4. The Pudding Race

As suddenly as the stones started falling from the sky, as suddenly they disappeared. Bella looked around her, dumbfounded. The sky was clear blue again, the water calm, no deadly rain in sight. Darus was playing already with the toy ball they found a few days ago.

She found it odd. She assumed Hanah or Gulvi would have secretly taken the ball with them. They were always in the play room of the Heavenly Palace. If only they hadn’t been fooling around all day—they would have been stronger. Maybe they could have stopped Father!

But why keep the ball a secret for so long? No, that thing had appeared suddenly, out of their control. But why now? Where did it come from? She was uncomfortable with questions for which she didn’t know the answers. Uncomfortable enough to sink into the sand, defeated.

“Everything is wrong,” she mumbled. “I thought we’d have nice animals and plants within weeks. That we’d make this place prettier than the Heavenly Palace. But we’ve been watching nothing for millions of years! All was better … should we not just—”

“No, no, Bella,” Darus said, while joining Eeris in searching the ground for … something. “We have made our choice. Even if Father asked us to come back—nicely and with a hundred times sorry—we wouldn’t go. He exiled us. We continue living here without Him.”

“And we show him that we can make this place beautiful and lively,” Eeris said. She carried a group of stones between her teeth.

Darus whistled to Gulvi, who made ice cubes again. “Say, if he said sorry a thousand times, well, I’d consider.”

“Thousand?” Eeris said with her mouth full of stone teeth. “Yeah, no, at least a million sorrys.”

Bella smiled. “Let me guess. The promise of free gifts and tasty food would help too, wouldn’t it Darus?”

He looked up and dropped the playing ball. “What an idea, Bella! Well, say Father appeared here soon, I suppose we prepare a nice list with everything we want from Him. We need to be clear about this, or it becomes a mess. Or he gets away with no more than two sorrys.”

Bella lowered her head. “He won’t take us back. I am sure. The anger in his eyes, that fear, how even sweet Mother didn’t even try to stop him.”

Eeris, Darus and Gulvi left for another body of water. Bella forced herself to stand up and follow. Once in a while, another part of her body crumbled, leaving a trail of flakes and dust to remember their journey these days. Crumbs an intruder would have no issue following. She tried not to think about it: there was no reason to think another being walked this planet. Another being that could now spy on them from behind a stone and—shivers through her spine made her think happy thoughts.

“What are we doing?”

“We are organizing a pudding race!”

“Excuse me?” Bella’s face straightened. Of course. A pudding race. What needed to happen before Darus and Eeris would realize they were dying and there was no time for games!? Would it ever happen? In her anger, Bella only heard half the explanation.

“So you were right,” Eeris said. “We have to find the Movelings who can survive best. We already have breathing and sensitivity, so, well, what’s the next characteristic?”

“Movement.” They waded into the water. Bella realized this was the start of the race and that Gulvi was busy building the rest of the parcours.

You might think, dear reader, that animals like giraffes can’t be under water at all! And you’d be right. But don’t forget these are gods. Their form has changed, their magic weaker than at the palace, but they still have magic and aren’t truly animals. Remember that.

Maybe all would have been better if Father did take that away. If He had changed the godchildren into regular animals who lived no longer than necessary. The fact that gods would always be above all other life brought more evil than good.

A stack of stones formed a dome under water. Eeris carefully placed one pudding after another at the start. She clearly treated them with less care than her own Solidlings, but that still meant a lovely touch for anything that lived.

In their current state, the difference between Solidlings and Movelings was near imperceptible anyway. They mingled with each other and did roughly the same thing. The gods saw them as cute babies to clutch to their chest, and that touch was often the only way to feel the difference.

Eeris even gave names to the “contestants”. A star-shaped pudding was called Starry and two bird-haped puddings—if you used your imagination—became the Twin Crows.

Birds. Bella missed the creatures, despite hating those flying devils from Dalas. If Cosmo had his Windgustwing, he might be able to fly further. Past the Impossible Wall of Darus in the West, or past that invisible wall that stopped them in the South.

