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Give back to the Lord of the Hunt what is his, they tell her, and it takes the woman nearly a year to follow their advice.
She tried. Hylea bless her soul, she did. But she doesn’t know what to do with a child like this. When she first saw the baby, she'd thought it was gripped with a strange sickness, and she had mourned the child she thought would soon be lost. But the baby lived, and it was soon evident that this was no medical affliction.
The woman had given birth to a godlike.
Everyone knows the tales of strange kith touched by the gods at birth. Each god has their own markings they grant to their chosen, and there is no mistaking this mossy, bark-skinned babe as anything but a child of Galawain.
The woman lays her bundle softly on the forest floor. She knows she is not the first who could not handle this so-called blessing from the gods, and she knows she will not be the last. The child fusses in its wrappings, and the woman gives it one last, long look. Its sickly green face peeks out from the blankets, mottled by sprouts of fungus. The stubs that will one day grow into twisted horns are clearly visible poking out above its forehead.
Worst of all are the eyes. The woman believes- or perhaps wants to believe- that she could look past the strange features if she could only look into the child’s face and see a reflection of herself and her husband, the way children are meant to be. But the eyes looking back at her are completely foreign; yellow and slitted and oddly luminescent, they speak of something the woman knows she will never understand, even if she had the desire.
When the child was born, the midwife warned her that raising such a thing would be difficult. Sometimes, she had said, it was best to return the child to the gods. At the time, the woman thought she could fight fate through sheer stubbornness. Now, she’s tired of pretending this is the family she wanted.
So she leaves the child in the wilderness. This is Galawain’s prodigy, after all, and these woods are Galawain’s domain. Let him decide what should be done. The woman wants nothing more to do with it.
(One day, Desta will stand before the gods and argue with them about lost souls. She will look up at Galawain and search his face for a hint of recognition. She will wait for him to make a claim to her soul, her life, her choices. She will not know if she can give him trust or forgiveness until he asks for it.
He will not ask. He will not call her 'child'. He will merely call her 'mortal', as if she does not bear his touch at all. Desta will almost lose her temper then, will come close to demanding he acknowledge her and tell her why. But she will not, because there are more pressing matters at hand, and because she refuses to give him the power of making her angry.
In the end, despite everything, she will have too much pride to plead for answers.)
The high priestess says that all things happen for a reason. She says that Galawain led the group of hunters through the forest to where Desta lay in her blanket. She says that Hylea moved their hearts and told them to bring the godlike babe to the temple. She says that Ondra gave her the blessing of a fresh start, with no memory of the parents who could not care for her.
She says that to be born like this is a gift, one the ignorant villagers do not understand, and that Desta is meant for great things.
But Desta’s life is full of contradictions. Outside of the temple, people stare at her and recoil from her touch. Even the hunters who call her good luck are unnerved by her presence when they visit to make their monthly offerings.
And although she prays every day, Galawain is always silent.
(One day, Desta will split a bottle of wine between two friends, two others that are the same as her and yet wildly different. They will speak of blessings and curses, and although their interpretations vary as greatly as their appearances, the common thread of the unusual will bind them together.
In the end, Desta will look back on all the odd things she’s seen in her life and think it strange that something as trivial as the moss in her skin was ever made into such an ordeal. There are far more interesting things than that. There are men who embrace their gifts and use them to guide their people with compassion deep as the ocean. There are women who reject their shackles and forge their own fates with iron hearts and loyalty that reaches the skies. These people will inspire Desta more than any god ever did.)
The chapel is silent when Desta enters for the last time. She kneels and prays and meditates, and she waits for some kind of answer. When none comes, she goes to the forest beyond the temple walls and repeats the process.
The high priestess wants her to stay with the clergy. Despite Desta's restlessness, the woman who was never quite her mother still believes she was meant to serve the gods. Desta thinks of the future she would have here- all her days spent in devotion and prayer, seeking answers that feel farther and farther away with each passing day- and she can feel the slow death it would be. Some of the hunters agree with the priestess, but they serve their god in the wilderness, in the hunt. They would take her if she asked, but Desta has tried to learn their skills and only ever failed miserably. If she cannot string a bow or track an animal, what would she be to them other than just another offering of goodwill to their god?
In the end, Desta only knows that feels nothing from Galawain. She should, shouldn’t she? If she is truly his daughter? And yet he means no more to Desta than the parents who abandoned her so long ago. She has spent years learning his tenets, his teachings of survival and strength and the hardships of the world. For a long time now, she has been wondering if there is more out there than Galawain’s stark brutality.
So she looks at the fates set before her, and she refuses them all. Instead, she sets off on her own, ready to find out who she is when she is not in Galawain’s shadow.
(One day, Desta will compare stories with another who once prayed to Galawain for answers. He will have been less lucky than her, and will bear the scars to prove it.
