The Goddess' Retreat

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CKent45
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The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Mon May 09, 2022 12:52 pm

The Goddess' Retreat

“I am going to kill him,” Astravia growled fiercely. “I am going to jam his scheming, fowl, double dealing testicles down his THROAT,” she added as all the air in the corridor she was storming down seemed to grow cold and dense with malice.

“Mistress, you mustn’t say such things,” Elphinsis, the top attendant to the rage filled Goddess whispered, tugging on her and pulling back against her. The sight to behold for one who had no knowledge of the characters in play was somewhat odd. Elphinsis was noticeably the taller of the two, with perfectly raven hair curled up into an elaborate and ornate bun. Her trim, athletic physique easily showed beneath her dress.

In contrast, Astravia stood a little less than nose high to her attendant, but this odd contrast certainly didn’t take away from the ire and rage Astravia projected as she stormed ahead at a breakneck pace. Though Astravia’s stride was noticeably shorter than Elphinsis’, somehow the lead attendant was having difficulty keeping up with her smaller, much more fierce counterpart. Astravia was always a very kind and patient goddess, glowing with love and understanding of those around her. It was rare to see this side of her, and rather intimidating despite her relatively small size. As she marched down the corridor Astravia’s hair dragged far behind her as though being blown by gale like winds and flowing like liquid gold running down an imaginary river to waist length, her skin soft like velvet and almost delicate in appearance in a way that among mortals would almost suggest a person sheltered entirely from the sun for their entire lives. However, in Astravia’s case, her ethereal nature made her skin practically emit light. A light that while pure and almost delicate looking was also rather chilling given her insatiable rage.

Though she was much shorter, and not nearly as athletic looking, she was quite a sight to behold with gravity defying breasts that poured out and down from her collarbone. Were she a mortal, she would be the proud owner of large, full H cup breasts. Her curves were dare say excessively feminine with an hourglass figure that was supple and aesthetic in a way that practically forced the eyes to dwell upon her sensual curves. All of the goddesses were exquisite in their appearances and Astravia was easily among the most beautiful among them with a youthful appearance that defied both time and reason. This made all the more of a stark contrast as even these beautifully feminine features were terrifying in her fit of seething anger.

“Mistress please,” Elphinsis begged her, meekly tugging on Astravia’s gown, deathly afraid to further anger the smaller goddess.

Despite Astravia’s less menacing appearance, she was, of course, not a goddess to be trifled with. Her powers were something to behold and unique among the gods, though she rarely was angry enough to use them destructively. Recent events had proven to be too much for her, however, and even a goddess has her limits.

Astravia stormed down the corridor to doors that rose up above them several stories bordered by arched pillars that were decorated with intricate sculptures that started with mortals near the floor engaged in silly mortal matters, but building up in importance to sprites and deities and eventually Gods and Goddesses engaged in all manner of feats and actions befitting the stations of a god.

Astravia’s eyes darkened quickly as she stood in front of these great gates and went pitch black, save her pupils which inverted in color and looked like bright, burning stars. Around the massive gates, a darkness began to amass, dotted with pinpoints of light like distant stars and an instant later, the gates were blown inward and collapsed under the power of Astravia’s mere thoughts.

There before them both sat the scenery of a bedroom the likes of which no mortal had ever seen. A massive room, with multiple stories and clouds as stair cases to each level, tall waterfalls on either side of the far end, islands of lush grasses and tropical trees surrounded by lakes of water on the right side and blue green salt waters on the left with floors and bridges made of pearly marble lined with pure gold that extended back into this hidden world within a palace made for eternal entities and in the center, back in the distance, but not so far as to not be seen well, an ornate, gold decorated bed where Astravia’s husband was fucking the goddess of magic and witchcraft Chanderi with reckless abandon and paying no mind to the thunderous roar of the entrance of his enraged wife.

To make matters worse, Chanderi’s moans of ecstasy only seemed to grow following Astravia’s explosive entrance. Astravia stood stunned for a short moment, and then her luminescent skin burned with the fury of a blazing sun as the stars that were her pupils intensified and swelled.

Zantharan had made it a habit of cheating on his wife almost from the very beginning. He was simply too thrilled, too enthralled with the hunt. The constant excitement of new sexual prey in an otherwise dull and predictable existence.

