Chapter narrated by: Me, the Radiant, the Magnificent, the Absolutely Essential Goddess Aelith (but you can call me Ali, if you want).
Date: The 9th of the eternal grandpa's month.
Year: 97-ish? Time is a social construct invented by mortals to stress themselves out, honestly.
It has felt like fifty whole days. Fifty sunrises of pure, unadulterated boredom. Fifty sunsets of me staring at the ceiling of my own temple like a discarded sock. Oh, the nerve of my own oracle leaving me alone and bored for this much time!
She and I will need a very serious conversation once we see each other again, and she can be certain the room will be colder than… colder than… Oh, the tragedy! My creativeness has abandoned me with her, and now I can't even finish my angry thoughts. How frustrating.
I feel so lonely here without Lira. Every time I have tried to distract myself with "Goddess things"—you know, listening to prayers about itchy rashes or for Mayreel to not make any more turnip soup now that… now that she is not… Ahh—I just end up thinking about her.
Worst of all was that Cedric came to make a prayer for Lira and muttered something about it "only being Tuesday." He claims it's been four days. Four! The audacity of linear time to move so slowly when I'm pouting is frankly a divine insult. I truly could not believe this!
She left me. My oracle. My favorite person to poke. She traded the "glory of serving a supreme being" (that's me!) for the "glory of getting bitten by swamp slimes and sleeping in itchy tents." It's a terrible trade deal. The worst in the history of terrible trade deals. I'm still surprised by how well I took it when she was leaving, but I had truly underestimated how much her absence would affect me.
I was vibrating with enough annoyance to power a minor sun. But nonetheless, my salvation arrived with a single phrase from Father Cedric. Definitely a contender for top ten phrases of Cedric.
"All preparations are ready, Mayreel, Halven, the final material arrived; it is time to begin what we have been preparing for the past five years."
My divine ears perked up. Finally! This is it!
I have been waiting so much for this. I can't believe it is finally happening.
I watched from my shimmering vantage point as they gathered in the basement. In the center of the room sat a massive stone basin filled with... well, it looked like bread dough. A giant, grey, shimmering blob of magical dough.
"Is that for me?" I whispered to the empty air, leaning so far forward pressing against the veil. "I'm going to be a giant bread?"
Mayreel and Halven were chanting something that made the dough-stuff ripple like a disturbed pond. It was a formless body, a blank canvas waiting for a masterpiece (me) to occupy it. But it was unstable. The blob began to hiss and break, threatening to melt into a puddle.
That's when Cedric stepped forward. He pulled a silver ceremonial knife—the fancy one we usually use for cutting the Anniversary Cake—and made a quick, clean slice across his palm.
He held his hand over the basin, and three drops of deep crimson blood fell into the center of the dough. The effect was instantaneous. The grey blob turned a healthy, vibrant cream color, its surface smoothing out into the shape of... well, a person! A very naked, very unconscious person, but a person nonetheless!
"Now the hard part, we must keep the ritual going until the goddess has gotten her consciousness into the homunculus and it has adapted to a form suitable to contain Aelith." Said Cedric.
"Mareen, bring some clothes and a blanket. We don't want the goddess's first memory in the mortal world to be an awkward one," said Mayreel. Instantly earning a significant number of Aelith points.
Cedric went to his knees and began to pray.
"Oh Aelith, goddess of light, hear us now, all of the members of your church now gather here in this basement to fulfill what you asked of us years ago, may your light bless us all in the mortal world as we begin the ritual to bring you here."
Then they began to sing and my consciousness began to feel strange, my body was moving on its own towards the human-shaped dough.
"Alright" I grinned, stretching my ethereal arms. "This is it. Lira, ready or not, your Goddess is coming to ruin your camping trip!"
There was movement in the right side of the face of the homunculus. It began to move and take shape, an eye appeared and then it opened.
My vision suddenly split right down the middle. With my left eye, everything continued as it always had in the celestial realm. My right side, however, was a blurry, watery nightmare of grey shadows and flickering torchlight. I was looking at the world through a single, half-formed eyeball.
It was nauseating. It was confusing. It was like trying to read two different books at the same time while someone spun me in circles.
"Focus, Ali!" I told myself, though 'myself' was currently distributed between two different points.
