After her downfall, Ixchel separated herself from the other powerbounds. As her essence grew weaker, she developed a stronger conscience. Even outside the confines of her secluded plane, she made a point of personally helping her champion. Her survival depended on it, after all.
***
The little pride he had left in his Marine Forces' training had Alba thinking the child he fought back only stood his own because of how unaccustomed he was to his new body.
The child was lighter and faster, lunging with great efficiency while keeping Alba at a distance with his spear.
Alba also didn't particularly want to hurt a child. Most of his swordplay therefore revolved around parrying.
The child ducked and went for his feet.
Alba ducked in return, parrying with the forte of his blade, pushing away the spearhead and rushing into range for a thrust.
His own speed surprised him as he ran.
The goal simply was to checkmate his opponent and make him drop his weapon, but the little pikeman spun the parry's recoil away with ease and planted the weapon in the ground—halting its momentum—to steady back on his feet.
He pointed the head at Alba once more.
"You're gonna give it back!" he shouted.
Alba sighed.
He needed not ask what the child was speaking about. It was the Defrutum, that much was obvious from his initial target, Cartha.
Cartha, who, after having disappeared as the fight started, came out from behind the child's back and kneed him with little mercy, straight on the nape.
She then held him down and gripped his wrists, making him drop his spear.
With her webbed hands, she squeezed his wrists hard enough for him to cry out and hold back tears still stuck in the corners of his eyes.
"Damn it, Cartha, stop it will you." Alba said. "You'd want to kill this...child?"
"Weell…He attacked us, isn't it only fair?"
Under his glare, Cartha stopped torturing the child, but he still had to weigh in carefully.
They were still a few leagues away from the Steps, and it would do them no good to draw the ire of an entire village (probably full of religious cultists, too) because of a squabble with a child.
He approached and knelt before the child.
He hadn't raised his head since Cartha had pinned him down, and only mumbled unintelligible words with his face against the floor.
What Alba could hear vaguely sounded like "You're gonna pay" and "I swear", repeated again and again.
He held up the child's face by his hair.
His skin was the colour of rye bread, as if even his tan grew pale; he must have been fourteen at best, and already had the features of a warrior carved on his bruised and scarred face.
"You," Alba said, "what's your name?"
Instead of answering, the child tried to bite Alba's face but rapidly tensed under Cartha's grip.
"Good god, the kid is feral!" Catha remarked.
Alba sighed once more.
The child indeed acted unreasonably, but, if he was from Irshya, his stupid travel companion had recently raided and killed a bunch of random people in that child's village. Perhaps it even included his parents.
"Look, I don't like her either but can you at least tell me why you're trying to skewer the evil fish-lady?" Alba said in a sweeter tone. "You're from Irshya, aren't you?"
The child started smashing his forehead against the rocky ground until he bled and Alba waited patiently until the child was done with his painful-looking tantrum.
He rested the side of his head on the ground and spat a mouthful of dust.
"Valor," the child finally said, "Valor of Irshya, that's my name, alien. I'm letting you know cause you guys are so dead."
With renewed vigour, the child now grinned at them despite his position.
He became quite talkative, actually. Even if he refused to out his companions, the plan seemed obvious to Alba once Valor mentioned "never making it to the Steps".
Truly, of all places, a village at the foot of the Steps was the worst choice Cartha could have made.
An ambush surely awaited them there, and Alba sat to think of a safe way out.
Those mortals again? A voice said in his mind.
He had just forgotten about it, but it was indeed Ixchel's voice that spared Cartha a grim fate earlier.
What do you mean again? He thought, but she couldn't read his mind, apparently.
He held a fist over his mouth and mumbled the words inside instead, at the risk of looking demented.
Wasted, tainted blood, she answered. They remembered my name, but weren't fit for any proper use, so I ignored them, and so should you. They still pester me to this day.
Alba shook his head. Perhaps Ixchel didn't want to see the cultists again, but it wasn't really his problem.
Diplomacy was their best shot at getting out of Aethercrust with their limbs intact.
"Listen, Valor," Alba said as he stood up. "If you cannot listen to reason, at least listen to your faith, In Her, for she has chosen me as her champion."
I wouldn't exactly call it a choice, Ixchel uselessly corrected.
"Why would I believe you," Valor replied. "You stole from us. You're liars and deceivers. If you're speaking truth, then speak her name!"
Before Alba partook in the child's religious shit-test, Ixchel's presence made itself overbearing, sealing his lips for a few seconds.
Don't say it, she hissed in his mind, for the sake of us both, don't you ever speak my true name aloud.
The weight of her presence then disappeared.
He wasn't obligated to obey her, and he trusted little of her words for now, yet he listened, somewhat.
"I dare not, Valor. The Bountiful herself has chosen me not as a mouthpiece but a champion. I must make haste, to Dilmun, and make it hers."
This is already too much, Ixchel said.
Valor, on the other hand, rapidly went from irreverent child to gasping follower of Her champion.
Religion truly makes a fool out of men.
He profusely apologised, especially when Alba took out the bottle of Defrutum and turned it upside down, proving it was now hollow.
Cartha let the child go, and he explained to them the strange rituals Irshya had partaken in for decades now.
He described grandiose visions his people could experience after ingesting anything made in their large sanctified cauldron.
Not only did it make everything taste better, but the chosen amongst them swore they managed to commune with the 'goddess'.
One of their priests discovered a way to assure one's audience with the 'goddess': the wine, Defrutum.
Grapes were crushed in the cauldron, mixed in the cauldron, boiled in the cauldron until concentrated and potent enough, which took years.
Reserved for apex hunters, it allowed each of them to describe the 'goddess' in detail, inspiring carvings and paintings of Her.
None of the hunters lived through the ordeal and died shortly after regaining consciousness.
"They weren't chosen," Valor said. And Alba understood. Ixchel had simply refused them.
You'd think she would be happy with an entire colony of people chasing after her sponsorship.
To the child, Alba having ingested the Defrutum, the entire bottle no less, without as much as getting sick, was proof enough Ixchel chose him.
Under his battle-hardened traits, Valor had a gleeful ear-to-ear smile.
With one of the strings on his wrist, he tied his grey hair in a ponytail and stood on his feet, now eager to present Alba to his people.
"The other scouts must have warned the elder by now, they'll be on their way back to me," Valor said, and it tied a knot in Alba's stomach. Encountering and almost getting stabbed by Valor was just their good luck, apparently. "The elder has to see you! Your arrival…maybe it means our quest's finally over."
In a sense, Alba didn't feel bad for his little trickery as he didn't really lie, but also, these people's religion being built on a 'goddess' that only wished them to die in a ditch away from her, he didn't know how stable the men would be when faced with the truth.
If she chose him, didn't it mean she forsook them?
"Our passage will have to wai—"
"But of course," Cartha interrupted. "As the cradle of her cult, it is of utmost importance that the Bountiful's chosen visit your village. Your messiah has finally arrived—thanks to yours truly—and should be greeted with a feast in food and gold, I say!"
Cartha…
The joy and excitement in Valor's eyes vanished the moment she opened her mouth.
Even his words became drier.
"I don't know why the chosen one is travelling with you," he retorted, "but it is best for all of us that you do not join us. I can't and won't guarantee your safety."
Cartha nodded, and Alba wondered once more how she could go through moments of deep unease such as this one without having her shit-eating grin waver in the slightest.
She also made the decision for him to go, and so, he expected, or rather hoped, she also had a plan to get the hell away from Irshya and onto the steps once they got stuck in there.
As he left with Valor, she winked and mouthed the words:
"I'll be around, trust!"
In short, nothing but bad omens.