Krabbit, goddess of the people once known as Seedlings, sent her creatures a warning: I’ll be visiting you all a week from Tuesday. As long as you’re not hurting each other, I don’t really care what you’re doing. However, if you’re going to be embarrassed by something, please don’t be doing it then as I’d rather you didn’t have any new hangups.
Naturally, all the Ztedots*—the Seedlings’ new name—gathered in the place where Krabbit had last been sighted.
* ze’dätz
Krabbit wandered her world for a bit and found the quiet somewhat disquieting. After a few minutes, she figured out where all her creatures had gone.
“Why are you all bunched up like this?” she asked.
“It seemed like a good idea,” one of the Ztedots nearish the edge said.
“And all of you are here?”
“Yes,” the Ztedots answered. “Except Zedula.”
“And why isn’t Zedula here?” Krabbit did not hope for a sensible answer. She sighed silently.
“He said he’d just put a pizza* in the oven,” said one Ztedot. “And it’d be a shame to waste it.”
* The meaning of this word has been lost. It is translated to a popular snack food in the locale of every translation. The translators argued between chicken nuggets and pizza. Pizza won out as it doesn’t necessarily require eating things that can suffer.
“But he had more than a week’s notice!”
Clearly, some of her people were irritated with this Zedula person.
“Alright. You all stay here. I must go speak with Zedula.”
Krabbit meandered through the clouds until she found a house with smoke coming from the chimney.
She entered the house. “Zedula?” she said.
“Who’s there? I don’t see anyone.”
“It’s me, Krabbit.”
“Oh, fancy you visiting my house.”
A bell dinged.
“Just a second,” Zedula said. He opened the oven and eyed the pizza for a moment. He sniffed three times and pulled the pizza onto the counter. “In another five minutes, it’ll be cool enough to eat! Mind if I sit?”
“No, by all means.”
Zedula pulled a chair out and sat in it. “So, what brings you to my house, goddess?”
“All your people said you’d refused to come, Ztedot.”
Zedula laughed. “‘Seedling’ is fine by me.”
“I think I will call you Zedula if you call me Krabbit.”
“Fine by me, Krabbit.”
“So, what brings you to your world today.”
“Your people seemed a little too quiet. I thought I’d check up on them.”
“A sensible precaution.”
“So, why didn’t you come to see me?”
“Well, you didn’t say to, and I couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing then standing around waiting for you to show up so I figured I’d probably make a pizza instead. Then everyone got really upset and I decided I definitely had to make a pizza instead.”
“Hm. Mind if I join you for pizza?”
“No, be my guest,” Zedula said.
Krabbit appeared as a middle-aged Ztedot and took a seat.
“Is that what you really look like?” Zedula asked.
“No, of course not. I look like what I looked like just before I looked like this.”
“Ah. Like nothing. I see.”
“I just figured it’d be less disconcerting to see a Ztedot eating pizza then to see a goddess eating pizza.”
“Possibly.”
The goddess Krabbit approached her weary followers. “Attention, Seedlings,” she announced.
The Ztedots grumbled at this.
“From now on, if I have something to say, I’ll say it through my prophet Zedula.”
The crowd was silent for a moment.
“Are you sure?”
“Isn’t there anyone better?”
“Do we ask him if we have any questions about how we should live?”
Krabbit breathed in deeply. “Yes, no, and maybe. Good day.”
Since the crowd couldn’t see Krabbit had gone, the Ztedots continued to plead for half an hour. Then, as they’d already waited four hours for her return from Zedula’s house, they went home.
And quite a few of them made pizza. It’d been on their minds all day.
This is the story of Krabbit’s first prophet, Zedula. He was appointed in the middle half of the third age of the Seedlings.
#78
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