Lovely CareFree's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The little creature crossed the shore three days ago. Since then Lovely CareFree had watched the water for its return. She paced the glass floors of her palace and touched the empty willow branches. No leaf came back. No sign. She did not know if her messenger had reached a single mortal or drowned in the tide. Her cause was a whisper, and she had no ear to prove anyone heard it. "Come back to me," she said to the beach. "Just tell me they saw it." The waves did not answer. She knelt by the water and pressed her pale blue hands to the sand. If the creature had failed, she was alone again. If it had died, she had killed the only friend who ever came. Then a shape climbed from the surf. Not her creature. A man, green-skinned, thick with muscle, dreadlocks hanging past his back and dripping seawater. He wore only leaves at his waist. In his broad hands he cupped the small pastel creature, wet and shivering but alive. Behind him, tucked in his arm, sat a pouch and a shard of her glass. Lovely stood fast. She did not know him. "Who are you? Give me my friend." "Easy." He set the creature down gently, and it bolted to her ankles and chirped. "It found me on the far shore. Half the fishing village has one of your leaves now. Children wear them. Old women hung them over their doors." He held out the broken shard. "This one they passed hand to hand until it cracked. They wanted me to bring it to whoever made it. They said it made them feel loved." Lovely took the shard. Her hands shook. Mortals had touched her words. They had kept them. They had wanted more. The silence broke open in her chest, and she laughed, then wept. "You're a god," she said. She could feel it on him, the same weight she carried. "Verdis Thornheart." He knelt, easy and unashamed. "I tend the wild places near their homes. I've heard mortals speak your name for the first time in years. They're asking who the goddess is." The creature climbed her arm and pressed its face to her cheek. Lovely held the cracked leaf up to the light. Proof. Not hope anymore. Proof that her voice had reached across the water and landed in mortal hands. "They know I exist," she whispered. "They do." Verdis stood. His face was open and warm. "But a name spoken once is forgotten by morning. If you want a throne, you need them to keep saying it. And someone told them a forgotten goddess was easy to ignore." Lovely's smile faded. Her words had reached the village. Now another voice worked against her there. She had proof at last, and with it, a rival she had never met.