A Lullaby for Gods

[Jade Harley]

Accompanying Music: Coursing Rating for this installment: G.

4. Minnow.

A stray bramble flicks back and gives Becquerel a good whap on the snout. The bushy-haired wild child clinging onto his back whoops and giggles, ineffectively patting at the place where the branch struck, as if to soothe his nonexistent pain.

The First Guardian sneezes, tingling lime green electricity warping the pair halfway across the island in the blink of an eye. They stand beside a small babbling stream, with plenty of shiny, smooth pebbles that will not cut Jade’s feet should she venture into the shallows. As Becquerel lies down under a few floppy elephant-eared plants, fleshy and with thick vascular tubes, Jade grabs onto one of its pointy ears in her tiny fist and tugs.

Grumbling, the wolf-dog merely flops over onto its side so that its human charge will be made to dismount and release its ear lest she be crushed under its furry weight. Jade laughs something high-pitched and unintelligible, tinkling like bells along the cool summer breeze, and then rolls away and into the dirt.

A few sticks and dried leaves crackle as the toddling child wanders off, the mud gurgling with an amorphous sucking noise beneath her feet. When a stinging insect begins to buzz into Bec’s ear, it fries the annoying midge in an instant with a sizzling, static pop.

Still giggling and with the humid jungle air pluming all around her, Jade clambers over into the stream with a few cold splashes. Droplets of water cling to her clothing and smeared mud paints her knees a deep russet color.

Becquerel takes this brief downtime to rest. It is a lot of work, caring for a small human child. They are endlessly curious and very easy to lose track of. At times, the wolfish beast would simply place a heavy paw on her shoulder to keep her still, but the alarming noises she would then make were far too piercingly loud for its sensitive ears.

It is a good thing that Bec has above average intelligence and resilience, bordering on godlike if it were to bother with such trivial terminology. If it were aware of its transcendent status in comparison to the average canine, it would likely argue against any evidence pointing to its apparent ‘godhood’.

It is not a god. Becquerel might have all the knowledge and power of a god, but it is not one.

There is a sudden, particularly loud splash of water, as if a good portion of the stream has been disturbed against the rocks.

“Bec!” a tiny, shrill voice exclaims. The wolf-dog sits up fast and alert, startled by her outburst. In a single space-warping bound it is at her side, all fours paws drenched by the running water and cold stones clinking under its claws.

“Look!” Jade says, waving a tiny, wriggly and silver thing in the First Guardian’s face. The fish slaps against its snout as it flails wildly about, gasping for breath that will not come.

In a blur of color, the land of the dreaming dead shifts toward the waking world---