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The would-be gods came and went, and Damkina gardened.

She had not known, when she was younger, how much damage fighting caused.  The last time the gods had been here, she, too, had fought, to hold them off to banish them.

This time she did not fight.  She stood by her apprentice’s side and, with the people of the city, she built a garden.

Her boss – her former boss, she supposed, but better to think “once and future” – directed salvage teams to things that ought to be saved.  A CEO of a famous business was helping to rearrange housing so that all those refugees who asked for a place could be given it.

Today, as almost every day since they had first held off a would-be godling, a small crowd of people followed her, chanting as she had taught them.  Today, as she did every day, she had taken an hour with the strongest voices to show them how to shape the trees and plants to their wishes and not her own.

“Tempero Huamu, Qorawiyay Huamu, Aistrigh Huamu, Quipia Huamu, as Dam-kina Wishes.” Continue reading →