Darus placed large stones at important parts of the race. Gulvi and him searched for places with differences, places where Movelings could feel something and react to that by moving. And so the race weaved across plants and hills, always in the sunlight, to a point they decided had the “perfect” temperature. Gulvi found it too warm, Darus too cold, so Eeris decided it was the perfect balance.

Gulvi swam behind the starting dome. Eeris beamed. The race even looked pretty. A hollowed-out path, decorated with stones and seaweed in all colors. Finally something of value, of meaning and intent, in a world that was barren and empty. Bella noticed it, but refused to join in this childish play.

“Give the starting sign, my Bella bear,” Eeris said with a smile.

“What is it? What happens then?”

“We have little time,” Darus insisted. “Or the sunlight will move.”

“Then, erm, start.”

Gulvi froze the water behind the Movelings. Most didn’t sense it. But hundreds of them did start the race, away from this cold place.

It wasn’t controlled. They had no fins, or webs, or legs, or even an idea of what was up or down. They twisted and shook. Some left the path and then got stuck in shadow. Some felt the difference in light and struggled to return to the right path. Like a runner who has no idea where to go, but is able to sense signs that say “turn around!” or “not here!”, who still reaches their destination.

The gods floated with the creatures in the lead. A group of twenty, mostly stuck together as if they were one Moveling, swam ahead. At each turn they lost some. Feelers not strong enough, current too strong, Bella never knew.

“It works! It works!” Eeris had to restrain herself lest she started giving Movelings helpful pushes at their back. “And Starry takes the lead. Oh, wat a movement, how elegant, first three somersaults before actually moving forward! And yes, yes, here we’re looking at the world championship of blobracing, with only the best of the best!”

Bella smiled, despite trying to suppress it. How could Eeris be so cheerful? With all they didn’t know and all that went wrong?

They were so close to cracking the code. The Movelings could move, could react, could take care of themselves. It’s just that … most didn’t do it.

Even those who did, however, could not create wonders. One after another, Movelings fell silent without reason. They still shone in the sunlight, just below the water surface. They weren’t damaged or dead—and still they didn’t move.

Bella quickly swam back, tailed by the others. Across the entire route, Movelings had stopped. Most decorations had come loose and now drifted around her; even the stones moved more than these puddings.

But the worst was yet to come.

When they searched for Starry, all Movelings in the lead were gone.

The entire backside of the parcours had been destroyed and the twenty best Movelings had vanished. Or had been taken. A stream of air bubbles led away from the place, deeper into the ocean. Bubbles that moved too quickly for Movelings—and too quickly to catch up with.

“Now we lost our best creatures!” Bella screamed.

“Write that in your book,” Eeris said grumpily. “They can move, that’s true. But no matter how hard you try, Movelings find a way to disappoint you.”

“And add to that,” Darus said, “_Darus accidentally farted. He thinks they will swim away very rapidly from nasty smells.”

“NOT—FUNNY.” Someone or something sabotaged them. Where was Ardex when you needed him? He had to protect them. He could see, from the beach, if someone had entered the water with them. And Feria, Cosmo, Hanah? Their journey was taking very long.

The shredding of their bodies had sped up. Flakes drifted towards the seabed like sand in all colors of the rainbow. They could barely see each other anymore.

Only one lonely Moveling returned. It left the shadow, past Bella’s extended paw, around Eeris’ neck. The shredding stopped—just for a few moments.

If there was still a finish, this Moveling was the only one to reach it. Without a word, the gods formed a protective circle around the poor creature. The biggest Moveling she’d seen thus far. So to your eyes, dear reader, no bigger than a short hair.

“Those creatures of ours, yes, nobody and nothing may take them away,” Bella whispered. Just as she said it, the creature fell silent anyway. Like the rest. Bella wanted to curse the entire ocean and ask why everything always went wrong, and why they were always so unlucky—until she realized it wasn’t an accident.

Their circle had taken away sunlight and oxygen from the creature. During the race, Movelings didn’t stop because of some magical reason or lack of strength, but because each creature needs the same thing to stay alive.

“Nutrition! Food! The next characteristic is food!”