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“...From the beginning, the Akademiya has never treated her as a god.
When the Akademiya first discovered Devi Kusanali, the newborn God of Wisdom, the Sages hoped that she would be as wise as Mahadevi Rukkhadevata. But upon evaluation...
They found that, at that time, she possessed no more intelligence than any ordinary human child.
The Sages never had a ruder awakening. This forced them to accept that Mahadevi Rukkhadevata had indeed passed away.
Devi Kusanali's Gnosis has been used to power the Akasha this entire time. By herself, she has neither an archon's raw power, nor the spectacular insight expected of a God of Wisdom.
…Slowly but surely, people began to forget about her existence.”
—Morghi, Archon Quest Chapter III: Act IV - King Deshret and the Three Magi
On the day of her birth, Nahida hadn’t understood what the Sages meant when they’d called her a “child”.
“Child” was a term meant to define a uniquely human developmental stage, which meant Nahida, by virtue of her existence, was physically incapable of being one. Only humans could be children, and Nahida, of course, was not human--she was a god.
Unfortunately, this distinction didn’t seem to matter to the Sages.
They’d known Nahida was a god from the very moment they’d found her in the lushest depths of Sumeru’s forests, curled up drowsily in the grass as her mind finished weaving itself into the fabric of the world’s being. As soon as they’d spotted her, they’d regarded her with frantic recognition and rushed to her side immediately, bombarding her with a flurry of tense, urgent questions.
Where have you been?
Why have you taken such a form?
What happened? The sky—it had gone red—
What do we do now?
Nahida hadn’t known how to respond. She was too small to reach the endless branches of knowledge beyond her mind that would lend her the answers to such questions, and it wasn’t long before the humans took notice of this ignorance.
Wide eyed, blank confusion was an expression unfitting for a deity of wisdom. The Sages had frowned at Nahida, then leaned in towards each other, muttering amongst themselves in low, terse voices she couldn’t hear.
She’d blinked at them, curious and unsure. It was difficult to parse the meaning and concept of spoken language, in the way her mind was still piecing together what to make of touch and sight and temperature and light. She could hear the distant murmur of their consciousnesses, but did not know how to reach for them and make the noise closer and clearer so she could understand it.
Which was troubling, for she wanted to understand them—it was her purpose to. There was meaning to be gleaned from the Sages’ stiff, forceful movements, hardened voices, and flickers of piercing emotion she caught from their minds, but Nahida could not grasp it.
Suddenly, the most important-looking of the Sages—a thin, older man with a stern face and thin rimmed glasses—grabbed her roughly by the arm.
The confusion this triggered in Nahida was new and alarming, a sensation strong enough to make her entire body jolt involuntarily in a way she didn't know emotions could do. Then, without so much as a glance on her direction, the Sage pulled her urgently to her feet, and began to drag her in the direction of something called a “city” with the rest of his companions without another word.
Despite Nahida’s physical form being constructed with the same anatomy of humans, “walking” was not as easy as she’d hoped. To have the knowledge of “walking” poured into her mind, and to actually perform it, were, as Nahida learned, two entirely different things. Building a sense of coordination with her limbs was difficult, and proper balance was impossible, because the Sage’s legs were much longer than hers, and it was difficult to keep up with the pace of his stride as he dragged her along.
The grip on her wrist was another thing—Nahida had not expected human physical contact to be so…harsh. It was painful in a way a rough scrape against stone or soil was not, and made the noise of the Sage’s mind ring painfully sharp and clear in her ears.
Which, strangely, did not make the human easier to understand. If anything, it only made things more confusing, because the vague sense of noise and emotion coming from his mind filled Nahida with a sensation similar to a small forest animal fleeing a pursuing predator, and did not leave much room for her to process much else.
Nahida instead turned her mind to focus on the vast, big forest encompassing her surroundings, seeking the distant, kinder murmur of the plant life around her—only to realize that something wasn’t…right about any of it at all.
