Balm in Gilead: Chapter 15

Chapter 15

“Lili wasn’t actually going to kill you.” The girl sniffed, crossing her arms. “She was just… aware of the possibility.”

I laughed. “Oh really?” The two of us were sitting next to each other on a small couch in the upper area of the church. “That’s not what you said last time.”

“Lili needed to keep you on your toes.”

“Well, you’ve certainly done that.” I reached out, ruffling her hair. Lili huffed, but tellingly, she didn’t pull away.

It had been a week since my victory over the Soma Familia. They’d been dissolved, according to my wish, and Soma returned to heaven. I’d say that he looked sad about it, or something, but really, I couldn’t care less about how a drug pusher felt about going back to heaven.

Let him make wine for the gods and let us mortals render unto Caesar ourselves.

“I thought you’d be a little more grateful after I saved your butt.”

Lili tilted up her nose, even though she still didn’t pull away from my hand. “Lili and Taylor work well together. It only makes sense that Taylor would help Lili.” There was a small tremor in her voice, though. So instead of pushing the point, I shifted my hand slightly, and tweaked her nose.

“Of course.” I smiled as she squeaked, glaring at me with sharp eyes. “I don’t abandon my Familia.”

She looked at me for a moment more, before giving a short nod, and relaxing back into the couch.

The upper floor of the church—by which I meant the main floor, since Hestia and I slept in a basement alcove—had been fixed up some. Mostly, that was Hestia refusing to let me out of her sight for the last few days, so I got a ladder and some boards and patched up the roof as best I could.

Ais had stayed true to her word and dragged in a frier just for her Jagamarukuns. And they were definitely her Jagamarukuns. I almost lost my otherhand the last time I tried to grab one.

Lili and I had settled in as new members of the Hestia Familia and were getting ready to start going on delves again, this time without Soma’s thugs going after me. Things were good; really, it was hard to imagine how they could be better. Well, except for one thing…

“Taylor!” The door to the church slammed open, Hestia scampering inside. For once, Ais wasn’t with her. “I just got back from the godly meeting; I have your new nickname!”

“Oh, okay.”

No, not the nickname. That was one more thing I couldn’t care less about either way. It was the other bit.

Hestia paused, her exuberance dimming somewhat. “I also got a few new offers.”

I raised an eyebrow. “In writing?”

Hestia nodded, biting her lip as she passed me a few letters. I let out a sigh. “Really, they’re a persistent bunch.” I took the stack from her, and without reading them, turned and tossed them into the hearth with a happy smile. “Another offering to My Dearest Goddess.”

Lili giggled.

Hestia whined. “Taylooooor! Those are from other gods; you can’t just toss them into the fire.” She was blushing, but she couldn’t stop the smile from showing on her face. Hestia wore her heart on her sleeve.

Or she would, if she had sleeves.

I smiled at her. “Of course not,” I said. “I’m tossing them into yourfire. It’s a big difference.” I patted the couch next to me. “Now, why don’t you tell me about this nickname thing of yours.”

“You should… still read them…” Hestia said, walking over to plop down onto the couch on my other side. A happy blush spread across her cheeks. “What if…”

“Another Familia makes me a better offer?” I raised my eyebrow again. Hestia nodded, looking down at the floor. “They could never.”

“How do you know?”

“Because all of them only want me now that I’m someone special, someone that’s all new and shiny.” I reached out with my gauntlet hand, cupping her cheek with a tenderness that belied the metal.

The arm had felt different, more real since the wargame.

“You were the only one who cared about me when I was broken.”

“You were never broken,” she said, without pause, without a moment’s thought.

I smiled. “And that’s why you will ever be My Dearest Goddess.”

On my other side, Lili scoffed. “You two should just get a room already.”

“We have one downstairs,” I said. Hestia blushed slightly. “And don’t be crude.”

“W-w-well, as Taylor’s goddess, it would be my, my responsibility… if…”

I gave a fond sigh. “Hestia, you’re perfect as you are.” She meeped. “Really, everything is perfect right now. I just wish I had a few less ‘offerings’ to give you.”

We shared a small laugh at that, and Hestia calmed down, snuggling into my side. “I’ll be whatever you need, Taylor.”

I wrapped an arm around her. “You already are. Now, nicknames, before Lili here gets acute diabetes.”

“Right!” Hestia clapped her hands together, even as Lili said, “What’s diabetes?”

“So, in case you didn’t know, each time an adventurer levels up, they get a nickname assigned by the gods. Not right away, there’s a biiiiig party where all the gods come together and determine the new nicknames for everyone who got a level up since the last event.”

“What’s mine then?”

Hestia grinned. “I got you a good one!” She held out a thumbs up. “The Determinator!”

I tilted my head, blinking. “Determinator?” I asked. “I… guess, not sure what I did to deserve something like that. Also, isn’t that a reference or something?”

“A reference?” Hestia looked up at me guilelessly. “To what?”

“I guess it doesn’t matter.” I smiled. “Thanks for the good name, Hestia.”

“You’re welcome!” Hestia leaned around me, smiling at her new Familia member. “I’ll be sure to get Lili a good one too, once she levels up.”

Lili paused, before a small smile graced her features as well. “Lili is… looking forward to it.” I ruffled her hair again. Really, it was too much fun, especially with the way she leaned into my hand.

“Was there anything else then? Because Lili and I were thinking it was time to finally start going back to the dungeon.”

