The Goddess' Retreat

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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Wed May 25, 2022 9:11 pm

Hey, how am I teasing you? This is a shrunken woman forum and I've already given you several shrunken women in this story! ;)
Check out my SW story Please..: https://ckent45.deviantart.com/

chocolatejr9
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by chocolatejr9 » Wed May 25, 2022 9:46 pm

CKent45 wrote:
Wed May 25, 2022 9:11 pm
Hey, how am I teasing you? This is a shrunken woman forum and I've already given you several shrunken women in this story! ;)
TBF, there hasn't been THAT much SW in the story at this point. Heck, at some points it feels more like a mini-GTS story thanks to Astravia being so large, but that's just my opinion, so it probably doesn't matter.

CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Thu May 26, 2022 1:50 am

chocolatejr9 wrote:
Wed May 25, 2022 9:46 pm
CKent45 wrote:
Wed May 25, 2022 9:11 pm
Hey, how am I teasing you? This is a shrunken woman forum and I've already given you several shrunken women in this story! ;)
TBF, there hasn't been THAT much SW in the story at this point. Heck, at some points it feels more like a mini-GTS story thanks to Astravia being so large, but that's just my opinion, so it probably doesn't matter.
Fair points. When this story first occurred to me and I started putting it to paper, I actually questioned whether I should post it here at all. I even wrote to Elana about it asking her if this would really fit and gave her a brief synopsis of the story, some of the parts up to where we are now and where it's headed. She assured me the story fit here, so I plowed ahead. I had hoped that the quality of the two main shrinks up to this point would make up for the lack of quality, so I tried my best to make them as well written as I could within the bounds of the story. Both the two women that attacked Maceo and Lale's encounters were passages that I spent more time on than most other pieces of the story because I what's their diminution was something that really tickled me and I was hoping that would show in the writing.

At this stage, it's really a case of Astravia being unlimited in her power and showing how everyone else on this world was little more than a plaything to her to mold and reshape however she desired, as much as she desired and as often as she desired. I had also hoped that her interacting with the mortal sized women would have a SW feeling to it as well.

In any event, I promise more shrinking to come.
Check out my SW story Please..: https://ckent45.deviantart.com/

CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Thu May 26, 2022 2:50 am

The next morning, Lale woke up still nestled in Maceo’s arms and quite rested. She grinned up at him then looked around as she heard the first stirrings of the other members of her group. She immediately tried to get up, which woke Maceo immediately. She smiled at him, then whispered, “We need to get up.” Maceo nodded and she kissed him, then climbed to her feet and quickly and quietly made her way back to her own sleeping space and began cleaning up to prepare for the trip back home.

The first order of business was for them to split the take from the performances, which all of the caravan had participated in by this point in some way or another. In the end, Maceo took home 30 percent of the total, while Cajsa and Lale both were given 20 percent, and all of the others took around four percent, with the small amount left over distributed to the other seven members as equally as they could. The final haul of donations from their many performances totaled to enough to almost double the rest of the sales they’d made, so Maceo decided to donate a portion of his take from performances back to the town assuring the others that his commission would likely offset it anyways. In addition, they had a healthy amount of supplies they’d traded for that would be a great help in the sudden refurbishment of their town. They made breakfast as soon as they were packed and sat down, once again with the trio of Maceo, Cajsa and Lale sitting together thick as thieves and happy to have each others’ company.

Throughout their preparations, Lale couldn’t help but frequently readjust her dress and shoes as something seemed just a tiny bit off about them, though she couldn’t quite figure out why. She seemed rather happy that Maceo looked just a bit taller to her than before, but unnerved as the other women, but more concerningly the teenaged girls, seemed just a tiny bit more threatening than normal as well. It was only slight, but she seemed just a little uncomfortable in her own skin the entire morning while Astravia sat watching with a sadistic and wicked grin as this odd feeling gnawed at her.

For added measure, when Cajsa and Lale went to the water’s edge to rinse out their cookware, Astravia gradually shrank Lale in tiny spurts so as to not arouse suspicion and then when Cajsa finished and stood, she turned and brushed the front of her dress off with her hands. “I am really ready to be home,” Cajsa declared and Lale smiled.

“I suppose. I’ve really enjoyed this trip,” she said and grinned happily until she stood and turned to see Cajsa standing more than head and shoulders taller than her. Her eyes went wide and she gasped, and then looked down at her dress, which was baggy and falling off of her.

Cajsa turned to see what the matter was, but by the time she had turned to face Lale, she was normal size again, less those two inches, though it happened in between blinks for Lale and she was stuck standing there shocked and confused.

“Are you alright?” Cajsa asked her, looking up very closely, but also seeming to notice now that something seemed just a little off with her.

“Yeah,” Lale smiled as best as she could and wiped the sweat from her brow as the strange illusion weighed on her immensely. They both shook the moment off and walked back to the camp together, but Lale couldn’t help but notice as she looked down that her dress seemed to be dragging on the ground, where as normally it was just the right length to reach down to her feet without touching the ground around her. She gulped hard and struggled with the discrepancy. It was dragging, but only barely, but it should be just the right length to miss the ground, shouldn’t it?.

All the while, Astravia watched with a wicked grin as Lale struggled, wondering if something really was off or if she were only imagining it while Cajsa couldn’t help but notice Lale’s unease. When they arrived back at camp, the group was just about ready to go, but they both looked with concern to see someone speaking to Maceo with a rather unpleasant look on his face.

“Who is that?” Lale asked Gaeten, but Gaeten only shrugged his shoulders.

“He said he needed to talk to Maceo alone,” he answered then went back to strapping down the contents of his carriage.

Cajsa decided to head back to the cart, but Lale was concerned enough that she made the short hike to them to see what was the matter, only to have the strange man reach out a hand and wrap a wall of flames around Lale rather than let her approach.

At that moment, Maceo grabbed the man’s hand and twisted it, causing him to yelp in pain and the flames to collapse as Lale’ gasped. “Alright, that’s enough,” Maceo informed the man.

“You have no idea the forces you are dealing with,” the man growled, but Maceo’s face turned quite serious and dark in an instant and the man took pause.

“I have no doubt that you could best me in this kind of a fight,” Maceo answered him calmly, “but don’t mistake my inexperience with a lack of knowledge.” The man pulled back and looked at Maceo with surprise for a moment, but then reassumed his aggressive demeanor. Then Maceo spoke in an ominous tone, but in a language Lale had never heard before and the strange man froze, his face covered in fear. “You understand?” he asked the man, who nodded and then quickly made his exit.

“What did you just say?” she asked as Maceo walked up to her, smiling warmly again.

“Just that he should leave or he’ll regret it. It’s not so much about what I said, but how I said it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a very ancient language,” Maceo explained. “One that he knows if he hears it; he shouldn’t pick a fight.”

“A fight about what?” she asked him as the rest of the caravan came running up following seeing the display of dangerous magic.

“We should get going,” Maceo said to her as well as the others running up. “We can discuss it at lunch time when we’re far from this place.” Gaeten was hesitant, but when he saw how serious Maceo was, he nodded and they loaded up and headed out without any further fanfare.

On the road, Lale and Cajsa stared at him quietly, especially Lale, but Maceo remained silent until they were unquestionably out of town and Longsgallow was behind them.

“You remember what I said about the danger of teaching magic?” he asked them both. Cajsa crawled over the back of the cart and sat on the front bench looking at him, letting him know that they remembered exactly. “There are a lot of unintended consequences to teaching something like magic. I didn’t think Longsgallow was a big enough place to get that kind of attention, but I guess I was mistaken.”

“Who was he? What did he want?” Lale asked him.

“He’s a sorcerer,” Maceo answered back. “They don’t like attention called to the fact that magic is real and exists and I called a lot of attention to it the last couple of days.”

“Why?”

“Well, there is more than one reason, the best way I can explain it is that because people fear sorcerers and sorceresses. There are all kinds of reasons that non magic users will wage war against sorcerers, so they keep to themselves and within their ranks they have extremely strict rules about when they are allowed to reveal their skills and much more often, when they can’t. I broke those rules.”

“Are you going to get in trouble?” Cajsa asked him rather worriedly.

“No,” Maceo smiled. “I was trying to explain to him that I am not a sorcerer and I never swore an oath to be bound to his code. He didn’t believe me. You see, hundreds of years ago, there was more than one way to come by learning of magic, but most of those… let’s call them societies, have disappeared. Now really the only way to be trained in the magical arts is through the guild sorcerers and sorceresses belong to for most people.”

“But you’re not in that guild?”

“No, I’m not,” Maceo answered.

“Then where did you learn it if not from a sorcerer?

“My teacher comes from an extremely ancient school of thought. The guild sorcerers adhere to has survived this long because they are organized and were one of the oldest schools and were well established. My teacher’s school even predates their guild, by quite a bit.”

“So what you told him?” Lale asked, listening as closely as she could, as worried as she was fascinated.

“He didn’t believe me that I wasn’t part of his guild, and he wasn’t going to tolerate me calling so much attention to them, and then he decided he was going to make an example of you, Lale, so I used a language that is extremely rare for people to use. In fact, I doubt that anyone from his guild has even actually heard it spoken in several hundred years.”

“What’s so special about a language?”

“It’s very ancient. Myths and legends say that this was the first language, used by those who taught humans how to use language for the first time. Humans are not supposed to use it unless under specific circumstances. It hasn’t been heard in so long by almost anyone that I feel like I’m lucky that he understood what I was saying.”

“So… if it’s that rare… and apparently forbidden, how do you know it?” Lale pressed.

“My teacher speaks it fluently and in order to learn, I was expected to learn it as well, and also hold conversations using it.”

“But how did he learn it? And won’t he get in trouble for using it?” Cajsa asked. Maceo glanced at her and then looked ahead on the road again.

“I can promise you that my teacher isn’t bound by the ban on this language. Since my teacher insisted on teaching it to me as part of my studies, I have a certain amount of leeway in using it.”

“How old are we talking about?”

“Older than you’ve ever seen records for, much older. In any event, that’s another hurdle when it comes to teaching you to do what I did. It’s just illusory magic, and it’s all flash and no substance. People like that get very angry about those kinds of public displays and there’s always a chance one of them might try to do something about it. If they did and came to your village to put a stop to you conducting magic, you’d essentially be defenseless. You could always overwhelm a sorcerer or two with numbers and weapons, but the best way to do that is usually with surprise. But, because sorcerers prefer secrecy they’re pretty good at catching people by surprise themselves.”

“So it really could be a danger to us,” Cajsa said, once Maceo had explained himself. “I would have really loved to try to learn it.”

“I haven’t decided for sure whether to teach you or not,” Maceo replied to them both. “But this is another reason this particular skill could spell disaster for your town. This is a very large responsibility.”

“How do you know so many things?” Cajsa asked him in awe. “We thought you were just a blacksmith when you first came to town because you’re as good as any smith we’ve ever heard of, then we learn you know herbs and medicines, and now you know as much magic as a sorcerer. Where do you learn such things?”

“I have an amazing patron that affords me opportunities that I could have never imagined, that’s all,” Maceo answered her. “I do wish I could share more of my luck to others, though.”

Both Lale and Cajsa stared at him smiling, thinking over the story he’d told. At lunchtime, they pulled off to a safe place to rest, water the horses and prepare food for themselves. Once they were all fed, they all gathered around Maceo who explained everything he’d explained to Lale and Cajsa earlier, though in the middle of this conversation, Astravia chose to restore Lale’s lost two inches of height as everyone stood around listening to him.

This was the first time she had size changed Lale in a manner that wasn’t surreptitious or intentionally obfuscated and in a handful of seconds the missing two inches returned and Lale was stuck looking around wondering what the strange feeling she’d experienced was and looking around her in search of what exactly had happened.

It was also here that Gaeten laid out his expectations for the remainder of the trip home. “We made ourselves quite popular and stood out,” he pointed out to everyone. “We were very lucky not to come face to face with bandits on the way down because this road is certainly littered with them. I confirmed that with more than one source in Longsgallow. Do NOT expect luck to protect us on this leg of the trip. We are headed uphill, with supplies that we need to use for the town instead of dispose of and we are carrying a great deal more coin. Add to that the fact that we’ve made a name for ourselves and this little caravan might as well have a target posted on its back.”

He looked around to make sure all were paying close attention before he continued, “that being said we’re not just traveling home richer, we’re going home healthier and stronger than when we left and we have a secret weapon we didn’t know we had when we set out.”

“Can you protect us if we’re attacked?” one teenager asked Maceo.

“I have a few things prepared in case, but I have limits. I have serious limits. If I could just rely on magic, those thugs in town wouldn’t have beaten the shit out of me. The single best thing I can have is the ability to see them coming so that I can try to do something about it.”

“So you heard him!” Gaeten yelled out. “Heads up and eyes open until we are back home and step lively, we have a long ways to go.”

They set out again and traveled at their best speed traveling right up until nightfall and they made camp in tight, close quarters spending little time chatting or mingling and focusing more on their safety. This also left little time for privacy for Maceo and Lale, which Astravia found quite favorable. The lifted spirits also contributed to a heightened situational awareness throughout the night and come morning, they woke, prepared and immediately following sunrise, they headed out once again, moving as quickly and steadily as they could.

Lunchtime was their next time to relax and several people watched with interest as Maceo gave Lale some more lessons on self-defense with a number of the others wanting to get a little instruction as well upon seeing Lale’s progress. The second half of the day went exactly like the previous day where settling in for the night was more of a business transaction than celebration and relaxation. Once again, they were up before dawn and headed out at full speed at daybreak.

Traveling was hard work as they ascended the mountain road and it was late morning when one of the teenaged boys screamed out, “TO THE LEFT! BY THE BIG PINE TREE!” The caravan stopped immediately and several men stood up to charge with their cover blown, but the very first man to stand received an arrow directly through his eye dealt by Babajide. This was enough to dissuade an attack and they turned back, so the caravan pushed forward again at a trot until a couple hours after their normal lunch time where they stopped to water the horses and eat, but they kept it to a minimum in order to get back on the road. Before they did, though, Gaeten gathered them all for one more debrief before they made the final leg back home, intending to reach town that evening after dark.

“I’d like you all to take a moment and think about all you’ve accomplished in the space of a little more than a week,” he told them. “We left our home as discards, whipped and each of us having something that didn’t let us contribute as much as those who were healthier and in better shape while they built. We each have something that is holding us back, be it growing up struggling with constant sickness, wounds that refuse to go away or a devastating loss that crushed our soul,” he said looking directly at the youngest of the women who seemed encouraged more than the others by his words.

“Tonight, if we press hard, we will reenter town with supplies that not only could we not afford for years before now, but were also out of our reach to go and get even if we had had the money. In short, those of us that were deemed not strong enough to contribute in rebuilding are returning with more money and supplies than the entire town has been able to manage over most of my life. I say we return conquering heroes. When we enter those gates tonight, each of you hold your heads up high as one.”

Encouraged, they pushed forward up the steepest leg of the trip with only the drivers of each carriage remaining in the carts and everyone else walking to lower the strain on the tired horses. It was a calculated risk. It was much more difficult to spot a troublemaker walking on the road, but it was also much more difficult to stage an attack in this stage of their travels. As it turned out, the bandits saw things the way Gaeten did and they moved without incident right up until they reached the top and the path mostly leveled out where a large band of thieves were waiting on the fringes of a clearing.

They stood ready, but thankfully Babajide had pushed ahead and scouted them out. He lead the teenaged boys and Maceo up through the woods around them while the ladies and Gaeten pushed their caravan up the road and as the first horse was cresting the edge into the clearing, five of the bandits took arrows in their backs. When they turned to face their new foes, Lale and the oldest of the women were ready at the side of the road and they fired arrows at the now turned bandits, taking out two more while all five of Babajide’s group were already prepared with another set of arrows and fired, spearing another three.

With 10 of their ranks mortally wounded in a matter of seconds, they made a hasty retreat, tending to leave most of their injured behind while Gaeten ordered them all to load back up immediately so they could push ahead at a fast trot.

They pushed on hard past sundown and kept going with everyone not at the reigns of a horse watching their flanks and rear as closely as possible, ready to lob arrows at a moment’s notice until they finally spotted the town ahead that was well lit and apparently full of activity with a fair amount of wall that had been erected in the time they had been gone. By this point the horses were at a near gallop and struggling from the extended workload they’d been subjected to, looking like they were at their limits and after much further could be expected to collapse. A sentry at the main entrance saw them coming and called for assistance and finally Gaeten’s train of horse drawn carts pulled to a stop right there at the entrance of the town in the dead of night.

The town was indeed still quite active, though they were winding down for the night when the four carriages walked in with five very exhausted horses and eleven men and women covered in sweat and dust and dragging their feet. It didn’t take long for a crowd to gather as they caught their breath and Gaeten informed them of the increasing resistance they’d found coming back while Maceo stood by quietly keeping his knowledge to the contrary to himself regarding their supposed luck in not being attacked on the way down from the mountains.

The townsfolk were impressed to say the least regarding the success of this small caravan. They’d returned with far more money than they’d hoped, sold far more goods than they planned and returned with more supplies than they had expected. In every way, they’d exceeded expectations.

The next step was for Gaeten to debrief the town elders on their progress, leaving out Maceo’s magic skills, and then process all of the money brought back, the supplies and unload everything for safe keeping and finally see to the horses, which were in desperate need of water, food and attention. By the time everything was finished, the weary travelers stood near the center of town together struggling to stand at only a couple hours before daybreak.

Gaeten escorted Lale back home while Maceo was ushered back to the inn where he sat and struggled to pry his boots off and fell back into his bed. Not long into the morning, Maceo was fatigued, but up and ready first thing and seeing to his horses and making sure they’d recovered enough for a trip home. He was rather gloomy about being separated from Lale like he had been, but otherwise in good spirits when he heard a soft cough at the doorway.

“I’m sorry,” she said to him with a smile. “I actually intended to come see you last night, but I fell asleep before I could finish washing myself,” she admitted to him. “I knew I was tired, but I guess I didn’t really know how tired I was.”

To make up for her negligence, she kissed him passionately and then they went out for breakfast together, sharing each other on what was next immediately. For Lale, she was busy managing a new shop that was being opened near the main entrance to town. She had her hands full setting up inventory and purchase orders as well as organizing staff that was needed while Maceo was obviously heading back home to work on what he could for his fledgling business.

Given the time away from home, he insisted he had to head home and couldn’t spare another day, however, they both agreed to see each other again in a couple weeks when Maceo could make it back into town and they could have a much more relaxed time together than they’d had on the road. They also discussed the possibility of doing another caravan together with Gaeten after the elders made it clear to Gaeten that they were so pleased with his performance that they were encouraging him to try it again.

She also began to open up to him about her own past, disclosing that she had, in fact, been married and was a widow following her husband falling ill and never recovering a year beforehand. They spent most of the morning talking away before he was forced to conclude he had to head out given the few hours of travel he still had left before he arrived home again.

When Maceo entered into the main gates of the temple, a beaming and smiling Astravia awaited, standing poised and proper to greet him. “I don’t know how to thank you enough,” he praised her. “I’m sure there were more times you needed to look over me than just the one you decided to show me.”

“That was the second time,” she informed him. “The first time you would not have been able to see them yourself until it was too late, but your companions ahead of you could have. By the second time I felt it was necessary to let you know that they were not taking their own security seriously.”

Maceo smiled up at her as she dropped to her knees and reached out for his hand. “I certainly don’t deserve everything you’ve done for me,” he told her. “Every question I was asked while I was gone was a constant reminder. I hope you didn’t have to waste all of your time the last nine days watching over me.”

“I have had plenty of opportunities to relax and find things to do that didn’t involve you,” she lied. Truthfully, she’d watched glued to his story the entire time he’d been gone. “I am certainly happy to see you finally put your magic training to use,” she told him proudly.

“Well, there was a price to that,” Maceo answered back with a bit of reticence.

“I saw,” she replied. “You handled it well,” she praised.

“I’m worried that I’ll reveal that you’ve returned. I shouldn’t have used your language.”

“Then I expect you to study your magic harder,” she informed him with a smile. “I have made a decision.”

“Regarding?”

“You are going to teach those young men and women the skills you showed them on your journey.” He lifted his chin, listening, but not arguing with her. “So many mortals would question me if I said that,” she grinned. “But you, I get nothing but unconditional trust.”

“If I question you, it’s only because I want to understand how,” he explained to her.

“I know it is,” she smiled and petted his cheek with her fingertip. “You will give them time to rest, and also to work on your own studies, so that you are not so outmatched the next time you encounter a sorcerer and then you will go back to them and you will agree to their request and bring them to the lake at the foot of the peak of this mountain. There you will find a sanctuary that hasn’t been used since before I last left this world. You can use that place to train them and teach them what they need to know and they are welcome to go back there whenever they wish to train new members.”

“But they’ll be defenseless if sorcerer’s decide to lay siege to their homes.”

“The fate of magic in this world is not theirs to command or to steer according to their own agendas,” she declared rather angrily. “I did not introduce your people to magic only to have these novices decide the are the arbiters of all things magic, of all things I created. You are right to be cautious and warn them to keep to the most simple forms of magic, and I expect every one of them to form a pact to me in order to ensure they use these powers wisely, but the guild of sorcery has overstepped their bounds and I will not abide by them undermining my will.”

Maceo nodded and straightened even more, listening even more closely.

“The magic you wield has limits. Because of that, I can create prisms that when set appropriately around the town will sever the connection to the magic of anyone who passes through the barrier they create, unless they are carrying the keys. And these keys will be their pacts with me. Once they are in place, no sorcerer will enter that town with his magic in tact. As a fair warning, you will place a message in my language at each entry point to that town that will inform them they are trespassing. Anyone who disregards this warning will have earned my wrath, so they can consider themselves lucky to only forfeit their ability to wield magic.”

“And me?”

“You already have this key within you, my dearest Maceo. You will be able to go wherever you wish. Now, I assume I have given you enough information to begin your preparations? We can discuss the remainder later.”

“Of course,” Maceo answered with a smile and a bow. Astravia was quite happy but her smile disappeared when he turned away. “I’ve been gone for nine days,” he said apologetically. “And while you’ve done so much for me, I’ve done absolutely nothing for you. I’ll go catch up on the duties I missed in my absence.” She blushed ever so slightly and grabbed his arm.

“That can wait,” she told him softly and affectionately. “Come to dinner, Maceo. I have made something special for you,” she told him with a warm smile.

Astravia indeed had made a special meal for him; his favorite, in fact. They sat by the pool discussing the many details to how she wanted the young townspeople trained and the conditions to their training, but also about the additional treatments that could be given to each of these ailing teenagers to help them recover to lead more successful lives.

“They each suffer from one form or another of ailments that they have inherited. They can be helped, but they will have difficulty throughout their lives.

She also discussed some of the subjects she wanted Maceo to study up on in order to be better suited to deal with troublemaking sorcerers. Most importantly, though, was that from the moment Maceo arrived back to when they finally parted ways for the evening, she was smiling constantly as though she were truly happy to spend time with him again.

The next morning, she woke up and found Maceo already up and hard at work using the many golems as an army to work on numerous projects that had slipped in his absence. Everywhere she looked she could see golems cleaning, repairing and building and in the distance she could hear the clang of metal on metal as the more advanced golems worked on blacksmithing for him. She smiled, but not one of the same happiness she’d had the day before and glanced out to see him toiling away with his mindless workers and she shook her head.

“I know that I mentioned resting,” she complained, then showered and made her way into her study where she checked in on Lale, who was only just getting up for the morning. Astravia’s smile was gone watching her, scrutinizing her and scouring back and forth in time for evidence her intuition warned her about this mortal, but she only grunted with frustration when she found none.

After a good deal of time spent on that, she set out to go meet Maceo, only to find that he’d left the manual labor behind and had disappeared. “Is he really going to make me look for him?” she asked, and made her way to the metalworking shop where his golems were working diligently, but again there was no Maceo.

Eventually, she found him at the library, reading and studying, despite the fact that he was still sweaty and dusty from working hard earlier.

“Did I make myself unclear when I told you to rest?”

“I am resting,” he said with a smile, but that smile faded upon seeing the serious face she was giving him.

“Your shirt is soaked in sweat from working all morning,” she lectured. “You were working rather hard for someone who is relaxing.”

“It certainly feels like relaxation compared to the last week,” Maceo countered, but this seemed to please Astravia even less. He stopped and set his book down to give her his undivided attention without talking back any longer.

“You are pushing yourself too hard. Just like before. This is becoming a habit.”

“I can’t stand sitting still that long, Astravia. I woke up this morning and felt like I had to do something. You asked that I begin working on setting up a business because you want me to leave the temple to go build a life outside of here.”

“I never said I wanted you to leave,” she answered back very quickly and almost defensively.

“You are my goddess, Astravia. You suggested it. From my goddess, that’s as binding as an order from a general to a soldier on the battlefield. There are only so many hours in the day, so I have to work. This is how mortals live their lives. I’m actually living a life of luxury compared to the people living a few hours from here.”

“You should not have to work this hard, though,” she insisted.

“If I don’t, I’ll definitely fail once I leave your care. I have to become stronger, I have to learn faster. I don’t have your powers and abilities, and I can’t rely on you for the rest of my life. I’ve already relied on you to save me too many times.”

“I am happy to do it for you, though,” she insisted.

“You told me to go out into the world and become my own man.”

“Do you even want to become your own man?” she asked.

“There are times that I take it on faith that you are right, and there are times when I know in my heart that you’re right. This is one of those times. I won’t be satisfied until I do this,” he answered her with determination, and though she said nothing, it still seemed like this wasn’t the answer she was looking for.

“And what of your rest?” she asked him.

“I’ll rest when I’ve caught up on the things I’ve neglected for you while I was away,” he answered her and again she seemed quite irritated with him.

“I want you to take time and let your body and mind recuperate,” she told him much more firmly.

“I still feel fresh. I want to push myself a bit,” he answered her.

“You cannot overtax yourself,” she insisted, and this time Maceo decided to push back.

“The people you want to send me out to have to work many times as hard as I’m doing right now. How will I ever have a chance if I don’t at least try to match them?” She clenched her jaw and balled her fists, quite unaccustomed to being bested in an argument, especially not by a mere mortal. “I am here to serve you Astravia. If I don’t do that, then what purpose do I even have here?”

“Then I suppose you will be too busy to spare time to eat with me tonight,” she answered bitterly.

“If that’s your wish,” he replied. “That is the single greatest thing I have to look forward to every day, though,” he answered her and suddenly her expression melted again. “I just can’t stand the thought that I hadn’t accomplished enough in my responsibilities to warrant that time.” She fought back a smile, but then turned away.

“Spare two of your golems and have them thoroughly wash themselves,” she ordered him in an aloof tone of voice. “I have things I wish to teach you in the magic workshop.” There was a silence and she turned to look down at him with a happy smile on his face. “What?” she asked him impatiently.

“Nothing, Astravia. It’s just been so long since you’ve taught me any magic personally. I was just looking forward to it. That’s all.”

She smiled and blushed a little, but then made a prompt exit from the room to allow Maceo to study in peace again.

Astravia retrieved him later in the afternoon and led him to her personal magical workshop, which he hadn’t been in for at least a few years and Astravia began teaching him a very rare skill.

“You cannot step outside of time like I can, but there is another skill that is very rare to be allowed for mortals to learn,” she prefaced. “I will show you how to channel time’s flow. With it, you can alter time, how much depends on your skill. You could use it to speed yourself up, though I do not recommend that, or to speed up or slow down those around you in terms of their travels through time. Slowing targets down will most likely be the best option for you. It will give you a chance to react to an attacker much faster than they can work with little effort on your part,” she explained. “It is all the same skill, though, so we will practice speeding and slowing targets here. This will be a time consuming lesson, and I expect you to need multiple lessons to begin to get it properly.”

Maceo was quite excited to try this new skill out and watched carefully, listening to every word and watching carefully as Astravia moved through the lesson in small stages.

That evening was business as usual, and following his departure to return to his quarters and sleep, Astravia ensconced herself in her study, watching through the globe and watching Lale closely, scouring through all her actions that day and finding nothing of interest until she finally watched her at the present time and lifted her head as she watched Lale make her way to the tavern, which seemed odd since it was a little late to start there.

Once there, her eyes went wide as she met a man she obviously knew and sat and joked and had drinks with him in plain sight of everyone there, many of whom also seemed to know this man. Then, as the tavern began to shut itself down, she took his hand and they retired to her quarters together where she watched them make passionate love together.

“I knew it!” she declared through gritted teeth. “I knew it! I knew she was not the one!” she declared victoriously.

She scowled at the little harlot with narrowed eyes as he pleased her at length like a man who knew his partner quite intimately and though she seemed to revel in her foresight, she still seemed quite bitter just the same. Late that night, he was on his way and she lay back and put on a night gown to get some much needed rest and Astravia watched her with steely eyes as she drifted to sleep and waited patiently.

Once she was certain the two timing slut was fully in a deep state of sleep, she raised her hand and held it out toward the globe, looking through it as though she were holding Lale from head to toe between her thumb and forefinger and she began squeezing slowly.

Lale gradually decreased in size, her feet underneath her covers creeping slowly up the length of the bed and the lump her body made making a progressively smaller a dent until a nine inch tall woman slept in a bed made for a woman more than seven times her current size and struggled and squirmed as apparently all of her had shrunk except for the contents of her bladder.

She awoke in a bit of a drunken daze and sat up rubbing her eyes as she pushed the gigantic covers as well as the collar of her night gown down and looked around, turning her body to sit at the edge of the bed, but stopping and looking confused as her legs came nowhere near that edge. She now widened her eyes, looking around more closely at the shadowy surroundings and reached for her lamp, but there was nothing remotely near her grasp. Slowly, the dark room revealed itself to her as Astravia intentionally moved the clouds so that moonlight could trickle in through the window and she was forced to realize she had indeed shrunk down to a fraction of her height.

She covered her mouth and gasped with immense fear and screamed but her voice was so small and weak it didn’t even leave the room any longer. She closed her eyes and covered them with her hands, shaking her head and assuring herself it was all a terrible dream and when she eventually forced herself to open her eyes again, apparently it had in fact been just a dream.

She was now normal sized and sitting dressed in her nightgown in her bed, which she had most assuredly wet in her absolute panic. She shook and trembled with fear, unable to relax after this harrowing illusion, while Astravia watched with malicious glee.

“I believe I shall leave you to your own ends, but I will also make sure to see to it that my dearest Maceo is able to see you for what you truly are on his own,” she determined, then went to bed herself, sleeping soundly and happily for the remainder of the night.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Fri May 27, 2022 3:07 am

The next day, Astravia caught Maceo immediately before he began work and stood above him glaring down with her arms crossed, though she seemed oblivious to how sexy she looked with her irked, pouty face, looking down over massive breasts heaved over her forearms.

“Astravia,” Maceo said with a certain amount of finality, but also with a touch of compassion. “Please sit down,” he said. This was a much more polite way to get his point across, but she still resisted due to the fact that there was just something plain wrong about a mortal telling a goddess what to do. But also, she swayed slightly, a large part of her just wanting to give in and go against that better nature. The battle was lost in her mind when he reached up to her.

She reached back and took his much smaller hand and lowered herself to a sitting position, putting them on much more equal footing. “Please Astravia, I am not a child.”

“Even the oldest of your species to me is like a child,” she informed him.

“We can never gain the experience or the knowledge you have, but that doesn’t make us children. I wish to speak freely. I don’t want to make you angry but to make my point I need your permission to say something I know I am not allowed to say to you.”

“Go ahead,” she told him gently with a nod of approval.

“You know I am deeply in love with you, you know how much I desire you and you told me yourself how overwhelming you are for someone like me. Your scent is literally intoxicating.” She nodded, listening to him carefully. “And yet, somehow, I have managed to bear these overwhelming feelings for you and I always strive to treat you with the dignity and respect due to you.”

“You are surprisingly good at it,” she admitted.

“Would a mere child be able to do that?” he asked her honestly. She was forced to shake her head no.

“Our lives may be a flash in the pan for you, but they’re long and filled with strife for us. I’m escaping that strife by having a goddess do all this work for me, but am I really living my life this way? Is there any meaning to it with you providing everything for me? I want more than anything to stay here and be with you; to be more to you than just this… hand drawn character that will disappear in an instant once the ink dries. You were right to encourage me to head out, you are right about it all, but doing that means I cannot continue to live under your care. Because for me, it’s not really living, is it? I can’t take the time off that you can because your short retreat is several lifetimes for me. Astravia… I know for you it was like it was just a moment ago, but think about when I first came to you. You know how hungry and tired I was, don’t you? How long would I have lasted like that?”

“A few days,” she answered with unhappy honesty.

“I knew that too at the time,” he said to her. “I have wrestled with my own mortality since I was a small boy. When I came to this place, I was ready for it. I didn’t fear it when that man attacked me in my room at the inn, I didn’t fear it when I knew bandits were along the road here ready to put a knife in my back, and I certainly don’t fear it now, here… with the… goddess I love. If my candle is meant to burn and then snuff itself out, then let me burn brightly!”

“I do not want to lose you,” she admitted, petting his cheek with her fingertip.

“I’m a mortal,” he told her calmly, “but wherever I go after this life, I will carry you in my heart forever.”

She sat there, looking at this man, almost as if for the first time again. “I have greater tasks for you today than pounding hammers and chipping blocks,” she finally decided.

“What are they, my goddess?” She laughed just a little at his comment and again petted his cheek with her fingertip.

“I intend to add to your magic lessons. You are right to be concerned with the sorcerers. I have checked and word has already spread. There is an interest in you that is piquing. You do not have the magic to fight head to head with them, but with this skill, that will not matter. You will be able to slow their thoughts and actions to a crawl, or speed them so their entire lives are extinguished in a flash. A thousand sorcerers and sorceresses would not stand a chance against you with this skill. Since you do not want me to curse your attackers.”

“I want you to relax and enjoy your weekend and not waste it on me,” he told her.

“It is not a waste, my dearest Maceo. Besides, I will still have hundreds of years to play when you are gone.”

“Why use any of it for things you didn’t come here for?”

She smiled rather gratefully and squeezed his hand in her giant fingers. “I also have much to discuss with you on how I want these… magicians to be trained.” He nodded in agreement and she considered her next orders carefully. “You have refurbished and rebuilt most of the mortal district in your time here. You are a master carpenter and mason, and I think you have spent enough time on these skills unless you plan to enter service to a king to build his empires for him. Therefore, leave work of that kind to the golems from now on. You may supervise them, but when you have learned these new lessons, we will make more of the new type of golem for you. This type can also be used to delegate management to the other golems. Your work will now be more advanced than that. Spend your morning at the metalwork’s and better hone your skills there the remainder of this week. Focus solely on improving your skills and leave the line work to your golems there. Then you will come to me and we will have lunch together. When you are done there, proceed to the library to study until I retrieve you to continue your lessons and then we will have dinner. Is this suitable to you, my ambitious little Maceo?”

“Of course, Astravia.”

“Then go. Go and burn brightly, my candle!” she encouraged, and then shushed him along with motions of the back of her hand.

The remainder of the week played out like this, with Astravia using her spare time to relax, go for swims but most importantly, watch Lale carefully and closely. Lale spent the entire week entertaining this man, who turned out to be another traveler who would sometimes come to the town in search of work before heading out to find another place for the same reason.

Slowly but surely, he was building up his wealth for a better life, which he seemed to hope Lale would live with him once he’d accumulated a sufficient amount. She also seemed similarly interested in him as she had been with Maceo, and even Astravia was forced to admit that her feelings for her Maceo were genuine, it was just that Lale was entertaining three separate suitors separate from each other.

This certainly would not do for one as precious to her as her sweet Maceo, so she saw to it that her new barrier around the town would be placed as soon as possible. She flew to the town a few nights after her morning conversation with Maceo, swooped down and transformed to her normal form, then looked around. The town was quiet in the dark, early hours of the morning, but a few stragglers could be seen and heard milling about despite the late hours.

She grunted and scowled, telling herself, “I hate taking that form,” quietly, so instead she made herself invisible and walked the perimeter of the town. Every couple hundred feet, she bent over and pressed a sparkling crystal into the ground and then moved on to the next location until the entire town had been encompassed in a perimeter.

The next morning, she met Maceo before he could begin at the metalworking shop. “My barrier is complete surrounding their town. I would like you to travel there and familiarize yourself with it and test it,” she told him, then pointed to a cart that had already been loaded for him full of goods and wares. “It is also time for you to approach the locals and your students and explain to them my plan. This will give them time to prepare before you begin their training.”

Maceo was a bit surprised by the suddenness of her orders but nodded and agreed. “I look forward to dinner tonight,” he told her, then climbed up and rode out of the temple to accomplish the mission he’d been tasked with.

A few hours later, Maceo pulled into town and was greeted warmly by several residents at the town’s edge then walked through, pulling his horses by their leads as he passed through this barrier for the first time, looking up and sensing as his passage through it rippled out and upward in what seemed like a dome of protection.

Of course, the very first thing Maceo thought to do when entering town was to go to the shop that Lale was managing. He was in quite bright spirits as he walked along with a smile on his lips, completely unaware that Astravia had set a few obstacles in the path of the man Lale had been spending the week with. Maceo rounded a corner and made his way up the road to see Lale standing on the stoop in front of the shop looking out.

Overjoyed to see her, he quickened his pace until he noticed her gaze was fixed in the other direction on a man who was fast approaching her so Maceo slowed down slightly. Then his smile faded as their hands met, grasped each other and then she leaned forward, kissing him in greeting as they met for lunch.

Maceo stopped cold in his tracks while a sad and sympathetic Astravia watched over her sweet mortal who’d just had his heart ripped in two. Maceo waited for a moment, but the passion of their kiss only increased, so he lowered his head, took a deep breath and then marched forward more stoically. As he passed by, Lale caught a glimpse and then opened her eyes to see Maceo walking by only a short distance from her, saying and doing nothing to interrupt her moment with her lover. All color drained from her face and she immediately began sweating, knowing full well she’d been caught red handed and she froze, quickly catching the attention of her lover who pulled back and looked at her with concern, asking what was wrong.

“Oh nothing, I just suddenly felt… a little ill,” she answered him nervously and doing her absolute best to not tip off both men at once.

Maceo then proceeded to the merchants district where he pulled up and found Gaeten, who was quite surprised to see him. “My boy!” he called out, reaching out to hug his friend, but paused when Maceo’s smile was weak and feeble. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Well, I just saw Lale at the shop. Greeting another man,” he explained and Gaeten stepped back.

“Oh. I see,” he said retrospectively. Maceo sighed and looked at the ground, so Gaeten patted him on the shoulder and lead him inside and gave him a seat. “I had hoped things hadn’t gotten so far,” Gaeten explained.

“You knew?”

“This was the reason I came to check up on you when you were teaching her to defend herself. Yes, I knew. It wasn’t my place to tell you her personal life.”

“You still could have warned me. How long has this been going on? Was I supposed to be just a fling on the side for her?”

“Oh, my boy,” he said with sympathy. “She’s well known in the town by now for this.”

“As a whore?”

“No. You’ll have to get the full story from her yourself, but she hasn’t been the same since her husband died. She apparently has three of you she’s courting now, though before just now I had thought we’d kept an eye on things enough for now to keep it to two.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I could see that miracle of all miracles, she was taking a shine to you after we arrived in Longsgallow so I and a couple of the ladies made it a point to watch from afar to make sure she didn’t let things develop too quickly. Apparently Lale has realized that we are watching her, so she took extra measures to make sure we hadn’t seen how well her relationship had developed with you. We even had talked to Cajsa about it because you three had become so close and she seemed oblivious too to how far things had gone.”

Gaeten went on to explain that following her husband’s death, Lale had grieved quite a bit until she reached a point where she realized she had best find a replacement for him, though making ends meet without her husband had forced her to become rather fiercely independent. The first man was a merchant that had chanced himself to come through town and she managed to seduce him, but he came far less regularly than either this other man or now Maceo. This second man made it a point to wander through for work as often as he could in order to see her.

They knew this tightrope that Lale was walking, but also did not want to risk the rage of jilted lovers to derail much needed business in the town, so when he’d realized Lale had set her sights on him as well, they watched for any evidence that he was at risk. Lale had been careful to cover her tracks this time, though and although the members of the caravan had seen that a strong attraction had quickly blossomed, they hadn’t yet seen that any of that attraction had been acted upon. Therefore, they thought the gentlest approach was best and they made it a point to keep both Lale and Maceo busy enough that they didn’t have opportunities to explore their feelings thoroughly.

The last evening together, Gaeten had made it a point to escort Lale home himself because he knew it was the most likely point where she would be able to make good on her ambitions and they were relieved to see Maceo depart town as early as he had rather than make time to spend with Lale for longer.

“We assumed you two hadn’t gotten to that point yet,” he explained.

“I see,” Maceo said, rather down and dejectedly.

“I’m sorry that you came all this way to see her with another man,” Gaeten told him apologetically. Maceo looked up at him and offered a slightly more genuine smile.

“Oh, she was the icing on my cake,” he informed him. “I suppose a cake can still be good without icing, though.” Gaeten gave him a sympathetic look and patted his shoulder.

“What brings ya here, then?”

“I’m going to grant your wish,” he informed Gaeten directly. “I need you to round up Cajsa and her peers and we need to speak to the town elders. And I was also hoping to peddle a few things here or there.”

Gaeten was thoroughly blown over and needed Maceo to help steady him, but he did just as asked and before long, Maceo was standing near the home of an elder as Cajsa ran up to him and leapt at him. Were she not so small and frail, she came at him with enough force that would have likely tackled him and Maceo had to smile as she hugged him for all she was worth, happy to see him again. She asked what brought him back, but Maceo asked her to wait for that with a sly grin but as the rest of her peers began to appear, she seemed to get the idea and squirmed excitedly, as did her peers as it became more and more obvious what they were waiting for.

Finally, when everyone was together, they entered the home and sat together in a large circle as Gaeten revealed the secrets to their success in Longsgallow to an amazed group of elders. When Gaeten was done with that, he explained the request they’d made of Maceo, and that was where Maceo stepped in.

He in turn began with a brief history of magic on their world describing it a bit more at it’s height and then the eventual surreptitious hijack and control of it by the guild of sorcerers and sorceresses.

“Essentially, they saw power in what they were doing, so they did what they had to consolidate that power for themselves. I’m sure in time they will organize and try to conquer lands, but fear of them has forced them to stay underground for centuries,” Maceo explained.

He also explained the risks to the elders of what these teenagers were asking for and the damages it could represent for them in a much more detailed form than he’d managed while they were on the road. Finally, he went on to explain the measures taken to help protect them and that if they wanted this gift, the signs that would have to be placed at all of the entrances to town and left there in perpetuity.

“The barrier that has been set up around the perimeter of town will strip any user of his magic once he steps through it, unless you engage in the pact that’s required of anyone who wants to go down this path here.”

“So these young men and women must enter a contract with you?” one elder asked him, rather suspiciously. “How do you think their parents will feel about us suggesting their children become your slaves?”

“The pact isn’t with me. I am more of an intermediary.”

“Then who is this pact with?”

“The goddess Astravia,” Maceo answered them. Heads lifted at the mention of this name and they all looked around at each other with surprise.

“She’s a myth. Even her temple is completely abandoned,” one elder insisted.

“She’s not a myth,” Maceo answered them.

“Prove it.”

“Your proof is the magic I’m offering you and the barrier of protection that’s been offered to you so long as your magicians enter a pact with the goddess Astravia. Once they are trained in the use of magic, they will all be able to feel the barrier whenever they pass through it. Other than that, I suggest you reconsider your attitude about her. It’s not the place of a goddess to prove herself to you. It’s your place to prove yourself to her if you want to carry her favor.”

“If she’s real, then where is she? All we have ever heard of her are myths.”

“She left centuries ago. She didn’t say why she was leaving when she did, and she didn’t say when she would be back. That’s only for her to decide.”

“And we’re also supposed to believe magic is real. You said yourself that what you did in Longsgallow was mere illusion,” another elder challenged.

“I suppose it’s fair to ask me to prove myself,” Maceo answered. The room remained skeptical of him, aside from Gaeten and Cajsa, and Maceo closed his eyes to concentrate. When he reopened them, all those around him seemed frozen in time. He stood and walked around them casually; stopping behind the old man he’d befriended on previous trips and placed his hands on his shoulders. Then time began moving again around Maceo and there was confusion as all those in the room searched for him in surprise then gasped as they quickly found him on the opposite side of the room.

The room was silent and heavy with apprehension, then, with a crinkle of his brow, a deep momentary concentration and then a wave of his hand, a large burst of wind through the windows that blew out all of the candles and spilled things like parchments all over the house. “Get me a fresh candle,” Maceo told their host, who then went to a footlocker and retrieved a new candle and set it on the table in the center of the group.

Maceo then focused again, this time apparently struggling and he rubbed his fingers together as though his thumb were a flint and then, one by one, each of the blown out candles as well as the new one lit in rapid succession before Maceo finally felt he could relax. “Does that satisfy everyone here?” he asked and when there were no comments he nodded and returned to his seat.

He then continued unchallenged forward as he laid out the conditions of their training and the manner in which the leaders of the town were expected to conduct themselves. “If you break the pact, depending on how you do it, it could be as simple as being stripped of a magical connection all the way up to being killed or anything in between. My suggestion is that you tell curious outsiders that you’ve had people with this ability for centuries, it’s just that you are now letting them use their abilities openly. Treat it as though this is something that is part of your heritage. I will have stone markers with a warning etched in them ready before long and you’ll need to put them at each entrance. Sorcerers will at least know what it is, even if they won’t know how to read it. Also, I would like to be compensated for my time and training. I would like three coins for every hundred that you bring in, and if the reaction in Longsgallow was any indication, then I think you can expect people to come from far and wide just to see your magicians.”

“And with them, they will bring trade,” Gaeten added.

“I still don’t buy this talk about Astravia,” one elder said, still refusing to give in to mere superstition.

“Have you ever seen the temple?” Maceo asked her.

“Only a few have been in there in my entire lifetime, and I only saw one of those with my own eyes. No one goes there.”

“But have you ever been there? Seen it from the outside?”

“There’s no point. None of us have a reason to go up there. What are you saying? You know the place?”

“I know that the last priestess of Astravia left there and locked it decades ago. I also know it’s off limits and I would be stupid to think I could sneak in there and steal from that place. But I’m talking about the walls, not the inside. When was the last time anyone from this town was ever there and saw how massive this temple was?”

“None since my ancestors were told to leave there,” another elder said.