The trees, leaves and grass of Sumeru’s rainforest all struggled to greet her as she reached out to them, their voices strangled and pained like they’d just barely survived something rotting them from the inside out. Their recent memories were fleeting impressions of decay and withering, streaked in a horrible red and black Nahida had no answer for.
Soon, they arrived at the “city”, which was a very big place with lots of human structures built into and around a massive, towering tree—and here, things were no better.
The humans of the city were somber and still, a deep unease filling their minds even as they walked the streets, filtering in and out of buildings as they went about their day. It was an anxiety streaked with the same memories of withering red and black she’d seen in the forest’s heart, tangled with emotions that were too human and far away for Nahida to fully grasp, even as she tried to reach for them. Most of them barely acknowledging Nahida and the Sages as they passed by, the minds of the ones who did flickering in numb confusion as their eyes landed on Nahida.
She didn’t understand why.
The Sages took Nahida to a quiet, empty chamber built high into the branches of the city’s tree called the Sanctuary of Surasthana, far above the muted bustle of the city. They closed the doors behind them, then sat Nahida down on the platform-like ledge in the center of the vast room, looking down at her with an investigative sort of intensity.
“What is your name?” The most important of the Sages asked, suddenly.
This, finally, was a question Nahida was tall enough to reach the branches for.
[Fortunate grass beneath your feet. Teacher of herbs and the archery of logical thought. Keeper of branches and roots…memory and thought…]
Curiously, it was an entirely different answer than what she’d anticipated.
“Kusanali,” Nahida said, plucking the name from the sudden flow of divinity enlightening her consciousness.
All of them frowned.
“…Devi Kusanali,” The lead Sage muttered, putting a hand to his chin. “…And you are the God of Wisdom, I presume?”
It felt nice to be asked a question she finally knew the answer to.
“Mhm.”
Despite the correctness of her answer, it only made the Sages frown more.
The lead Sage was silent for a moment, the pace of his mind quickening as it worked to fit things together. Curiously, Nahida reached for his mind in an attempt to trace his current thought—and found herself wondering why he was hesitating so much to ask a question he already believed he knew the answer to.
“… Do you know,” He began, slowly. “… Where Mahadevi Rukkhadevata is?”
Rukkhadevata… Rukkhadevata….
…Ah.
Nahida had seen this name within many minds of the humans throughout the city. A few had thought it in passing when they’d laid eyes on Nahida, and upon closer inspection of those thoughts, Nahida could understand why. The image this deity held in the minds of the humans here looked very similar to Nahida.
The difference, however, was that this deity was much bigger than her: a tall figure who radiated a level of omnipotence only an older, more powerful deity would possess. Which made sense, because Mahadevi Rukkhadevata, according to the minds of the humans in this forest, was also a God of Wisdom.
The beginnings of an anxious, sinking feeling began to settle in Nahida’s chest, but she wasn’t sure why.
Where was this other deity? None of the humans knew—but Nahida had something she could ask beyond the humans.
Her consciousness reached for the gentle branches of the Tree beyond her mind, tracing the lines of its bark in search of information about the other Dendro Archon—then flinched back as a sudden, agonizing bolt of pain stabbed through her head in a vicious flurry of red and black.
There was a dizzying impression of withered leaves, decay, pain, and Nahida withdrew from this branch of knowledge before she had to experience another moment of it.
“…She’s, um…” Nahida managed to say, fidgeting restlessly on the edge of the platform. She felt something akin to the human sensation of ‘nausea’ churning within her, and didn’t know how to make it go away. “She’s not… anywhere, a-anymore.”
A pause.
“…Sorry...”
None of the Sages liked this answer.
They had more questions after that—less questions about her, and more what Nahida seemed to know…which, in the clear opinion of their minds, was not very much.