The reason he’d married Astravia to begin with was obvious. Despite her one noticeable imperfection (her height), she was a top tier of goddesses. What she lacked in brute physical force, she more than made up for in scale of her power as a goddess. No goddess was her equal in this regard and even a number of the gods were dwarfed by her abilities. There was also her unparalleled beauty, which made her the wonton desire of virtually all men, immortal or otherwise. And finally was her soft nature, which made her gloried curves all the more appealing. A nature which now was entirely obscured as a consequence of her husband’s callous disregard of her.

Zantharan of course had always had a reputation of being a cad and an insatiable flirt. However he was also unquestionably charming and charismatic as well as being quite handsome in his own right, even for a god. He was quite tall for a god, but not excessively so and she stood a little less than shoulder height to him, which he originally was quite complimentary of, despite her own discomfort with the discrepancy between their respective sizes. He expertly charmed himself into Astravia’s panties and showered her with praise and affection, and in their heyday of their relationship, Astravia had felt more worshipped and adored by this one man than the accumulated prayers and praise of all of her followers throughout time combined.

That was many millennia ago, though.

“YOU FILTHY, DISGUSTING OGRE!” Astravia roared, causing the walls all around them to shiver in dread. “THE QUEEN OF THE GODS HAS ENTERED HER OWN BED CHAMBERS AND STILL YOU CONTINUE TO POUND THAT INSIDIOUS WHORE LIKE SOME DERANGED, STRAY MONGREL!”

Elphinsis winced and cowered backwards. No one dared speak like that to Zantharan. On the other hand, it worked and he stopped pounding the home wrecker’s diseased pussy immediately. The cold and the malice in the air intensified, though Chanderi’s sadistic grin only grew five fold as the air chilled and the waters in the bedchamber around them began to freeze solid.

“You will not address me in such a manner,” Zantharan replied. His voice was low and soft, however the walls trembled and the floors creaked and cracked in fear of his rage filled intent. “Ever,” he added for poignancy in a deep, sub harmonic tone that sucked all of the life from Elphinsis’ visage nearly instantly.

“Get your paltry phallus out of that withered trollop before you speak to me,” Astravia commanded forcefully. Chanderi looked up at her lover, surprised as well as stunned at Astravia’s impertinence. The air grew colder still and what moisture remained in it suddenly fell to the ground in ice, shattering everywhere around them. Elphinsis gasped as a dark aura appeared around Zantharan, but otherwise he didn’t move, so Astravia took the initiative and did it for him. Or at least in part.

Chanderi was the first to notice as she looked up with wide, panicked eyes at the king of the gods, still laying on top of her with his pelvis pressed tightly against hers, ball deep within her and she gasped as though all of the pleasure within her was suddenly disappearing. Zantharan was next to notice and even he gasped and turned pale as the power dynamic suddenly seemed to shift in Astravia’s favor as it became immediately apparent by the expressions alone of the two forbidden lovers that Zantharan’s penis was rapidly shrinking to unusable volume within Chanderi’s womanhood receding far away from the reach of her celestial womb.

Both of them lay completely frozen as the impertinent queen of all goddesses rapidly shrank her king’s genitals until even with his hips forcefully squeezed against his concubine’s pelvis he still could not be considered any longer to be “inside” of her and as it receded, the vacuum created within her womanly cavern forced the hermetic seal between their combined skin to break, causing a high pitched squeak as air escaped into the empty space left behind that sounded like a deflating balloon run through an audio mixer and distorted.

“HOW DARE YOU!!” the mighty king roared, now overcome with rage in this ultimate humiliation as Astravia continued storming in towards their bed. Before he could turn around, however, the dark aura around Astravia intensified and in a sudden, explosive burst Zantharan was propelled at lightning speed into the nearest pillar, decimating it.

Astravia had first become aware of Zantharan’s philandering only a couple centuries into their marriage, though she simply wrote it off as not really being infidelity due to the fact that it had only been with a mortal woman. She did confront him about it, but she had been polite and cordial, even though their conversation was entirely in private. This was normal, given Zantharan’s awesome and immeasurable power, but in Astravia’s case, it was more out of love than anything else.

