Side Story - Agemin: Preparations

AN: Hey it got done on time! Also, writing an essentially genderless character is hard.

Agemin stared at its hands, the light and dark shifting beneath its translucent skin. Before, they had been a formless cloud like all young Celestials, floating about their own realm rich in mana and peace before their eventual service in the Court. Their body was a recent development, and they still weren't quite sure what to think of it.

One could ignore the call, of course, but few did and, of those, even fewer ever actually left their realm of mana. The Eternal Wellspring was a gift from the All-Mother — Agemin knew that just like anyone else — a place where their kind simply came to be. One moment there was a bit of empty space and the next there was another Celestial.

"And now I am supposed to meet her?" Agemin mumbled to itself, its voice mostly sticking to the deep baritone it had had since it had gotten a body. Does that mean anything?

Agemin would not be the first to stick to one voice and appearance, but they were not quite sure what that all meant yet. The life of a Celestial was vastly different from any other mortal, after all. By not being exactly mortal, for example.

They could die, yes, but things like old age or disease were of little concern to the Celestials. The former did not really exist for them, as members of their race only died of it when they actively no longer wanted to live, and while the latter could happen, the mana in their home realm did a good job of healing any ailments they could not fight themselves. Truly blessed.

That blessing, however, came with a cost. They had to administer the [Court of Heaven].

It was not necessarily a bad job, but if one ruled against a deity, they might carry a grudge for the next few centuries. Some of them tried to act on that grudge and kill the Celestials, a fact that made their hardy nature a necessity.

"How are you, Agemin?" a voice asked from behind them.

The Celestial turned around, giving the burly Human a nod. "Quite well," it replied. "I am merely dreading the Council meeting I will have to attend next Sendal."

"I am sure you will manage, your Judginess."

Agemin would raise an eyebrow at the antics of his friend if it could. "Do you have a weird version of every title, Miro?"

"Only for those of my friends," he replied. "I usually also make some for the family, but you don't really have that. I think."

The Celestial gave a small laugh at the confusion of his friend. They might have known each other since they were children, but the nature of Agemin's species was always a little hard to understand for normal mortals. "I don't have what you would consider a family, yes," it eventually said. "It's hard to explain how we interact with one another."

Agemin tapped it's chin in thought. "Most of the time we don't really do anything when in our realm. There is no need to eat or sleep, and talking is not something we generally do there. We just… think at each other."

"You don't talk to me either," Miro said. "You use telepathy. Talking doesn't put the voice in your head."

"Yes," the Celestial replied. "But it's still not quite the same." It paused briefly, considering the absurd idea of trying to show the Human its home realm. With a shake of its head, Agemin dismissed the thought, chuckling lightly instead. "I can't explain it, sorry."

"How are you supposed to be a Judge if you can't even explain how you talk?" Miro asked and lightly slapped Agemin's shoulder in reply, causing the Celestial to stagger forward a little.

As a guard in the [Court of Heaven], a 'light' slap from Miro would likely injure a normal mortal. Luckily, Agemin was not only not a normal mortal, but also at a decent level for its age. Not as high as Miro, though.

The Human spent most of his time training, and would soon reach level four hundred. But, despite the roughly hundred level difference, Miro would still be hard-pressed to beat Agemin in a fight. Especially here.

"Because that question is something scholars have not figured out in the millennia we have existed," Agemin replied. "The main thing I have to do is discern what is a truth, and what is not. How the words that make up the judgement I deliver are relayed matters little."

It might not have been given the actual title of Judge yet, but even as one in training, the Court offered up a small part of its power to its potential Judges. How exactly that worked, Agemin was not quite sure. What they did know, however, was that the All-Mother herself had given them this realm as well. But this one comes with a duty.

The talk about their duties began fairly quickly after a new Celestial came to be. None of them needed to spend much time to learn how to live, as they were 'born' with the knowledge of those Celestials that had died before.

A common theory for that was that they never really went through the cycle of reincarnation like the normal mortals did, but instead just returned the mana which made up their person to the Celestial realm, letting a new generation to be born out of it with the knowledge they had acquired.

"True enough," Miro said, stepping past the Celestial. "I do have a message for you, though. Marisha wants to see you to go over some details of the meeting."

"Of course," Agemin replied with a nod. "I assume you will not accompany me?"

"Oh, hell no!" Miro said with a violent shake of his head. "I won't go near that monster if I can avoid it!"

"Marisha isn't that bad," the Celestial said. "A bit of an outlier for our kind, sure, but still nice enough."

Miro shuddered in reply. "You have fun, I'll go and train some more."

"Enjoy your training," Agemin replied, offering a small wave. He already knew Miro would, but he still said it anyway; just par for the course.

The Human gave him a nod and a smile in reply, vanishing behind the corner towards the wing of the [Court of Heaven] that held the knight’s training facilities.

Time to meet Marisha, Agemin thought as they turned to walk in the opposite direction of the one Miro had chosen.

Marisha was an outlier, having actually picked a race to simulate rather than having the more comfortable amorphous humanoid shape. The other, much more uncommon thing about Marisha was that they were actually she.