They next asked her to retrieve answers from the world they couldn't reach—something Nahida could see that their previous deity had repeatedly done with ease for them in the past, but was much harder than it looked when she tried to mimic the memory of it she’d seen in their minds.
It soon became very clear that there were… many things Mahadevi Rukkhadevata could do with ease that Nahida couldn’t do at all. The Sages seemed to realize this, and with time, their questions became begrudgingly shorter, more comprehensible…until finally, she was told to write her name, and complete a sheet of simple arithmetics taken from the local school.
Nahida tried—she really did, but counting and writing were still things Nahida needed to carefully find and pull from the world’s knowledge to understand, which only seemed to make the Sages frown more and more.
Of course it did. From the steady flow of their minds, Nahida traced the idea of a “scholar”. These humans’ minds were powered with memory upon memory of rehearsing information, hours spent pouring over books and pitting their words against others. They were a people of knowledge and curiosity—and that was precisely why they wanted an Archon of wisdom to guide them.
This made Nahida very sad. She liked being given questions to answer and tasks to solve—it was a natural part of acquiring knowledge, and therefore something Nahida loved deeply as the God of Wisdom, so she really didn’t mean to be bad at it.
Nahida suddenly started to feel something else draining from her being, slowly and steadily, like a barely budding sprout withering from being deprived of water and sun.
She wasn’t sure how to describe it. It was as if something in the chill of the Sages’ stoic judgement was slowly sucking all the warmth and life out of her being, leaving her brittle and empty. Was it an emotion? In her frantic scramble to comb through the branches of The Tree and the consciousness of her people for knowledge so she could answer their flurry of questions, she’d learned that humans could be deeply swayed by feelings of rejection and failure, even to the point of physical sensation.
Was that it? She reached for the branches within her mind, desperate to know.
…
What was “faith?”
By the time they asked her to bring a sad, neglected little plant in a pot back from the verge of withered death, Nahida could hardly bear to call upon the divine power imbued into her being at all. She couldn’t tell if it was because she couldn’t stop her hands from trembling, or because she felt wilted, weak and small in a way she’d never felt before.
Ultimately, it didn’t seem to matter—because in the minds of the Sages, they’d become devoid of enough “faith” to come to a firm, unyielding decision about what to do next.
They began to wordlessly pack away all of the things they’d used to test her, and told Nahida she was to stay in the chamber until further notice.
Then, they began to leave.
“…Why?” Nahida asked.
The most important-looking of the Sages frowned like he’d bitten into something sour, hardly turning back to look at her.
“For your own good,” He answered. ”Sumeru is in a state of crisis after the Cataclysm. It may not be safe for you to appear as its Archon in…” He paused, his eyes flicking to look Nahida up and down. “…such a state.”
This response didn't satisfy Nahida’s curiosity, which wasn’t good, because she didn’t really like the kind of curiosity she had about this; it was restless and bad, more akin to the uniquely human emotion of “fear” than the innate desire to know woven into her being.
“But…” Nahida tried again, unsure of how to better articulate what she wanted to know. “…Why?”
One of the Sages—the younger man towards the back who hadn’t spoken as much, hesitated as his peers turned to leave. Nahida, curiously, reached into his consciousness, and found herself dipping into a steady stream of thoughts and emotions too human for her to fully grasp. He was thinking of a small human about Nahida’s size, who hadn’t lived long enough to control her body and mind with the degree of control larger humans like the Sages could. In his mind, Nahida could see countless memories of him doing things for the smaller human’s “own good”—sometimes out of a warm, affectionate emotion, and other times out of an indignant, frustrated one.
“…Don’t bother,” The most important-looking Sage suddenly muttered tiredly to him, stopping the other human in his tracks before he could open his mouth. His voice was carefully low, but such a stark echo of his thoughts that it was easy for Nahida to pluck them from his mind. “She won’t understand. It’s like speaking to a child.”
The younger human closed his mouth and his lips pressed into a thin line, frowning as his mind overlayed the image of Nahida with that of a god; a disturbed sort of confusion and frustration rippling across his thoughts as he remembered what she was.
