraps he calls clothes, and access to your training grounds and someone to look after him? I know you know about his current lack of… just about everything in terms of what he is now. Your Saintess called the Huntress was kind enough to open a window during his interrogation and let me view part of it. I’m asking you to thoroughly train him, but at least point him in the right direction divinely speaking. And as for training… well, his dad did give him a crash course on person-to-person combat over the span of three days, so anything you can offer will be appreciated.”

“Your conditions are agreeable, Luna. I shall send a message to my Huntress to let her know the agreement we have reached tonight, and it shall be performed tomorrow.” I could tell that Gaia’s attention went from Luna to me and Suamalie due to the artificial eyes of plant life shifting to us. “I do hope you enjoy your stay within my Gate city, and I hope you further enjoy what the rest of my land has to offer.” At that, everything that has made Gaia’s face had begun to go back to what is was previously, looking more natural and less facey.

“Sorry about that Adamas and… I’m sorry, but who are you again?” Before either Suamalie of myself could respond, she continued on. “I’m sure that I’ll figure it out later. If my message had been relayed earlier, this would have been avoided. Regardless, it’s done and taken care of, and the most that should happen for about the next week is the occasional dream hopping, at least until Adamas can figure out how to control himself, whichever comes first. I think that about covers everything on my end, so ill be going now… Dazo. What are you doing? What do you mean he’s interesting? ‘He smells like moon drops so he can’t be a bad person’ is not an excuse to be on a strangers head… What are you… that’s it, you are forbidden from spending any more time with my brother unless you’re delivering a message to him for whatever reason. Fine, fine… yes you can tag along so long as he says you can. Did you get all of that Adamas?”

“Not in the slightest Goddess. And why is this bright butterfly sitting on my head currently?”

With a heavy sigh, Luna spoke. “Dazo, meet my new Saint, Adamas. Adamas, meet one of my eldest daughters, Dazo, who is apparently going through her rebellious phase. She would like to know if she can travel with you for a while. I don’t mind because if have plenty of others who can transfer messages as well, just not as fast if not more reliable anyway.”

“Uhh… Sure?” a sudden flurry of flapping came from the top of my head. Apparently that was what Dazo wanted to hear. “My only request is to become a shape that’s not as overtly obvious as a bright butterfly that’s randomly flying around me. Not that I’m doing a good job a keeping a low profile, but I really don’t need to stand out that much. At least, I don’t think I do.”

“She can, yes. To make this easier to grasp, can you hold out the scarf I gave you?”

Holding out the sliver scarf that prevents me from turning into a light in the middle of the night if there is any divine anything around in front of me, Dazo jumped from my head to the scarf. That was definitely odd, I didn’t know that butterflies could jump, and it just didn’t look quite right. As Dazo made contact with the scarf, a bright flash happened. After the unexpectedly bright light had dimmed, I looked at the scarf, and there in the middle was a brand new pattern, being that of butterfly wings. Which could move. Noticeably so, especially when she went from one end of the scarf to the other, and I swear I could almost hear a squeal of happiness. “So… that just happened… anything else while you’re here Goddess?” You know, I think I’ve just gotten really good at compartmentalizing my reactions, because I got over that just a little too quickly.

“I think that covers everything and then some actually. Be safe Adamas, and good luck hunting for the source of this whole mess.” Before she left, she came over to Suamalie and myself, touched us both on the heads as a mother would do when kissing her kids good night, and we both passed out. Waking up in my bed and not a forest was incredibly nice, but waking up with Suamalie in my bed instead of Eon was not what I was expecting.