"First," his voice rumbled slightly as he brushed his dark hair back behind him, the spark of a star coming to life in the same pink as Ashterra's eyes briefly drawing her gaze, "Tell me why you were surprised to find you had been unbreathing for only a short time. You know as well as any other that your body cannot sustain itself without air. You would be damaged beyond even magic's ability to repair."
Reluctantly, she spoke to the god of what she remembered from the nightmares the monster had woven to include the extreme awareness of her body on Terra. It had been disconcerting, running and fighting for her life all while feeling herself dying so keenly. That, though, had been the entire point. The monster had wanted to use fear to drive her into making herself an easier target so it could spread its corruption further into her psyche and her magic.
His voice gentled slightly as he spoke again, "I am so very grateful that you managed to keep yourself safe enough that creature could not destroy you," he sighed, "As for your question for me, dear Ashterra, corruption is incapable of killing me though it can change me somewhat. Under the influence of corruption I become far more likely to be rash, impulsive, wrathful even. Umbra's magic hurts me instead of soothing me as it always does and my own magic harms my love deeply. It is very hard, though, for us to fall to corruption for any amount of time as I continue to cleanse it far faster than it can consume myself or any of us."
In her hazy memories she could see the worry on his face, the fear and anxiety. She felt awful that she'd made him experience that all because she'd been rash with her magic usage.
"I hurt you," she said softly, realizing she hadn't apologized for being rash, nor for the way she had acted towards him.
"You frightened me," he corrected, pulling the child into a gentle embrace once more, "Now, show me this magic you have woven, magic that moved even gods to create anew."
She flushed at his words, aware suddenly that Luna had moved away to the door at some point during her dozing to give them privacy to speak and grateful the priestess didn't hear the praise. Luna would definitely use it to poke fun at her if she'd heard though. She called upon the spell as Sidus watched, channeling it to grow the plants on the island around her.
It felt odd, though, as if the mana consumption was a bit more than what she'd expected considering she knew how many seeds she'd planted. The island practically came to life around them, though, a bed of clover spreading to overtake the grass, shining golden under the light of the stars.
Sidus moved to pluck a small clover, holding it up so Ashterra could see it properly, "Goldclover," he named it quietly, "The plant born of Lucrum's power. It grows widely, creating a blanket that connects all the plants and enriches the soil to better them all," he sighed softly, "With guidance, he will do the same."
Another small pulse of magic from Ashterra created the brief illusion of the other plants just as her pond looked in her own world though the goldclover changed things somewhat. It looked beautiful, though, if ever so slightly incomplete.
As if sensing her feelings, Sidus' rumbling voice spoke again, "The next god will be his partner if he follows to the same pattern all of us have. One is born, the next that follows is their pair. Their magics tangle together to create beauty when whole and harm each other in corruption. That is another part of why I am reluctant to have him draw so near to you."
Ashterra did not fit the rules that had governed the gods of Lucrum's generation thus far. She already existed, was not born of power as a full god. If the second generation followed the same patterns as the first there was one more god to be born of power. He was uncertain but thought that if Ashterra and other children of gods were to become part of the pantheon they would likely be part of the third generation of gods, a generation that he hoped would include a child of each god to keep them all from growing lonely.
The problem, though, was that very few gods had one of their bound races born with the same kind of strange divinity as Ashterra carried. If his thoughts were truth, Ashterra would need to survive hundreds if not thousands of years to become a god in her own right. The progress made, though, of bolstering Lucrum's power felt ever so slow even to the ancient god that had passed many hundreds of thousands of years.
He still was uncertain if the connection between the worlds could even grow strong enough to save Terra. Looking down at the young one in his arms briefly, he wondered idly if she would be able to survive in the body that had been made for her if Terra was lost, if she would be able to be part of Fantastoria's world instead of belonging to the possibly doomed Terra. It was not something he wanted to dwell on. He wanted his child whole, wanted Ashterra in her true body awake and alive. He wanted all of Terra to survive because he knew how it would hurt her so to see it lost.
As time passed he also wanted Terra to survive because he didn't know what the loss of Lucrum would do to the pantheon. He had been a mischievous little pain when he first came to them, but then, Sidus admitted to himself, he had thought the same of Virtus, Artificia, Venatio and Prudentia once upon a time. All had been born of great power, adults in appearance but children in their mannerisms. It had taken many long millennia of teaching for them all to mature.
The spell around him faded suddenly and he looked down in alarm, worried that he had allowed Ashterra to run herself out of mana. She slept peacefully in his arms, chest rising and falling in a slow and peaceful rhythm. Her magic was once more so much better for having channeled the two spells for as long as she had. In just a day or two she would be fully recovered, not that he had any intent to tell her so at that point. He wanted certainty that she was taking her time, that she wasn't forcing growth faster than the crafted body was capable of it.