“Every wall extends for miles. This isn’t some simple structure or a pyramid. It’s not a place you walk into to simply lay down offerings surrounded by a few pillars. This place is large enough to house a city, larger than even the largest cities we know about on the entire continent. Do you really think a place like that was built just based off of superstition? If you don’t want to go all the way up to the temple, then stop by one of it’s waypoints that was built for travelers to rest on their way there. Tell me any place that is built with such intricacy or precision. I actually don’t expect you to believe in Astravia, but if you want this power, then you will respect your oaths to her.”

The elders looked at each other, but each of the teens had made it clear what they wanted. The elders dismissed Maceo and the teens to discuss with Gaeten and the six of them went outside to sit and relax, giving Maceo some time to sit with Cajsa who was quite happy to share with him how much her health had improved since meeting him.

As they were doing so, a familiar face made an appearance and quickly strode up to Maceo, holding her dress up enough to make sure she wasn’t tripping over it. Cajsa was the first to see the flustered and panicked look on Lale’s face and sat upright, alerting Maceo to her approach. She practically ran up to Maceo who smiled slightly, but only out of politeness.

“I didn’t know you would be back in town so soon,” she stuttered to him.

“I didn’t exactly plan it out,” he said. All the while, Astravia was watching over them, grinning triumphantly and with a touch of sadism.

“I did,” she gloated to her globe.

“Well… I… I mean, it was such a surprise, I…” she stammered.

“Cajsa, could you give us a moment?” Maceo asked. The teenaged girl nodded and stepped away. “It’s alright,” Maceo told her, though he was extremely unenthusiastic about it. She leaned down as though to kiss him, but he put his hand up as a warning for her to stop.

“I can explain,” she told him nervously, sweating right there in front of him. Maceo was reluctant, but after a little more pleading, he allowed it. “It’s nothing that serious, I swear,” she said. “We’re just getting to know each other and…”

“I talked to Gaeten. He said they’re well aware that you’ve been having him over at night.” She stopped and fidgeted with her shaking hands. “And he told me about the merchant who swings by every once in a while.”

“Look, it’s not like that,” she insisted nervously.

“I could ask him,” he suggested calmly.

“No!” she blurted, then was forced to cover her mouth. “Look… I’m not like that, really. I just… I do want something real. I want it so badly. I want a life and I want children and I really wanted to talk to you about these things and…” she was rambling, desperate to salvage whatever she could.

“Do me proud, my dearest Maceo,” Astravia said coldly to the globe.

“You’re trying to court three men at once,” Maceo cut her off. Her hands were still shaking, but she managed to grab hold of his, still intent on trying to explain herself.

“When my husband died,” she explained, a little more calmly now, “I was all on my own. I was so scared and I had to be strong. I had to learn to do everything on my own, and I was proud because I knew I didn’t need a man in my life, but I also learned how much I really want one in my life. I’m not trying to play games, I really am looking for a husband and… they wanted it, and I felt like… and I have been waiting for one of them to be willing to take me into his life, but then you came, and I had hoped that…”

“Lale,” he said stopping her very gently. “If you don’t need a man in your life, then why would I even bother?” She gulped hard and looked at him.

“I don’t need to be dependent on you! I can do everything you can do! I could be so much help with your business, and I know I could be a good wife!”

“I wouldn’t be dependant on a woman either,” he explained to her. “But I do need a woman in my life. Someone who can make up for the areas where I’m not strong. Someone who would be a good mother, and who is faithful.”

“I can do that! I was always faithful to my husband!”

“How would he feel if he saw you like this?” Maceo asked her. She gulped, and her hands still shook, but she pressed on.

“This isn’t fair,” she determined, trying to find a way to put Maceo on the defensive again. “I know how men are. I know that Tetsu and Finian have other mistresses when they are out traveling about! I know how men are, and I know that there are plenty of other women out there that are more than happy to seduce them. I know that this is perfectly normal for a man to find whatever woman he wants to bed down with but I am expected to stay faithful to a man who isn’t even my husband.”

“And when you find a man who doesn’t engage in that behavior?” Maceo asked her. She stopped again and looked at him, once more struggling to find words. “I don’t do these things. I don’t gallivant around betraying my wife, or my betrothed, or whatever I have. I leave here and I go back to my workshop and I work in solitude, no other humans within hours of me, I don’t go from town to town looking for any woman who will let me inside of her. So what do you do when you find a man like that?”

“I never… I never promised you anything. But if you still wanted to… I could…”

“And your two other suitors?” She struggled and squirmed in her seat, not prepared to have this conversation that she herself had insisted on. “Do you believe I am that type of man? The type you just spoke about?” She shook her head at him, lowering it in shame. “I think you’re right. I think that if you know them well enough and you feel like they are willing to play with any lady they can find in their travels, then they probably are.”

“I could change,” she promised him.

“A moment ago you were saying that you aren’t like that. And now you are as much as saying you are because if you weren’t why would you need to change this about yourself?”

“I really do feel something wonderful for you,” she insisted.

“I believe you,” Maceo answered her, though in a tone that didn’t seem to give her the comfort she was seeking. “You are just acting in a way that reflects how you expect you’ll be treated.”

“Yes,” she admitted excitedly, her hope rising quickly now.

“Lale, I am looking for a wife that will treat me the way she hopes to be treated herself. Not reflect the way she expects I would behave.”

She lowered her head, realizing now she’d lost in her game. “I’m sorry,” she offered.

“So am I,” he answered her back. She sat for a long moment and then stood and left the scene while Cajsa watched from a distance and then cautiously returned.

“Did you two?” she asked him, not quite ready to utter the words.

“No,” Maceo answered her glumly. “And we won’t.”

Far off, Astravia was watching the scene unfold through her globe and was staring at him, slightly flustered. “Oh… I did not expect you to handle it like that,” she muttered, subconsciously fanning herself.

“But you were getting close,” Cajsa asked. There was a bit of hope in her voice as she danced around her own feelings.

“Before this morning I thought that she and I might be able to build a future together.”

“What if she left him, though? Would you give her another chance?”

“I might, but she would have to earn it. I really don’t think she would make a leap of faith like that, though. Even I can’t guarantee that I’d give her a chance after this.”

“I would have thought you would be really angry with her,” Cajsa said to him.

“Just hurt,” he answered. He then turned the conversation away from Lale and back to Cajsa and her future, which they’d hoped the elders would agree with.

A short while later Gaeten returned and rounded up Maceo and the teenagers and brought them back in where they shared the results of their meeting. They agreed to Maceo’s terms, mostly because of his good friend among the elders and his kind words regarding Maceo as well as the ways he’d already helped them already, but they remained very concerned about the introduction of magic into their town and were looking for better assurances for their town’s safety, admittedly almost as much from their own magic users as from outside intruders.

“The best thing I can suggest,” Maceo offered, “is to work harder to incorporate all five of my friends here into the town. I understand that in the past they haven’t been strong enough to do the kinds of work you needed, but now they will have an opportunity to do something that no one in your town can do. That being said, I will work on a couple of measures to help make sure that there can be a bit of oversight for them. I want to remind you though that what I am going to teach them is only illusions and manipulation of light.”

“What about those flames?” one of the teenage boys asked. “Those weren’t real?”

“They were real,” Maceo answered him, “ but what you’re doing is channeling the flame out far from the source. When you push it out that far, you can keep it warm, but it’s too far from the source to keep the heat high enough to burn. I’ll show it to you, but it’s pretty harmless.”

Finally, an agreement as struck and it was decided that the teens would be led by Gaeten, who would be dividing up his time between his own business and overseeing the new magicians. With everything worked out Maceo headed back out of town once he’s offloaded a number of goods to be sold to local merchants and made his way back home to Astravia’s temple. Not far from the main gate as he left, he caught a glimpse of Lale with her other suitor, who was showering her with affection and Maceo shook his head.

Once back home, Astravia strode out to the main gate to meet him as she usually did and smiled down at him as he dismounted and led the horses back to a pasture for some rest and water. “You were watching?” he asked her.

“Of course,” she answered with a warm and welcoming smile. “I am pleased that they are taking the learning of magic so seriously. Most mortals would see any kind of power and covet it a little too jealously. I am looking forward to this.”

Maceo smiled at her praise and even bowed to her, then proceeded away from her. “I’d like to make myself more presentable for dinner,” he told her.

“Maceo,” she called out to him, gaining his attention so that he would turn and face her again. “I am so sorry that the woman there disappointed you so terribly. I know your feelings for her were very genuine.”

Much to her surprise, though, Maceo smiled quite warmly back to her. The weight of what he’d seen that day was there, but he seemed to lift it with ease.

“I am having dinner tonight with a goddess,” he told her proudly. “I’m certain that even the best evening bed, even with her, can’t compare with that,” he said with a bow and then turned to go tidy himself up, not even noticing as Astravia blushed at his compliment and stared after him as he walked away from her.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Sat May 28, 2022 4:41 am

A week passed as Astravia and Maceo continued their new ritual together, Maceo honing physical skills in the morning, which was producing enjoyable results in the metal shop with the advanced golems. His individual studies were also producing dividends as his knowledge seemed to be growing, but best of all was his gradual mastery of the time manipulation spell Astravia was teaching him. Thus far, he could only produce results with a great deal of effort for a few seconds at a time, but he was quickly improving and eliminating distortions produced from his technique as he went, which certainly pleased Astravia.

The highlight of each day, though, had definitely become their time together for meals each afternoon and evening with relaxing talk either in the gardens, the pastures or by the pool. Astravia was truly relaxing after only a few short years here away from her troubles in her celestial palace and one evening sitting on a ridge overlooking one of the parks with a small pond in the middle Maceo smiled up at her as he shared his mortal insights with her.

“I’ve noticed,” Maceo commented quietly to her while sitting on a railing beside her as she leaned against it looking down at the scenery, “that sometimes that sadness in your eyes seems to almost go away.” She turned and looked him in his eyes, caught a little off guard by his observation. “I’m happy that you can at least have some moments where you can be your real self.”

“Maceo,” she began thoughtfully. “I had originally planned to share this in a few hundred years from now, but I wonder if you would be interested in learning the secrets of flight.”

Maceo looked up at her and tried to deduce her meaning. “Wings?” She smiled and nodded but her eyes never wavered from the scenery around her. “Are you thinking of giving me wings?” which made her giggle profusely.

“No, my dearest Maceo. I will teach you to build them yourself.”

“How… do I build wings? What do I use for the feathers?” Again she giggled at him.

“These are not like bird wings. There is more than one manner in which to gain flight and I will teach you a few of them. The real trouble is actually not the wings but the method to keep yourself moving forward. Would it not be fun to soar in the clouds with me on an evening like this one?”

“Unimaginable,” he remarked with awe.

“We both know that you have a more fertile imagination than that,” she teased. Again they relaxed and just enjoyed the view together in a perfectly peaceful moment. “I never intended this temple to be so empty. I also never really bothered to consider how beautiful it would be like this.”

A few moments later, she was resting her chin in her hand and noticed Maceo seemed to be deep in thought. “Care to share what you are contemplating?” she asked casually.

“I didn’t want to ruin the evening,” he answered back.

“Just tell me,” she answered back with a satisfied sigh. “My interest is piqued now.”

“I was thinking of how for several years I wouldn’t see you for days or even longer at a time.”

“You became very self sufficient,” she complimented. “Much more quickly than I’d expected. It wasn’t necessary to check in on you.”

“I had hoped back then to advance so that I wouldn’t be wasting your time instructing me constantly. The time I’ve spent with you lately is really all I ever wanted. More than it, actually.”

“You are very sweet,” she told him very cordially, though this seemed to be all he’d hoped for and he smiled contentedly.

The day before Maceo was to head out to meet his trainees at Astravia’s hidden sanctuary, Astravia approached Maceo in the middle of his studies and knelt down, then shut his book for him, forcing his undivided attention. “Astravia?” he asked waiting for more than just her gentle smile.

“You have worked hard enough, my dear little Maceo. You are going to take the rest of today off. No arguing.” He sat upright, a little uncomfortable, but definitely doing exactly as told. She grinned with immense amusement at his obedience and reached out, petting his cheek with her fingertip. “It is time I made good on a promise to you,” she said, then held her hand out, waiting for him to take it. She led him all the way up to the pool and stood there looking out over the water.

He seemed to know what she had in mind, so he looked up at her with a raised eyebrow, which made her titter. “Wait here,” she told him and entered her quarters where she disappeared for a few minutes and then returned wearing a soft, gray shawl that covered her upper torso and a long skirt covering her lower half. Then she stepped up to the edge of her pool, smiled demurely at him and then lowered her shawl and pulled her skirt off to reveal a short dress made of a flexible material he’d never seen before that was mostly a cyan color, but also faded to black with a number of geometric shapes that almost looked like a star across her taut tummy. The shoulder straps were held in place in diagonal straps that reached across to the other side of her chest, weaved around each other and the skirt only came down to her upper thighs.

This dress, while absolutely gorgeous, was a perfect example of why goddesses didn’t wear anything less than a full-length skirt. She was an absolute vision, but the view from his angle provided a perfect window up her skirt. She was, of course, wearing a pair of undergarments of a similar material on her sensual hips, but for added measure, she was standing in front of him with her left foot crossed in front of her right. Further up, her massive breasts seemed almost caged in this otherwise elegant swimwear and stretched and pulled on the mesh prison that kept her bosom from bursting out.

“Well, let’s go,” she chirped. “Let us take that swim I’ve promised you,” she mentioned with a cheerful voice, then frowned as he stepped back with an uncomfortable expression. “What is it?” she asked. “Come now, we only have until tomorrow,” she encouraged him, waving her hands to signal for him to disrobe. He offered her an awkward look, but she placed her hands on her hips. “Are you embarrassed?” she teased him. “I have seen you naked before,” she assured him.

He laughed a little awkwardly and looked away. “Come now,” she insisted and even stepped closer, her intent to do the necessary work of stripping him becoming evident.

“The problem, Astravia, is I don’t have nearly that level of control over my hormones,” he told her.

“What do you mean?” she asked him, pausing suddenly with a confused expression.

“It means… you are… stunning. An absolute vision,” he told her, waving his hands up and down to emphasize her body. “I don’t have enough control over my body that I’ll be able to stop myself from… being rude.”

“Are you insinuating you plan to grab me?” she asked him accusingly.

“No, nothing like that,” he promised her. “That much I can always guarantee I’d never violate. But my body does still betray me, just the same,” he admitted. She tipped her head and stared at him and suddenly she realized what his meaning was.

“Oh… oh! Absolutely not. I will not have you pointing that thing at me,” she scolded him.

“If I had that level of control over it, I would have never mentioned it,” he laughed at her. “But you are that beautiful,” he told her quite sincerely.

She smiled at the compliment and even blushed a little, not realizing she was playing with a lock of her hair in her fingers. “Very well,” she whispered to him. “I will forgive it because you are so considerate,” she said and then with a motion as though she were knitting something in mid air, a pair of trunks formed similar to her swimming dress that was just the right size for him. She handed it down to him and then shooed him along toward her quarters.

“Now go inside the door and change into those so you are not… pointing at me,” she taunted him with a playful smile. “Hurry!” she insisted.

Maceo jogged back toward the building and she chuckled to herself, shaking her head at him as he trotted off. “And they have a rope around the waist! Tie it TIGHT” she ordered him.

When he returned to her she was standing there with her hands still on her hips and shaking her head at him, which made him blush. “I forgot that it acts of its own accord for a moment,” she complained with a sigh. “I could just remove it,” she suggested.

“Please don’t,” he snapped back nervously, which made her giggle. Together, they both walked in to the water until he was neck deep and then she took both of his hands and pulled on them as she drifted out into deeper waters backwards. A moment later, something in the corner of his eyes caught his attention and he looked down to see her long, thick, silky legs transform into a mermaid’s tale even more beautiful than he’d imagined from tales told to him when he was a boy and then she pulled him hard, yanking him a few feet under water.

He remained steadfast, though he was still nervous in an environment where he couldn’t breathe. She placed her palm against his chest and there was a light and a warmth where she touched him. Then she opened her mouth and released they air from her own lungs, which floated to the surface in large bubbles before she nodded for him to do the same. Once he’d done so, she pulled him several feet deeper and then demonstrated to him how she was breathing deeply in and she held her hands out to imply he do the same.

He gulped and did as asked, but coughed and hacked for several tries with her smiling and laughing just a little at his troubles before he realized that indeed, he could breathe freely underwater now.

“Better?” she asked him gently. He opened his mouth and mumbled something in response, so she reached up and touched his throat, causing the same glow and warmth. “How about now?”

“Much better,” he replied, then looked around in surprise to hear his voice nearly perfectly.

“Now do not go racing back to the surface before I’ve had a chance to change your lungs back,” she warned. “You can breathe underwater now, but not above until I fix it again.” Astravia then placed her hands under his arms and swam forward and down into the deeper reaches of the pool where Maceo unexpectedly saw a school of fish a little larger than his hands whose scales reflected brilliantly in the sunlight.

“There are fish,” he remarked with amazement. She smiled and swam alongside them, dancing among them.

“I have been introducing them all week,” she informed him. “I thought it would be a nice surprise for you.”

“I didn’t know that you would teach me how to breathe underwater,” he answered, though he coughed a little as he spoke.

“We are going to stay up here for a little while,” she explained as she slowed down to a near stop and pushed him out in front of her and looked at him directly. “There is still air in your body that hasn’t worked it’s way out yet and if we dove to the deeper cavern, it would hurt you. It will take a little while for your breathing to become fully normal,” she explained with a smile.

“How deep are we now? The surface looks so far away,” he said, looking above.

“Only about sixty feet. The lower cavern is several miles down though.”

“Several MILES?” She grinned at him and laughed a little, floating there with the much smaller man in her hands and her golden locks gently swaying to her left in the current.

“We built it that way for stability. If it was too close to the temple, then it would interfere with the aquifer and the temple itself.”

“I can already feel the pressure here. It’s pretty intense.”

“As the air works its way out of your body, the pressure will become less and less. You will be fine,” she promised. Maceo really couldn’t do anything but nod, though he did one thing that seemed to elate Astravia. He grinned and she could feel the excitement in his heartbeat while exploring this new world previously hidden from him.

“Come here,” she whispered excitedly and grabbed his wrist, pulling him along at dizzying speeds as this massive mermaid of a goddess dashed down even more deeply nimbly and effortlessly.

The waters grew darker and darker and they passed by a large, primitive looking shark that seemed to ignore them and down until they found the wreckage of an ancient, but quite beautiful and large wooden ship.

“A ship sank here?” he asked her with fascination.

“No, silly,” she giggled at him with a grin. “I found it at the bottom of the sea while they were building the temple. I just had to have it, so I moved it here. The treasure is even still inside,” she explained to him almost breathlessly. Her enthusiasm was certainly contagious. She surged forward again in another burst of underwater speed as Maceo was forced to reach down and grab his trunks that quite nearly slipped off of his hips in the fresh dash for their destination.

They swam down to the ancient ship, which was lying askew with several cracks in it’s hull, but otherwise looked very much in tact and aside from the obvious damage almost looked like it was ready to set sail that day. Astravia skirted around the ship giving him a quick tour of the outside and indeed it was impressive.

“I’ve never seen a ship like this, and I was raised in a coastal town,” he marveled.

“Would you like to hear the story?” she asked him, pulling him up and holding him with her arms under his armpits as he faced her.

“You’re not going to show me back in time when it was a new ship?”

“A little bit of that,” she admitted, “but there is more to tell than can be shown by simply replaying time here in fast motion for you. She took his hand and then pulled him down into the main hold of the ship that was surprisingly roomy, even for a fifteen foot woman and they looked at rows of crates and chests as well as several piles of gold and silver that was laid out on the floor having fallen out of broken containers when the ship sank. “Believe it or not, a handful of people survived this wreck,” she explained, excited and fascinated by its story.

“Who built this ship?” he asked her as she showed him some of the gold and let him run his fingers through it.

“Interestingly enough, ancestors of yours did. You have some of their blood in you. Not much, but just a bit. Your society is very, very young. In fact, your species is very young. I was aware that your world was developing towards intelligent life, but I was surprised to hear that your species had an… unexpected growth spurt several thousand years ago. Your society took root a little less than two thousand years ago, which was a little sooner than I’d anticipated, but when I found this ship, I was amazed and went through it. I reconstructed its logs and documents when I found it over nine thousand feet underwater and I was very surprised because a ship like this that far out to sea wasn’t something I had expected to find.”

“So where did it come from?”

“An ancient civilization that predated yours by six thousand years,” she told him with bright, excited eyes.

“That’s… I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

“Almost all evidence of them is gone. They first developed a few days ride north of here and eventually made their way down to the coast where they set up a fishing village,” she explained, pulling them out of time as she had before and holding him close to her chest as she showed these people and their simple town.

“Then, from there, they became fascinated with the sea and developed better and better boats, much more quickly than is typical of a civilization at your level. Then they set their minds to exploring. They interacted with other mortals, but they’d advanced so quickly it meant constant conflicts, so they kept looking to branch out anywhere that they could live in peace. Of course, they could not. Your world was even more untamed then than it is now. That was until they explored the seas and found an island several hundred miles from the town you were born in. A few of them created a settlement there, which then became a town, and the original town was abandoned as more of that culture migrated there as word spread and they moved to the center of the island where they developed a city. A city, that numbered even greater than what I’d hoped my temple would be at by this time.”

“I’ve never heard of a city that large before,” Maceo marveled. All around him he saw images of crew and passengers surrounding him, frozen in time now as they were on this vessel before it sank. They were recognizable, but also rather short and stocky compared to the people Maceo knew in his current world.

“They were fascinating. I looked back in time and watched their civilization rise and fall over and over again.”

“But what happened to them?”

“Oh, their island civilization was a paradise. They even discovered the secrets to flight, though they were having trouble with engines to propel them. The island had a resource that let them build ships that were lighter than air and if they’d lived much longer, they probably could have started traveling the world with those craft once they learned to build better engines. But, their island was actually a volcano and they only realized it when it was too late. Legend of the few survivors told tales of how their island sank, but really, it was just a massive eruption that destroyed the top of the volcano and the remainder is now several hundred feet beneath the surface. This ship was part of a trade expedition about a century before their civilization was destroyed. Once their city was gone, the few that remained eventually were unable to sustain themselves in their smaller outposts and had to be absorbed into the less civilized cultures. Some of them tried to start fresh by teaching their less advanced brethren, but that did not go well, so your people remained as they were until I came across them and discovered they’d finally developed the beginnings of language. I did not even realize that most of what they knew was actually rooted in this older, lost civilization until I chanced upon this ship.”

“Nine thousand feet beneath the waves.”

“Mmhmm,” she chirped with a smile.

“Why would you even go that deep and far out in the oceans anyways?”

“Because I was BORED!” she laughed. “Sometimes when you explore like that, you find interesting things. On a world like yours I typically find interesting fish or corals, or fascinating features at the bottom of the ocean, or even a treasure trove of natural resources that I could use, or maybe your people could use far off into their future if they develop the ability to get it. There was an interesting series of lava tubes I was swimming in when I accidentally came across a gold coin. Then I looked around and found another and another and eventually a trail that brought me back to this ship. Maceo, a ship like this is not something I would expect your people to be able to build for centuries, maybe even millennia!”

“So you finally had something new to find.”

“Oh no; I have found remnants of ancient civilizations like this thousands of times before,” she declared as though it were no big deal. “But still, it got me away from overseeing building for a couple of days.”

Astravia gave Maceo a tour of the entire ship, save the parts that weren’t large enough for her to fit into, but even then she would sit outside and wait for Maceo to swim around and explore on his own. Once she’d explained the history of this amazing vessel, it was obvious why she’d found it so interesting. It was a literal treasure ship from a lost civilization that no one even knew existed. Being a goddess, since simply having it wasn’t a problem, then why wouldn’t she simply have it as her own?

She explained how she had moved it to this location on her own, since her workers and craftsmen had neither the tools nor the capability to perform such a feat anyways and here it had sat for one thousand years, preserved as a display piece.

Once they’d thoroughly explored the vessel, Maceo swam back out to meet a giddy goddess who took him in her arms and asked excitedly what he thought. “It’s amazing,” he remarked, fascinated and almost as excited by her showy discovery as she was. “I know gods can do fantastic things, but something like this must still impress them when you show them, right?”

“Oh, no god or goddess has ever been here except for me,” she answered him. “You are the first one I’ve ever had the opportunity to show this to,” she glowed. “But yes, rare collectibles like this one are certainly things that we take pride in finding. Would you like to see Athenica?” she asked him excitedly.

“Their lost city?” he asked and she nodded to him with a grin excitedly. “Well, yes,” he smiled back, then screamed briefly as she grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward at breakneck speed, nearly losing his swimming trunks once more in the process. She dragged him further down deeper to the point where the water had hardly any light any longer at all.

As they descended at first there was nothing, but then lights began to appear in the darkness below. Soon the lights provided enough to see there were structures that they were swimming toward, and then it became evident the structures were buildings and before he knew it they were soaring down into a perfect city at the bottom of her pool, which from Maceo’s perspective was a very large, deep lake.

He looked around as they descended to streets not unlike the ones he was familiar with already. Streets much wider than the ones he’d been raised on, but not as wide as those here in Astravia’s temple. He was utterly amazed looking at a tall, narrow building that stood a few stories taller than Astravia’s personal quarters, but then looked around, realizing that this city, lit with yellow lamps inside the buildings around him and lamps on posts on the streets was only a few blocks in every direction.

“This is only a part of Athenica,” she explained as they reached the bottom and floated just above the street’s surface. “When I discovered the ship and learned more about its past, I had the workers build a replica of part of it down here before we filled it in with water. It is even in the architectural plans for the temple, but the ship? I sneaked it in overnight after the pool was filled in,” she told him with a mischievous grin.

“Anyone who studies the plans for this temple can come across this replica, but the ship was my little secret. My little surprise to anyone with the ability to come down this far. Sometimes it is these simple touches that make a place interesting.”

She took him up and down the streets which like Astravia’s temple, were paved with concrete and she showed him the odd carriages that were there which Astravia insisted could move themselves.

“They had even discovered electricity,” she explained to him because he had a passing understanding of what that meant. “They were just a short jump away from being able to mass produce goods when their volcano erupted. I’ve even thought about going back in time and interacting with them, but I do not really enjoy disguising myself.”

“You can go back in time? But I thought you said that…”

“Going back in time is different than stopping and reversing it,” she explained. “But it is a bit like walking into a room filled with delicate porcelain crafts. Everything is so fragile, you are almost better not picking anything up. Depending on what you do, you could either erase a future or break it off into multiple futures, and I really do not enjoy dealing with those,” she told him with disdain. “And once you have splintered time into multiple futures, it is like putting a crack in glass. It is so much easier now for the crack to grow or spread into new cracks until it all shatters anyway. The war between Chronstrus and Zantharan, for instance? It shattered an entire universe. I really loved that place, too. It was one of the earliest ones and it was so beautiful,” she lamented.

“Anyways, it is usually easier to simply replay time around you rather than going back there. Also, none but the council are allowed to travel back in time anyways,” she said, patting him on his back as he coughed a little again.

They explored some more, with Maceo fascinated as he traveled casually down city streets of a lost civilization while fish occasionally swam by as though they were commuting on business of their own in this lost city.

“I will be honest,” she admitted. “Part of me wanted to recreate the entire city of Athenica, but if I had done that, I would have had to make the temple several times larger and then most of it would be water, which rather defeats the purpose. Besides, changing the mountain to be able to sustain that much water is so tedious and for what? The mountain will either continue to rise or erode and then in a few million years it all falls apart anyways.”

Maceo was hanging on her every word. Not just the interesting world she’d created here, but also how casually she spoke of it as though she were planting a small garden to harvest a few vegetables. Her perspective was almost jarring.

They stayed here, exploring every nook and cranny for some time as he marveled that everything, even down to the furniture and cutlery had been precisely recreated and then she turned and faced Maceo, looking him up and down, carefully appraising him. “I think you are ready,” she said softly but with a twinkle in her eyes. “Shall we go see the caverns?” Maceo looked a little more confused, but nodded and she again pulled him close while facing forward from her with her hands underneath his armpits and then she burst forward down the quiet streets of Athenica so fast that once again he nearly lost his swim trunks, which would have most assuredly gone poorly given how excited he was with his head pressed firmly between her enormous breasts.

He clung tightly onto his shorts as they followed the contours of the pool bottom, then without warning, she pulled straight up toward the surface, rotated 180 degrees and then dove backward with Maceo gasping with wonder as they dove straight down into a massive, perfectly round chasm a the bottom of the pool.

An instant later, they’d crossed into the tunnel and they were rocketing down and down and down with dizzying speed. All around them was pitch black for several moments until there was a slow glow that was growing ahead of them. It widened and intensified until it reached to a level similar of that of the sun right at sunrise and then the burst through the mouth of the other end into a massive underwater cavern that was lit as though they were sitting underneath an aurora.

Astravia now slowed down and took her time, rotating Maceo around so he could casually gain a view of the cavern from all angles, including a view of a perfect replica of the temple above, less the industrial and mortal living areas.

What was more was the fish floating around this heavenly underwater paradise. Maceo could feel the pressure around him, but as Astravia had promised, it was bearable, if not entirely comfortable. With that intense pressure, came unique fauna at this deep location. In the distance he could see what looked like a shark meandering around, though unlike a typical shark this one’s mouth did not extend fluidly up into its nose. Instead this one had a maw of jagged teeth that protruded out obscenely and grotesquely and a distinctly long snout that looked more like a blade extending directly forward a number of inches like a goblin’s nose. Overall, it seemed to be around 8 feet in length.

A little closer to him, but in the opposite direction was what looked like a pair of octopus but with luminescent skin, short, stubby tendrils and flaps on either side of its head that looked like elephant ears. Directly below them swam a school of long, slender fish that had shiny scales that not only reflected brilliantly, but also had a quality that almost seemed to store what light was available around them. They were quite beautiful, aside from their menacing looking hinged jaws that also housed jagged teeth.

Another fish passed immediately in front of them that Maceo almost missed because it was mostly translucent and Maceo could actually see through it. And though the space was relatively sparsely populated, there were more, many more.

Despite being raised in a fishing village, all of them looked strange and alien, but more importantly, distinctly unrefined and primitive. “Keep your distance from them,” Astravia warned as he looked at one particularly fat and menacing fish with a bulb hanging out in front of its face on some sort of thin tendril. “A number of them are not exactly friendly.”

She then turned and dove down to the replica of her own quarters and in through the balcony where every last detail of her room had been copied several miles under water. Above them shone bright, glowing algae just like that in the greater cavern lighting this strange world within a world.

“We will not stay that long,” she promised. “I am sure you can feel it down here and we shall leave before you get too uncomfortable.” All Maceo could do was stare slack jawed in wonder around him. All around him was a world that was both familiar and completely alien all at once and he was experiencing it miles under the surface of an already unimaginable pool several miles above them

She let him go and he swam to the balcony and looked around while she watched him gawk and grin, his mind still overloading from all he’d been shown. As happy as he’d been when she’d shown him her new observatory, this was causing him to become elated, more so than she’d seen from this otherwise stoic man who was easy to impress, but much more difficult to exert reactions from him. She grinned and watched him, her caudal fin flicking excitedly.

“I’ve never seen fish like this before,” he remarked. Were there any air to breathe, you might say he said it breathily.

“They can only survive in pressure like this,” she answered him, bursting to him and then stopping at the railing of her balcony to lean on it much the same as she would above when she had legs. “If we brought them up to the upper levels, their bodies would fall apart. Hardly anything ever happens at this kind of depth, so they have never had to change much if anything about them to adapt to their world so they look very much the same as when I was very young.”

“You’re certainly not old,” he commented back at her with a playful smile. She giggled and nudged the mere six-foot tall man with her shoulder.

“87 million years?” she asked him.

“I still say it’s impossible you’re even twenty five,” he teased her, giving Astravia a near fit of giggles as he continued to stare around them in wonder and awe.

“Down here, we’ll go a bit more gently with you because of the pressure and before long you will start to feel a heaviness on your chest that will let you know that despite the barrier I’ve placed around you it will be time to leave.”

“Amazing,” Maceo remarked, not really making it clear that he’d even heard her as he planted his feet on the railing and pushed off, drifting straight out over the plaza in what should have been mid air for him. His enthusiasm was contagious and she gently glided out to him and took his hands then they spun around each other, her grinning at him with glee at being able to share this rare glimpse into another world that she’d created by her own hand.

Together they explored this underwater temple hand in hand with Maceo showing so much enthusiasm that the only thing that kept him behind her was his lack of a tail fin himself. The bathhouse had bubbles of air to soak your feet instead of pools of water, the kitchen was stocked with all variety of fish and cooked over stone plates on the stove that glowed red from the heat. The ballroom was actually upside down with a sparkling dome on the floor rather than the ceiling. Everything about this temple was uniquely suited to the underwater cavern it was placed in.

They stayed and swam together, with most of the time Maceo so filled with curiosity and wonder that he couldn’t even find words, which gave Astravia immense satisfaction and once he’d seen everything, he started all over again, actually trying to go so quickly that Astravia was the one being pulled along every time he had something he could push off of in order to propel himself forward.

It wasn’t until a few hours into their exploration that Astravia caught him clutching his chest, though he was still so enthralled that he only seemed mildly aware of it.

“That is enough,” she said as she swam up to him and took both of his hands. “Your body is growing tired holding the pressure back, so it is time to go back now.”

“Already?” he asked, looking down and forcing himself to acknowledge that what he was feeling was indeed pain.

“Already,” she beamed back at him. The pair floated upward away from the temple and Maceo continued watching with an open mouth at the glowing, seemingly breathing ceiling of the cavern until he was just a short distance from the tunnel to the surface. “Ready?” she asked him, though he was in a world all his own and didn’t seem to notice until she surged ahead at breakneck speed and this time, because he hadn’t been paying attention, he did lose his shorts as they more or less stayed in place and he rocketed up with Astravia holding him. The instant he realized he’d been declothed he screamed and covered his crotch and Astravia slowed looking down at his embarrassed face. “What is it?”

“I wasn’t ready,” he admitted to her.

“Oh, well then be ready this time,” she told him.

“Umm.. no, I think I need to go back down first,” he informed her.

“What? Why?”

“Because I have to go back and get something,” he answered her. She looked at him rather quizzically, raising an eyebrow, then her face contorted and she reached down and touched her finger to the bare skin of his hips.

“Oh for the love of…” she began, rolling her eyes, but also giggling at him. She spun over and sure enough, there were his swim trunks floating several dozen feet behind them with that strange shark meandering over to have a look see at them. She shook her head at him and released him.

“I shall shoo him away and go get them for you,” she said and then burst forward like a cannonball, her wake so focused and intense that Maceo was left spinning in every which direction and flailing his arms in a desperate bid to right himself.

It only took Astravia an instant to return to his discarded swim trunks and the mere act of doing so was enough to scare the shark away, but when she turned around, she was met with a full on full frontally nude Maceo who was still struggling to right himself after being sent tumbling in her wake, flapping in the current. Except it wasn’t exactly flapping. She huffed and shook her head and burst back to him and held out his lost swim trunks.

“What did I tell you about pointing that thing at me?” she scolded.

“I’m pretty sure it was pointing at the wall,” he joked back nervously, blushing heavily. She grinned, bit her lip and turned away from him as he pulled his shorts back up and tied them even more tightly than before.

“You are trying to be smart with me,” she told him trying to pretend she was still scolding him.

“It acts on its own,” Maceo informed her. “I actually don’t even want to tell you how often I’m telling it to stop and it never listens.”

“Well at least I know you have the same single mindedness of your brethren even though you hide it well,” she laughed turning back at him and wagging her finger at him.

“I’m doing my best to master this issue better for you,” he answered.

“Oh Maceo,” she muttered, shaking her head and putting her face in her hand. “I had thought that covering myself like this would have solved that problem.”

“Well, you really are that beautiful,” he answered her, which gave her a quick laugh.

“Do you think you can flatter yourself out of this?”

“I’m going to flatter either way,” he teased. “You could have just swam me down to them and I could have picked them up myself so I didn’t have to offend you with my little dick.”

She laughed more earnestly at him and shook her head again. “I would not worry about that,” she laughed at him. “It is going to make a mortal woman very happy one day.”

“I’m just glad I get to keep it,” he joked with her, forcing Astravia to chuckle as she held him close against her bosom again and burst straight up, quickly entering the long tunnel and ascending as quickly as she’d descended it.

As they reached the end, they could see a dim light, and Astravia decided she was still feeling a little playful. “Hold your breath,” she whispered in his ear and amazingly she accelerated, exiting the tunnel in a flash and rocketing up at her best speed and breaking the surface, exploding dozens of feet up in the air, which was red and purple from the nearly vanished sunset. Up they went until their momentum slowed, little by little and then for an instant, they were weightless mid air, before Astravia fell back and dove back into the water, taking extra care to make sure her passenger was shielded on reentry and then gently glided back down to the bottom.

She pushed Maceo out from her bosom and turned him to face her, checking that he’d made the leap unhurt, and grinned as he began laughing almost uncontrollably following this most exciting adventure. She smiled satisfyingly at him until his laughter proved to be contagious and she joined in, swimming around and rotating around each other in a happy, playful dance several hundred feet beneath the surface of her pool.

She kept him down there for a while and they frolicked at the sunken ship again as she explored whatever parts of the vessel she could fit inside of. Then, once she was certain he was alright following such a deep dive, she slowly swam him up toward the beach they’d entered the water from and stopped him a little more than his height from the surface.

She smiled a very happy and contented smile at him as she pressed her hand against his chest and there was a warm glow before she nodded to him. “Swim to the surface and then stop where you can sit there on your hands and feet. Then I want you to breath out as hard as you can for as long as you can. After that, don’t worry about the coughing,” she instructed and then let him go to do exactly as instructed. As soon as he was at walking depth for his mere six foot body, she swam forward herself, fluidly transforming her mermaid’s tail to her own, soft supple legs again and then joined Maceo, who was now coughing the remainder of the water left in his lungs out and petted his back for him to sooth him until he was back to normal again and sitting facing up at the stars with an ear to ear grin on his face. She turned over and leaned back, looking up along with him.

“You are so stoic,” she said to him teasingly. “I am not sure I have ever seen you laugh this much.”

“I’ve always dreamed about the stars, but never as much as I’ve dreamt of what it would be like to see the world beneath the waves. It was so much more than I ever imagined,” he said with only a couple of minor coughs.

“We are going to warm you up,” she informed him then both stood and walked back to the patio to sit between massive pyres that burned brightly and she summoned for some hot tea for her mortal companion. They also shared a late dinner together that contained little conversation, but much smiles as they reflected on their escapade with each other and enjoyed the warmth of the fire and the view of the stars.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Sun May 29, 2022 4:02 am

The next morning, Maceo was up at the break of dawn and readying a pair of horses for his travels when Astravia strolled out to greet him before he left. As soon as he saw her approaching, he turned to face her, still grinning from his adventure the day before. “Any ill effects from diving so deep?” she asked him, and then smiling as he shook his head no to her question.

“Good morning Astravia,” he said with a polite bow to her. For some reason, she actually blushed a little and tried to ignore it.

“I did not think you would head out so early,” she commented, dropping to her knees and then sitting with her legs together to her side.

“I need to be sure to get there ahead of your would be magicians,” Maceo answered her, then stopped as he noticed a somewhat forlorn expression on her face hidden behind her pleasant smile. “I honestly thought you would sleep in,” he said to her, stepping a little closer to the fifteen-foot tall lady seated before him.

“I did not feel like it today,” she answered him in an aloof tone of voice.

“May I make you breakfast?” he asked her. Her smile widened and softened as well as her eyes smiling gently to him. She nodded and took his hand as she stood up.

For the sake of convenience, he cooked in the kitchen in the clergy’s barracks and made her a large, juicy omelet with fruit juice and toasted bread and they sat at a bistro together and watched the early morning sunlight wash over them and bath the temple in it’s fresh light. As with their dinner the evening before it was spent mostly in comfortable silence, just appreciating each other’s company. That’s not to say there wasn’t any conversation, it was just that it was light and sparse. Towards the end of their meal together, Maceo smiled up to her from his seat across from her.

“There are no bandits that deep up the mountain,” Maceo reported happily. “And not enough to eat, except what I’m bringing with me. For once, you’ll be able to just relax rather than sit and watch over me.”

“Do you not appreciate me watching over you?” she asked him with a bit of a wry grin.

“I just know that there are more important matters for you to attend to than me,” he reported back politely. There was a pause between them and then she reached across the table, petting his cheek with her fingertip.

“I shall always watch over you, my dearest little Maceo,” she promised.

Before long, he was off on his new journey, while she watched him leave, standing almost like a statue as he passed through the gates and they closed behind him, and she continued to stand there, still smiling for some time by herself. Then she turned around and walked slowly back toward her quarters, stopping at the metalworking shop to peer in at the golems who stood silently with no orders to propel them forward.

After that, she walked around without any particular direction in mind, choosing merely to stroll around this city, casually inspecting it in a manner she hadn’t done since it’s initial construction.

She’d covered the majority of the city when she seemed to grow restless and transformed into her hawk form and flew hastily back to her quarters, transformed back and then quickly marched to her study to check her globe and on Maceo’s status.

He of course had made good time and was approaching the sanctuary at this time. He was pulling his cart through the woods on a path that barely existed anymore due to disuse and ahead of him he could hear birds chirping and singing. Above him soared a tern, indicating the lake was nearby.

She settled in and watched him, leaning her jaw in her hands and her elbows on the table surrounding the globe as he trekked quietly up the ancient road until there was the first signs of the lake, a channel that funneled into a small stream to his left as he rode along. A few minutes later, he finally emerged into a clearing where a beautiful mountain lake sat with crystal blue waters and a sheer rock wall that climbed up to the highest peak of the mountain with a glacial peak and streams of melted ice pouring down its side into the lake.

The lake was of course familiar to him from Astravia’s demonstration of the ancient rivers on the huge mountain, but it was also only a fraction of the size it had been back when there were five rivers jutting out from it. He followed the shoreline to a wall of weeds and brush then dismounted and pulled a few small vials of powder from his cargo, then sprinkled some on the palm of his hand. A moment later, he was staring at a ball of flame burning brightly in his hand and he used it, taking the leads for his horses and pulling them forward as this intense flame was projected out in front of him literally burning a path to his destination.

It was a slow walk the entire way, but eventually he found himself at a gravel path that led up to a water fall and led his horses up behind the waterfall where a thirty foot door stood in front of him. He approached the door, placed his hand on it and uttered a few words in Astravia’s language and listened to an echoing sound as the lock undid itself for the first time in centuries and then pulled it open, revealing a beautiful entrance lined with marble floors and stone pillars that extended to a domed entrance large enough to host a couple dozen of Astravia’s race quite comfortably with a massive stone fireplace at the center. Directly back was a wide entrance to a rectangular room that resembled the sanctuary back at Astravia’s temple supported by thirty stone pillars that each stood thirty feet high, six feet wide with about ten feet between each one.

To the left and right were shallow staircases with steps large and wide enough to accommodate a god or a mortal that curved around the walls and then entered large tunnels cut into the mountain. Having studied the details of this hidden chapel in Astravia’s honor, Maceo knew that each of those tunnels went deep into the mountain providing living quarters and dining areas for any clergy as well as a library on each side that was only a fraction of the size of the main temple’s, and a few rooms large enough to house a god for purposes of entertaining or even allowing her to sleep and rest. The tunnel to the left extended far and deep enough that it led to a long, spiral staircase that ascended the inside of the mountain to a room that could act as both a resting chamber and study for Astravia with a large balcony that sat on the mountain’s edge and overlooked the mountainous terrain to the north.

Maceo tentatively set up and then brought one of the horses down into a side entrance to a stable and set it up there with hay he’d brought with then back up to the entrance once again before saddling and mounting the remaining horse and riding it back out at a healthy trot to the beach of the lake where he found a full cart with the five teens and Gaeten waiting for him and sitting on the beach relaxing.

They exchanged greetings and then Maceo led them back to the chapel, which astounded the entire group. Once inside, he gave them all a tour, showing the few places where this mountain retreat could peak outside the mountain for fresh air and a scenic view and explained to him that the libraries and Astravia’s quarters up the stairs were off limits. Whatever books they needed they would move from the libraries following lunch and then those rooms would be locked off, allowing their small cadre to research and learn in a small study made specifically for mortals.

“How did you even know about this place?” Cajsa wondered allowed as they set up one of the kitchens and began cooking their meal.

“I was told about it a few years ago and told that as long as I was loyal to Astravia, I could gain access to it.”

“So she still has followers?” one of the boys asked him.

“Yes,” Maceo answered him with a patient smile. “More than you’d think.” This was obviously true, he was simply leaving out the part about almost all of those followers residing on far distant worlds from this one.

Following lunch, they split the boys and girls into two different rooms and then Gaeten and Maceo each took a separate room as well. Then they finished unpacking their carts and put them away and moved the remaining horses to the stables and moved books that Maceo chose from one of the libraries to the study where they could learn and train.

Once they’d all unpacked and set up according to Maceo’s instructions, they all gathered at tables and sat looking up at Maceo and Gaeten.

“I’ll start off by telling you all that I’ve spent some time researching each of your issues and I’ve developed treatments to help you. For some of you, this will mean better news than others,” he explained to them all. “I’ll discuss it with each of you individually before you go to bed tonight.”

This news was immediately met with excitement, as each of these teens had suffered from differing health issues most of their lives. Maceo gave them a moment to let the news sink in and then stole the spotlight after they’d each had a chance to whisper and talk among themselves.

“If you remember, I said I could teach you to do what I did in Longsgallow in a week. I intend to make good on that statement. We start today. One week from today, you will each demonstrate your new skills individually and then as a group in a way that you choose and the next morning, you will go home and your new jobs in your community will be to use these skills for the betterment of your homes and families. Consider yourselves lucky because what your town needs most right now is skilled laborers, not artists and artists are exactly what you are all about to become.”

“I will act as your steward,” Gaeten told them all, “and I will be learning alongside you all as well. If we’re successful, then one day one of you will be chosen to take my place. You are all under my direct supervision and authority. If you do not like that, then you can let us know now and you’ll be brought home. If you decide later, then the town will have you banished. I know this sounds harsh, but the elders and many of the townspeople are very concerned with having sorcerers in town, regardless of how powerful they are. We have to earn their trust and we will have to keep earning it.”

“Word is also spreading quickly about what we did in Longsgallow,” Maceo informed them. “I’d expect by the time we return you home, there will already be some visitors looking to see the magicians from our trip to the coast. This will be hard work and it will be a tough job, and today is only the beginning of that.”

With that, they immediately dove into their studies, beginning with the basics, such as potions, elixirs and powders as Maceo explained to them that none of their race possessed magic, so the magic had to be obtained elsewhere. He explained the exchange needed for each act of magic and how the more powerful the magic, the more demanding the exchange. They worked hard into the night with Astravia watching with interest as her student Maceo became the teacher, and a quite capable and commanding teacher at that.

