He meets her curious look with a neutral one. Well, he's not unfriendly, at least.

"Yes," he says. Also in a mortal voice, interestingly enough.

"Hello. I'm Kirovalin," he says. "Have you been to this place before?"

"I'm Tisvetaia. No. I thought it would be a good idea to say hello before exploring this place for its mysterious secrets."

"It's called Milliways, and it reaches between worlds," he explains. "Our kind of god seems very rare here; you're the first I've met."

"Interesting," she muses. "I also now feel the need to represent our kind of god as well as possible, if we show up so rarely here."

"Understandable."

"Though maybe not represent them accurately, I would not want to have to represent plague gods along with the rest of us."

"Indeed not," Kirovalin agrees.

"I'm a preservation goddess, by the way," she informs him. "My power's preservation, which I mostly use on mortals to extend their lifespan indefinitely. Just to save you the polite godly social runaround."

"I am a god-emperor," says Kirovalin. "My acolytes and manifestations share disease immunities with anyone they touch. Lifespan extension sounds... very intriguing."

"Thank you. Disease immunity sharing's clever," she compliments. "How'd you become god-emperor?"

"Bad luck."

"I might as well explain," he sighs. "I came up on the continent of Irahali in the shadow of an enormous plague god who was starting to feel the scarcity of living followers. That's why I chose the power I did. With my acolytes' help, the remaining mortals in and near his terrain ceased to fear him, and he went out fast after that. I moved into a corner of his former territory and did the best I could with it. But I soon noticed that most mortal rulers were... less helpful than they could have been. I asked my followers if they would prefer a god-king to the mortal variety, and they said yes."

She nods. "Reasonable. Where does the bad luck come in?"

"Being a god-king turned out to suit me very well, and I was a little too successful. Some of the younger gods nearby tried to clean me out, failed, and died. My neighbours of both the divine and the mortal variety found themselves losing followers and subjects to me at what they considered an alarming rate. If a country tried to conquer me or a god tried to wipe me out, and they failed badly enough, their people would need looking after; I kept expanding. And eventually I ran out of places to expand to. I maintain a strict policy of claiming no land on any continent but my own, these days. I don't want to start the cycle up again somewhere else."

"Ah. I'm sorry. That does sound like some awful bad luck. Combined with some... Less than understanding neighbors."

"Yes."

"I'm still pretty new, for a god. Only a couple hundred years old. I uh, hope I don't run into those problems."

"I hope the same," he says. "I advise that if you're ever tempted to become a god-queen, you think very carefully about how your neighbours will react. I don't exactly regret my empire - I think I can do much more good for many more people this way - but I wish I'd been able to come to it more peacefully. And I very much wish I'd been able to peacefully coexist with - any other gods at all."

"I have embassies. My acolytes collect and distribute disease immunities in as many places as possible. I have holy artifacts in dozens of foreign ports. But I am generally very careful not to intrude on anyone's domain, unless I need to sail a ship through it, and then I have my diplomats make offerings as they pass."

"That works too. As cute as the pen pal idea would be."

"It would be cute," he agrees. "I do in fact have bird manifestations, too."

She snickers. "Just think, you're a set of writing utensils and one godly pen pal away from something really adorable and also a huge waste in resources."

"I could afford it," he says. "My population broke three hundred million this century."

"Large. Large enough to comfortably hold three hundred million people. And I have some unclaimed ocean to expand into if I need it, but I try to avoid that wherever possible."

"Or making an ocean god feel uncomfortably crowded."

"That, too. Thank you for being a nice god-emperor."

"I do my best."

"And if it makes you feel any better, I am willing to be godly penpals with you."

"Thank you. Where should I send my bird manifestation?"

"While that's true, they are also less fun." He produces a wooden ring strung on a metal chain and hands it to her. Both the ring and the chain are holy objects. "It's no pebble, but perhaps it will do."

"Fancy. Thank you." She produces a shiny black rock, volcanic in nature, and offers it to Kirovalin.