The Sages all left the Sanctuary of Surasthana without another word, and while Nahida was certain the lead Sages’ final words were ultimately the answer to her question, she was not a wise enough deity to understand why.
After her first birthday, Nahida had been strictly confined to the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
It was a vast, empty space that reminded Nahida of the nests birds build in the trunks of hollowed out trees, only bigger and more lonely—like the small, wired cages humans sometimes kept birds in when they didn’t want them to fly away. There were no real windows, but sunlight was able to filter through the intricately detailed patterns of the chamber walls, tinting the room with faint, sunlight greens and greys during the day.
Apparently, this was a place Mahadevi Rukkhadevata herself had once inhabited—which Nahida could understand, because there was a tranquility to the Sanctuary of Surasthana that would suit any Dendro Archon well.
The problem, however, was that it often got very, very lonely.
The Sages seldom visited her, and when they did, they had little interest in making conversation, much to Nahida’s disappointment. A few times, when she’d gotten bored waiting for them to come back and longed to glimpse the sun again, she’d tried to leave—and that hadn’t gone well for anyone involved.
Eventually, the Sages had found a way to reverse engineer Mahadevi Rukkhadevata’s meditation chamber so it could not be opened from the inside, and made Nahida stay there instead.
Which was okay. It was for her own good.
The God of Wisdom’s duty was to guide the humans that resided in her domain, but none of Nahida’s people wanted her—they wanted the deity Nahida had been born to replace.
Mahadevi Rukkhadevata, after all, had been a wise, noble deity well deserving of her people’s devotion and grace; she was near omnipotent in knowledge, able to traverse the roots of the world to guide humanity with wisdom beyond their realm of existence. The difference between her and Nahida in their utility as an Archon was as vast as the sky between the earth and stars. It would take a very, very long time for her to become as wise and powerful a deity as Rukkhadevata was—if such a feat was even possible to begin with.
In this way, Nahida could see why the Sages saw her as a child.
Children were very new to the world, and as a result, did not yet understand many things about it. This imbued their existence with a certain vulnerability, something many adult humans like the Sages saw as weakness and intentional belligerence; their own days of childhood long forgotten.
The difference, however, was that Nahida’s divinity removed her from experiencing this uniquely human vulnerability.
A child’s mind required years of diligent care to fully bloom, tended to with nutrients and guidance until it had reached a stage of mature development. Nahida’s consciousness, however, could traverse beyond her physical mind to pull knowledge and understanding from not only her own experiences, but the vast knowledge of the world itself—the towering, endless branches she soon came to know as Irminsul.
Being physically confined to a space was a lesser restriction for Nahida than it was for humans, for Nahida could use the Akasha itself as her eyes and ears, her mind able to drift through the pooled knowledge of human consciousnesses and the branches of Irminsul whenever she desired.
Within the first few days of her life, Nahida had learned to read—ingraining the muscle memory of many different alphabets from the countless human minds in the city beneath her with relative ease. After a week of careful practice, she’d learned to traverse the dreams of humans while they slept at her own will—cultivating knowledge she then used to construct her own dreams when the waking stillness of her prison grew lonesome. By the time she’d first observed a full cycle of the moon’s phases through the eyes of the Akasha, Nahida had been able to recreate sparse elements of the natural world within the realm of her consciousness—giving herself trees that knew to rustle from the fluttering breeze she sent to them, and streams that were cool, wet, and fluid when she touched them.
If the Sages believed it was a childlike sensibility for her to wonder about the world in a bright way, or not yet understand it as deeply as they’d like…Nahida found pitiful solace in the fact it at least made the children of Sumeru easier for her to understand.
Children were not difficult for her to converse with, because they cared little for what Nahida was, and overwhelmingly only wanted to be listened to. Which Nahida gladly did, sitting attentively as they shared their stories and anxieties until the sun began to rise over the horizon once more. After all, knowledge was best gained through a diversity of gathered study and experience—which meant every perspective was valuable, even that of children.
