6 Lettuce like you've never seen before (2)

His face was a muddy green, and mummy wraps covered his arms and legs. The only saving grace in his appearance was the large crown headpiece he wore that glowed in brilliant gold shimmer.

His face was just a few inches from hers as she looked up at him. She could feel his breath,and smell it too, which made her want to throw up all she had eaten in her previous life and beyond. He extended a hand out to touch her face, and she had never recoiled from something so fast since her parents had mentioned getting a Job to her, when she was Abdo.

"No fucking way, get those mummy hands away from me. Where is my father?!" She stumbled backwards, not taking her eyes off him incase he tried anything sketchy.

"Hmm..." the strange looking man tilted his head as he observed and walked forward towards her in a slow motion. Keeping his green eyes glued to her.

And that was the first time Riya had felt truly afraid since being reborn.

"I don't know who you are, but you better stay away. My father will probably un-make you or something if you lay a hand on me. He is a pretty big God around here." she yelped as she backed away further.

But she came to a stop as she hit a solid obstacle while backing up. And she had never felt so relieved as she did that moment, when she turned around to find the torso of her father blocking her way The old green man then spoke to her father with a laugh.

"You did not tell me you have a time traveller for a daughter, Amu. Shai would be delighted to have another Goddess to discuss his Time and fate theories with."' he said with amusement in his voice.

Riya looked up at her dad, realizing he was larger in size than she remembered before. She could also see something was terribly wrong, as his face contorted into a scowl and his features darkened, while his gaze pierced through her..

"My sincere apologies my lord, I do not know what is wrong with this one." He spoke to the mummy man behind her, with the same deference the priests had in their voices when they spoke to any God but her. Without even a warning, her father simply touched her forehead and she felt a pain like no other coursing through all her body. She couldn't scream or breath, she simply fell down on the floor and lost her consciousness.

The next time she woke up, she was told by her mother about the decree that was issued and her status as a Goddess of Fertility and childbirth. She was also no longer welcome to stay there. When she asked why, she was simply told she had offended someone beyond the scope of even her father, and her father won't stand her living here any longer. And that was that. She was sent packing to this remote place called Nwiba, to an old temple refashioned for her.

He mother had personally brought her here, through a portal she summoned. The Gods and mortals lived in the same world but in different domain or planes, so she couldn't make it back there even if she wanted to for some reason.

She was stuck here from now on.

She thought she could live in peace at least, but after last night's childbirth ordeal and shenanigans, she wasn't sure where could do that either. Yawning in boredom, Riya got up from her cosy place under the Oak tree and walked back to her little temple.

Waiting for her at her doorsteps was a familiar figure she wasn't sure she was happy to see again. Senthia beamed with happiness the moment Riya came in sight,and quickly groveled on the floor, touching her forehead to the ground.

"Great goddess, welcome back." she said with earnesty in her voice. Riya felt undeserving of such thanks, because she was almost certain that little miracle that brought back the dead baby was her mother's doing. She did nothing deserving of treatment like this. It simply didn't seem right to worship someone as powerless as her. You might as well worship squirrel or a baboon.

"Get up, kid." she ordered Senthia, who slowly looked up at her. "Why are you back here again?"

"Mother had asked me to come and bring you more offering, your Radiance" the girl mumbled, while she got up and brought out a basket she had hidden behind her.

As soon as Riya saw the basket and its content she rolled her eyes in confusion and disappointment.

"Why do you always bring me this?" She sighed, while studying the basket full of lettuce.

Ever since they started showing up here, all they brought was lettuce. Baskets and baskets of lettuce. She wasn't a livestock or a vegan to eat lettuce non stop. .None of the dreamy stuff like gold, delicious meat or fancy things that people should offer their gods were offered to her. Just crappy white lettuce sticks.

"It is the tradition ,your Radiance..." Senthia mumbled, not sure about the strange question and how to answer it.

"It is a symbol, your Radiance." Another voice answered for Senthia, drawing both of their attention to a new person walking towards them.

A young man with a completely shaved head walked up to the temple, smiling amiably at Riya and taking a quick shallow bow when he reached her. 'It is the usual offering for a deity of Fertility like yourself, You Radiance" He finished his statement, the smile never leaving his face as he spoke.

Riya looked at him from head to toe for a minute. From the way he was dressed, it was obvious to her that he was a priest. She had seen many of those back in her family's palace, wearing the symbols and colors of her parent's temples.

This one wore a plain white robe, with two strange symbols on each side of his chest. He seemed young, and his bald head did nothing to distract from the chiseled jawline and beauty of his well sculpted face."Why lettuce?" She asked him with a questioning look, more curious about the lettuce than him.

Then the reasoning became quickly apparent, when the man stepped up to take one of the lettuce sticks in the basket, and broke it in half. Thick white fluid oozed out of the broken lettuce stick , spilling out slowly from the bulbous end of the stick and dripping on the ground before her. Riya instinctively reached down to shield her crotch as she felt terror, before remembering she was now a woman. This dripping lettuce stick clearly resembled a certain thing she had seen often in the privacy of her own room back when she was Abdo.

"You have got to be kidding me. You people sexualize lettuce?!" She looked up at the bald priest in horror, holding the excited lettuce in his hand. His smile didn't waver even once since she had seen him. He looked a bit confused for a second, then nodded in understanding while dropping the lettuce sticks back in to the basket.

"It is an aphrodisiac, your Radiance. It is the symbol of fertility and thriving here." he explained to her, while his fingers glided to his chest and pointed to the symbol on his robe. It was now apparent that it was a symbol of a lettuce.

"I'm Silorek, your Radiance.And I'm to be a priest in your temple." He bowed again, this time more deeply than before.

But all that Riya could think of at the moment was that she was also a Goddess of lettuce.

She hated Lettuce.

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