This story is a continuation of the story from February 20th. Catch up by reading People of the Storm, then read on below.

---

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/lightning-bushfire-australia/

Rain would come. It would not be much, but it would come. After the crack of lightning, after the tumble of thunder, the sky would relieve itself of its extraneous water. If the wildfires did not grow too quickly, the rain would put them out.

If they had grown too quickly, and this was likely given the dryness on this particular face of the earth, the rain would not be enough.

A thick bolt of lightning rocketed toward the ground. Just before impact, it split in two. A forked tongue of white-hot energy ripped into the flatlands, then vanished. Two halos of light were left behind. They were a man and a woman, and they were dressed in clothing of dim light. They were in the middle of an argument.

“You’re missing my point,” the man said.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Only because you’re poorly making it.”

“I’m making it fine,” the man replied. “You’re just being obstinate.”

“I don’t see how.”

“By understanding my point, knowing it’s right, and refusing to acknowledge it.”

The woman tutted in defiance. “I reject the premise.”

“Because you’re obstinate?”

“Because I don’t know what you’re saying is right.”

The man looked baffled. If he was the type to let his jaw hang open in shock, he would have done so. As things were, he simply pointed to his right. In that direction, the horizon burned an unnatural orange.

“So?” the woman said. “It’s a wildfire.”

“Almost,” he replied with exaggerated mockery.

“Almost?” she deigned to play along.

“It’s an enormous wildfire.”

“And how does that illustrate the degradation of our influence? Our lightning started it.”

The man bent down to one knee. The shine of his light-clothes didn’t waver as he dropped. Stranger still, it did not make the ground brighter as he knelt. It was as if the light only existed in place of fabric, but it had no influence beyond. He scooped a handful of dirt and held it up.

“What’s wrong here?” he asked, displaying the reddish-brown earth.

“A supernatural immortal is playing in the dirt.”

The man shook his head, unperturbed. “It’s dry dirt. Exceedingly dry.”

“Yes,” the woman said, relenting. “It does seem to be getting steadily worse.”

“It is.” The man turned his hand, and the dry dirt spilled to the ground with a whisper. “I blame this monotheism business.”

“You don’t blame the 8 billion people?”

“Only inasmuch as their actions are dictated by their worship.”

The woman laughed and started to walk across the dry ground. She headed toward a nearby tree that, even from distance, was clearly long dead. The man fell in step beside her.

“This is going to be a ridiculous point,” she said by way of preamble, then nodded at him to continue.

“Way back when, when we first found human worshippers, they had all kinds of gods, didn’t they? And the vast majority of them were related to nature – gods of animals, of streams, of the oceans and the mountains, of the wind and of storms.” The man made a comical, exaggerated flourish at himself and his companion. “And in worshipping those gods, it was imperative to protect the things over which those nature gods ruled. It was an external sort of worship, tangible and pragmatically applicable.”

“The current batch has external worship,” the woman countered. “They have a service, they eat the little tasteless circles. Lots of them have to wear hats.”

“Valid point all around, but those are symptomatic of an internal worship set,” said the man. “If those earlier people dropped a piece of trash into a river, it was considered to be literally dropping a piece of trash onto a god’s face. In this time, it might be considered a sin, but the punishment is some far-off, ephemeral damnation for being selfish. The act itself is not connected directly to their single God.”

Understanding dawned on the woman’s face. “Is this the point you’ve been trying to make for two days?”

“Is it the…” the man bristled and threw his hands up in exasperation. “Of course it is! These humans lost their direct connection to the things around them. And then they blame us when that,” he pointed once more to the distant fire, “happens with alarming regularity.”

“Because lightning strikes start it.”

“Lightning strikes are supposed to start fires! That’s how forests developed. A little fire here and there to clear out the dead stuff. But these humans, and their internal worship, prevent the fires for years and years and years and the dead stuff piles up way beyond reasonable levels. So it creates a wildfire-”

“An enormous wildfire,” she gamely corrected.

“Right you are,” he said. “And then the fire rages and then they demand we bring rain to put it out, as if we’re the ones to blame for the wasting of fields and farms and villages in the first place.”

For a few paces, they walked in silence while the woman processed all this information. Their feet crunched on the dry ground. It had been ages since she’d taken a human form and walked on the ground. The sensation was always strange, but she understood now why he’d invited her here to finish making his point.

“So they thwart our normal processes, blame us when lighting starts massive fires, and then get upset when our rain can’t put them out.” She shook her head in a disapproving sort of way.

He nodded. “Precisely.”

“Not very sporting of them, laying blame anywhere but the place it belongs.”

“I know it,” the man said.

The woman looked toward the orange horizon. She was attuned to the air and the wind and how it interacted with her home in the storm clouds above. Even from this distance, she could feel a heat in the air, taste little particles of ash when she breathed.

“This particular vintage of humanity leaves something to be desired.”

“Tell me about it,” the man replied. “That group from the desert a few weeks ago was completely shambolic.”

“I’m not getting you started on that again,” she said, and noticed this was her cue to abandon their corporeal form. “Anything else to show me before we go back?”

“No,” he said, and sighed. “I don’t know the answer. We will exist if the humans leave.” He spoke with a heavy undercurrent, clearly leaving something unsaid.

“And that’s a problem for you?”

The man shrugged. “A few centuries ago, I don’t think I would have cared.”

“And now?”

“I think, maybe, I’ve grown fond of having an occasional audience other than the People of the Storm.”

“Are you going to help them?”

The man smiled and looked up. High above, the electrical charges in the clouds began to arrange themselves just so. A huge bolt of lightning was moments from being born in a blast of light and heat and noise.

“I’ve already started.”

“Do you think that wise?”

“It’s hard to say,” he deadpanned.

Then the bolt formed, and shot to the earth in jagged lines, and the two People of the Storm returned home.