Gaeten struggled almost as much as the worst of the students did, but he was tenacious and persevered until late at night they took a break, ate together and then Maceo met with each of the teens separately to discuss their medical treatments going forward.

Cajsa insisted on being last and she sat with Maceo alone as he described her issues and explained that she had at least two congenital conditions that combined had left her sickly for her entire life. The treatments he gave her would finally allow her to put all of that behind her.

“Will this mean that I can finally grow up like everyone else? I’m so sick of being so small and weak,” she asked him.

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Maceo confided to her. “You’re actually the height of someone between eleven and twelve years old.”

“I know! I know eleven year olds who are taller than me!”

“But you’re fifteen, not far off from sixteen. You’ll probably only be able to grow another inch or so. Perhaps two, but that’s not likely.” She lowered her head in shame but he tipped her chin up at him. “Your height doesn’t decide for you what kind of person you are. I need you to accept who you are and find a way to use that to your advantage. You’re one of the lucky ones. Aside from this one issue, you should be able to leave all of your problems behind you and live a normal life. Kaleo was born with a damaged heart and nothing I do will be able to fix that for him. He’ll be lucky to live half as long as you.”

“I don’t like being like this,” she complained.

“Does it matter that you’re petite? You’re still sweet and kind and despite how thin you are, I think you’re very beautiful too. All I can tell you is to try to use your petiteness to your advantage.”

She smiled at his encouragement and hugged him, but for only a moment before Maceo sent her on her way to get some rest. When she opened the door, Gaeten was waiting and entered to sit and talk. They talked first about each of the students, discussing everyone’s progress, then he changed topics to himself, trying to glean any advice he could get in order to avoid staying at the bottom of the class. Finally, Gaeten broached the topic of Cajsa.

“You’re aware she’s developed a healthy crush on you.”

“I’m aware,” Maceo answered, leaving it at that.

“And how do you feel about that?” he asked.

“She’s fifteen,” Maceo answered back with a grin and a shake of his head.

“I was only fourteen when I was married. We had our first child when I wasn’t much older than she is now.”

“Cajsa has a lot of growing up to do,” Maceo answered him. “I know it’s normal for people to get married and start households so young, but I don’t agree with it. If I had done as you did, then I would have never been able to do the apprenticeship I did. I think back on how much I learned from the time I was her age to now and I wouldn’t trade that for an instant. How much could she learn and experience in the next six years?”

“In six years none of her peers will have gone without getting married or having kids,” Gaeten pointed out.

“And that’s a good thing? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe it’s not a good thing that our people have their own children while they themselves are still growing? I understand that a man only needs to have so much before he’s able to stand on his own, but in a way if he still has several inches to grow, isn’t he in a sense still a child? Honestly, I think I’m still growing just a little and I’m twenty one now.”

“When you’re old enough to make your own way, that is the point where you should,” Gaeten argued.

“Regardless, then, that’s not Cajsa. Her body will need years to recover from what it’s been through and that’s evident by how petite she is now. I don’t think she should even entertain children for at least another few years. I personally don’t think women in general should consider it until they are at least at the end of their teens because their bones are still growing and changing if nothing else. In Cajsa’s case, I think it’s even more important. I am certainly not going to be party to her doing otherwise.”

“But you admit that as petite as she is, she’s still a woman. Her mother spoke to me before we came out here to meet you. She spent the last three days preparing to see you again. She practiced doing her hair and her skin and even remade her clothes to look a little more mature to you.”

“I noticed,” he answered back calmly.

“You didn’t even comment on it, though.”

“Because I don’t want to give her the wrong impression.”

“She put a great deal of work into making herself presentable to you and if you had noticed, I wouldn’t have been able to tell before speaking to you now. You two obviously get along very well, and with Lale being out of the picture… is it because you think she wouldn’t be a good mother to your children?”

“Labor is going to be extremely difficult for her, I’ve already said that, even several years from now. But I already told you how I feel about this. That goes doubly for Cajsa’s sake. If it was that important to her, then I promise you first thing tomorrow, as soon as I have a chance, I will let her know how beautiful she is, but let me be absolutely clear: I did not come here for that and I’m not going to entertain it.”

“All I’m saying is put yourself in her shoes. She has it for you as bad as I’ve seen it.”

“I know exactly how it feels to fall hopelessly in love with someone older,” Maceo answered back directly. Gaeten sat up and looked at him with a bit of surprise.

“So you like the older ladies?”

“You could say that,” Maceo replied back.

“And how did you handle that?”

“I learned to accept that it was never meant to be and that I could show my love to her in other ways than taking her as a wife.”

“Cajsa has been heard saying that if you turned away Lale, then maybe there is some hope for her. How do you intend to address that?”

“Gaeten,” Maceo said, pinching his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Please don’t tell me her parents put you up to this.” Gaeten sat back stoically and Maceo could only sigh. “Alright,” he relented and looked at him squarely. “I am going to say this and say this once and we are not going to discuss it again.”

“I understand.”

“Cajsa is a beautiful and wonderful young woman who I very much enjoy being around. She will make a wonderful wife and mother, but I will not even entertain that discussion for several years yet in regards to her, is that clear? I’ve already stated my beliefs on the matter, but again, what is the point of getting married if you aren’t going to consummate that marriage? And if you do consummate that marriage, you can expect her to become with child. A child that someone with the conditions Cajsa suffers is simply not ready to handle. It will be dangerous for her. She could die. I don’t think women in general are properly developed enough for that at her age, but again, Cajsa is unique among her peers because of her conditions. One day, Cajsa will make a wonderful wife. Years from now, I might even be jealous of the man who takes her as his, but that doesn’t mean I am going to sit and wait for her to develop, and I’m also not going to accept her waiting around for me. She needs to live her life, and hopefully she will make choices that are healthy for her, but either way, I’m not going to even suggest she waits the next several years in the hopes that she and I will eventually be right for each other.”

“Is this what the older woaen you fell in love with told you?”

“She didn’t have to,” Maceo answered back immediately. “I told myself these things. All I had to do was envision myself in her shoes and understand that much like Cajsa is to me, I was not ready for her either. Nor will I ever be. All I needed to do was understand her and her feelings and I was able to accept that I couldn’t fill her desires.”

“My father always told me that a man, once he sees what he wants, must go out and seize it for himself,” Gaeten told Maceo, clutching his fist tightly for emphasis.

“A wolf takes what it wants. So does a stray dog, or an ape. The world I build for myself will be far more advanced than that.”

Of course, Astravia was watching and listening in with fascination of Maceo’s conversation, wide eyed, but uniquely in this case, so was Cajsa, who was standing just outside the door, eavesdropping. Her expression seemed to be one of hope, hearing Maceo’s compliments of her.

“Most of Cajsa’s friends are married by now,” Gaeten pointed out.

“If Cajsa wants to live a healthy life, then she should walk that path more slowly than them. However, if she does? I think Cajsa is going to live a much happier and more successful life than them. I’m sorry she’s been set back compared to her friends, but it also presents her a unique opportunity. Don’t worry, first chance I will get, I will let Cajsa know how I noticed the effort she put into making herself look good for me. She’s beautiful in her own right, but I expect you to support me on this, and not to encourage her.”

“And in several years? If you find yourself still unwed?”

“Who knows?” Maceo answered back. “Six years difference now certainly has a lot more weight to both of us than it will in another six years. But I am not going to stand still waiting for her, and I expect you and her parents to encourage her to not stand still waiting around for me either. Keep in mind her health conditions, though. And as for any of her peers that want to probe regarding my feelings? Don’t,” he told Gaeten with finality.

In the aftermath of that conversation, Astravia watched as they all went to bed and sat staring at Maceo, considering his discussion and thinking to herself. In the middle of the night, she turned and looked in on a sleeping Cajsa, and delved into her dreams to see her thoughts still on Maceo as she imagined an idyllic life with him.

“I could always mature her, even erase the damage that caused her to lag behind the other girls her age,” she considered. She even went so far as to create a separate image of Cajsa and alter her to what she would be if she were six years older and not encumbered by her inherited ailments that stunted her growth so badly.

She was hardly beautiful by a goddess’ standard, but she was attractive in her own right, slender with the same long face and poignant cheekbones with a more healthy physique, but not too far above average for a mortal.

“Or I could simply revert him back in time so he restarted and they would meet a few years from now when he ventured into their town,” she considered further as she played with her options as a match maker. “Or if I had to, I could simply realign the timelines so they simply grew up parallel to each other.”

She thought about it at length, and then looked into Cajsa’s dreams again to see them shifting more towards those of an accomplished artist. The young woman already seemed to be over her crush, and Astravia pondered once more. “So quickly,” she muttered thoughtfully. “Then she never loved him to begin with. That is a lot of work to give him the woman he deserves and she is not even that true to him. I’ll just have to let him find better,” she determined, then went to bed herself.

The next few days for Maceo and his students went well, though Gaeten still struggled in most ways behind most of the other students.

With Maceo for once being at a location where he was almost guaranteed to be safe, Astravia found herself frequently taking breaks to engage in other activities such as swimming, or soaring through the clouds, or sunbathing or reading or whatever she felt interested in doing, however by the end of the third day, she found herself taking these breaks outside of time so that while she was moving within time with the rest of the mortals, she could spend it watching Maceo’s progress.

The beginning of the fourth evening, she found herself pacing back and forth in the courtyard in front of her quarters when she sighed with frustration and stomped back into the building and then over to the kitchen where she quickly cooked up Maceo’s favorite meal and fashioned with her magic a covered platter with handles on either side and transformed into her hawk form, froze time and carried the platter all the way to her mountain hideaway, swooping down onto the balcony of her chambers there and transformed back.

She set up a table much lower to the floor than normal with a seat set out at about the right height for Maceo, set out all of the food and then unfroze time.

At that moment, Maceo was wrapping up afternoon lessons and they were about to begin preparations for dinner. Maceo was closing up books, which none of his students had even seen before coming to this place, and Cajsa was vying for his attention when out of the corner of his eye in the corridor he saw a flicker of light. He looked at it, but by the time he had, it was gone, so he went back to tidying up as Cajsa came over to him with yet another question about her studies. She was an extremely eager student, but it was becoming painfully evident that her eagerness was to impress him more than anything else. He was helping her perfect a potion when he noticed the little light again.

The third time there was a pattern to the blink and Maceo decided that it wasn’t coincidence that it seemed to happen with a pattern and only when he was the only one looking in that direction.

He stood upright once he’d dealt with his student and then moved toward the door. “I’m a bit tired and I need some fresh air. I’m going to take a walk. I’ll be back in time for our next session,” he promised.

Everyone seemed to agree and he stepped out into the corridor and began walking back toward the main entrance. He was a fair distance down the dimly lit corridor when he turned at the sound of soft footsteps running toward him.

“Could I… maybe go with you?” Cajsa asked him. Maceo smiled and faced her.

“Maybe not tonight. I’d like to clear my head a bit.”

“I won’t be in the way,” she promised. Up in her chambers, Astravia was watching through the little probe she’d sent for Maceo and staring with no expression at all, though her left eyebrow was twitching involuntarily and randomly.

“Maybe we can walk out to the lake in the morning. Right now, I have some things on my mind and I’d like to clear my head a bit,” he told her with a smile. Astravia smiled slightly as he began to walk away, but that smile disappeared when Cajsa interrupted again.

“I… over heard you and Gaeten the other night,” she told him a bit bashfully. “I can be more mature,” she promised him. Astravia continued to stare with no hint of emotion, save the twitching of her eyebrow, which was now back again.

“I didn’t say you were immature,” Maceo answered her calmly.

“But you don’t think I’m mature enough,” she countered.

“If you overheard us, then you know how I feel about courting younger women. I’m just not comfortable with it.”

“I know how young I look, but I can do everything that my friends do that are already married. I even had one friend who her parents married off to a man who is more than twice our age. I can be a good wife.”

Astravia was now frowning and it became apparent she was becoming impatient with the little tart. “I’m mature in all the places you would need me to be,” Cajsa insisted.

Maceo walked back to her and looked at her and spoke as respectfully as he could to her. “When I first met you, not all that long ago, you would have never had the courage to speak like this. You were so timid.”

“Because I could see you liked Lale and… but she’s gone and we’re still close.”

“You’re missing the larger picture here,” he told her. “You’ve changed. You’ve changed quite a bit. You told me that caravan was the first time you’d even been out of the village, and because you had been sick for so long, you rarely even got out of your own house. Then there you were, conducting a trade mission. And now look at you. It’s like night and day. You were never immature, Cajsa, but you’ve just stepped into a whole new world. Everything for you is about to change, and the frail, sick girl you’ve been stuck playing is behind you. You need to learn who this real you is, and that is going to take time. You also need to recover from what you’ve been through. I don’t like that your friends are all getting married already. Maybe that was acceptable when our ancestors were living in the wilderness, but we’ve changed as a people. You have so much more to offer than marrying yourself off. If in ten years you are still on your own, I might worry a little more, but right now? I need you to embrace this new self of yours and learn who she is. I need you to discover how strong and capable you are now. That’s why you’re not ready, really. I personally think you’re more mature than the other girls your age, but that doesn’t change what I just said. Your body may not grow much more, but your mind is about to outgrow most in your entire town.”

“But I want a life with you,” she insisted. “You’re the first man who ever believed in me.”

“There are about to be many more,” Maceo promised. “For your body’s sake though, I say you should wait a few years. I think as you recover, even though you’ll stay very petite, you will look much more womanly.”

“I know someone else will have found you before then, though,” she complained. Astravia was still watching and as Cajsa said this, a look of mild surprise and concern seemed to wash over her face. “You should have seen the looks on my friends faces when they saw you and I were close. They couldn’t believe I could even have a chance with a man like you.”

“I’m not here to impress your friends,” Maceo laughed at her. “And I’m not here to be competed over. Trust me on this: you more than most women need to take these next few years to heal and recover and learn. In fact, if I am right about you, by the time that time comes, I may not be good enough for you.”

She looked down at her feet, pouting a little, but she seemed to take his words to heart enough that he felt comfortable leaving again.

“Confidence looks very stunning on you,” Maceo complimented back to her as he walked away. “I hope you’ll find more of it.”

By the time Maceo had made it out to the main entrance, Astravia was sighing with relief as her frustration finally washed away. Once down at the main gate, he checked over his shoulder to make sure he was alone and walked briskly up the other staircase and down that corridor to the spiral stairs that led him up to Astravia’s quarters with the little orb Astravia had sent leading his way.

When he reached the tall doors to her chamber, he didn’t even have to unlock it, the doors opened for him and he walked in to see Astravia waiting at the table, kneeling there and smiling at him.

“Come to dinner, Maceo,” she invited. “I’ve made something special for you.”

“You spoil me, Astravia,” he teased her as the doors slowly closed on their own behind him.

“I spoil myself,” she teased back with a half serious face. “And I am the queen of the gods. That is my prerogative.”

Surprisingly, Astravia was mostly business in her dinner with Maceo, who listened to all of her praise as well as her feedback of his job as an instructor. Thankfully, it was mostly praise. She was happy with their progress thus far, but she asked that he speed their training up slightly because as he had suspected, visitors were already arriving in town to seek the magician that had wowed massive crowds in Longsgallow.

These half expected guests were told that magicians were away training and would be back shortly after a week while the elders of the town made rounds to discuss matters with their citizens and encourage them to leave out any discussion of this being a new phenomenon for them. When she’d shared all she wanted to, they sat over a table with empty dishes with only silence between them.

“I never thought I’d have a chance to sit here and look out over the mountains with you,” he told her. She couldn’t help but smile and rose to her feet, holding her hand out for him. She led him out to the balcony, this one that stood out more than a thousand feet up from the nearest ground that one could stand on.

The scene here was unique compared to the view from her normal balcony. They looked out at a range of mountains, lit by a sliver of moon with clouds passing gently by below in between them.

“You took your time coming up to see me,” she commented once they’d settled in to the view leaning to his right while he sat atop the railing that was well over his body length above the balcony’s floor.

“I felt my priority should be not alerting anyone else to your presence here,” he answered back with that odd self-assurance again. “Would you like me to change that priority?”

“No,” she answered back with a smile, still looking out over the mountains in the distance. “So this admirer, she is new?” Astravia asked him, distracting him from the possibility that he would discover that she was intimately familiar with both Cajsa and her thoughts.

“I would say not new, no.”

“I remember seeing her from your journey to the coast. Did she approach you then about her feelings?”

“No. I had an idea, but I assumed she would leave it to me to pursue her.”

“But you haven’t. Were you planning to?”

“No.”

“Is it because she’s sickly?”

“No,” he smiled and shook his head.

“But you do like her,” Astravia probed.

“That’s not the same as wishing to have her,” Maceo chuckled.

“Would you like me to take away her ailments? I could even make her older, more mature for you.”

“She is who she is,” Maceo answered back. “She’s not ready for me and I just know that that isn’t going to change, even when she is older.”

“I could realign time in a manner that you both would be the same age.”

“I look at her, and it’s difficult to describe, but I know she has a different path than me. This is just a passing infatuation. She feels strongly about me because I’m here at the beginning of her journey. That’s all.”

“Are you claiming to be a god, now?” she asked him jokingly. “Saying you can see the paths of mortals?”

“I don’t know,” Maceo answered back. “But ever since you helped me with my nightmares, something has felt a bit different.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. A kind of clarity that wasn’t there. I feel like I can even see a glimpse into your future.”

“Oh, you are certainly getting full of yourself, aren’t you?” Astravia chuckled at him, though there was enough seriousness to her voice to let him know he was treading on thin ice. “So tell me, mortal seer, what is the future of a goddess?”

“I don’t know,” Maceo answered her rather honestly. “I don’t have any insights, or any visions or even any signs. It’s really just a feeling.”

“And what is this feeling?” she asked him a little more light heartedly.

“You’re going to be happy,” he answered. She turned to face him, looking directly at him. “I have no idea how, but I feel like your life doesn’t end with you returning to the celestial palace and you will be happy. I don’t know how soon, but I just have this feeling.”

“I’ve never met a mortal who was arrogant enough to think he could predict the future of a goddess,” she mused. She was trying for serious with this statement, but she struggled to suppress her smile. “The claim that you know how my next confrontation with Zantharan will end, is the very definition of hubris.”

“I don’t know your future, Astravia,” he answered back, finally turning to look up at her, again with nothing but self-assurance. “And I couldn’t tell you that when you see him next it won’t be exactly as you expect it to be. I can only assume because I have this feeling that you are going to discover happiness. And how do you do that unless somehow, your return to the palace won’t go the way you think it will?”

“And what makes you come to this conclusion?” she asked. Her pretense of warnings for his hubris seemed to have evaporated and she seemed genuinely interested into any insight into her future, even from a mortal.

“Something happened when you helped me receive that message. I don’t know what it was,” he answered. “And it’s vague. I still don’t really know how to interpret it, but I think…” he pondered good and long and looked out among the peaks and the clouds down below.

“You think…”

“I know you’ve done terrible things as queen of the gods. Things that can chill any man to the bone knowing what is in store for him if he angers you, but I also know that you don’t enjoy doing those things. Would any of the other gods have tolerated one of her peoples forgetting about her and discarding her temple the way we have? Any of them?”

“A couple,” she answered back truthfully. “None among the twelve, though.”

“You want to help us, despite the fact that we abandoned you, and even from the shadows, you still only use your powers to help this world. This can’t be different from how you’ve been throughout time.” She stared into his eyes silently, listening to him still struggle to gather his thoughts. “I think that after an eternity of doing good in the universe… I think eventually you have to be rewarded. I think you should be. I think you will be.”

“And why is that?” she asked, hooked on his every syllable now. Her voice was soft and inviting.

“There’s a… debt that you’ve left in the universe for all you’ve done. A balance that eventually has to be paid. It’s like the tides. Sooner or later, the moon will rise again and when it does, the waters will be pulled back again.”

“The tides always return again,” she pointed out.

“But how long has the tide been in?” he asked her. “How much out of your timeless life have you spent with sadness and hurt?”

“Almost all of it,” she answered.

“Then maybe the tide does come back again, but if the tide has been in all this time, doesn’t that say something about how long the tide will be out?” She was deep in thought, staring into his eyes. The eyes of this self assured mortal who dared have the audacity to claim to see into the fate of a goddess. But just the same, she seemed comforted.

“You’ve given me so much,” Maceo eventually added. “You’ve given this whole world so much, and how many other worlds are out there that can say the same? Most people in general aren’t that giving. They are almost never that giving when they are living in pain. In the end, though, I believe that everything eventually comes back to where it was in one way or another. It may take a year, or even a thousand million years, but in the end if you live a life of taking, then you will know what it is to have taken from you, but the opposite must be true too. If you live a life of giving, then you eventually have to find yourself in a place where you receive. I wish I could be a god, so I could make that come true for you now.”

She smiled gratefully at him and petted his cheek with her fingertip and then leaned down and kissed his forehead.

“Unfortunately, mortals can never become gods,” she told him. “Even with all my powers and abilities, even though I could give you all of the power that you could imagine, you can still never be a god. Not at least without having the blood of a god running through your veins already, but even then. There simply is a difference between us that can never go away, even for someone of my abilities.”

“I know,” Maceo answered back consciously. “I just wish I could at least be a part of paying you back what you’re owed. I know how arrogant it is what I’m saying. I certainly don’t mean to be disrespectful, I just… ever since you helped me receive that message, I’ve felt like that cold tide over you is going to go out.”

“You have not offended me,” Astravia let him know. This time she stepped to the side toward him and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him to her chest as she leaned against the railing. “I do think perhaps you are still thinking you can simply flatter your way out of judgment for pointing that thing at me.”

“I was going to flatter you either way,” Maceo chuckled back to her, which proved to be contagious.

“Do you know what your name means, my dearest Maceo?” she asked him and he only shook his head and indicated he did not. “It means God’s gift. It struck me as odd when I met you first. Normally, this name is given to a child because the parents are thanking us for gifting them with that child, as if we are responsible for that child. Normally, this is not the case,” she informed him teasingly. “It was odd to me that in a moment of need you appeared and brightened my heart enough that the burden didn’t seem quite so heavy. Almost as though you were a gift given back. I would like to believe you are correct about my future. That I even have a future.”

“Does that mean you’re getting better?” he asked in a hopeful voice. She suddenly tensed and leaned back so they could look each other in the eyes again.

“What do you mean?”

“When I said your eyes looked sad, that didn’t really fully describe it. You looked like you were ready for it to be over.”

She couldn’t help but stare at him, her mouth partially hanging open. She swallowed hard and seemed frozen again.

“You are so very observant for a mortal,” she commented. Her voice was bright and energetic, but her next statement was like a mirror image of that, soft and hushed. “Very peculiar.” He continued to stare up at her, refusing to relinquish their shared gaze. “I’ve only ever mentioned it to Elphinsis,” she remarked.

Still he stared up into her eyes, so she pressed her finger against his jaw and turned his head back to the mountainous landscape and returned to her position hugging him, though this time she noticed the tightness in his pants as her giant hand brushed by and intentionally chose to ignore it. He was, after all, just a mortal. A mortal that was enticingly close to being absorbed in between divine breasts that were each larger than his entire torso.

A good amount of time passed of her just staring out across the horizon until it was Maceo who pulled her mind back into reality. “Astravia,” he said to her very warmly. Immediately she shook her head with a start and looked down at him.

“If I don’t get back soon, they’ll wonder where I am. They may even come looking for me.”

“Of course,” she said with a smile. “I will bring you down to the front gate and you can reenter from there. Then I will go back to the temple.”

“Thank you for coming this evening. I know you came for business, but I am so thankful for all the time you spend with me,” he told her, which actually made the great goddess blush a little.

She transformed into her hawk form and then carried him down around the mountain in a few short moments, setting him down just around the corner from the main entrance. Then she transformed to her normal form and knelt down in front of him. “Make sure you are finished with your training so they can be back home at a reasonable time after one week. Stay the night there so they can get their feet wet with a good performance with you there. I will see you when you return to the temple,” she informed him.

“Thank you,” he said again with a warm smile. Strangely, she found herself blushing a little again, though it was difficult to see in the darkness.

“You are certain you don’t wish me to heal the girl and mature her for you? I could do it easily and in a way that no one would be the wiser.”

“I’m certain she has her own path,” Maceo answered her. “And that path is not me. Besides, shouldn’t I have to work a bit harder than that for a wife?” he asked her. She grinned at his answer and petted his cheek with her fingertip.

“I will see you in a few days,” she said, transformed and then flew off.

Maceo reentered the chapel and walked up the flight of stairs to see Cajsa already there, pacing back and forth nervously until she saw him enter and then she perked up instantly at the sight of him.

“We were wondering where you were,” she told him. “I told the others that I would come find you.”

“I went out a little farther than I’d intended,” Maceo answered her (mostly truthfully). He then led her back to the study where the others were waiting for him and picked up where they’d left off.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Mon May 30, 2022 2:36 am

Late that evening, Astravia emerged from her chamber in the upper level and made the walk down the flight of stairs and over to the wing where Maceo and the others were staying. She walked along the corridor and then held her hands out to her side, spreading her fingers wide and dragging them through the air. As she did so, a soft, lavender colored mist developed behind her, following her and then spreading into each room where a mortal was sleeping.

Her curiosity seemed to have gotten the better of her and she approached the room that Cajsa was staying in and knelt down and opened the door, then glared at the opening.

“Drat,” she whispered as she scowled. The door stood easily less than half as tall as her and less wide than her hips. Moreover, the ceiling in the next room wasn’t much taller than the door. Even if she did managed to squeeze herself through the tiny door, she would end up crawling around on her hands and knees.

She huffed with annoyance then stood up and as she did so, her body began to slowly shrink down, her clothes changed from her elegant gown to a much more plain dress, her golden locks from luscious gold down to a lush blonde and her skin shed it’s ethereal qualities as she transformed into the same very beautiful, but much more human looking dainty 4’10” form she’d used to retrieve Maceo from his abductors weeks before. The only difference this time was she didn’t bother to reduce her breasts before entering into Cajsa’s room.

Astravia practically glided up to Cajsa and looked at the sleeping girl face to face for the first time, her arms crossed under her bountiful bosom and looking at her seriously, bordering on scowling at her.

“So you are the new troublemaker,” she muttered under her breath. She looked the petite young woman up and down scrutinizing her carefully. “You do not seem that small,” she muttered, comparing her to her own current height. She took a deep breath and then released it and placed her finger on Cajsa’s forehead and concentrated, her eyes shifting to that familiar black with stars for pupils as she focused.

A moment in, she raised her eyebrow, gave Cajsa a second look and leaned her head back with mild surprise.

“He was right,” she remarked, apparently still not believing it. “You may not see your path yet, but it is there, and it is very clear. More clear than most mortals, in fact,” she determined as she pondered the prospect of this previously unknown perception within Maceo.

She folded her arms and stood back looking at Cajsa again, tapping her finger on her arm. “I was convinced it was you who his vision represented because of your small size and how disconnected size was from the woman he will eventually find, but… he was right,” she was forced to admit. “Oh well. You really are a very sweet girl, and I can see why he treasures you, but unfortunately, your path leads elsewhere. It is difficult to believe that healing you and making your body taller would ruin your path.”

Finally with her questions answered she turned and walked towards the door. She turned to walk away, but stopped a few steps down the corridor, then stopped, looked behind her and then walked back, entering into Maceo’s room and smiling at her pupil.

She walked over to him, using this rare opportunity to sit with him as he slept in a form that would actually fit in the room he’d retired to. She was smiling happily to herself as she looked over him until something seemed to bother her and she looked around at her surroundings with a scrutinizing eye, and then at her hands and then finally up and down at Maceo.

She wasn’t particularly upset looking at him like this, just more perplexed and a little uncomfortable. Still, she shook herself out of it and refocused on his sleeping face.

“I probably should not,” she muttered to herself. “Knowing what a little pervert he is, he is likely having fantasies about me. It would not really be fair to kill him over his inappropriate dreams,” she told herself.

She brushed his cheek with the backs of her fingers gently and smiled at him, sighing contentedly and was about to leave when she stopped and looked at him as if she were waiting for something. A moment later, he frowned and his head turned as though he was backing away from something. His brow furrowed and hers did likewise in sympathy, and she leaned closer, leaning her ear toward him just a bit as though she were listening for something.

She then sat upright again and placed all four of her fingers on his forehead and listened in on his dreams, sliding in to observe them just as she had the last time he’d had visions.

As she slid into his dream world, she was more than a bit concerned with what she found there. In front of her was a battle between herself and Zantharan. Strangely, they were both in their golden, most powerful forms, a form where they swelled to double their normal size. Zantharan was certainly this, but Astravia in this vision was a mere shadow of herself, a mere several inches tall, even in this powered up form.

She was helpless in this state, quite battered, bruised and unable to stand anymore as the real Astravia looked on at them as though they were in a bubble.

Zantharan attacked again, throwing his entire weight into a powerful punch that carried with it the heat of a blue star but as that powerful strike bared down on her, Maceo was standing there in his dream between the rage filled god and his precious goddess, who was dwarfed even by Maceo here.

The Astravia in this dream world was cowering on the ground and screamed as Maceo took the brunt of Zantharan’s hit, which seemed to explode off everywhere except the small window he blocked that shielded Astravia.

Astravia watched with a horrified gasp and covered her mouth as both Zantharan and Maceo were incinerated by his attack, leaving only Astravia there, battered and tiny and screaming as the only one left remaining in the dreamscape. Astravia managed to stand and search, calling out repeatedly for Maceo, but received no answer. Astravia searched the dreamscape along with her imagined counterpart desperately for the one person that theoretically couldn’t be removed from the dreamscape without bursting it but all they found was a devastated and shattered world until the dreamscape Astravia suddenly relaxed, catching the real Astravia’s attention. The real Astravia turned to her diminutive dreamscape counterpart and was relieved to see her begin to grow again, though she was taken aback as she stopped at mortal size. Though she was still muddied and covered in soot, her wounds were gone and she seemed happy and at ease.

Astravia looked out over the dreamscape and did see the same warm light from the last time she’d eavesdropped on his visions, but with no Maceo there she was struggling with how exactly to correct this problem as she looked around and could only find a dream representation of herself who seemed to have given up on her search for Maceo.

Then the unthinkable happened and this sub five-foot tall dreamscape version of herself turned and looked directly at Astravia and smiled a somewhat sad, but also hopeful smile to her. Astravia drew back in utter shock. Even if she had actually entered inside the dreamscape, she should have been able to escape completely unseen with no effort, but she was simply observing it from the outside and yet here this construct of a mortal’s mind was looking directly at her.

Then the dreamscape began to fade as the dream came to an end and Astravia pulled back and looked down at Maceo, her hands shaking. Thankfully, he was still fully asleep and seemed to be none the wiser to her presence, but she remained shaken nonetheless as she withdrew her hand from his forehead and placed it against her mouth.

“None of these qualities were there when I first chanced upon you,” she remarked gently as she eventually got hold of herself. She continued staring at him for a moment longer before deciding to stand up to leave. She turned toward the door, then paused once again, looking over her shoulder at him with a concerned face and then walked out the door and down the corridor at a brisk pace, the doors she’d opened closing behind her and all the way back to her chamber and inside.

Once she was there, she paced back and forth there deep in thought struggling even more from this vision of Maceo’s than the previous one. She eventually walked into the wet bar she’d set up there to grab a drink for herself when she finally realized that the countertop was more than twice her current height and she’d walked entirely from one end of the complex to the other without remembering to return to her normal form.

She blushed intensely at this faux paw and then immediately rectified it, quickly expanding up and back to her normal state, growing back to her fifteen-foot tall self. She then poured herself a beverage and took a long, hard drink.

“I need a swim,” she determined once her thirst was quenched. She walked toward the balcony and leapt off of it, transforming into her hawk form mid air and made a hasty retreat back to the temple.

A couple more days passed and the training was progressing well for the new magicians. By this point, they were practicing their own illusions, focusing mostly on flames from candles as Maceo taught them to manipulate the flame ends to create images based off of his students’ imaginations.

They began with basic shapes but by the afternoon of that day, they were producing relatively crude images of people, animals and in Cajsa’s case, a surprisingly good representation of a waterfall made of bright yellow flames.

“The key is to create the image you want first and learn to control that,” Maceo explained walking in between tables and observing their progress. “You’re all doing well, but I need you to focus on doing so well at creating an image in the flame that you can do it without thinking.”

“But these are so tiny,” one teen complained. “Your flames filled the sky.”

“It’s all illusion. You create the images within the flames and then when you push the flames with air that causes them to expand,” Maceo explained. “Just the same as when a stiff breeze hits your candle. The flame will burn sideways and longer than when it was when it was sitting in a still room. No matter what you do here, the flames will always be just flames.”

By the evening, they were conjuring images in the candle flames and spreading them in large images, some of them nearly as large as a person, but they were constantly blowing out their candles in the process.

“You have to control the wind you create and focus it,” Maceo encouraged, making each of them practice over and over again. “With the intensity of what you’re trying to do, you’ll even be able to blow out a bonfire, so focus is extremely important. Even as you get better and better at this, you should always come back to the candles and practice with them.”

Astravia, of course watched with the same interest in her mortal as always, lost in the image of his personal story unfolding before her eyes. Once she’d returned to her temple, she did go for a swim to relax and clear her mind and she spent the entire evening dancing and frolicking beneath the waves, but at the break of day, she emerged, not even bothering to dress herself again to go and watch Maceo’s day begin.

Frequently through their lessons, she found herself giving advice to him, though he couldn’t hear her speak and she spoke in frustration whenever he did something that she didn’t agree with while he taught, but also squealed with glee whenever something went well or just simply to laugh along with the little mortals as they learned their new trade.

On the final day, Astravia flew back to the temple and rendered herself invisible, walking through the doors of her chamber and down to the main entrance where Maceo’s students performed individually, showcasing each of their newly acquired skills in both flame illusions as well as light illusions similar to what Maceo had done.

At midday, just before lunch he sat them all down around him there before the main entrance. “I’m sure you’re all wondering how I did all that during the day,” he said to numerous nods. “Still using the same basic techniques I’ve taught you. The beautiful thing about creating these light illusions is, light still produces heat. When you focus enough heat on water, the water evaporates and then with a still wind, you can cool it again, producing mist. When you practice it enough you can move the mist around at will and eventually you can create an entire sheet of water droplets like the ones I made down in Longsgallow. Until you get to that point, you’ll have to rely on things that reflect or bend light.”

At lunch, they ate as a group, laughing and joking together through it all as their bond as a group became more and more solid and Astravia stood invisibly against the wall, smiling to herself as Maceo began once again taking the role of outsider to them as Gaeten began reasserting himself as leader.

Following lunch, Maceo gave afternoon lessons, which would be the last before they embarked for home as they refined their skills and began approaching something resembling what Maceo had shown during their caravan trip. Then, that evening after dinner, the entire group gathered together as a whole with Maceo and Astravia as their only audience (and Maceo being the only visible member of this audience).

They set up out on the nearby lake and opened up with twin lions of flame charging at each other, then spiraling upward in a dance together before splitting off and diving off to the sides, followed by a flock of phoenixes that flitted back and forth and around in elaborate patterns before fading into the night.

The show was largely silent, but could be seen for many miles as the combined efforts of the entire troop made for a lights display that illuminated the area almost as brightly as day and lasted for over an hour before all six of them were sweating and exhausted and concluded with a finale that was like a rainstorm of flame overhead.

As they all sat on the beach with heaving chests and wiping their brows, Maceo approached and stood over them smiling proudly.

“You’re going to be amazing,” he complimented them.

Astravia was quite pleased with the results of their little training camp and flew off back toward the temple, only dropping her cloak of invisibility toward the very end of the journey. The newly christened magicians slept soundly that night, though Maceo stayed up a bit later than the rest, checking in on each one and tidying up in preparation for their departure before he went to bed himself.

“I hope I did well for you today, Astravia,” he said to himself just before crossing the border into sleep himself. Far off in her temple, Astravia was watching her globe and reaching out, touching it with her hand as she watched Maceo drift off to a well-earned slumber.

“Indeed you have,” she answered back.

The next morning, Maceo was up bright and early and preparing breakfast when Cajsa approached him, somehow managing to wake herself before the others.

“Good morning,” Maceo greeted her happily. She smiled back, but had trouble saying anything in response, so Maceo continued on in his business of preparing food for their crew.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked him rather bashfully. Maceo turned and looked at her, offering his full attention. “Is it because I’m so small?” she asked him.

“No,” he chuckled back, shaking his head. “Height isn’t something that I really consider,” he told her. As had become normal, Astravia was watching and listening to every word out of his mouth, glued to the globe and watching him as though she were watching from fresh eyes.

“But I’m really small. I even have a hard time finding clothes that don’t make me… look like a little girl,” she told him with her head hanging low.

“He’s not interested in you, little tart,” Astravia blurted a bit bitterly. “It is past time to move on.” She then frowned as Maceo set aside his food preparations and stood, holding his hand out to her.

“We never took that walk, did we?” he asked her. She stared up at him with sad eyes and shook her head. “Come on,” he told her. He set the food and implements aside and then turned toward the door and held his arm out so that Cajsa could hook her arm through it and they walked out together.

Astravia frowned as soon as Cajsa took her place at his side and her eyes narrowed, not moving from her now intense glare at Cajsa as Maceo escorted her on their promised walk. The entire way out of the chapel, she continued to look up at him, yearning to hear what he would say, but he remained quiet and contemplative as they began their way out toward the lake.

“You know, Cajsa,” Maceo began thoughtfully, “I’ve noticed that just about every woman has something she chooses to judge herself on for one reason or another. You have picked out that you’re a bit shorter than normal…”

“I’m not a BIT shorter than normal,” she interrupted fiercely, catching his attention, but not particularly startling him. “I’m 4’5” tall. That’s almost a foot shorter than most of the women in town. I’m watching girls four years younger than me grow taller already.”

“That doesn’t make you less beautiful,” Maceo answered patiently. “My oldest sister had a friend when I was young, and she was over six feet tall. I wasn’t that old at the time, but I do remember her complaining how she was too tall and how she felt like she was a freak. I remember most of my sister’s friends complaining about how their breasts weren’t large enough, and I even remember one complaining to them that her breasts were too large.”

“But I literally AM a freak. Even the others weren’t stunted so bad when they were growing up,” she said, pointing back toward the chapel.

“You’re not a freak,” Maceo replied back calmly. “You listened in on our entire conversation?” he asked her. She blushed and turned her head away in shame but nodded. “Honestly? There really are two reasons why I wouldn’t take you, and I already discussed them the other night. Do I really need to go over them again?”

“No,” she answered sourly.

“You are very special to me,” Maceo told her. “I don’t tell you how pretty you are or how sweet and kind, or how intelligent you are simply because I don’t want to lead you on. You are all of these things and much, much more. But we’re not aligned right.”

“But I would do anything,” she promised him. “Anything. Name it!” she exclaimed.

“I’m about to take you up on that, so be sure you’re okay with the ramifications of what you’ve just said,” he warned her. She stopped and thought hard, but nodded.

“Okay. Whatever you ask.”

“Alright,” he finally relented. “Three years. That is what I ask. Three years and if you haven’t found another by that time, I will take you.”

“But I know you’ll find someone else before then!” she cried, stomping her foot.

“We’ll see,” he answered back. “But I’m allowed to take more than one wife, and do you doubt that I’ll be able to provide for you by the time that comes?”

“You’ll probably be extremely wealthy by then,” she pouted, “but I don’t want to share you!”

“I don’t think it’ll be any kind of problem by then,” Maceo said distantly, staring off into the sky. “It’s just a feeling but… Something else is waiting out there for me between then and now. So, three years. If you are still set on me at that time, then I will discuss marriage and a family with you, BUT you must do something for me in the meantime.”

“Anything,” she agreed quite eagerly.

“You must get to know other men between now and then,” he told her. Her jaw dropped and she yanked on his arm, thoroughly distressed by his condition. “I mean it. You need to get to know them, you need to talk to them and when they flirt with you, you must let them. But do me a favor and stay away from the ones twice your age,” he added with a smirk.

“But I don’t want…”

“You said anything,” Maceo told her.

“But why?”

“Why? Are you honestly asking me that?” he asked and she cowered a little. “You heard what I said about that older woman?” Cajsa nodded. “Her expectation of me was that I go out and find someone else, and she expected me to do it without any chance of ever having her. Ever. If I had to go through that, then so will you, and at least I am giving you a chance. I was shut out completely.”

She pouted and kicked the ground while clenching her jaw. “Fine,” she blurted out unhappily.

“I mean it. You have to make an honest effort at what I asked. You gave me your word.”

“Alright, fine,” she pouted, kicking the ground again. “But I still get to take a real walk with you this morning.” Maceo grinned down at her and she looked up at him, blushing a little.

“I accept,” he told her. They began forward again walking around the lake. “So tell me about your dreams,” he suggested to her. She looked up with bright eyes and began an extremely lively conversation.

Once they’d returned to the chapel, they found the others were up and picking up where Maceo had left off and breakfast was mostly ready. Maceo sent Cajsa off to join the others and was approached by Gaeten who was looking at Maceo rather suspiciously.

Sure enough, Gaeten confronted Maceo about his time alone with Cajsa, so they stepped aside and Maceo explained the entire conversation with her in detail. “It’s a passing infatuation,” Maceo concluded with finality. “Do not do anything to encourage her otherwise, am I clear?”

“You did tell her that…”

“I’ll keep my word,” Maceo cut him off. “But I expect you to not under any circumstances feed this infatuation. I mean it. If I find out otherwise, I still have options to cut off our arrangement and make it hurt for you. I can deal with having something to eat with her or taking a walk every once in a while with her between now and then, but I expect you to never feed this infatuation.”

“Agreed,” Gaeten said rather flatly.

“I think,” Maceo said, looking out at the young woman as she began working with the others to wrap up their meal, “that you already know who your successor will be when you decide to lay down your work with them.”

“Her? That tiny little thing?”

“There’s potential in her. Sooner or later, after her future husband comes along he may try to convince her to lay down this line of work, but she’s creative and passionate, and for this, I don’t think she needs anything else. I have a feeling she’s going to grow into a leader. If you’re going to encourage anything, encourage that.”

The group ate together, again laughing and smiling and joking while they enjoyed their time together, initially with Maceo leading the group, but as the meal went on, he bowed out more and more until he was merely an observer in their meal and by the end, they barely even noticed as he stood from their table and went out to the entrance area and down to the sanctuary where he wandered around the many benches while looking up at the large surreal looking mural of Astravia that looked gigantic, but was really more true to actual size.

Eventually, the others found their way down to him once they’d packed their belongings and wandered in as a group to check on him. As they did, he waved for them to sit on one of the benches in the front row and he sat on the steps leading up to the alter.

“I want to remind you of the agreement you’ve all made here. The magic you’ve been taught comes from the teachings of Astravia. One of the books in the study tells the story of how she first brought magic to this world. You are all welcome here to learn and train in this temple, but all of the rules that I gave you will apply. You must stay out of the rooms at the top of the spiral staircase and you must stay out of the libraries. The books you need are already in your study. This place was created for the priestesses of Astravia, so keep in mind that any follower of Astravia is welcome here. They must be treated like honored guests. Eventually, Astravia will come back to this world and her followers will come out of the shadows. Until then, you’re not expected to be followers of Astravia, but you must be a keeper of this place and never abuse it. Am I clear on this?” he asked them.

They all indicated that they understood and Maceo smiled back at them. “Your world is about to change. I’m not going to tell you how to run your shows, because they are your shows and your shows alone. What I will tell you, though, is that I wouldn’t do as many shows a day as what we did in Longsgallow. Plan your shows, practice and rehearse them and I promise you, you’ll be better at these skills than I am very quickly. For me, they’re just fun tricks I learned as I advanced to higher levels of magic, but for you they will be what draws people to your town on the mountain top. These skills will be your trade. I can’t wait to see what you do with them. But also make your audiences crave your performances. In order to do that, you can’t just perform all the time. You have to leave something for your audience to look forward to in order for them to be special. That’s really all the advice I have left for you. Tonight, we’ll perform for your town using everything you’ve learned to date. It will be your inaugural performance, and also probably my last with you.”

There seemed to be a wave of melancholy that swept over the group as he said this, but also acknowledgment that they knew he was right. After a moment to collect their thoughts, Maceo continued once again.

“One last thing. Hopefully this won’t be the last time I have the privilege to work with you, even though I won’t be a part of your performances. The skills I taught you aren’t just the beginnings of how to conduct magic. The same principles I taught you are the foundation for learning herbs and medicines. If all goes well, in time you each can also become experts on that as well.”

Following his advice, they loaded up into their respective carts, with Maceo taking Cajsa and one of the teenage boys and they departed still early in the morning and made their way to their hometown. They traveled at a quick pace, given most of the trip was down hill and only stopped to eat for lunch before heading on as Cajsa talked Maceo’s ear off for most of the ride.

It was late in the afternoon that they came riding into town, greeted with numerous smiles from locals, but also curious, fascinated looks from strangers that none of the seven magicians recognized.

“Did they come to see us?” Cajsa asked Maceo, who only smiled and nodded as several more curious onlookers emerged and stared at them, even following to see what these fabled magicians would do.

“Why don’t we give them something to look at,” Maceo suggested.

“Can you help us?” she asked him. He grinned and nodded and suggested she open the barrel of water they’d brought with to drink on the trip home.

Cajsa and the other teen crawled to the back of his cart and opened it, then went back to their seats as Maceo worked his own magic, vaporizing the remains of their water stores with no one aside from those that Maceo had trained noticing. Then suddenly, one man in the group watching them as they made their way to the town square noticed the mist gathering at their feet. The crowd became confused as the fog rose, covering the street and then thanks to the concentration of Cajsa and the other teen, bright beams of light emitted in every which direction eliciting screams of shock and amazement.

The mist reformed into thin sheets of reflective water and then the six used their newfound abilities to perform a repeat of Maceo’s beach front performance to screams of joy, all the while, the seven rode along as though nothing were out of the ordinary.

Finally, the water vaporized again and formed a rainbow running from one side of the town to the other to appreciative applause. Gaeten shuffled his crew of magicians off as they unloaded the carts as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, though the visitors and many of the townsfolk were abuzz with the amazing things they’d just seen.

“See you tonight,” one teen called with a friendly wave out to the crowd that had gathered and were staring in amazement just before they closed the door to Gaetens’ home and found refuge there.

That evening the town was abuzz with activity. The town square was filled with townspeople and a surprising number of visitors as well. Everywhere one looked, there were vendors and merchants willing to sell to whomever and the town was alive as though an important festival was in progress.