Following this little tryst with a mortal, she forgave the woman, made arrangements to see her and her child were taken care of and then tripled her efforts to please and satisfy her husband, whom she adored.

The second time happened before that child was even grown into adulthood. As the centuries passed, it became clear that Zantharan had a compulsive need to behave in such a way, so she quietly petitioned the ascended council for assistance in helping Zantharan cope with his addiction and help him recover.

Unfortunately, however, her patience was rewarded by Zantharan becoming ever more comfortable with his lack of fidelity. Several thousand years later, Astravia had developed a reputation for the punishments she would levy on mortals who dared consummate with her husband. All manner of curses, banishment into other realms and even disintegration were common among the countless stories as she learned to deal out her discipline on those who would violate the sanctity of her bond.

Astravia finally began to understand the depths of Zantharan’s disorder when he began his penchant for his involvement with Astravia’s own worshippers. When one of her own high priestess’s was caught in the act with Zantharan, she destroyed the entire temple, leaving just Zantharan and Astravia standing in a pile of fine sand and dust and Zantharan nonchalantly rolling his eyes at her before disappearing into the air.

Several more millennia passed and rumors began to spread of his exploits expanding beyond mere mortals and encompassing minor deities and sprites. By this time, she was becoming publically vocal regarding his infidelity and her displeasure and she was finding much more success in enforcing her will over the countless numbers within the many realms than controlling her own husband.

This here and now, however, was a new low, even for Zantharan. Never had he had the gall to sleep with another goddess, and certainly not one that was part of the upper echelon of their elite society. Chanderi was among the highest ranking of goddesses, reporting to Zantharan and Astravia directly and never had he ever had the audacity to do it in her own bed, which he hadn’t even shared with her in more than 8,000 years.

As humiliating as what she’d just done to him was, the feeling still didn’t compare to the stares, whispers and distant tittering she’d just experienced a short while before in the throne chamber, which had alerted her to the fact that this ultimate betrayal was finally occurring.

Zantharan was not a god to trifle with, but Astravia no longer cared. With a thought, she toppled another pillar down on top of her husband, then a third until the entire chamber, fully sullied now anyways, began to collapse around them. Chanderi sat up and covered herself.

Chanderi had always been rather spiteful toward Astravia, but she never had crossed the queen of goddesses before. She wouldn’t have dared. At least, she wouldn’t have dared unless she had something like Zantharan to protect her from Astravia’s wrath. But now, unthinkably, Zantharan lay underneath a growing mountain of rubble as Astravia destroyed the entire pocket world she’d created for herself as a refuge from her stress.

“Did you think I would simply allow you to disgrace me like this?” she demanded and with the wave of a hand, the ceiling above him crumbled and tumbled down on him adding to the growing mountain of rubble.

Even Zantharan’s own father never would have behaved so brazenly against him, though to be fair, Zantharan had overthrown him an eon ago and left him to rot in a prison where he was constantly being pulled apart on all sides by gravity at the center of six stars that Zantharan had corralled together to cage his father. No god since then had ever even begun to approach Zantharan’s overall power. Sure, Morokron, the god of warfare and destruction as well as their son had Zantharan’s physical strength, tactical genius and similar power, but he lacked Zantharan’s overall intelligence, organizational ability as well as the breadth of powers at his disposal that his father had. Besides, Morokron had always been his father’s son anyways.

With Chronstrus gone, there was only one power in existence that could stand against Zantharan now, and it was a power that no god or goddess could ever wield.

And yet, here she was, bringing down the entire celestial palace on him after shrinking his genitals from inside her romantic rival’s own vagina. It was safe to say that Astravia had never been this angry before.

Unfortunately, it was not to last. Astravia continued to pile on the destruction as well as atomizing a great deal of the matter at the base of the pile she’d dumped on Zantharan, plucking pieces of himself out of existence as she did so and it was obvious how painful it was to him by his prolonged screams until the ground beneath Astravia’s feet shook and began to break apart. A moment later, Zantharan emerged from his prison, surrounded by an aura of lightning, intense blue flames and blackness.