"Careful in what sense?"

"On my continent we have a, ehm, stereotype about volcano gods. Largely because of an obnoxious little twit far to my southeast called Kalandax. Mostly that we are crazy and murderous and like blowing things up. But either way, usually when I tell people I am a volcano goddess, they tend to back away slowly. So, careful public relations wording."

"Oh. I haven't heard of him; I must not have very many embassies on your continent."

"Possibly not. I haven't heard of any embassies from god-emperors before, and I tend to travel around a bit. Poking mortals with their consent."

"I'm sure I'll get around to your continent eventually. In my quest to poke as many mortals as possible."

"The noblest of all missions! Mortal poking."

"As many people as possible should be immune to as many diseases as possible."

"And also they should not have that pesky 'lifespan' issue."

"We are in agreement."

"It's a pity I have to renew the preservation touch," she sighs. "It would make my job a lot easier if I could just poke a mortal and un-mortal them."

"Unfortunate," he agrees. "My shared immunities last, but of course they need renewing anyway because there are always new diseases."

"Yeah. The limits of divinity. Aren't they grand?" (They are not grand.)

"No."

Kirovalin laughs.

"Thankfully," she says lightly, "I'm not stuck with just one manifestation."

"Yes. That would be very inconvenient."

"Thankfully, being a god or goddess is often convenient. Often very inconvenient, too, but those tend to be stuff you can compensate for."

"Yes."

"I was just going to leave this manifestation here indefinitely," he says. "Collecting disease immunities and perhaps offering to let someone immigrate once in a while."

"I thought so."

"I think I might borrow it. I can afford to make a replacement manifestation."

"This place is too useful to abandon."

"Agreed. I'd forgotten that leaving my manifested form here was an option. I'm not used to parking them places, usually they're travelling all over creation to poke people."

"Here, the people from all over creation come to you."

She laughs. "Yes! Very convenient. I can have a body dedicated to sitting. That'll be novel."

"Yes."

"Feel free to tell me if you find someone interesting that you think should be blessed and poked."

"I will. Feel free to do the same."

"I'd like that," says Kirovalin. "You could do the reverse, too, but I have a lot more people to cover than you do."

"Just a bit," she snorts. "But I'd be happy to. I could get your advisers and acolytes for sure."

"That would be extremely helpful."

"I try," she says lightly. "Give me a little while, I'll send some critters over and open the door for them when they get here."

"I'll do the same."

"I'd appoint a human governor to start with who would answer to me on matters concerning the empire as a whole, but you would be the local source of divine intervention and the local authorities would answer to you on local matters. I can take your manifestations on a tour and show you some of the uses of power that my citizens expect of me, so you know what you're getting into. You could decide later whether you preferred to take over the governorship or leave that in mortal hands."

"The tour sounds good. Baby's first province, and all, I wouldn't want to be a lackluster god."

Once she has a good handle on what sorts of things would be expected of her - she happily accepts.

Innocently: "What is?"

She laughs. "You put my face. On your coin."

"You may."

Hug.

Yep, she sort of figured he would be. She can wait, even if it's a little maddening. She doesn't need to fidget in this body. One of her birds hops nervously on top of a rooftop. Hop, hop. Fidget fidget. Good, that's out of the way. Her Milliways manifestation stays still and waits for his answer to that particular question.

"Yes." Pause. A little shyly: "I trust you."

"I'm sure I will look very fashionable."

"That's the spirit! All of the other birds will be jealous. Watch for projectiles. They might get vindictive."

He laughs.

He smiles, and ducks his head slightly in an endearingly shy way, and makes her his acolyte.

"Granted."

Hug!

Hug.

"Not a result I intended, but not a result I would complain about," he says.

"No? Perfectly happy to be cuddled by a volcano goddess? Well now I have to."

"Perfectly happy," he agrees.

"You have earned your fate," she says, with mock gravitas. And then she snuggles closer and pillows her head on his shoulder.