Forty-Six: The Old Men Convene!

“What even is this…” Lilith’s despair clung like a damp cloak, as she was ringed by grandpas and grannies like old trees circling a sapling. The revered masters of theology beamed around the White Dragon, kindly as grandparents teasing a beloved granddaughter, and they closed in like a warm quilt around Lilith.

How did it turn into this? The question rose like morning mist and refused to fade.

It began the moment Lilith left the lounge, her steps light as a bird that didn’t trust its own wings.

The Little White Dragon had whipped the Black Dragon with her tail like a snapping reed, then puffed her cheeks and left Nidhogg alone in the lounge, like a sulking cat abandoned by its playmate.

But as Lilith stepped out, the calm that Nidhogg’s horsing around had blown away drifted back like a chill draft. Anxiety pooled again like cold water, and she worried the bishops of the Majestic Court might corner her in the meeting, her honorifics slipping out like beads under nervous fingers.

Fear came first, stiff as frost on a bridge; even with the nun leading ahead, Lilith’s legs tangled like mismatched strings, and she nearly headbutted the wooden walls twice like a dazed moth.

She limped into the council hall, her gait uneven as a cart with one squeaky wheel.

The moment she crossed the threshold, the bustling chatter snapped shut like a book in a sudden gust. A dozen, two dozen eyes swung to her, and a forest of gazes, sharp as blades, pinned the Little White Dragon like a leaf on a thorn.

She had never been stared at by so many suns at once, and under that glare she felt stripped like bark from a tree. One glance, and she swore even her underthings were laid bare, a foolish mirage that burned like heat on snow.

“I… I’m… Li—ah!” Her voice trembled like a plucked string, her small mouth quivering like a startled sparrow. Under a ring of elders’ regard, she bit her tongue, a sting like pepper on an open wound.

Tears pricked behind her eyes like rain in a tight sky. She wanted a hole to bury herself, a quiet burrow under moss, but so many stares were iron bars, and even a timid protest needed courage like flint against steel. For someone allergic to crowds, Lilith’s heart drummed like a rabbit’s foot.

She ducked her head, hoping her long white hair would fall like a curtain and hide her blush. Yet her eyes were already wet, dewdrops that everyone had seen glinting like pearls.

“Why are you crying, child? Are we really that scary?” The old lady seated at the center spoke, her robes richer than the others, silk like moonlight over snow. She was the Archbishop of the Majestic Court.

The Archbishop had served so long that she’d seen many kneel in prayer or beam with zeal like lanterns seeking dawn. But being cried at just by presence—this was a first, a rare flower in late autumn. Interest in this child of the Star Canvas blossomed like ivy on stone.

Before they pried for truths like miners with lamps, they had to soothe the tearful Little White Dragon, a fledgling fallen from the nest.

Several bishops huddled like sparrows whispering under eaves, heads together for half an age. At last they chose the kindest face to speak, sending the Archbishop forward like a warm hearth in winter.

“Little one, can you tell us your name?” The Archbishop tuned her voice to gentleness, soft as wind over grass, and she asked in a hush.

“Lilith. My name is Lilith.” The Little White Dragon’s fear ebbed like tide, nerves draining a little like rain through soil. She dared to speak, halting but honest, “I—I’m not afraid of you. I’m just really nervous. It’s fine. If I settle down, I’ll be okay.”

“Really just nervous? Don’t worry. We’re very kind. Even if you said you were afraid, no one would get angry.” The Archbishop’s smile crinkled like crow’s feet in sunlight. She found the little dragon delightful, a mystery wrapped in silk, witty as a firefly in dusk. In centuries of life, she hadn’t met such a silly, adorable bundle of nerves, and she couldn’t help teasing like a cat’s paw batting yarn.