The many torches around the town were lit as well as several drums in the center of town that was also lit with timber. The air was filled with excitement and anticipation. The elders sat on edge, the only ones with any level of idea of what was in store for them. Even Astravia was leaning on the palm of her hand as she stared at the globe, eagerly awaiting the beginning of the show.

Time passed, and just as the murmuring in the crowd began dying down from a drop in enthusiasm, every torch and bonfire in town suddenly burst with energy as a kingdom of animals ascended all at once around the town, with a massive dragon erupting up a hundred feet into the air before diving back down around the crowd.

The masses screamed in both terror and amazement as reflections from within Gaeten’s home lit up the square with a cornucopia of colors as an ethereal image of a woman glowing with light floated out over the crowd, scanning the many people with curiosity and then waved her hands and all of the beasts of flames suddenly disappeared.

The masses screamed with joy as Maceo walked out to the center of the town square without a word and only a fan in each hand and then with a swish of his arms, all of the bonfires around him erupted upward in a maelstrom of flames that slowly gathered far above the people and combined into one massive, terrifying storm while smaller animals like rabbits and deer emerged from the many torches and ran through the crowd, in between the onlookers away from the terrible storm.

Then with the clangs of a large, loud gong, the storm seemed to blow away with the wind as geometric shapes began forming from all of the flame sources in the area and dancing in the sky above the masses, many of whom were so overwhelmed they fell from their feet, sitting and staring up in awe.

To add effect to the shows that Maceo had done, the magicians had decided to employ drums and gongs, which beat rhythmically to the elaborate show above and around them of light and flame.

In all, the show lasted almost an hour and a half, and by the end, there wasn’t a soul left in the town that had any voice remaining given their screams and shouts of excitement. When the magicians finally gathered around Maceo for their formal bow following the performance, all that greeted them was thunderous applause, though a few figured out how to whistle loudly and enthusiastically.

Every member of the cast received enthusiastic fans that swarmed them, including Maceo who waited patiently for an exit and took it to find a quieter place to observe from, though as he made his escape, he did spot Lale in the crowd looking at him longingly. Almost immediately after he looked directly at her, though, the other man whom she’d been seeing stepped up and wrapped his arm around her, demanding her full attention, so Maceo made his get away while the crowds busily obsessed with their new celebrities.

It was almost midnight before the town quieted again and people began shuffling off to go to sleep while Maceo and the others were left with the clean up of their props and whatever other mess they’d left behind and then once they were finished, they all stopped at the tavern to celebrate a successful inaugural performance.

Maceo watched them with a happy and proud smile, preferring to let them bond among themselves and establish their own order. Of course, having all of the magicians there in one place provided an opportunity for more fans to come in and approach each of the performers. At one point while they were all eating, a woman entered with a boy, probably around 10 or 11, who intentionally sought out Cajsa. The boy bashfully presented her with flowers and professed his affections to a blushing Cajsa before Gaeten thanked them kindly and asked for time to eat and rest.

Of course, everyone in the group received similar attention, being newly christened celebrities, but eventually, the owner of the tavern closed the doors so the magicians could all get some time to cool down from the day’s events and get some much needed rest and refreshment.

“So what did you think?” the other teenaged girls asked Maceo who was leaning back on a chair and grinning with satisfaction. “How did we do?”

“Well you know the mistakes you’ve each made,” Maceo pointed out. “And I’d expect Gaeten to go over them with you in detail once you’ve had a chance to get some rest. But overall?” Everyone in the group sat up attentively in anticipation. “You did so amazingly well, I’m a little scared of your success.”

“What do you mean?” one of the teenagers asked.

“What you did tonight is bordering on a miracle,” Maceo told them quite proudly. “And this was just the first time you’ve done a real performance. You did so well, that I only have a word of warning for you.”

“What kind of warning?”

“You are all like bright stars in the sky, each and every one of you. You’re all creative and inspired and I’m very, very lucky to have had the privilege to be allowed to teach you. I’ll have further things I can help you with or teach you, but you’ve done so well that before long, what I’ve contributed here will seem like a distant memory. And that’s where the warning comes in. Remember that even the brightest stars in the sky eventually must fade and disappear too. You can do amazing things with the power you’ve been given, even though it’s almost all illusion. But never let that go to your heads. Always remember your humble beginnings, your trials and troubles growing up and how you were sent as a desperate measure for this town to try to earn even a little money. Remember all of the things that the others in the town built with their own hands while you learned your new trade and how you weren’t strong enough to work with them and let that keep you humble. The more humble you are, the better tasting your success will be. Never lose that because that is what makes each and every one of you very special men and women who will always live in my heart.”

All six of them were rather choked up by Maceo’s advice and he was pleased to see they seemed to be taking it to heart.

“We’ll stay humble,” Gaeten promised. “But tonight, let’s just revel in our success.”

They sang and laughed and ate until the owner of the tavern made it clear that he was exhausted, so they were shuffled outside to call it a night. Once there, the parents of most of these teens were waiting to escort them home, including Cajsa’s parents who showered Maceo with praise and thanks for all he’d done for them.

When it came time to say goodnight, Cajsa grabbed one of his fingers and looked up at him nervously. “I’m guessing you’ll be heading home first thing in the morning?”

“Not before I say goodbye,” he promised. “I’ll probably sit for some breakfast first too before I head out, if you want to join me.” She grinned from ear to ear and jumped up, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissed him on his cheek before her parents walked her home again. He stood and waved at her as they left and then turned to head back to the inn himself, though he was only half way there when a voice called out.

Maceo turned to see one of the elders, in fact one of the elders who’d shown a great deal of trepidation at the prospect of a group of sorcerers taking residence in their little town. “What can I do for you, Usha?” he asked the elderly woman as she stepped out from the shadows with a guest in tow who’d hidden behind her. He wasn’t able to get the best look at in the evening light.

“The town elders wanted to thank you formally for everything you’ve done for us. Would you be able to meet tomorrow before you leave?”

“I haven’t really done anything. I’ve made some money and maybe done a favor or two, but everything that’s happening is because of the hard work of your town.”

She smiled and approached and as she did it was now clear that her companion was another woman. The old woman pulled on her arm and pulled her out from behind her to face Maceo properly. She was a tall, surprisingly beautiful woman with long black hair and a supple physique who was so bashful she seemed to be having quite a bit of trouble making eye contact with Maceo. She appeared to be similar to Maceo’s age, but perhaps slightly younger.

“I was also asked to do a favor,” the old woman explained, “by my granddaughter Elaheh here. She asked if she could meet you.”

Maceo smiled to the beautiful lady, reached out and took her hand and then bowed politely to her. “Good evening Elaheh, I am Maceo. I’m honored that you wished to meet me.”

Even in the dark it was clear that this beautiful woman was blushing heavily, and also struggling to answer back at Maceo’s formal introduction. The elder laughed at her and pushed her forward, holding her hands on the younger woman’s shoulders to keep her in place.
“Elaheh was betrothed,” the elder explained. Of course Maceo had suspected what this was about, but he still reacted accordingly as the elder’s intentions were revealed. “Her parents had agreed to marry her to an officer in an army, but unfortunately he died in battle.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Maceo answered them solemnly again with another slight bow.

“It was very sad for everyone, but we’ve had months to grieve,” the elder explained to Maceo. “Elaheh has been talking about you for quite some time, actually.”

“Then I’m doubly honored,” Maceo said to her with another smile.

“Elaheh, aren’t you going to say anything?” her grandmother asked wit a bit of impatience and Elaheh stared down at her feet, rather embarrassed.

“I… lost my voice in the middle of the show,” she confessed in a weak raspy voice, which made Maceo laugh a bit.

“I think most of the town did,” Maceo answered mirthfully. “May I walk you both home?”

They took him up on his offer and the elder asked Maceo to talk to them about his troop of Magicians, since their voices were mostly shot. Maceo corrected them that he’s just given them a bit of instruction but going forward they wouldn’t be relying on him anymore. He’d be available to advise and to teach them a few new things and refine their skills, but by this point they were their own group and he wouldn’t get in their way. He also explained a bit more about the magic they were using, focusing on reinforcing that they were really only trained in illusions and by the time they reached the home of the elder, he was essentially finished with his story.

“Thank you for letting me walk you home,” he told them both and stepped back. The elder then looked at her granddaughter and shook her head at the young woman who was too embarrassed to speak for herself given the sorry state of her voice.

“I think what my granddaughter would like to know is if you’d be interested in speaking again,” she told Maceo with a smirk.

“I’d love to, if she wants me to,” Maceo answered back politely. “I do have to head out tomorrow before too long, but after we meet, I’d enjoy taking a walk.” Elaheh grinned and nodded, then the pair of ladies left him behind to go to bed and Maceo began walking across town again to the inn, quite thoroughly exhausted himself.

When he finally reached his room, Astravia watched him settle in for the evening and finally walked away from her globe, comfortable in the knowledge that Maceo would be safe from this point on.

Later that night, Astravia was asleep in her own bed, blissfully in slumber and as still as the night air. There was a peace that seemed almost beyond comprehension when she began to move under her thin, silky covers.

It was relatively rare that a god or goddess was affected by a dream like a mortal typically is. Usually, gods and goddesses are naturally able to experience their dreams fully aware, whereas with mortals it’s a skill that has to be learned and practiced at length, so the fact that Astravia was reacting herself in such a manner was unusual in and of itself. This was why Maceo once upon a time was able to sleep on a pillow beside her without having to worry about her rolling over him. Even in sleep she was naturally aware of her body and what it was doing.

However, on this evening, her breathing intensified in the midst of her dream and she began to move in accordance with the events of the dream she was experiencing. A few minutes later, this slight movement became more exaggerated as her back tensed and her legs began moving back and forth against each other. Her breathing became more pronounced and then she turned slightly in her sleep pulling her covers down just enough to reveal her bosom and nipples swollen and erect through her nightgown, stretching the fabric.

Her breathing intensified and her brow furrowed then released and then the slumbering giantess’ hand traced its way down to her hips, brushing gently between her legs. The damn seemed to have broken and this wet dream of hers blossomed and her hips began to buck until she was able to slip her hand underneath her night gown and began stroking her excessively wet loins with her fingers with a lapping sound as she fingered her divine pussy echoing through the bed chambers.

She moaned ever so slightly and sighed and then her other hand reached up and cupped one of her massive breasts that were more than enough for hands even as large as hers.

Her movements began to resemble a wave as her body undulated to the sensation of her pleasuring herself in her sleep, that wave slowly overtaking her and she bit her lip as the tip of her middle finger penetrated her and moaned again in a high pitch voice.

Her other hand became a little more excited with its movements until the swollen breast she was fondling slipped out of the loose fabric, revealing an extremely swollen and puffy areola and a large nipple thicker than her thumb as her sleeping fingers pinched it and she moaned again.

“Uuuhhhhh,” she whimpered to herself as her hips twisted left and right, followed by another soft moan of pleasure. “Maceo,” she whimpered to herself, her body naturally drawing closer and closer to climax until suddenly her eyes shot wide open and she gasped, sitting up as though she’d been yanked forcibly from a nightmare.

Her breathing was heavy now in a panicked manner and she yanked her hand up to cover her mouth only to stop at the last second and stare at her fingers in alarm as she realized her digits were slick and gooey from her own womanly juices, which were already beginning to drip down in a single long, wet string.

“But… he’s a mortal,” she gasped, grasping that wrist in the other hand and then looking down at her exposed breast, which was still showing extreme signs of arousal.

She looked left and right, startled and bordering on panic an slid out of bed, pacing back and forth at an accelerated pace. “But he’s a mortal,” she gasped again, and then again as she struggled with the intensity of what she’d just experienced.

She raised her hands to her face and then stopped, staring with astonishment at her right hand again, whose digits were drying now, but still sticky with her feminine juices.

“A shower,” she determined and then made a hasty retreat to the bathroom where she quickly found herself naked and relaxing under the heat of a hot, steamy shower, her breathing slowing as she worked the stress out of her system.

She stayed there, just absorbing the warmth of her hot shower for the better part of a half hour, calming slowly and focusing on the feeling of the warm water pouring down her skin as she kept her eyes closed, trying to wash the dirty thoughts from her mind and her mental state improved continually until her eyes shot wide open again and she looked down and screamed as she realized she was leaning against the shower wall with her right hand, while her left hand seemed to have drifted down and began stroking her clitoris of it’s own accord.

She yanked her hand out from between her legs, immediately rinsing it off and tensed, looking around as though someone had been there to catch her in the midst of her unpure thoughts. “A cold shower then,” she determined and turned the faucet handle, immediately dropping the temperatures of the water flow to an icy cold and she screamed again from the sudden change in temperature. Still, though, it seemed to have worked.

Unfortunately, the assault on her senses by these alien thoughts kept her awake the remainder of the night as she went from room to room in search of anything that might distract her from these invading desires. Eventually she settled in her study where she found herself staring at her globe and without even bothering to wave her hand over it as she normally did, the globe came to life and she was presented the image of Maceo, sleeping comfortably in his bed still.

She screamed and waved her hand, shutting it off, then stormed around in circles before she decided to take a book from a shelf and began reading it. Even with this distraction, she found herself still struggling to concentrate on her reading. Eventually she slammed the book closed and through it on the cushion beside her, lowering her head into her hands and actually crying.

“How am I any better than Zantharan?” she asked herself in between tears.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by chocolatejr9 » Mon May 30, 2022 10:40 pm

Maybe I'm reading too deeply into this, but... what if she's NOT any better than Zantharan? Like, most if not all gods from the various real world mythologies did at least ONE terrible thing, even the ones that were notably more benevolent. Is it just in her nature as a goddess? Does she even realize that about herself? Or is she in for a rude awakening?

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Tue May 31, 2022 12:18 am

chocolatejr9 wrote:
Mon May 30, 2022 10:40 pm
Maybe I'm reading too deeply into this, but... what if she's NOT any better than Zantharan? Like, most if not all gods from the various real world mythologies did at least ONE terrible thing, even the ones that were notably more benevolent. Is it just in her nature as a goddess? Does she even realize that about herself? Or is she in for a rude awakening?
Short answer? You're not reading too deeply into this at all.

Long answer: You're right. Astravia has spent much of her existence comfortable in her moral superiority to a husband who habitually cheated on her flagrantly and she's never had to address her own flaws. This all started with Maceo questioning her beliefs on power and its use and has been creeping over her as she realizes how much she yearns for Maceo's company, that being masculine company that is for the first time supportive, giving and caring of her, versus the infidelity she's received up until now.

She actually has a lot of personal reflecting to do, and she's just now starting to grasp that.

Objectively, I would say that Astravia IS better than Zantharan, but nonetheless, Zantharan isn't all bad either; he's just an abhorrent husband. Like the mythological gods you're referencing, she's far from perfect and has more than a few imperfections in regards to her behaviors. For instance, she's already been established to be renowned for her varied and cruel curses she's inflicted on those who displeased her. Maceo knows this about her, but when he awakes and realizes his attackers must have faced off against Astravia directly, he immediately questions what her punishment of them was while expressing no desire to see them suffer at all. He's been planting these seeds in her for subtly some time.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Tue May 31, 2022 3:03 am

The next day, Maceo was up and a little worn down, but still surging and ready to go. Cajsa caught up with him at the stables and helped him see to the horses as well as pack for his trip home and then they went to breakfast together where they sat and enjoyed themselves with Cajsa doing the majority of the talking excitedly as she finally had this alone time with her crush she’d craved for so long now.

She didn’t even seem to notice that Maceo was intentionally avoiding topics that could accidentally spill into something a little more romantic, though he did ask her a bit about what she imagined for her future and what type of life she wanted to live.

Much like he’d predicted, she struggled with these questions, stumbling over answers as she tried to build an idea of what her life should be like until she finally admitted to him, “before you treated me I never thought about my future. It’s still so new to me to think about. I guess I felt like I didn’t have a future.”

“You were on a downhill slide,” Maceo confessed to her. “Most of you were. In your case, I’m not sure how long you would have had, but the constant pneumonia was eventually going to do you in. With that under control, I think eventually you will be healthy enough that you won’t need to take that medication anymore.”

She smiled at him rather gratefully. “So I was dying,” she said plainly.

“Not exactly,” Maceo answered back. “Being sick all the time was wearing your body down and making it weaker over time. What would have eventually happened was you would have gotten sick with something too strong or with multiple illnesses at once and that was where the danger was. Each time you got sick, you were gambling with your life with lower and lower odds.”

“But you saved me,” she announced appreciatively.

“There are doctors out there that could have done better. Your town just didn’t have one. But, whatever I did doesn’t matter, because I’m going to teach you herbs and medicines. You’ll be able to do this on your own.”

“I’ll be the pint sized town healer?” she teased him.

“I’m sure the others will want to help you. Is that what you want to do? Treat the sick full time?”

“Can I? Isn’t it too dangerous for me? Since my immunity is so weak now…”

“You’re immunity will get stronger,” he promised. “I’ve paid close attention to your conditions and I have some recommendations on foods for you to eat that I think will help you in the long term. They may not taste the best, though,” he admitted with a touch of embarrassment.

When their breakfast had concluded, Maceo escorted her home while she explained to him that Gaeten was going to start out with weekly performances and in the meantime, now that her and her peers were healthier, they would each take on part time jobs with Cajsa working directly for Gaeten. He bid her goodbye and then proceeded to meet with the elders, who were ready and waiting for him. They ushered him inside and he sat in a spare chair as they sat in a circle as they typically did. Behind Usha sat her granddaughter Elaheh, who was smiling, but also looking down bashfully, making it nearly impossible for Maceo to greet her.

They wasted no time getting down to business, telling Maceo that they understood that he had a journey home to consider. They actually wanted to discuss more with him than mere thanks, though Maceo showed no surprise as they began laying out their new ideas and plans for their new good luck charm.

Their plan was fairly simple: they wanted Maceo to move to the town full time and become a major player among the businessmen in the town. They wanted it so much that they promised to build him his own house at a site of his own choosing and made to whatever specifications he asked for.

Maceo, of course, politely declined, explaining that he still had yet to be released from his duties to his patron, but also that leaving there would mean he would be also leaving behind a number of tools at his disposal that allowed him to create the many products he’d shared with them to date. This was true, of course, but also an intentional understatement. His golems allowed him to produce metal working products in a top of the line blacksmithing shop and his biggest problem there was keeping the production of his golems low enough that the amount of products he made was still believable for one man. The magic shop was a place he was coming to use more and more as his skills advanced in order to match those of an actual sorcerer, not to mention all of the other resources there at his command. Of course, resources were not really the reason he was struggling with the decision to leave the temple permanently.

His arguments weren’t enough to dissuade the elders, though, who pressed further with other ideas to include him more in the economic leadership of their town.

This went on until Maceo realized that lunchtime was approaching and he would soon be past due to head back to the temple as per Astravia’s instructions. At this time, he decided he would take a more direct approach with the elders.

“I realize how important this is to you, but understand that this isn’t my home. Even if I did move here, it wouldn’t have the same importance to me as it does to you. Not only that, but I have my own plans. I’ve invested in your town because I believe in it. In the end, though, asking outsiders to come in to lead you is a bad strategy. You’ve survived poor times for decades now and you did it on your own. No one knows this town better than the people who live here and no one cares more for it than you can. Even if I did move here, I have no business coming here and playing at leading your people. I haven’t earned it. No outsider has. I’m not interested in having things gifted to me. I’ll earn them with my sweat and tears if I have to, but I will not have things gifted to me.”

As luck would have it, Astravia was watching as he made this speech and was staring at him with curious, interested eyes with both of her hands over her mouth. It was as though this man she’d known now for nine years was someone completely different from whom she’d taken for granted this whole time, and seeing him interact among his own people was enlightening to say the least.

Elaheh was also similarly impressed by him, staring wide eyed at this very self assured man who on the surface seemed kind and humble, but once pressed seemed to command the respect of all those around him.

The room was silent as Maceo allowed them to process his words and once he’d decided they’d had enough time, he spoke again. “I certainly do want to do more business with you. I definitely want a closer relationship with your town, but we still have the issue of my principle on the debt I lent you that has to be repaid yet.”

“We’re going to repay you,” one elder promised. “In fact, we’re certain that we’ll have the funds to do so sooner than promised.”

“I didn’t just lend you the money,” he explained. “I invested in you. Someone very kind and generous once invested in me and I did everything in my power to be worthy of that investment, and now I am passing that kindness along. You don’t need to pay me back early, but I do ask that you focus on that first before we try to get ahead of ourselves with greed. Long ago, this mountain was a place that people the whole world over came to because it was that important. I’m guessing that the residents here are refugees from that time. Well, your time has come again. Don’t give away what you’ve earned with so much struggle for so long to outsiders, no matter how well intentioned we may seem to you. Know your value, and learn to appreciate just how important you are, while keeping this humility that has gotten you through such lean times.”

There were a few soft murmurs and whispers individually among his audience while Astravia and Elaheh watched him with fascination. Once again, Maceo allowed them time to consider his words, then interrupted them.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, standing and brushing his legs off, “an extremely beautiful woman has given me the honor of allowing me to have lunch with her,” he announced. Elaheh turned a bright red and became even more bashful than the night before. “Unless you’ve changed your mind,” he added with a bit of a smirk.

She looked up at him in surprise as he addressed her. “No!” she exclaimed hurriedly and stood up, rushing to get to the door as if she were about to be left behind.

“Always a pleasure doing business with you,” he told the elders as he reached the door and offered his arm for Elaheh to hook with her own. “I look forward to the next time,” he said with a formal bow and then led Elaheh out with him and down to the tavern where they took a seat and sat together, her blushing and struggling to maintain eye contact.

“She really likes him,” Astravia muttered, partly with a hint of fascination, but also with a taste of jealousy in her words. More interestingly, as soon as she said it she stopped and looked down as though in self-reflection.

Maceo ordered food and when Elaheh was struggling with how overly smitten she was to the point where she couldn’t decide on something for herself, Maceo interrupted. “May I take a guess for you?” he asked while she struggled and stammered. She blushed and nodded bashfully, so Maceo made an order on her behalf and then looked to Elaheh one more time. “Does that sound alright to you?” She grinned and nodded and he smiled and sent their server on her way.

Then there was silence, which Maceo allowed to hang intentionally while Elaheh sat, still completely flustered. “Say something already!” Astravia ordered him when she couldn’t take it any longer, but even then he remained calm and poured more water for her from a pitcher. Astravia growled with frustration and Maceo handed her drink to her, intentionally waiting for her to look up into his eyes.

“I’m going to put you on the spot a bit,” he told her with a bit of a teasing grin. Her eyes widened and she blushed a little more heavily, shrinking back under his calm gaze. “I’m going to need you to talk to me for a while. I’ve spent the whole morning talking and I need a bit of a break.”

“That’s okay,” she answered him meekly. She was already starting to sink a little lower in her seat. Maceo reached across the table and put his hand under her jaw, lifting gently until she sat up more properly in her seat.

“Am I that bad that you want to hide from me?” he asked her, again with that strange sense of self-assurance. Astravia was now watching him with the same level of fascination that Elaheh was. As if they were both thinking the same thought, they shook their heads at him as he lowered his hand and covered hers as it sat on the table. Her cheeks went a little more rosy shade of red, as did Astravia’s. “So then talk to me,” he told her gently.

She gulped and came up blank. “I wouldn’t mind you talking more,” she eventually managed to tell him.

“Braggarts can enjoy the sound of their own voices, and I don’t really want to be a braggart,” he informed her. “I need you to help me practice a skill.”

“What skill is that?” both Astravia and Elaheh asked almost together.

“Listening,” Maceo answered back with a smile. Both Astravia and Elaheh reddened a little more. “Tell me about your family. Do you have any brothers or sisters?” he asked her. She nodded to him. “Tell me about them,” he told her.

She now had a fixed point to focus on, so she did as asked, slowly gaining the confidence to look at him more directly as she told him about her four brothers and two sisters. The entire time, Maceo smiled and listened attentively, asking questions in order to keep her talking as she expanded out to her parents and cousins and aunts and uncles and then to her time growing up and the games she would play here in the mountains with the other children.

Astravia was unable to take her eyes off of the conversation. Interestingly enough, Elaheh was the one talking and explaining everything, with Maceo only asking questions or teasing her about her stories as she expanded her list of topics to include work she’d been hired for or stories of her adventures looking after her younger siblings. Despite this, however, it was obvious that Maceo was the one controlling the conversation. He was doing it subtly and gently, leading her to wherever he wanted the conversation to go, sometimes taking an opportunity to tease her with some subtle innuendo that made both her and Astravia blush a deep red.

They were well into their meal together when Astravia sat back and covered her mouth. “He is directing her,” she gasped. “This entire conversation is planned,” she deduced. “Where did he learn to do this? WHEN did he learn to do this?” she asked the empty room.

His strategy seemed to be working as she gradually warmed up to him until she was talking to him excitedly and leaning over the table to him while they talked. As her walls began collapsing one after another, Astravia leaned closer to her globe and stared at Maceo, somewhat fearfully.

“Have you used this technique on ME?” she asked him, astounded. “Where else would you have gotten practice? Maceo do not tell me that you have manipulated the queen of the gods!”

Before long, their conversation needed to be concluded and Maceo asked to walk her home before he left to go home himself. They were walking along and just around the corner from her home when she tugged on his wrist. He stopped and she stared up at him, now back to her original bashful self she’d presented when she first met Maceo.

“You are so mousy,” Astravia hissed at the smitten young woman.

“I had so much fun,” she confessed to him with a bashful smile. She seemed to be frozen in place and also to be anchoring Maceo.

“So did I,” he replied. She continued to stare up at him, still as a pond’s waters at midnight, so he took a guess at what was on her mind. He leaned a little closer and she didn’t move, still locked in his gaze so he edged further still and she tipped her chin up to him. Finally he slowly lowered his lips to meet hers and wrapped one arm around her waist while the other cupped her cheek.

She melted into his embrace and squeezed back, holding in a long, but very sweet kiss. After their long moment together, he pulled back slowly and smiled to her as he saw her skin was a bright red again.

“MMMMMMM!” Astravia screamed angrily with tensed, pursed lips and tight fists. Her body shook angrily and then she stood and began pacing back and forth hurriedly, screaming in short bursts as she watched this brand new romance blossom before her eyes.

Maceo took her right up to Elaheh’s front door and stepped back ready to part ways. She held on to his hand and anchored him again, though this time it was clear she was a little too nervous for another kiss right there in front of her childhood home.

“Will you come see me again when you’re back in town?” she asked him meekly.

“Of course I will,” he answered her.

Astravia by this point was sitting on the edge of her chair with her head hung low and her fingers in her luscious golden locks, grabbing fistfuls of her hair. “He’s a mortal, he’s a mortal, he’s a mortal,” she grumbled over and over to herself in a bid to purge her raging jealousy.

Once he’d dropped Elaheh off, he made his way quickly to the stables, hitched his horses and then departed town at a fast trot in order to make up for lost time and hopefully make it back as instructed by Astravia.

When he arrived at the temple only slightly behind schedule, he was actually surprised to see the gates still closed. He dismounted and went to the gate, unlocking it himself and stepped through to empty streets and looked around. There was no sign of Astravia as he searched and then stood there in the empty entrance to the temple.

“Hmm,” he muttered a bit sadly. “Well, I really hope she’s doing something for herself,” he pondered as he walked the horses back to the pasture they normally stayed in. He then turned toward her quarters and began walking there, but stopped only a few steps into his walk.

“Oh, better not,” he reasoned. “She probably went for a swim and the last thing I need is to get turned to stone for seeing her naked.” With this new thought in mind, he turned around and proceeded to the library to study while there was still light left in the day.

Unfortunately for Maceo, when dinnertime came, he found himself sitting alone in the library with his books closed waiting and hoping for the goddess to come and retrieve him. Sadly, she did not and after waiting there for over an hour, he decided to head back to the metalworking shop and hone his skills with a hammer and anvil.

He was still working hard into the night, smiling to himself as he threw himself into his craft as Astravia stood at the opening to her balcony, mostly hidden behind a drapery. She stood there silently staring out across the pavilion where she could see the lights of the shop burning brightly and the constant clang of metal on metal.

Eventually, Maceo worked himself to the point where he was exhausted and turned to walk back to his room glancing over to the Goddess’ quarters as he walked, his eyes searching for the goddess whom he’d missed so much. “Probably teaching me a lesson in order to encourage me out of this place,” he determined. He dropped his head a little, but still smiled to himself.

Unbeknownst to him, Astravia continued to watch him his entire walk back to the dormitory and only moved out from behind her concealment once she was certain his light was out. As soon as this happened, she marched out onto her balcony and leapt over the edge, transforming into her hawk form and flew with all haste back to the town, setting down right behind Elaheh’s house and transforming into her normal self again, kneeling behind the wall of a mostly dark home to conceal her presence.

Astravia stepped outside of time again and leaned to look in the one window that was lit to find Elaheh, still awake from her high from her time spent with Maceo and holding her long hair in a bundle as she stood in front of a mirror smiling.

Astravia looked to her right where an entrance stood and scowled, growling to herself with frustration and frowning as she struggled with the fact that even kneeling and crouched over, she was almost a head taller than the door still. She sighed heavily and closed her eyes and then her body began to shrink down into her more human looking form. Once she’d reached that 4’10” sweet spot, she stood up and looked at the door that now stood a few feet taller than her and she frowned even harder as she opened the door and stepped inside.

“I can not believe these mortals keep making me do this,” she grumbled and then navigated the house until she reached the room that Elaheh was in and she walked inside and then immediately in front of Elaheh, scowling at the now much taller woman. Astravia clenched her jaw and glared at the woman frozen in time.

“Mousy,” she declared bitterly to the young woman. Then a wicked smirk spread across her lips and she reached up to the woman who stood more than a head taller than her and tapped her nose forcefully, instantly transforming that nose and adding in a pair of whiskers to illustrate her point. She then pressed the taller woman’s upper lip and two sharp incisors peaked out to match her whiskers.

A tap to each ear and her human ears blipped into mouse ears and then with a fanciful wave of her hand, the back of Elaheh’s dress lifted up as a long, pointy tail with soft, velvety fur emerged. Finally, four more bops to her torso and four more breasts grew below her two natural ones.

“Still smug, little mouse girl?” Astravia mocked with her head tipped to the side and an evil smirk. “Who the hell do you think you are?” she asked her, now placing her hand on her hips. “I need to see your reaction,” she grinned, and held her hand up to wave herself back into time again but stopped at the last instant and screamed again. “How am I supposed to keep my presence here a secret with you mortals constantly antagonizing me??” she yelled up at Elaheh.

She paced back and forth and stomped her feet, then marched right up in front of Elaheh again and conjured an image of her standing right there in front of her without the improvements Astravia had gifted her with. Then she swiped her hand to the left and time began rewinding back wards quickly before Astravia’s eyes.

“So how many men have you been courting on the side behind my Maceo’s back?” she asked, spinning back and back and back days, weeks, months, even a year to the time where Elaheh received word that her betrothed had been killed and her genuine grief.

Astravia screamed again with frustration and stomped in a circle once more. “Where are your flaws you little trollop?” she demanded fiercely. “Mousy little wench,” she spat up at her, and then her scowl grew even fiercer. “Why must the queen of the gods stare UP at a mousy little trull?” she demanded to know and then reached up the far distance to the top of Elaheh’s head and pressed down. Elaheh’s height diminished as quickly as Astravia pressed until they were the exact same height and eye to eye. Astravia sneered, then her face soured once again. “You are even cuter like this!” she screamed, throwing her hands up in frustration as she stared at the smaller, mouse version of Elaheh whose dress was heavily slackened and sagging on her much smaller form.

“How much do you want to wager that your nether regions are a tangled, stench filled mess like that other grisette?” she sneered. She placed a single fingertip on top of Elaheh’s head and pressed down, much more slowly this time as she watched Elaheh dwindle before her eyes. At first her dress began to settle around her feet on the floor, pooling in ever-greater quantities. By the time Elaheh was chest height to the goddess, Astravia was sneering again as she shrank small enough for her shoulder to become exposed in the collar of an otherwise pretty, but conservative dress. Astravia leaned down and glared into Elaheh’s frozen eyes.

“How small before your pelvic shame is revealed?” she taunted the mousy girl who was now at best three and a half feet tall. Astravia grinned wickedly and pulled her hands away from her hair and down to her sides. “No cheating,” she warned the woman.

Astravia then placed her fingertip on top of Elaheh’s head and pressed again, this time going even more slowly than before. Down Elaheh went, her dress pooling on the ground as though it were a tent being dismantled. Elaheh descended down to three feet tall and the dress sagged over her now completely exposed shoulder while her hands were completely lost in the sleeves long ago.

Two and a half feet and the other shoulder finally slipped free, then two feet and two of her six breasts were fully exposed with Astravia growling at the fact that while not particularly large, these breasts were quite plump and perky. Astravia continued pressing down and just above a foot and a half, the dress finally gave up on the shrinking woman and fell freely from her dwindled, mouse girl form, but because of how small she was now and how firm the fabrics of her dress were, it still concealed her from the waist down.

“Time’s up,” she teased and bent over, picking the mouse girl up with one hand for a closer look at her nether regions. She lifted the doll-sized mouse woman up to her face and screamed again with such frustration that she almost dropped Elaheh before she lifted her up to double check.

Apparently, the conservative dress in this case hid a very finely trimmed bush that when Astravia petted it proved to be just above a soft stubble in length. Astravia pulled her legs apart and growled again with frustration at a vagina that was so well groomed it might as well have been shaved clean.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded to know, shrinking the doll sized woman by squeezing her between her two palms down to about ten inches in height. “Nobody is perfect,” Astravia insisted and tapped the girl’s head, probing her thoughts and memories.

On and on she went, finding only evidence that she was exactly as she’d presented herself: a beautiful young woman who was a dedicated daughter and sister, hard working and obedient and worst of all? A proud owner of a well guarded chastity.

Astravia screamed in frustration again and set Elaheh down on the ground in the middle of the collar of her deflated dress and pressed down until the little mouse girl was only three inches tall.

“I AM LEAVING YOU LIKE THIS! DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES!!” she screamed with a stomp of her foot and stormed out of the house, transformed into her hawk form, but stopped before even a second of time had passed as it restarted again. Astravia balled her fists and screamed up at the night skies, then stormed back in and picked up the three-inch tall mouse girl between her finger and thumb and glared at her.

Elaheh had had just enough time as it had begun to move forward to change her expression just a bit from happiness toward confusion and Astravia stared at her. “How am I supposed to explain this to Maceo?” she demanded from the little mouse girl. “He will be so angry with me.”

She paced back and forth with Elaheh in the palm of her hand thinking long and hard, then an inspiration hit her and she snapped her fingers as the anger of her face vanished in a second. She walked back to Elaheh’s dress, set her down carefully inside the collar again and snapped her fingers, resetting Elaheh to her original size and pose. She reached up to touch Elaheh’s forehead, but stopped just before making contact. “I am NOT staring up at you, mouse girl,” she spat and then pressed Elaheh’s head down again, shrinking her down inside of her dress to a much more respectable 4’6”.

Finally satisfied, she touched Elaheh’s forehead again and began rummaging through her memories for what seemed like hour after hour until she finally found what she was looking for.

There in front of her was a mental image of a boy that Elaheh had been close friends with since they were small children. A boy who’d grown up alongside her and who as a teenager had professed his undying love for her only to be turned away because Elaheh didn’t feel the same way.

She tried to remain friends with him, but following that event things became more awkward and their friendship drifted apart, though she to this day continued to check up on him almost daily to bring a little cheer into his life. A life of a great deal of poverty.

“You care VERY deeply for him,” she accused Elaheh. “So WHAT went wrong, exactly?” she asked.

Astravia continued to sift through her memories and thoughts, grumbling to herself about what a jumbled mess mortals’ minds were until she seemed to have found enough to satisfy her. “Very well. Show me your perfect man,” she determined.

Astravia scoured through her imagination and her daydreams as well as her night ones on and on and on as though she were on a mission, eventually settling on the proper path to take to correct this travesty she was trying desperately to avert.

She snapped her fingers and Elaheh was reset once again to original size and pose. “Wish granted,” she declared angrily and then lifted the front of her dress and stormed out of the house once more.

Astravia stormed right along to the very modest apartment of her childhood friend and entered with no pretext whatsoever. She waved her hand emphatically and the man flung up from his lying position and his covers fell away. Astravia threw her hands up in annoyance yet again and turned around. “Of COURSE you sleep naked,” she yelled, and then waved a hand and he set down immediately in front of the irate goddess. She looked him up and down, frowning at what she had to work with.

“Well, my unfortunate friend, today is your lucky day,” she told the man frozen in time. “Your love desires tall men, and you are the exact same height as her, so luck of all luck, you are about to receive one final growth spurt,” she told him, then palms down, waved her hands upward. As she did so, the man expanded, growing about two inches.

“Just enough to catch her attention when you see her next,” Astravia explained. “And after that you will grow like a normal mortal until you hit 6’5”.” She now walked around him, considering him a little more carefully. She waved her hand and his jaw squared just slightly, though not so much as to be too excessive or change his appearance too noticeably, just a minor tweak. She patted his thighs, chest, abdomen and arms and they trimmed up, toned up and expanded ever so slightly to present a slightly more muscular form than the extremely average one she’d been presented with. “AND,” she added with a flair for the dramatic, “your body will naturally trend toward that athletic physique. Now to just give you that urge to develop it,” she told him, pressing her palm against his forehead.”

She then walked around him slowly in circles with scrutinizing eyes. “What in my name is going on with your energy?” she asked, more concerned than perplexed. She puckered her lips a little as she scrutinized him, continuing to walk around him in circles until she noticed a rag tossed into the corner. She looked up at him, raised her eyebrow and then walked over to it, picking it up and noticing how crusty and stiff it was and made a motion as though she were about to vomit and tossed it away holding it with nothing but her finger and thumb. She walked up to him and reached up to his forehead, then scowled.

“Uggh,” she sighed with frustration. “No point in undoing what I’ve already done,” she complained then dragged a chair over, stood on it and looked at him from a more comfortable angle. She touched his forehead and began diving into his memories, quickly coming up with image after image after image after image of him masturbating. “AAAAUUUUGHHHHH!!! You are disgusting!” she screamed. “No wonder you’re energy is so warped! I need to eliminate this addiction of yours immediately,” she grumbled, reaching out to him and grabbing as though she were taking random thoughts and crumbling them up and throwing them away. “SO MANY?” she screamed at him. “Well I certainly know what went wrong with this particular love story,” she grumbled. She literally tore the offensive thoughts from his mind and then stood on the chair, her hands on her hips and scowling at him.

“What else is in there that is ruining your chances?” she demanded to know.

She began scanning through his thoughts again until she came upon a vast collection of memories and mental scars from his awkward interactions with women over his life. “What the hell is this?” she demanded to know. “You are a man! For crying out loud, of course you are going to get turned down. Where do you think they get most of their power from? I would ask you to grow a pair of balls, but that is probably the only thing on your body that doesn’t need to be fixed! For the love of…” she sighed again and put her hands on her hips. “Well, I cannot just take them away because then you’ll have no experience whatsoever. Although…” she considered as though she were onto something but quickly shook her head and shook the thought away.

She growled and then jumped down from the chair and straight out of his apartment again and down the street, her eyes having shifted back to that black with starry pupils again looking at each house as she stormed by.

“No, no, no… no… nope,” she complained until she reached the home of the elder that Maceo had befriended and stopped, her mouth hanging open. “You little cad,” she remarked, then stomped up and inside of his house up to the elderly mortal and stared at him in his bed with his wife.

“Does your wife know how experienced you were before you married?” she asked him, shaking her head.

Astravia certainly was in a mood this evening.

She began pouring through his thoughts and memories, and selecting them one at a time then pulling on them as an exact duplicate seemed to split off from the original while the original fell back into his mind. “This is why your species drops in testosterone as you age,” she lectured to him. “We had to do this to you or you never would have evolved beyond apes.”

Much as she was shocked to see the sheer amount of perverted thoughts and behavior from her project, she was just as shocked to see the encyclopedic knowledge of this particular human on the topic of seducing women. She shook her head at him and duplicated nearly all of his experience and then stormed back out of his room again without so much as a thank you.

Then she stormed right back over to her project, who was still frozen in time, standing straight up near the foot of his bed as Astravia stomped back into his apartment with her short little stride. The same purple mist trailed in behind her that she’d used to ensure no one at the chapel woke up during her late night visit there and then she climbed up onto her chair again and stared at the man as time began to resume again around her.

“So annoying that you have to exist in time to learn anything,” she grumbled and then pressed her palm against his forehead and his body seemed to surge slightly as the knowledge she’d procured for him poured into his mind and he twitched strangely as though experiencing an odd dream. She stared at him, tapping her foot impatiently while standing on a chair, considering what was next.

“Hmm… you’ll need an insatiable hunger for knowledge,” she decided and with a tap of her fingertip to his forehead, there was a slight demeanor change in the sleeping man, though one that was difficult to describe. “And we eliminated all those pesky self doubts, but I’m certain you’ll find a way to create more, so we’ll have to adjust that as well,” she said and then another touch to his forehead.

She now jumped down from the chair and looked at his flaccid penis. “Disappointing,” she mumbled with a dead expression. She sighed and shook her head. “Well, let us find out how much of a grower you are,” she said, raising her hand into the air. “I cannot believe I’m doing this,” she declared as his body succumbed to her wishes and he moaned slightly and squirmed suspended just barely above the ground as his penis stiffened before her. “Not much, apparently,” she complained with an irritated look on her face.

She put her face in her hand and looked up at him. “I cannot BELIEVE how much work it is taking to fix you,” she lectured him, then time slowed to a stop once more and she growled with frustration yet again. “Well, unfortunately for you, she is quite afraid of large penises, so we will not be doing that, but we definitely need to add a little more to this thing,” she said and with a wave of her hand, his rod stiffened and lengthened slightly. She considered her work, then gave it a little more girth with a wave of her hand and jumped back up to stand on the chair again sighing with frustration.

“Pheromones,” she determined. “You need more of them,” and then she placed her hands on the base of his neck and there was a soft glow. “And testosterone. She needs to feel your masculinity the instant she walks in the door,” she said, pressing her finger into his chest with a soft glow and then looking down as she noticed his scrotum swelled slightly. “Oops,” she said, but shook her head, deciding it wasn’t worth her time to adjust. “Let’s lower your voice just a tiny bit,” she said and touched his Adam’s apple with another soft glow.

Astravia continued to spend more and more effort on this man, tweaking him ever so slightly here and there until she finally stepped back and critiqued her own work.

The man was still the same man and overall little changed and he was easily recognizable as who he was when she walked into the room. The changes to his body were all subtle, minor tweaks to render the same man as he’d always been just slightly adjusted to make him more attractive in just about every way. Astravia smiled to herself.

“Very well. Just enough for her to notice the difference and take an interest, but over the next year, you’ll fill out and develop into that dream man of hers perfectly.” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently, double-checking that she’d covered all of the details that were necessary. Then she waved her hand again and he was placed back in his bed just as he’d been when she arrived and placed her hand over on his forehead again, probing deep into his thoughts. “And of course, we need to make sure that she is always the only woman on your mind, and give you a bit more aloofness, so that she’ll always be a bit excited by you. And she certainly won’t want to stray since quite a few women will be noticing you now themselves.”

She stepped back and waved her hand once more, pulling the covers over him and stood with her arms crossed and tapping her foot again, but this time nodding to herself with approval. “Alright,” she determined. “There is no way she will not be pulled to you like a stone dropped from a window at the top of a tower.”

Time once again resumed around her and she leaned down and whispered in his ear. “Do not squander this gift, or so help me I will take it all back with interest. Now, first thing in the morning, go out to the small side creek just north of the village to find your fortune. Make sure you stop by Gaeten’s shop to tell him and ask for his advice on saving and investing so that you do not waste it,” she said.

The man mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep an she smiled to herself, then went to his wardrobe and with a wave of her hand, all his clothing adjusted just slightly to accommodate his change in height so that his clothing wouldn’t give away her enhancements.

Finally satisfied, she walked out of the room, closed the door and then back out onto the street where she suddenly chirped with surprise to see a mortal mucking about in front of his home in the darkness. He turned immediately to see what the commotion was but before he could fully look her way time stopped once again. She sighed with relief and rolled her head, trying to release the stress she carried.

“The last thing I need is one of them seeing me like… this,” she complained with a tone of utter contempt, shaking her head and then walked away with her short little stride until she fluidly transformed into her hawk form and flew away, taking high up into the skies and back to her balcony where she transformed back to her normal self, shucked off her dress and then rolled into her bed and lay back, closing her eyes for a peaceful rest.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Thu Jun 02, 2022 3:04 am

The next morning, Astravia woke mid morning to the faint, distant sound of metal on metal. She turned her head and looked out the balcony, then stood, walked to her closet and picked out a fresh dress before heading to the bathroom to refresh herself with a warm shower. She walked out to the stairs to go down to the main level, but stopped as though something felt a little off to her.

Astravia then walked back to her study and looked into the globe to find the three thieves that had beaten Maceo, two five inch tall women clinging desperately to their male compatriot and screaming as the jarring movements he was being subjected to threatened to throw these tiny women dressed only in a few ratty scraps of fabric from him.

The man, still a scrawny, skin and bones, deflated version of the man he’d once been was standing and taking a merciless beating from a relatively large and muscular man, but nowhere near as much so as this thief had once been in his prime. The thief was bloodied and bruised, his eye swollen shut with large, protruding lumps of blood filled orbs protruding from various parts of his body.

The thief would easily fall on his own, but his tormenter’s punches were enough on their own to provide enough kinetic force to keep the thief more or less on his feet. The tormentor grabbed one of the tiny women in his hand and squeezed her to agony filled tiny, high-pitched screams.

She closed her eyes, sighed and then time froze around her again and she rewound time on the three thieves to see that they’d been pick pocketing and continuing to steal despite their considerable downgrades. She put her hand in her face and shook her head as she watched the man sneak into a room that the two shrunken women had wiggled their way in using their small size and managed to let him in.

Once there, he found a woman that he took a liking to, so he tied her down in her sleep. She awoke to this frail man struggling to cut her clothes off and was just about to take advantage of the situation when there was a knock and a noise, which was his cue to slip out the window and make his escape. The man that was beating the thief was the father of the young woman who’d only narrowly escaped rape and he’d found the trio with a great deal of effort and a week and a half of searching and was dealing out justice to them.

Astravia sighed and shook her head, walking toward her balcony. “I have never in my existence been forced to use my mortal form so many times over such a short period. I cannot keep doing this,” she grumbled, then transformed into her hawk form and flew much more casually to what was normally normal several days ride out to their location. She landed and returned to her normal form just beyond arms’ reach from the thieves and their victim. She looked around and surveyed the scene from her fifteen-foot perspective in frozen time.

