For months they trained, and there was blood on the snow, from her and that of their prey. But with every day, there was less of hers and more of theirs.

  Never could she catch him, but his blows she at times could evade, his strikes even anticipate, so she wasn’t there when they struck.

  As a hunter, she did grow, even dove into the sea, to catch a fish with her spear, to her mentor’s cheers.

  He was an oaf of a man.

  Crude. Blunt. Of the simple kind.

  But at night, he would tell tales — and Socia listened.

  Of how the Kin the martial arts made, with their wit and skill, power not from the gods, but from the cosmos itself, which they then shared with mortal men.

  For before the cosmos itself, what difference does it make if one is mortal or divine, man or woman, it matters not. If its secrets one can learn and to them attune, it will be your strength in body and mind, and unlike gods it will make no demands, only that you understand.

  “Like you apprentice, you understand why you hunt so good?” the oaf said.

  Socia sat on the snow, no trace did she leave.

  “Let me guess, you trained me?” she said.

  A smirk was on her face as she looked away.

  “Wrong” he said.

  “Again!”

  “I am a god unlike you, old man,” she said.

  The oaf laughed and then spoke.

  “Wrong! But you are right, I am an old man.”

  “Again!”

  Socia stared at the man, tired and cold. She couldn’t die, neither from exertion nor the cold, but it was a bother and a pain.

  She wasn’t mortal anymore.

  “I don’t know!” she said.

  “Right answer! You don’t know!” the oaf said.

  “So let me tell you.”

  “You are a god of the hunt!”

  Socia rolled her eyes and spoke back.

  “You said god was the wrong answer… and I am not a god of the hunt… I am a god…”

  “Silence!” the oaf said.

  His face became stern, his eyes narrow.

  “You listen. You learn.”

  “Yes. Your mistress told. A god of travel she called you.”

  “Yes, but what is a hunt but a travel with a purpose.”

  “Not senseless wandering. Going back and forth.”

  “One travels to find deer, kill it, offer praise. Travel back, share it, receive praise.”

  “Yes! You did that with your mistress in the hot lands, did you not?”

  “One travels because one needs to hunt. One can even travel far and wide to find a wife, plump and nice. But always there should be a purpose. Yes!”

  Oaf of a man.

  “Tell me then, did you find a wife, plump and nice,” Socia said.

  “To cook you a stew most fine.”

  The oaf’s eyes sunk, his shoulders too.

  “My wife was not plump, but frail and kind.”

  “A poor hunter I was and meat I couldn’t find.”

  “When winter came.”

  “The cold her took.”

  “As it did our child.”

  And in Socia’s mind.

  For the wind is unforgiving.

  What a fool of a woman she was.

  She sank her knees to the ground, her head too.

  “I beg forgiveness, I didn’t mean to pry,” she said.

  The man gave a huff.

  “You asked and I told the truth.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Now let me tell you another.”

  “If all travel has a purpose.”

  “What is yours?”

  Socia didn’t know.

  And as she lifted her head high.

  She wondered, what was the purpose of her Lady’s travels, her tour?

  “Think on it. Yes!”

  She would.

  For a while they accompanied a tribe, a hardy people on their way, across the waste in search of game. There among them they spent their days hunting deer, spearing seals. The meat they ate, the skin they used, even of the bone they made use.

  Her training continued all the same, the oaf still her teacher in the day, and in the night the men would play the drums as their women sang and danced.

  Her Lady sometimes sang too, of things they knew, her voice quite divine, and in her they all came to see, a worthy god, one born of the one most high.

  “Surely she is the daughter of the Sun,” they said.

  “Does her hand not heal all wounds?”

  “And the cold she can chase away.”

  And when a young woman screamed in the night, and the elder women came to her in distress, she with gentle hands delivered the child into the world.

  With her hands she made it so, even with her nail cut its cord.

  For she was their Lady.

  All this, Socia saw, while she tended her own wounds, or even sometimes made a stew.

  The men of the tribe they liked Socia too, they dare not approach her Lady, but to offer praise, for she was of the one most high.

  But Socia, goddess as she was, more to their liking was, they found her fair, found her strong.

  Perhaps, even they could get to spend a night with her under furs?

  Felled prey. Feats of strength. Songs and tales.

  All this they offered her.

  For surely, she could deliver children most divine.

  And the act itself would be a delight.

  “All the beasts I can hunt, there is none that escapes my sight,” she said.

  “Strong you are and mighty fine, but my fists break rock, and a log I can swing around,” she said.

  “Your tales I do not tire off, and of your songs even less,” she said.

  “But I know a tale of love long lost, of a final song under the moon, where one brave and true his end will meet, and his love’s heart break.”

  Meat from game was not enough. Their strength, even less so.

  And her tale had them weep.

  Thus, no man knew her bed, felt her skin.

  But one man made her laugh and did not seek her hand.

  So, she guided him gently to a dame, one who held him in heart, and had shown him tells many times.

