Although the rain had fallen heavy, the roads from the royal estate were well paved and where they were headed was somewhere well travelled. So the group left easily after breakfast, their host conspicuously absent from the send-off.

“Perhaps she has much to think about,” Sammy said lightly, getting a laugh from Ma.

The landscapes of Alfen that Sammy and Julie had seen so far were rather flat. While there was a natural rise and fall of the land, some rolling hills, they weren’t anything to cause inconvenience. Not only that, but the many streams and rivers they crossed were shallow and wide and slow, easy to ford if there was no bridge. Sammy could easily see how such a place, in ancient times, could have been where civilisation as they knew it was birthed.

However, that amicable landscape wasn’t without its flaws at this time, her gaze often pulled to the distant horizon, something Julie noticed and recognised.

“Are there wild beasts?” Julie asked.

“Mm, they’re moving faster than I expected, still some time until…” Sammy said, trailing into thought for a moment. Then she turned to Ma. “Are we near the cathedral?” she asked.

Ma hadn’t followed what wife and wife had said at first, but the question was easy to answer: “A day or so.”

Sammy nodded, then fell into thought again. “They shan’t encroach on divine land, so we should be safe until after our visit,” she said, more to herself than her companions, but Julie still heard.

“Okay.”

Although Ma felt left out, that wasn’t unusual for their job, so they said nothing. But there was a twinge of curiosity. That only grew when wife and wife shared a whispered conversation over lunch at a small town.

However, Ma’s patience was rewarded in the evening after dinner.

“Ma, do you know arm wrestle?” Sammy asked.

“Arm wessel?” Ma said, frowning.

Sammy chuckled, then put her elbow on the table with her arm up. “This one?”

“Oh, yes, yes—man like bet that for beers,” Ma said, grinning. “I not do it, though. I strong for woman, but weak for man.”

“Please, indulge me,” Sammy said, her smile so mischievous that even Ma noticed, hesitating.

In the end, Ma couldn’t decline. “I go easy,” they said, settling in.

“Winner buys drinks,” Sammy said.

Ma thought there was something funny about that, but then Sammy tensed and Ma focused on the arm wrestling, getting their body into the right position. While they rarely did it, they had learned how to get the most leverage for the rare times that someone made a deal of it.

And of course, Sammy looking so gentle, Ma wanted to have fun with this, teasing the cute wife. So they barely tried at first, amused that it was like Sammy wasn’t even pushing, only to then become confused, before finally feeling a sense of dread.

Almost afraid to, they tried pushing Sammy’s arm. To their relief, they pushed easily… but only for a moment, then it was like pushing a wall. Long forgetting their promise of going easy, Ma started to put more force into it, even their upper body trying to twist to push that much harder.

Ma looked at Sammy’s smile and oh was it mischievous.

Slowly, Sammy pushed Ma back and back, past where they started, until Ma’s arm finally gave. “Okay, okay, Mrs Sammy wins,” they said, shaking the pain out their arm, muscles burning.

“I’ll get us drinks,” Sammy said.

Ma went to stop her, but then remembered she had found Sammy’s “bet” strange, realising now why. “Ah, Mrs Sammy bullied me,” they said to Julie—who looked almost as amused as Sammy had.

“She only bullies people she likes,” Julie said. After a second, remembering Aaron the squire and how Sammy had treated Yewry at first, she added, “Yeah, the people she doesn’t like just get crushed.”

Ma found that rather funny and entirely believable.

Once Sammy returned and Ma had indulged in their drink, she put it simply: “Ma, I am a hero, chosen by the gods.”

Well, Ma had guessed as much over the last minute, putting together the pieces—an impossibly strong woman travelling distant lands to visit a cathedral while still looking as pale as a noble’s daughter. Honestly, they thought themself stupid for not noticing sooner, but the wife and wife part had been quite distracting, so they didn’t take it to heart.

However, Ma had one thing to say: “Do you mean heroine?”

Sammy giggled, covering her mouth. “Ah, it is… heroine is not a good word. There are no stories where a woman saves the day. A heroine is like a hero’s lover who supports him on his quest. So in the past, when the gods chose a woman, we still called her a hero.”

Ma nodded along, then turned to Julie with a big smile and said, “You the heroine.”

Of all the things Julie had expected to come out of telling Ma, this was not it. As for Sammy, she found this an utterly hilarious twist, needing both hands to cover the laughter spilling from her lips, eyes watering.

Once Sammy calmed down, though, she said, “Julie is as much a hero as I am. She has stood strong in the face of corruption, even without any blessings.” By the end, she was looking at Julie with such tenderness, Julie shying away from the praise.

Ma wasn’t finished, though. “Then you are both heroes and both heroines,” they said, smugly smiling.