The force of his emergence alone was enough to knock Astravia back, though she smirked at the site of her battered husband standing atop the rubble completely naked and with a penis shorter in length than the tip of her pinky and considerably less girthy. Even Chanderi was forced to cover her mouth as she accidentally giggled at the emasculated god, but thankfully he had not seen her.

Then the unthinkable happened as the king of gods quickly began to expand and it was clear that he was transforming into his most powerful form- a golden colossus brimming from head to toe in muscle and electrified with power that could wipe away entire worlds in a moment, should he decide to.

This mere marital spat had now quickly devolved into a type of warfare not seen since the days when Zantharan overthrew his father. Astravia immediately braced herself and began her own transformation, quickly expanding in size in an attempt to match him, but in an instant, Zantharan was standing immediately over her, flames of rage billowing off of him and he grabbed her face in his hand, lifted her up off of the ground and punched her in the stomach with a force that cracked the walls of the palace around them, spidering them in all directions and ending her transformation before she could complete it. She instantly reverted back, shrinking back down to her normal state and then screamed as he took a knee and slammed the goddess well under half his size over it and began spanking her so hard that the threads of her gown broke apart, exposing her round rump to the air for all to see.

Astravia screamed and squirmed but it was more futile than an infant fighting for control over her vengeful father under the same circumstances. He paddled the bright red bottom of this goddess until she collapsed over his thigh from exhaustion and then stood up above her, allowing her to tumble to the ground at his feet. She looked up at him, her spirit still unwilling to break and smirked at him.

In response, the god focused and suddenly the less than pinky tip length phallus expanded into one much more fitting of a king of gods, thrusting forward and then flopping down and slapping his left knee, still dripping wet with the remnants of his ejaculate and Chanderi’s feminine juices, which now splattered across Astravia’s cheeks as it swung down.

Still, though, Astravia remained relatively calm and collected as she looked up at her vengeful husband.

“Overcompensating for something?” she mocked, her smirk growing wider.

Zantharan was certainly not amused. With a thought, there was a burst of energy and she was propelled backward at dizzying speeds through what remained of the far wall, across the corridor behind it and into that wall as well before she came tumbling down to the ground, large chunks of granite falling with her.

Even now, she refused to surrender her dignity and began to stand up but before she was even to her knees, Zantharan was standing above her again and stepped on her head, pressing it deep into the marble floors as though they were grains of sand on a beach. She struggled and screamed as several gods and goddesses stood staring silently with shock at them and then he stooped over, picked her up by her ankle and slammed her body whose full length didn’t even measure as long as his torso against the wall, further damaging it before turning her upright and shoving her against the wall hard enough to halfway shove her through and then waited for her to fall to his feet again, watching from above as she staggered in place.

Finally, he swung his hips, slapping her violently with his more than thigh long cock, splattering more of his ejaculate and her romantic rival’s feminine juices across her face, stunning her and knocking her to her knees.

“This is my palace, within my realm,” he boasted arrogantly. “And I will do as I please.” He then bent down and took a knee, continuing to loom over the much, much smaller goddess beneath him. “Were you not such a haggard, fattened, used up little sow, I would fuck you raw right here and now for all to see until you learned your place. As it stands, you could not make me stand if all eternity depended on it. I will deal with you when I see fit.” Then, as one final insult, he grabbed his cock and shook it, splattering even more of his dripping seminal fluids over her back and then stood and walked away, back through the wall he’d just crushed with his wife’s body and it reformed back as it was as he passed through it.

There was awkward silence as the gods and goddesses in attendance stared emotionless. None of them seemed to take any joy or satisfaction of any type at her plight, but that certainly didn’t make it any less humiliating for the queen of all gods and goddesses.

A moment later, Chanderi could be heard moaning and screaming even more loudly and emphatically than before as Zantharan fucked her once again in her own bed chamber with his newly engorged, more than thigh long penis in such powerful sex that the walls of the entire palace shook and quaked from the force.

Humiliated and devastated, she crawled to her feet and looked at the ashamed faces of her subjects before she walked away, her head hung low as her tattered gown slowly repaired itself.

