But I squirmed, because something he had said bothered me. “You made me so you wouldn’t do more bad things?” Siblings had told me all about the Gods’ War.
“No,” Itempas said, and now he sounded strong again. “We made you because you are a good thing.”
This made me curl up and want to go back to the wall of torn stars. “I don’t know what that means, though.”
He inclined his head. “Your confusion and frustration are normal. This is part of life.”
“Well, I don’t like life, then!”
Itempas’s eyes sort of crinkled and his mouth sort of curved and he touched me for a moment, all proudwarm and firm. “Don’t let your mother hear you say that.” He considered. “Or Nahadoth, if she is bored.” Then he pulled away and gathered himself to leave.
I jumped up. “Wait! Papa—” If there was a Proper Way to be alive, he would know how to get started, at least. “I don’t know what to do next!”
Itempas paused, considering, and then he lowered his sun-colored gaze. “Perhaps it was the right choice for you to study Sieh’s life,” he said. “He lived better than most of us.” Abruptly he leveled a hard look at me. “Do not emulate him, however. That is easy, and foolish. Learn from him—his mistakes as well as his accomplishments. Then become yourself.”
He went away then. I still didn’t understand, but at least I felt better! That is why I like Papa Tempa best.
So I made myself some feet and kicked them for a while, and thought and thought and thought. And finally I decided what you probably know I decided because I have already done it and if I hadn’t I wouldn’t be here talking to you. I decided to go to the mortal realm.
This was really bad, because Naha had said the mortal realm was a terrible place where bad things happened to gods. Then she’d held me for a long time without talking at all, which I understood better now that Papa Tempa had told me about GRIEF. I didn’t really want to go to a place that was full of grief! But Sieh had spent a lot of time there, and the things that had happened to him there had been really, really important. Everyone said he’d gotten stronger there. And Mama Yeine had come from there, and she was terrible but also really amazing, so obviously the mortal realm was not all bad. So I decided I would go there, too, and maybe get stronger, and try not to die. I did not want to make more GRIEF.
In the mortal realm there is a world that is very special! This was the planet Papa Tempa had shown me. It is special for bad reasons, mostly, like killing a lot of us. But it is also the world most of us go to when we visit the mortal realm, so I packed myself up and wrapped myself in skin and some bones and stuff. I picked stuff that was different from Sieh’s, just like Itempas had said, which meant that when I became a big-headed human I made myself smaller and browner and girlier, and I gave myself pretty gold eyes like Papa’s instead of green ones like Mama’s. Then I took a deep breath with my brand-new lungs, and I went! There!
Now I will skip over some stuff that is not very important.
I did not mean to break that planet it was just in the way when I came into being and I fixed it and I said I was sorry and the planet said OK so since I’m supposed to learn from stuff like that I will tell you don’t break planets, especially the ones with living things on them, or at least fix them if you do break them. Also, don’t go in black holes, no matter how much they look like cute little Nahas. They are not cute! They are actually very bitey and kind of mean. Also just OK I do not want to talk about any of this anymore.
Hello! That’s better. Now I will tell you where you came from, so you can know what it was like for me.
I went to the scary Planet Where Gods Die. (It did not have a better name, it told me, sadly. I promised I would make up a good name for it before I left.) It has two big continents; since Sieh spent most of his time on the bigger one, I picked the smaller one. There was a big city there, and a place in the city where there were many mortals shuffling about doing mortally things. I made myself be in the middle of them all, and then I put my hands on my hips and said, “Hello!”
Also, do not do this to mortals.
OK well it is a good thing to say hello. But you should maybe say it at the same volume little human-mortals speak, not the volume that big sun-mortals use. And you should maybe use a human language, because the universe doesn’t care about those and doesn’t try to say hi back.
So, um. The city. Broke, a little. And a lot of people. They broke, too.
That was really, really, really, soooooo many reallys, bad. People are not as strong as planets, and they cannot be put back together as easily. Once the Yeine of them is gone, oops I mean the life, it can’t come back. Which meant that I had made a lot of mortals die. Become grief. I felt the holes torn by their goneness! I knew they would not come back, and I knew I had been so terribly awfully bad that I might not ever be good again.