Sammy tittered, but nodded in agreement. “We are.”

As good as the mood was, it quickly washed away, making room for what Sammy wished to say next.

“After we visit the cathedral, we will need to… kill wild beasts in our way. For the little we are paying you, we don’t expect you to fight, so if you want to meet us at a place to the north, that is fine.”

Ma listened closely, doing their best to follow what was said. A difficult reply for them to give in Schtish, they spoke in Lapdosian, saying, “It is the duty of any and all who are able to confront corruption.”

Sammy smiled hearing that, somewhat bittersweet. Replying in Lapdosian as well, she said, “Empty words from a god who watches her children die to corruption and does nothing.”

At that, Ma had to hang their head and rub their face, breathless chuckles shaking their shoulders. Eventually, they calmed enough to say, “A blaspheming hero,” which only set themself off again.

Smile wry, Sammy said, “Wait until you hear what I’ve said to her face.”

So the day came to an end in a rather strange humour, but there was nothing funny going on between Sammy and Julie behind closed doors. Well, there was some moments of laughter, but it wasn’t from any jokes being told.

The next day, they set off early and, knowing it important to reach the cathedral, Ma set their direction straight for it, cutting across the currently empty fields. While the paths were less suitable, it didn’t slow the horses much and would get them there in midafternoon instead of evening.

Along the way, one upset farmer did confront them, but, in Ma’s words, they told him that they were rushing to the cathedral after visiting the Little Princess’s estate, and he may have misunderstood.

Sammy was rather pleased to be “copied”, imitation the sincerest form of flattery.

The slower pace meant they rested later in the morning and so they used it for an early lunch. Knowing their rush, they had brought picnic foods, centred on sandwiches with cold cuts of lamb. Once they all finished and had a drink, Ma looked expectedly at wife and wife.

Sammy and Julie, long since used to that look, didn’t so much as blink before falling into a long and deep kiss, quickly forgetting why they were doing it in the first place. Ma loved it, heart beating with a joy that matched when they themself kissed a woman, all the more so for how comfortable the wife and wife were now, their hands wandering, letting out little moans and groans that were like music to their ear.

Alas, all good things had to come to an end and it seemed that some sense returned to Sammy, even though Julie chased her for more when she pulled away. Although tempted to tell wife and wife to carry on, Ma wasn’t so shameless.

And because they weren’t, their story today started with: “Another time I told woman I am woman.”

Sammy and Julie quickly sobered hearing that, but still sat with Julie on Sammy’s lap.

“This is… maybe a year after I run away, long time ago. The woman is very pretty. I see many pretty woman, and you very pretty, but she is more very pretty. I like her everything. She has nice voice, she smell nice, she taste sweetest too. I tell her many times, she my favourite drink,” Ma said, pausing to chuckle.

Then Ma carried on. “I love her so much it hurts say goodbye. So I try not to. We… maybe a week stay at inn. My hand”—they tapped their wrist—“very tired, but she very happy, so I happy. And she ask me everyday, ask me if she can do the same. I tell her I not like being touched. I tell her I scared I can’t stop if she starts me. I tell her I not want be parent. But she knows I lie, upset I lie to her.”

Ma stopped there and, for all the stories they had told, Sammy had never seen Ma look so tired, so brittle, like they were on the verge of tears even though no tears wet their eyes.

“So I show her, and she does not call me pervert. No, she do worse. She hit me and cry and tell me she feel sick for being touched by me. She make so much noise, other people come. They think I… they want arrest me, but I run. Only my clothes, I run, and I run, and I run, and when I can’t run any more, I curl up on the ground and cry. And I no cry for me. I cry because I just want make her happy, and instead I make her sad.”

For the first time, Sammy saw Ma lose their composure, turning away with a trembling lip and shuddery breaths. After a few seconds of silence, Ma continued.

“I almost die. I lie there for days, but a woman find me and take me home. I try not to eat, but she look sad, so I eat, and she happy. I tell her I can’t pay, but she kiss me. So I pay her make her happy. And when I go, she tell me I always can come make her happy, and she always make me food.”

Listening to that, Sammy’s heart ached, but she felt something beneath the words. Before she asked that question, though, she whispered to Julie, then asked Ma, “Would you like a hug?”

There was a long pause, then Ma softly nodded.

So Sammy walked over, sat down next to Ma, and held them. And Ma thought maybe Sammy knew what they needed, because she held them so tight, with more strength than a woman could. Holding the broken pieces together. Because Ma was broken, they knew, and that day had been when they’d broken, unable to love again, knowing that they were unlovable.

Until now.

Just when Ma thought they wouldn’t cry, they felt Julie embrace them too. This wife and wife, knowing who Ma was, would still touch them. It was as simple as that. For the first time since that day when they had cried every last tear, Ma cried.