Astravia was four levels down in the palace before Elphinsis finally caught up to her and looked at her mistress with immeasurable sympathy. She looked at the caked on remains of the bodily fluids Zanthran had vandalized her with and attempted to clean them away with a handkerchief, but Astravia merely swatted her away without so much as a word.

Eventually, they made their way to a much less decorated entrance and Astravia pushed her way in, shoving the creaking, heavy oak doors open and trudged inside, her hands shaking, her body quivering with shock and disgust and a lost, forlorn expression on her face.

It was hard to imagine there was a time that she had once been the one who Zantharan had courted and wooed with the charm and eloquence of a true romantic. He had made good on one promise to her. She was queen of all gods and goddesses, as he had said to her many times while staring up at the night skies under a colorful aurora. Only, she had imagined it to be a much more dignified post. She never had once imagined him slapping her with his sweat and semen slathered cock in front of the other gods and goddesses, including her own children.

Her body could simply not stop shaking, no matter how hard she tried. Far above, she could still hear the thumping of her husband pounding away at the pussy of that home wrecking goddess like a deranged jackrabbit.

“He’s just trying to make himself look less emasculated after… you know.. you…” Elphinsis consoled her mistress, but stopped cold at the hateful, vengeful look that Astravia lashed back at her with.

“And what of me?” Astravia asked. “An eon and a half of him fucking and fornicating with every last semi sapient creature he could get his hands on and now, doing this BRAZENLY! OPENLY! In my OWN BED! A bed he has refused to share with me since three eras ago. He has denigrated me, betrayed me, humiliated me, neglected me as many times as there are grains of sand on a beach, and this one simple dignity; he can’t even allow me that.”

“You are not wrong, mistress,” Elphinsis admitted, while still checking over her shoulder to make sure no one had overheard her. “But no god could stand up to him, save Chronstrus, and there is no way to break him from his prison.”

“For all the chaos, strife and cruelty he brought into the universe, he was still a more just ruler than his son,” Astravia complained, then sighed heavily.

“We are lucky,” Elphinsis offered with as genuine a smile as she could muster. Astravia looked up with questioning eyes at her. “He could have killed you mistress,” she reminded her. Astravia took a long, shaky breath, again trying in futile to stop her hands and body from shaking.

“I wish he had,” she answered back numbly.

“Do not say that,” Elphinsis begged her, grabbing her hand and squeezing it.

“Stop, Elphinsis,” Astravia ordered. This command would have sounded calm and serene, had Astravia’s voice not been shaking so uncontrollably.

“It will be alright, mistress,” Elphinsis promised, but Astravia merely raised a hand and commanded her to stop.

In the fifteen thousand years Elphinsis had been at her side, everything had already long been said between the two of them. No amount of sharing or catharsis would end this pain and torment and nothing would undo the revelation that this kingdom she oversaw was in all actuality, her gilded prison.

Astravia lifted her hand and looked at it, trembling and shaking before her eyes and took a deep breath, willing it to stop, but to no avail. To see a goddess in this state was unheard of, especially the queen of all gods. She attempted once more to no avail and then she lifted her head as though a thought had occurred to her.

“Mistress?” Elphinsis asked, then waited in silence until Astravia was ready to speak.

“I have not had so much as a single weekend off since before we married,” she remarked almost absent-mindedly. Elphinsis tipped her head to the side and stared at her, unsure how to respond. “It never ends,” she continued. “Overseeing wars, creating new worlds, building new civilizations, etc., and on and on and on into eternity, and I have not been allowed so much as a single weekend since before we married to relax.”

“Mistress… he will certainly…” Elphinsis attempted to meekly intervene, but Astravia’s thoughts were now beginning to pick up steam.

“Just one weekend. Just one. What would two or three hundred years hurt? Just once,” she asked. Still, Elphinsis had no idea how to respond.

“You know,” Elphinsis eventually answered ominously. Astravia sighed heavily, releasing nearly all the air from her lungs.

“Leave me,” she whispered, placing both hands on the counter in front of her. Elphinsis nodded and bowed, backing out of the study they had found themselves in and closed the doors behind them. Astravia stood there, staring at the table, still perturbed, but her hands no longer shook. She looked at them and she smiled ever so slightly as she realized they were finally as still as a pond on a breezeless, moonlit evening.