“It’s really nerves. You’re teasing me. Why would I be scared? The bishops are all very gentle.” Lilith told a white lie, fluttering like paper in wind. Truth was, stories she’d read painted old popes and bishops as deep-water fish, hearts cold and cunning as winter stones. Even if the Kingdom’s White Holy Maiden Church and Lamter’s Mali Church were fine, a thorn of worry still pricked like a hidden burr.

There was another thorn. Lilith struggled with theologians, her path long paved by disbelief, a plain with no shrine. Even later, as a devoted follower of Icarus, her faith was born of gratitude, a lamp lit for help given, and of kinship after learning her origins, a bond like star-thread.

In short, she wasn’t someone of firm creed, and theology was fog to her, thick and unyielding. The elders in the hall were mountains, and she felt small as a hare in their shade.

But Lilith wasn’t a fool. The Majestic Court had invited her to visit; she couldn’t blurt out that their bishops scared her like thunder. Her head was clumsy but not absent of sense, so she pressed down fear like reeds bent by wind and tugged the topic aside. “I’m feeling better now. Archbishop, could you tell me why you invited me to this theological discussion?”

“I’m glad the tide has eased.” Warmth colored the Archbishop’s voice like sunlight through leaves, and she answered gently. “We called you up to the Holy Mountain for this remembrance because of your special identity.”

“My special identity?” Lilith frowned, a ripple across a pond. She had a handful, scattered like stars. Which one?

“You’re a daughter of the Star Canvas. Dragons are half divine by blood, and yours holds the stars more thickly than most, a night sky poured into veins. We believe you can hear gods more clearly.” The Archbishop’s eyes smiled, crescent moons over calm water. “We invited you to try once more to speak with the God of the High Mountain, whose true name has been lost.”

“You can’t speak with the God of the High Mountain now?” Curiosity flickered in Lilith’s eyes like a candle seeking a draft.

“Shamefully, no. It has been long since anyone in the Majestic Court spoke directly with Him. A few years back we still caught fragments, broken lines like snow traces. Now, nothing. The last oracle reached us from Mali’s mouth, carried like a river into our hands.” The old woman sat as if under a heavy cloud, her regret a slow rain. “If we still can’t reach Him, we can only follow the oracle He left twelve years ago and hold for Him… a funeral.”

“A funeral?” Lilith’s eyes widened like moons over water. She had no idea how one holds a funeral for a god; her thoughts scattered like startled birds. “The God of the High Mountain is simply no longer widely worshiped in Lamter. Why a funeral?”

“Child, do you know what it means for a god to have His true name forgotten?” The Archbishop of nature’s paths spoke without wrath, her question a pebble dropped in a deep well.

“I… probably don’t.” Lilith had guesses like faint constellations, but she didn’t trust them enough to fix them with ink.

“It’s fine. Tell me, how do you see death?” The Archbishop guided like a teacher with chalk dust on fingers, gentle as drizzle over stone.

“Life stilled. The fire of the soul snuffed out. The body returned to dust, while the spirit goes to the underworld.” Lilith recited fragments Fafnir had laid out in class, abstractions like dry bones. Her grasp of Death Magic was only entry-level, and her answer stumbled like feet on gravel.

“Good. But I don’t want the academic cut of death today. Most in the Majestic Court are believers of the High Mountain’s God; we lean toward Nature and Life magic, green and growing. Talking Death Magic isn’t useful here. I want answers that breathe, not formulas.”

The question sank into Lilith like a stone into a pond, sending rings across her heart. She had never truly sat with it; death felt like a cold wind she kept her back to. What was it, at the root?

She had seen death more than once, a pale moth circling a lamp. She had tasted it once herself, cold as creek water, though it left few footprints; she was more often a witness than a ghost.

She had watched death pluck her companions like petals, one by one, and she’d struck down a symbol of death like breaking a black banner. She had even tried to bar death’s door with her hands, a child against a storm.

She had watched a brave person and a whole race resist like grass against flood. She still remembered what the princess had told her, a line etched like a carving in wood.

