Chibal was not a woman given to pride, but if she were, she would pride herself on attention to subtlety. That was serving her well enough as she kept an eye on the enemy that was following her, but soon enough, she felt a nagging sense of something out of place, something close.

The scaled woman, with all the subtlety she could marshal, snuck forward through the column, searching for whatever it was that irritated her senses, until finally, she made a sudden move and dragged a man out of the column of refugees, her swords unfolding from her belt to surround the plainly-dressed man, whose odd skin and bearing spoke of being a turtle halfbreed, although there was no sign of a shell.

She was always one to get straight to the point, and she let one blade gently kiss the back of the mans' neck. "You were not among the refugees before," she accused. "Who are you?"

The man was rigid, but he was not upset; he was angry, but not afraid. Chibal's eyes measured his reaction for a moment, but when the man spoke, the words both did, and did not, make sense, all at once. "I am a Weaver," he said, with well-repressed fury. "And you will take your hands off of me."

"How can you prove this to me?" Chibal eased off the pressure with her blade, but did not drop it.

"Do you expect me to spin Starsilk in front of your eyes? There is no easy way to prove it." He put enough scorn into his voice that Chibal felt a bit affronted; he seemed the kind who at once knew the situation was difficult, but also refused to be the one inconvenienced by it.

"I expect you to prove," Chibal put a good deal of emphasis on the word, "that you are not an enemy. For they hound our steps even now, and you know it. They are close, and they could very easily be this close. I am not going to take your word that you are not a traitor."

The man sneered a moment, then raised his hands and waved them just briefly, and in the space where his hands passed, a delicate glowing emblem of a spider appeared. "This symbol you probably think you have never seen before, but it will itch at your memory, because it is protected. Many think that the Weavers are reclusive, hiding in the mires and mountains of Belma, but we live among you, everywhere, as we must to do our business. Long has the Goddess of Blades protected our people, and we intend to return the favor."

That way of phrasing things caught Chibal's attention, and he noticed that before she had a chance to speak. "Ah... you are one who knows. Excellent. Then you must deliver a message. The Gods must receive it, and it must not come from me." As though it had snatched it out of thin air, then man produced a large envelope, twice the size Chibal would expect for a common message, and passed it to her. "You must not let any enemy of the Goddess know the contents of this message, no matter what. With this, my business here is finished."

Chibal studied the envelope, then the man. He seemed sincere in expecting to be released, and as he had said, Chibal did get the feeling she had seen the spider emblem on doorways, houses, and back alleys in the capital. Exactly how and where... she thought, if she focused, she might recall, but it no longer mattered.

"You swear that you side with the Goddess?" Chibal, with no other way to test the man, studied his reaction as closely as she could.

"I side with the people of Belma, as the Weavers always have always will. So long as she does the same, she remains our Patron Goddess." If nothing else, the man's cadence was perfect; the line, or its contents, were practiced, a common sentiment for him. He was not forcing himself to say it, not confused or hopeful that he would get away with things. He did not believe he had anything to fear.

Chibal allowed her swords to return to their sheaths, and within moments, the man had turned and dashed away at a quick job, vanishing into thin air not more than a few steps away.

Chibal shivered and secured the envelope, not sure whether or when to deliver the message.

There were numerous things about the situation that Nency did not like. The greatest of them was the secrecy; Alanna had long been keeping secrets, but hiding the fact that she was leaving was a difficult pill for the older woman to swallow, mostly because Nency was forced to stay behind.

They had done something similar three times since the formation of this church, but it had never been "for good". Nency and Lucile had gone by different names each time, before and after, but always there had been two women at the church; one young, and one old. They would fake one death, and the one who remained would go searching for a new assistant; the other would come back young, hale, and healthy, and if it was Nency, she would fake an injury that accounted for her paralysis, or otherwise explain away her crippled body some other way. This version of her had been born paralyzed; it was an easy lie, since it explained her proficiency with getting along without the use of her legs.

The truth was, of course, it was her Goddess-daughter's fault.

When she had died, Nency had become an Angel in the service of the God of Storms. It was, she deemed, the only way she could possibly make the old man take responsibility for his daughter, and in the end, that is exactly what happened; Xenma was deeply chagrined, spent a short lifetime taking care of her, and when she was old and wise, found some way to raise her to godhood.

Bringing her mother back from the dead was not Alanna's first act; in fact, it took many years before she was that desperate. But eventually, the goddess realized that there were only a few possible fates for her soul; she would remain an Angel, or decay into nothing. She was dead; she did not belong among the living in the real world.

Although he cautioned her against it, Xenma found her a body, and the Council begrudgingly forgave the act. One soul was removed, another stitched to the body, and for the first time in a long time, Milly had been able to touch her daughter, and Xenma had been able to apologize in person. Those were good things.

But being dead had left its mark on her soul. She had forgotten what it meant to be alive--forgotten motion and feeling, recalling only magic, spirit, and power. She could not walk, and dared not try. There were dark things in her soul now, dark thoughts that she had buried for many years. She could move her hands and arms--it took a while to remember how, but it was expected of her, and she forced her way through it. But walking was something that she could pretend was irrelevant, unneeded. And the other things that came with a body--waste, and sex, and many other things... she generally did not care, anymore.

She had not lived her last life for herself, and there was no reason why she would do so in this life, not when her daughter, a Goddess, had brought her back. Because for her, more than for any other living being, Alanna truly was the light in the darkness that gave her hope after a storm. She was more than light; she was life.

And now Nency was alone. Alanna traveled by covered wagon to a place where she she believed she could hide. Her true body remained here--but if it was, indeed, safe, then that, too, would leave. Nency would remain, and if it seemed true that Alanna needed to stay away, then Nency would find a replacement, and after a few decades, "die".

A "few" decades away from her daughter seemed like an eternity. A "few" decades away from her goddess, her love, the one and only person in the world who meant anything to her. Nency didn't mind going through the motions, and she acknowledged readily that this was a good way to prevent a panic, to disguise the fact that the Goddess was being moved, or even that the Goddess existed at all.

But Alanna seemed at times to have no love for her mother anymore. Surely, if she was loved, Nency would not be left alone. Surely, if she were loved, Nency would not be cold anymore, as she had always been cold since she had been brought back to this world. Surely, if she were loved, Alanna would have found a way to fix her... or set her free.

Nency could not let the tears flow, not so long as the light of day touched her eyes, but when she retired to her bed at night, she could not stop them. She suspected that not a day would go by, not for those "few" decades, when she would be able to stop those tears, not unless her daughter returned to her.

In her heart, a knowledge she should not have had kept her from releasing the hate she felt, kept it bottled up, because she knew it would go to her Goddess, and She would know. And sometimes, when she was barely paying attention, Nency could swear that the feelings she kept bottled up would listen to her thoughts, and act on them. And in small little ways, things around her changed, in ways she did not understand, did not want to acknowledge.

If she had acknowledged it, she would have known what it meant, because she had seen it before, somewhere else. She dared not; if she admitted what she knew, she would have to stop. She would have to come clean with her daughter, have to argue with her, have to be hurt by her, be expelled by her. It was better to live a small lie, and nurse a hope in her heart, a wish, and not acknowledge that her hatred would someday try to accomplish that wish.

So she buried the jealous green flames in her heart and cried herself to sleep once more.