“So where?” she asked herself and turned around and looked at the many bookcases with countless books. She walked the room in circles, considering each book carefully until she reached the back of the room and smiled, looking at one small, thin book. “Perfect,” she whispered to herself.

She removed the book and looked at it, then took it to a nearby table and opened it, scanning the contents. In it were all her notes about a nation on a world where she had a small temple, a little oasis she used to regular in her normal rounds but that she hadn’t had time to check in on for maybe four, five hundred years tops.

The people there were quaint and almost ridiculously pedestrian, but the entire reason she remembered this place to begin with was because of how lovingly they worshipped her. They had little. Their world was sufficient, but not particularly bountiful, but the devotion she was shown when she would stop by made her smile and despite how primitive and cramped the accommodations, she always felt it was quite cozy and comfortable at that temple; in a quaint sort of way.

“Absolutely perfect,” she insisted, smiling to herself. It was nearly impossible that Zantharan even knew about this place. The tomes on this world and its inhabitants was so small because it was such a new place for them, and the temple had only been completed a thousand years or so before. She hadn’t even entered it into the main register yet. The only documentation on this temple and its location was staring up at her at that moment.

“A single weekend of peace and quiet,” she promised herself. She smiled and nodded. “And when I get back? Who cares? He can do whatever he wants, but I will still not pass before I have a single weekend just to myself.”

She closed the book and stood upright, smiling contentedly to herself. She tucked her book under her arm and left the room, walking down the long corridor to an open room with a crystal dome high above her and with a wave of her hand, dozens of portals opened around the edges of the room. She smiled softly to herself and then walked to one portal to her left. With another wave of her hand, the portal shimmered and twinkled and then she stepped through, disappearing before the portals suddenly disappeared and the room went dark again.
Check out my SW story Please..: https://ckent45.deviantart.com/

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by Knightstable » Mon May 09, 2022 2:49 pm

Hey great start! I'm really excited to how everything unfolds :)

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by MrWitness » Mon May 09, 2022 5:09 pm

Nice!

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by chocolatejr9 » Tue May 10, 2022 3:02 am

Considering the site you're posting this story on, I doubt things will go as planned...

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Tue May 10, 2022 3:07 am

chocolatejr9 wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 3:02 am
Considering the site you're posting this story on, I doubt things will go as planned...
I guess that depends on who's planning. ;)
Check out my SW story Please..: https://ckent45.deviantart.com/

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Wed May 11, 2022 12:57 am

Astravia emerged from the portal on the other side beaming with as much joy as she could present to her worshippers. The last time she’d been there, the inhabitants there were ecstatic to see her, enraptured with joy. They cheered when they realized what was happening and festivals spontaneously erupted across the countryside and Astravia was showered with attention and affection.

Not that this was unheard of for Astravia. She was a goddess, after all and to be seen by her worshippers was a great honor for them. The difference here was how genuine their adoration felt. Most places she went, she had been there no longer than a few moments before worshipers were at her feet praying for favors. Here, each and every time she’d arrived all of the attention went directly to her and her well-being. Worshippers asked her about her adventures and her troubles and her opinions and were just overjoyed to see their goddess. Those who did come in for favors were almost always for the most extreme of circumstances, like healing from a deadly illness or debilitating injury, but they always came in a trickle. What was wonderful about this particular culture was for some strange reason, these blessed little mortals actually thought themselves to be conceptually equal to her in the most endearing way and it was absolutely adorable.

They never spoke up out of turn or rudely, nor were they disrespectful or disobedient. There really was no defiance in their attitudes; they simply treated her as a treasured member of the family, which was unique to her. She actually felt bad for neglecting them, but then it had only been for a few centuries and it hadn’t been for any cruel or selfish reason. She had simply been so overwhelmed by the growing drama within the celestial courts that she didn’t have time to directly address all of her many worshippers.

Astravia had two portal entrances she’d created for this location, one in the middle of the main sanctuary of the temple and the other at a lobby area just outside of her personal quarters there so she could arrive a little less conspicuously when the need arose. Initially, she had been looking at the coordinates for the second entrance, given how disheveled and frustrated she was, but just before she closed the book, she chose the more conspicuous entrance, hoping that the instant adoration might cheer her up a bit from her melancholy.

