Arialla nodded. "Most everything, yes. Aspects of the natural world ... Groves, springs, rivers all had their own gods. The sun, moon, stars ... My village prayed primarily to the gods of the sea, Poseidon and his Nereids, Proteus and Amphitrite ... We thanked Demeter for harvests and Artemis for hunts, Apollo for song and Athena for weaving ..."
She trailed off, not sure how to explain her wide array of gods in comparison to Caido's relatively few deities and their broad domains. It felt strange, here, to have a goddess for the stars but not for the sun or moon; not to ascribe a name to the stirring of the seas, to the east wind, to each individual grove and spring.
"So you're from a desert?" Arialla asked. She knew what the word meant, but it was hard for her to imagine a place without rain, without water, having spent all her life by the sea. Another nod, too: "I can see why they'd be good luck, if the trees were strong enough to outlast the drought by becoming stone. I wonder if they'll ever sprout again ..."
A pointless and perhaps painful question, she realized, when Peter could never go back to see if they did.
please don't take my sunshine away
