Maren

The Almighty Lord snorted. Maren’s heart skipped, for why would he snort? Yet, she watched the expression of his face grow with something that looked like… disappointment. The realization made her want to gasp for air as she felt herself shrink — and suddenly she started to worry. Had her words not been right? Had she asked too much? Or perhaps she just wasn't right enough. While Maren was aware of her miscomings, she did care about… things. Not alot of ‘things’, but still a few; about etiquette, the balance of the world, she cared about a lot of ’Why?’s' that had to do with life and death. She cared about her boat and the Garden in her mind and the Roses that were often there to reflect into the medium's everlasting, heavenly liquids, but she did not... She did not care about what most others thought of her. She did not care about what most thought of her... — but He. Anyone she could disappoint and not care, but not He.

Would it be true that she had failed Him, well... Perhaps she would need to turn pilgrim once more, return to the City of Light, pray for her misdoings for her soul to be either forgotten or forgiven. But I don’t want to run anymore, the child within her cried. And, surprisingly, as much as she had looked at the child version of herself and her actual grown-up self as two different parts of her being, as two different lives (past and future), she did not want to leave either. And, truthfully, she still didn’t know what exactly was the reason of her failure. Her heart was a firelight embraced and at the same time caged by the shadows it cast and, as much as she hated it, it meant her heart wasn’t made of diamond, or obsidian — it was so easily disturbed. Much easier than she would ever admit. She swallowed a clump of dry, salty air, eyes turning to the ground as she did not want to acknowledge her Lord shake his head the way he did.  

Don't be weak now, let it teach you ;the whispering subtly arose from the waters of her mind. Not brightly, like phoenixes rising from ashes, not like that; more like the tickling of a blossom falling in spring,  or a speck of dust glittering in the shadows. It strayed like music into her ear; through the bars and into the cage of her heart. Although it felt so far away, distant, it was not a feeling she could ignore. Maren's silent golden eyes grew curious and wandered up again to meet the gaze of the God she had sworn to serve to the most of her abilities. For who else would, if not she?

For some reason she had never realized it was him she needed to enlighten on the interesting aspects of their daily life. Although she had thought it was merely the visions he would bring to her, for the herd to be enlightened by those... It seemed rather logical now that he mentioned it. Perhaps she really was an idiot; unable to keep up with the world around her. Does it matter? After all, all she needed to do was... to do.

She had listened soundlessly to the God’s explaining on her tasks and she was glad he had done so, if only for it to be more clear to herself and her own brains. There had been no one who had truly been there in the ranks to guide her after Amani had gone, had simply done what seemed like the proper way to be playing priestess of the herd. Of course she had known that there must have been others before her, but perhaps she’d just been too proud.

“There is nothing, but one thing.” She dipped her head again. “We have been building a Church for the Sun,” she informed him. Her golden eyes peered up from her lowered position, glancing at the fiery, holy entity as she continued to speak her outlandish tunes, in it reflecting the emotions of longing and hope she felt within. “...But it will take long and... I am afraid that at some point, as is our nature, some of us might lose sight of the larger objective, what matters — a place for all of us to share in our time of need, to have somewhere to teach and learn — what will be there at the end. If you could provide a light to guide us, to enlighten us when we have forgotten, I think that would help us to keep going and when we do forget… that it shall be there to remind us that what truly matters is the road to enlightenment and not its destination.”

“That is all,” she added in something that could be an almost-whisper to mark the end of her needs. Her always so silent eyes peered quietly in the embrace of the reflective fires from her God as she awaited his reply.