She emerged from the portal, arms wide and smiling, standing atop a granite pedestal with her eyes closed and waited for the stunned gasps and oohs and awes she was accustomed to until she realized there was none. There was no sound, nothing.

She opened her eyes, confused and looked around, and there she saw a massive sanctuary with seating for literally thousands, but not a single soul sat on any of the stone benches. She turned around to look at the alter and similarly, there was none of her acolytes, not even a high priestess. The hall was so empty that even her breathing echoed.

This wasn’t exactly heart breaking, but it certainly was disappointing for a goddess who desperately needed a little bit of validation at this time. She turned around in circles and scratched her brow in confusion as well as distress, until she finally decided to reenter the portal and reemerge at the other entrance, which proved to be equally empty.

She stepped out into the courtyard and wandered around, looking about and dismaying that several of the gardens that were not self-regenerative had become completely overgrown by weeds so as to become completely unrecognizable. The cobblestone streets were half covered in dirt and dust and the buildings looked like they hadn’t been attended to in quite some time.

Eventually after exploring almost the entire compound, she arrived at the records hall where she decided to look over any evidence she could find as to why the temple had become a ghost town, to find a scroll sitting out on a flat counter waiting to be read.

She unrolled it and her brow furrowed as she read the last entry made by a former high priestess who explained that she was the last caretaker of this otherwise abandoned temple and that, as a woman in her late 80’s, she simply could not handle the obligations any longer, especially on her own, so she was waiting for her family to arrive and take her home with them to enjoy her final days among loved ones rather than alone and isolated.

This troubled Astravia to no end as she read the final lines describing how this priestess had locked the gates in hopes that Astravia would send someone at some point to rekindle the now dead religion.

Now Astravia actually was heartbroken as she checked the date to see that this entry had been left there for her to find fifty-seven years before hand. As Astravia searched through the records she found that the last time she’d visited this temple had been five hundred and twenty three years ago.

“That is a little over the four to five hundred years I thought, but I would not have expected them to be so… so… fickle!” she complained to the empty air.

This certainly wasn’t a case where she felt wrath was necessary to teach a lesson. As Astravia scoured through the records, the themes were consistent across the very few centuries she’d been gone. Her worshippers felt no ill will, nor did they even feel abandoned by her, they simply repeatedly said over the centuries in increasing numbers that they came because of their love for the goddess and if she wasn’t going to visit them anymore, they didn’t see a point in going any longer.

It was hardly acceptable, but there were far more nurturing methods to correct their errors, so for now her anger was averted. The only really troubling aspect of their fall from her grace was that in those short few centuries she’d been gone, her name had drifted into myth and legend only.

“Still though,” she assured herself as she sat and contemplated the situation. “They were a wonderful people and I am certain I can rekindle their worship in the weekend I’ll be here without any trouble. After all,” she concluded aloud, “I brought their religion into being by simply visiting every once in a while for a few days at most at a time to begin with. Imagine what I could do with an entire weekend! This will be hardly any effort at all!” she decided happily.

“And it will give me an opportunity to really cement my image with them since Zantharan is likely to kill me anyways once I go home.”

Cheered up by this final act of grandeur, she stood and left the records hall and explored the grounds again, pondering what new wildlife to reintroduce there first until she stopped at the aviary and thought for a second, tapping her chin with her finger.

“No, this is actually even better than I’d planned!” she reasoned with glee. “I can really have time alone here. Who says I even need to rekindle their religion? The temple has everything I need already, and I do not actually need doddering mortals trying to tend to me anyways, and besides; restarting the temple activities is just likely to bring this temple back into the eyes of the celestial palace. This is perfect!”

She smiled and twirled around in a circle, reveling in something she hadn’t experienced in eons- the feeling of being truly free and alone with her thoughts without some troublesome fool wandering in randomly with more problems for her to solve.

