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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BSF" data-source="post: 1523593" data-attributes="member: 13098">I have been thinking about this for a few hours.  Should I answer this?  I only pause because it is where the preachy part of the story starts to develop.  So, I will answer, because you have asked.  However, there might be some people that don't want to know.  They may have their own ideas.  So, I think I will put it in spoiler tags.  For those unfamilair with spoiler tags ... they prevent you from inadvertently seeing part of the story being explained.  That might "spoil" the experience for you. The rest of the post will show up as black on black, if you are using the default theme.  If you want to read the spoiler text, just highlight it.  Otherwise, move along to the next post.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />[Spoiler]Papa and Auntie - What are they to me?  I tried to foreshadow and imply just a little bit.  But, I didn't want to clobber over the head with it.  I will take two lines from my story and cut out the obfuscating text in between.“Have faith Jake, the Sky Father and the Earth Mother will aid us.”  ...But first, Little Bird wished to visit her Grandfather and Auntie.  I can't tell you if Papa/Grandfather was the Sky Father, or just a spirit aspect of the Sky Father.  Nor can I tell you if Auntie was the Earth mother incarnate.  But, if these two characters were not the Sky Father and the Earth Mother, they were closely associated with them.  Let me give you a little more backstory.Little Bird knew where her brother went, and what he was doing.  She knew he had lost his respect for the earth, and the four-leggeds as well as the two leggeds.  She prayed for her brother, she prayed for the earth.  Her brother didn't respond, but the earth did.  The Sky Father sent a spirit to bouy her spirits, to laugh as the wind does and to breath life.  The Earth mother sent a spirit to lend her strength, strength to undertake the task that Little Bird knew she must do.  She had to prepare the way, without bitterness and anger and hate.  Her power was through love and respect.  She loved her brother, she loved the earth, she loved that Jake left Rainmaker because he couldn't be a part of it any longer.  She sacrificed herself so that the earth would be better, her brother would be free and so that Jake could stop hating himself for what he had been.  In the end, she died without fear because she knew that the Sky Father and the Earth Mother blessed her, and she knew that through her actions, things would be better.  Jake didn't know any of that.  Jake was filled with self-loathing and pain and hate because of his suppoirt for a coporate machine that did not care for the lives it ruined.  He couldn't bear the thought that he was responsible for all those happy people whose lives were ruined.  He thought that by quitting, he could distance himself from that.  But, on a deep level, he knew that by not doing anything about it, he was implicitly supporting them.  So, he turned to alcohol and moved down to the coast.  If he was drunk enough, he could watch the storms move in off the gulf and temporarily forget that they would soon be captured and controlled by Rainmaker.  When he was sober, he couldn't pretend that Rainmaker didn't exist.Auntie sent Little Bird to find Jake.  The Earth Mother needed somebody that could walk the road prepared by Little Bird.  Auntie would lend her strength to the person capable of following through.  Love is countered by hate.  Peace by violence.  The earth sometimes appears to be careless of the desires of the two leggeds.  And why shouldn't the Sky Father and Earth Mother be careless of our desires?  It's a big planet and there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of.  People live, and people die.  Jake was practically dead anyway.  Little Bird gave him hope.  Auntie gave him strength.  Papa gave him power over air so he could fly.  (Yes, I know I wrote that as Uncle.  Even I have no idea why that showed up in the story like that.  Remember those inexcusable editing errors I mentioned?  This is one of them.)After Dancing Bull was created, Auntie gave of her hide (the cloak) and her flesh (the steak) so that Dancing Bull would be strong.  The buffalo represent the strength and bounty of the earth.  They churn the dirt so new plants can grow.  They give of their flesh to feed and clothe the People.In a very symbolic sense, Auntie lent her aspects to Dancing Bull.  So, while Jake comes across as the protagonist of the story, he is really just doing the bidding of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother, embodied as Papa and Auntie, with Little Bird's help.  As an interesting aside, Sheryl did call him Grandfather.  For her, that was her ideal for gentle, kind wisdom.  He told Jake to call him Papa because that is what Jake called his grandfather.  If there were a third character, there might have been yet another name.  Hmm, perhaps that is where Uncle came from?  Back to the story.  The underlying theme gets a bit preachy here.  What are we doing to our planet?  We have to live here, why are we trying to mess it up?  Am I always this bitter and disillusioned?  No, I'm not.  Rainmaker, to me, represents a really bad corporation gone badly awry.  This is fiction, so I can go to extremes. We have a corporation using advanced technology (even if it is called magic, it is technology in this fantasy world) to destroy the environment so they can make a few lousy bucks.  It doesn't matter how many lives, families and ecosystems are destroyed, they need to improve the bottom line and make more profit.  Papa and Auntie are the displeased Spirits that are here to help set things right.  And since man made this mess, then man will start trying to fix it.  Sheryl volunteered, Jake was recruited, Rainmaker was destroyed.  Anyway, I hope that they didn't come across as goofy characters that were introduced solely to fulfill the picture requirements.  I mean, sure that is why they took those particular forms.  But, that pic is hardly a throwaway in the context of who Papa and Auntie are.  Yeah, I am babbling.  It's late and I am tired.  [/spoiler]Turning off spoiler text now.  Will it be enough?  That's an interesting question.  As I said before, I think this is just a single event.  There are other things happening in the world.  Those could be interesting stories to tell.</blockquote>

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