  Kind he was but oblivious to every bump, or glance she gave.

  But with Socias hand it went all well.

  And as they left the tribe behind.

  They waved at them from afar.

  A couple now.

  A child to come.

  And as they trekked in the snow.

  Two gods and a man.

  Socia asked.

  “Where are we going now, oaf of a man?”

  “And for what purpose?”

  The wind in his back, the cold around him, but it didn’t bother him.

  “To meet a god.”

  “And receive my boon.”

  In the end there was only white, and wind that would flay the skin, if one was mortal, and one was, but the wind was his ally, so he was fine.

  But both Socia and the oaf, their eyes had to shield, from the snow and the storm, only the Lady walked all poised with her head held high, her hair still in style.

  For even the wind dared not whip her as though it feared her lash.

  Deep, deep into the storm they trekked and the cold chilled them to the bone. A touch here and there from her Lady allowed them both to keep their pace, for their goal they soon would reach.

  In the distance Socia it saw, a raptor so grand, its wings so vast, a mighty creature, a god.

  She could see its nature, knew it was true, but how could it be?

  All gods wore the shape of men, for so they had been made, by the Ambition in the first days, this she had been told, was it yet another lie?

  Before the white raptor the oaf now lay on his knees, to await the words of this god.

  And as he knelt there, her Lady walked past and raised her hands.

  “Old god I greet thee, in my name alone I came here, my father’s wrath you do not need to fear, his order to this land I will not bring, for they do not suit his designs,” she said.

  Yet.

  But in time it would. In time this land too, would be brought truly under his rule.

  “Daughter of the Sun, who seeks to rule all.”

  “Daughter of the Moon, who mourns for all.”

  “I welcome thee, youngest of the stars.”

  It flapped its wings and then gave a cry, and the storm ceased, and in the sky high above the moon was there and the stars.

  “How kind of you to come under your mother’s gaze,” it said.

  “You do know, I favor her?”

  There was a time when talk such as this would have made her heart race, her mind stop, and words appear.

  Heresy. Sacrilege. Lies.

  Now Socia simply listened and learned, spear at hand, as she watched them all a few paces away in the back.

  “I do,” her Lady said.

  “But I am not hear to speak of such things, old and most wise raptor of the endless white.”

  Her gaze turned to the oaf.

  “You may speak to my friend, the raptor of the endless white, for you are in my company,” she said.

  His face was stern, determined. His palms on his thighs and they did not move.

  “Mighty raptor of the endless white, god of all the tribes.”

  “Unlike the wind which does not forgive.”

  “You still the storm when offer given”

  “You give the hunter strength of arm and make his aim true.”

  “When proper reverence given you.”

  It raised its wings and gave a cry that shook the sky.

  “You gave me offerings. Showed me reverence,” it said.

  “Yet the storm them took.”

  “Your aim I gave no aid and no strength did you find in me.”

  The man who had taught her, who she called oaf to her shame, lifted one hand.

  And spoke.

  “Unlike wind you cannot be everywhere.”

  “Surely you would have lent your strength, made my aim true, stilled the storm, if you had known in time?”

  “Are you not the kindest of the gods, of this harsh land?”

  It folded its wings, pecked the snow, and then raised its beak, to have its say.

  “Kind I am, but also harsh.”

  “The storm I would not have stopped, but made it wane, so your strength you could prove.”

  “If you would have bested it, I would have flown high above and lent your strength.”

  “And with my cry guided you to your game.”

  “But unlike the wind I cannot be everywhere.”

  The man his head to ground laid.

  “Then let the daughter of the one most high from you a feather pluck, and with it make me into a god.”

  “So that fewer men their wives and babes, to cold and hunger, lose.”

  “Then to them with stones bury.”

  “In the endless white.”

  And this tale the raptor moved, a cry it gave, a feather he let the Lady pluck.

  Of the many gifts the raptor had, for there were many, for he was old, only one did she pick.

  In her hands the feather burned, its power hers, to give and mold, and to name.

  A single finger on the space between his eyes she touched.

  In his eyes there was only white.

  “Rise,” she said.

  And rise he did, as he lifted from the ground, the wind his friend, his ally.

  “Rise. Merciful wind of the endless white.”

  “Go now and fulfill that which you swore above a grave of stone.”

  “That you would keep, death and grief, away from those.”

  “Who should not know its touch.”

  “For some winds are unforgiving.”

  “But you are not.”

  He rose higher now, above them all, yet they could hear his voice.

  “I thank you Daughter of the sun, full of mercy and so kind,” Merciful Wind said

  “So, unlike your father.”

  “I thank you raptor of the white, let us aid those below us with all our might.”

  And then he floated to Socia, still above.

  “Don’t forget to ask. Yes!”

  Socia met his gaze.

  “I will not, friend,” she said.

  And then he flew away.

  For you cannot hold the wind.

  Not even a gentle one.