“Oh! There was one more thing.” Hestia reached behind her back and pulled out another sealed missive. “This one is from Apollo!”

I frowned. “Didn’t I just throw the rest into the fire?”

“No, uh, this one’s different.” Hestia handed it to me, then an odd expression crossed her features. “Though, I’m not sure how I feel about it coming from Apollo.”

“You two are from the same Pantheon, right?”

“Mhm.” She nodded. “He’s always been pursuing me, but recently he hasn’t bothered as much. At first, I thought he’d be going after you as well, but this is a different offer completely.”

I blinked. “Is it?”

“Yeah! He wants to make an alliance between our Familias. It’d be our first one, actually.”

Lili poked me in the side. “Lili thought Hestia and Hephaestus-sama had an alliance.”

Hestia tilted her hand back and forth. “Kinda? We’re just really good friends, but we don’t have a formal alliance.”

I hummed, breaking the seal bearing Apollo’s emblem to unroll the brief scroll of parchment. I briefly skimmed the contents, reading, “Apollo, god of light, poetry, and oracles, offers hospitality to the head of the Hestia Familia to discuss matters of mutual alliance between us, so that we may stand shoulder to shoulder as proud siblings once more.”

There was more formal language, a date and time as well, but that was the gist of it. “They’re laying it on a little thick, aren’t they?”

“Well, it’s Apollo, he’s usually like that.” Hestia shrugged. “Still, an Alliance would be good.”

“You don’t think it’s a trick?”

“If Apollo wanted Taylor, he’d go after Taylor,” Hestia said. “My… brother isn’t very good at being patient, you know.”

“Ironic, for a god that can apparently tell the future.”

Lili giggled again at my words. “If gods were smarter, none of them would get sent back to heaven.”

I nodded. “I guess that’s true. What do you think I should do, My Goddess?”

Hestia frowned at the missive, thinking it over in her mind. “I think that you should… probably go.” She thought about it for a moment more, before nodding. “It would be rude to reject an offer of alliance out of hand. If the terms are bad, you can just politely decline at the meeting itself. Er… you are able to politely decline, right Taylor?”

I gave her a small frown. “Of course I can be polite.”

“Are you sure?” Hestia leaned forward, blue eyes boring into mine. “Because if you accidently insult someone and kick off another wargame…”

“I don’t know why you’re talking about this,” I grumbled. “I can be polite if I want to. It’s not exactly hard.”

“Sure.” Lili smirked. “And Lili bets Taylor really doesn’t know why she got ‘Determinator’ as a nickname, either. At all. Lili’s sure it’s all just a complete mystery.”

“Shush you, or I’ll find myself a new supporter.”

“‘I don’t abandon my Familia’,” Lili parroted in a bad approximation of my voice.

I growled. “I don’t have to take this.”

“Taylor.” Hestia stood, placing her hands on her hips. “This is important.”

“I know it’s important.” I huffed. “I’ll be polite, Hestia, I don’t know why you’re being so insistent about this.”

“Maybe it’s because last time a Famila was rude to you, you personally depopulated it over the course of a few weeks?” Lili asked.

“Because they attacked me in the dungeon.”

“Lili thinks that’s not the type of argument Taylor wants to be making here.”

I sighed, putting my head in my hands. “Betrayed. Betrayed by the people I trusted the most. Is this ever to be my fate?”

Lili giggled, patting me on the shoulder. “There, there. If Taylor cannot be polite, then you should just make Lili the Familia head and Lili will go to the negotiations.”

I rolled my eyes. “Then I’d have to file paperwork at the guild.”

“Lili thinks that sounds like a personal problem.”

“I’m sure you do.” I turned back to Hestia, taking in the mirth sparkling in her eyes. “What about you? Are you finally done making fun of me, Goddess?”

“Oh, you’ve made her mad now!” Lili pointed a finger at Hestia. “That’s the first time she hasn’t called you dearest all week!”

“I thought I said shush you!”

“She did.” Hestia nodded. “But I don’t think Lili noticed.”

“Lili didn’t,” Lili confirmed.

I reached out, grabbing both of them under my arms. “Oh, I see how it is! Just making fun of me, are you?”

“Brute!” Lili smacked me on the side. “Help! Help! Lili is being repressed!”

“Blasphemy!” Hestia added.

“Please.” I held my Familia tight. “Blasphemy is taking a god’s name in vain. You’re right here, I can do whatever I want with you and your name will be perfectly fine.”

Lili stopped struggling for a moment, looking up at me with her big brown eyes. “Lili wonders why Taylor knows so much about blasphemy.”

I turned the other way, Hestia was looking up at me in askance as well.

I huffed, setting them both down. “Just something I picked up as a child.” I shrugged as we settled back down onto the couch. “I read a lot when I was younger.”

“Where did Taylor grow up?” Lili tilted her head. “Lili was born into the Soma Familia, but Taylor can’t have been born into Hestia’s. Did you grow up in Orario?”

I shook my head. “No. Not at all. I grew up…” I looked over towards the window, where the last rays of the setting sun were splayed across the church floor. “Worlds away, and ages apart.”

“That sounds like a story.” Hestia leaned into me. She was warm. “I never asked where you were from either, now that I think about it.”

“Because it doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Oh?”

I smiled down at my Goddess. “I’m here now.”

She smiled back. “You are.”