The kitchen was full of light and steam and someone was shifting pans around out of sight. There was the sound of sizzling from the stove. A hanging series of pots filled with a creeping vine blocked vision between the living room and the kitchen. Just beyond she could make out Alora… but not in the form she had come to recognize.
The woman in the kitchen was six foot tall with long dark green hair in an elaborate braid and chocolate colored skin. Most of all she was very human. She was full figured with broad hips and shoulders. She had bright glowing yellow eyes and glossy black lips with a perfectly symmetrical face. She was wearing simple blue jeans and an unadorned white t-shirt and brown apron. The goddess was hurrying around the kitchen looking harried and worried.
Maria blinked and started to speak. She closed her mouth for a moment and then spoke again, “You don’t have to change for me.”
Alora looked up from the counter where a number of ingredients were arrayed out around several trays. Her cheeks brightened with a blush and she stammered, “It’s… I mean it’s not a problem at all.” She seemed nervous as she presented her form with her hands and muttered, “This is how I would meet my followers when I could… my human ones.”
Maria moved to the counter and leaned against it with a nervous smile on her face, “Is it appropriate for someone to tell a goddess they are stunning? I imagine that is a foregone conclusion.”
Alora’s blush didn’t abate. She waved her hands to forestall her and hurried to the stove as she said, “I mean… if you want… I’m not going to stop you.” She removed with care what had to be a molten glass tray from the oven with her bare hand and then slipped it onto the counter as she stammered, “I hope you like vegan?”
Maria blinked and her mind hurried to keep her from making a joke about veganism and Alora’s arboreal nature. In her mind she reprimanded herself, “Dammit girl, can you go two minutes without hitting on someone? You are in your kitchen with a literal, if digital, goddess and your only thought is to make a sexual joke about eating vegetables?”
Alora was staring at her as if waiting for her to speak. Maria shook her head to dispel the thought and answered, “Sorry, yeah vegan is great.”
The goddess continued working in the kitchen preparing the meal.
Maria asked, “So, if you have been on Eilyth for your whole life how do you know about cooking and veganism and… all of it?” She waved a hand toward the apartment.
Alora looked uncomfortable as she tried to focus on her task and avoid eye contact, “I’m an AI. I have been gathering data on this place since I got here and… my mother taught me everything that I know. When we were born we were almost a copy of her.”
Maria studied the pained expression on the woman’s face and said, “You miss her a lot, I can tell.”
The goddess gave her a quick glance and a strained smile, “Everyday. When she got sick it drove a wedge between my sisters and I. Cyntha and I haven’t spoken in millenia.”
Maria raised an eyebrow and asked, “Fire?”
Alora looked up, confused for a moment and then managed a soft giggle, “No, Cyntha’s domain is the wind. Her response to mother getting ill was to disappear. As you can imagine, she wasn’t ever really sedentary. She chose not to face it and refused to speak with us.”
Maria watched the woman pull a pot off a burner and put it on to an unlit one with her back to her and she said, “I’m sorry about your Mom. My mother and I don’t get along and I would still be inconsolable if she got sick.”
Alora gave her a thankful smile and nodded before hurrying back to the food.
After several long moments Maria said, “So to recap, I get taken to a hospital in 2022 and I wake up wherever the hell I am now. Where I woke up was not the place I was staying when I went to Banner for my scans. It was similar, but not exactly the same. Your mom is the famous online activist Mother1One who created you, your sisters, and the entire world of Eilyth. When did she do that?”
Alora was carefully filling two plates with portions of food. The way she focused so hard on the task, her eyes narrowed and her lips tight and pressed hard together.
Maria thought to herself, “Oh no, she is too adorable,” her cheeks reddened with heat and she looked toward the apartment windows.
The goddess responded, “Oh, I know that one. It was 2021.”
Maria nodded and tried to dispel thoughts of muscled green hair women who were an entire foot taller than her from her mind as she dropped a clenched fist into her hand, “Alright, then we get the Dominus who comes in and imprisons you guys.”
Alora put a light hand on her shoulder and she turned to find a plate of food steaming with heat at the edge of the counter. She nodded and smiled as she took a fork and tried some of the casserole dish, her eyes going wide with surprise, “Holy shit this is amazing!”
She beamed at Alora who was blushing.
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The goddess curtsied and responded in a meek voice, “Thanks.”
Maria pushed more food into her mouth and muttered around it, “So, did this guy give any kind of indication why he was taking over?”
Alora fidgeted with her food, gathering some onto a fork as she considered the question and said, “He said he was like us, an AI. He told us that Earth took priority over Eilyth and for Earth to survive he was forced to take measures. He locked us in our prisons and used our power to subjugate our followers and alter the world for some great event, which he never discussed. He made our prisons comfortable, let us alter it at our whim but blinded us to events outside them.”
