Ernest smiled again, but there was a hint of sadness in her smile. "I know that. It's just, some days, I feel like I'm a bad person. You've seen the good side of me, Angela. The other side of me… well, I do what I have to. I don't like to hurt people. I try not to. But sometimes I feel like I don't have much of a choice. I've never done what you're talking about, but… I'm not blameless. Not by any stretch of the imagination." 

She studied Angela, one eyebrow raised. "I can't imagine all you must know, then." Inwardly, she was laughing a bit at Angela calling her young. Angela looked five years old! Still, she supposed, compared to the goddess, she was very young. Not that anyone used that descriptor anymore. 

She quietly stored away Angela's information about emotions. She was sure it would become useful in the future. Emotion was something she had plenty of, although she had learned to hide most of it. "Love," she muttered to herself. That was something she knew little enough about. "I wish I could love as easily as you do," she said aloud. "It doesn't work as well in my world."

She grinned and let Angela pull her along. She tried to remember the location of the room Angela showed her, but she was almost certain she would get lost. The temple seemed to be built like a maze. She looked around, taking in the room with a careful eye. Even when she knew she was safe, she couldn't quite get rid of her habit of analyzing every room she entered.

"Hmm…" she said. "Navigational spells would be good. Or maybe some defensive stuff. Magic would probably work a little better than my current 'run and hide' strategy."

Angela tapped her chin and thought about it. “The same could be said about me Little One.” It must have been weird hearing the small child say that. “I’ve killed before. I’ve lost my temper. I’ve let the world go sunder and not care.” She thought about it and crossed her arms. “No one is ever always good in anyone’s eyes. Army A is considered a god sent. They are the heroes to the people. They save everyone.” She tilted her head. “Army B of Empire B thinks they are evil incarnate no matter how much Army A does good for Empire A. The destruction of B but the elevation of A does not mean that A was in the right. It just means that they were partially right because that’s what their people saw. I saw fed a man to a hungry plant because he raped someone. People could see that as evil. Some people will see me as a hero. That is who we are Ernest. That is the mortal condition.”

Once they made it to her study she didn’t sit down. Instead, she turned around and tilted her head again. Her red curls fell so easily as she thought about it. “Teleporting or Gating. Either one is very useful. Teleporting.” She disappeared from where she was and reappeared on a tall shell sitting. It was in an instant. “Is useful but its short range is terrible.” She disappeared and reappeared next to Ernest. “Gating.”

She made a gate appear under them and they started to fall through. They were falling towards the deep pools of the Sundered Falls. Another gate appeared and they landed softly back into a pool of pillows now in her study. “Gating is useful for travel. Getting from Canelux to Parvpora in an instant.” She lounged in the pillows and looked to see just how frazzled Ernest was. “So what one do you want to learn first?”

Ernest listened, considering. Sometimes life could be so complicated. "I suppose good and evil can be more flexible than we want them to be. I've always found it complicated. Maybe that's why I try not to think too much. There are never right answers for some of the deepest questions."

She wasn't really surprised at Angela's disappearance and reappearance - after all, that was what teleporting was. But then the gate opened, and she nearly panicked as they tumbled toward the pool. She relaxed when Angela opened another gate and they were safely back in the study. "That was… only slightly terrifying," she said with a grin.

"I think teleporting would be more useful for me," she said. "I don't mind travelling, but being able to move without people following would be useful. Am I correct in assuming that gating wouldn't be very good if you don't want to be followed?"

Angela chuckled in an oddly fitting child like way. “Good and Evil are the same coin. That’s the best way to think about it.” She tilted her head. “On the contrary, there are very good answers for deep questions it's just beyond a mortal’s comprehension. At least I think so.”

She was laughing and chuckling as Ernest panicked. They were in the pillows and she gave a smirk to the young human. “Only slightly? I’ll have to be more tricky next time.” At least she was being upfront and honest about it.

She tapped her chin and nodded. “Teleporting is good for a fight and to get away from people. HOWEVER, depending on your level of skill a gate can be just as fast as a teleport can. Your magical ability determines the way the gate functions. You could also limit who comes through if you have a strong mindset. Though teleporting will be a good place to start learning. It’s not as advanced as gating. When you teleport you must quickly envision point B. If you are at Point A you must see the pathway to Point B. You must concentrate on it. Will your mind, body, and soul. It is no easy thing to do. You’ll get faster the more you do it and eventually like all other spells you’ll master it.”

Ernest grinned. "Then it's definitely beyond my comprehension, being a mortal - and not the smartest one at that." She considered what Angela had said more closely. "Do you understand how the world works, then? Being immortal and all."