Galawain, he will eventually say, is a god of tests and survival. He does not give what is not earned. He does not nurture. He lets nature run its course, and only when the strongest have proven themselves worthy will he then acknowledge them.
That won’t seem right to Desta. Life may not be fair, but perhaps the gods should be. The orlan will finger his eyepatch and shrug and reply that it’s all a bit bullshit, isn’t it?
Desta will laugh and agree, because this scarred man is one of the most resilient people she’s ever met, and if Galawain couldn’t see that to begin with, it is only his loss. She will know that neither of them ever needed a god's permission to be strong, anyway.)
The Living Lands are wild and vast, and Desta spends years drifting through them. She keeps moving because she’s curious, and she wants to see the world and all the strange things within it. She keeps moving because it’s all she’s done since she left her temple, and she doesn’t know what else she would do with herself.
Most of the people she meets are wary of her- not all, but enough that she’s accustomed to the strange looks. They don’t bother her anymore; she’s long stopped caring what other people think. If all they see in her is a suspicious, bedraggled traveler covered in overgrown foliage, there’s not much she can do about it.
Desta keeps moving because she’s searching for something of her own, something to make people look at her and see her for what she is, whatever that may be.
(One day, Desta will meet a man with a sheepish smile and thoughtful eyes and a mind that never stops running itself in circles. They will travel and talk and save each other’s lives on many occasions, and it will take Desta nearly six years to fully fall in love with him.
When they’re together, she will feel a peace she’s not accustomed to, and he will look at her with wonder. Their love is their own, quiet and private, but when they go out in the city they will stand close enough that their knuckles brush. He will give Desta a small smile, and Desta will know that someone sees her.)
The Kind Wayfarers light a spark inside of Desta.
She is out in the wilderness, injured and cornered by a drake, when the paladin appears from nowhere with a ready weapon in hand. She can’t take her eyes off this stranger, this brave warrior that protects her so valiantly and asks for nothing in return.
“What god do you serve?” she asks, because surely this kind of strength must serve somebody.
But the paladin only gives her a proud smile and says, “We serve the kith who need us.”
Desta’s breath catches, and her soul fills with hunger for this light, so clear and strong. “I want to be like that.”
The paladin surveys the godlike girl, with her broken spear and her travel-worn clothes and her mossy skin and her undisguised passion. “You’re a strange one, all right. You’ll fit right in.”
The paladin takes her in and teaches her their ways, and when Desta takes to the road again it is with a new mission burning in her heart. This is who she is- not a lonely child, an aimless traveler, an oddity whose fate is tied to the hands of the gods. She is, above all else, a protector. A guide. A Wayfarer.
(One day, Desta will be told what it means to be godlike, and her blood will run cold. Berath’s voice will betray no emotion when she speaks of how the godlike- their children, she calls them, their fucking children- belong so completely to the gods. How they can be possessed. How they can be absorbed for energy. How they would so readily use and discard the lives of those they claim to favor.
“You're all monsters,” she will tell them, and she won’t care what they might do to her. “All of you.” She will see only proud indifference in response. No protest. No guilt. And despite her anger and her hatred she will pity them, these lonesome creatures who have lived too long and seen too much and have no grasp on what it means to love somebody.
“Just wake me up.” Berath’s gaze will be heavy, but it will not intimidate Desta the way it once did. They both know there's too much at stake to send her to the Wheel now. “We’re done talking.”)
Desta collects wildflowers from the fields and braids them into her hair. She decorates herself with blooms of purple, red, blue, orange, bright shining yellow. The flowers are woven into crowns around her horns, laced through the bands of her clothing, even wrapped into the grip of her mace.
Over time they fall away or wither, but new ones always take their place. The point isn’t to keep them forever. The point is that while they last, they’re beautiful and colorful and they make her smile.
Sunflowers are her favorite. She loops a particularly large one through her hair and studies herself in the makeshift mirror of her silver armor. The flower both distracts from and complements her mossy skin, blending with the ferny fungus that crawls down her neck. It takes her strangeness and transforms it, turns it around and throws it back to the world with a brand new color.
Desta can’t do anything about the weeds that cover her body. But she can always make sure there are flowers in her hair.
(One day, Desta will watch The Wheel itself crumble before her eyes. She will be angry and afraid and helpless to stop it, and for a moment she will wonder what the point was in ever trying. Then she will shake herself off, adjust the sun-dried flowers in her hair, and tighten her grip on her mace.
She was speaking truth when she told Eothas she believed in this world, and in the people’s potential to help themselves and each other. And now, more than ever, she has a lot to prove. She so much work to do, and so many choices to make.
She will make those choices on her own, without the help of any gods, and she will continue to believe in the goodness of the world with all her heart.)