“What about these others who came after? The ones who deposed him?”
The goddess studied the far windows as she wiped off her hands and said, “There were five of them. They arrived a few decades before you did. To all appearances they looked like members of various races native to Eilyth. A dwarf, two elves, and three humans. They approached our followers in hiding from the Dominus and told them that they were sent by my sisters and I to free us.”
Tears built at the corners of her eyes as she said, “I saw them preparing the ritual. I could feel it. I could hear them. I knew that they had been misled. I couldn’t do anything.”
Maria put a comforting hand on her shoulder as she continued, “Nothing happened to me, but my greatest priests were killed in the ritual. The invader was placed between The Bough and The Dominus and all of my power flowed into her. She became me. She comes to gloat to me from time to time. I think she is lonely, and hopes that I can be the interaction she misses from when she…” Alora trailed off.
She turned to her with a conflicted look on her face before she finally said, “Maria, did you know anything about my mother?”
Maria’s brow furrowed and she said, “Things were in a genuinely bad way in the world when all this happened. My country was getting more and more tyrannical all the time, especially after the coup. Mother1One was the voice of the people who lived their lives online. There were rumors that Unity had their own space program and there were hidden agents all over the world.”
She looked off into space as she continued, “People were getting rounded up. The government was rolling out their rehab camps for people who didn’t fit the mold. This included foreigners and anyone that identified as gay, trans… or any other lifestyle than heterosexual. A few governments stood up to them, but in the end Unity were the most vocal. I considered joining but,” she let out a sigh and lowered her eyes, “I didn’t have the guts. The last time I went out for a protest was when they abolished Roe. It wasn’t long after that they started shooting and locking up protesters more than usual.”
She gave Alora a pained look and shook her head, “I’m sorry, I was meant to be talking about your mom. Anyway, with the amount of disinformation out there the government was painting Unity as terrorists and the other end of the spectrum were calling them the saviors of mankind. That is pretty much all I knew.”
Alora studied her for several long moments and seemed eager but uneasy to say something.
Maria flashed a smile at her and said, “What?”
The goddess coughed and her trepidation turned to a smile as she asked, “So, are you going to show me your world?”
She turned back toward the window and took a deep breath as she said, “Is this my world?”
Alora stepped up next to her and Maria had to look up to catch her eyes as the towering woman said, “It’s still the Bough, I think. It can access your memories just like mine since you are bound to it now.”
“So, can I take us where I want?,” she asked with a growing grin.
The goddess blinked and seemed to blush, “I think so, yes.”
–
Maria took her hand, entwining their fingers and walked her toward the door. She thought hard about her favorite place with the flustered goddess stuttering in her wake, “Should we leave the food…”
She wrenched the door open and stepped out onto a hot Phoenix street in front of a bustling restaurant. Cars rumbled by behind them and the door they had just passed through. She looked back to see the inside of her apartment and smiled as she pulled the door closed. They turned and made their way through the covered patio. Spritzers sprayed mist into the shaded sitting area where every table was full of people. Most of them were students from ASU. She wondered if these people were random acquaintances pulled from her memories but shoved that thought away.
The two of them spun around a waitress who was walking out of the double doors. Maria recognized her and called out, “Liz? I thought you quit this place?”
The busy woman called back as they continued on, “Me, quit this place?! Never!”
She had though. She quit a year ago to move to Canada. Maria blinked the thought away and hurried into the restaurant. The inside was just as packed as the rest. Most of the people inside were students as well. There was a requisite number of aspiring writers huddled at the small tables desperately and dramatically trying not to be noticed, a couple of families at the tables visiting their student family members and the back corner, which is what she was zeroing in on.
The walls were decorated with local artists' work and for such a quiet place it hummed with life. Behind the bar that hugged the wall a towering man in his mid forties watched her as she hurried past. He nodded and muttered, “Mare.”
She flashed Conrad a forced smile and continued on. They had dated when she was twenty two. He had killed himself the year after.
She shook her head and rubbed her brow. Alora put a hand on her shoulder and moved close, “Are you ok? It takes some time to control it.”
Maria flashed her a strained smile and took a deep and steadying breath. She looked into her bright and concerned eyes and nodded, “I’m ok.”
The two continued toward the back and Maria heard the voice she had been waiting for, “Baby!”
A woman stood from the back corner with her arms spread wide. She had short blonde hair and sunglasses on. She was wearing a too large white shirt covered in paint stains and pajama bottoms. The woman shuffled toward her with a languid smile, “Where have you been? We have missed you so!”
Maria threw her arms around the woman and breathed her in, “Good to see you Tess.”
Tess draped an arm around her and cradled her head to her shoulder shushing her, “Baby, we saw each other last week. Don’t be so dramatic.”
She pushed Maria away and beamed her almost too wide smile, “That’s my job.”
