Starling cocked his head at her. "You mean they don't know?"

Elaine shook his head. "Nope," she answered. "No one's ever seen him. Sometimes people say they've seen him and people argue over whether they're crazy or blessed, but mostly, no. His son came to earth almost two thousand years ago, and that's really the last anyone heard of him. Assuming that was really his son."

"Most of the people who see the gods usually tend to be a little crazy and blessed afterwards," Starling said, as if it were perfectly logical. "Mostly because it's usually Danaan tellin' 'em to leave their families and go guard some grove way out in the middle of nowhere. So they tend to look a little crazy to everyone else."

"That's what ours do, too," Elaine replied. "Only no one can ever tell for sure. There was this one lady in France who saw...err...god's-son's-mother at a spring or something and she ended up leading an army. But then she got burned at the stake. So I don't really see how blessed she was."

"It was probably Danaan," Starling replied casually. "That happens sometimes back home, too. Not burning people to death. But people getting in trouble because no one believes they've really been called. In the stories Danaan or someone always shows up at the last minute to save you--or if you're lying, she shows up to punish you in front of everyone, but I always thought that was just to teach the lesson that you shouldn't lie about a calling."

"Well, she was also caught by the enemy," Elaine explained. "But nobody ever sees our god. I don't think it's Danaan," she told him. "I don't think Danaan would let men treat women the way our men treat our women." She stuck out her tongue.

"Don't stick that out at me or I'll make you use it," he teased. He still seemed thoughtful. "This is very complicated," he said at last.

Elaine stuck her tongue out some more.

Starling grinned and turned back to her, catching both her arms and trying to wrestle her down on the bench.

Elaine squealed, and pretended to feebly put up a struggle, but let Starling press her down. "Help, help, I'm being ravished," she said, in a very deadpan tone.