Ascent Day: A short story from the world of THE OUTSIDE
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
Merry Christmas, all, and happy Week 4 of our THE INFINITE Advent calendar! I’m delighted to share a cute little, maybe-canon-and-maybe-not story with you today. Think of it as autofanfiction.
(This story contains spoilers up to the first couple of chapters of THE FALLEN, but nothing later.)
As the fourth month of their exile wore on - squatting in the physics-defying extradimensional space of Evianna Talirr's abandoned lair, squabbling and plotting, desperately trying to figure out how to deliver the supplies that the survivors of the Chaos Zone needed - Tiv Hunt found herself looking at the calendar more and more. She'd put a wall calendar up at the side of her room, which was really just a cubicle not far from Yasira's. She'd fixed it up as well as she could: colorful blankets, posters and wall hangings, knickknacks in cute shapes that reminded her of home, and she'd put the calendar up in pride of place beside the bed, just so that she'd wake up every morning and remember that time was still a thing. Tiv wasn't fully unmoored from the rhythms of the world.
It was almost Ascent of the Gods Day.
Growing up, Tiv had always waited for Ascent of the Gods Day with bated breath. There had been decorations everywhere. Eleven-pointed mandalas to honor the eleven of Them. Star charts and galaxy patterns to commemmorate the day that the Gods launched Themselves into interstellar space, the day They'd truly escaped Old Humans' grasp and become divine. And there had been presents piled under a star-studded mobile in Tiv's living room. The big Ascent of the Gods Day tradition in Arinn was that you had to give each person a themed present, something related to the God that you thought most suited them.
Everyone had known, since Tiv was very small, that her favorite God was Techne. She had used to creep down the stairs, look at the wrappd presents, and hungrily imagine how many of them would be Techne's sort of present: art kits, model-building kits, pens and brushes, marble runs and blocks. There were always a few friends and relatives who saw Tiv's sweet way with people and insisted on Philophrosyne's style of present instead: cards to send, photo albums, friendship bracelets and chocolate. And there'd been one uncle, a jokester, who kept giving her some other God's presents just to be difficult. A thick throw blanket, Aergia's style, for her lazy bones to sleep under; or a set of white-outs and erasers, courtesy of Peitharchia.
But no one was putting up decorations this year. Nobody had left any presents for Tiv, and she had a feeling nobody would want a present in return. Not Yasira and the Seven, who were working against the Gods now at such cost to themselves. Not the people back home, who'd be puzzled and alarmed if Tiv snuck into their houses and left things there.
This was normal and logical. This was just what happened when you were on the run and working against the Gods. But Tiv was starting to get up every morning and stare at that calendar with a strange, nostalgic melancholy.
*
"What did you used to do for Ascent of the Gods Day?" she asked Splió offhand as they cleaned up grime from the floor of the weird upside-down kitchenette. The kitchenette wasn't nearly big enough for nine clumsy people, and messes kept happening.
"Oh, all kinds of stuff. Big parties. Big family get-togethers, big blowouts with friends; it was a good time."
"Do you miss it?"
Splió shrugged. "I miss having friends besides you guys, yeah. Miss the parties, but I don't miss having to cozy up and pretend that the Gods were good. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't do that again."
"So you don't miss worshipping the Gods. But you miss... like... the holiday cheer?"
"Ping me when people in the Chaos Zone can eat and stuff," he said, scrubbing harder. "Then we'll talk about cheer."
*
She tried the same questions on the rest of the team, with more or less the same results.
"No," said Luellae, "I don't miss it. I can't believe we ever talked that way about the Gods, like we didn't know what They really are. We all should have known. The signs were there."
"I don't know," said Picket, as the Four busily folded and put away some of their neverending pile of laundry. "I liked some of it, not other parts. I liked the cookies and the actual, sincere presents. Not the joke ones. My brothers would always jump on the pile first and make me wait, and then make fun of me for getting Aletheia's type of stuff. But I liked Aletheia's type of stuff just fine."
"My family had great big celebrations," said Grid, pressing an orderly crease into a sweatshirt. "I mean big. It was a lot of stress. Everything had to be perfect."
"I miss presents," said Weaver while she rummaged through and matched socks. "I mean, obviously we can't have presents now, though - how would that even work? How would you pick the God that best suits everybody when we're fighting against the Gods now?"
"The God that best suits us now is Nemesis," said Prophet. Her tone was gently ironic rather than sour, but that was still the end of that conversation.
Daeis just shrugged, nonverbal, and went back to petting the eighteen-legged creature that lay sprawled across their lap.
*
The last one Tiv asked was Yasira. She was having another of her gloomy spells, sprawled out listlessly on the bed, thinking whatever Yasira's dark thoughts were. She was very beautiful, even with her hair limp and tangled and her limbs growing thinner by the day. Tiv wanted her to eat more. So she coaxed Yasira to sit up and to start spooning the evening's noodles into her mouth - fresh ones with almonds, bean curd, and savory sauce, one of Yasira's favorites. Only when Yasira was chewing a good mouthful, smiling slightly, did Tiv say: "Random question, but do you ever miss Ascent of the Gods Day?"