Nahida had learned many significant things from the children she visited; her most recent favorite being that of play.
A majority of adult humans, from Nahida’s observation, (with exceptions, of course, there were always exceptions) were strangely stiff about and disinterested in almost all forms of play. This was something she did not understand—for there was nothing more Nahida enjoyed mimicking than the human act of play. Perhaps it was just that older humans no longer had the energy for it, limited by the ranges of nutrition, sleep, and physical forms breaking down with time in ways gods like Nahida were not—because Nahida always had the energy to play.
The Sages did not like this.
Once, she had made the mistake of asking them for something to entertain her—like the rubber balls or wood carved figurines children had asked her to play with alongside them in dreams. (She, of course, did not mention the dreams—for all she knew, the Sages could figure out how to trap her consciousness in the Sanctuary of Surasthana, too, and then…Nahida didn’t know what she’d do. She couldn’t bear to think about it.)
The Sages’ frustration at her request had puzzled her. If they thought she was a child, then logically it was okay for her to have toys—but their minds, instead, had been a confusing mess of disappointment and repulsion at the idea of a god wanting such childish things.
It made Nahida feel rather ashamed and embarrassed she’d asked such a thing in the first place, but she was still too childish to bear the idea of being in the room all alone with only her dreams to entertain her, so she’d desperately argued with the Sages in the most rational, mature voice she could manage until they gave her tools and wood to carve in compromise.
“—I’m sorry your parents don’t let you have toys,” Aahan said to her that night, after he’d told Nahida in detail about his first day of school, and asked if she wanted to watch beetles with him by his favorite tree near his home. He was 7 years old, and his family was often busy tending to his very ill mother, so Nahida had been visiting his dreams to keep him company. “That’s… really weird.”
“It’s okay,” Nahida replied, passively knitting just a little more detail into the beetle in the dream with her mind. She’d learned, recently, exactly how their legs moved, and had been practicing recreating it in the subconscious ever since. “I’ve just been spending more time on my studies, instead.”
Mahadevi Rukkhadevata, it seemed, had done something to purge much of the corruption that had flooded Sumeru during the recent calamity of withering red and black—so while Irminsul and Sumeru seemed mostly okay,, Nahida got the strange sense there was something she would need to truly keep them safe from the forbidden rot—she just needed to figure out what it was.
If only she were smarter…
“When I don’t have any toys, I play games instead,” Aahan offered, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Me and my friends like playing ‘I Spy’. Do you know how to play ‘I Spy’? You could do that.”
“I do!” Nahida replied. “But that wouldn’t work…I don’t often have anyone to play it with.”
“Oh...” said Aahan, frowning.
He went quiet for a moment, deep in thought as he studied the beetle they were watching. He held out his hand and let it climb onto his fingers, and Nahida wondered what that would feel like. His dream would carry his memory of the sensation to her if she held the beetle herself, but it wasn’t really the same…and her room had no windows, so there wasn’t any hope of a real beetle flying in.
“How about hopscotch?” Aahan asked, suddenly. “That only needs one person. Do you know hopscotch?”
Nahida’s consciousness fell back to trace the endless span of branches stretching out from her mind, following the bark of one until she plucked the idea of hopscotch from it and studied it carefully.
“Oh!” She said, pleasantly surprised. “I like this one. Thank you.”
He tilted his head at her, and Nahida realized too late her response hadn’t lined up very well with his question.
“I’ve… heard of it, but I haven’t tried it,” Nahida tried, hoping this was enough to reorient the conversation.
Aahan, thankfully, seemed entirely unfazed.
“Oh, well…I can show you how to do it, if you want,” He offered kindly.
Nahida beamed. “Okay!”
Nahida spent the night learning to play hopscotch with Aahan, and found it to be a very joyful, positive activity.
