Chimes

  Rivhild sits on a log as she watches Tuipa and Reioi sleep. Tuipa has fallen asleep on her watch again. She pulls out her pocket mirror and stares at her down reflection. "I couldn't protect them. I failed. They took out a whole army, and I could only take down an ogre. I'm probably the weakest goddess ever." There is a moment of silence before she speaks to herself. "What am I going to do about it?" Rivhild shakes her head. "I don't know what I can do. It's strange being a deity. You know so much, and yet so little." Rivhild sighs. "They need someone who can fight, not some little kid." She pulls her knees up and cries quietly into them.

The next day, trio walks on with Tuipa taking the lead. "We'll be coming up to Freyiao Village by the evening, yeah?" She asks Reioi.

"That's right." Reioi gives a brief nod. "You excited to meet some friendly humans besides us, Rivhild?"

Rivhild doesn't answer immediately as she is more focused on the spell she is casting as she walks. "Oh, uh yeah, totally."

"What are you doing anyway?" Reioi asks as she turns her head back slightly to see the young girl.

"Y-you'll see when I'm done." Rivhild answers as she sticks out her tongue while staring at the white light she is shaping in her hands. "It's going to be perfect." The little girl mumbles.

"Well, hopefully you are done before we get to the village." Reioi sighs.

"You'll be able to have a proper meal. We'll take you to a restaurant, then you'll see how bad our cooking is." Tuipa laughs. "Rivhild?"

Both women stop and look back. They see the winged girl laying face down on the trail, her right arm out in front of her while her left hand holds something to her chest. "Rivhild!" The women scream as the run over to her.

Reioi rolls her over and checks to make sure she isn't hurt. "What happened? Did she use too much magic or something? What do we do?"

Tuipa looks in the little girl's hand. "Wind chimes. She passed out over wind chimes." She puts one arm under the goddess' legs and the other under her back. Tuipa positions Rivhild upright so the child's head rests on her shoulder and if the woman needs to use one of her arms she can. "I'll carry her, you lead the way. We should run, someone at the village might be able to help her."

Reioi nods and the two women take off. Tuipa hold one hand on Rivhild's back to keep the child steady. A feather comes loose and smacks Tuipa in the mouth. Reioi looks back slightly. "Tuipa! Are you okay, you're not running very fast!"

"I don't want to trip on her wings!" Tuipa calls up to the other woman.

Reioi slows her pace to stay near the others. "I sure hope she'll be alright."

Everyone is quiet for a few minutes. Tuipa's lips twitch as she debates on wherever or not to speak. "You don't think..." she gulps. "What if taking her from the Destroyed realm is killing her. Like how no creatures can survive there for long, what if she can't survive here?"

Reioi hesitates. "I don't know. I don't think that's it. I think it's the magic thing." There are a few more minutes of the women just running until Reioi speaks again. "How is her breathing?"

"It's fine. It seems like she is just sleeping." Tuipa answers. "Maybe we are overreacting?"

"A goddess just randomly passed out, I think this is the normal amount of reacting." Reioi shoots back.

"She's just a child though." Tuipa mutters. Her eyes grow wide. “Do you know how the people of Freyiao Village feel about other folks?” She asks in a panic.

“I think they are pretty chill, emphasis on the think. She looks mostly human aside from the wings, so she should be fine. Like you said, she’s a child, so even if they are wary of other folks, they won’t hurt her.” Reioi answers.

The rest of the journey is uneventful. Freyiao Village is not a walled city, all it has is a welcome sign surrounded by farmland, which is followed by scattered houses. The women don’t stop running until they are in the thick of the village, many of it’s inhabitants turn to stare at them as they dash by. Reioi stops at a shop where an old woman stands. “Excuse me, is there a doctor around here? Our friend, she collapsed this morning, we don’t know what happened.”