Yasira chewed and swallowed before answering. "Oh. That's soon, isn't it? I almost forgot."
"It's not a big deal," said Tiv.
"Sounds like it is one to you," said Yasira.
Tiv looked at her sidelong. Yasira hadn't been well lately; she hadn't been well since the Plague began. Sometimes Tiv got wrapped up in caring for Yasira, understanding Yasira, remembering for both of their sakes how important Yasira's life and thoughts and feelings were. It shamed Tiv a little - a healthy and necessary shame - when she noticed Yasira caring for her, too. Not because Yasira ought not to; but because sometimes Tiv forgot that she could.
"Yeah," said Tiv. "I miss it. It just feels like it's been so long since any of us could be normal." And none of them would ever live a normal life again. Either they'd die in this war, or they'd change things so drastically that the word normal didn't mean the same thing anymore. "Do you miss it?"
"Not really. It was a lot of noise and a lot of buzz and a lot of people. I just wanted to read my books and do my math, you know?"
Tiv looked at Yasira and sighed, a strange sadness passing over her. That was what it was like for Yasira, so often. Always a little bit separate from everyone. Always on the outside looking in, even back on the Pride of Jai, even when everyone had adored her for her genius. Even then, Yasira had never quite belonged.
Yasira looked back at her, chewing her noodles thoughtfully.
"You know," said Yasira at last, "you don't have to ask permission to like something. You don't have to take a poll and see if the rest of us like it before you're allowed to like it yourself. You can just like things. Or miss them. Or whatever you want."
"Well, I miss it," said Tiv.
"Sounded like it," said Yasira.
She offered her hand and Tiv took it, smiling uncertainly. Yasira wasn't always good with physical contact these days. When she offered, Tiv treasured it, no matter how small.
"Bet you could go among the people," said Yasira. "In disguise. Soak up some Ascent of the Gods Day magic vicariously."
That was how Yasira would have done it, Tiv thought. That was the outside-looking-in version of holiday spirit. Maybe Yasira would even have liked it that way.
Tiv squeezed her hand and smiled. "I have a better idea."
*
A few mornings later, the Seven woke up to a bizarre sight.
While they slept, someone had decorated the War Room. Not much, not expertly, but enough that it looked different from before. Tinsel covered the cubicle walls, half-obscuring the sheets of paper full of charts and timetables that had been pinned up there. A star cut out from craft paper hung above them - not eleven-pointed, like the mandalas representing the eleven Gods, but nine-pointed for some reason. Below it, on the cheap folding table, sat a plate of cookies and a little pile of wrapped gifts.
"What-?" said Splió, trying to rub the crud from his eyes. Picket and Weaver had already darted in front of him and gone for the cookies. Tiv stood by her chair at the head of the table, arms crossed nervously, with Yasira quiet and supportive beside her.
"None of you have to," she said. "I just missed celebrating, so I cobbled together a little something."
Luellae raised her eyebrows very, very high, and Grid tilted their head skeptically, arms crossed in a mirror of Tiv's. But most of the Seven looked cautiously interested.
"So... it's Ascent of the Gods Day?" Picket said around a mouthful of cookie. "But without the Gods? How does that even work? What's ascending?"
"We are," said Tiv. She stepped to the table, picking up a present from the pile and handing it to him. "It's Ascent of Us Day. We're in this fight, and we're going to win it, and it's a bad fight, but I think it's important to remember that we're still human. We can still care for each other and be happy. So, the nine-pointed star is for the nine of us. And each of these presents here, they're not presents based on what God I think is right for you. They're just presents based on you."
Picket had already pulled open the reusable gift bag. His eyes went wide as he pulled out an old-fashioned video game cartridge and a funny adapter - one that looked like it might make the cartridge work with the weird supercomputer in a nook at the side of the lair. He grinned really big and blurted a "thank you;" really, though, the grin was all that Tiv had needed. She smiled warmly back.
That seemed to break the ice, and in a moment all seven of the Seven had swarmed the table, picking up their gifts and making delighted, amused, skeptical or appreciative sounds.
Hidden at the bottom of the pile, Tiv suddenly saw an extra gift. One that she didn't remember putting there.
She frowned, and then looked over at Yasira with a raised eyebrow.
"You're not the only one who can get up in the middle of the night," said Yasira.
"But you don't even like this holiday."
"I like you," said Yasira simply as Tiv reached in and opened the bag.
She let out a little breath as she drew out the book-sized box from inside. It was a model-building kit - one of the most correct and traditional Ascent of the Gods Day gifts, in Arinn, for someone whose favorite God was Techne. The box jingled softly, full of brilliantly colored metallic pieces which, when assembled according to the instructions, would form a sculpture of a bird.
Tiv used to have all sorts of these things scattered around, back when she was younger and lived with her family. But on the Pride of Jai there'd been no room for things like that, and since the Plague... well, she just hadn't thought of it. She bit her lip as a wave of emotion washed over her.
"You're right, you know," said Yasira as she watched Tiv's reaction. "We're going to."
"Going to what?"
"Ascend," said Yasira, and she took Tiv's hand.