Teja's Vacation

[wheatencrown]

Demeter smiles as she opens the door onto a blooming garden in a day full of heat and sun,

"Now, there's plenty of space, a pond if you want to swim and well if you need anything just ask."

Comments

[ostro_goth]

"Can we have black tea with fresh herbs, as I make it in Milliways, from the herbs you gave me?" Teja asks. "I saw you pick some."

[wheatencrown]

"Of course."

Demeter pulls out some black tea and mixes it with some lavender and camomile.

[ostro_goth]

Teja sits in a chair at the kitchen table and watches her.

"How long has this been you home?" he finally asks. The place feels as if it had been lived in, and loved well, for a very long time.

[wheatencrown]

"I don't remember the exact year, but it was when a colony was started out here by the Greeks."

[ostro_goth]

"That was long before my time!" Teja says. "But this, then, would not have been my world, would it? So had I been here while alive, I would have found a random villa rustica full of random men and women."

[wheatencrown]

"Perhaps, I'm still not sure if our worlds are that different."

[ostro_goth]

"I cannot go back, with what I know now, and then find time from my life to travel to Massalia, and its hinterlands, and see if I find you in this place," Teja says, sensibly. "So the question shall forever remain unresolved."

[wheatencrown]

"Yes, a wise man I knew in Greece once said, you can't step in the same river twice."

[ostro_goth]

"Indeed," Teja says, "he said so in my world, also, and I read of it. You knew him?"

[wheatencrown]

"We talked once under a tree, he had a lovely smile."

[ostro_goth]

"What a lucky world, in which true goddesses would speak to the philosophers," Teja says, with a wistful little smile.

Pause.

"The herbs smell lovely already."

[wheatencrown]

"I've talked to many on as I walk and enjoyed every one. It should be ready."

She pours out the mugs, good solid earthenware mugs which have the feel of long use and care.

[ostro_goth]

Teja wraps his hand around his, not even drinking yet -- just to feel the warmth, and the solidity of the mug.

"And if you ever spoke to me," he says, quietly, "I either do not remember, or it would have been a different version of me."

[wheatencrown]

"I've walked for so many Winters that I don't always remember all I spoke to."

[ostro_goth]

"So even you can't tell me," Teja says. "It would be one of the things that man may not know."

[wheatencrown]

"Or even gods at times."

[ostro_goth]

"That is something about the old gods that I like, compared to Christianity -- any old gods, be they Greek, Etruscan, Germanic, or shintô," Teja says. "You do not pretend to know everything. You struggle with the universe as you go along, even as we mortals do."

[wheatencrown]

"We all have what we know better than others, that's all."

[ostro_goth]

"But that is true for us mortals, also," Teja says.

[wheatencrown]

"Oh yes."

She leans over and gives him a hug.

[ostro_goth]

Teja hugs her back. "I am glad," he says, quietly, "that in this particular world, this particular goddess does exist."

[wheatencrown]

"Thank you, Teja."