Once again, she shook her head and then began shrinking down once more into the 4’10” version of herself. She looked at her amazing bosom and then reduced them down as well to more realistic proportions, then she brushed her more mortal looking dress off and then time resumed as the man grabbed the thief by the throat and pinned him against the wall.

“Excuse me,” Astravia said very politely to the man. The trio of thieves all looked in Astravia’s direction and gasped in abject terror as their punisher revealed herself again, appearing from nowhere. “I am very sorry, but I need you to stop. They will not survive your punishment.”

“That’s… the… point!” the man yelled, slamming the thief with each word said.

“That is not acceptable. I am asking you to please stop,” Astravia told him very cordially.

“You have no idea what they did!”

“I actually do. I am very sorry for what was done to your daughter, but I need you to stop this instant.”

“I am her father,” he yelled, still refusing to even look at her. Astravia’s eyebrow twitched with irritation. “I will not stop until he gets exactly what he deserves!”

“I understand your anger, but this is the last time I will say this. You will stop,” she commanded rather firmly, but still politely. He finally turned and looked at Astravia, the petite, 4’10” little blonde with a trim, womanly little figure and he scoffed.

“This is none of your business,” he told her.

“As a point of fact,” she explained, treading a few steps closer in a very poised manner, “it is very much my business and it is you who is interfering in my business. Not the other way around. I have already meted out punishment to them, but I would be willing to entertain additional measures as compensation for your daughter’s suffering. But you will stop now,” she informed him firmly.

“I will NOT STOP until I wring the price they owe me out of them in BLOOD, and I am not going to be lectured by some little woman about it,” he declared with contempt for Astravia. Her patience was finally gone and her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched as the thieves all began smirking, knowing not what would come next, but how dramatic it would be.

“You misunderstand. You are not in any position to negotiate; I am simply offering what I am as a courtesy. Should you choose to discard that courtesy, you will pay the price as well.”

The man dropped the thief and the shrunken woman in his hand and turned to face Astravia, intentionally showcasing his excessive brute force compared to her. “Listen, you stuck up little princess, I will not be lectured by some WOMAN,” he said stomping toward her.

Oddly, though as he did this, his form quickly and fluidly changed. His cheekbones and skin softened. His eyelashes lengthened, his bulk drained away as his waist curved inward, the bulge in his pants receded away to nothing, his hair lengthened and softened, his strong, muscular chest gave way to plump, round, breasts, his height diminished by more than 8 inches and his voice elevated in pitch to match the beautiful young woman that he’d now become.

He stopped in his tracks, confused and touching his throat, trying to comprehend the alien voice he’d just heard. He then looked over his body and went ghostly pale as he discovered his quite attractive womanly features that had entirely replaced his body.

“You were saying?” Astravia asked in a flat tone with no expression whatsoever.

“What the…” he began to say, completely confused and then stopping as he was again confronted with the alien voice, which was actually a rather lovely and almost lyrical one.

“Leave them be now,” she declared.

The man now looked around and just by moving his new, much thinner arms, he was quite aware of the decrease in his strength, but his anger would not be quelled, and his vengeance not surrendered. “Listen you,” he threatened, his voice modulating as he searched for any version that could be considered threatening. “I am still plenty big enough to take on both him AND you and…” he said, stomping up to her with his pants slipping from his soft, round, womanly curves, but stopped cold right before he reached her as a new sensation washed over him.

His anger was now gone and he looked at her in fear and just as he did, his feminine body softened further, the breasts receding back into his chest, his feminine curves flattening out and then his height diminishing further and quickly as the man, turned beautiful woman regressed very quickly back to a very young girl, perhaps only a little over three years old and staring up in abject horror of Astravia.

“I am so tired of this,” she complained with an airy, exasperated voice, then grabbed the little girl, yanking him out of his oversized pants and put him over her knee where Astravia spanked him viciously until he screamed in his little girl voice and cried in pain.

Astravia then set the little girl down, still crying with eyes red and filled with tears rubbing his sore and red bottom as Astravia knelt in front of him with a terrifyingly cold glare.

“You are not wrong. We are the weaker sex, and we certainly cannot hold up to the brute force you wield, but I think, my very young friend, that you mistake that physical weakness with status and fancy yourself better than the so called ‘weaker sex.’ You do not understand the power of a woman in the slightest.”

Astravia stood up and with an upward wave of her hand, the little girl grew up quickly to the beautiful woman he’d been only a moment before. “It is time that changed,” Astravia declared. “You will leave them alone,” Astravia declared coldly and then passed by as if he weren’t even there.

The man looked around in shock and then looked down at bare hips where a phallus should be only to find a soft, trimmed little bush. Embarrassed he dropped down and fished his pants back from the ground and pulled them on in a panic to cover his exposed, bare pussy.

Astravia strolled over to the three thieves and knelt before them, their indignant smirks disappearing as soon as she approached them.

“No shortcuts,” she whispered harshly to the trio. “No skipping out of your punishments early,” she continued. “No loopholes. You heard what I told you and still you defy me,” she hissed at them. “You think you are clever, sneaking into a woman’s room and assaulting her after tying her down?” she asked them. “You know full well that she could have easily beaten you to a pulp if you had not tied her up so you thought yourselves witty for finding a way to work around your handicap, didn’t you? You should have let the woman beat you senseless, because instead you made the mistake of angering this man who had every intention to kill all three of you. Against my wishes,” she added with a spine tingling scorn.

“You will not escape this life so easily. You will live long lives before your punishment is complete and your debt paid and so help me, if you do find some way to escape these mortal bonds prematurely, I will travel to the underworld myself where I will find you and I will deal such pain, torment and misery upon you that you will look back on your shriveled lives that you brought upon yourselves as though they were blessings. Am I understood?” she asked them with a coldness in her voice that made the trio all shiver violently with fear.

“If I am forced to come rescue you like this again I will sap what remains of your strength from you permanently and I will take away your precious beauty, you fowl little trollups,” she concluded. The fear in their hearts caused them to begin sobbing as they nodded to her, acknowledging her commands.

She then stood and looked down on them, the two five inch women gripping the thief’s shirt like it was a canvas tent and shaking with terror and the thief cupping each tiny woman with a hand and pulling them close as if they might save him from Astravia.

“Now go,” she commanded in a low, emotionally bereft voice. The thief began to climb to his feet, still holding on to the pair of shrunken women closely to his chest, but as soon as he reached a kneeling position, she intervened. “No,” she ordered them coldly. They froze on command, refusing to move so much as a muscle. “Crawl away, you slithering snakes,” she commanded coolly and calmly and stood with her arms crossed watching them as he crawled out of sight with the two five inch tall women hanging desperately from his bloodied shirt. Astravia then walked back out past the man she’d turned into a woman.

“What about me?” he asked her, whimpering and crying up to her. “I’m sorry, please, don’t do this to me!”

“Do what to you?” Astravia asked, kneeling down to him. “Is womanhood so offensive to you?”

“But I’m not a woman! I have a wife! I have children!” he begged. “I can’t go home… like this!” he pleaded.

“No, you most certainly cannot,” she agreed, still staring icily down at him, chilling his veins.

“Despite your flaws, you are an honorable man, a dedicated father and faithful husband,” she complimented him, though her voice and expression were still devoid of emotion, “but you have angered me,” she added in a low growl. “Five weeks. Exactly,” she told him. “You will remain a woman for that time and if you can come to understand the power that is womanhood even a little, you will return to yourself at that time. You will even be able to tell your family with honesty that you found your daughter’s attacker and dealt out justice and that they can rest peacefully in the assurance that what was done to them will not be done to another. But five weeks so it will be assured that you will experience all that it means to be a woman personally. Your name will be Taina, because you are so unclear on the value of the women in your life, and when you shed this form and you’ve gained clarity, you may shed that name.”

He cried to himself, still on hands and knees, struggling with the punishment that had been dealt to him for his transgressions. “But what about my family? I can’t let them go that long! I already needed to come home to them with more money or they’ll starve!”

“This,” Astravia began slowly, “is the sole reason why your punishment will be so short. Men so honorable and dedicated are very much needed in this world. Your family will be seen to and when you return they will be in good health and well. But should you fail to surpass this exceedingly low bar? I will come back to you and return you to infancy and you can relive your life as this. A woman.”

With that, Astravia stepped out of time again and shook her head at the man before stepping backward and transforming into her hawk form for the flight home.

When Astravia landed, she allowed time to flow around her once more and stood there, shaking her head with dismay until she heard the distant clang of metal on metal again. Curious, she went down to the metalworking shop and entered to find the golems working away on projects that had been given to them. She turned to leave, though she did stop and looked at one workbench where a beautiful bracelet made of gold rested in a size that could only fit a fifteen-foot tall woman.

She looked it over and smiled slightly as she saw it was interspersed with bands of silver wrapping around the gold in a swirl and lined with diamonds with the clearest diamond sitting on the center plate.

It wasn’t finished yet. There were some marks set to remind Maceo that a couple of the diamonds needed to be reset, there was a bit of work that needed to be done to correct where one of the silver bands wasn’t wrapping correctly and the metal had yet to be polished. Even so, it was extremely beautiful and she couldn’t help but smile as her heart finally melted after a long, hard night, and a morning that had left a bad taste in her mouth.

“I wonder how long he has been working on this,” she mused with a smile. She looked around, reminding herself that there was no sign of Maceo, so she headed out to the next likely hideout, the library. She walked in and down a wide aisle and sure enough, there he was, reading and scribbling notes furiously.

He looked up as soon as she came into view and despite himself, he grinned quite happily to see his goddess again. “Good morning,” he greeted happily before he adjusted his expression back to the much more stoic one he normally displayed. For just a moment, Astravia could hear the burning within his veins surge as he unexpectedly saw her before he reigned it back in.

“Good morning,” she answered back with a smile and approached him. “I owe you an explanation,” she told him, struggling to hide the fact that she too was a little flustered. “Regarding why I was not there to greet you when you arrived home last night.”

“Astravia,” Maceo chuckled up at her. “You’re a goddess. You don’t owe me anything,” he laughed. She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped as she realized he wasn’t finished yet. “I understand how small my feelings must seem to you, which is why I’ve worked so hard to control them. I can’t expect a goddess to wait for me at the gates to greet me. Every time you do that, it’s a gift. A precious one that I don’t deserve. You were busy with other things; why would I question that?”

She laughed just a tiny bit at him. This was such a stark contrast to her recent solo adventures. “Perhaps I should have made the time,” she suggested.

“I just hope you were enjoying yourself,” he told her. “That is why you’re here, after all.” She blushed a little, unprepared for feeling flustered again, especially so easily. “Will you sit for a moment?” he asked. She did as asked and lowered herself to the floor as Maceo approached and looked up into her eyes. “I know you won’t tell me what’s wrong,” he concluded, “but please let me do something to help. Even if I am just a mortal.”

She was touched and reached out, holding his hand between her thumb and forefinger. “I saw the bracelet in your workshop,” she said, sidestepping his question just as predicted. He looked down, a little embarrassed.

“I actually thought you would have noticed it a long time ago,” he admitted. She smiled at him, declining to answer whether in fact she had.

“It looks like it is almost finished,” she told him with a warm smile.

“Well, I can change it if you want me to. I’m sure you’ve seen the other issues it has still.”

“It is very nice. You have done well with it. Your many hours working on it shows. But you also must know that I have hundreds more much like that one.”

“I know,” Maceo agreed. “But I guess it was… hubris. I was hoping that I could make something for you and you might have something to remember me by. Something that will last a lot longer than I will. It’s arrogant, though, I know.”

“It is very sweet,” she complimented him. “I look forward to seeing it when it is finished.”

“So even something like this isn’t a surprise to you,” he laughed, shaking his head. “Imagine what it will be like when I finally find something new for you.”

“Still obsessing over that?” she laughed at him.

He smiled and shook his head, then looked up at her again. “The sadness in your eyes is very heavy today.”

“I have just been thinking about how quickly time flies, especially when I do not pay close attention. It is not something I have had much cause to think about before my end was within sight.”

“The future isn’t set yet, is it?”

She laughed and looked off to the side. “Still fancying yourself an oracle?” she teased him. He merely lowered his head, knowing he shouldn’t step out of line with his predictions. “Well?” she insisted.

He thought hard for a moment before meeting her gaze once again. “I just believe in you. I believe that you can have a future if you still want it. And I believe that you deserve it,” he told her. She actually gulped a little and laughed at the stark contrast between this and the last twenty-four hours she’d spent without interacting with him.

She finally turned back to him and smiled with warm, inviting eyes. “Come to lunch, Maceo,” she told him gently. “I will make something special for you.”
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by AB23 » Fri Jun 03, 2022 3:13 am

Honestly would love to see more shrinking woman content in this story, but I love the way Astravia uses it as a punishment & feel it herself.

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Fri Jun 03, 2022 3:58 am

AB23 wrote:
Fri Jun 03, 2022 3:13 am
Honestly would love to see more shrinking woman content in this story, but I love the way Astravia uses it as a punishment & feel it herself.
More is coming, I promise. I mostly wanted to take advantage of Astravia's powers and apply them in an organic way. That meant also allowing her to make other changes as well as shrinking. I'm not sure how you feel about her wandering around in her 4'10" mortal form but chapter after next has more of that.

My apologies if this is becoming frustrating for you or others getting only getting SW in singular interactions. A point will come where the story has it as a full entree, but that's a bit of a ways off yet. We have a hurdle to overcome in terms of Astravia's feelings, which should be clear by this point in the story, and after that there will be an opportunity for a little more SW interaction and from there the opportunities will increase.

The entire story is 1,227 pages long and this last chapter brought us to page 242, so there is a ways to go yet. FWIW, the cases where she did shrink women so far were not chosen just to litter a dash or two of SW here or there for superficial reasons. They were chosen intentionally. She's already made multiple comments about not enjoying shrinking herself down to mortal size, which is something she will need to become more comfortable with as we move forward. There is also a shift in the story arc that comes following Maceo and Elaheh sorting this whole drama out that will give a little more frequent SW interactions until we get to the meat of the story of her little vacation.

I do appreciate you saying what you did. If this is a struggling point for people, I could always extend the story and add in other side stories along the way to offer more SW until things really heat up. She is, after all, an immortal being with near limitless power. I assure you, I can find other side quests in between plot points to give her excuses to shrink some more mortals.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by chocolatejr9 » Sat Jun 04, 2022 2:03 am

CKent45 wrote:
Fri Jun 03, 2022 3:58 am
I do appreciate you saying what you did. If this is a struggling point for people, I could always extend the story and add in other side stories along the way to offer more SW until things really heat up. She is, after all, an immortal being with near limitless power. I assure you, I can find other side quests in between plot points to give her excuses to shrink some more mortals.
That could work. I was honestly a bit curious about Lale, for example. It's up to you, though: I feel like I've been particularly critical of this story, and I don't wanna put too much pressure or anything.

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:50 am

chocolatejr9 wrote:
Sat Jun 04, 2022 2:03 am
CKent45 wrote:
Fri Jun 03, 2022 3:58 am
I do appreciate you saying what you did. If this is a struggling point for people, I could always extend the story and add in other side stories along the way to offer more SW until things really heat up. She is, after all, an immortal being with near limitless power. I assure you, I can find other side quests in between plot points to give her excuses to shrink some more mortals.
That could work. I was honestly a bit curious about Lale, for example. It's up to you, though: I feel like I've been particularly critical of this story, and I don't wanna put too much pressure or anything.
You're reading, which is already more than I am entitled to. I'm very grateful for your feedback.

I knew this story had a couple of issues given the focused nature of the content here. Like I said, given the nature of the story up until a main turning point, I had actually questioned posting this enough that I asked Elana about it in advance. I was hoping that a couple things would carry me through the the main line we're building to. First is that a lot of people have more than one interest in size changing, not just SW. Second was the fact that Astravia makes use of her powers to cut more than one woman down to size as the story progresses.

Unfortunately, the scenes with shrinking Lale and Elaheh that have already been posted were important scenes to me in more than one way, but neither really got any kind of feedback. The entire story of The Goddess' Retreat has been written, but since you're not the only person who's made a mention of this, I need to take that into account and see if there's anything I can do for a potential audience.

To answer your question with Lale: Lale's primary purpose in the story was two fold: get Maceo dipping his toe in the arts of romance and to force Astravia to begin to awaken in terms of her growing feelings toward Maceo. Lale had the misfortune of being something that almost no mortal could otherwise be to Astravia: a threat. By this point in the story, the cat is out of the bag that Astravia has grown more than a little attached to Maceo, otherwise why would she go out of her way to manipulate events in order to sabotage his romantic interests repeatedly?

Would Astravia shrink Lale again? Well, Maceo's already kicked her to the curb, so what threat is she any longer?

Now, the good news is that because Astravia is immortal, I have more than one shrinking idea involving her that did not make its way into this story. I have one in particular in mind right now, I simply need to make the time to write it out and figure out where to slip it in where it doesn't interrupt the rest of the story.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:55 am

That evening, Astravia sat down at her globe and rewound the events in town that day to recap how her project with Elaheh had unfolded. The young man had awakened early in the morning and had an irresistible urge to do exactly as Astravia had instructed.

He followed the river upstream until he reached the creek she’d told him to go to and then up that until he found several large chunks of gold lying there that had been washed down stream overnight. The largest of them was a little more than a foot across and they were all quite heavy, though he wasn’t about to just leave a treasure like this behind.

It took him quite a bit of work, but he did manage to cobble together a sled to drag them with, though he seemed to be a bit surprised to see how much more easily he could pull it than expected. Once he reached town again, he covered the gold with his clothes and dragged them back home, where he tucked them away as well as he could, then took the smallest one, which was still a number of inches across and wrapped it in fabric before dressing in fresh clothes and rushing out to the marketplace where he found a cheerful Cajsa setting up for the day.

“Do you know where Gaeten is?” he asked her. “I really need to talk to him.”

Before long, he was sitting with Gaeten who was staring in amazement at the gold block he’d stumbled upon and begging for advice on how to not waste it. They spoke until he was forced to leave to go to the job he’d procured for the day and explained what had happened as well as his need to take the day off. He even offered the man hiring him a piece off of the gold to compensate for the work not done, but the man was quite understanding and encouraged him to go get his mind straight, given his extraordinary good fortune.

Strangely, as he sat near the town square, he found his mind a bit too active, so he went to a store that had a number of scrolls for sale. He purchased one and went back to a quiet place and commenced reading it, devouring its contents voraciously and before long, went back to that shop to buy another.

He went on like this until Elaheh chanced upon him in her normal rounds for the day and approached with a smile as she normally did. This time, though, she was immediately caught off guard when he smiled up at her warmly in a way he hadn’t done in several years, as though the scars from her rejecting him had simply vanished.

She sat and asked why he was sitting, and he simply answered that he felt like he needed to take a day off to learn a few new things. She sat with them and was interested to see that he was actually consuming some rather intellectual material and before long, he was laughing and joking casually with her and captivating her attention.

His interests suddenly seemed so much more broad than she’d come to know, and his mannerisms were so much improved, but he still looked like the same man… didn’t he?

Before long, she realized that time had gotten away from her and she was listening on pins and needles to him while absentmindedly playing with a lock of her hair with a bit of a rosy glow to her cheeks.

“Even Aphastonea could not have done better,” Astravia crowed victoriously, referring to the goddess of love and beauty.

As the week progressed, Astravia monitored the two as their friendship quickly rekindled until several days in, they were sitting at the end of a street caught in conversation together when a pair of young women a little younger than them approached and included themselves in the conversation. The man was very polite, though Elaheh seemed to be a little uncomfortable until she saw one of the young women reach out and hug his arm.

It was at that point that Elaheh’s expression soured as the two other women clearly and plainly were trying to attract his attention. She looked at both women rather seriously while they giggled and tittered at him, brushing locks of hair suggestively and then that expression devolved further into a full on frown.

“HA! Jealousy!” Astravia crowed loudly to the globe. “Serves you right!” she declared.

Before long, that jealousy boiled over to a point where Elaheh was forced to act and she leaned in, hugging his other arm herself, which surprised him to no end. “I was wondering, could you help me carry some produce home from the market? My parents are preparing for a big dinner,” she asked him in as sweet of a voice as she could muster, now trying to pour more flirtation on than even these two other girls. “Unless you’re busy,” she added, though it seemed apparent that this was merely a bluff.

He agreed and bid the other ladies farewell and she walked hanging on his arm, doing her very best to mark this man as her own as they made their way to the market. They were in the middle of her trying to apparently buy just about every fruit and vegetable there when she went pale when he said, “I don’t mean to push, but could we find what you need? I have some other things I need to get to yet today,” he informed her.

Her hands actually shook when she heard this, though she did everything in her abilities to maintain the same power dynamic she’d had over him for so many years that now was for some reason just gone. He’d always bent over to her will and done anything she’d ever asked no matter how much of his time it took and now? He had other things going on?

Astravia laughed and laughed and laughed as she suddenly was in a hurry to wrap up her shopping so as to not irritate him and before long they were walking back to her home together with him carrying her groceries. When they arrived at her house, she turned, and then seemed stunned as she then had to look up to meet his eyes. He looked back at her, somewhat confused and asked what was bothering her.

“Are you… taller?” she asked him, still quite shaken.

“I… don’t think so,” he said, looking around.

“But… weren’t you…” she struggled, her eyes darting left and right. “You seem taller, like you’ve grown,” she finally managed to tell him.

“Well, I don’t think so. If I had, then wouldn’t my clothes be tighter on me?”

In fact, they were looser, due to the fact that other than Astravia reconfiguring them to hide his slightly increased height from him, his more toned physique allowed more room underneath. She smiled a little awkwardly, staring up into his eyes a little lost. Astravia was now giggling so hard that she was nearly about to fall out of her chair and her legs were kicking wildly. Elaheh gulped hard, still struggling with this change that while welcome also seemed so out of the blue, but then again, she’d only seen him little more than in passing for so long now. Perhaps he did keep growing without her noticing?

He helped her set her things inside the door, then turned to leave. “I had fun,” he told her with a smile, “but I’m not sure if I can do tomorrow because I have a lot of work I need to catch up on,” he declared.

“Wh-what kind of work?” she asked, the color in her skin draining slightly.

“Oh, well, it’s really new work. Gaeten is letting me apprentice with him for a while. Between this and the construction jobs I’ve been working, I’m a little short on time.”

“Oh.. well, I was actually going to go to Gaeten’s shop tomorrow myself to pick up a few things,” she blurted out, then covered her mouth upon realizing just how desperate she sounded.

“Well, maybe I’ll see you then,” he replied with a gentle smile. “I won’t be working there the whole day though,” he said, then said his good byes and Elaheh stood staring wide eyed as the man walked away with not so much as a care in the world.

In all this time, he’d never mentioned his newfound wealth even once to her.

“YES!!” Astravia screamed victoriously with her arms raised high, then she withdrew them and covered her mouth, giggling at herself following her outburst. “Just for that,” she declared with a bit of swagger, “you can have another inch over the next hour,” she promised the man.

The next day, Elaheh was in the market, biding her time and hoping to locate her elusive target when she spotted him in the distance and made her way quickly to Gaeten’s shop to get there just ahead of him. Surprisingly, though, she was there for considerably longer than expected and was forced to strike up a conversation with Cajsa in order to buy time for until her extraordinarily tardy target would finally arrive.

When he did, however, she almost collapsed in panic and clutched her chest from the intense pounding of her heart as he casually strolled in with a lady on each arm, each of them flirting and playing with him in a bid to retain any semblance of validation and attention. He, of course, smiled and joked with them, but the affectionate touching was decidedly one way. He didn’t discourage it, but he also played with them in a way that was both entertaining for them, but choosing to not reciprocate. He did, however, tease them a bit a few times by leaning close to them without touching and whispering some secret in one lady’s ear before pulling away.

“And these techniques are why you respect your elders,” Astravia gloated with a satisfied grin on her face as she watched the scene unfold.

Eventually, he did tell them that he was behind schedule and needed to get to work, which they awed disappointingly about, but they still went on their way. As he turned, he spotted a rather disheveled Elaheh and smiled to her a warm greeting before getting to work, happily taking direction from Cajsa as Gaeten tended to administrative matters. Finally, once he was working and on his own, she took a deep breath and approached him, steeling her resolve as best as she could.

“Good morning,” he smiled pleasantly at her.

“You know…” she was struggling, but also unwilling to yield and so she forced herself through. “I don’t think you can know how much I regret turning you down when you asked me for my hand.”

He paused suddenly and stood, leaning a little on the table. He wasn’t angry, but his expression was difficult to interpret. “You regret it?” he asked disbelievingly. She smiled as best as she could and nodded in the affirmative. He looked her up and down and set his things aside. “Could we speak in private?” he asked, and she nodded and followed him behind the shop once he’d cleared it with Gaeten.

Once they were alone, he looked at her earnestly. “Elaheh… that was years ago.”

“I know, but you know I’ve always cared so deeply about you and…” she paused and looked him over very carefully, now extremely confused. “Are you even taller?” she asked, her cheeks going a little rosy just at the thought.

“I’m the same height I’ve always been Elaheh,” he answered her. She could hear the discomfort in his voice and it seemed to bother her immensely. “Why bring this up now?” he asked her.

“Because… we’ve spent more time together this week than we have in years and I just… I realize how much I’ve missed it. I suppose back then I had a lot more growing up to do.”

“Elaheh, I won’t be angry, but please be honest with me. I’m asking that you just tell me the truth. I’ve always loved you with all my heart and I always will, just like I said when we were younger, but I need you to tell me the truth.” She tucked her hands in, grasping her basket, but nodded in agreement. “Are you just saying this because of the rumors?”

She was stunned and drew back, utterly confounded. “What rumors?” she asked him.

“I think you know which ones,” he told her rather firmly.

“I don’t know any rumors about you,” she insisted, growing more and more confused. “Why? Did you do something?”

He looked her up and down and considered her for a moment longer. “The rumors that I found chunks of gold upriver a few days ago,” he decided to share. She drew back and looked at him even more shocked, her eyes practically popping out from their sockets.

“Found.. where?’ she asked him.

“In a stream upriver from here.”

“You don’t just find gold lying in a stream,” she laughed. “No, I appreciate how hard working you are and that’s enough for me,” she smiled genuinely. “I’ve never heard people spreading such strange gossip, though. I’m pretty sure if there was a rumor like that it wouldn’t be a secret for very long.”

“It’s true,” he told her. She gave him a double take.

“What’s true?” she asked him, confounded once again.

“I found gold lying in the stream upriver from here,” he told her. Her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped in as authentic a reaction as he could imagine. “More than two hundred pounds of it,” he added quite seriously.

Her eyes widened further and her jaw nearly dropped out of its socket, then the color completely flushed out of her face and she fell over to her side and fainted.

Astravia sat in her chair laughing hysterically, almost uncontrollably, her legs kicking wildly and tears streaming down her cheeks as she watched the exaggerated reaction from Elaheh.

When Elaheh awoke, she found herself in the concerned arms of Astravia’s project. She was dizzy and confused as she looked up at him, then to her left where Gaeten knelt, holding a cup of water for her and a wet towel to try to alleviate any pain while Cajsa looked at her with concern from the right. Another shop owner had joined the party and was looking down from a standing position from behind.

“What happened?” she asked them.

“Well, you apparently fainted,” Gaeten responded calmly. “Are you alright?”

“Fainted?” she muttered, searching her memories, then flashed with anger and smacked Astravia’s project. “That was a terrible joke!” she yelled at him.

“I’m afraid it wasn’t a joke,” Gaeten informed her. She looked up at him confounded and then her eyes went wide again in shock and she swooned a little with the two men reaching in and trying to fan her to get her more air. As she staggered back again to full consciousness, Gaeten asked Cajsa and the other merchant to give them some privacy and once they had, Gaeten looked to the man. “I think it’s safe to say she didn’t know about it before hand.” He nodded to Gaeten, accepting his appraisal of the situation. “Why don’t you give us a moment,” Gaeten suggested and then helped Elaheh to a sitting position while the other man stood and went back to work.

“I couldn’t have heard that right,” she said, shaking her head.

“If I tell it to you myself, are you going to pass out again?”

“Just say it,” she said, squeezing her hands tightly.

“Our young friend here discovered more than two hundred pounds of gold just sitting in a stream just outside of town a couple days ago,” Gaeten explained to her very softly so as to not be overheard.

Elaheh was gob smacked, struggling to accept what she’d been told now multiple times, but fighting her way to keep control of her senses. “How is that even possible?” she asked.

“Well, we checked that creek bed and there wasn’t any sign of anything else there, just what he collected. I assume it was just runoff from whatever created this river that started flowing here recently. There’s probably more on this mountain, it’s just difficult to say where.”

“Two hundred pounds?” she asked him.

“More than. I weighed it myself.”

“But that would mean…”

“He is now the most wealthy man in this town. Possibly in this region, just by happenstance.”

She sat and processed the information, confused beyond description. “And he accused me… he thinks I just was interested in his wealth?”

“He’s become a bit paranoid about his discovery. He’s noticed that everyone around him seems to be acting differently lately toward him and he’s convinced that news has leaked about his good fortune. He can’t think of any other way to explain it.”

“But I swear I didn’t know,” she insisted.

“Well, I certainly believe you,” Gaeten mentioned with a smile. “That was quite a reaction if for just acting,” he joked. “I was the first and only person he brought this to and I haven’t told a soul. I weighed it for him and I even tested it and it’s very much the real thing. I think it’s just a matter of the swagger a man has when he has that kind of security sitting there. He knows he’s set for life now and then some, and I think that does a lot to a man’s confidence. I didn’t know the lad all that well before recently, but even I have to admit that there’s something a bit different about him, though I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly it is,” Gaeten explained to Elaheh.

“That is because it is not one thing, it is a thousand tiny things,” Astravia gloated, still laughing and wiping the tears from her cheeks as she watched this very entertaining show.

“I do think you should go, though. I am trying very hard to keep his newfound wealth a secret and the commotion you caused won’t exactly help that. We sent for your father and he’ll be here any minute now to take you home.”

“I swear that I’m not trying to use him for his wealth. I had no idea. He’s just seemed… different lately. Still the same sweet man, but just… different.”

“Like I said, I think this good luck as added some swagger to his step and it shows. People notice. Please try to keep this to yourself. He actually mentioned you the other day and I told him not to tell you about this. I’m working with him and we’ll develop plans for how to use this wealth of his, but truthfully? He may need to leave this place to really become successful. I’m not sure he’s going to want to set down roots here, at least not until we’re on better footing.”

“But… this is our home,” she gasped to Gaeten, heartbroken by this news. “He’s been here with us our entire lives!”

“Well, sometimes a man has to step out into the world and make his own way. The thing is, with money like that, there just aren’t enough places here for him to use it.”

“I see,” she mumbled, staring at the ground.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Astravia whispered to her globe. “All your power and all your sway is gone. You’ve always taken your control over him for granted, but now? Now he has all the control. You should be thankful I made sure to put in safeguards to reign him in.”

Elaheh’s father arrived shortly after than and walked her home, though by the time they’d gotten there, she was steady enough to walk herself.

The next morning, Elaheh was waiting just outside the marketplace on the most direct path from the home of Astravia’s project. Even Astravia was referring to him as such. He was still a man, still had free will, still at his core who he’d always been, but Astravia had thoroughly blurred the lines with the express purpose of luring Elaheh to him.

When he arrived, smiling with a spring in his step, he slowed as he spotted his previously unrequited love and walked a little more slowly and more thoughtfully toward her. She stood and smiled softly at him as he approached, her head hanging a little, and blushing at this man.

When did he get so tall?

Once they were about arms’ reach to each other, she lifted her head slightly, but still presented that frequent meek, mousy image that Astravia had complained about.

“I understand why you think I was only interested in your money,” she told him. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot, and I also know how turning you down so long ago would make me appear in your eyes when I come out of the blue like this. It was nice seeing my old friend again this week. I missed you terribly. Whatever woman you find will be so lucky to have you.”

She then turned and began walking back toward her home, but she’d only made it a couple steps when he grabbed her wrist and pulled, stopping her. She turned and looked at him, still with that same meek smile.

“Did you mean what you said? About regretting rejecting me?” he asked her. She nodded a looked as though she were going to turn and walk away again but he pulled her back again to face him. “My whole life the only thing I’ve ever wanted was to become a man that deserved you because I love you so much. I was willing to do anything to be that to you.”

“Says the man who literally needed a goddess to come to him and hand him a pair of testicles he could use on a silver platter,” Astravia told her globe bitterly. “You could have buckled down and done this all on your own, but no. You needed someone to fix it all for you.”

“I don’t know why what I saw was so clouded that I couldn’t see you for what you are. It was a mistake,” she confessed.

He then took a knee and looked up at her and her face immediately turned bright red. “If you see now, then marry me. Be my wife and walk this new path with me.” She blushed even harder and covered her mouth with both hands, nodding at him emphatically and crying as she did so, not even able to utter that simple yes, but nodding in agreement vehemently to make up for it.

While all of this was happening, Astravia certainly wasn’t spending all of her precious time watching this preordained soap opera unfold. She was taking full advantage of the time she had with Maceo once again and making sure to spend multiple meals with him a day while struggling to give him enough space to do his work which seemed to be accelerating now.

He relished his time with her and was always eager to come see her when she would ask it of him, just as he always did. They had now gotten in the habit of having dinner together, usually by the poolside next to a warm fire.

She’d also taken time to share the secret of flight to Maceo and was overseeing his construction of a heavier than air vehicle to do just that, though he expressed an interest in the type the ancient people she’d shown him used as well. She had him begin with a simple model constructed out of a light type of wood she’d procured for him and he was amazed at how easily it did fly, or in actuality glide in this case as she explained the physical properties of how it was able to do this. By the time that Elaheh was being proposed to, Maceo was hard at work building a frame to a full sized version of his “aero plane” under Astravia’s careful tutelage and the only real difficulty was building a means of propulsion.

Maceo showed fascination with a means that Astravia had explained was essentially an iron furnace that concentrated flame within it in order to create immense mechanical power, but she quickly dissuaded him from this course.

“These are fine, but they are only really good for societies that are highly developed and have access to a fuel source that also needs to be refined. They work there because their societies have elaborate infrastructures set up around building, maintaining and fueling these craft. Because your society is so young yet, this is not practical here. Besides, this form of propulsion is also extremely loud and it is best that you try your hand at a propulsion source that does not draw so much attention.”

“Then why not just simply build an aero plane that functions the same was as a bird does instead of this with its wings that are fixed in place?” he asked her. She grinned proudly at him, not even realizing as she leaned a little more closely to him.

She held out her hand and a three-dimensional image of a bird appeared in front of him. “I will show you,” she told him with a smile, then before his eyes, the feathers, then the skin and then the muscles of the bird faded away and were replaced by only the skeleton, which now began to flap what remained of its wings in very slow motion.

“Notice the number of joints in the wings,” she pointed out. “As many as you have in your arm. Now look at the coordinated motion they perform,” she added.

“It’s pretty complicated,” Maceo admitted as he leaned in closely to examine it while Astravia blushed a little at his proximity.

“It becomes even more complicated when it needs to adjust for the wind to change directions,” she demonstrated as the skeleton in front of him tucked one wing in and extended the other supposedly to adjust to a gust of wind and then contracted the other and dipped the first in order to bank to the left. “Technically it is possible for simple machinery like you have learned to perform these actions, but it requires extremely delicate and intricate workmanship on a large scale. Of all the worlds I have seen that have acquired the skill of flight, only a few have managed to do it in this manner in the way you’re seeing here, and fewer still have come close to it at your society’s level of advancement.”

“I see,” Maceo nodded. “Well, maybe we should be among those few then,” he determined. Astravia couldn’t help but grin at his enthusiasm and leaned down to him, petting his cheek with her fingertip.

“I think you could actually do it,” she encouraged, “but I would like you to master this craft first. The experience will be invaluable in getting to that goal.”

“Have you ever…” he began, then shook his head at the realization of the answer to his question already. “When was the last time you built a craft like this directly? Without your powers?”

“Oh, about a million years ago,” she remarked casually. “It was enjoyable the first few times, but after that I lost interest.” Maceo couldn’t help but laugh at her and shake his head. “Do not shake your head at a goddess!” she yelled at him, trying to suppress her playful smirk.

“I’m more shaking my head at myself,” he assured.

She took a calming breath and smiled at him, again turning back to the plans for this flying machine he was building, not even realizing that her fingers were gently rubbing his shoulders. “You and that obsession of yours,” she teased him.

The flying machine took up the majority of their time together that week, with the golems seeing to other projects Maceo normally worked on, though she was also seeing to it that he was taking time to rest or more specifically, taking time to relax with her. She even took him swimming to the deepest part of the pool again for most of a day, and had to catch herself peeking on him as he changed into his swimsuit.

One evening over dinner, they were enjoying time together and watching the sunset when Maceo decided to broach a topic that had been avoided up to this point, but also one he was keen on gathering her opinion on.

“Astravia, were you watching during my last trip to town?”

“Not all of it,” she answered. This was a lie.

“Did you see the woman I was introduced to?”

“Mmm… Elaheh, correct?” she asked him.

“I’m surprised you bothered to learn her name,” he joked.

“It is a somewhat arrogant name,” Astravia answered back. “It means ‘like a goddess’. I am a little disappointed with her parents for that.”

“Well, she’s certainly no you,” Maceo admitted with a laugh.

“What about her?”

“I was wondering your opinion.”

“You mean do I approve of her?”

“Yes.”

“Maceo, I trust in you to make your own decisions. If you think she is right for you, then I believe you have good reason to feel so.”

“I’d still like to hear what you think about her.”

“She is very sweet, very kind. She is very devoted and she has a caring, understanding heart. I think that she would make a very good wife.” Astravia answered him very calmly, but her right hand was hidden behind her hip on the other side from Maceo and clenched into a tight fist. So tight, in fact, that her fingernails risked puncturing her divine skin. She then turned and looked down at Maceo and was surprised to see that his expression was almost… disappointed. “What is wrong, my dearest Maceo?” she asked him.

He smiled up at her and erased his melancholy. “Your opinion is very important to me. I think that the best wife I could have is one that you approve of.”

She smiled and considered him for a long moment. “Are you sure you want my approval on such a personal opinion?” she asked, now she seemed a little disappointed in him.

“More that I’d like your blessing.”

“You will always have my blessing, no matter what,” she promised. “If you feel she is the right one, then I am happy for you,” she concluded, pleased again with him.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Wed Jun 08, 2022 3:30 am

Late that evening, Astravia awoke to a faint sound in a high pitch pinging away on a frequency few but a god could hear. She opened her eyes and stared at the silk canopy above her, then sighed and sat up, reaching for her nightgown and wrapping it around herself.

Astravia walked out of her bedchamber and into her study where her globe was pulsing ominously and with a wave of her hand, she was treated to the sight of a distant world floating far off in the cosmos. As she sat and looked more closely, she frowned, recognizing this world and she frowned further still when she realized there was a large space faring vessel orbiting it, perhaps as much as a mile long and sending a steady stream of smaller vessels down into its atmosphere.

With a wave of her fingers, the globe peered more closely at the giant vessel and she tipped her head to the side, struggling to understand exactly what the problem was. It was true that this was in fact one of Astravia’s worlds that hadn’t even reached the same level of development as Maceo’s world, but that in and of itself should not have triggered this world to reach out to her. As she watched one of the smaller vessels land and its occupants emerge in environmental suits, she leaned more closely and watched as one removed his helmet, relatively sure but not entirely that the air here was safe to breath.

He was very much humanoid, though much beyond that was difficult to ascertain given the number of cybernetic implants he sported on his face, head, arms and his entire body. Everything from communication equipment to sensory devices to kinetic and energy weapons permeated his body, all surgically implanted on him. He was as much machine as he was man, which Astravia found repugnant.

As the others in his party removed their protective gear and scowled at their savage surroundings, Astravia took note of a partially exposed bone that began at the back of their temples and then widened and extended all the way to the back of their heads in a soft flare.

“Oh, them,” Astravia muttered discontentedly. “Well, that is certainly the end of that world, then,” she complained and then sat back with her hands clasped together to consider the situation more carefully. “I really should not get involved,” Astravia assured herself. “Doing so could well alert the celestial palace to my activity.”

Still, however, she continued to sit and ponder, watching her globe, which continued to pulse ever more intensely as to the eminent threat these alien beings presented. She was actually moving to stand and ignore the warning altogether when a tiny voice could be heard, as if begging for help.

Astravia sat right back down again and folded her arms, raising her eyebrow while reconsidering her decision. “So they are not merely wasteful, they have become cruel as well,” she complained.

Astravia growled unhappily to herself, then pushed herself to her feet and tapped her foot impatiently. “Very well. I will at least answer them,” she determined, then returned to her bedchamber and entered her closet, choosing a lovely gown and changing into it quickly. She then walked out and down the stairway and down into the lobby area of her quarters where the portal was already open and waiting for her and she stepped through with all due haste.

When Astravia emerged on the other side she found herself in the middle of a savanna near a thick woods. Off in the distance, Astravia could hear pounding and thumping as construction began setting up the beginnings of an infrastructure for industry and she could hear the sounds of advanced machines felling trees in rapid succession. To her left, off in the woods, she could hear the faint sounds of tiny screams and her eyes narrowed as she then heard a loud bang, followed by hundreds of tiny screams that were suddenly cut short.

To her right, in the midst of a small thicket crouched a humanoid primate that looked roughly human, aside from its long, narrow bright red face and hairy body, which was adorned with large scraps of animal hide.

“I suppose you were not nearly prepared for such an encounter, were you?” she asked the primate, who stared up at her wide eyed, though he refused to crawl out of his hiding spot. “No, no,” she answered for him. “You will not reach that level of advancement for several hundred thousand years yet, will you?” she told him sympathetically, then turned and looked to the forest again. She sighed and tapped her foot, scowling to herself.

“Well, this form is most certainly best suited to dealing with the interlopers, however the fae…” she pondered. “I am certainly not taking that form today, especially not to confront these brigands,” she thought allowed, then the creature hiding from the advanced aliens watched with amazement as Astravia began shrinking down into the same mortal form she’d been using on Maceo’s world until she stood there as her beautiful 4’10” mortal self again. “Now, do not go getting your hopes up just yet,” she warned the primate, wagging her finger at him, then proceeded forward.

Astravia traipsed through the woods ably and gracefully until she reached a tree with that was now hollow where a limb should have been. She gently tapped on the trunk with her knuckles and then spoke in a gentle voice, using a strange, lyrical language.

“Hello? I know you are in there. Would you please come out? I wish to speak with you.” There was a silence and then Astravia took a step back and asked again politely and then a tiny head popped out of the hole and stared at her. The face was a soft, pale lavender and her hair was a bright blue, with glassy eyes that were all but black and tiny antennae poking out from her forehead.

“Hello,” Astravia greeted kindly. “Do you have a moment to speak?” she asked. The little creature looked behind her and then back to Astravia, then lifted up and out into the open air on butterfly wings that fluttered excitedly.

“Who are you?” she asked as three more like her fluttered out to join her. As the three fairies floated up in front of Astravia’s face, a male like them appeared from the other side with yellow skin and darted in, looking Astravia up and down warily and fluttering between Astravia and the female fairies.

“I heard a call for help,” Astravia answered the little fairy. “I have come to answer it.

“Are you?” one of the little fairies asked with astonishment and stared with a gaping open mouth when Astravia nodded with a pleasant smile to her.

“Indeed, I am. Now, would you be so kind as to tell me your concerns?”

All four of the fairies turned and looked at each other, as if a massive weight had just been lifted from them and then Astravia lifted her hands up with her index fingers extended in towards each other. The four little fairies, each a little more than five inches tall, zipped toward her and then perched themselves on her hands obediently. “Now,” Astravia began formally, “what precisely seems to be the trouble, here?”

As soon as she asked, the four fairies began frantically telling her a sordid tale of what had caused one to manage to reach out to Astravia in a panic.

Five days prior, which was more than six days prior on Maceo’s world given the fact that this world’s days were nearly a quarter longer than on Maceo’s world, the first shuttle from the massive space craft above them had landed on the far side of the savanna and the curious little fairies had come from all around to peak in on the strange newcomers and watch them from a distance.

The aliens were strange and covered in clothing that completely covered every part of them and they wandered around for hours, cutting off branches to trees and bushes and taking samples of literally everything they could lay their hands on.

It wasn’t until several hours after that when the aliens were comfortable enough to even remove their helmets and breathe the air around them, though they found themselves coughing unexpectedly when they did so. Then, as abruptly as they had arrived, they boarded the ship again, which then caused an intense storm of air before it lifted off of the ground and then accelerated upward and out of sight.

The next day, the aliens returned, though this time with two ships, which carried a great deal of equipment this time along with more aliens and they began setting up, though the fresh air seemed to somewhat disagree with them.

The fairies of these woods stared at them with incredible interest until a pair grew curious enough to venture forward toward the aliens after checking for any nearby birds of prey. When they approached the giant aliens, each more than twelve times the size of the little fairies, they smiled and greeted them in their native tongues, though the strange aliens only looked at each other without understanding. Then one of the aliens reached out and grabbed one of the fairies in his fist and squeezed, crushing a number of her bones and her delicate wings in the process and causing her to scream in agony as her tiny body was mashed in the vile giant’s hand. Her friend was terrified, but before she could zip away through the air, another alien swatted her with a metal case, shattering most of her bones in the process and sending her plummeting to the ground.

While one alien looked at the mangled fairy that had been caught and laughed while plucking her broken wings from her, another alien stepped over the other fallen fairy and picked her up, muttering something in a strange tongue to it’s comrades, who laughed and then the other fairies watched in horror as the alien produced a pair of scissors from the case and cut the little fairy in half and left the pieces to fall to the ground.

Utterly horrified, the rest of the fairies retreated into the safety of their woods, intent on hiding from their tormentors. It was only a number of hours, however, until the aliens were at the edge of the forest and were using terrifying machinery to begin cutting down the trees where they hid at a shocking pace and dragging the fallen trees away for processing.

As more and more of the forest began to disappear, the fairies began to panic and abandoned their homes to flee deeper into the woods, but as they did so, other giant aliens scouting ahead of those destroying the forest would spot them fleeing and would fire blasts at them that would down more than one fairy at a time in the most gruesome way as their tiny bodies splattered from the impact.

By the time Astravia’s globe had warned her of the threat to this world, half of their forest had been destroyed already and the increasingly panicked fairies were finding themselves less and less able to remain still and hide as hunters swept back and forth through the forest intentionally eradicating the fairies there.

