Daycation: Morning

Despite Aldous denying the scruffy man wasn’t a god, the stories made her feel otherwise. She’d never seen him but even a secluded goddess stories reached her. A man like that, a man whose presence is felt before he even enters the room is at least a candidate for godhood. Diwa sat quietly for a while watching the sun slowly creeping above the sea.

“What are you thinking?” Aldous asked.

Diwa snapped back to reality. “Oh…” she spoke. “Sorry, still just surprised the scruffy man isn’t a god.” she said.

Aldous let out a chuckle. “What would he be a god of? Certainly not Fashion. But don’t let that fool you. If you’ve heard a tale about him it’s probably true.”

Diwa nodded. “I do have another question.” she said. “Are there any gods not allowed on the island?” she asked.

Aldous gave a shrugging nod. “A few, for varying reasons. Some practical, some to avoid danger or trouble that would ruin the relaxing time, gods too big for the island.” he said. “Oh and being like, Outer Gods, Great Old Ones, and gods that lack form and must use avatars, though sometimes their avatars do find their way here somehow.

“Like who?” Diwa asked, turning towards Aldous slightly.

Aldous leaned back and thought. “Well some of my brothers, to chaotic, and like to start problems.” Aldous closed his eyes. “Well then you have well…I can’t say his name,” he said.

“Oh…come on…you can’t start telling me juicy gossip then just bail out.” Diwa said, pouting.

Aldous shook his head. “You misunderstand, I literally can’t say it.” he said. “Its not meant for tongues shaped like ours to speak. It's a ‘written’ name never to be spoken. I don’t think he’d be fun at parties.”

Diwa looked at Aldous confused. “How do you know it can’t be spoken?” she asked.

“You’d know it if you heard it. I can read a lot of languages, and it's just letters on a page with no meaning to me.” he said. “I don’t know if it's actually even a real god, and not just something that gains power from its name being in the world. Even if nobody can read it.”

Diwa didn’t understand but she got the feeling Aldous really didn’t know much more about the subject. “So why can’t your brothers come to the island?” She asked.

“Sadly…” Aldous said, “Most of my siblings aren’t as level headed as I am and think that all angels are the enemy and started a lot of fights. The makers of this place only want to rebuild if the reason was fun. Like a casual fling breaking a bed.” Aldous joked.

“Cute.” Diwa yawned. “Last question. What exactly is an ‘Great Old One’ and an ‘Outer God’?”

“Well…” Aldous began. “Outer Gods don’t exist in our reality, not on any of the planes either. They exist outside everything more like a storm than a physical ‘god’ and ‘Great Old One’ are things that came from the stars long before anything existed. Not all powerful but I wouldn’t want to go out of my way to fight one.”

“So they are ‘gods’?” Diwa asked.

“Gods in that they gain power by people knowing they exist, yes, in the sense of answering prayers that’s doubtful.”

“That is a lot to think about.” Diwa said.

The sun was well up, not high in the sky but the spectacle of the rising sun was over. “Can you take me to my room to get some sleep?”

“Yeah, let's go.” Aldous said, offering her his hand again to stand.