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bloodoftheforest t1_j6p3ryi wrote

I don't buy salt. I don't have some sort of strange aversion to it - I've eaten salty food when I've been out with friends and whilst I think it's a stronger taste than they seem to I certainly don't hate it. It isn't even as though I've never bought salt but it seemed to be the one spice (herb? condiment? flavour?) that I would always lose or run out of. It's fine, I know I misplace things more than the average person and honestly a life without salt wasn't all that bad. My blood pressure is pretty awesome despite not having the healthiest diet known to man and it encouraged me to use other herbs and spices to ensure my cooking had some sort of flavour (mostly just garlic, lots of garlic).
But tonight was different. I'm okay with my cooking being saltless when it's just me in the house but tonight was the first time Marie was coming over and I wanted to be sure things were perfect. I put the brand new container of salt on the counter, mildly paranoid that storing it in a cupboard for even a second would cause it to spontaneously disappear. It sounds silly but on the other hand I can lose a set of house keys in three seconds flat so maybe it's just a sensible precaution at this point.
The salt didn't disappear though. It stayed right where it was but it almost looked like it was bulging. Can salt go off? I mean, it's just rocks isn't it?
I was wondering if I'd have to head back to the store when the salt container exploded. More salt than you'd think could fit inside cascaded across the counter and onto the floor whilst a few tiny grains shot up to the ceiling. The salt kept coming. There was supposed to be 500g of salt there, I think. Even if I'd misremembered there can't have been meant to be more than a kilogram. But salt kept flowing until there was a human-sized pile collecting on the floor. I had to shuffle backwards to get away from it and it just wouldn't stop.
Until finally it did. The salt stopped appearing from wherever it'd been coming from and instead started stacking. I didn't really have time to decide whether salt managing to stack itself was worse than irt multiplying and fllaing to the floor before it sculpted itself into a humanoid shape and changed form entirely.
The woman who was now standing in my kitchen towered over me in a water-patterned dress
and yellow face paint. She wore a tall paper crown that brushed the ceiling with its tips and had beautiful feathers hanging down from it. Her legs had small bells tied to them and her feet were wearing sandals that looked out of place in the chilly kitchen.
I didn't take this in all at once, of course. THe only things I noticed when this woman first appeared was that she was in between me and the only way out and she did not look happy.
"Hello?" I asked, even though 'hello' isn't really a question.
She glared at me.
"Can I offer you some tea?" I asked her after a moment's thought and regretted it instantly.
I don't know what you're supposed to do when mysterious beings arrive in your kitchen
without warning but I felt as soon as I'd spoken that 'offer them tea' was not it.
"You attempt to reject your punishment." the woman said.
"Right. Sorry about that." I said with a nod and then added, "Quick question though - what is my punishment, who are you and why am I being punished anyway?"
"You don't know my name?" the woman said with an alarming increase in volume.
"No, of course I do. Yup. Um, just the other two questions."
"You have been punished for rejecting my gift of fertility and your punishment has been set as a life devoid of salt. Yet you attempt to cheat this judgement and bring ever more salt into your domicile."
There was frankly no part of this that made sense to me. I didn't even know what to address first.
"You've been stealing my salt?" I asked without thinking.
"Salt is my gift and you are no longer permitted to enjoy it! How dare you think that you have the right to my generousity after offending me so!"
"Right, of course. Sorry."
Which only left the fertility thing. I didn't understand it but only a complete idiot would ask a strange god who apparently rules all salt to clarify something like that. You'd have to be mind numbingly dumb to ask a creature like that to go into the ins and outs of exactly how
you'd offended her.

[Continued below...]

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bloodoftheforest t1_j6p4cei wrote

"What do you mean about the fertility thing?" I asked, mentally kicking myself even as I did so, "I mean I know I don't go on a lot of dates and I haven't got any kids but it's totally in my life plan, I think. And the dates thing is looking up, I'm actually meant to be seeing someone tonight which reall-"
She cut me off.
"Not your fertility. Hers."
The woman pointed outside my kitchen window and I gazed out to see what random woman I'd apparently managed to block the fertility of. To my surprise and slight amusement there were no women out there at all but there was one very loved but rather dimwitted cat.
"I'm not allowed salt... because I got my cat fixed?" I asked, desparately trying not to laugh.
"Fixed??" the goddess bellowed, "She was perfect and you-"
I cut her off without thinking.
"Yeah, sorry. I mispoke. It's just we don't have room or money for any kittens. And I wouldn't want pets I can't look after. I didn't mean to upset you, I didn't even know you existed. It's just that I really love Tosspot and so I took her to the vet to check she was healthy and I got her... spayed so that there wouldn't be anymore strays. She was sad
when I met her. I don't want there to be other sad cats."
Outside, Tosspot raced along the fence and leapt down out of sight.
"It was a gift." the salt/fetility goddess said quietly.
"I understand. It just wasn't a gift that was useful to us. I'm sorry."
My eyes darted to the clock without thinking. My date would be coming in half an hour. It was ridiculous in some ways that in the midst of all of this craziness I was calculating if I was still going to have time to prepare the food before she arrived but I guess I really liked her. Either that or human brains really, really don't know how to cope with events that are this surreal.
"So." I said after a while, "What happens now? I didn't mean to reject your gift. I'm a huge fan of kittens when there's space for them and fertility in general, I guess. Not that I've thought about it... but I wouldn't be here if you weren't out there giving gifts to people. Salt's great too so good job on that. Is there some way this can turn out that actually everything's good between us?"
"You didn't know who I was."
"No." I admitted. "But I appreciated you without knowing you were there.A lot of people probably do. And I am sorry. I meant no offense and if I'd had a chance to talk to you then I'd have been able to explain things before I offended you."
"You wish more opportunity to talk with me?"
Oh. Not really.
"Sure. If that'll make things clearer between us."
"Then we shall speak again." The woman said and just like that the whole process reversed itself.
The goddess turned back into a tall stack of salt and then that salt leapt from whereshe'd stood back onto the counter, diminishing itself as it did so. The container was broken by the explosion but a small pile of saltformed where it had stood. I stepped closer and examined it warily.
It seemed to be normal salt though. It didn't move and there was nothing to it butshiny white granules. Even so, I watched it out of the corner of my eye as I cooked. I could have thrown it away but somehow I knew that my new friend would know if I did so. So I cooked the recipe as intended and when the time came, I added salt to a dish for the first time in years.
Just a pinch.

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jeffh4 t1_j6pdpmc wrote

Very nice characterization!

Why am I reminded of the Swamp Thing story when the lead was pissed at government agents that had arrested his girlfriend. Since Swamp Thing was a plant god, they ate only meat on their stakeout, until one man carelessly bit a tomato slice.

SPLAT! A huge tomato plant grows from the inside out.

I don't look forward to what happens when just a pinch of Goddess wakes up inside a grown man and woman!

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