“Ah, that would be my nephew, Wonatho, I’ll show you where his house is.” The old lady then starts to shuffle along down the street. “His father, like the rest of the family were turnip farmers, but Wonatho always wanted to help people…” The old lady keeps yammering on throughout the whole walk to the doctor’s house. “So, despite him no longer farming turnips, they still call him Turnip, Doctor Turnip, a name a never thought I would hear in my lifetime.” She points to a regular two storey house with another part built on. “This is it. He should be inside; it’s been quiet for him lately.

Reioi opens the door to the side part of the house without knocking. She holds it open so Tuipa can carry Rivhild in safely. A man in his thirties, who must be the doctor, turns from the desk where he was standing reading a book. "A bird girl?" He accidentally asks out loud. The side part of the house is a small clinic with a row of beds against the back wall. An old man sits near the doctor's desk, he is even older than the doctor's aunt, who is now coming in the clinic herself.

"Doctor Turnip," Reioi starts, "Rivhild, she collapsed this morning, one moment she was fine, the next moment, she was face down on the trail."

The doctor motions for Tuipa to bring Rivhild to the nearest bed. The doctor inspects the unconscious girl still clutching the chimes she made. "Did she sleep alright last night?"

"Yes, for the most part. I heard her talking to herself for a little while, but then she went back to sleep." Tuipa explains.

The doctor feels her forehead, checks her pulse and looks inside her mouth. "She seems alright. Maybe just tired, still, I find it strange that she would just colla-"

The old man interrupts. "Where did she get those chimes? There is a large magic aura around her, and the chimes."

"Grampa..." the doctor hisses before turning towards the women. "Please forgive him, he used to be a clergyman back before they became outlawed. He isn't supposed to use magic, but old habits die hard I guess." The doctor touches his grandfather's shoulder. "Is the child cursed?"

Reioi opens her mouth to speak but the old man grabs his grandson by the collar and kneels. "I never..." he utters. "I never thought I would meet a deity while I was still a live." He turns his head to look at the women. "Why does she walk among us? You are her priestesses, yes? What has she revealed to you?" The old man bombards them with desperate questions.

Reioi rubs the back of her head. "Well first off, Rivhild was born when the explosion went off in the Destroyed realm, she lived there until a few days ago. That's when we found her, and she's been with us ever since. As for us being priestesses, I don't know about that."

"We are her friends." Tuipa adds. "We don't have any divinely appointed powers, we don't even know basic magic!"

"Tell then," the old man adjusts his posture, "is there any battles that you won easier than you though you would, since you met the goddess?"

Tuipa and Reioi exchange a look before Reioi speaks. "Well, now that you mention it," Rivhild shifts as she continues, "we shouldn't have won the battle at the orc war camp at all."

"Yeah, we should be dead, and yet, we killed them all while only suffering minor injuries." Tuipa agrees. "Reioi, your face is almost completely healed, but it should have left a permanent scar."

"The young goddess, she has made you her priestesses, perhaps she doesn't even know what she has done yet." The old man explains, turning his attention back the winged child.

"Can someone pass out from using too much magic?" Tuipa blurts out.

"Yes." The old man answers simply. "Is that what happened with your goddess?"

"We think so." Reioi confirms. "She was working really hard on making those chimes."

Rivhild's face shifts, her fingers twitches and her eyes open slowly. "Huh? Where are we? Who are these people?"

After the others fill Rivhild in on what happened while she was out. Tuipa asks. "So, what's so special about the chimes you made?"

"Well," Rivhild starts, holding up the chimes, "I wanted to make sure we would be safe at night so..." She shakes the chimes, and a beautiful melody echoes throughout the clinic. A light floats over to the side of the bed from the chimes, the light shifts into a humanoid form, then a man with blonde hair and black wings, looking quite similar to Rivhild is standing next to her. "I made an angel. I designed him to be what I would want my older brother to look like."

Tuipa walks from the foot of the bed to the side to get a better look at the angel. "Do you have a name?" She asks him.

The angel looks to Rivhild who nods. "My name is Chimes." He answers with a charming smile.