[ She considers it in silence for a few moments that’s uncharacteristically dour for her. It’s a quiet that’s almost heavy because she’s partially not sure what to say either. She can’t think of a way to explain it, or at least not well. Like Liem can’t fathom what it’s like to be divine and to still know tragedy, she has trouble imagining herself as a mortal and perceiving the fullness of the loss.
In a way, mortals aren’t meant to. They have small lives and small scopes compared to the divine, and it’s a good thing, in her opinion. It lets them live more freely. They don’t fully bear the burdens of what time alone will bring, the cycle of beginnings and ends that will never stop and cannot be stopped, no matter how much even a god wishes to do so.
She twirls a bracelet of gold and jade around her wrist idly, just to have something to do with her hands and for something for her gaze to focus on. ]
If there was one thing I wished that people better understood about gods, it’s that we aren’t all powerful. We can do big, amazing things! But a lot of our power and our work comes before people even exist. Once the world is made, we’re guardians, and it’s up to people to guide the world. We can provide help, but it’s for big things or to help people with knowledge of natural things. When it comes to conflicts between the people themselves… We don’t interfere. Even if I wanted to, more than anything else, I’m still a guardian. I can’t fight the battles between people for them.
[ And that’s part of the hard part to explain. Anyone would ask “why not”, and she can’t give an answer that’s satisfying. She simply can’t, because that’s what it meant to be a god. It was no more possible for her than it was for a human to fly. ]
But it’s… sad. I have all the power in the world, enough to make and unmake the world, but that doesn’t matter when it’s something slow and deliberate like a country over the sea coming to steal from our land and our people. Wiping away invaders means wiping away our people too. So… You just have to watch and hope that your people are strong enough to bear it.
[ She laughs a little, but it’s soft. ]
So, it’s ironic, yes? Even a god can feel powerless in the face of that.
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In a way, mortals aren’t meant to. They have small lives and small scopes compared to the divine, and it’s a good thing, in her opinion. It lets them live more freely. They don’t fully bear the burdens of what time alone will bring, the cycle of beginnings and ends that will never stop and cannot be stopped, no matter how much even a god wishes to do so.
She twirls a bracelet of gold and jade around her wrist idly, just to have something to do with her hands and for something for her gaze to focus on. ]
If there was one thing I wished that people better understood about gods, it’s that we aren’t all powerful. We can do big, amazing things! But a lot of our power and our work comes before people even exist. Once the world is made, we’re guardians, and it’s up to people to guide the world. We can provide help, but it’s for big things or to help people with knowledge of natural things. When it comes to conflicts between the people themselves… We don’t interfere. Even if I wanted to, more than anything else, I’m still a guardian. I can’t fight the battles between people for them.
[ And that’s part of the hard part to explain. Anyone would ask “why not”, and she can’t give an answer that’s satisfying. She simply can’t, because that’s what it meant to be a god. It was no more possible for her than it was for a human to fly. ]
But it’s… sad. I have all the power in the world, enough to make and unmake the world, but that doesn’t matter when it’s something slow and deliberate like a country over the sea coming to steal from our land and our people. Wiping away invaders means wiping away our people too. So… You just have to watch and hope that your people are strong enough to bear it.
[ She laughs a little, but it’s soft. ]
So, it’s ironic, yes? Even a god can feel powerless in the face of that.