She practiced it on her own within her room, and then again in her dreams when the world was too awake. Toys were often beyond her reach, but with a lot of concentration and patience, Nahida trained herself to become even better at creating things in her dreams she could interact with as though she were in the real world: creating more and more ways to pass the time whenever she grew bored.
She went from dream to dream, studying the different games and time passes the children had to offer. This was one of her favorite parts of learning—when something in the world clicked just right, and opened up a myriad of new branches for her to traverse in her mind.
The best part was that the Sages were none the wiser. If they wanted to chastise her for entertaining the idea of child’s play, or wasting her time learning things that were trivial and unimportant, they could not reach her in her dreams. She was safe, the lonesome games she constructed in her own mind granting her a sense of ease she’d seldom felt in the waking world.
She learned many small things from these ventures—with a few clear favorites; hopscotch, which she had learned from Aahan, and Cat’s Cradle, which a quiet, timid girl had taught her a week after her pet cat had finally come home.
Then, of course, there was the swing.
Nahida had first encountered it by chance, on an ordinary night when she’d visited the dreams of a young girl who’d just recently moved to the city with her family. She was a bright, adventurous, and very happy child—so much so that she often assured Nahida she would be fine on her own whenever her more uneasy dreams were visited.
So tonight, Nahida was only watching from afar as the child’s dream fell into place around her—taking the shape of the wooden swing that hung from the tree by her grandmother’s quiet home, with a vividness that could be pulled only from memory.
The girl bounded into the scene and pulled herself onto the swing, her legs dangling idly for a moment. She took a few shuffling steps backwards against the ground before kicking off to propel herself and the swing into the air, keeping its momentum with calculated swings of her feet.
Nahida was fascinated. She knew of playgrounds, of structures built solely for children to play, but she’d never been able to properly experience them, for impressions of memories and a still growing understanding of physics were not enough to recreate a truly satisfying slide, seesaw, or obstacle to climb across the way she wanted.
The swing she saw here, however, seemed very simple—so much so she could probably manifest one right now, if she wanted.
Which was precisely what Nahida did. Since the dream bled with memory, it was easy for her to tilt the scene before her in reverse for a moment—just so she could watch closely as the girl pulled herself onto the swing once more, studying the mechanisms of the structure.
Nahida knit together the idea of a swing in her mind, green threads of her power blending together with the knowledge of physics, weight, and balance she’d carefully rehearsed to the point of near mastery.
Mimicking the human’s movements, Nahida leaned back, pulling her swing into existence quietly and carefully putting her weight onto it.
She held onto the vine-like ropes she’d manifested for it, then hesitated for a moment, nervous to let her feet leave the ground…before kicking backwards as the girl had done and settling onto the swing entirely.
The swing wobbled, and Nahida anxiously concentrated the best she could, squeezing her eyes shut to keep the swing firmly in the dream’s tangible existence, still trying to ensure it did not disrupt the consciousness she was visiting. A moment later, she opened her eyes—and found herself swaying lightly on her still-present swing, the glowing threads of dreams and verdure she’d weaved from twinkling peacefully in the corners of her vision.
Oh! She smiled. This is nice.
She sat there idly for a moment, enjoying the careful way the swing swayed back and forth, like leaves rustling leisurely in the wind on a warm spring day.
Even this alone was perfectly enjoyable, but with another glance at the child she was mimicking, Nahida willed herself to step back against the ground for a moment, pulling the swing back before letting it go for a true push of momentum.
Finding the rhythm of such a thing was difficult, at first. Nahida squeaked as the swing swerved sideways from the uneven angle she’d swung her legs at, tightening her grip on its ropes in a panic. She gave it a few more tries, careful to calculate the coordination of her movement until she felt herself finally fall into a steady rhythm of swinging, soaring breezily back and forth in the air.
It was very fun!