Astravia listened to every word, despite the little fairies frequently talking over each other until they had filled her in on every last detail they were aware of. Once they were done, Astravia smiled and willed them to calm themselves.

“They are from another world, very far from here,” Astravia explained to them patiently.

“Why are they doing this?” one little fairy on her left forefinger begged with tear filled eyes.

“Shh,” Astravia hushed her, soothing her frayed little nerves for her. “They reached a level of advancement a millennia and a half ago where they had all but killed their own world. They have come here now in search of a new place that can provide resources for their society.”

“Can you stop them?” the little fairy male asked her.

“I would prefer not to,” Astravia answered gently. “I believe it would be easier to gather your kind up and relocate you to another world where you can live in peace. I have one I could easily bring you to that would have been in need for your kind before long where I believe you would do well.”

“But what about our home?” Another fairy lady asked Astravia.

“These people stopped listening to me millennia ago,” Astravia answered. “I still have things I wish to learn from their failure, however, so I do not wish to destroy them prematurely. There are other worlds. Your kind is encountering these people wherever they land their craft, so they are likely just as terrified as you are. I will be able to use that to gather all your kind together quickly so I can relocate you all.”

“But what about the foontons? They’ll be killed too!”

“They’re so nice to us,” another fairy chimed in.

“I am pleased to hear that their kind has treated you well. However, they have not even developed even rudimentary language yet. They have not developed to a level yet where they can serve their purpose. I shall relocate you all and start anew.”

“But I don’t want them to die!” a little fairy pointed out to her.

“All things die, my dear,” Astravia assured her. “They are all just mortals. It will be fine. I will start their blood line fresh on this new world.”

“But what if the monsters find us at this new place?”

“They will not. This culture has stagnated and will burn itself down before it ever has the ability to travel to this new world.”

“Please!” one little fairy begged. “Don’t take us away! I don’t want the foontons to die!”

From there, the other three fairies began begging Astravia on behalf of all manner of creature that existed on this world, pleading for their lives. Astravia was hesitant, given the low profile she wanted to maintain until she heard a sound in the distance and turned to see a shadowy figure slashing its way through the foliage toward the sound of voices.

“Very well,” Astravia sighed, and then nudged the little fairies up into the air again. “I shall speak to them and see if I cannot convince them to leave this world to its own means.” Astravia then turned to face the approaching interloper and shook her head. “Now remain calm,” she warned the fairies. “I must assume their form so as to attempt to earn enough trust for a dialogue,” she said.

The fairies all nodded in agreement and Astravia shook her head to herself. “I had not thought I would use this form again,” she lamented, then her body changed in form, developing the same ridge like bone structure as the aliens. Her eyes changed widened and narrowed slightly, her hair shortened very modestly as its color went from its lush blonde to a bright, lustrous platinum and her limbs thinned slightly as her fingers developed a tiny bit of webbing between them.

Astravia then proceeded forward confidently and with a wave of her hands, the bushes in front of her parted in the middle of the alien’s swing of a machete and she nearly fell over herself as she swung at empty air with nothing to strike any longer. When Astravia approached, the woman, also heavily fitted from head to toe in electronic and mechanical fixtures stood and stared to see Astravia approach her with four fairies in tow. She stood rigidly, well over head and shoulders taller than Astravia, and stepped back, confused.

“Good day,” Astravia greeted politely in this alien’s language. “I believe I need to speak with your commanding officer.”

“Who… what are you?” the alien asked.

“Simply one who has a message to deliver,” Astravia answered, and then waved her hand at the cybernetic woman. “Please take me to your leader,” she requested. The woman resisted, but for some inexplicable reason was compelled to answer to Astravia’s command and turned, dropping her weapon and proceeded ahead, leading Astravia and her fairy friends back through the forest to its edge where massive wheeled machines were devouring the entire forest like beasts with an insatiable appetite.

As the seemingly mindless cybernetic woman lead Astravia and her guests forward, others began to take notice and encircle them, especially when the cybernetic woman declined to even respond to their queries until another cybernetic woman emerged from a tent past the end of the forest with several others in tow to meet these unexpected intruders.

“What are you?” she asked no one in particular as she stared far down at Astravia.

“I am simply delivering a message,” Astravia answered back kindly, stunning everyone in attendance at her fluency in their language.

“But what are you? Where did you come from?” the cybernetic woman asked.

“Is she… Altoan?” another cybernetic man asked, shaking the entire group to their core as they stared in shock.

“But… she doesn’t have any implants,” the leader of this group interjected.

“And she’s so short. I’ve never seen and Altoan that short before.”

“I am as the Altoan people were before you did this to yourselves,” Astravia answered patiently.”

“She’s natural?” one flabbergasted man asked while lights blinked frantically on their implants, suggesting nonverbal communication beyond the little fairies’ ears.

“That’s illegal!” another exclaimed.

“Your laws do not apply here,” Astravia answered them all plainly and calmly. “Nor to me.”

“What are you doing here? Where did you come from?”

“As I stated, I am here to deliver a message. I am quite saddened to see what has become of your people in my absence,” Astravia answered.

“What do you mean, in your absence? Who the hell are you? How the hell can you not have any implants?”

“Who cares?” one erupted back, catching the attention of the rest. “Why are we even bothering listening to some naturalist midget in the first place?” Astravia frowned heavily at this insult while the fairies stared at her, curious what she would do in response. Before one was forthcoming, however, a digital consensus seemed to have been reached and one fired a weapon at one of the fairies over Astravia’s shoulder, splattering her into pieces.

“Take her,” the leader ordered, but then with nothing more than the will of Astravia’s mind, all present aside from Astravia and the horrified fairies were knocked back and off of their feet.

“How dare you?” Astravia accused, her eyes immediately shifting to starry pupils with midnight black sclera. She then turned and knelt, scooping the remains of the broken fairy into her hands as what little remained of her life twitched away. Astravia cupped the fairy and wrapped her hands around her and then when she opened them, the little fairy stood, fully restored and stunned beyond words as her relieved friends zipped down to her side to express their joy at her return to them.

“You should be thanking me for allowing your filthy, arrogant, degenerate race to continue,” Astravia lambasted them, but the leader sat up and was equally incensed.

“You call US degenerates? Some midget shows up with no implants whatsoever, and you have the gall to call US degenerates?”

“Let me speak in simple terms, primitive,” Astravia spat at them all. “This world is not yours. You have no place here. Gather your things and these monstrosities you call people and return from whence you came and never set foot here again,” Astravia commanded.

“This world is the property of the Vastram Continuum, and YOU are the ones trespassing!” the leader of the cyborgs screamed back at Astravia. “You have no rights here!”

“You have no claim to this world. I told you BE GONE!” Astravia roared with the ground beneath them trembling, though the single minded cyborgs seemed to pay it no mind.

“We need this world and its resources and we are going to take it!” she screamed back.

“You need it because you have destroyed all you have. You had one of the most bountiful worlds in this entire galaxy and still you managed to squander it! You strip mined it of all its resources until you were forced to leave it in search of what you needed in order to sustain your pathetic species!”

“We didn’t strip mine it! The Representarians were the ones that did that!”

“You are honestly going to debate your petty politics to me?” Astravia asked, dumbfounded as the angry cyborgs rose to their feet and began surrounding her. The little fairies flew in close to Astravia, clinging to her in the hope she would protect them in the violent war they were rapidly escalating toward. “Those political fights ended on your world centuries ago, well before you finished stripping your world of all its life. How delusional must you be to claim you had no hand in the sorry state of your dead world?”

“We implemented every last policy we could think of to fix the climate after the Representarians killed it! It’s not our fault they killed our world!” two cyborgs argued loudly, but in voices that were bereft of anything sounding like human thought.

“Hopeless,” Astravia shook her head. “Fools! This is precisely why you do not attach these monstrosities to your minds and bodies! Your species does not even need to be brainwashed any longer! They simply program the dogma into you!”

“Kill the midget!” the leader screamed and with that every last arsenal the cyborgs had at their disposal was levied against her and the tiny fairies.

When the dust finally cleared, the cyborgs were all stunned to see her and the fairies standing unphased, though Astravia was filled with rage and fury as she balled her fists and glared icily at the leader of the cyborg people.

“I take this form for your benefit so as to speak to you in a manner you would find the most appealing and all you can do is lob insults at me? Very well,” Astravia hissed at her. “You have convinced me. You wish to remain here? I shall honor your wish,” she decreed. She then raised her hand skyward and a beam of light emitted from it, then as soon as she lowered it again, the flurry of blinking lights around their bodies slowed. They all stood upright, staring at each other, then after a few moments, they all looked skyward to see a huge object entering the atmosphere in a ball of flame.

They gasped and covered their mouths as their interplanetary vessel plunged downward from outer space.

“Do not concern yourself,” Astravia assured them, somewhat sadistically. “They will have enough power to reach the planet’s surface safely,” she assured them, and then waited patiently while the machine people stared at her with genuine fear for the first time. “However, it is highly unlikely that you will ever see them again.”

Once Astravia was certain the others of their kind had reached the surface safely, she looked back to the leader of the cyborgs and glared at her. “You will no longer need those,” she said, then waved her hand and as she did, all of their mechanical and electronic implants simply went dead and fell free from their bodies, plopping to the ground while their previous owners stared at each other in horror as they saw their own kind free of any kind of artificial enhancement for the first time and fully restored to how they would look if such surgical implants had never been fitted to them to begin with. The leader of the aliens stared at her bare hands for the first time in decades and looked around then at Astravia, staring blankly with dense copper colored hair that now restored, reached down between her shoulder blades and pearly colored irises with soft blue sclera.

“There really is no need to undo the genetic alterations you made to yourselves,” she sneered. The leader of the group found herself struggling and staggering left and right, as though most of her decisiveness had been ripped from her suddenly, though one of the men was aggressive enough that he stomped ahead and took a swing at Astravia with his fist, only to nearly fall over himself as his fist past impetently through Astravia as though she weren’t even there. As he stumbled past Astravia, he turned around and swung again at her, only to again throw his fists in futile at her as no matter how accurate he was, they simply passed through her petite body.

After a number of tries, the leader of the aliens rushed up and attempted to grab Astravia, again with her hands passing through the goddess harmlessly and then she swiped at Astravia with her fingernails to similar results, only to then freeze solid and stare, realizing that she and the petite goddess were looking eye to eye.

As soon as she did so, several of the others surrounding them began to take notice and looked to each other, pointing out to each other that their clothes were all quite loose and sagging on their bodies.

The fairies looked at each other, then at Astravia and it was only when the leader of the alien group’s head began to slowly sink lower than Astravia’s without her moving so much as a muscle that they finally understood what was occurring.

“What is happening?” the shrinking alien woman asked, staring in horror at her hands as her pants loosened to the point that they fell off of her shrinking hips.

“It is not obvious?” Astravia asked back, her eyes following the alien woman’s as they steadily dropped lower and lower on Astravia’s already petite body. The alien woman turned and looked around her, and everywhere her comrades stood, they too were dwindling, sinking further into the pools of their clothing. “Who do you think you are? Attacking and torturing fairies?”

“Fairies aren’t real!” the alien woman screamed as she reached breast height to Astravia. “They’re just primitive myths!”

“Yes, why believe your lying eyes?” Astravia asked mockingly. “I am done attempting to convince your people of anything. Do you have any idea the trouble you have caused here? Do you have any idea how wonderful my day had been until I was called to this place? How desperately I needed to have such a splendid day after millennia of wretched and horrid ones without so much as a moment of reprieve? And then I find that one of my worlds is screaming out for assistance as you cut the fairies of this world in half with a pair of scissors?” she demanded as the alien descended to the height of Astravia’s navel.

Astravia then turned and looked at her fairy companions, waiting only for dozens of more fairies who were emboldened by the sight of their tormentors shrinking in front of an obviously more powerful ally. Once she had a crowd of fairies to speak to, she said in the fairies’ language, “spread the word far and wide. Tell all the fae of this world that the intruders are yours to do as you wish with. You may keep them as pets,” Astravia promised. The aliens all looked at Astravia in fear, wondering what exactly she was explaining to the tiny fairies, who were looming ever larger above them.

“Does that mean all of them are getting smaller?”

“Every last one of them that has set foot on this world,” Astravia answered the curious little fairy. “I realize that your kind are not prone to violence or malice, however, treat them as you wish. Play nicely or roughly with your new pets so long as it pleases you. Their lives belong to you now,” she promised the fairies, who were all stunned and shaken, but also rather excited by the prospect of tables so deliciously turned. “Send the word, however, because you must always remember how cruel and hateful they were to you when they were the larger ones.”

“But I don’t want to keep them,” one fairy lady complained. “They’re mean!”

“Then do not,” Astravia answered her as the leader of the aliens sank down to hip height.

Throughout the entire conversation with the fairies, the aliens indeed were in a massive panic as they watched this strange new world expand around them continually. Some ran to and fro, tripping over their clothes, some women dropped to the ground and sobbed, others screamed at Astravia with voices that continually rose in pitch throughout their tirade.

“Keep your distance for a few moments longer,” Astravia warned the fairies, who began fluttering more closely to the shrinking aliens to watch them curiously. “They are still dangerous.” The fairies then fluttered higher, staying well out of reach of their tormentors, who were becoming ever more distraught watching the conversation unfold in a language none of them were capable of understanding.

“How are you doing this?” the shrinking leader of the aliens begged Astravia as she descended down toward knee height.

“How? Oh, clearly I am not doing anything,” Astravia answered sarcastically. “I am merely a myth,” she said, kneeling down to stare icily at her. “And you are nothing but a small minded midget,” she added for further insult to her dwindling injury.

As the heads of the aliens sank lower and lower, the fairies followed down, still careful to keep more than arm’s reach away from their dwindling tormentors who were now only a few times larger than they were.

“It’s just a virus,” one of the shrinking aliens screamed, denying the reality surrounding them. “She’s a hacker and she planted a virus in our mechware. It’s all just an illusion,” he insisted, then one particularly mischievous fairy swooped down and bopped the top of his head to tease him. He swung at her, missing, and one of the shrinking aliens ran up to him and used his shoulders in order to vault herself up in pursuit of the fairy that quickly zipped out of reach, and instead of much needed vengeance, she ended up losing what remained of her clothing and plopping unceremoniously face first into the ground.

“Stop this! Stop this or… or…” the knee high alien leader commanded Astravia, who loomed ever higher as she knelt before these troublemaking aliens.

“Or you will do what, exactly, little Altoan? You wished to stay on this world, and I have granted that wish.”

“You can’t do this to us!” she screamed, stomping both of her feet and loosing her entire tent of a shirt in the process.

“I tolerate cruelty to fairies, but only to a point,” Astravia lectured the tiny alien. “You have only been here a few days and you are well on the way to committing genocide. Has it never occurred to you that these beings serve a purpose here? Your kind has destroyed enough worlds in your unquenchable greed. If you are to stay here, then you will simply need to learn to share with the dominant species here. Unfortunately, that species for the time being is the fairies, while they prepare the lands here for the evolving Rafikans. Therefore, since you serve no actual purpose here, you may live here at the pleasure of the fairies,” Astravia concluded with finality as the alien continued to steadily dwindle down toward a foot tall.

“But… they’re tiny!”

“Certainly, they are,” Astravia agreed, then stood and turned her attention back to the four fairies she’d first greeted on this world.

“You can’t do this to us!” the shrinking alien screamed, running up and kicking Astravia’s ankle, only for her foot to pass through it harmlessly like every other attack on Astravia’s person. The foot tall alien squeaked in panic and then fell over herself, crashing onto her side into the dirt at Astravia’s feet.

“So what do we do with them?” one of the first five-inch tall fairies Astravia had encountered asked her.

“Whatever you wish. Care for them, or do not. However, I know how flighty a fairy’s memory is. Do not ever forget that these creatures are cruel and violent at heart. They will still be capable of developing tools that can be used to harm you. Simply because I have rendered all of their current tools inert does not mean that they cannot find a way to fashion others.”

The little fairies nodded enthusiastically in agreement to Astravia, and then a few daring fairies fluttered down to the ground where the aliens were approaching seven inches in height. Everywhere around them, these strange aliens were stumbling and staggering through grass that was now easily taller than they were, many of them refusing to believe what was plainly happening in front of their eyes and they could feel with their own tiny hands.

By this point, Astravia had little interest in the shrinking aliens and was merely standing, looming ever higher above them. As their height continued to evaporate, a few bold fairies drifted down and set down onto the ground in front of various shrinking aliens, one of them being the leader with the copper colored hair, who was still a full head taller than the little fairy woman.

This should have been reassuring for the alien’s leader, but given the fact that she could actually see the tiny fairy continuing to expand before her eyes left her terrified of the inevitable moment to come when that would no longer be the case.

“Get away from me!” she screamed, shoving the little fairy and stumbling backward, her naked breasts quivering with every exaggerated movement. The fairy merely giggled at her, stepping forward and following as she backed further and further back, each step robbing her of another tiny fraction of an inch, then another until the little fairy’s grin went as wide as she could manage upon realizing they were now finally the exact same height.

The alien screamed and turned to run away, but the little fairy pounced on her, grabbing on to her and anchoring her there. The tiny alien screamed and pushed, pulling and kicking to try to free herself as several other fairies found the rough play interesting enough that they also fluttered down to find their own shrinking playmate to grab hold of.

Astravia still wore a mildly concerned look on her face given the fact that the aliens were still momentarily on equal footing, and thus there was still an element of danger to their games, however, she wasn’t bothered enough to interrupt their fun.

A few moments later, the tiny alien leader was less than five inches tall and noticeably bested in terms of height by her fairy companion and still dwindling slowly but steadily.

“Make it stop!” she screamed up to Astravia, who barely even acknowledged her at all.

The smaller the aliens shrank, the more amused the fairies seemed to become, chasing the little aliens, hugging them, tackling them and pinning them down with ever greater ease.

“She’s gotten so weak!” one little fairy male chirped delightfully up to Astravia as he easily pinned a four inch tall young alien woman on her back. Astravia smirked at the little fairy, then nearly giggled herself as the little alien continued to shrink steadily so that her wrists were so small that she quite nearly slipped from his grasp.

With roughly an inch and a half and still growing difference between the fairies and the aliens, the games had become decidedly one sided by now and the tiny aliens were now entirely at the mercy of the little fairies, screaming and running in fear as giant fairies flew after them from above and all sides, barnstorming and buzzing them. At one point, Astravia couldn’t help but burst out into laughter as one little fairy swooped in on a three and a half inch tall alien woman and pinched her bare bottom before bursting away in the blink of an eye.

As they approached three inches in height, their shrinking finally began to slow until they all finally stopped shrinking with the average among them being a little less than three inches tall.

One fairy woman tittered and spun in circles, then zipped down and grabbed one little alien male by his hips and then lifted him up, facing him to the other fairies and shaking him up and down vigorously. The shrunken alien stammered as he attempted to yell back at her to stop, but the little fairy was having far too much fun making his little manhood flop flaccidly up and down comically.

“Look at his little penis!” she squealed to a sea of fairy giggles and laughs.

Another fairy zipped down to grab the alien leader by the ankle and lifted her up into the air to inspect her up close. The tiny alien screamed and fought, but found herself completely at the mercy of a mere five and a half inch tall fairy that was now nearly twice as tall as she was. The little fairy giggled at her new pet, poking her nose and pinching her tiny cheek while the shrunken alien woman screamed and flailed helplessly hanging from her ankle.

The fairy woman cooed at her angry little pet, then lifted up and flew directly in front of Astravia to show off as the tiny, less than three inch tall woman screamed in terror as she realized she was now the equivalent of more than one hundred feet up in the air hanging upside down by her ankle.

“Look at her!” the fairy chirped to the goddess proudly and exuberantly. “She’s so beautiful! I’ve never seen hair like this before!”

“Yes,” Astravia answered the excited little fairy kindly. “They were once a favored people to me,” she explained. “I gave them remarkable beauty, intelligence and wealth as a species.”

“So why are they so mean?” another fairy asked, zipping in, holding another shrunken alien woman by her little wrist.

“I suppose that I spoiled them,” Astravia answered noncommittally. “I gave them all they desired. I held their hands as a people all the way up until they were building rudimentary machines that could travel the land and they repaid my kindness by denying my existence.”

“How could they deny your existence?” another fairy asked, fluttering in to listen.

“It happens with certain cultures,” Astravia replied in a manner that showcased how common it was for her to bear witness to. “They reach a certain level of advancement and they look on their older belief systems and wish to cast them into their pasts. In the case of this race, their ancestors accused me of being a fraud and told me I was not welcome on their world.”

“But why?” another fairy asked, fluttering up and hugging a shrunken male alien to her bosom. “you’re so nice!”

“And you are quite lovely as well,” Astravia answered, causing the little fairy’s wings to flutter excitedly mid air. “It is arrogance,” Astravia answered her. “They reached a level in development when they began to fancy themselves better than others and began a series of wars and conflicts to purge the old customs and religion in favor of their technologies.”

“That’s so mean!” the fairy holding the leader of the shrunken alien group squeaked in sympathy.

“It is fine. I was saddened to be rejected, however I still have some things I wish to observe from them before they finally destroy themselves. At the rate they are going, it will likely only be a couple hundred years now until they meet their end. They will not have the resources to launch another mission as far as this world without discovering a place that can replenish their lost reserves.”

“But these ones will be okay, right? We can take good care of them!”

“I am afraid not. I have no doubt you can keep them as decent pets, but they will not last more than another generation at this size. They simply were not created to live that small,” Astravia said, and then pointed at the little fairy woman holding the shrunken alien leader. “Be careful now,” she warned. “This one will squirm free of your grasp if you do not pay attention.”

The little fairy woman turned and looked at her new pet, who began screaming and flailing madly in a panic at being held so high above the ground.

“Why’s she so scared? It’s only a few feet,” the fairy pointed out.

“For her eyes, it is more than one hundred. She does not yet realize the scale she lives in yet. Relative to her size, falling that distance at her old size would easily kill her. Oh!” Astravia chirped, and just as she did, the little shrunken alien woman suddenly began peeing all over herself as her bodily fluids escaped her shrunken body and trickled out and down over her stomach and chest and eventually her upside down face.

“Aww! Now I have to clean her up!”

“You did want a pet,” Astravia pointed out with an amused grin. “Now, I trust that you will have things well in hand from this point?” Astravia asked the little fairy who she’d first spoken to.

“They’re so cute!” she squealed, hugging a shrunken male exuberantly, then fluttered over and spun him over to press him against his shrunken leader who only screamed even louder as she felt the naked body of her underling against hers. “Awww! Why are they so angry?”

“This is what their arrogance has done to them,” Astravia answered her. “If any can bring some joy back into their hearts, it would be you, however. Now, as I said, you have all you need from me?”

“Yes!” several fairies exclaimed happily as the last of their stresses faded away and they occupied themselves with their new toys. “Thank you!! Thank you so much!” they cheered to Astravia.

“Of course,” Astravia smiled graciously with a slight regal nod to her tiny flying subjects. “Now, please step back, as I would like to return to my normal form,” she declared. The fairies all backed away and then Astravia began quickly expanding, much to the shock and horror of the less than three-inch tall aliens back into her normal form.

Once she was back to her normal self, Astravia brushed her dress off and bid the fairies and their new pets goodbye, then turned and left, walking briskly until she reached her portal again and began rubbing her temples.

“Uggh!” she complained to herself. “I was supposed to have this weekend to myself,” she said, then stepped back through her portal back to her temple on Maceo’s world. Once there, however, instead of returning immediately to bed, she proceeded to her study and looked through her globe at her peacefully slumbering Maceo. She smiled at him and watched him at length before finally returning to bed before the sun could rise.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Fri Jun 10, 2022 2:48 am

A couple days passed and Maceo shared his intentions to return to town. He obviously wanted to see Elaheh again and he had enough to once again bring to the town for more business. Offering him a suitable excuse.

“Be safe,” she told him over dinner. He smiled at her blessing and dug back into his food once again. “Will you dedicate yourself to finishing the aero plane when you get back? I am excited to see you fly on your own.”

“I’m still torn on the propulsion. Will magic be too conspicuous?”

“I say use your skills. You can always put in another propulsion source if you choose to later.”

“Well, it would definitely make it easier and give me greater range. I think I can make canisters that would take me several hundred miles.”

“Trying to fly away from me?” She teased him. Maceo blushed and found himself a little embarrassed by the playful accusation.

“More time to stay aloft with you,” he eventually managed to answer her. She chuckled at him, not entirely convinced of his excuse.

“You know that I have been known to soar above the clouds for days at a time when I feel like it,” she teased him after some time.

“Well, I certainly won’t ask you to come back down on my account just because I run out of fuel,” Maceo answered her back.

“It has been some time since I’ve had anyone who was interested in going flying with me,” she remarked with contentment.

The next morning, Maceo set off and Astravia saw him off again with a smile, then once he was outside the gate, she bided her time with a swim until she knew he would arrive at his destination and then made her way up to her study and immediately up to her globe which she watched, sitting anxiously on the very edge of her seat.

“He is going to be so hurt,” she determined, nodding to herself. “I shall comfort him,” she promised herself.

Once Maceo arrived in town, he rode in and brought his cart to the market where Gaeten spotted him and rather than greet him, he slipped out the back and made his way back to Elaheh’s home himself quickly where he informed her of Maceo’s arrival.

Astravia was actually mildly surprised to see that Elaheh walked back to the market with him briskly immediately. On the way, Gaeten actually didn’t even bother to look at her while he scolded her.

“I want you to pass a message on to your friends,” he told her somewhat sternly. She lowered her head ashamedly. “This is already the second time that this young man is coming back here with the hope of finding love again because a woman went out of her way to show him she wanted him. I cannot impress on you how important this man is to the growth of this community or how important the debt we owe him is. The next time I hear another woman leads him on, I will petition the council myself and we will immediately set up another caravan and I will make it my mission to find him a woman well outside of this region. Every single time one of you does this, you risk breaking his heart and destroying his relationship with our town. Now I expect you to tell all your little lady friends everything I just told you word for word.”

She dropped her head, very much ashamed. “I’m sorry, but…”

“Stop,” Gaeten ordered her. “I already spoke to your grandmother about this. She put herself on the line to make sure you had an opportunity to try to woo him because you begged her, and the very next day, you started pursuing another man.”

“But we’ve known each other our entire lives!”

“Learn to be more responsible with your actions,” he scolded her. “Your grandmother is so angry she couldn’t even manage to have this conversation with you herself. You led someone very important to us on and now I’m leading you back so you can let him down the very next time you see him. One more time, and I will make certain that he will never find a wife within this town, am I clear?”

She nodded and hid her face from the man.

Far off in her study, Astravia was grinning smugly, savoring every last instant of this juicy soap opera unfolding as per her own designs.

Once the pair arrived, Gaeten remained behind his shop shaking his head angrily while a very timid Elaheh walked around the line of shops and made a beeline to Maceo, who was uncovering his various goods, which this time included some rather rare fruits he’d picked just before loading up to head there. He spotted Elaheh and smiled quite happily, and she back at him, though a bit more meekly than she had the last time they’d seen each other.

“Can you do it, little mouse girl?” Astravia taunted.

“Hi!” Maceo greeted excitedly. “I was hoping to find you,” he told her. She smiled a little harder for him and approached.

“I’ve been waiting to see you too,” she told him. Astravia was chewing on her fingernails, giddy over her personal show and the results it would present.

“This will be so much harder on him than Lale. My poor dearest Maceo,” she cooed, neglecting the fact that this encounter was one explicitly and intentionally by her design.

“Could we talk aside for a moment?” she asked him. Further away, watching jealously from a distance was Astravia’s project.

“I’m looking forward to seeing who prevails. The genuine article, or my facsimile,” she snickered.

Back in town, out of the crowd near the market, Elaheh was drawing up her courage, but Astravia’s glee suddenly vanished as she realized Elaheh was staring up at Maceo’s genuine smile and seemingly lost in his eyes again the same way she’d been the last time they were together. Astravia grabbed for her heart as she realized Elaheh was blushing and her eyes had an almost bedroom quality to them.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Astravia muttered quickly. “Did he use some kind of spell?” she asked, fidgeting nervously all of a sudden.

“What’s wrong?” Maceo asked her as she struggled to begin her prepared speech. She shook her head and looked away and then back up to him.

“I’m going to be completely honest with you and… I’m going to admit to you how foolish I am,” she said to him. Astravia sighed and relaxed slightly. “I have had a long time friend, really my entire life, and not long after you left, he… well, our friendship began to feel like it wasn’t enough. He asked me to marry him just the other day.”

“And you said yes,” Maceo said with a nod. Curiously, he wasn’t angry or even upset.

“I did,” she admitted.

“Well, I wish you the best of luck, then,” Maceo told her genuinely, shocking her. “You don’t owe me anything, and I really appreciate your honesty. The kiss can remain between the two of us,” he promised her quite charitably.

Astravia was confused by how calm Maceo’s response was, but she also sighed relieved that this breakup had occurred without a hitch. Maceo waited for Elaheh, who was frozen, staring up at him. Once he’d waited enough time, he bowed to her with a pleasant smile and turned to leave as the last of Astravia’s stress regarding the outcome of this confrontation passed.

That was right up until Elaheh reached out and grabbed Maceo’s wrist, stopping him. Astravia sat up again rigidly, fear rising fast within her. “Wait,” Elaheh said, pulling him back. Astravia’s project saw from a distance and stood up as tall as he could, anger washing over him. “Am I making a mistake?” she asked Maceo.

“That’s not for me to say,” Maceo answered her. “You know what I have to offer. But you also said you’ve known this man your entire life. Follow your heart.”

Astravia swallowed hard and clutched her chest. “This is not happening,” Astravia exclaimed, growing pale as Elaheh’s resolve weakened for the perfect man created specifically just for her.

“I just… I’ve always cared for him, it’s just that the last week has been such a whirlwind, and… seeing you again… was it a mistake saying yes to him?” she questioned.

“NOOOO!!!” Astravia screamed to the wayward mortal woman. “He is perfect! Everything you ever asked for and more! I gave him EVERYTHING you would ever desire! I gave you everything you never even knew you would desire!!”

Looking at Maceo, though, it was almost as if a fog was being lifted from her very slowly but surely. “I said I’ve always cared for him, but it was only very recently that I ever felt more for him. I’m just confused.”

“Do not tell him that! DO NOT TELL HIM THAT!!” Astravia screamed, grabbing clumps of her hair. She spun the image to her project and leaned in closely. “Go to her,” she told the man seething with jealousy. “And control your anger,” she commanded, and the man moved forward exactly as ordered. “Whenever you touch her, a warm feeling will wash over her entire body,” she willed upon the man.

He approached and immediately placed his hand on Elaheh’s shoulder, which obviously worked exactly as Astravia had commanded. Her jaw dropped at the mere touch from him and she looked up into his eyes in wonder. “Is something the matter?” he asked, though there was a great deal of anger in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” she whimpered, looking back and forth at him and Maceo, torn between her feelings.

“Well she told me about your engagement,” Maceo said plainly to the man. “It’s a very lucky man who is told yes by a lady like her,” he complimented, though this only seemed to anger the man more.

“Then why are you so upset?” he asked Elaheh.

“I just… everything is happening so fast,” she complained, struggling even harder with her decision.

“THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!” Astravia screamed again in horror, grabbing clumps of her hair again.

“How is it happening fast?” the other man asked. “You already told me yes,” he insisted firmly, only barely reigning in his anger.

“Yes, but…” she stammered, looking back and forth between the two men.

“But what?” he asked, still barely controlling his anger and only because Astravia had ordered him to.

“Friend,” Maceo said, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder, but he shook it off violently.

“I am not your friend,” he growled fiercely at Maceo.

“I don’t care,” Maceo answered back with an uncharacteristic coldness that caught both of them off guard as well as Astravia. “She’s having a lot of difficulty. If either of us pushes her in any direction, it’s only going to make things worse. Elaheh, why don’t you go home and think about what you really want. You can come back when you’re ready. Just follow your heart,” he told her much more kindly than just a second before.

“This isn’t your business,” the other man threatened Maceo, but by this point, Maceo wasn’t even concerned with his reactions.

“Just follow your heart,” he told her. Elaheh stared at him, again lost in his eyes, but she nodded and left.

“Maceo…” she asked tentatively a few steps away from him and turning back to look at him. “Did me telling you what happened even hurt? Just a little?”

“It hurt a lot,” Maceo answered back to her. “But I am not about to put that weight on you. Clear your head and follow your heart,” he ordered her. She nodded and left them both behind against the desires of the other man.

“Listen you,” he growled to Maceo and grabbed his shoulder, but Maceo didn’t even flinch.

“Do I look like I’m intimidated by you?” Maceo responded back in a dark voice. Even Astravia drew back with shock by his demeanor. The other man stumbled over his words, but Maceo proceeded on over the facsimile’s protests. “I trust her to make the right decision for her happiness, even if that happiness is with another man. If you really do love her, you will do the same. Besides, even if she did choose me, it’s not as if that would be the end of this. She and I were just starting to get to know each other. After this, I would be very methodical about things with her before I even considered marriage, so you’d still have plenty of time to try to win her heart, and I can give you my word that I would not even try to take advantage of her until I was sure this whole thing was settled.”

“Or you could just walk away,” the other man threatened. Maceo turned to face the man and grabbed his wrist, squeezing it and forcing him to let go. He was honestly stunned at Maceo’s strength, especially given how much his own strength had skyrocketed in recent days.

“I’m not going to be bullied by a coward,” Maceo told him as Gaeten came out quite frightened of the war that could erupt between these two wealthy patrons.

“Then I’ll put the fear in you,” he growled back at Maceo, pushing back with much more force as an apparent stalemate ensued with Maceo not budging so much as a millimeter.

“Fear is living under a dock as the tide comes in while you sleep with a pack of starving coyotes circling and probing for any sign of weakness while men with swords walk above you, ready to stick their blades through your heart just simply because you are there,” Maceo told him back with a dark, cold stare that sent a chill down Gaetens’ spine as he approached. “You don’t know fear,” Maceo informed him confidently. “I can see that in your eyes.”

Even Astravia gulped, having never heard this tale before, nor having never probed it out from his memories. “She’ll make her choice and I will honor it. If you love her, then so will you,” Maceo told the man, who teetered back and forth between intimidated and enraged. Ultimately, he chose enraged and drew back his arm, but Maceo still didn’t flinch.

“If you do this,” Maceo said, stopping him cold once again with his dark tone of voice, “she will definitely hear about it. She will not blame me for defending myself, but she will definitely blame you for attacking. Go ahead, seal your fate and show me how little faith you have in her.”

“She will absolutely hear about it,” Gaeten warned him. “Use your head, lad.”

Astravia was all jitters, chewing on her fingertips as her carefully and perfectly laid plans unraveled before her eyes. So disheveled was she that it didn’t even occur to her to order her project to leave the area peacefully. Thankfully, he did so of his own accord and walked away without another word, with Gaeten sighing with immense relief.

“Does this place always have so much drama?” Maceo asked Gaeten as he caught his breath.

“Unfortunately, yes,” he admitted. “We’re working very hard on it, though.”

“Why don’t you tell me more about what the hell is going on here.”

Astravia paced in circles, fidgeting and her hands shaking. “I have done this countless times before without nearly this much attention to detail,” she thought out loud. “What did you do?” she asked a Maceo who couldn’t hear her. She fidgeted and then spun the image over to Elaheh, who was now sitting at home in her room, struggling with a life altering decision.

Astravia stared at her and then took a deep breath and adjusted her dress, correcting her posture and appearance to one much more befitting the queen of the gods. “It is time we met,” she decided, then leaned down to the globe and whispered into it. “You should take a walk outside the village to clear your mind,” she suggested. A moment later, Elaheh seemed to have a thought occur to her out of nowhere and she stood and left her house, deciding on a walk to try to clear her mind.

Astravia then transformed into her hawk form and stepped outside of time, flying swiftly to a location well outside the boundaries of the town, but on the opposite side from the temple’s location. She set down and transformed into her normal 15 foot self and looked around, then out of nowhere, she conjured a small horse and carriage, complete with all the things a mortal would need for a journey. She then looked around to make sure all was clear and then she unfroze time and then shrank down into her 4’10” mortal version. She began the work of putting a fire together by hand until she noticed her amazing breasts swinging as she worked, then grunted with frustration and shrank them down again to more reasonable proportions, but also just a little larger than she normally did when she made this adjustment.

Some time later, Elaheh was walking through the woods when she heard the lovely humming of a woman nearby and turned to investigate, traipsing along closer and closer among the trees. Then, as she drew closer, the humming stopped and the woods suddenly went silent.

Elaheh stumbled along until she reached a clearing where she found a cart with a tired looking horse near it and a small campfire. She stepped out into the open and looked around until she circled around the cart and found a very petite and frightened looking Astravia holding a frying pan in both hands as though it were a weapon.

Both of them squeaked with surprise and fell back before Elaheh realized that the very dainty woman in front of her couldn’t possibly be any harm at all. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she apologized.

“Who are you?” Astravia asked suspiciously.

“I’m Elaheh,” she greeted her politely with a smile. “Who are you?”

Astravia continued to glare at her with suspicion. “Call me Avia,” she decided to share.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked the harmless little lady.

“Why? What do you want?” she asked, still quite suspiciously.

“Nothing bad,” Elaheh replied with a meek smile.

“Then what are YOU doing out here?” she asked Elaheh.

“I’m taking a walk,” she answered back with a bit more ease. “I just needed to clear my head a little.”

“Through the woods?” Astravia asked, still not releasing her suspicions.

“Well, the road isn’t that far from here, and I just thought I’d enjoy the forest a bit and then I heard you singing.”

“I was not singing,” she declared back defensively.

“Yes you were. You have a beautiful voice,” she complimented.

“Well, maybe I was just humming,” she relented a little. “What do you want?” Astravia asked her, still intentionally keeping her distance.

“Why are you so afraid of me?” she asked Astravia with a bit of a laugh. “Do I really look that threatening?”

“There are bandits up here. I have heard the stories,” Astravia answered back.

“Do I look like a bandit?” her smile was warm and as disarming as she could make it.

“You look like perfect bait for bandits to use to convince people to lower their guard. I have heard the stories about how many there are up here.”

“I’m not a bandit. I’m from the nearby town. You can come there and check my story out if you don’t believe me.”

“I am not going there,” Astravia answered abruptly.

“Why not?”

“Because I have also heard that the bandits have been living and raiding inside that town.”

“Well, they were, at least until recently. We finally managed to run them out.”

“But they are still up here on this mountain,” Astravia confirmed.

“Yes, but they know now not to get this close to town. I can leave if you want,” she offered. Astravia pulled back and looked the taller lady up and down.

“What are you trying to clear your head over?” Astravia asked her.

“It’s a long story,” Elaheh answered Astravia. Astravia now looked at her even more suspiciously. “If you have to know… it’s about love.”

“Love…” Astravia stated skeptically.

“Yeah. I’m just very confused.”

“If you are in love then what exactly is confusing about that?”

“Because it’s about two different men and I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, this I need to hear,” Astravia told her as though she were curious beyond measure. “You have two men fighting over you?”

“I know! It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

“Well, I mean... you are very pretty.”

“I’m not THAT pretty,” Elaheh confided in her. “I just… I met a man, and he was… wonderful and things were going well, and then this other man I’ve known for so long, he…” she then sighed. “The second one proposed to me, and I even said yes, but something just felt… off.”

“This is a very vague story,” Astravia told her with disappointment. Elaheh laughed and put her head in her hand, her stress showing quite obviously. “Would you like to talk about it?” Astravia asked her.

“I’m sure a perfect stranger doesn’t want to hear my gossip,” she laughed again.

“I am actually very curious now. How many women would love to have multiple men competing for her? I have only heard of very wealthy women having this problem.”

“THAT, is the craziest part of this all,” Elaheh said to her, shaking her head.

“Oh, now I simply must hear this story,” Astravia insisted.

“Well… what are you doing out here like this? Especially if you are so afraid of bandits?”

“I was traveling to see a dear friend,” Astravia answered her. “It is very urgent, and I would have gone around the mountain, but the road was washed out.”

“I love your accent,” Elaheh complimented. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never heard an accent like that before.”

“I am not originally from here,” Astravia admitted. “So what about this love story?” she asked breathlessly.

“You really want to hear it?” Elaheh asked, burning pink with embarrassment. Astravia nodded fervently, and a moment later, Elaheh was sitting down in front of the little campfire across from Astravia and describing the entire story from her point of view from beginning to end. Astravia listened carefully to every last syllable as Elaheh filled in all of the details and asked all questions as they came up and then sighed heavily.

“That is incredibly good fortune,” Astravia confided in Elaheh. “And you say both men are quite wealthy?”

“Well, Maceo would be, but he invested a lot of his savings in the town to help us recover. But I honestly doubt he ever had even close to over two hundred pounds of gold.”

“Is that what is bothering you? One man was giving and the other was not?”

“No. It’s really more of a feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“Before I saw Maceo this morning, I’d made up my mind. Everything made perfect sense, but then he was there and… There’s something about him.”

“This does not help me understand,” Astravia countered.

“When I saw him, for some reason, I was reminded of all the years when I cared deeply for… well, my fiancé, but I never felt… attracted to him. I mean, I was so happy when our friendship resparked again, I’ve missed it so much, but I never missed it so much that I thought it would be a good idea to renege on turning him down all those years ago.”

“Did you think that he was that poor of husband material before?”

“No. I think he would have made an alright husband. For someone. I mean I barely even knew the man I was betrothed to, but even he… I’ll just say that I doubt I would have been bitter if my parents would have betrothed me to my current fiancé, but I’ve just never felt that way about him. At least not until a few days ago.”

“But you did feel that way about Maceo?”

“From the first time I saw him the first time he wandered into town. I know the women that spent that day with him, and I understand why they started to get turned off, but I didn’t feel that way, and wished it had been me. I’ve always had trouble talking to men, though.”

“But not your fiancé,” Astravia pointed out.

“I hate to say this… but I never saw him as a man before.” Astravia lifted her head, interested in this feedback. “The last week with him as been… perfect. I don’t have any way to describe it. It’s just been perfect. When I saw other women wanting him, I just couldn’t take it anymore and I had to have him. I just couldn’t let him get away again and then Maceo came back, and I was completely ready to tell him I wasn’t interested anymore and all of those memories came back, only the way they were before this week.”

“So what will you do? It sounds like either way, you have a husband who will honor you and take good care of you. Unless of course you drag this out past today.”

“What do you mean?” Elaheh asked, instantly alert.

“I mean… perhaps your fiancé is wealthy by luck alone and Maceo’s wealth is more hard earned, but wealth is still wealth. If they are men who know how to use that wealth or are at least aware of how important it is to use their wealth wisely then they are not going to stand around and continue to fight over you. There are countless other women out there and their wealth alone could attract them. In fact, even if you did manage to string one along and he still took you… that does not stop him from finding other women still.”

Elaheh sat up rigidly, fearful of this new fact that had just been brought to her attention. “I don’t see either of these men ever doing that…” she muttered breathlessly, but there was no conviction in her words.

“Why would they not?” Astravia asked calmly, her millennia of experience in such matters showing.

“The way you say that… you’re very sure of it.” Astravia looked up from the fire at her and then back down again saying nothing else. “Have you ever been married?” Astravia again glanced at the young woman. Her normal wall regarding this issue seemed to be weakening.

“Yes,” Astravia answered. Elaheh leaned forward, pleading with her eyes for Astravia to continue. “He was unfaithful from the very beginning,” Astravia explained with a voice that lacked any energy or emotion. “There is no way to know exactly how many women he has been with.”

“I’m so sorry,” Elaheh said with immense sympathy and stepping around the fire to kneel beside Astravia and hold her hand.

“They all have this capability,” Astravia warned Elaheh. “If you value your marriage do not ever take for granted the fact that a man, especially a man of power and influence can always find more women.”

Elaheh sat and pondered for a long moment somberly, but after that she looked up into Astravia’s eyes again.

“You may not believe this, but the majority of the stories where I come from of unfaithfulness are wives straying from their husbands.” Astravia sat up, alarmed by this statement, and also clearly uncomfortable. “That doesn’t change what was done to you, and it doesn’t make it better, but… my mother always warned me after we would come home from spending time with her friends and they would let their stories slip in front of us. She always warned me that I needed to be the one who focused on remaining faithful.”

“I was never unfaithful,” Astravia told her, tears welling up in her eyes. “I did everything I could imagine to bring him back to me and to repair our marriage, but everything I did just made him more and more bold regarding his infidelity.” By this point a few tears had escaped and were running down her cheeks. “The difference,” Astravia explained, wiping her tears and looking at them as though she were confused that they even existed, “is that as they grow older, they accumulate more and it becomes easier for them to find another woman. Especially younger, more naïve ones. We grow older, and our appeal fades and it becomes harder and harder.”

“But you’re still so young,” Elaheh smiled at her, placing her hand on Astravia’s wetted cheek. “You can’t even be as old as I am. You’re right, but you still have so long before that’s true for you. Are you even nineteen?” she asked Astravia, who laughed a little and sniffled as more unexpected tears slipped out and down her cheeks.

“I feel extremely old,” Astravia told the young woman.

“But you’re not,” Elaheh told her, willing her good will toward Astravia. “You’re so beautiful and full of life. Forget your ex husband. Leave him in the past and find someone you can really love. You’re much more beautiful than I am. If I can have two men fighting over me, then you should have a thousand. If you find some way to put your ex husband behind you, there has to be someone worthy of your love just waiting for you to find him.”

Astravia laughed a little, still crying quietly to herself.

“I don’t think that is meant to be,” Astravia confessed with the confidence of knowledge backing her statement up.

“You’re wrong,” Elaheh told her softly. “I’ve always been able to size someone up the moment I met them. That’s why this is so confusing to me with Maceo and my fiancé. I knew where my fiancé always fit in my life, I was certain of it until it suddenly changed, but that’s the first time that’s ever happened to me.”

“What are you trying to say?” Astravia asked her.

“I’m saying that as soon as I met you, I knew you were very kind and just exactly what kind of a person you were. It’s so obvious that you wear it like a dress. I have to believe that the universe is going to reward you. Like my mother always says, what goes around comes around. If you’ve helped other people like you have me, then sooner or later you will get what you deserve. You just need faith.”

“Faith,” Astravia laughed. “Faith in what?”

“Do you need a place to put that faith?” Astravia looked at her cockeyed. “I can give it to you.”

“And how exactly can you give it to me?” she asked suspiciously, smirking a little at this absurd notion. Elaheh sat up and took her other hand.

“I’m sure you’ve heard myths,” Elaheh whispered to her. Astravia suddenly sat up pertly. “Believe in Astravia,” she told her. Astravia now leaned more closely down to Elaheh, stunned by this unexpected development.

