Taking a second to create a simplified avatar, I placed myself in front of the Grandmother’s, idly taking in the incredibly elaborate nature of hers. It was a lot more complex than I could whip up at a moment’s notice, life-like and detailed to the point that most observers would likely be unable to identify it as an avatar, not her actual physical body. That thought brought with it a mental note for later, namely that I might be able to use an avatar like this to explore dangerous areas, knowing that my physical body was kept safe by my companions.

“Good afternoon, oh wise Crone,” I returned the greeting, feeling just a little cheeky, “How have you been, Grandmother?”

“Quite busy, my dear, but you should be well aware of that, shouldn’t you?” she replied, her voice just as cheekily amused as mine, “After all, I’m having to deal with all those prayers, as you and your daughter are a little on the lazy side, right?”

“That’s a bit of an accusation you are making there. Neither my daughter nor I are lazy, we are just…” I paused for a moment, not quite sure what to say here and what was actually going on, “ just preoccupied, you know? Busy exploring the world and finding out what hides behind that pesky horizon, it just always flees for us, no matter how long we walk.”

“Ah, yes, of course, the fleeing horizon. I’m sure you’ll be able to catch up to it eventually, won’t you? Just in time to come home and finally deal with your responsibilities, and until then, you’ll happily leave those to me?” the Grandmother prodded, though even if her words were fairly harsh and accusatory, her tone belied that, making it quite obvious that she was joking.

“If you could tell me about those responsibilities, I would be quite grateful, if I’m honest,” I let the cheeky facade drop, hoping to get an actual response, one that might tell me just what was going on.

“How very curious,” the Grandmother’s grin was eerily similar to that of Lady Hecate, the same mixture of interest, curiosity and sheer amusement, making me growl softly at the idea that the Grandmother might give me just as little information as Lady Hecate had.

“Well, I think I can give you some news, you are the Mother to my Grandmother after all. But bear in mind that this is what I have been able to figure out, it’s not like the divine job comes with a manual or some sort of ‘Deities for Dummies’ or ‘The Alpha and Omega of Divinity, from Apotheosis to…’” she paused for a moment, before shrugging, “Not sure what a good Omega would be for that, but you get the idea, right?”

Chuckling at her words, I nodded in understanding, curious what she had figured out so far. She did have twice as much time as I had, after all, so hopefully she had learned something. In addition, she had Neyto as her established base, complete with Nexus, so she didn’t have to deal with all that trouble.

“There is a…” she paused, visibly searching for the right words to express herself. Given that I had suffered a similar problem whenever I tried to explain to people the fundamentals of magical manipulation, I could empathise and waited patiently, curious where she was going with this.

“A separation, for lack of a better word, or maybe calling it a barrier would be better, between the ‘Me’ who remains mortal and lives in Neyto and the Divine Me that interacts with the few Terrans who pray to me. I have no idea if I would be able to establish shrines here on Mundus, and I honestly doubt it, or if I would be able to grant power to those here. The separation between realms helps give the ‘Divine Me’ a bit of distance, which I think is necessary for the transfer of power,” she explained, her words a little rambling and with a few pauses between them. Still, they managed to convey some of the meaning she wanted me to hear, at least I thought so.

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“Do you know that ‘Divine You’? I mean, does your mortal mind understand what the divine mind is doing?” I asked, trying to compare my own experience to hers.

The Grandmother wiggled her hand a little side-to-side while answering, “Yes but not really, if that makes sense. The prayers aren’t really words, I think the system enforces a certain amount of separation between mortals and deities. Our situation is complicated even further by the fact that the Maiden and you are mortals living on the same world our religion is starting to grow. I’m not sure that is how it’s supposed to work,” she shrugged, making me chuckle for a moment while a bit of worry started to niggle at my gut.

“So the Divine You is just there, patterned,” I paused like she had earlier, tasting the word while trying to find a better one, “for lack of a better word, after you and is acting autonomously?”

“No, but also somewhat?” she replied, her explanations making about as much sense as any theology did. Maybe that was just par for the course; divine affairs didn’t make sense to mortals, even if the mortals were in the process of becoming divine. Or maybe you needed to understand these somewhat strange and nonsensical concepts to achieve divinity.

“What I’m most concerned about is whether you can still interact with the people in Neyto like you did before your apotheosis,” I managed to verbalise the niggling feeling in my gut, realising just what I was worrying about. The question of whether the mortal who turned divine could continue to interact with other mortals.

The Grandmother paused for a moment, her eyes a little distant, before her focus returned to me, her voice uncertain, “It’s been a while since I had all that much contact with the people living around me. I mostly left them to their own devices, staying in my hut and occasionally travelling through the endless forest to check if something interesting happened nearby,” she admitted, “So I don’t have that good a baseline, especially as that baseline was always tinged with the fear and respect they had for me. To make matters worse, your exit from Mundus was quite spectacular,” she grinned, making me frown once more.

“Explain, please?” I asked, wondering just how far the devastation Nidhögg and I had caused managed to spread.

“Well, endless winter, a rain of frozen ash and acid, does that ring a bell? Massive mess, global in scale, I had to put quite a bit of effort into sustaining the barriers protecting Neyto itself and helping the endless forest heal from the devastation.” Again, she paused for a moment, and realisation hit me.

“They saw you avert what most would consider a major catastrophe, or maybe even the apocalypse, and soon after, the whole apotheosis, ascension thing happened, right?” I asked, the connection fairly obvious once I had those facts, “So you have no idea if a change in behaviour is caused by the reverence they feel for your deeds or for the fact that you are now a deity.”

“Correct, at least partially,” she nodded, making me wonder which part she meant.

“But you can continue to interact, people are just a little weird?” I pressed, needing to confirm that answer.

“We are interacting, are we not?” she returned my question, making me grumble, knowing that this sort of interaction wasn’t what I was asking about, “But yes, I can continue to talk to people, I’m fairly certain I can touch them, too,” she explained, soothing my biggest concern in this. The concern that I would be stuck as some sort of ascended divine being, unable to interact with Sigmir once I managed to bring her back to life. If that were to be the case, I would have to do everything in my power to stay mortal, or find some way to turn Sigmir into a deity, too.

“That’s a relief,” I told her, before realising something else she had said. She was fairly certain she could touch people, but she didn’t know. Acting on impulse, I stepped forward, reaching out to embrace the Grandmother to the best of my ability. Given that we were both using magical representations of our physical bodies, it didn’t work quite as I wanted it to, but I hoped that the message had been conveyed.

“Thank you,” I told her before stepping back, giving her some space. “Now, would you be interested in trying to figure out what the whole thing with two different divinities might mean and how it could work in the future? And, most importantly, why my head felt as if it was about to burst, just because somebody prayed to the Pale Lady, where I could see and hear her?”

The smile on the Grandmother’s face spoke of her curiosity, and moments later, she strengthened the connection I was using to project myself here, making it a lot easier to maintain. This would be interesting.