She was not the first to pick a gender among the Celestials and she would likely not be the last, but it was still somewhat of a rarity. They did not really have the ability to be one or the other, after all. A Celestial could look like another race and gender — at least a little — but they could not change how their bodies worked. We are mostly formless, after all.

Agemin rounded another corner, brushed away the thick curtains that covered the doorway, and entered what everyone referred to as 'Marisha's Dominion'.

The Celestial was in charge of the Court's dress code, and general code of conduct when it came to manners. Much like most positions in the Court, it had not existed before Marisha decided that they needed some form of guidelines, and the others had agreed.

Now, she was in charge of designing the clothes they wore, writing obscenely long documents that detailed how one should act in the presence of various degrees of divine and — the reason why Agemin was here now — how one should act when invited to the Dominion of a deity.

"Ah, there you are!" the always-chipper voice of Marisha echoed through the clothing-filled room. "I was starting to worry Miro got stuck doing push-ups after he fell."

Agemin's eyes lingered on the long, sleek horns that grew from Marisha's temples for a moment before it offered a small bow. "He just made some conversation before he told me you were expecting me."

"And right he is!" she replied, motioning Agemin to follow before turning around, her hair sparkling in the chamber’s light. How does she do that?

Like most Celestials, Agemin had no hair. Even the ones that did usually did not manage to make them look as natural as Marisha did. But then, she is also almost as old as the Court itself.

After the two Judges, she likely was the oldest Celestial outside their realm, a fact that explained the power she had in the matters of the Court and as a person. Like most other races, the Celestials grew stronger with age and training and, as the former was no real concern, there was no true limit. And yet there is no Celestial-born deity.

"And why did you wish to see me?" Agemin asked as they stepped past Marisha, who was holding open the door. "Besides reminding me of the importance of the meeting, that is."

"Oh, I am sure you know how important the meeting is by now," the other Celestial said, closing the door with a dimly glowing tail. "I have called you here to show you the first designs of your judicial gown."

"And try to get me to somehow take you along."

Marisha gave a dismissive wave at the accusation. "Nah, I gave up on that idea after the tenth try. I just have a feeling the All-Mother will make an appearance and it's been too long since I have had a chance to talk to her."

"Couldn't you just pray to her?" Agemin asked, the glow beneath their skin dimming slightly with their confusion.

"You don't just pray to the All-Mother," she laughed in reply. A wave of her hands caused a few of the robes to fly off the walls and racks they had been hanging from. "I made you four base versions to choose from; we'll iterate on whichever one you choose."

The future Judge inspected the options presented to it for a moment before they shrugged. "I don't mind any of them, you can pick the one you like best.

"But," they continued after a moment of silence, "could you elaborate on what you mean when you say you 'don't just pray to the All-Mother'?"

"You just don't." Marisha shrugged. "The likelihood that she will listen is near zero and, perhaps more importantly, she just plain doesn't like it. Or didn't, at least. It's been a while since I talked to her."

"How long is 'a while'?"

The Celestial seamstress let out a long breath that caused Agemin to tilt his head. She made a body with lungs? "I'd say a good ten or fifteen millennia?" Marisha said, tapping her chin in thought as she picked up the dark blue robe with her tail and handed it to Agemin. "Try this one."

Agemin took the offered robe and slung it over the simple garment it wore, just like they would in the future. A touch of their mana flowed into the robe, causing a thin, almost invisible barrier to form around them.

"To be honest," Agemin began, "I am not even sure how real the All-Mother is anymore. I have only heard rumours of people seeing her recently. It wouldn't be the first time someone that looks like her appears."

"Trust me," Marisha said, adjusting the robe Agemin wore despite the barrier. "She is very real and you do not want to be on her bad side. Or her good side, really. She can be a bit much."

"You make it sound like you were friends with her."

The seamstress did not reply immediately, tugging at various places and taking measurements with an all-too-sparkly tape instead.

"We were, in a way," she eventually said, and gestured for Agemin to remove the robe. "I designed and manufactured a good number of dresses and other garments for her." Marisha paused for a moment, tapping a very sharp looking needle against her fingers, seemingly lost in thought. "She even brought Ferio with her a few times, back when the Goddess of Life and Light was still but a child. Said I would make a good mother…"

Agemin winced slightly at the words. The ability to not have children was a sore spot for some Celestials, even ones that did not really want a family.

Before they could say anything more, Marisha waved them off. "It's fine. Like I said, she is a bit much. She knows we can't ignore the rules like she can, but at the same time she also just forgets that when she is with someone she considers a friend. Or an acquaintance, at least."

Marisha's eyes briefly wandered to a black and blue dress with silver ornaments that was presented on a bust in the center of the room before she shook her head and handed Agemin the robe back. "Try it again."

The future Judge gave another nod, slipping on the robe once more. While the seamstress went to work to measure and adjust again, their eyes were drawn back to the dress and the bits of armour that covered all the vitals. What kind of person is she?