“The mythical goddess?” Astravia finally managed ask, struggling to not reveal her cover.

“She’s no myth,” Elaheh told her. “My great grandmother was the last priestess at her temple. There aren’t many of us, but we’ve never stopped believing in her. She’s not a myth, she’s just been gone, but she has to come back someday. We know she will. You HAVE to be in Astravia’s favor, because just listen to your name. Avia! It’s a sign. She always taught us the importance of remaining faithful, and in the end our faithfulness would be rewarded. Not just faithfulness to her, but everyone around us. Always. She promised us that. And if anyone should know, it would be Astravia. No one suffered more because of unfaithfulness than her. Her husband was the absolute worst husband in all creation, and I’m not even supposed to say that. She never would allow her priestesses to even imply it. That is how good she is. If she knows how important faithfulness is, then it has to be true.”

Astravia looked left and right, scanning her mind quickly, trying to reconcile the dissonance. “But what about my…”

“He cheated on you. He violated your marriage. He broke the covenant. That marriage no longer exists. That is the law,” she told Astravia very firmly.

“It is not that simple,” Astravia answered back.

“It doesn’t have to be simple, but it is the truth. This law was handed down to us by the gods. Even they are bound by it. Your marriage was dissolved the instant he touched another woman. It doesn’t matter what he says, or what he can do, he no longer has any claim to you. I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered.

“What secret?”

“Generations ago, her priestesses knew what was coming for them. The writing was on the wall. We don’t know why Astravia has been gone, but we know the last time she visited us, she needed to leave in a hurry. Whatever she left for was important. We know she existed because she would come and walk with us and teach us herself. The myths leave out important details about her. She was unnaturally beautiful, and you knew she was a goddess because her eyes would turn black like the night sky each with a bright, burning star in the center. And she stood three times as tall as a man. She was so beautiful that no man could resist her and because of that they were never allowed to serve her directly. Because she was so faithful, even to a husband that threw the most beautiful woman in all existence away like a piece of trash,” she explained, but then lowered her head. “I’m sorry,” she apologized to a fascinated Astravia. “I’m not supposed to say things like that.”

“If the law says that her husband’s unfaithfulness dissolved the marriage, then why would she still be with him, then?” she challenged. “Should not her marriage be dissolved?”

“We don’t know,” Elaheh answered directly. “What we do know is that she was also unnaturally brilliant. Everything she did was intricate. It was plans within plans within plans within plans. If she did something, then it was for a good reason. I don’t normally say this but… we don’t like to draw attention to it. But if by any chance you are going down the western road… several hours from here you’ll find another road, partially covered by forest growth, but you’ll know it when you find it because there is a structure there built to shield travelers from the elements and with a platform to look out over all of the mountains. Take that road, and it will take you directly to Astravia’s temple, but even that doesn’t describe it. It’s not really a temple. It’s an entire city made with wonders that even the most skilled craftsmen can’t recreate today. And it’s not just a city. It’s a city larger than any you’ve ever heard of, but it’s empty. We don’t like to call attention to it because with so few that still believe in her, we just can’t regulate the citizens and uphold the law so now the city lies empty.”

Elaheh then proceeded to tell Astravia the story that had been passed down from her great grandmother to her grandmother to her mother and then to her.

Many decades after Astravia’s disappearance, there was a change in the government of the city. There was nothing stopping a non-believer from holding power, but without proof of the Goddess’ existence, other than a city that was admittedly mostly built by the hands of men, this allowance was a much greater threat to them and their way of life. The result was a man who was very skilled at consolidating power and while he followed the law as written, he lacked the understanding of Astravia’s will and how her city would be administered.

It wasn’t until two generations after that the seeds of those events sewn would grow into a real problem. Over the course of that time, the government and administrators became increasingly secular until believers in Astravia became a minority as they tended to follow paths related directly to their faiths, and persons with other interests took more and more control over the city.

Astravia had always instructed her followers to welcome non-believers with open arms, because how else would they create new followers? When the non-believers had enough control over the institutions within the city, which was still growing very steadily, a new mindset emerged, one that viewed those of faith as forcing their beliefs on others. Eventually, this led to administrators who demanded a distinct separation between faith and the government, which in turn later led to an attitude that those of faith should be generally ignored. Schools were administered by the government, so this in turn led to teaching children that faith was a backwards practice and a continual decline in worshippers of Astravia within her own city.

It was at this time that the priestesses realized they’d lost control and though it might take generations, they were looking at a city gifted to them by Astravia that could actually become openly hostile toward her once she finally returned. It was decided after much deliberation that they would violate Astravia’s wishes in terms of the city’s governance and policies of acceptance as well as even her clergy. Priests were added to the religion (against Astravia’s explicit instructions) and over the course of a generation, followers were quietly added to the city’s security forces until they were the majority there.

The final straw was a mayor who saw the complex of Astravia’s quarters as wasted space, so he saw fit to set up residence there himself. Astravia was quite irritated by this revelation, but somehow managed to mostly suppress her anger. A coup was then staged where the clergy took control of the government and all administrators from previous administrations were expelled.

This now theocratic government had difficulty managing the affairs of the city and proved to be economically illiterate, which lead to a decline in wealth and prosperity and a more rapid decline in followers. Finally, it was decided that the only purpose of this city would be that of what it had been called by Astravia herself. It was a temple. Anyone not there to worship Astravia was no longer welcome. The clergy of the time were fully aware that meant the eventual death of the city, but they took comfort that Astravia may at least have mercy on them knowing they’d killed her city in the name of preserving her gift and not misusing it. In the last couple of generations of the era of population at the temple, a number of scrolls were taken from the archives to both explain themselves to Astravia when she returned as well as keep the faith alive and teach it to newcomers to the faith, however few they may be.

In the slow exodus from the temple, priestesses and priests made it their custom to study areas of law wherever they landed so that they could at least judge law wherever possible according to her scriptures. This, of course, was how Elaheh’s grandmother came to be an elder within her town. She practiced law, eventually became a judge and through that experience, was eventually selected to be an elder. Such was generally the case for what remained of Astravia’s followers wherever they settled.

No one was to return to the temple until Astravia herself granted them permission after failing to preserve her gift in the way she’d instructed.

“Go there,” Elaheh told Astravia. “Even from the outside you will be able to see what a miraculous place it is. It was all designed specifically by Astravia with hidden features that even the most trusted priestesses weren’t privy to, such as the bottomless pit in the middle of the giant lake there. If the beauty of the walls of that amazing city isn’t enough to convince you to believe in Astravia, then nothing will, unless Astravia reveals herself to you personally. But the most important thing? Believe in Astravia. If you do, eventually all will work itself out.”

“Believe in Astravia,” she repeated, chuckling at the irony of the statement. Elaheh nodded quite earnestly. “So why tell me this?” Astravia laughed, still absorbing what had been shared with her.

“Because you gave me the clarity I needed. Talking to you, everything is clear to me now. You reminded me of my faith in Astravia, and I want to share it with you.”

Astravia sat and smiled at the young woman, genuinely moved by her. “I have much to consider,” she managed to tell her back.

“I’ve made them wait too long as it is. Are you sure you won’t come to town? I’ll make sure you can stay in the safest place and we even have magicians now. And the most amazing part? I didn’t even know, but Maceo is a follower of Astravia. He taught them and they are all bound to Astravia for their powers!”

“Is this what attracted you to him?” Astravia asked with a chuckle.

“It helped. I thought it was more of a sign.”

“I see. So then you’ve made your choice.” Elaheh nodded back. “Maceo it is then?” Astravia asked, her voice barely giving way to the sadness behind it.

Elaheh took a deep breath and looked off into the distance. “This ability I mentioned? My mother says that it’s a gift required in order to become a high priestess. It was how the priestesses first realized their city was dying hundreds of years ago and it was why they were able to try to stave it off. She said that when I find a case where my intuition is wrong, it’s always a sign and I need to pay very close attention to it. I do still see Maceo as a sign, but the sign I saw was a selfish one. I’m attracted to him because there is something about him that tells me he’s destined for greatness and because… he’s extremely kind and handsome. But I have a fiancé now, one that was obviously a sign directed only at me. I’ve been given a gift. I know I can trust him, and I know he’s been faithful to me and only me. And now? He’s a different man. When we were younger? He wouldn’t have controlled his anger with Maceo. I’ve told him over and over again to control his anger because that’s what my faith teaches me, but he never listened, but this morning he did control it. My future is with him. I’m not going to reject that gift,” she decided.

Astravia smiled pleasantly back to her. “Make sure you tell him why you chose him over the other. Tell him what you just told me.” Elaheh nodded energetically to her and stood up, ready to depart.

“Are you sure you won’t come to town? I’ll make sure you’re treated like a queen,” she insisted.

“I have my own journey I need to get back to,” Astravia told her. “But this was certainly worth stopping for.” Elaheh then stepped closer and hugged Astravia, who was quite shocked as the young woman squeezed her.

“Please come back. I really would love to see you again, Avia,” she told her quite gratefully and a little tearfully.

“I’ll… see what I can do,” Astravia answered her, hugging back a little and rather taken aback by her affection.

“Oooooh!!” Elaheh squealed delightfully, “you’re so petite! I wish I was as petite as you!”

“You mean short,” Astravia laughed back.

“I mean petite! And beautiful!” she squealed.

“And why would you want that?” Astravia asked her, laughing as she pulled back enough to look up at her new friend in the eyes.

“Because I love tall men. I love the feeling of big, strong arms wrapped around me, holding me tight. If I was as petite as you, can you imagine how tall and strong my fiancé would be?” Astravia smiled and laughed at her.

“Go to your future,” Astravia encouraged softly. Elaheh hugged her once again and kissed her on her cheek.

“Please come back some day, Avia,” she said and then left her behind. Astravia waved her goodbye until she was gone from sight then sat down in front of the campfire again, staring at it and lost in thought. A while later, she conjured an image of their conversation from earlier and replayed it.

“If the law says that her husband’s unfaithfulness dissolved the marriage, then why would she still be with him, then?” she had challenged to Elaheh. “Should not her marriage be dissolved?”

“We don’t know,” Elaheh had answered directly.

Astravia stopped at that moment and replayed it again.

“Because I loved him,” she answered, tears welling up in her eyes. “I loved him more than all creation and I would have done anything to convince him to come back to me,” she said, her tears overwhelming her as she sobbed and let her pain all out there alone in the woods.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by MrWitness » Fri Jun 10, 2022 10:17 am

Another great chapter! Please, keep going ;)

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Sat Jun 11, 2022 5:10 am

Astravia flew back to her study once she was all cried out and arrived with enough time to see Elaheh approach Maceo again and explain all of her reasons for why she wouldn’t go with him. Her fiancé seemed only barely understanding, and only because he’d won in this particular battle.

Maceo took it all in stride and smiled, wishing them both the best of luck before letting them go. He then concluded his business in town, with Gaeten looking quite concerned, given the events that had repeatedly run the risk of losing this very important business partner yet again. Still, though, once all was settled, Gaeten treated Maceo to a drink at the tavern where they sat and talked.

“I spoke to the elders and we want your approval to amend our contract with you.”

“I thought you were on schedule for raising the funds,” Maceo told him, a little concerned.

“We’re ahead of schedule. That is why we want to amend the contracts to pay you on a shorter timeline and increase the interest.”

“Gaeten,” Maceo laughed, waving him off. “That’s not necessary.”

“I’m afraid it is,” Gaeten insisted. “You did us a huge favor by investing in us and over and over again you keep getting shafted by this town. First the incident where by all rights you should have been killed by those bandits, then with Lale betraying you and now with Elaheh stringing you along. This sets a bad precedent and the elders are adamant they do something to demonstrate how much we value you. I am also making an effort to make sure no more women go and play any more games with you.”

“That’s a little over the top, don’t you think?” Maceo laughed. Gaeten remained concerned, while Astravia stared from her study at him, mildly confused as well. “Honestly, Elaheh and I only really had one date. We weren’t committed or anything, and Lale… I’m more just upset that she thought she could continue to entertain three men at once instead of choosing one and trying to make it work.”

“And those bandits?”

“No one’s heard a peep from them since that night. It’s like they just disappeared from existence. You said you would get the crime under control here in town and you have. Water under the bridge.”

Gaeten breathed out and took another drink. “We still wish to amend the contracts,” he insisted.

“Alright,” Maceo agreed. “If you think you can afford it. I’m more interested in the long term viability of your town than making a quick buck, though.”

Following their drinks Maceo met with the elders. They altered the contract as requested and then Maceo was on his way with Astravia staring at him as he made his ride back to the temple.

“What am I doing?” she asked herself, shaking her head at Maceo. “What am I doing? He is a mortal.” She took a long, shaky breath, then left the room and went down to the lobby area she’d originally arrived in and stood where the portal should be. She closed her eyes, took another deep breath and balled her fists, then finally reopened the portal and stepped through.

Instead of stepping foot back into the celestial palace, however, she stepped onto a strange, desolate world, one that had been laid waste to millennia before. Around her were only a few remnants of ruins that suggested a civilization had once existed here. Then she opened another portal and stepped into another quiet location, then another and another and another and another until she stepped out into a dark, damp cavern. In the distance, dim torches flickered and pained moaning could be heard from the voices of mortals. To her left was a chasm past a jagged, rocky ridge and a dimly lit dusty path to her right. She followed the path until she reached a massive door, at least five times as tall as she was which opened as she approached it. Beyond it resided a dark room, which seemed the inverse of the throne room in the celestial palace. Where in the palace there was light, here there was dark, where in the celestial palace there was pearly marble, here there was untainted onyx. Large, dull, dark gray pillars provided support for the cavernous room near the walls, creating a column on either side of Astravia leading up to a set of glossy black steps that let up to a platform where a throne sat. Atop the elevated throne sat a god whose height betrayed him, despite his sitting and angled forward toward his guest, leaning his elbows on his knees and his mouth cupped with his hands around it contemplatively.

His eyes weren’t particularly threatening in demeanor, however, they were a brilliant red, as if lined with rubies caught in the light of a warm campfire. His hair was a thick, deep black and he wore a short, trimmed beard that lined a square, rugged and unrefined looking jaw, but otherwise he bared an interesting resemblance with Zantharan.

“Astravia,” he greeted cordially but also without emotion. The room echoed with his deep, bass voice. “I would not have expected to see you here.”

“Hello, Urisinus,” she greeted back cordially with a polite curtsy.

“I did not even know you’d left the palace, especially after hearing what happened.”

“So then Zantharan is not looking for me?”

“Not yet,” he told her. “You know he will, however.”

“I know.”

“So what brings you here, to my lovely abode?”

She looked around the room, noting how morose it was. Even the drapes had a macabre feeling to them. The windows peered out into near blackness and though well lined with torches, the darkness of the room seemed to pull in almost as much light as was created, reflecting little back to the room’s two occupants. “I am here to collect on a favor,” she answered him, then turned to face him and approached.

“That is all? Merely a favor?”

“That is all.”

“As I recall, you have done me a number of favors. Some small, some large. Which are you here to collect on?”

“How would you like to clear the slate?” she asked him. His eyebrow lifted.

“You wish me to go against my brother.”

“I know you would rather pay the consequences of denying me than do that,” she answered, now climbing the steps to his throne slowly and with poise in each step.

“Then what?”

“Discretion,” she answered back. “You did not see me here, you have not heard from me and you will not report what I am here for.”

“Are you running from him?” he asked her rather coldly.

“There would be little point, would there?”

“Indeed. Then why discretion?”

“I am clearing my own debt, and I do not wish Zantharan to undo that in spite in my absence.”

“Hmmm,” Urisinus replied back contemplatively.

“This is your realm, not his. It is well within your rights. Unless he wishes to risk an all out war again. Or unless you are simply his lapdog now.”

“I am not his lapdog,” Urisinus snapped back in a deep, growling voice.

“Will you honor my request?” she asked him.

“Indeed,” he answered. “Now, your business?”

“I have a list of names. Mortals who have died whom I need relocated.” He looked at her, and then reached out an outstretched hand. Astravia conjured a long scroll, filled with the names of the followers from her temple that had overseen its desertion. The list floated to Urisinus and he looked it over.

“These are all mortals who ignored their pact with you. They are being punished for their fall from grace,” he told her.

“I owe them a debt.”

“Oh?”

“They ignored my will for a greater purpose. They have paid the price for their transgressions and now I wish to reward them for the gift they offered me.”

“Which world are they from?” he asked curiously, looking more closely at the document.

“This would be included in the discretion you promised me.”

“Mmm,” he answered back.

“It is within my right to have them moved to paradise.”

“It is.”

“Will you honor it?” His gaze was long and cold, but he finally dropped his hand from his mouth and sat up properly.

“I will.”

“Thank you, Urisinus. Gather them, please.” He nodded and then waved her past to a portal behind his throne, which she stepped through to find a scene of agony and misery. Everywhere, mortals stood or sat or lay about with large, gaping wounds draining with puss and them all moaning in pain.

To her left was a massive crowd of mortals, all in the same, pathetic condition as every other in this realm and she approached them to a sea of gasps, most of them in fear. “Astravia,” one whispered fearfully which spread like flame through a dried and withered forest.

“None of us have met,” she began as she addressed the crowd that knelt down at her feet, none even coming close to approaching knee height to her in their positions and all of whom were too weak to even stand any longer. Their faces were pale and gaunt, their skin cracked and tattered. Before her slightly to the left sat an extremely elderly woman she recognized as Elaheh’s great grandmother. “The reason I was away for so long was because matters in the celestial palace had grown so chaotic and tumultuous that they required my full attention. You all know why you are here,” she informed them all as they lowered their heads in shame, “but allow me to recap nonetheless.”

A few attempted to cry, but Astravia soldiered on with the poise and dignity of a queen. “You were tasked with the preservation of my temple and seeing that my will was carried out in my absence. You were asked to bring new mortals into your folds and instead you drove them away. You were tasked with maintaining my temple and instead I found it abandoned. You were forbidden from governing and you perpetrated a coup over the lawful government. You installed persons into my clergy who you knew were forbidden. These are the most severe of the charges, but you all know that your transgressions were many more.”

These poor, wretched souls didn’t even have the power left in their bodies to argue or plea. Most of them couldn’t even muster tears.

“I regret,” she began again with a pause, and then as their eyes lifted again, she forced herself to continue. “Not meeting and getting to know each and every last one of you in your lives. You violated my law and my wishes, but because of your thoughtfulness, I had a wonderful temple to return to, still pristine and untainted by those who would have misused it. You have all been punished for your transgressions, and now I will reward you for the precious, thoughtful gift you have given me. You will all be moved to paradise immediately, and you will exist among the most favored of my followers. Thank you for your faith. Thank you for touching me with your sacrifice, and thank you for living.”

Now the haggard crowd all looked up at her with wonder, hope and relief. She lifted her arms and reached outward and with a thought, their bodies were repaired and healed, their strife removed. “You will not need those bodies any longer where you are going, but I will give you this as a show of my gratitude.” She turned and pointed with her entire arm at a bright white portal. “Now go,” she told them with a peaceful smile.

There were tears now far more than before, but they were tears of joy with each of the mortals thanking her and wishing praise upon her as they passed by her with Astravia smiling and touching most of them tenderly as they passed by her until Elaheh’s great grandmother reached her, now a lovely, healthy young woman again, and Astravia knelt down an placed her hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

“Kalena,” she said to her gently. The woman looked up at her in wonder. “Your line is a noble one, and they have carried your teachings with them over the years since you arrived here. I have one more task for you.”

“Name it,” she answered breathily.

“Do not forget to remind Urisinus that those of your line for all time, should they lead good and honorable lives, belong with you. Take good care of them.”

“I am so happy,” she told Astravia, her voice shaking and breaking, “to have finally met you. I had thought you had forsaken us.”

“Your great granddaughter is named Elaheh. I now know why. My heart is filled with the teachings of faithfulness you passed down through the generations. Be happy. Be at peace,” Astravia told her and then sent her on her way. Once they were all gone, she turned back to the portal she’d entered through and into the dark throne chamber once again, passing by Urisinus calmly and with dignity.

“Very few of the gods have had time to review their rolls as of late,” Urisinus commented. Astravia stopped and stood beside him, still looking ahead.

“I suppose it could not be helped,” she answered him.

“Putting your affairs in order, then?” he asked her coldly.

“Yes,” she answered back with emptiness in her voice.

“I am sorry,” he told her. “No one has the authority to challenge him aside from you.”

“And given our equal authority, our respective power is the deciding factor in the end.”

“Yes,” he answered. “I regret siding with him against Chronstrus.”

Astravia smiled and looked downward toward the ground. “Do not. How many tens of millions of years have we enjoyed? How many good meals have we shared? I wish my own husband could have shown me even a fraction of the respect you have.”

“You were always kind to me,” he told her, then held up the document that had been given to him and in a flash it was consumed by flame, which also then disappeared. “And I appreciate the support your voice gave me in your court.” She smiled and nodded her head.

“This is likely goodbye, Urisinus. I will not make Zantharan wait long before I meet my fate. The damage if I did would be too great.”

She then began descending the steps from the throne and as she reached the floor, he spoke again, stopping her. She turned and looked up at him as he said, “this simple request was a mere courtesy, and not a favor. My debts to you still stand. If by some miracle you manage to escape what he has in store for you, come collect on them at your discretion.”

She smiled courteously and bowed to him and then left, back to the portal that had brought her there and back through the series of portals that eventually left her standing in her temple. She walked out to the patio and looked over the pool, smiling with a sad, lonely look in her eyes as she stood and watched the waning sun, waiting for Maceo’s return.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Sun Jun 12, 2022 5:03 am

It was nearly night time when Maceo arrived back at the temple, whose gates opened for him as he approached, to the sight of Astravia, all fifteen feet of height of her smiling at him in greeting.

“I really don’t deserve such a wonderful greeting,” he told her with a laugh as he strode up to her.

“So long as you are aware of that fact,” she teased him in return. He looked up at her as he climbed down from his seat and walked with her back to storage and unhooked the horses.

“By your silence, I assume you were watching?”

“I am always watching over you, my dearest Maceo.”

“I don’t deserve that either,” he laughed and she quickly joined in as well.

“Are you sad?” she asked him, kneeling down to him as they let the horses back into the pasture.

“Should I be?” he asked her with a smirk. She gave him an odd look and furrowed her brow.

“You are not?”

“I’m a little hurt. I’m perfectly fine with it, though. I hope she’s very happy.”

“And her fiancé?”

“I’m not sure I really care about him,” Maceo pondered aloud. “Should I?”

“Well, he would have been in for a very rude shock if he’d thrown that punch.”

“I hope she’s able to forge him into a better man,” he told her resolutely. “Now what about you? That sadness in your eyes is back again,” he noted with worry. She laughed at him and turned her head away.

“So observant,” she noted. “How peculiar.”

“Will you ever tell me anything?” he asked her. Her smile softened and she looked into his eyes again.

“Come to dinner, my dearest Maceo. I have made something special for you.”

“Did you make it, or did you just wave your fingers and it made itself?” he teased her with a mischievous smirk. She had to do a double take at his impertinence and then pointed at him with a scolding finger, though her laughing grin contradicted her stern actions.

“You are getting a bit cocky, do you not think?” she laughed at him.

“Well, women are raining from the sky over me,” he boasted a bit too enthusiastically. “Of course, the ground seems to absorb them again before I can even enjoy it.” She laughed quite heartily at him. She reached out and down and took his hand and tugged him along back toward her patio where food was already being served and they sat together under the shade of a tall, mature tree, looking out over the pool with a handful of pyres burning and illuminating this late dinner for them both.

Surprisingly, Maceo was quite enthusiastic and excited to talk more about the flying machine, diving into the specifics of what remained to be done. They discussed technical details then moved on to other matters, such as Maceo’s insistence on a lighter than air ship.

“And why do you want to make such a machine?” she asked him, laughing. “The aero plane will allow you to soar like me when I take the form of a hawk and dance, free from the bonds of your world. An airship merely hangs in the air and drifts like a cloud.”

“I’m going to make one large enough that you can comfortably stand in it and I am going to cook you a meal up there and we can eat and enjoy dessert together miles above the ground and watch the sun set,” Maceo answered her. She smiled a bit bashfully at his suggestion and even bit her lip, but only for a split second. “I know, you’ve done it four thousand, five hundred and seventy nine times before,” he mocked with a little too much boisterousness to his words.

“You are being cheeky tonight!” she laughed at him and pointed at him. “Are you forgetting yourself? Has that moment I warned you about nine years ago finally come?”

“I’ve made a decision,” Maceo told her with a seriousness that was in stark contrast to his mirthful comments most recently.

“And what decision is that?” she asked, also now looking a bit more seriously at him.

“I’m going to find a way to cheer you up,” he told her. “For real. Not just for a few moments at a time.”

She was touched and smiled down at him, then leaned back and watched the last of the sun’s light fade with him. “I have simply had a few things on my mind,” she remarked with a bit of a bashful smile.

“You’re a goddess. Are you sure it’s just a few?” he teased her.

“Fewer now that I am taking a weekend to unwind,” she replied back a bit teasingly herself. She paused and looked out at the evening sky. “Are you not afraid of stepping over the boundaries that are afforded a goddess?” she asked him.

“Not really,” he answered confidently.

“And why not? You yourself have admitted that you feel that burn for me, like all men.”

“Because I have something far more important to me than your body,” he answered. “Or any other primitive desires like that.”

“Do tell,” she coaxed.

“Your heart,” he answered. “I’m not a goddess, but some time ago it occurred to me that your heart has been seriously wounded. I can’t fix it, but I can at least help you heal. And I can’t think of a better way to start than with laughter.” She sat up again and turned to look at him directly, fascinated by how confident he seemed in this position.

“And if you overstep your bounds?” she asked him.

“I get what I deserve,” he told her. “But you know that I would never touch you or speak to you in a way that I knew you didn’t wish. I probably will make mistakes,” he admitted. “Joking is really an art, isn’t it? So I will probably make mistakes and try something that isn’t appropriate. I won’t try to, but I accept the consequences.”

“You would throw your life away simply to make me laugh?” she asked him.

“Yes.”

“That is very selfish,” she told him quite seriously. He finally looked up at her and looked her in the eyes. “I do not enjoy harming mortals. I do not look forward to meting out punishment. I do it because I know what is expected of me and because there are reasons that I cannot simply choose to ignore. Harming you would be heartbreaking for me. Your life is so fleeting, I cannot bear that it would end so prematurely over what? A giggle?”

“Your giggles are hardly trivial,” Maceo answered back. “Still, though… I don’t want to be selfish. I’ll have to rethink my decision,” he conceded. “That doesn’t mean I’m completely abandoning it, though.”

He then lay back and put his hands behind his head and stared up at the night sky. She couldn’t help but follow suit and stared along with him. “How far out do you see?” he asked her.

“Without trying?” she asked. “A few light years.”

“How far is that?”

“About three quarters as far from this star system to the next. A few weeks ago I was watching the ice cloud you saw at the edge of this solar system when your world was angled correctly.”

“What about from this angle?”

“This galaxy is surprisingly flat. There is not nearly as much looking out on this angle. Not far off from where we are staring right now is a damaged probe… a mechanical device an ancient civilization that was much more advanced than yours sent out to send back information and pictures about the universe. It is broken now. It has been for quite some time. It is about the size of this tree.”

“How far away is it?”

“A little more than twice the distance from here to the ice field at the edge of your solar system.”

“I can’t believe you can see that far away,” he told her.

“I technically do not ‘see’ it. Remember that you only exist in four dimensions. I have other senses that let me perceive it.”

“Is it overwhelming? Seeing so much all at once?”

“I ignore most of it,” she answered him. “I can always go back to something whenever I want if I need to.” There was then silence between them as they continued to stargaze. “Something bothering you?” she asked him.

“Just thinking of how I can stay interesting enough for someone who can see all the way to another star system. What about that star system that’s closest to us? What’s it like?”

She lifted her head and stared across the horizon, concentrating a little harder. “It is a low mass star compared to this one. Some societies would call it a red dwarf. There are five worlds there that are similar composition to this world, one of which is similar size to this one, then one that is much larger than this one and three that are much smaller. Only one of the rocky planets has any kind of atmosphere. There are three gaseous planets in the outer solar system.”

“That’s amazing,” he remarked. She only smiled quietly.

After more time in quiet, she broke the silence this time. “Maceo, did you not feel strongly for Elaheh?”

“I did,” he answered. “I was really looking forward to getting to know her. It was disappointing she decided not to pursue anything with me so quickly, though.”

“I’m surprised that you do not seem as sad as I thought you might be.”

“Do I need to be?” he asked her. “One wasn’t interested and the other was keeping more than one man around to fall back on in case the others didn’t work out. It just wasn’t right, that’s all.” Astravia looked at him and contemplated him for a moment. When he opened his mouth to speak, she reached over and put her fingertip to his lips to encourage him to remain quiet for a bit longer.

“How emotionally invested are you in this?”

“In what?” he asked back.

“In finding a wife. Starting a family. Building a world of your own.”

“I will do it. I’m still learning a lot about courting women. The first ones haven’t gone that well, but I think I’m improving.”

She took a deep breath and released it. “Most who had such hurtful ways of those blossoming relationships ending would be heartbroken. You act as though you spilled a small amount of a drink. Almost as if it does not bother you at all.”

“No, it bothers me,” he insisted. “I’m thinking quite a bit of how to do better next time.”

“Next time.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Maceo, why are you doing this?” she asked him, rolling over to her side to face him directly. She also pulled on his shoulder and rolled him over to face her as well.

“Why?” he laughed to her. “Because you’re right. This is what men do. Find someone, build a life.”

“Is this fulfilling to you?”

“I haven’t exactly had any real success in this area yet. I know you’re right. It will be.”

She continued to look at him, now scrutinizing him and staring at him as though she were missing a crucial piece to this explanation.

“Tell me specifically why you want to do this,” she ordered him. Finally, he squirmed a little and she knew she had him. “Please, just tell me,” she insisted more softly.

“Because you wish it,” he answered her. He didn’t even need to think about it, nor did he take time to work up the courage to say it. He merely hadn’t said it to her because he wasn’t supposed to.

She stared into his eyes, neither bothered nor excited by his response. It had been so matter of fact, that it wasn’t clear exactly how to feel about his statement. “If it’s time for me to leave your temple, I understand,” he told her. She tucked her arm underneath her head and continued to watch him but surprisingly didn’t seem to have much else to say. After a very long pause of silence, she rolled over to her back again and stared up at the stars. She waited for him to do the same before she spoke again.

“I am looking forward to soaring the skies with you,” she told him.

“Then you’ll be pleased that I shouldn’t need that much longer to finish.

Four more days passed and Maceo worked diligently on his aeroplane working hand in hand with Astravia before it was finished. Another day in the magic shop and they had a working propulsion system and they were finally ready for tests, which Astravia provided for him. They tethered the machine down, fully loaded and Astravia produced a wind, slowly increasing it until it began lifting off of the ground of it’s own accord.

The next step was to try the same test with Maceo handling the controls and testing that they worked properly. Unfortunately, they proved to need some more adjustments, but by the next day, that was complete and they had a fully functioning flying machine and following lunch together, they walked out to the flying machine and Maceo climbed in.

“Keep your speed below the fourth notch and go gently,” she warned him. “This will likely be disorienting at first. You will be going so fast that you could reach town in less than twenty minutes.” Finally, she closed the dome of blown glass they’d used to seal the cockpit and he was ready to begin.

He nodded and then he fired his thrusters up and the craft began rolling down the street gradually and then a little more quickly, then a little more and then faster and faster as she watched him whirring up to a much faster speed than Maceo had ever gone before and then the craft began to lift into the air and climbed steadily.

She put her hand to her mouth and smiled at him with pride as he was finally flying on his own and doing so quite well. She let him circled the temple several times and change directions a number of times before she finally felt he’d gotten the hang of it and transformed and took to the skies herself.

When she pulled alongside him, he grinned to her and followed her lead, practicing a number of gentle maneuvers as he gained proficiency with the machine, flying on and higher until Maceo was comfortable enough that he increased his speed and pulled alongside Astravia. She looked his way, then increased her speed, so Maceo matched her again and again, carefully working to stay abreast of her at all times, though admittedly not particularly skillfully.

They soared for hours like this until Maceo pulled back on the throttle and began his descent back to the temple, letting Astravia know he was running low on fuel. She soared above him, watching carefully as he landed, a little lopsided and the plane wobbling and bouncing quite a bit, but successful, especially for his very first time and she waited for him to come to a stop and climb out of the cockpit before she swooped down, transformed into her normal self and dropped to her knees, scooping him up into her arms and hugging him.

“You did so well!” she exclaimed, squeezing him and nuzzling him proudly.

“I made a number of mistakes,” he countered as she finally set him on his feet again, quite red and flustered.

“Of course you did,” she smiled. “But you were safe and did well! I did not even have to intervene even slightly! Maceo, did you even see that you were traveling over 200 miles per hour?”

“No,” he remarked, stunned. “It seemed much slower than that. But… how does a hawk fly 200 miles per hour?”

“Because I am not a hawk, silly,” she told him playfully, hugging him again. “Even transformed. I can fly at speeds much faster than a normal bird. You were wonderful!” she squealed with delight.

That evening over dinner, she was glowing with enthusiasm about how well he’d done, giving him all kinds of pointers and feedback to a point where he actually had to ask her to slow down. She went on and on about all of the different things he could encounter in the air that were normal for her and hours into their conversation, she finally took a breath and looked at him.

“When can we go again?” she asked him excitedly.

Tickled, he smiled back at her, “tomorrow.”

The next three days were spent almost daybreak to sunset in the air, only landing for more fuel or to eat as his hours in the air improved his skills and by the third day, they weren’t just flying together, they were performing simple maneuvers in formation with each other. Then when he surprised her and managed a barrel roll around her as they flew together, she led him directly back down to the ground where he expected a lecture, but instead, he wasn’t even out of his cockpit before she was scooping him up into her arms and giggling and laughing with him in excitement.

At that point, Maceo asked to pull back a bit on the flight time so that he could work on other projects, limiting it to one flight for a couple hours each day. Astravia was a little sad to hear it, but she agreed, taking advantage of what time she did have in the sky as their maneuvers gradually developed into dancing in the sky, which only served to make Astravia all the more giddy.

They were two weeks in to their flying practice together when Maceo let her know over dinner that he should head into town soon to see to his business. That moment was like a sledgehammer to her excitement, though she did her very best to hide her disappointment. That evening, she sat in her study while he slept and began examining each and every one of the women in town with a careful and scrutinizing eye.

Unfortunately, there was far more than one suitable bachelorette, and as Astravia replayed past scenarios back and forth, focusing on each woman, she found that there was no shortage of women who were noticing and even having biological reactions to Maceo in his past encounters with them.

She sighed as she looked over the glut of women in search of a husband in this backwards little town where a number of the men had been lost in accidents or war. “The little sickly girl was correct. Every time he goes there, it will just happen again and again. Or worse, he’ll develop a reputation as good luck to any woman who seduces him.”

She waved the images away and then leaned back in her chair, contemplating dourly. “He knows the rules. He will not violate them,” she muttered, then was silent for the remainder of the night and deep in thought, not even bothering to move from her seat.

The sun was up before she realized she’d spent the entire night stewing and she walked to her balcony where she could see Maceo already up and heading to the metalworking shop. She jumped over the ledge and flew over to the shop in her hawk form, then transformed back and walked in with a perky smile.

“Good morning!” he greeted her happily. He was a little embarrassed at first, but decided it best to come clean and held up the giant bracelet crafted for her. “It’s almost done,” he reported with a smile. She knelt down and accepted it from him, grinning at it from ear to ear.

“It is lovely.”

“When I’m better at this one day I might be able to make you one that rivals the ones in your jewelry boxes.” She doubled her smile for him, then reached over and set it gently on the workbench.

“Would you like to go for a flight?” she asked him excitedly.

“I’d love to, but could I finish this project first?” he asked. She frowned briefly, but then smiled again.

“You can finish your project later, Maceo. Please, come fly with me,” she asked. He looked convinced, then looked at his work again, thinking better of the decision.

“I do need to go into town soon. If I don’t finish this today then I won’t be ready to go tomorrow morning.”

“What is one more day?” she asked him, playfully tugging on his hands. “Come! Fly with me!” she said to him excitedly. Again he looked at his work and considered how much he had yet to do that day. Her timing was quite inconvenient.

“If I finish my project first and then spend twice as much time with you in the air today, would that work?” he offered. “I’ll skip lunch to fly with you,” he added.

Surprisingly, she seemed a little sad by his offer, but accepted nonetheless and left the room with no further pressure, though Maceo did call out to her before she had left the building. “I’ll make sure I’m done early,” he promised.

Maceo did make good on his promise. Before his normal time to finish this area of his work, he appeared at Astravia’s quarters, ready to fly. She did seem a little melancholy, but cheered up as they strode out to the aeroplane and prepared it for launch.

Once in the air, the pair played and danced with more energy than they had in all of the days before since learning to take flight and they went until Maceo was almost completely out of fuel, using up much more than the time Maceo had promised her. When she landed behind him, she transformed again and ran up to the little mortal. “Let’s go again!” she insisted.

Once again, Maceo was torn, but again his eyes moved toward his responsibilities.

“I still have work to get done, Astravia,” he told her. “If I fly again, I’ll have to skip dinner with you tonight because there’s still so much to get done before I leave in the morning.”

She smiled rather sadly at him, and then looked at the late day sun, which wouldn’t last much longer. “Go,” she encouraged with a smile. “I would much rather share dinner.”

Maceo worked in the magic shop and as the sun set, Astravia strode in hurriedly, catching his eye as she approached. “I’ll be done soon, I promise,” he told her, a little frustrated by the amount of time she was consuming this day.

“I can finish this for you while you sleep. I do not even really need sleep,” she insisted.

“But this is my work,” he insisted. “It’s not right. I need to be able to do this on my own,” he insisted. Again, Astravia seemed uncharacteristically upset and dare say… needy.

“At least let me help, then,” she insisted. “That is fair, is it not? We can get it done much faster together.”

“Alright,” he agreed, and then the pair worked diligently, and as promised they finished in much less than the time expected.

“Now come to dinner, Maceo. I have made something very special for you,” she promised pulling on his hands excitedly.

Indeed she had made him a special meal. More accurately, a feast in his honor. He was quite taken aback as she shared delicacies she’d never shared with him before and laughed at him due to the limits of his mortal stomach.

It was a lovely meal, though strangely, there was a certain tenseness in the air that Maceo couldn’t help but notice. They talked, but Astravia seemed almost nervous as they feasted and she seemed a little more giggly than normal when he would crack a joke. Finally, they sat out on the poolside between bright pyres nibbling on dessert and dipping their feet in the water. Maceo did his best to keep the conversation going and light, but Astravia now seemed distracted. Finally, he spoke up during one of their awkward silences.

“Something is on your mind. Something important to you,” he told her. She struggled to make eye contact and lost the battle. “Is it time now? Have you decided that I need to leave your temple?”

She looked at him, then her lap, then him, and strangely, she seemed very nervous. He was about to speak up again when she put her giant hand over his. “No,” she answered very gently. “No, I am not ready for you to leave this temple.”

Again, they sat like this in silence, Maceo choosing to accept that silence and they watched the night sky together until the fires were low and at risk of burning out. The night was now cool and a breeze swept by, giving him goose bumps.

“I want you to know how happy I am spending time like this with you,” he told her. “I hope I didn’t give you any other impression today.”

“No,” she smiled quite happily. “You certainly did not.” Again there was silence and he looked down at the water.

“It’s very late,” he noted. “And I have to head out early tomorrow if I want to be back here at a reasonable time. I should get to bed,” he told her. Her brow furrowed ever so slightly, but she said nothing. With no other feedback, he climbed to his feet and turned to leave.

“Good night Astravia. I’m sorry if I showed you any frustration today. This was one of the greatest days of my life.” She smiled a bit wider at this compliment but said nothing, so he began walking away. He was nearly to the corner of her quarters when she turned around.

“Maceo,” she called out. Her voice was soft, but in the still night it carried like a light feather dancing on a summer breeze. He stopped and turned to acknowledge her and as he did so, she climbed to her feet and walked over to him blushing and this titaness, this fifteen foot tall goddess, seemed almost petite the way she looked down at him.

“Yes Astravia,” he answered her, smiling up at her in a manner to try to please her.

“Is the only reason you are looking for a wife and a family simply to please me? Is that really all you are doing it for?”

He gulped hard, stalling for time, though this did him no good. “Yes,” he answered her.

“Tell me why, Maceo,” she ordered though it seemed more like a request. “Why do you wish to find a woman whom you actually have no real feelings for?”

“Marriage isn’t about flights of fancy,” Maceo began to explain, but she raised her hand, signaling for him to stop.

“Please tell me,” she asked, much more gently this time.

“Because I am in love with you Astravia,” he answered. “I have been since I first saw you. I know it’s wrong, I know what the punishment is for saying that, but I love you and I would do anything to make you happy.”

“Including being with a woman who is not me?”

“You tasked me with building a business, and I’ll conquer that. You asked that I find another, so I will, whatever it takes.” She stared down at him, though her expression made her seem actually fragile. “If you asked me to serve here for the rest of my life, I would do that even more happily.”

“Because?”

“Because I am in love with you, Astravia.”

Her smile softened, as did her gaze. There was a long pause of silence between them and then she took a breath, and finally raised her hands to her shoulders, grasped the straps of her dress and pulled them free. As she did so, her entire dress descended gracefully down her soft, womanly figure, first revealing beautiful, full and large breasts with pert, swollen, stiff nipples and puffy areolas, then down exposing her taught stomach, then over her hips revealing a womanly mound of gentle waves of golden pubic hairs, finely trimmed and a pair of vaginal lips, perfect and creasing in and upward and already glistening with just a touch of dampness.

Maceo could only stand still. No mortal had ever been known to see Astravia naked and live, and yet here she was, exposing herself fully to him. What was more, his heart pounded with such power and fury that his well-earned inhibitions were finally breaking down as the object of his greatest desires stood before him in all her glory.

She smiled to herself as his body finally showed signs she’d seen before in every mortal man who desired her. Long suppressed and finally after years of denial impossible to ignore. She lowered herself to her knees, her labia opening slightly as she dropped herself fully to the ground, where even slumped forward, her luscious mammary orbs were hanging free immediately in front of him and he was still only a little over shoulder height to her.

This entire scene was unreal, the giant woman, very obviously desiring him and smiling to him, blushing heavily as though it were her first time. She remained perfectly still and in a moment, it was clear that she’d gone this far, but would go no further to him, so he took a step forward to her, which made her smile, become even more nervous, more anxious, then another and another until he was standing between her thighs, the heat from her sex palpable before him.

Her breathing was noticeable and anxious and her left breast quivered rhythmically from her own heartbeat, which pounded more quickly than expected and he did the unthinkable. He reached up to her, lifted up onto his toes and she leaned down to meet him, their lips meeting rather delicately, but still with warmth and passion.

A moment later, each of his hands were holding her cheeks and she wrapped a hand around his back as their kisses moved to open mouthed with their disparately sized tongues playing with each other. She sighed gently and her hand tensed, almost lifting him from the ground and they continued to kiss like this at length until her entire body shivered slightly and she leaned down a little harder into her kiss, nearly overwhelming her much smaller partner.

When he pulled harder on her cheeks, she grinned and then she cupped him in her hands and lifted him up, still grinning as they continued to kiss and then slowly laid back on the ground with him on top of her, his hips nestled comfortably between her breasts. She lowered her hands to her side and then cupped her breasts, pressing them up against him and surrounding his hips and thighs as they continued to kiss while she squeezed her breasts and pushed them up and down, encouraging him to pump his hips into her.

He was completely lost in the sensations of feeling this actual goddess against his body and for a brief moment, there was a small amount of hesitation on his part, the better part of his mind, struggling to break through like a drowning swimmer penetrating through the surface of the water again through nothing more than sheer will to survive.

He pulled back from their kiss, showing his trepidation, which only seemed to comfort her more, her smile widening, and she leaned up to him, continuing the kiss and drawing this drowning swimmer back under with her.

He finally completely lost himself in her, kissing her more and more fervently, sometimes as best as he could her whole mouth, but more often one lip, then the other, his kisses quickly becoming more and more forceful, which given her size was quite welcome.

She slid her hand up past her nipple and pinched his shirt, then pulled it up until it hooked on his arms. He stopped kissing her and then pushed himself upright, now kneeling on her chest and pulled it over his head, while she took the opportunity to unbuckle his pants and pull them down, smirking at his erect cock as it popped free into view.

With a finger, she pressed on his chest until he was sitting on her and then she pulled his pants off with her thumbs and forefingers and tossed them aside before tugging on his hands to encourage him to lie on her once more.

Once he was on his stomach, she pressed her massive breasts up and around them and leaned up to kiss him, stroking his lower body with her breasts and encouraging him to pump his hips against her, slowly at first, then faster and harder until he was panting and beginning to draw near to a conclusion merely by fucking her titanic breasts with his entire body. She let go of them and pushed him up to his knees and his erection popped free once again, pointing directly out at her.

She smiled at it, then him and then she raised a hand and wrapped her pinky, then ring finger and then middle finger around it, with the head peaking out just beyond that point, then she wrapped her final finger around it, her entire gigantic hand encompassing his cock quite easily and she began stroking it slowly and methodically while his body moved with her, his eyes closed and sighing with satisfaction until she decided this too was too close to his limit and then unwrapped her fingers, only stopping to notice the strange look on his face.

“What is wrong?” she cooed up at him. He blushed and looked around this giant woman he was kneeling naked on, trying to gather words. “You feel inadequate,” she deduced, still quite gently.

“Can you blame me?” he asked her. “Would you even feel me?” he asked, nodding to his cock.

Her smile widened again and she petted it with a pair of fingers.

“I will feel it,” she told him in a lustful whisper. “You are actually quite large for a mortal.”

“But not for a god,” he pointed out. She laughed at him ever so slightly, stroking his cock with more earnest, adding her thumb to the equation and causing him to moan in pleasure.

“Would you deny a goddess her wish?” she asked him. He swallowed hard and shook his head, which made her grin and laugh a little. “You are so difficult to overwhelm!” she giggled. “I’ve finally found your weakness!”

He laughed as well until she stroked his cock a little more quickly, cooing as his body wavered and he seemed to become woozy. “I didn’t actually keep it a secret,” he eventually managed to mutter through an unsteady voice.

“Compared to almost all other men?” she asked with a laugh. “It may as well have been a secret hidden ten feet under silt at the bottom of the ocean!” They both laughed at this and she slowed her stroking of his member. “Will you fulfill my wish?” she asked him very softly. He nodded and with a fingertip she pressed on his shoulders until he was on all fours. “I want to feel it drag against my skin as you go,” she whispered.

