Listening to Luna proudly tell me about her exploits during the night felt like a knife, stabbing deeply into my gut. How could I tell her that I had watched the whole thing and had done nothing, how could I tell her that I had set it all up in the first place? Wouldn’t that shatter her pride, pride she richly deserved in my eyes, as she had been instrumental in turning back the attack? But I had to tell her, partially because it was the right thing to do, partially because I had a feeling that Lady Hecate would tell her if I did not. That would be even worse, it was bad that I had to but being told about it from another source? No, I couldn’t do that to my munchkin.

Sadly, there was no emergency service I could call to handle unwelcome, emotional situations, no matter how much I wished there was. Simply some number to call and have them, well, handle the whole emotional ordeal, maybe with an extra service to provide therapy afterwards. All the therapy, because I had a feeling it would help a great many people. Alas, there was no such service, so I just had to push on regardless, clumsily and without knowing what lay ahead.

Knowing that the conversation ahead had to be private, I remained fairly quiet during breakfast, trying to encourage and praise my munchkin for her actions during the battle as much as possible, while attempting to give some guidance regarding future battles. It wouldn’t do for her to become careless out of arrogance, even if she had done great things during the night. Here, some of the books I had acquired about child rearing came in useful, at least those that agreed with my intent. There seemed to be childrearing books advising just about everything one could imagine and a few things that I couldn’t have before reading them, all couched in flowery language and nice imagery. It would be a lot easier if the books didn’t routinely disagree with at least one other book, making it incredibly difficult to get to the right answer. But then, there likely wasn’t one, there were only answers that worked for a particular child, or set of children, and from those people had extrapolated. Only, limited datasets meant that extrapolation was fraught with errors, just as the wedding cake joke suggested.

Shaking my mind out of my rambling, I focused on the present and on subtly guiding Luna to ask me if she could join me on my nightly excursion. The last few nights I had gently rejected her, mostly because I had extensively used Wind Magic to move about the place, but today I happily invited her along. It would give us all the privacy I wanted and needed for the dreaded conversation ahead.

“So, sweetie, I’ll have to explain something to you,” I began, once we were in one of the older parks of the area. The park used to be quite nice from what I could tell but multiple months of Astral Power influx without any maintenance had destroyed the organisation and turned it into something akin to a tiny jungle. Still, there were a few benches around, even if the vast majority had fallen apart.

Luna looked a little uneasy at my words, making me wonder what difficulties her mind conjured up, so I quickly continued, “It’s nothing bad, certainly not anything bad that you’ve done or been involved in. If anything, it’s the opposite, it’s something I have done that some people would consider bad.”

When she relaxed a little and nodded, I gave her a quick hug and spoke again.

“You have heard me talk to the locals, about the need to organise, to plan things out and focus on certain necessary areas, especially when it comes to food, right? Food, defense, supplies, all those key aspects, you’ve heard me talk about, remember?” I prodded, getting another nod.

“They didn’t listen, or rather, they listened but didn’t act on things. Maybe they didn’t believe me, maybe they convinced themself that they know better than me, or maybe they simply didn’t care or some other reason, I do not know and honestly, I do not care for their reasons, their excuses,” I grimly shook my head, still annoyed at the behaviour I had been faced with.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Maybe they do know better?” Luna suggested, before ducking her head with a quickly hidden grin when I lightly glared at her.

“You can count, just like I can. You have a fair idea of how much an adult needs to eat, we’ve gone over that before and estimated how much you need, especially while you are growing like a weed. Either of us could have counted what food they had stocked, what crops they had in the ground and what they could have grown in time and believe me, I’ve done it to the best of my ability. They wouldn’t have lasted through March, and that is with my most generous estimations,” I chided her, before shaking my head again, this time to push away the interruption by my mischievous munchkin.

“Anyway, I decided that the lack of leadership could not continue, not if the community here wants to have any chance to live through the year. So, I used the possibly oldest trick in the book, one that likely existed before the book was ever written, to give them a ‘hero’, somebody to make their leader,” I explained, noticing how Luna’s eyes widened at the explanation.

“The Shattered, the Undead, last night, that was all you?” she asked, sounding a little bit disturbed at the realisation. Or maybe she simply didn’t know how I had done what I did, I wasn’t certain. Instead of immediately trying to continue talking, I first pulled her into a hug, trying to project as much care and comfort as I could, hoping to calm her down and get her into a better mental space. It took a minute or five, but by the end of it, she looked a lot more comfortable than before and I continued speaking.

“Indeed, the people needed an enemy, something one of them could defeat so they would be seen as a hero. I remained nearby, making sure that no permanent physical damage was inflicted on anyone, especially you. If things had looked like they were about to go south, Lia and I could, and would, have intervened, ending the battle. But, thanks to your impressive work and Silva’s assistance, they got through it just fine, maybe a little shaken. As intended.”

By the time I was done with my explanation, Luna was looking conflicted again, a frown deeply etched on her face.

“Wasn’t there a better way? I don’t know, it feels wrong to manipulate them like this, to have enemies attack them, simply to make people do what you want?” she asked, sounding uncomfortable with the idea. Now, after the long talk with Hecate, I had to agree with my munchkin. There might have been better ways to accomplish what I wanted and if not, it might have been better to walk away, to leave the people to decide their own fate. I was not, and hopefully never would be, a God. I had titanic ambitions, not divine ambitions, even if there was that silly title about the Pale Lady.

“There was but you know about my people problems. Both when it comes to understanding them, relating to them and convincing them with gentle methods. It is something the Lady Hecate has counselled me during the night because She, just like you, feels that there are better ways I could have gone about the issue,” I admitted, shrugging a little because I knew I wasn’t good with people, Luna knew it, Hel, the locals likely had picked up on my discomfort.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked, obviously uncertain about the future.

“Well, I believe Lady Hecate has given you a quest, something along the lines of making a Shrine for her, filling it with a couple of books, or rather stone tablets, and then, we continue on our way. We keep quiet about my involvement with the attack last night, I will try to push Sian into a leadership role because I doubt that Lars or Sonja are acceptable to the people here, due to their age. People aren’t used to children and teenagers acting with authority because before the change authority came with age, education or due to public delegation. Or due to money, but that’s an entirely different beast. I’ve got a feeling that at some point in the near future, personal power will take that spot. But we will see,” I shrugged again, hoping that it wouldn’t get too extreme. A world where only the biggest fist mattered didn’t sound like a nice place, even if I might end up being the one with the biggest fist. With authority came responsibility, something I had no desire for.