It was cold.
It was wet.
It was normal.
Plunk looked up at the sky, the clouds were grey. The bits of the sky were there were no clouds were grey too. There was a slightly lighter grey over where Plunk assumed the sun would be. ‘Bloody weather.’ He spoke without rancour or hostility, just stating a fact. He gathered his cloak around him and shoved at the door with his shoulder.
The damp-swollen door shuddered open and the cold wind threw a handful of rain straight into Plunk’s face. ‘Bugger,’ he said, again more as a statement of fact than a curse. He’d given up cursing the weather the day they’d found and killed the weather god. Plunk didn’t think there was much point in cursing the weather now there was no god to listen, but old habits do die hard… much as weather gods die, come to that. Plunk’s mouth tried to remember how to smile at the memory as he trudged head down through the puddles and the wind-thrown rain towards his barn.
Plunk couldn’t remember whether the weather was better before they’d killed the weather god, as some staunch religionists claimed. Somehow he doubted it, gods, like lords, like kings and everyone else who managed to grab some power – to Plunk’s mind – were all the same. As long as they were warm and dry and had all the food, drink and women their wealth and power could get them, then they couldn’t give a stuff for ordinary folk.
Plunk opened his barn door and smiled at his flock of ducks, who - contrary to local folklore - seemed more than happy to be inside out of the rain.
There was a rustle and she emerged from the stacked hay on the hayloft above his head. Plunk grabbed for his hayfork. ‘Who are you?’
She floated down the ladder, her feet not appearing to step on the rungs. ‘Don’t you recognise me, Plunk?’
‘Ye… y… Yes, Goddess,’ Plunk felt his knees bending as he pulled his cap from his head. ‘What do you want with me?’ He risked a glance up from his lowered eyes.
‘As you may know, our weather god had… a bit of an accident.’
Plunk nodded, not looking up, as his hands worried and wrung his rain-soaked cap.
The Goddess reached out and lifted his chin. Her hand was soft, warm and dry. She looked into his eyes. ‘We have decided, the next weather god… it is going to be you.’
‘Oh, shit,’ Plunk said.
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