She should have known it long ago. The truth was a seed that had waited for rain.

“Forgetting. The essence of death is forgetting.” Lilith spoke, and the words rose like smoke from a steady flame. The Archbishop raised her hand, clapping softly like rain on leaves.

“Exactly. Death’s core is forgetting. For the lives of this land, it is so. For gods above the Star Canvas, it is so.” The Archbishop’s explanation flowed like a clear stream. “The God of the High Mountain has had His true name forgotten. Soon, when we old folks return to soil, one or two generations later, no life on the continent will remember He ever walked here. Even if gods in the Divine Realm remember His body and name, on this continent He will be erased from history, wiped like chalk. So He once sent an oracle, asking us to hold a funeral before forgetting takes Him.”

“But dragons live long, and this land isn’t short on long-lived kin. Why not record Him, pass Him down, and keep the lamp lit?” Lilith couldn’t grasp why a god would choose this path; a god had many ways to avoid elves forgetting him. Why choose to let go, like a leaf giving itself to the river?

“Child, that touches the deepest secret of this continent.” The Archbishop’s sigh drifted like evening wind. “I am just a common old woman now, without the ability or the right to touch it. I have no right to tell you, and none of us do. Believers shouldn’t pry at a god’s closed door. Truth, in the end, must be found by outsiders.”

“So I’m the outsider to seek it?” Lilith saw the shape of their hope, a silhouette like a mountain behind mist. They wished someone close to the gods to find why the High Mountain’s God chose to walk toward death. “I’m happy to help. I’m hungry for the truth, like a fox for dawn. I just don’t know how.”

“We don’t know either.” The Archbishop’s words dropped like a ripe fruit, and Lilith’s jaw nearly fell like a pebble. Why call her if they didn’t know? The Archbishop laughed, a chuckle like tea steam. “That’s why we’re here. This meeting exists for that.”

“We want to dissuade the God of the High Mountain from choosing death, and you want the continent’s truth.” She stretched out a hand, steady as a bridge over a stream. “Will you cooperate?”

“Mm.” Lilith reached out her small hand, and their fingers met like clasped vines. She nodded, her eyes blazing with curiosity like twin torches. “I’ll dig up the truth. What do we do now?”

“Spare these old bones that just finished chants; let us rest.” The Archbishop coughed twice, playfully, and pointed at her hair, white as frost. Lilith saw the tired lines like dry riverbeds on their faces and agreed with a soft hum.

But when the little dragon tried to let go, she found the other’s grip firm as braided rope. No wriggle could break free.

“Um, Archbishop? Waa—!” Lilith looked up and met the Archbishop’s kindly squint, eyes curved like crescents. Before she could blink, the old lady tugged and Lilith fell into her arms like a kitten.

“Aiyo, I haven’t seen such a cute girl. Let me see—how did you grow this pretty?” The Archbishop lifted Lilith’s small face, studying like a connoisseur peering at jade.

“Hey, old gal, don’t hog her! We want a look too!” The bishops around couldn’t stay seated, chairs scraping like cicadas. They crowded in, fussing over the little dragon like elders greeting a granddaughter home for New Year.

“Oh dear, why so skinny? Haven’t been eating well?”

“How many summers are you? Got a sweetheart? My boy’s a gem!”

“Give me a break! Your boy and girl wouldn’t be taken even for free!”

“Stop making trouble for the girl—she’s a tender bud, not something to trample.”

“Exactly. She danced like a lit flame at the Coining Festival, but only for Mali. That won’t do; she owes the honored Mountain God a dance!”

“Alright, alright—I’ll go get the costume, my feet already kicking up dust.”

Hemmed in by warm-faced elders, Lilith struggled, a bit of thistledown in a sudden gust. The frail Little White Dragon couldn’t withstand their zeal; a wave of white sleeves—the bishops—swallowed her whole.

“Wait—I’m drowning here! Someone, save me!”