Bonja's Deal With the True One

Bonja’s Deal with the True One

Always does the Eye stay open on the workings of the world. Always they will. They watch, and they pass judgment on what they see. Where there is too much good, they plant the seeds of evil; where there is too much chaos, they plan the seeds of law. And in the end, ultimately, they hold up creation like two legs hold up the body of the universe.
There was a time when Bonja, Goddess of Volcanic Fire, Lady of Passion and Anarchic Ways, saw fit to play with the One Great Eye, the way a naughty child might seek to play jokes on his schoolteacher and thus miss out on her good and lawful lessons. Bonja visited the Deity in his place, north of the Jackhammer Range, and she joked and threatened the Great Deity with pranks and volcanic eruptions--threatened to destroy their realm--if They did not grant her one wish. Just a wish, she said mischievously.
The One pondered this situation. They did not want the lands around the Jackhammers destroyed, for these were Their lands. And They knew that Bonja could follow through on her threat. They were puzzled, and they would do nothing to endanger their land and their people. So, reluctantly, they gave in to the goddess and said, “I will grant you one wish, but you must stay beneath the mountains in your volcanic vents and never come out again, as long as the World should be.”
Bonja smiled that wise-cracking smile the way only she can, and she assented to the condition, and she thought carefully. She still needed a way to contact her followers, and she still needed a way to be worshipped and revered, even if she was kept deep beneath the mountains for all time. And she needed a way (most of all, she thought) to always be near Fire, her dear daughter Fire.
So she came up with a compromise. She said, “Great oh Great of the Greatest oh Gods, One True Eye that Sees All, I have my wish. I will stay beneath the Earth in my volcanic place far below, forever-more. But grant me one wish: I and all my followers can be present and aware in any fire above, any burning or flame that appears on the surface. From any fire above I and my followers can speak and act, and communicate as we please. We may not leave the fire, or at least go too far away, but we will be there in mind and body and spirit.
In this way, Bonja’s wish was to circumvent the law of the One, and to provide a permanent link to her followers and worshippers.
The One Great Eye pondered this. And they pondered Chaos, and they pondered Law. Most of all, they pondered balance. The goddess’s granted presence in the flames of the above-world would offer a bit of chaos--necessary, if not so pleasant--and she herself would stay below, keeping her powers in check. In the name of balance, Bonja’s compromise rang a note of harmony in Their Great Head, and so they spoke.
“Great Bonja of the Volcanic Fire, I will grant you this wish. You will abide by it under the penalty pain of death and destruction, and should you break this promise your realm will scatter and die, and a new goddess will take your place under the mountain.”
With glee, Bonja then spoke, “Thank you True One; I now recede to my underground realm, beneath the great vents from which my fire emerges.” Bonja had gotten what she wanted. She and her minions and followers traveled the land, from fire to fire, and almost always one of them dwelled there in the flame. They watched silently from the flames, or they spoke, and few knew who they were. Sometimes they were Bonja herself…
Bonja rubbed her hands together with glee, and she disappeared into one of her many vents, and she went back under the mountain. What would happen next, and how would her power grow up above? On her throne of molten steel she sat then, and wondered and waited, happy as can be.
She never liked being up there anyway!