When Ma eventually calmed down, Sammy and Julie let go, but still sat right next to Ma, so close their knees touched.

“Would you like me to ask the gods to make you… more like a man?” Sammy quietly asked in Lapdosian.

Ma understood the question, the answer not an easy one to come to. If Sammy had asked even a week ago, Ma might have had a different answer. But, right now, Ma felt like wife and wife were very beautiful people and they hoped to be as beautiful some day.

“This is me,” Ma whispered.

Sammy understood the answer, softly smiling. “Okay.” She whispered to Julie what she had just asked Ma and Ma’s answer, then there was a moment of silence as each of them took a deep breath. After that, Sammy asked the question that had come to her earlier. “Would your saviour be Goyani?”

Ma’s eyes widened for a moment, then they smiled. “Mrs Sammy is very clever. Yes, she is. I not know her name that time, but later meet her for work,” they said.

For a while, Sammy thought over whether or not to say what she wanted to say. In the end, she felt like, ultimately, the truth was something to be said. “She probably noticed your body is that of a woman’s when she rescued you,” she said.

Ma didn’t react to those words, just softly smiled. “Yes. That is why I not say, because she not say. We happy this way.”

“And what if she doesn’t say because you don’t say? That, there is a chance you might both be happier…” Sammy said, trailing off as she caught herself. “I apologise, it is not my place to speak.”

But Ma shook their head, smiling. “Mrs Sammy is very brave. I admire that very much. Some people, they see young people be brave and call it, what the word, naive? But I remember be girl who left everything to be herself and wish I that brave still. I hope you not know… how hurt make us scared.”

Sammy’s smile took on a ironic shade. “It’s not that I am brave, but selfish. I believe I deserve happiness.”

“We agree to not agree,” Ma said, offering a hand.

That made Sammy laugh and she shook Ma’s hand. “Very well.”

Once they were travelling again, Sammy sought out Julie’s thoughts on the day’s story. However, for a change, Julie had nothing too insightful to say or ask, just a heartfelt hope that Ma wouldn’t have to go through anything like that again and could find a wife soon. Sammy seconded that.

Pushing their horses a little more again, they skipped the afternoon break and carried on. Surely enough, it worked out, not long after the cathedral coming into view.

Of the three, this one was the oldest. So old, Sammy had read that no one could say if it even pre-dated the Catastrophe, but it certainly must have come after. The gods as they knew them hadn’t been so neatly defined before the Catastrophe, yet there were only their statues here. What was less clear was if the cathedral pre-dated Lilith’s fall and the birth of corruption.

What it looked like was simple: stone and dirt. And yet it looked no less impressive than its foreign counterparts. Once a cliff, the exposed stone had been chiselled into a lasting mural of life itself, pillars shaped like trees and ledges like branches, decorated with so many kinds of fantastical creatures, many that were thought made-up. Those animals that were known to exist were made to scale, and the scale of the cliff was some hundred paces tall and wider by fifty, so there was plenty of room for the countless creatures.

“It has many names, but perhaps the one most used would, in our language, be the ‘Womb of Civilisation’,” Sammy said to Julie. “The Holy Cathedral of Alfen, made from a single piece of unchanging stone, representing the unchanging truth of the past.”

“It’s amazing,” Julie mumbled, unable to really see anything from so far away, but able to tell it was incredibly detailed by the texture of the light and shadows.

Once they came closer, the village surrounding it spread out across the plain. Around a hundred buildings, some of the ones by the entrance rather large, and there were a few pens with horses; while there was no grass to graze, there were wooden troughs of fodder and water. Also on the edge of town was a lot with a few wagons, tied to the ground with rope and thick stakes.

As quiet as the road had been, they found a lively town, stalls selling all kinds of trinkets and shops with “regional delicacies”, just that Ma had been to every region of Alfen and didn’t recognise most of them; the few they did weren’t exactly what they would have called delicacies. The first inns they visited tried to charge them triple the price of the last town they stayed, and the fourth only offered them a discount when Ma started talking of camping out again, which was then further discounted by Sammy reminding Ma of certain scriptures.

Although Sammy wanted to get it all over with, it was late in the day and they had skipped a break, so they all agreed on meeting the gods in the morning—and then Ma laughed, amused at how mere mortals could so easily decide when to meet the gods.

“If they wanted to talk now, they know where I am,” Sammy said to that.

Over dinner and drinks, Ma told them a rather tame story for a change. “When I was young, I liked pick flowers and give to girls, and there was one older girl I really liked. She is my first, what’s the word, fancy? Yes, fancy. I liked her voice and asked her read to me. She read… romance books, and I liked her saying—wait, it sound wrong in Schtish. Let me think…. She say things like, ‘When they kissed them,’ but her voice like a bird, tweety, so it sound like, ‘When she kissed her.’ I used to imagine she was she and I was her, and she was telling me that we kissed. It made me very happy. She let me hug her, but she very taller and my head come to her chest.” They chuckled. “That when I learn chest is best pillow.”

