"So the god of duality…"
Uriel was looking at her as seriously as he could, but honestly he had no idea what she was talking about. Still, he knew it was something important. Ininise seemed to be waiting for some other reaction, because she still hadn't said anything after dropping something like that.
"I have absolutely no idea what it means to be an oracle, sorry."
Ininise opened her eyes in surprise.
"Your world doesn't have gods?"
Uriel was thinking about how to explain thousands of years of theology, but honestly it was a subject he barely understood beyond the basics, so he didn't want to risk giving Ininise the wrong idea about human culture.
"Oh, no, of course there are. There used to be many gods."
Ininise's eyes lit up when she heard him speak. Attentively, it seemed like this was a topic that interested her a lot.
"Thousands of years ago, in my world there were thousands of gods. Hundreds for each culture. There were gods for everything: gods of lightning, gods of the seas, uhhh… gods of parties…"
Uriel gave it his all to remember his classes as best as he could. Personally, history had never interested him very much. Honestly, he preferred the moment when it was time to leave school rather than being there studying. At least before his father became an alcoholic and aggressive. After that, he started preferring to stay at school as long as he could, hoping that when he got home, his father would already be asleep from the alcohol.
For some reason, Ininise looked a little sad.
"Shit… am I explaining this that badly?"
"But then, uhh… you see… a NEW GOD appeared. Yes! That was it! A new god appeared and said: all of you must worship only me. The gods you worship are nothing but false idols."
At first, Ininise seemed a bit disappointed by how much he hesitated while saying it, but she kept listening attentively to the second part.
"So they had many gods, but suddenly this new god appeared and simply told them that everything they believed was false and that he was the only truth."
Well… when you put it like that, it sounds kind of bad.
Ininise seemed a little horrified by what she was hearing.
"That sounds more like an evil god."
Shit, I really did explain it badly. If my mom saw what I just did, she'd hit me without hesitation.
"No, no! He's a really good guy. In fact, he supposedly saved humanity."
Uriel tried to fix his small theological mistake as quickly as he could.
Ininise seemed to regain some of the interest and brightness in her expression.
"Oh, and how did he save them?"
Alright, here we go. How was it again? Oh, right.
"He sent his son as a sacrifice to save us and we… killed him…"
"Oh…"
Ininise looked genuinely saddened by the whole situation.
"Oh, but don't worry. Obviously all of this is false. After all, I don't think gods exist… or well, I don't think that one exists specifically. Though now I'm not so sure anymore; the gods here seem pretty real."
Though honestly he didn't know what they were capable of. Uriel remembered Soliel—those bright points that moved lively around him. He wondered whether it had a physical form or what it was capable of. It was, without a doubt, a mystery.
"I see. I wonder how a world without gods works. But in my world, gods are very real and they govern very key aspects of life."
Uriel was surprised. He didn't know when Ininise had started speaking.
"Cough, cough."
Ininise suddenly choked, but quickly recovered.
She stood up from the floor to give Uriel the explanation, as if it were necessary to stand in order to do so.
"You see, in the world I come from there were ten gods, each representing ten different cycles of the world. When one of them gained power, it meant the world entered a different cycle."
She showed both of her hands to Uriel.
"In fact, each of our fingers is supposed to represent one of the ten gods."
At that moment, one of Ininise's fingers slowly revealed itself, appearing as faint magical traces that had been hiding it faded away. On her right hand, a sixth thumb beside her pinky.
"I have eleven of those fingers."
She fell silent, staring straight at him.
Is she waiting for my reaction?
Uriel looked at the hand with the sixth finger. It looked really curious. Some people would probably find it strange or even disgusting. But Uriel felt very differently.
Somehow, he liked it. It was exactly what he had expected when he entered the tower. In fact, he had felt a bit disappointed when he saw that the first alien species he encountered were basically just colored humans with horns and tails.
Well, he didn't have much to say. In his eyes, Ininise was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And if she had a sixth finger, did that make her any less beautiful? She still had a figure anyone would envy: wide hips with legs that did them justice, a plump chest, and above all, a face that looked like that of an angel. That finger was nothing; in fact, he liked it. It was pretty, like all the others she had, adorned with gold. It only caught him off guard a little because it was the first time he had seen it.
Would it be disrespectful if I asked to touch it?
"Cough, cough."
Ininise started choking on her own saliva. She was so red it seemed like her skin had never been white at all, but more like Kaelira's.
Uriel stood up in surprise to help her.
"Don't come any closer!"
She seemed even more startled by that action.
Uriel could only think: What's happening? What's happening?
After a moment, Ininise stopped coughing and raised her hand again, but this time she kept it a little farther away.
"What I wanted to ask you is what you think it means."
Uriel rubbed the back of his head.
"Uhhhh… I don't know. Maybe that there's another god?"
Ininise looked surprised and smiled.
"Yes, very good! That means there aren't just ten gods… there are eleven."
Uriel, however, didn't understand what the problem was.
"But what's the problem with that?"
Ininise took a deep breath, preparing herself.
"You see… the god of duality…"
Her eyes opened wide.
"URIEL!"