She matched the child’s pace to swing back and forth, concentrating on keeping the exact momentum she wanted. No wonder humans had invented such an activity—it was a very unique sort of enjoyment she’d never gotten from a puzzle or stationary game before.
Nahida played with the swing for quite some time, happy to be participating in the emotions of the dream even if its owner hadn’t noticed her.
This went on into the night, until at one point, the human child called to something outside the vision of her dream, and a moment later, an older woman who looked rather similar to her manifested into the scene, knit together from a blur of recent memories.
Nahida watched, curiously, as the two humans spoke with one another—the child yelling from her still-moving swing.
Then, she sent her feet to the ground, dragging herself to a sudden halt, and with a laugh, her guardian made her way over to stand behind her.
She grabbed the edge of the child’s seat, pulling the smaller human with her as she took a few steps back. Then, she released the swing, pushing the child at the square of her back to propel her forward.
The child let out a loud shriek of laughter, trying not to kick her feet to throw herself off balance as she was launched into the air at a greater height than she’d been able to reach on her own.
The older human smiled with gentle fondness at the child’s excitement, careful to keep her balanced on the swing as she pushed her back and forth. This was a dream pulled from not only imagination, but fond memory—a moment deeply cherished by the mind it came from.
This looked very fun as well!
Nahida studied the way the older human pushed the small one on the swing, contemplating the movement and principles behind the game, before looking back to initiate the next phase of the game herself.
…But, of course, there was no one there.
Nahida paused mid swing, her train of thought coming to a screeching halt as she processed this reality.
She wasn’t sure what else she’d been hoping for. Nahida, after all, could not call anyone to appear in her dreams beside her, even the ones she consciously constructed herself. Such a feat required the divine power only the God of Wisdom was able to wield.
Nahida hesitated, a low, sinking feeling settling within her chest as she watched the two humans. The girl’s excited laughter poured out of her like warm sunlight, with all the joy and happiness of a child who felt safe and loved. It was a joy Nahida had never heard before, the unfamiliarity of the emotion weighing heavily on her heart with a cold, hollow emptiness she didn’t understand.
The dream quivered around her, a sudden ache in her chest making it strangely difficult to keep herself anchored to the dream. Her heels dragged against the dream-soft grass beneath her feet as her swing came to a sudden, heavy halt, but Nahida barely noticed, too caught in the confusing torrent of emotion steadily creeping over her.
She blinked, her vision coming away strangely wet and blurry, her head hanging to stare aimlessly at the ground beneath her.
Nahida didn’t have a name for such a feeling.
If she thought about it, she could parse what she felt was a sort of longing; but none of the world’s roots or branches of knowledge had an answer for what she could ever be longing for. Nahida searched, and searched, straining the best she could to what in the universe she was strong enough to reach the answers of. But her answer did not come from the universe—but the hearts of humans. Children with cold, empty dreams they fell into with no one to tuck them into bed, older humans who had grown but still remembered, vividly, how invisible they had felt in their childhood homes. Children who ate lunch alone because no one wanted to sit with them, adults succumbing to hopeless resignation when they came home from a funeral and remembered there was no one there.
Nahida didn't have anything in common with any of them, because she was a god, and godhood was meant to remove her from the pain of uniquely human vulnerability.
It was why the Sages left her alone, and why she was the only god whose people didn’t want her. A child wasn’t meant to be the God of Wisdom, because unlike humans, who should never fear needing guidance, or feel bad they were not perfect—there was no reason for a god to not be good enough.
Nahida fell from the dream as though she had been dropped from a great height, and landed back in her body moments later, waking with a start and blinking rapidly as the painfully familiar moonlit greens of the Sanctuary of Surasthana rushed to fill her vision.
For a moment Nahida was still, floating quietly in the center of her prison, with only the fading warmth of the dream ringing faintly in her mind.
Then, for reasons she was not wise enough to understand, she curled up into a small ball, buried her face into her hands, and began to cry.