Sammy listened with a wistful and warm amusement, then asked, “And you didn’t know you liked women?”

Ma grinned. “I always liked women, but I thought… everyone feel like that. I thought everyone want to kiss friends and not want to marry man, but that you grow up and just do it. After I kiss my first girl, I felt good. I learn it not like hugging with lips. And I know I not want kiss boy, kiss man. Thinking kiss girl made me… feel hot, but thinking kiss boy made my inside unhappy.”

Realising something, Ma paused there, then narrowed their eyes at wife and wife.

“I already story today.”

With a cheeky smile, Sammy shrugged and said, “You simply spoke on your own.”

Pouting, Ma said, “I want another kiss, okay?”

Sammy turned to Julie, a question in her eye. But Julie felt it wasn’t the same question, her heart starting to pound, yet gently nodded.

So Sammy said to Ma, “Why don’t you come to our room after dinner?”

“Really? Wife and wife too kind,” Ma said, looking very pleased.

As if reading Ma’s mind, Sammy chuckled. “We will only be kissing for you.”

“Ah, that okay, I still happy,” Ma said, now only looking mildly pleased.

So the evening ran its course and night turned to dawn. The group rose early, ate heartily, then walked over to the cathedral.

From up close, it was an incredible sight. Despite simply being carved into brownish-orange rock, the animals seemed to show such a wide range of colours, textures, especially in the sunlight. While they waited for one of the apprentices to bring over a priest, Sammy pointed out countless of the fantastical creatures and named them.

“Ah, yes, that’s a whale and it truly is as big as a modest ship. They live in the deep oceans and are rarely seen; though, a few have washed up dead—how we know they’re not simply a trick of the eye for those long at sea.”

“Our guest, she is very well-educated.”

Sammy and Julie turned to the middle-aged man who spoke, beside him a woman of similar age, both dressed in the white linens favoured for the dry heat of these parts. Hesitating for just a second, Sammy asked, “Would you be the priest?”

He smiled. “My wife is the priestess, I am just a scribe, familiar with Schtish from my work. If I speak poorly, I am sorry—reading and writing is different from speaking.”

Sammy more clearly heard the strange accent that time, like how he pronounced “reading” as “redding”. But that was understandable enough to her, many words written the same and pronounced differently, the reverse also true.

Anyway, by what he said, she turned to the priestess with a polite smile. “If sir would, I am the hero who has come to commune with the gods,” she said, leaning into biblical language.

“Really? A hero? And another woman? That is so very interesting—I cannot wait to write it down—” he said, pausing there to offer an apologetic smile. “I am sorry.”

He turned to his wife and whispered; she nodded along, then whispered back to him.

“Well, she—that is, the church—welcomes the hero and will assist him—sorry, her—in any way. However, she asks for a miracle, both for proof and as thanks from the gods for her—that is, the church’s—dedication to them.”

Sammy’s smile grew and she whispered to Julie and Ma, “It is rather nice to meet someone reasonable for once. I don’t want to say it’s because she’s a woman, but the others were men.”

Despite the solemn place and situation, Julie couldn’t stop herself from giggling, remembering how interesting the other cathedrals had been, while Ma offered a polite chuckle.

That out of the way, Sammy turned to the cathedral. There were many animals there that she hadn’t seen before, only read about, yet she recognised them, and it wasn’t like those books had included accurate drawings. Some she hadn’t even read about, yet, the longer she looked, it was like her eyes played tricks on her, covering the animals in colours.

Such an impossible thing, she felt that the gods must have finally decided to do their job.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and searched for those strings inside her that joined her to the gods, gently tugged on them, listening to the sound they made.

“Clouds?”

She tugged and pulled and tensed, a sense of embroidery coming to her, weaving those strange thoughts in her head into the fabric of reality.

“Rain?”

As the needle passed through, colour fell, thread pulled tight, colour staining, a single droplet landing on the cathedral’s face and leaving a child’s first splodge of paint. Then the needle passed again, thread pulled, over and over, quicker and quicker, neater and neater, painting the cathedral in droplets of all colours. And the colours didn’t sit on top of the stone, obscuring the features, no, they soaked into the stone, keeping all the incredible detail and texture, but now in strong and vivid colours.

“Oh gods,” Julie whispered; even in Sammy’s trance, of course she heard her wife’s voice.

Once the rain ended, Sammy let out a long breath and slowly turned to the priestess. “A worthy miracle?”