The Worshipper

 "Please don't kneel."

I can't grovel any lower than this; to get lower I'd have to dig a trench. A trench! I must prostrate myself before my redeemer, The Eldest and Youngest, the...

"Please. Come on. It's just the two of us."

Funny, I had expected a god - or goddess - to speak in all caps. Or small caps, like Pratchett's Death. Maybe I can't actually hear all caps?

"I SAID GET UP."

No, I can hear them.

I straighten up. I'm still not ready to stand before this goddess whose altar I've sat, knelt and even lain before for so long. This battered old temple has been through a war or two, winters almost without number, and since I've been a wee child toddling in at the side entrance, only one worshipper. Me. To be completely fair of course, it's entirely on my family's property which is large enough I'm not certain even my parents were aware it's here. It's pretty grown over.

"And who are you? What brings you to my lonely little temple? I had almost lost track of humanity but your voice has held me against the tide of oblivion. What brings you back to me, might I ask?"

The Goddess is not very tall. She's actually kind of petite and, uh, curvy. "I'm not anyone special, ma'am. Your story, your...history really resonated with me."

"Mmm?" She steps around the altar, lighting the lamps. The glow is instantly warming.

Where did the lamps come from?

"...and I just always wanted to honor that kind of life. You know, defending the home first and foremost, respecting the family without getting involved in the little in-fights, you know. Family before politics, if you see my meaning."

She shook her head, a rueful smile on her lips. "Some of the in-fighting wasn't exactly little, my dear."

"Uh, no. I guess not."

"One moment, luv." She makes a small movement at the altar and there's a small fire there now, too. "That's so much better. I did appreciate the candles but a bit of juniper, a little tallow and a sprinkling of basil makes for a fine little blaze. Smells good, yes?"

It did, very good. A little Christmasy perhaps, with the tiniest touch of Olive Garden. "It won't last long, though, ma'am."

She waved that away. "Pish. I can light another one if I need to."

"But the old traditions...?"

"Darling, I am the She. The Haven and the Incandescence. If I say it's time for the traditions to come to an end, don't you think it should be my call?"

"I reckon so."

"And we can start new ones if we need to."

"Sure, if you like." The Lady has drawn up a chair before her fire and lamps - wait, there was a chair in here? How did I miss that all these years? - and is looking supremely relaxed. "Why show yourself to me?"

"Well, luv," she says, and I have to say that every time she speaks, she sounds a bit more like me. It doesn't feel mocking but when I first heard her speak she sounded kind of foreign, but now she sounds like someone from just down the road, "you're the very last one to hold me in your heart."

"What, the very last?"

"The very last. No one ever whispers a prayer to me anymore. No one at all. None carry my traditions, ask for my intercession, and especially none light a fire in my honor. Not even a candle. No one at all, but you.

"I've seen this play out a few times, too, you know. Other deities fading into obscurity, usually when the last of their faithful die of old age, more tragically when adherents just give up and quit. With the old folks fading away the gods go the same way, losing cohesion over a few years and winking out with the lives of their believers. They go to the same place usually, so it's not a bad thing. But when a believer stops believing we go out a bit abruptly, and it hurts. Sometimes I can still hear Chalchiuhtlicue weeping from beyond the veil. Poor thing. She deserved better."

"That sounds terrible."

"It is. But you asked, why show myself to you? And I'll tell you: I'm pretty lonely."

"Ma'am?"

"Oh, darling. No. Not 'ma'am,' if you don't mind. I've been this age for a long time but because you're the last, when you go, I go. So your age is my age, I'm not going to be ma'amed anymore.

"But yeah, lonely. Like I said, Chai went away, Odin went away. There aren't many of us left. Jesus is hanging on but he's a little cranky these days. Too many conflicting requests gives him a headache. Yahweh is shouting back at his believers but they're too busy shouting at him so I just keep my distance from that whole mess. Many Japanese families venerate their elders so that for a while they stick around, tiny but glimmering like fireflies. They're beautiful. None of us have ever been able to make out what they're saying but I quite like them.

"And here I am with just you. And since it's just me and you I think we can dispense with the whole god-worshipper thing and it'll just be the two of us. I've never actually taken part in the real world and if I only have a human lifespan left to me, I think I'd like to share it with you."

I must confess that though I've read it in syrupy novels I had never, until this moment, experienced the phenomenon of my jaw dropping, but drop it did.

"Are you?" Slow down, take a breath. "Are you asking me out?"

"Absolutely. I'm going to live the life I never got to live before."

"Aren't you traditionally a vir..."

"First of all, I am not tearing my clothes off and flinging myself at you so pace yourself and we'll see about that as we go on, and secondly, new traditions. The old dynamic isn't relevant anymore. It's just you and me, now."

"New beginnings. Do you want me to keep calling you..."

"I was never keen on that name. But I'll tell you I had a priestess who suffered rather a lot while serving me, and I wronged her in the end. I would honor her memory if you would call me Sylvia."

"But that's my name."

"I know. Call me, Sylvia."