He lowered his body until the tip was pressed against her skin and then he kissed her tenderly, making her sigh happily. She then pressed on his shoulders and he worked his way backward, down her titanic form, though she did press her enormous breasts up and stroked his body with them as he descended her body.

He crawled backwards, kissing her skin every inch of the way and dragging his penis against her just as asked as she sighed over and over and her body slowly squirmed and she cooed down to him and then as he approached her hips, she opened her legs, bending her knees and curling them as she angled her hips slightly upward. When he was finally far enough down, he crawled backward over her pelvis until he was kneeling in between her naked thighs and she lifted her head up, looking down at him, placing one hand around his butt and the other between her legs as the much smaller mortal knelt there, his hard cock laying firmly against the folds of her slit.

Kneeling like this, his thighs were only slightly longer than her hips were thick and he gasped as she pressed on his rod and began pumping her hips up and down against it, stroking her ridiculously wet labia against the length of his cock. He pressed his hands down on her hips and ground with her, struggling to concentrate and unable to keep his eyes open as she too moaned with pleasure until she shivered unexpectedly, and then she slowed her movements gradually to a stop and looked down at him with wanting eyes.

She lessened the pressure of her hand on his backside, allowing him a bit of room to work with and then bit her lip in a rather suggestive manner, waiting.

He, of course, stalled, needing a moment to process what was happening and more importantly what was about to happen. He’d never been remotely this close before with any woman, let alone with a goddess. She must have sensed his apprehension, however, and stroked his length with her fingers, pressing down on it against her wet pussy that was already coating much of his hips in her plentiful juices.

He rallied his courage and gripped his dick and pressed down on it as she angled her hips a little further up to meet him and then pressed the head against her vagina, sliding it in quite smoothly and slowly as she tensed, her back arched and she sighed with pleasure as she felt Maceo enter her and press within her until their hips were pressed against each other.

She grabbed his ass again, this time with both hands and pulled him tightly against her, grinding her naked, sopping and neglected pussy against him over and over and over again with warm sighs until she seemed content and then looked at him somewhat hungrily and guided his hips back and forth in a steady thrust in and out of her, which made her moan very softly.

She continued until he seemed to be growing out of breath and growing weary, with sweat pouring down his body and sighed one more time with one hard pull of him against her body, then she slowed him to a stop. Once in that position, she rolled over to her side, having him straddle her right thigh which was as thick as his body and pulled her left leg up into the air, all the while keeping him inside of her. She pulled his arms forward and he wrapped them around her skyward pressing thigh.

“Go hard,” she told him. “Go as hard as you can,” she encouraged.

He began pumping himself in and out of her, gradually building up speed. “Harder,” she encouraged. “Harder!”

Faster and more forcefully he went with Astravia sighing quite contently and closing her eyes, even fingering her clitoris slightly as he hammered away harder and harder until she let loose an actual soft moan, which was by itself enough to coax Maceo over the edge and cum inside of her with a loud moan while convulsing as his stored up seed coursed up inside of her.

When he finally calmed, he was still hugging her massive thigh, still ball deep inside of her, panting and struggling to stay upright.

She let him have his moment, then grabbed him with both hands and pulled him up to her, kissing him sweetly while also pressing her breasts up and around him while cooing happily at him.

They lay like this for some time while Maceo pulled his senses together and looked up at her, gaining a smile and an affectionate kiss. There was a silence, which Astravia decided to break.

“So, your first time,” she noted with a giggle.

“Was I that bad?” he asked her, suddenly self-conscious for the first real time since she’d met him. She was quite tickled by it, but also the dignity he retained when he shared it with her.

“Not at all,” she encouraged him. “You were quite wonderful.” He took a deep breath and relaxed, but she tipped his head up to look at her. “Now do not go getting an exaggerated ego…” she began and surprised Maceo with a healthy blush, “but I… feel rather lucky that I had that honor.”

Maceo blushed quite heavily as well, still struggling for words. Thankfully, Astravia was proving to be understanding.

“That feels very backwards,” he told her with an awkward smile once he’d had enough time to process her compliment.

“I know,” she whispered to him. “I do not say it lightly.”

She pulled him up, letting him rest his head on her shoulder, but still rubbed her massive breasts around him. “I’m not supposed to be allowed to ever touch you,” he finally managed to tell her, addressing the elephant in the room. She took a deep breath and then tipped his chin up again to look at him.

“I recently realized that… for once… you refusing to touch me was becoming as difficult for me as it was for you. I woke up one evening… surprised that you were in my thoughts. What you said regarding your reasons why you were searching for a woman were more than I could bear.” She now swallowed hard and took a breath before letting her head drop again. “It has been so long,” she noted to herself.

“How long?”

“More than 8 millennia.”

“That’s a very long time,” he agreed. She laughed and squeezed him and kissed the top of his head.

“I still broke your most important rule,” he reminded her.

“We are beyond rules now,” she told him, petting him affectionately. She then looked at him and smirked. “You are a mess!” she laughed. “Let us get you cleaned up,” she suggested, trying to sit up, but stopped. “Unless you still do not wish me to wash you.”

“This is WHY I didn’t want you to wash me back then!” he laughed.

“No.” she remarked disbelievingly. “You were not old enough at the time.”

“It was the first time it had ever done that to me, when you picked me up and pressed me against your breast. I was insanely embarrassed.”

“No!” she remarked in shock. “I caused your first erection? Simply by picking you up? I could have sworn you weren’t quite old enough yet.”

“You really are that beautiful,” he told her.

“Well then you made the right choice being so adamant with me,” she agreed. “I certainly was not ready at that time. It would have been quite the impediment to get to this point.”

“You weren’t ready? I was only 12!” Maceo laughed at her.

“I have never heard of a mortal male who did not have adolescent fantasies of a mature woman,” she remarked with awe.

“Oh, I discovered those fantasies extremely quickly after meeting you. I just wasn’t ready.”

“How peculiar,” she noted, looking him up and down. “Well, in any event, you are right. Such a thing when you were at that stage would not have been a positive event.”

“And now?” he asked her, still a bit concerned about what they’d just done.

She took in a very deep breath and released it slowly. “We shall see,” she told him. “Would you like me to wash you?” she asked him with a playful grin.

“Probably more than I should admit,” he laughed, which proved to be contagious.

She carried him up to her bedchamber and into the bathroom where she drew a hot shower and lathered him up as well as herself, and she giggled that shortly into this exercise he became hard again. “You have good stamina for a mortal as well,” she laughed. He blushed, but she lowered herself to the ground again, this time leaned up against the shower’s wall and guided him between her legs again.

Once more she sighed as he entered her and they worked him in and out of her again until once more he spilled his seed inside of her. She then cleaned them off once more and set him on the floor while they both dried themselves off.

The silence grew awkward again, but not nearly as badly as before as she walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. It certainly wasn’t clear where to go from here. Was this just a quick romp and he should be on his way, or was it something else entirely? She looked over her shoulder down at him as he finished drying himself, a smile creeping across her lips and long dormant feelings awakening as those embers stoked back to life again.

“Come to bed, my dearest Maceo,” she told him softly. He looked up at her, a bit surprised, and then she let go of her towel and let it fall to the floor before reaching her hand out back to him.

He also dropped his towel and followed her and a few moments later, they were lying in bed together facing each other, he resting on a pillow beside her. “Are you sure that one a third as long as one a being your size was enough? Or were you just being charitable?”

She laughed happily at him, tucking her arm under her ear and petting his cheek with her fingertip. “I felt you,” she promised him, “and you felt very good. I did not know you had self doubt,” she giggled.

“I don’t,” he answered. “Because I have you.”

When Astravia opened her eyes again after a night’s sleep, she found Maceo still asleep as the sun’s first light began to trickle in. She stared at him quietly, remaining as still as possible until he finally moved and rolled over to find her smiling softly to him. He shifted under his covers blushing a little as he reconfirmed that both he and she were still naked.

“No, it was not a dream,” she teased him with a bright smile.

“I’m pretty certain it was,” he answered back causing a little giggle and a bit of a blush. She smiled and petted his cheek with her fingertip again. “I don’t feel like it…” he began, struggling to put his words together, “not even a little, but I still need to ask.” She nodded to him and waited. “Was last night a mistake?”

“I do not know,” she answered with a rather concerned expression. “But I do not regret it.”

They lay like this quietly, still staring at each other when the sun’s light grew more obvious. She looked out the window and took another deep breath. “You will have to get going if you intend to get to town as planned.”

“What’s one more day?” he asked her with a heart-warming smile.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Mon Jun 13, 2022 3:19 am

Over breakfast that morning, they still were having difficulty filling in conversation, given this cataclysmic shift in their relationship. Surprisingly, Maceo was proving to show a fair amount of initiative in that regard, which was quite helpful to Astravia who was not at all accustomed to such feelings of awkwardness or undecidedness.

“Do we go back to the way things were?” he asked her. She looked over to him, seemingly unhappy with the way he’d phrased his question. “Astravia, I would like to be completely up front.”

“Of course,” she agreed.

“Being with you is all that I have ever wanted, but it’s something I have always read and you have told me could never be. You said you don’t know if this was a mistake, which is a little unnerving, given the fact that… well you’re the queen of all gods. I’ve got two problems.”

“And what are they?” she asked, now looking at him with much greater respect.

“The first is that you have always been right about that burning in my blood. I’ve always held it back, but it’s much stronger now than it was before. I’m still sure it’s controllable, but it’s so much more intense now. The second is… what are my boundaries now? Am I aloud to touch you? Am I aloud to speak out of turn? I’ve always tried to be respectful but if we don’t go back to how we were before… it changes things. It changes them a lot.”

“Indeed it does,” she agreed, then took a sip of tea, thinking carefully. “I have not had any conversation like this in so long,” she pondered.

“But you have had them.”

“Not with a mortal,” she shared. “I will not go back to the way things were,” she decided. “This has been growing inside of me and I am not going to suppress it any longer. I… I cannot believe I am about to admit this aloud,” she said, surprised by herself. “Waiting and hoping for your touch was getting to be too much to bear until I finally had to tell myself that you would never break the rules unless I made it as obvious as possible. And quite frankly, I was not about to ask you to suck on my nipple.”

“I actually didn’t do that last night,” he pointed out and laughed at her boisterously when she blushed heavily at that admission. “You see? That’s actually part of the problem. This time yesterday, I knew I absolutely could not make a joke like that to you, and I’d be surprised if you didn’t at least reprimand me for it.”

“Your people have a strange habit,” she told him. “It is one of your most endearing qualities, but also one I had not decided how to deal with before other gods began establishing themselves here. That is the habit of viewing myself and others like me as… conceptually equal. Your people are easily aware of the differences between myself and them, but… I will simply say that most gods would not be as considerate of such notions.”

“So where does that leave me?”

“You are my equal,” she determined, looking him squarely in his eyes. “You do not have my abilities or my perceptions, but the number of times you have challenged me and pushed my preconceptions proves it. You will treat me as your equal from now on. It will certainly take some getting used to, however.”

“And… sex?”

“Oh, yes, please,” she said as though a tremendous weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “As much as you want, as much as you can handle. I haven’t had any in so long and I am… so… horny.”

“Like… right now?” She laughed and almost spilled her drink.

“Perhaps one day like that, but no. I do not think you understand, however. I am so wound up that I am not exaggerating when I say I could spent hours having sex every day for the next century and still be eager for more. I am so wound up!” she told him with a nervous giggle.

“So what about last night? How… good was it?”

“Well how good was it for you?” she asked back a bit sarcastically.

“Better than I ever imagined possible.”

“I asked you how a six foot tall man having sex with a fifteen foot tall woman would work,” she laughed, almost tearfully, “and you were honestly quite good at it. Much better than I’d expected.”

“It didn’t seem like you…”

“Like I what?” she asked him, setting her tea down.

“Like you climaxed.”

“Oh, no. Certainly not,” she admitted. “I had not had sex in over eight thousand years, but I have not had an orgasm in…” she thought and pondered for a moment. “At least a hundred and fifty thousand years,” she decided. “Probably longer. It is becoming a bit of a distant memory,” she laughed.

“Then I should fix that,” Maceo offered with a sly grin. She laughed and almost spilled her tea again.

“Oh, you are sweet,” she said, now actually wiping a tear from her eye. “You are big enough that I do feel you and it feels quite nice. But it is not big enough to reach where I would need it to in order to do that. Besides, goddesses are much more difficult to coax into that condition than a mortal woman, and many mortal women have trouble getting there themselves.”

“Challenge accepted,” Maceo answered seriously. Astravia laughed almost hysterically, but Maceo remained confident, a sly grin on his lips and staring ahead clearly into her eyes. She slowly stopped laughing, intrigued by this strange confidence emanating from him.

“You think so,” she said to him leadingly. He merely nodded to her, his confidence apparently growing now. She chuckled a little to herself and sipped her tea while also blushing more heavily now. “Well, I will certainly enjoy the attempts regardless,” she answered back daresay nervously.

As they neared the end of breakfast, she laughed again at him. “So sex with a goddess was better than you’d imagined, had you ever envisioned talking about sex with a goddess?”

“Well… no,” Maceo answered her, happy that the tension between them both now seemed to be fading. “I guess I didn’t exactly know how to talk about it.”

“You are doing quite well,” she laughed.

“I do have something much more important I need to discuss,” Maceo diverted, interesting Astravia even more.

“Oh?” she asked, giving him her full attention once again.

“Will you come fly with me?” Her grin spread from ear to ear and she sat up pertly as though this were a question she didn’t even know she wanted answered. They had the golems clean up after them and then proceeded out to the aero plane, checking it over for any issues together with Astravia leading him and teaching him more about the problems that had to be considered with these types of craft when Maceo paused and thought for a moment, lost and Astravia only turned to look at him when she asked a question of him and he didn’t answer.

“What is wrong?” she asked him.

“A thought just occurred to me,” he pondered. She dropped to her knees and took his hand in both of her much larger ones. He looked down, surprised, but also happy to see such contact and she reacted the same when he kissed her hand.

“What kind of thought?” she asked him.

“I doubt it’s something you’re interested in,” he considered, “but it just occurred to me.”

“And what is that?”

“Well, this craft has stored air for when it goes so high the air is too thin.” She nodded and acknowledged. “I know the answer is yes, but… if there are cultures that create ships that soar in the clouds, are there also cultures that create ships that can sail beneath the waves?”

“Oh, of course. These technologies typically develop around the same time in a culture. Usually with the submariner ships developing slightly before the air craft.”

“What do you think about these submariner ships?”

“They are interesting,” she admitted. “Typically it is the only way that a mortal will be able to travel to a sea bed. You are dreaming of making one, aren’t you?” He nodded and acknowledged her question.

“It occurred to me that you could have just given me wings to fly with you the same way you gave me lungs to breath under water. So why not build a craft like that too?”

“No, there are reasons why I gave you one and not the other,” she answered. “I only altered your lungs a little and most of that was introducing an organ that would convert water as it enters into your body to concentrate the oxygen in the water. Giving you wings is not a modification, it is an entirely new set of organs.”

“But you could easily do that,” he pondered.

“Yes, but as I said, there are reasons I did not.”

“Such as?”

“I would have to change a great deal of the building block of your body for one. Adjusting your lungs was much easier than you might think. If you remember, long ago, your species developed from water breathing creatures to begin with. The scripting for that is already there in your cells. Flight was something that developed much later and only among a few animals that were long since departed from the line your species developed from.”

“Does this make it more difficult?”

“It makes it different. We can go over that another time. So you wish to create a submariner ship.”

“Would you enjoy it?”

“Typically no,” she answered. “The glass you can create will shatter long before you could even get down to the sunken ship in the pool. Even among relatively advanced cultures, their most effective ships of this type have no windows at all. Besides, an air ship that can hang in the air has its purposes for what we wish to do. A submariner ship like that will not. Those vessels are rarely able to serve any purpose other than as weapons or sometimes for exploration.”

“I’m very interested in exploration.”

“We would be better using the method I used on you, then. The way they must work is you create a container that is sealed so tightly no water or air can get in and they must carry even more air than your air craft does. It will not be able to have any windows with the tools you have at your disposal and it will completely isolate you from everything you are trying to dive down to experience. And that is just for starters. They are interesting craft, but to be honest, I am not particularly interested in riding in one right now. I’m not sure how much you would enjoy it either, given how excited you were to dive so deep and see and touch everything yourself.”

He nodded and agreed with her. “Another question?”

“Of course,” she smiled happily back.

“How fast can you fly?” he asked her.

“I assume you mean if I limit myself to only using my wings to propel me.”

“Okay, yes.” She stopped and considered his query.

“That is an interesting question,” she told him. “I am not certain. I’ve never tried to really test myself.”

“How fast is the most that you think is fun, then?”

She tapped her finger on her knee and thought hard. “It takes a lot of effort for me to reach 250 miles per hour like that. I suppose I’ve had fun a little over three hundred miles per hour.”

“How fast can this craft go?”

“With this type of design?” she considered, tapping her finger again. “The materials are the biggest problem. They are still very rudimentary. I would not recommend more than 300 miles per hour. I am afraid you will not be winning any races with me. At least not with this craft.”

“So there are craft that can outrun you?”

“If I only rely on my wings? Oh yes, but remember, I have many other tricks I can use to get around those physical limitations.”

“I think you nudged me along on this design specifically because you knew it would fly right in that sweet spot you think is fun,” he teased her.

“I think you are correct,” she teased back, leaning down and whispering in his ear and then blushed as he kissed her on her cheek unexpectedly. She laughed a little and sat up, then leaned down and kissed him on his lips very gently. “Now you promised me a flight,” she pointed out.

He nodded and then he finished the inspection and flight prep and then she stood and watched as he took off and then she transformed and followed suit.

They danced with each other for hours, this time venturing farther away from the temple and even around some nearby mountain tops until he noticed that Astravia was intentionally drawing him away, so he followed her until they were back over the temple and finally Maceo was forced to bring the craft down for lack of fuel. She landed and transformed beside him and walked up to him and dropped to her knees in front of him.

“I need you to know right away why I lead you away from those peaks,” she told him. “The winds around those kinds of places tend to be very wild. I can see the paths of the wind, whereas you cannot, but even so, I want you to be very careful about flying in places such as those at least until you become much more skilled in this craft.” He nodded and took her advice to heart. “Your fearlessness sometimes worries me,” she admitted.

“I only have a limited time either way,” he pointed out.

“As do I now. Let us try to spend as much of it as we can together,” she encouraged.

The next day, Astravia saw him out to the main gate where she knelt in front of him and kissed him goodbye at daybreak. “I look forward to seeing you when you get home,” she told him softly before he climbed up into his seat and took the reigns. He sat there, smiling to himself and she was too curious to let it go unanswered so she leaned closely, tugging on his arm and asking, “what exactly is so amusing?”

“Well, I’m going there and I’m a bit excited to be able to say that I’m not in a position to entertain new ladies anymore, except… I’m not exactly sure how to do that. I can’t exactly tell them that I can’t cheat on the queen of all gods.”

Astravia snickered as well and looked him up and down. “I’m glad you brought it up since I am not sure how I would react to whatever it is that mind of yours creates.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Tell them you’ve been hurt by your experiences with Lale and Elaheh and that you need time to heal.” He laughed and shook his head.

“So, lie,” he concluded. She now laughed at him, thinking to herself about the entire situation.

“Simply tell them that after Lale and Elaheh, you need time to think about what you are looking for. This is the truth. This relationship will be quite an adjustment.” He nodded and then received another kiss before riding off into town.

Once there, he met with Gaeten and Cajsa at their shop and also received the first payment back on his loan to them. He traded goods with a number of merchants and got feedback on other items that would be needed when a pair of the elders approached wanting a moment of his time.

Once off in a private area, they explained their new concerns to Maceo. Unfortunately, the many thieves and bandits around the mountain were now feeling the pressure from the increased security around town and the expanded patrols to try to keep them in check. The increased trade in the area had also drawn more in to the region in search of easy targets, only to find more of their kind than could operate in the region and also much more tightly secured than expected.

Their request was simple enough. They wanted to form a party to set out with the purpose of dealing with these bandits.

“Gaeten said that on your caravan you showed you were a skilled swordsman,” one elder told him. Maceo took a step back and considered their position. “We know we’re asking a lot…” he began to say, which seemed to be an increasingly common statement. Maceo cut them off by holding up his hand and pondered another moment longer.

“This won’t work,” Maceo finally decided. “I’ve been out on those roads and it’s everything that’s down the mountain from here. Sending me out with a few others isn’t going to change the fact that these thugs are here looking for easy targets. This town is obviously not an easy target anymore, so then what are they targeting?”

The elders looked at each other and thought over his question. “The new caravans coming in and the other settlements on and around the mountain,” one answered.

“I can give you advice. I can even help give you supplies, but heading out and cutting one or two of these bandits down won’t change the fact that those targets are still there. They’ll just keep coming back as long as there’s something to come back to.”

“So what do we do?”

“If I were you,” he began slowly gathering his thoughts, and then nodding with confidence, “I would make contact with the other settlements in the area. Bring them here as soon as possible to hold a summit.”

“A summit for what?”

“It’s a shared problem now, so I would suggest the towns band together and each contribute to a security force. A militia.”

“With your skills and your abilities, we thought that maybe you could… help run out a large enough group to make a statement.”

“And then what?” Maceo asked him directly. “I’m not dedicating my life to chasing down bandits. You make your statement and then what happens if they decide to test your resolve? What if it doesn’t intimidate them? You act as if putting up a sign that you don’t like them will be enough to convince them to simply walk away. You need a consistent presence, and this town can’t provide enough men to deal with the problem. They’re too spread out. Build a militia, bring in the other communities. If they don’t want to contribute, then work with the ones that will and establish at least one road that can be secured up to you. If you can do that, then you can always build off of that. There are ancient waypoints on every road around this mountain that could be used as bases of operations. One big push with a large enough militia should be enough to cut the problem down to a more manageable level, and then a consistent militia presence spread out strategically should keep it in check. No statements, though. You want to make a statement to people who don’t want to talk to you. All they want is to raid your wealth and your homes.”

“A militia… would be very difficult. We’re hardly alone in having trouble making ends meet. We may be doing better now, but the other settlements aren’t. They can’t afford to arm and feed militia. Let alone pay them. You can’t exactly expect men to leave their homes and families for free.”

“How are my swords working out for you?”

“Very well,” the other elder reported. “They’re very good quality.”

“I’ll… I’ll try and round up a bit of help and I can supply you with more weapons as well as armor. I’ll offer it at a discounted price in order to try to get your militia functional, but only enough to get it functional. After that, we go back to my normal prices. Since you are in the best position with the funds to be able to shoulder this, I suggest you take the lead. You can provide militia with equipment and training and everything else can be worked out in as fair a trade as you can put together. I suppose that I can also go out on another caravan with your new magicians and see if we can’t raise a bit more money to fund the operation.”

They looked at each other, disappointed with the answer given. “Still, though… a show of force…” one tried to argue, but Maceo wasn’t interested.

“I already said that I’m not going to spend my life chasing down bandits. I’m sure you’re thinking that with the magic and training I have I could knock more than a few of these criminals down, but making a show like that comes with a price. I don’t think you want the attention you’ll bring down on yourselves if you try to do something that flashy. I’m warning you about that up front. Even if I did commit to this statement of yours, I’m not going to come back to help deal with the consequences because I warned you up front that they will come.”

The two elders looked at each other and nodded in agreement to Maceo, asking one more thing of him. “Would you be willing to head up this summit?”

Maceo unfortunately hadn’t considered they might ask this. After all, the enjoyment of coming to town certainly wasn’t the same now after the recent developments back in the temple. “When are you hoping to hold it? I’ve had a number of important issues come up recently that I need to see to,” he explained. Astravia, watching as usual, smiled and blushed a little at his statement.

“Three days?”

Maceo nodded and thought hard. “I’m assuming that this will take more than a day.”

“More than likely,” they admitted.

“Alright. I’ll be here. Get me a list of what you think you will need and in what quantity from me and I’ll see what of it I can get done before I come back. It’s short notice, though.”

The Elders thanked him for his time and were off, with Maceo standing with his hands on his hips and shaking his head. As he did so, Cajsa approached and tugged on his arm. He turned and acknowledged her and then shared a hug before asking her all about her adventures. Interestingly enough during their conversation and though it was only slipped in incidentally, she did mention a few boys around her age that had recently stopped by to talk to her.
Check out my SW story Please..: https://ckent45.deviantart.com/

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by Knightstable » Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:49 pm

Awesome updates!!

CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Tue Jun 14, 2022 2:41 am

Maceo returned to the temple earlier than planned and though he didn’t surprise Astravia, his early arrival did seem to be ahead of her schedule as for once, it was she who was eager to slip away to attend to other matters. She kissed him and even encouraged one of his hands inside of her blouse to tug on a squeeze her nipple, giving her a nice, pleasurable shiver.

As she stood and practically glided away, Maceo chuckled and called out to her, “Make sure you don’t take too long.”

She stopped and scrunched her lips, turning around and staring at him suspiciously.

“And why not?” she asked him, placing a hand on her hip as though she were about to lecture him.

“Because I’m making something special tonight for dinner for you,” he told her.

“And where exactly do you think I was going?” she asked him, smirking now uncontrollably and intentionally implying he’d just stolen her thunder.

“Your business is your business,” he answered back nonchalantly. “But please be back in time for dinner.”

“I was going to the kitchen to begin preparing for YOU!” she laughed at him.

“No you’re not,” Maceo informed her. Her eyes went wide, stunned by his impertinence, but also highly amused. “Maybe a refreshing swim would be good for you. But be back in time for dinner,” he reminded her with a surprising amount of confidence and a cheerful voice.

Astravia was beside herself, staring at him nearly slack jawed. “You did NOT just say that,” she remarked, though it was unclear whether she was addressing him or herself.

“I did,” Maceo answered back, folding his arms and lifting his chin as he doubled down.

Astravia was clearly conflicted. Part of her was tickled pink, but the other part of her struggling to remind her of her protocol. She stepped up to him, staring down at him over her bountiful bosom and her hands on her hips. “I know you’re going for intimidating, but all I’m seeing is more sexy,” he teased her, and this time her jaw really did drop.

“You forget yourself!” she exclaimed in disbelief and then dropped to her knees, pointing at him.

“Have I? Or did you forget that you did say it would take some getting used to?” he asked her, still refusing to back down. She sat up and back, looking down upon him, her mind spinning.

“This was not what I meant,” she blurted out.

“And what did you mean?”

“Well, not this!”

“So I’m not your equal.”

“Where did this sass come from?” she yelled, though a giggle slipped through as well. She covered her mouth, blushing.

“No sass. So which is it?”

“You realize that I could break you apart into less than your atoms with only a thought,” she told him, reasserting her dominance quite confidently again.

“And then who would be here to give you that orgasm you were looking forward to?” he asked her, still not backing down even an inch.

Her jaw nearly fell out of its socket, so shocked was she. “No one has EVER spoken to me like this! No one!” she said in complete disbelief.

“Perhaps someone should have,” Maceo suggested. She shook herself and gave him a double take. “You deserve to be treated for once and that is exactly what you are going to get. Unless of course proper decorum is more important to you. I want you to think. When was the last time you had this much fun in a conversation? Then go ahead and disintegrate me.”

Her eyes widened again, utterly bowled over by the sheer impudence. Then a smile crept across her lips, which she fought and lost her battle to gradually which then broke out into a snicker, which Maceo finally joined her in.

“This was a joke,” she declared, still stunned by the strange interaction.

“Not exactly. I am going to make you dinner tonight.”

“The last time… that I had this much fun in a conversation,” she asked herself, staring up into the sky. “The day I met you,” she answered. Now it was his turn to blush, which made her laugh and giggle and then dive down on him, pinning him beneath her massive tits to the ground with their lips millimeters apart.

“I really haven’t been ever spoken to like that. No one would have ever dared.” He leaned up and kissed her lips unexpectedly.

“You also said we were beyond the rules.”

“Gods do not speak to each other like this. Even among husband and wife.”

“I’m not a god,” Maceo pointed out.

She grinned down at him, staring at him with glossy eyes. “Even if you are right, this is still dancing on a line,” she informed Maceo who placed his hand on her cheek and kissed her again. “What happens when you cross that line?”

“Hopefully you’ll forgive me,” he answered her sweetly. “I’m only human, after all.” She laughed a little then smothered him with kisses.

“What are you manipulating me into?” she asked him.

“I’m more experimenting. I have some ideas of how to be happy together and I’m trying to figure them out.”

“This will be an interesting experiment,” she admitted, then kissed him again, this time with enough abandon that it covered most of his face. She then jumped to her feet and began strolling off casually. “You keep repeating this promise of an orgasm, but you have yet to deliver,” she teased over her shoulder as she walked away.

“Soon,” he promised. “A little patience, please. I’ve never touched a woman’s body like that until a couple nights ago.” She laughed and blushed a little again and strolled off, dropping the straps off her shoulders and letting her dress fall away to the ground and strode off completely nude.

“See you at dinner,” she promised and then strolled off toward the pool.

Maceo quickly made his way to her kitchen and began cooking as efficiently as he could, struggling with the much larger implements than were in his kitchen and relying heavily on the automation this kitchen had built in to help little mortals work here. He was quite cheerful in his work which lasted quite some time and was racing to finish when behind him, across the patio Astravia’s head popped up from under the water slowly like an alligator stalking her prey. She was grinning mischievously at him and lifted herself up onto the pool deck, still completely naked and dripping from head to toe with water as she sauntered in, each step crossing over the other intently.

“I do not recall ever making you wait for your dinner,” she teased him as she entered the kitchen.

“Well, I don’t exactly have powers that I can wave my fingers to finish preparations on command.”

“Are you insinuating that I cheat when I make you food to finish it at the right time?” she asked him, again thoroughly amused by his impudence.

“It’s hardly cheating if it’s as natural to you as breathing is to me.”

“I will have you know that I am very careful to time my preparations perfectly so that everything is precisely how it should be when you arrive,” she informed him with incredible poise and dignity.

“And you’ve never had to freeze time because something went wrong or there was a delay of some kind,” he teased over his shoulder. She bit her lip and smirked at him with an expression that had he turned to see it would tell him she’d been caught.

“Are you not even going to look at me?” she asked him coyly.

“I’m pretty sure if I got an erection right now I’d burn it off in the flame,” he answered back causing her to giggle.

She then leaned forward and pressed against him, her wet skin soaking through his shirt. He gulped hard as her breasts surrounded him, enveloped him and then she leaned her head down and gave him a tiny little nibble on his ear while pulling his pants down with her fingertips and fishing out his dick, stroking it with her fingers.

“I shall heal it,” she whispered and licked his earlobe with the tip of her tongue, sending shivers and goose bumps up his spine.

“I’m going to burn the food,” he pointed out, barely managing to get the words out of his mouth. She growled seductively in his ear and suddenly time froze around them.

“Next excuse,” she whispered as her fingers stroked his cock even faster.

“I was hoping to save myself for later,” he stuttered, his voice failing him. “I didn’t want to risk not being able to rise to the occasion.”

“Oh you will,” she told him firmly. “One way or another, you will.”

He sighed as her fingers wrapped around his cock a little more and stroked faster now. His back tensed as breasts wider than his torso rubbed around him, his arms draped over the top of them. Then he fell back into her, with her cooing as he fell under her spell and then he started laughing a little.

“You’re unnerved that I took the lead earlier,” he laughed at her, pulling her slightly out of her seductive game. “You’re using your feminine wiles to try to establish dominance again,” he teased her.

She clenched her jaw and glared at him with an enticing kind of frustration. “I am not trying, I am doing it,” she growled sexily to him. Just for that, she stroked him faster and harder, making the little mortal gasp and tense in her hands.

“Yeah, you are,” he admitted with a bit of a laugh, which she couldn’t help but catch on to as well.

“Grab my nipples,” she whispered to him. He looked up at her and then reached his hands forward and down, grabbing one in each hand and squeezed them. His body shivered and he only managed to get a peak at them as he grabbed them, nearly an inch and a half wide and stiff, protruding more than an inch out making them easy to manipulate with both his fingers and his hands. As he did so, he felt Astravia shiver behind him. “Do you like my breasts?” she asked him seductively.

“Of course. How could I not?” he asked, then sighed as she rewarded his penis for his answer.

“Some goddesses have complained they are too much. An exaggeration or a caricature.”

“I think they’re just jealous,” Maceo assured her.

“I love them,” she whispered to him. “I love how they bounce and I love the attention they grab and I love the way they swing when I move quickly. I love how they hypnotize almost everyone who gazes upon them. They make me feel powerful.”

“No arguments here,” Maceo sighed as she licked his earlobe again and she stroked her breasts up and down around his body.

“But what I love most about them?” she cooed to him, grinning to herself as he gulped hard. “Is something very, very few know about them.”

“What’s that?” he sighed, then gasped as she rotated her wrist to stroke him around instead of just up and down.

“They are so sensitive,” she whispered to him. “My nipples are almost as sensitive as my clitoris. Long, long ago, I actually managed to have an orgasm once just by playing with them. Of course, I was even more wound up than I am right now,” she told him softly and then moaned loudly as he gripped them in his hands and began stroking them following her educational speech.

His reciprocation was so powerful, in fact, that she actually was forced to stop stroking him and her knees almost buckled. Once she’d battled her way to a stable position again, she grabbed her breasts and squeezed them around him, lifting him up off of the platform there for mortals to use the stove and she carried him over to a chair, stumbling and staggering unevenly as he rubbed and squeezed her nipples exactly as asked.

She practically fell into a chair, Maceo placing a foot at the top of each thigh while she shrugged her arms forward to press her breasts around him and then reached around, massaging his scrotum with two fingers and stroking his cock with her other hand, now wrapping her entire hand around it, milking it while cooing to him and continuing to lick his earlobe as she completely enveloped any sign of its existence.

“You cheeky little mortal,” she whispered to him. “You think the only thing I have at my disposal are my goddess powers?”

“Definitely not,” he sighed, then reciprocated by grabbing her nipples again and working them over and around with his fingers, which in turn caused her to moan even louder.

She growled in a frustrated manner, moaned again and then doubled down, milking him harder and faster, while also squirming under and behind him as they competed for control. Control, which in the end wasn’t even a competition.

With a loud moan, he ejaculated, squirting out past the end of her hand and she chirped and giggled at him as cum froze mid air once it left Astravia’s protective bubble. “Say something cheeky,” she taunted him, whispering in his ear.

“I wasn’t late with dinner, you came early,” he told her. She screamed a little one and then laughed hard at him, squeezing her breasts around him one more time.

“As a point of fact, my dearest Maceo,” she giggled to him, “you are the only one here who came at all,” she teased. Then kissed him on his cheek and time resumed around them once she’d grabbed a napkin and wiped his ejaculate out of the air before it could even hit the floor.

He wrapped up dinner and then joined Astravia out on the patio, who was now wearing a soft robe, though she intentionally allowed a tempting window into her massive bosom.

Dinner was quite interesting. She had all the enthusiasm and fun she’d had that day when she’d first met him, but for the first time, she seemed comfortable showing it all to him. They played and teased and by the time they finished dessert, she was lying on her side in her lounge chair, one leg crossing snuggly across the other and grinning at him.

“Is this all a game?” she asked him.

“Probably not. At least not in the way I assume you mean.”

“And what way do I mean, oh presumptuous mortal?”

“As in am I playing a game on you. It’s more playing with you.”

“And why play this game?” she asked him. He seemed quite interested to see her much more dignified instincts taking control again.

“You didn’t enjoy it?”

“I did, but why play it?”

“Because you needed it,” Maceo told her.

“Needed what?” she asked him.

“Well, let’s just be honest here. I’m only a little over six feet tall, living and working around a complex for a woman who stands fifteen. If that wasn’t enough, she has the ability to stand completely outside of time, speed it up, slow it down or just play with it like it were a piece of clay, create clothes out of thin air, alter my lungs to breathe water and swim me down thousands of feet underwater to a cavern she created herself, probably again with just a thought, soar on the clouds like I would swim on top of water and leap halfway across the universe like she was stepping out her front door.”

“And your point?”

“I’d be a fool to not feel inadequate around that.”

“You are certainly not giving the impression that you are,” she informed him.

“Oddly enough, I’m not,” he answered. “So I guess I’m a fool.”

“So the point of your game?” she insisted.

“For all your power, all your brilliance, all your creativity, I’ve noticed something about you. I really hope you won’t take it as an insult.”

“I am listening.”

“You’re still a woman. A lady, actually.”

“And why would I ever take offense to that? Being a lady allows distinct advantages,” she told him eloquently.

“I definitely appreciate it,” he answered back. “But ladies want to feel comforted. They want to feel as though they are cared for, not just cared about. There’s a reason that they are attracted to men that are taller than them. And they don’t seem to want to lead, they want to be shown.”

“I thought you were going to say ‘be lead,’” she confessed to him.

“I almost did, but that didn’t feel quite right. It’s the feeling that there are hands that will deal with your problems and support you in a way you trust so that you aren’t always having to constantly make decisions. I’ve had this sneaking suspicion that it’s much worse for a queen than your average woman.”

She stared at him, her eyes bright and listening with a very soft, subtle smile.

“It does get tedious,” she admitted.

“I can’t wrap strong arms around you. I can’t lift the problems of a goddess off of your shoulders, and I definitely can’t impress you with any kind of force I’m able to deal out. So I have to become creative in order to find a way to satisfy that need.”

Her smile widened a little and she let out a tiny huff. “Very creative,” she praised him softly.

“So my theories make sense? They’re not just gibberish?”

“It is a surprising insight,” she admitted. “Insight into things I had given up on long ago.”

“Time to try again,” he told her.

“I like your initiative,” she told him. “Your decisiveness. It is very disorienting receiving it from a mortal, however.”

“Well, you’ll always have the option of telling me I need to get back inside my box.”

“You are much more fun once I let you out of it,” she said with a grin that let her perfect teeth slip out for viewing. “This will not be able to be only fun, however.”

“I’m still learning,” he answered her confidently with his eye to the future.

That evening, they stayed in her bedchamber, watching a fire from a sofa in the fireplace. Outside could be heard the song of crickets and she rested with Maceo on her lap, dreamily staring at the flames and absentmindedly playing with his cock with her fingers over his pants.

“You seem to uh… like my penis,” he commented after a good deal of silence.

“Hmm?” she asked, looked down and realized. “Oh. Is it bothering you?”

“Not exactly. I was just thinking that when I was really young my dad would tell me not to play with it or I would go blind.”

“I am certainly not going blind,” she snickered. She took a deep breath and released it. “I don’t know. I have always enjoyed playing with one.”

“Well, given your powers, you could probably grow one yourself,” he teased.

“Absolutely not!” she yelled, looking down at him, then began laughing when she saw his mischievous smirk. “There’s always been something… fascinating about them, I suppose. It is not something I really think about.”

“I’m surprised that you are able to even be attracted to men, given your history.”

“This is really sad,” she admitted, then sighed, “there is a part of me… that only wanted him more because of what he did. As though all these other women could have him so I wanted him as well.”

“Huh. And if I slept around behind your back?”

“I would curse you,” she stated simply.

“No double standard there.”

She laughed a little again, and then hugged him. “It was Elaheh,” she said. Maceo turned and looked up at her, laying across her lap. “She was so very perfect. So sweet and kind, and she appeared so quickly. If her lifelong friend had not found a way to win her heart, I would have lost you so quickly and I could not stand it anymore. I could not believe that I was jealous of a mortal woman over a mortal man.”

“I guess I’m extremely lucky that she found him, then,” Maceo smiled up at her while Astravia blushed, most likely from the remainder of the story, which she was keeping from him.

“For so long, I was so angry at men, exactly as you would expect. I hated them. I am ashamed to admit that I wiped out all of the men of an entire world once when one groped me, but eventually that anger gave way to a realization. I began to notice how many of my followers were in good, long lasting and faithful relationships, and I was very jealous of that as well. I used to tell myself that the only reason they could remain faithful was because their lives were so short. I was very bitter for millions of years. Eventually, I started to see the better side of men again through my priestesses. It was then that I decided to try to instruct them better in a way that would allow them long, fulfilling marriages. Happily, that helped them in general through their lives as well. But if I am being honest with you; you have no idea how long I have waited to hold a penis in my hands again. No idea.”

“Well, like I said, you could…” Maceo began to tease but Astravia cut him off immediately.

“Don’t you even start with me,” she lectured.

“I’m afraid to ask… have you ever tried it? Feeling what being a man would be like?”

“No. I am what I am. I am a woman, and I am very thankful for it. I would never want to change that.”

“But your anger for men?”

“There is an ember still there,” she admitted. “That ember is all attached to Zantharan now, though.”

“Do you hate him?”

“I should,” she admitted. “He will not let me live after the way I humiliated him.” Maceo asked about what she could have done to humiliate him, so she describe their last fight in detail.

“You shrank it,” Maceo asked, subconsciously covering his groin. She nodded and smirked at him. “Remind me to never get on your bad side. If he’s that much stronger than you, how, though?”

“His arrogance. No one has dared lay a hand to him in so long, he believes himself untouchable. As such, his guard was down and I took advantage of it.”

“And… when he regrew it?”

“When a god curses another god, the results are always temporary. It would have grown back in time on it’s own. Instead, in his anger, he abandoned it and created a new one. In a way that beastly thing is not really his. He will most certainly not let me get away with what I did, especially since the other gods know that to do what he did the way he did it, he sacrificed the original.” Maceo cringed.

“Please don’t ever shrink my dick,” Maceo begged her. She laughed quite heartily over his request.

“That is not a curse I have ever considered,” she laughed while petting his head to reassure him. “It is funny to me how connected men are to those things. The connection seems to go far beyond simple cellular tissues being part of your body. You carry so much pride in it, and yet shame too. As a woman, it is not something I really understand. As for that day? I do not remember ever being that mad. Or that hurt,” she admitted almost as an afterthought. It suddenly pulled the joy out of her again, putting her back in her dark place.

Maceo reached over and grabbed the hand that was holding him, smiling up to her. When he did she awakened again from her doldrums, pulled back again to her new lover. “Does it help talking about it?” he asked her. A new smile seemed to grow now, though it was much weaker than the last one.

“I have talked and talked about it for eons,” she told him.

He smiled and climbed up to his feet and stood on her lap, holding her cheeks in his hands and kissed her. “Maybe something different, then,” he suggested. “Would you come fly with me?”

That smile grew once more, though it was a battle as it did so. “Perhaps later,” she answered him. “Right now, I want something else,” she said, pulling down his pants with her fingers and wrapping them around his quickly hardening dick again.

“Are you sure you can handle me?” he asked her, which she found to be absolutely hilarious, but chirped with gleeful surprise when he slipped his hand in her robe and squeezed her nipple.

“I should not have told you about them!” she laughed.

“I would have found them sooner or later,” he laughed back at her. “I’m kind of a… breast man, so the only real problem for me is they’re out of reach.” She laughed again and kissed him, then pulled her robe free and his clothes off and pulled him close, squeezing his body between her breasts again. Now completely naked, she walked back to her bed with him confined between her breasts, then crawled in and dropped him on the mattress.

The giantess loomed over him, a hand on either side of him and her massive breasts hanging down, dangling just over him. “I think I can handle you,” she whispered to him lustfully, but the impertinent mortal jumped the gun again and reached up and squeezed one of her breasts with his hands with all his strength and wrapped his lips around her nipple and began sucking on it. The sensation was sexy and terrifying as she immediately cried out and moaned with pleasure and her arms buckled, her entire fifteen-foot tall body nearly collapsing down on him.

“Definitely… should not… have… told.. you… a-a-a-b-bouuut.. that,” she sighed, her arms giving way and her dropping down to her elbows. Of course, given the sheer size of her breasts, even that distance wasn’t enough to keep both generous mammary protuberances from falling down and covering his body, almost nearly suffocating him.

She moaned and gasped, pressing her nipple into his mouth harder and crying out louder as he suckled on it, nuzzling her areola with his face. Her body shook with pleasure and then she suddenly seemed aware of the danger and lifted herself up in a near panic to check on him, popping her nipple out of his mouth.

“Can you breathe?” she asked him nervously.

“Who cares?” he asked her, causing her to lurch again with laughter. He was hardly merciful on her, however, and pulled himself up again and picked up right where he left off, causing her to sigh and moan once more.

“So tricky,” she gasped with a few more giggles, and then managed to draw up enough willpower to grab his arms and pin them down to his sides. “I have other needs,” she informed him and then slid one knee forward and then the other until he was pinned down between her legs with massive, succulent thighs angling upward and together above him and an already wet pussy hovering mere inches from his dick.

“Are you sure you can handle me?” she now asked him, staring directly down at him between those titanic tits of hers.

“I’ll die trying,” he told her with intense conviction. Once more she laughed and then took his dick between her forefinger and thumb and lowered herself on him, sighing with a smile as he entered her and closing her eyes, savoring the sensation.

She leaned forward, planting a hand in front of each knee and then spread her legs a bit wider until he began sinking down into the mattress as her weight came down on him. She smiled down at him, then closed her eyes and began grinding her hips against his, slowly, methodically and carefully.

He struggled immensely while she pleasured herself with him but eventually managed to pry a single arm free when she wasn’t paying attention and used it to slip his hand under her, between her labia and then his fingers around her clitoris, fishing it out from underneath its hood. She screamed from both surprise and from pleasure and smirked down at him and then closed her eyes as she continued grinding on him for the better part of an hour,

She let out a contented sigh and relaxed, smiling as he continued to massage her clitoris, then took control again and began bouncing up and down on him, concentrating as she tightened her vaginal muscles until it was Maceo’s turn to moan.

The gigantic woman now bounced upon him more quickly and harder until he gasped and then erupted up inside of her. She finally stopped when the last of him surged up into her and she rolled off of him and watched as he crawled up the bed, panting and sweating from the exertion of sex with a giantess as she grinned at him with amusement.

“It seems you have survived,” she teased him with a little giggle.

“Was there ever any doubt?” he asked her as he held his chest, still recovering from the intense experience. She reached over and traced a fingertip down his chest affectionately until he grabbed her finger and looked over to her with sincere eyes.

“Are you alright?” he asked her urgently. “It wasn’t too much for you, was it?” he asked her, which now made her do a double take on him and then erupt into laughter and then pull him up to her, smothering him between her breasts and kissing him on top of his head enthusiastically and affectionately.

Some time later, when he was actually forced to push back on her affections, she lay with her head on her pillow nuzzling the mere six-foot tall mortal.

“I wish you were not required to go back for that summit,” she confessed to him.

“Actually, so do I,” he admitted.
Check out my SW story Please..: https://ckent45.deviantart.com/

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