Emily, Healing Shrine, Planting Season, 5th rot., night of the 8th day

The cute house that Wolkayrs and Thuorfosi lived in was one of the casualties of the fire. The very pregnant Thuorfosi had come to the Healing Shrine seeking refuge. Worried about the health of her unborn child, Lisaykos put her in one of the fourth-floor guest rooms.

I went to see her after dinner with my guitar, knowing she took comfort in music. She was a mess. This was the first time I had seen her this discomposed. She and Wolkayrs had been like two halves of a whole, and now her other half was missing. She looked lost, with wild, panicking eyes. Thuorfosi was an exceptional healer, not because she was talented but because she was determined to be the best she could be. I suspected she was as stubborn as I was. Everything that came easy to the prodigy Kayseo, Thuorfosi had struggled to master. She was the sort of person who would practice a skill over and over again until she conquered it, no matter how hard it was. To see her fall apart was disconcerting to me. She had been one of the anchors of my life over the last two years, and now she was adrift.

I climbed up on the arm of the chair where she was sitting and wrapped my arms around her neck to hug her. Then I sat on her bed, listened to her talk out her raw grief, and played my guitar for her. Shortly after the first night bell, Kayseo arrived, walking well with a cane in each hand for balance. Her future husband, the sturdy Otty, was right behind her, carrying a box as tall as I was.

"Great One," Otty put the box down, fell to his knees, and put his forehead to the floor. He was trembling. He was one of those unfortunate silverhairs who was overly sensitive to auras effects, a trait he inherited from his haup Esso blood. Eleven god marks affected him badly.

"Skip the needless obeisance. Are you going to be alright, Otsoymos haup Truvos?" I asked him, concerned about his reaction. "Your mother might be able to teach you how to shield yourself from the worst effects of the godmarks. She's not as bad as you are, but she is a sensitive, and she knows how."

"I may do that," he looked up with nervous, awestruck eyes. "It was bad when you had nine, but now you have all eleven, and it is overwhelming."

"If your mom can't help you, Otty," I told him, "I can introduce you to Ud. She's the one who helped your mother. I think you have the most extreme reaction to the godmarks of any Cosm I know. This is a problem because I have no intention of cutting the lovely Kayseo out of my life, and you're going to be married to her, so you can't avoid me."

He looked up from the floor at me, "I didn't expect you to be here, Great One. It felt like being knocked over when I walked in. If I put a little distance between us, I will manage for now. Thank you."

"Otty, you're marrying my friend Kayseo, so the name is Emily. Got that?"

"Great One, I can't—"

"You can and you will, at least in private. I refuse to be Great Oned to death."

"Your will, Great One," he planted his head back on the floor.

"Blarg!" I wondered if it would be possible to get rid of the godmarks or at least suppress them. This was getting ridiculous. Poor Otty.

The super-competent Thuorfosi returned to life when confronted with Otty's discomfort, "Emily, you sit there, at the head of the bed. Otty, take that chair and sit in the corner by the door. Kayseo, you can sit next to Emily. What's in the box?"

"Oh, you silly woman, give me a hug," Kayseo ignored Thuorfosi's instructions. She leaned her canes against the wall and embraced Thuorfosi from the side to get around the pregnant stomach. "I won't ask how you're doing because I know you must be grieving ten times worse than me."

The two of them held on to each other and wept. I don't know why, but I started to speak after a while. I'm not even sure the words were my own. I suspect a god might have given them to me because I'm not that eloquent a speaker.

"When you die, your soul goes to Gertzpul, and the worthy will walk with him in his garden. Under the starlit sky, cherry blossoms rain down upon you from the rows of sakura trees. The grass under your feet is soft, and the breeze is warm. The chimes of ring bells fill the air with music. It is a place with no pain, no hardship nor hunger, no sadness nor suffering. There, under the flowering trees, you sit with amiable company and rest, and there is peace before moving on. The dead are not lost to us. We simply have not yet caught up with them on the journey of souls. I know this is true, for I have walked with Gertzpul in his garden."

"Really, Emily?" Thuorfosi sniffled.

"That's what I encountered when I died, Thuorfosi," I looked up into her desperate eyes. "It was a feeling of peace so profound that mere words fail to describe it. That is where Wolkayrs is now."

The words gave comfort to Thurofosi, which was my intention.

Unknown to me, Otty had written my words down. He gave them to his mother, Kamagishi, who included them in the growing scriptures according to the Prophet Emily. Sutsusum liked what I said so much that she incorporated the words into the liturgy for funerals. I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut.

Then, Kayseo gave Thuorfosi the box.

"We intended to give this to you as a birthing present," Kayseo explained as Thuorfosi lifted the box lid. Inside was a new prell with marvelous wooden inlay work. "Lisaykos said you lost everything in the fire, so I decided to give this to you now because a Thuorfosi without a prell is like a day without sunshine."

Then, there was more hugging andcrying. It was a very soggy evening.

In the morning, Asgotl scratched at Thuorfosi's door and gave her one of his wing weathers to express his sympathy. That was a big deal. It's a gesture of the highest esteem among griffins. Not even Aylem had a feather from Asgotl. That lazy lump of blubber brains apparently had a lot of affection for Wolkayrs. I was surprised, but given all the amiable bickering and pranks they played on one another, I wasn't too surprised.