Long ago, Anansi was stumped. He had no idea how he would avoid the wrath of the young aboatia known as Pultine and complete his last trial of delivering the petulant child to Obea at the roots of his mother’s Cotton-Wood tree.
“Bring her a gift,” Anansi said aloud as he surveyed the forest around him, and he was angry. He’d never spent considerable time on the Disc of Agê in his past and he had no idea what a child with the favor of her Disc’s Vodun would appreciate as a gift. And she had given him very few options for their future interactions, many of which involved his death if he made her unhappy. Even though she was a child, she had lived for many years by that point and the favor of the Vodun Agê meant that Pultine was bestowed with incredible power that she was still learning to wield in a responsible way, so he was sure that she could end his life if she wanted to. The entire situation was insulting to the son of a Vodun and a Luminary of the Disc of Jo, and he almost panicked at the thought of this story spreading throughout the Fonlands, how the son of Lêgba and Nyame was humiliated and then killed by a child.
As he wandered toward the tree home where Pultine had indicated he should meet her by the setting of the light of the Disc, he was mostly angry at himself for even suggesting a gift, but he wasn’t really thinking in the moment, just reacting to the adolescent and trying to say what she might like to hear. He had played himself into a difficult corner and the solution wasn’t presenting itself as quickly as it had in the past. Then, Anansi unknowingly kicked a large branch that was growing above ground and he screamed out in surprise as he fell flat on his face in the thick dirt next to the root. It was not wet, but as damp as it could be without being soaked and he struggled to free himself from it and to stand. As he moved his many hands around searching for solid purchase to push himself up, one of his hands smacked down in a puddle of the tree’s mucilage, a translucent substance produced by most plants and very noticeably in the extremely large and ancient trees of Age’s Disc. The mucilage was very sticky and when Anansi tried to lift his hand out of it, there was a thick trail of it that he had to pull away from for a long time before it snapped and released him, allowing him to stumble out of the mud and back onto more solid ground where he sat panting even angrier than he had been, his face and clothes now caked in mud.
Then he cocked his head to one side as something occurred to him. If he could collect that mucilage and get Pultine to touch it, he could occupy her long enough to cast a portal that would send her to Nyame before she could even react. He would just have to disguise it somehow, and Anansi stood, still breathing heavily but composed enough to cast a spell, and he lifted his left hand in a swooping motion that removed all of the mud from his body and it flew off into the bush next to him. Then he used both hands to form specific patterns that produced glowing silver lines from his hands that shot out to the space near the tree root and gathered a ball of the viscous material in an orb that wrapped it but didn’t obscure it completely. The magical silver lines of Anansi’s hand magic shaped the glob into what looked like a pristine and glowing replica of the mmoatia child, Pultine. It was like a crystal figure about a third the size of the actual mmoatia and Anansi smiled at it, relieved that he had come up with some gambit, but still on edge if such a simple ruse would be enough. None of the trials to this point had been as nerve-wracking and he prayed to the Mother-Father that it would all be over soon and he would still be alive to take his place as the Vodun of stories.
He saw Pultine’s tree house from a distance where she had made a home in the hollow of a long dead tree that still stood sturdily with its thick roots that kept it firmly anchored in the dirt. It did not produce leaves, but there were such a tangle of branches that one might be fooled that it was full of growing, albeit brownish gray, foliage. There were trees in the vicinity of Pultine’s home, but there was a space around it that was almost a clearing and Anansi stood at the foot of the tree looking up when he arrived at it. The grass was softer on his bare feet and all of the low growing flowering bushes were vibrant and alive in stark contrast to the ancient tree carcass that it surrounded. The waning daylight fell easily over the clearing and Anansi found it to be very relaxing. He took a deep breath at the base of the tree, his offering to the mmoatia glittering and floating just beside him.
“Is this it?” Anansi heard and it startled him out of his calm. He collected himself as Pultine floated to land in the clearing near him. She had a look of fascination on her face as she squinted her eyes at the glowing figure and slowly drifted closer to it. “It looks like me.”
“It is you,” Anansi said and he shook his disorientation at the sudden change in his emotions upon entering that clearing. He put on his best pitch voice. “It is the best I could do to give you a gift worthy of one as pristine as yourself. This shining idol is meant to be held in both hands and contact with the feet is also encouraged for reasons that escape me at the moment, but when you hold it that way at a specific angle of the setting light, you will see it glow as resplendently as you do. Please try it before you render your judgement on my gift, I ask that you be fair before deciding my fate.”
Pultine was very close to the thing that Anansi had christened the shining idol and the look on her face was ambiguous when it came to judging her feelings about whether or not to kill Anansi, but he hoped that her focus on it meant that she liked it.
“It’s good,” she said without looking at Anansi.
“What?” Anansi said with surprise.
“It’s good,” she said again then landed on the ground and walked to stand in front of him, leaving the shining idol floating where it was. “Where are you taking me?”
“To the Disc of Jo,” Anansi said, practically stumbling over his words in his shock at Pultine’s acquiescence. He cast a portal with his webbing and when he did, he completely forgot about the shining idol and the silver magic that held it together disappeared, leaving the mucilage to fart down into the grass. “Obea will be happy to meet you.”
“I reserve the right to kill you at any moment I am displeased,” Pultine said as she walked through the portal.
Anansi was a funny Fonlander, he was good at making a crowd laugh, so he knew how to appreciate dark humor, but he couldn’t tell if Pultine meant to be humorous or not.
He followed Pultine through the portal and Obea flew to greet them both.
“It is nice to meet you,” Obea said and she knelt in front of the adolescent mmoatia. “You are good, Anansi, tell your mother that I give you my blessings, Vodun of stories. I hope you won’t insist that anyone call you that.”
“Thank you, Obea, it has been, well not a pleasure but experience is its own reward I guess. Goodbye.”
With that, Anansi went back to the Luminary Nyame in her rocking chair on a branch of the Cotton-Wood that she called home, and she relieved herself of the weight of the Scroll in the Time Chamber. She stayed on the Cotton-Wood for a while before she left her Cotton-Wood home to Obea for adventures that excited her around the Fonlands and beyond.
When Anansi left her with Pultine, Obea smiled at the child.
“We have very important and difficult work to do. I hope that you are ready for a fierce battle.”
“Of course, that is why I came,” Pultine said with a devious smile. “While Anansi was crafting that idol thing, I used the time to find out who the Luminary Aziza was and I am honored to be summoned here to battle you. I insist that we fight to the death, it would be an honor to die by your hand.”
“Oh, little one,” Obea said with a deep sigh, “I see the bush has made you eager to fight any and everything. That is good for what is to come, but I am not your enemy. Think of me as a mother figure.”
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