5. The Barren Gardens

The explosion didn’t come from the planet itself. Fortunately, there was no second meteorite either, because Darus no longer held the strength to create mountain ranges. The gods stepped over a garden of black leaves, charred by the lava, straight into a storm.

Leaves slapped their eyes and ears. Branches cracked under their paws. Bella used her tail to fend off the debris, until the leaves grew larger and eventually a whole tree came for the animals.

The demigods scattered away screaming. Ardex caught the tree in his teeth; his touch was enough to immediately burn away the danger.

In the middle of the garden, a giraffe impatiently hopped from side to side. A sky rock hit her long neck. To her shock, she noticed it hurt, but she was too angry to think about it.

“What are you doing!? I almost conjured a plant! A whole garden full of plants!”

“Really?” Ardex pushed his snout between the leaves. They crumbled into dust as black as the rocky planet.

“Yes! Yes … no, not really.” Eeris hopped towards her family members. Her long neck pulled all the godchildren together, as if a lasso caught them. “I’m so happy to see you again!”

Bella looked over the mess. “It does look like plants and leaves.”

“I could find enough carbon to make things shaped like plants.” She looked out over her barren garden with sad eyes. She could feel out the right particles for life and stick them together by instinct.

It was, however, a worthless power—goddess of nature—when there was no nature. “But Carbon is happy to work with anything. Which is very different from real plants that work.”

What does that even mean? Eeris thought. When does a plant “work”? I thought I knew these kinds of things. Maybe I should think a little longer from now on.

She wanted to create life just as badly and quickly as the rest. She and her sister, Feria, weren’t called the Green Sisters for nothing. The only problem was that they didn’t know exactly what “life” meant.

“I can help extract even more particles from the ground,” said Darus. “If it’s not too difficult.”

Eeris nodded. Parts of her neck had already turned into yellow snowflakes. “My powers are leaving too. We have to use them while we still can.”

The group fell silent. As if they realized for the first time that they really weren’t going to survive this. That this was the end and they should make these final days as fun as possible.

Something Ardex would never accept. “Life. We all know life, right? Right? We’ve seen it. We’re children of the God who made it. So how do we make life?”

Exhausted and weak, like wrung-out dishrags, the godchildren leaned against each other.

“Life definitely needs water,” Eeris mumbled. “It can dissolve and transport almost anything, while being super light. Hydrogen is the lightest particle in existence! It would be stupid to use anything else.”

“It’s too hot. It would all evaporate,” Ardex grumbled.

“No,” said Cosmo. “The sort-of atmosphere we have now has a super high pressure. So water can be much hotter before evaporating.”

“But the planet will cool down,” said Darus. “I’ve already felt that we mainly have silicon and iron. When that cools, the whole ground hardens. If we wait too long … the ground will seal shut and we can’t reach all the particles underneath anymore.”

Eeris sighed. “We need Gulvi. He’d conjure up water from somewhere.”

Bella jumped away from the group. “That’s what life needs. But what is it?”

“Life does things,” said Eeris. “That’s why it’s so much more fun than boring rocks and lava and everything.”

“Shush shush, can we stop ridiculing my powers for once?”

“Darus, sweetie, your powers are important. But as goddess of nature I do find plants just a little more fun.”

Cosmo was still trying to take flight, without success. The air pressure was too high and they were still missing that atmosphere. “You can only do things if you can move.”

“Move how? Plants are alive but they can’t walk around.” Bella paced around the group. Her left paw had already partially disappeared, turning walking into wobbling.

“Not move. Change.” Eeris’ eyes went wide. “Living beings can change on their own. A rock can’t.”

“Oh come on! Once again, my powers—” Darus was shut up by a giraffe hoof to the face.

“The problem is just … things that can change can also die or break.”

Eeris now understood what Darus meant. The ground beneath her had first been a swimming pool of hot lava with tiny rock islands scattered like a galaxy of stars.

Now it was increasingly the reverse. The lava cooled down and became rock. The ground hardened into a sturdy crust with tiny lava pools like stars. Pieces that crashed down—rocks that could have given them water—sank and never came up again.

“So,” said Cosmo, who now followed Bella in her nervous circles through the barren gardens. “Life has to be able to repair itself. When it breaks down, it has to be able to grow again.”

“It has to be able to have children,” said Ardex. His face brightened. “We’re on the right track, everyone. Come on! We’ll figure out the secret!”

Eeris rolled her eyes. It’s not a secret, she thought. And yet we all don’t know it. What a bunch of loser gods we are. My dear, cute little losers.

She hugged all her family members again. And again. Until Bella stood up straight and stopped Eeris.

“If you have to have children, then you also have to grow. Otherwise you keep dividing yourself in two. And your children keep getting smaller and smaller. Life stops quickly when your fifth child is as small as ants.”

Bella looked at Eeris hopefully.

“So what you’re really asking … "

“Is there a plant that can double itself? Without each copy getting smaller?”

Eeris considered it. All nature she’d ever seen came to mind. But everything started small, grew bigger, and then had children again that were very small.

She shook her head. No plant, she thought. Maybe something else.

No more waiting. Eeris stood before her family and said: “We’re going to look for Gulvi. Everything starts with water and—”

Ardex stamped and pushed her aside. “I decide that Darus and I will keep the cracks open as long as possible. Prevent the crust from closing for as long as we can. After that we’ll look for Feria.”

“But—”

“She’s the goddess of animals! Exactly what we need! It’s decided.”

Bella spat out her words: “Gulvi has surely changed into some kind of water animal. He won’t live long without water here!”

Ardex reared up, also because his front paws had partly vanished. “No time for discussion! I’m the oldest, I decide, we’re going now.”

Darus caught a chunk of rock from the air and threw it at Ardex’ face. “And I decide you’re an idiot. We have to look for Gulvi. And Hanah. The two demigods you always forget about. Hanah is only a few weeks old! How will she take care of herself?”

“Stick together, stick—”

Darus already ran away. There was no tail left for Bella to grab. Eeris could stretch her neck just long enough to lift up the wolf.

With fiery eyes, Darus stared at his family. The energy to resist, however, was completely gone. Eeris was glad about that, because she herself also staggered back and forth as if she were drunk or sleepwalking.

They started the search for Feria.