content notes: violence
For three months, the Great Goddess trained Iberto. Not just hunt training, but also what it meant to be called, the rites and rituals meant to be performed at her alter, and the ways of the other goddes and their priests.
At first, Iberto had little care for the others of the temple. He had been solitary since his clan died, and his goddess walked alone as well. Many also shied away from him — the Great Goddess’ reputation in the temple was not sinister exactly but few wanted to draw her attention.
But slowly, he began to know the other goddes and some of the humans who lived with them. Han the Sun and Iowe the Moon chased each other across the sky each day. They did not mind being chased or chasing Iberto as well, and after the first few weeks often joined his hunt training.
Neither the Sun nor the Moon had Called. They, as the Great Goddess had before Iberto’s coming, sat alone in the rooms that had once been their sacred spaces. Only if sought by another godde did they come forth.
When they came, though still greater than any human, they did not move with the strength and fluidity of the Goddess. Iberto would have thought this was because they were not hunters, but for another godde he came to know.
Much of his time was spent in the gardens. Some when training, and some when done for the day. There he met the called of the Green. The Green was one of the oldest goddes, perhaps /the/ oldest, and its true name was long forgotten by everyone except itself and, perhaps, its called. Its called, Hannu, told Iberto that the Green took human form as a courtesy. That it normally existed in other forms, less mobile forms.
Yet when Iberto saw Hannu and the Green together, the Green moved much the same as the Great Goddess — the same power and fluidity. Not exactly the same — it was somehow obvious that the Green was not and never had been a predator. But that made the contrast between the Green and the Sun and Moon all the starker.
He hesitated to say anything, not wanting to offend. But finally, he did ask the goddess. To his relief, she radiated a strong sense of approval. “This too is prey,” she said. “Knowledge, answers, understanding. Hunt these as fully as you hunt me, my Called.”
“Yes, Great Goddess,” he said, rolling away as she turned on the couch and sought to pin him. They grappled for a short time before she inevitably got the upper hand.
It wasn’t sexual, this feeling of being held, cradled, and treasured. It wasn’t the protection and reliant trust of parent and child. But it was like those. The feel of her arms, the scent of her, the sound of her breathing, all combined to tell him he was safe and treasured and home.
It was love, in a form he had never imagined.
“They don’t have Called. Han and Iowe.”
“No,” she purred, “They don’t.”
She showed him then what she had been before he came. Tethered to her statue form by pacts made long ago. Unable to leave the temple to interact with those who still worshipped her. Half awake, half alive. Fading.
Iberto cried and held his goddess close, trying to shield them from the memories of her slow, unending dying in the dark.
“Never again,” he swore. “Before my last hunt comes, I swear, my goddess, you will have enough priests and called to sustain you, to pick from the best, so you will never suffer so again.”
“It is well, my Called,” she said. But her fingers chided him for thinking himself lesser. For implying that he was not ‘the best’ but simply all she could get. “I am lucky to have you as mine.”
The Great Goddess sighed. “We do not like to think it, but for all of us, the day will come when we fade. When humans no longer care enough to bind us to this word. Old goddes pass and new goddes emerge.
“Never before has it been so long since a new godde emerged. Never before have so many of us grown weak so quickly.”
~~~
Neither She nor Han or Iowe had given a reason for this nadir. Given the way they reacted to the monks — and the way the monks treated the few goddes who didn’t avoid them — Iberto had some guesses. He was far from understanding, though. Knowing the monks had somehow caused the decline of the goddes was far from knowing how they had done so.
So, for the first time, he set himself on the hunt. He started with the monks themselves. Any time the goddess did not have need of him, he found a place near where they gathered to listen and watch.
Knowing what he did, the Great Goddess favored him and reduced the hours she spent in his training, giving him more time to trail the monks.
He learned little at first, save little matters of the monks’ lives. But soon, he began learning more.
Iberto had thought the goddess had taken him all of the temple in his training. He was surprised to learn there was a section the goddes did not enter. It was there the monks trained their new members and kept their histories.
So it was there he would need to go to further his hunt.
He went first when the monks were elsewhere. Some few had been left to ‘tend’ and guard, but by then, they were no match for his skills at the stalk and the hide. Iberto was able to slip in to learn the layout of the rooms and where he might hide, where there were escape routes, and more.
When he was sure of his ground, Iberto spent entire days hiding in the monks’ quarters, learning their schedules and routines.
It was spying on a lesson for the youngest monks that Iberto learned the truth.
The fading of the goddes was no accident, no chance.
The monks sought nothing less than the death of all goddes.
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