The eye was forming slowly, my right side becoming less and less blurry. In these moments my mind drifted to Lira, maybe as a way to calm myself from the experience of having my vision split. I thought about her eyes. Those beautiful red eyes that went sharp when I told her something serious and grew big when I made her laugh. I hope my eyes end up being as beautiful as hers.
In that moment, with my left eye, I saw the eye of the homunculus finish forming and taking the same red beautiful color of Lira's eyes.
This was amazing! Could it be that I have influence in the form the homunculus will take?
The next hours were spent like this—parts of me being taken and appearing in the homunculus. It was awkward, long, and painfully boring, but it had been interesting choosing my form. I didn't have full control of it, but I could influence it a little.
Then came the final plunge.
When the last, most radiant parts of me (naturally) slipped into the homunculus, everything went from "interesting project" to "deeply offensive disaster."
The transition wasn't a smooth slide; it was a collision. A constant, high-pitched eeeeeee pierced my ears—a sound I am fairly certain was not part of the divine experience package. My eyes—my new, very mortal eyes—suddenly hurt. Since when did looking at light hurt? I am light. I rule over light. Light and I are on a first-name basis, yet here it was, stabbing me in the pupils.
And then there was the pressure.
Oh.
Oh, that was bad.
It started small, like someone gently pressing on my head. Which, rude, but manageable. But then it kept building. And building. And building.
My chest tightened.
Unacceptable.
It tightened more.
Extremely unacceptable.
I tried to move—heroically, might I add—but my body responded like a sack of wet flour. Limbs? Optional, apparently. Coordination? A myth.
The pressure spiked.
It felt like something was crushing me from the inside. Like my chest was collapsing. Like—like—
Oh.
Oh, this is bad.
I couldn't… I couldn't?
Wait.
Why couldn't I?
I tried to breathe.
Nothing happened.
Nothing.
Happened.
There was no divine airflow. No elegant intake of life energy. No majestic inhale befitting a goddess of my caliber.
Just—
Nothing.
"Is she—?"
"Stay focused! Maintain the ritual!"
Their voices sounded distant. Muffled. Like I was underwater. Which, again, not an experience I had previously consented to.
The pressure became agony.
My vision flickered. Darkness crept in from the edges.
This is it.
This is how I go.
I perish… immediately… because I don't know how to—
—oh.
Oh.
OH.
HOW DO YOU BREATH?!
In a moment of sheer, unparalleled genius (as expected of me), my body jerked.
My chest expanded violently.
Air rushed in.
Cold. Sharp. Burning.
I coughed—loudly, horribly, inelegantly—as my entire being spasmed.
And then—
Air went out.
And then in again.
And out.
And in.
Oh.
Oh, this is… this is terrible.
Why would anyone choose to live like this?!
I lay there, gasping like a very undignified fish, clutching at the ground with trembling fingers that—oh, those are mine now—good to know.
The pressure faded.
The ringing softened.
The world stopped trying to end me.
Progress.
Around me, the members of my church had gone completely silent.
I could feel their eyes on me.
Which, by the way, feeling eyes is also new. I have many complaints.
Then, slowly, cautiously, Cedric spoke.
"My goddess…" he said, voice filled with awe and reverence. "How… how do you feel?"
Ah. A question. Excellent. I, Aelith—Radiant Goddess of Light, Bringer of Warmth, and undisputed Destroyer of Boredom—was now expected to deliver a response so profound it would echo through the mortal ages.
I prepared my divine will, ready to let flow a torrent of celestial wisdom. I opened my mouth, but instead of a majestic decree, absolutely nothing came out. I paused, genuinely offended by my own face.
I tried again, my throat muscles twitching with a clunky, manual effort. A sound finally emerged: a pathetic, "—hh…uh…" that was distinctly lacking in any sort of "Radiant Goddess" energy. No, no, that simply would not do.
I frowned, putting every ounce of my formidable willpower into my stubborn new lips, but the only result was an awkward shifting of my jaw as if it hadn't been properly briefed on its responsibilities. My tongue felt heavy and intrusive—a strange, fleshy stowaway in my mouth that I now apparently had to manage.
I glanced up at them, still gasping for air, while they stared back with expressions of terrified reverence. I lifted a shaky hand and pointed at my throat. I managed to rasp out a tiny "—wh…", then stopped to reconsider my entire existence. With a final, monumental surge of dignity, I tried one more time, but only managed a faint, breathy "—wha…".
This was going to take a while. Being a goddess was easy; being a person was proving to be a whole ordeal.