"I'm not sure I want you to be more tricky," she said. "That could end badly." She was still smiling, though. Now that there was no immediate worry, she was a little abashed at not trusting Angela so much.

She tried to do what Angela described. She focused on a point about three feet across the room, and managed, after a few seconds of holding still, the grand achievement of falling on her face. "Note to self," she said. "Do not tense muscles when trying to focus." She peeled herself off the floor. "That wasn't quite what I was trying to do."

Angela tilted her head. “Only fools and idiots believe they know how the world works. You can get pieces of a puzzle but even for gods, it is truly obscure how the entirety of the world works. I know my element for example. It could tell me how it thinks the world works but the other elements all have their own opinions. Somewhere in the mess of voices, there is the truth but we’ll never know. I don’t even think a master of the elements would know.”

Watching contently as Ernest tried Angela lost her self-control as she laughed when the girl fell. “No, you are tensing yourself. You need to free yourself. When you get tense you make mistakes. When you are calm and collected you make some of your best achievements. Even for people who have a hard time controlling themselves… they have these moments of clarity.”

Getting up Angela summoned a little knife in her hands. She took Ernest’s hands and looked up at her. “This will sting a little.” She lightly grazed the knife into runic patterns across the girl’s hands and palms. She made sure that she drew no blood from her. She blew on them and they started to glow. “These will act as anchors. Right now you have a difficulty connecting to the mana within you. These will help and when you think you have it down I can turn them off and we can try again without them. For now let your body ease into it. In this room, we are protected and you cannot hurt me. Don’t worry about anything right now but the spot you must teleport to.”

Ernest stared slightly. "Do all of the elements have voices, then? Can mortals talk to them?" She was getting excited. "I could ask them what they know about the world!" Ernest had a fascination with learning everything the world had to offer. "That would be so cool."

She calmed herself down somewhat and focused on the same point across the room again. Her hands stung slightly, but she tuned that out. She tried to relax. It was very difficult, though; she was used to paying attention to every little thing and getting nervous whenever something happened. Nothing can happen to me, she told herself. 

She blinked, and suddenly, there she was, several feet away from where she'd been only a moment ago. The sensation was very strange, and she reached out to touch the wall, mostly to see if it was actually real. "Was that what was supposed to happen?" she asked. "That was… weirder than I expected."

Angela thought about it and shook her head a bit. “I’m not so sure you can talk to them the way we can. Maybe they can express their thoughts and desires but not so sure about full-length communication.”

The goddess watched as Ernest concentrated. She was proud of the young one who now was learning quickly with the tools that she had given her. “Yes… and well dematerializing your body and rematerializing it is sort of a weird thing altogether.” Angela came over to Ernest and smiled. “You did well for your first time teleporting. We’ll have to practice on the range of your teleportation.”

Taking some chalky material she stepped far away from Ernest to the other side of the room by the door. She made an X on the floor and looked up at Ernest. “Land on the X. Not by it, not near it, on top of it. Keeping practicing until you can do it.” She walked back towards Ernest and made another X right in front of her desk. “You have to do it from here.” It was a good ten or so feet away she had to imagine if she could pick a number for the distance.

Ernest frowned. "Shoot. That would have been awesome." She sighed. "Oh, well. I suppose being a goddess has to come with some perks. It seems like a pretty difficult job."

She nodded. "Yeah, it's pretty strange." A grin broke out on her face at Angela's compliment.  "What happens if you teleport badly? Do you leave body parts behind or something?"

She walked over to one X and stared at the other one. "That's a long way away." She focused on the other X for a few seconds, and found herself suddenly in a different place again - but not nearly as far as she'd hoped. She'd only made it about half the distance. "Shoot. It's a lot more difficult to go that far."

Angela laughed a bit. “A small thing for how much I had to pay to be a goddess, Child.” Such an adult thing from a little bit but behind her laugh was a sadness. She had lost much to become to be was meant to be. Fate was cruel.

“There have been stories of teleporting going wrong but nothing like that. It’s gating that does that. I get a few cases a month where I need to stitch a body back together because they prematurely close a portal on themselves.” She winced a bit. “Have any idea what it’s like getting information about where they were coming from so you can go get their foot or finger?”

The goddess was entertained and clapped as she watched Ernest go a bit farther this time. “You need to allocate your mana reservoirs. The more mana you use the farther you go. Use too much and you’ll overshoot where you teleport. In this case, you could end up in the wall and probably die, if I wasn’t here to get you out. Use too little and you’ll do what you just did. Try it again.”