Astravia began with a visit to the baths. The building was entirely in tact, however it was caked in decades of dust. She pursed her lips and contemplated for a few minutes before deciding on how to proceed. She went outside and raised her arms, summoning a rainstorm and then used her magic to collect the downpour into an invisible container she’d conjured and filled up thousands upon thousands of gallons. Once she had enough, she allowed the rain to dissipate and she levitated her newly acquired water over to the bathhouse and poured the contents through the front gates and watched with satisfaction as it flowed through the building scattering things like vases and draperies everywhere, but this didn’t bother her one bit as she directed the waters around and around until the entire building was done to her liking.

Once the bathhouse was thoroughly rinsed, she conjured a pair of small twisters and sent them around the building to collect the debris she’d caused and then bring them all back to her. There was little need for draperies, since she was the only one here, so she didn’t need to even worry about modesty. With a wave of her hand, they were all moved to a spot outside the building to dry and then she grew these twisters into one horizontal wind tunnel and blew the entire building dry.

As with all of the implements of the gods, the running water was in perfect order without any need for maintenance except once every several thousand years or so. She filled herself a bath and heated it to perfection, sighing and smiling at the steaming hot water, then disrobed and stepped inside, lying back and relaxing while allowing her head to fall back into the water, floating at the surface where she relaxed for five days straight, doing nothing more than enjoying the hot water as it soothed her aching nerves away.

On the morning of the sixth day, she opened her eyes and took a deep breath, looking around as the sun began to trickle in through the windows lining the sides of the building.

“I do not remember the last time I was allowed to soak for that long. Has it really been that long?” Astravia then lowered her feet and stood in the waist high waters, taking a deep, cleansing breath.

“I could use something to eat,” she determined cheerfully. It was amazing how a simple, short bath was enough to rejuvenate one so quickly.

Astravia didn’t even bother to dress as she practically glided out of her bath. She simply carried her soiled gown in her hand and smiled at the cool morning air tickling her skin. If there had been mortals here, this simple act of freedom would have never been possible and it was refreshing and invigorating to feel nature’s touch so directly. She strolled casually along, her hips swaying nonchalantly and her breasts jiggling ever so slightly as she daintily traveled to her personal quarters, a building of roughly four stories tall and comprising of roughly eighty rooms, most of which were for entertainment of guests. As she walked inside, she waved her hand and opened all of the shutters around the house allowing air inside and then twirled her fingers until a burst of cool air swept in, carrying all of the dust here away more slowly and methodically than she’d done with the bathhouse and made her way to the kitchen. She opened the cellar and smiled as she opened the cellar and looked over the contents awaiting her. This magically kept cellar had stored centuries worth of food in enough quantities to feed dozens of gods, and she strolled along, giggling as the cold air raised goose bumps all along her naked skin, reveling in the simplicity of it all.

She grabbed a small basket and began tossing bright, succulent fruits and vegetables into it as well as courses of meats brought in from the celestial palace itself, then practically danced out into the kitchen and sat them on a counter and with a wave of her finger, grinned and rocked back and forth satisfyingly as her food was scooped up by kitchen implements she’d conjured up to life of their own to prepare her meal.

“I haven’t cooked for myself in so long,” she laughed, still rocking back and forth and glowing from such simple, mundane tasks that she hadn’t even considered doing for herself in tens of thousands of years.

She ate out on a patio, still buck naked and relaxing on a custom lounge chair sighing contentedly as she enjoyed the simple things that life had to offer. The only thing she was missing was the warmth of the pyre to bask in, though it seemed any wood like that was long gone at this point. Gathering wood wasn’t exactly an exciting chore to her, but if she was going to enjoy a decent fire, she was going to have to get over that.

The freedom to walk around naked without being ogled and visually assaulted constantly was certainly spoiling the goddess.

Once she was properly fed and satisfied, she strolled along to the pool, a massive body of water that would have been better described as an artificial, gold lined lake that would take Astravia several minutes to swim across at her best speed, should she choose to swim like a mortal.

She dove into the deeper water and floated for a long while, enjoying the sun, then she moved to shallower waters where she could touch the bottom and waded up to about waist deep, pulling her golden locks behind her shoulders and ringing the water out of them as water slowly streamed down her back and chest, most of it pouring off of her enormous breasts from the side. Then she placed her hands on her hips and smirked, laughing a little to herself. She bent at the knees slightly and leaned forward and then she did something she hadn’t done in many, many millennia, since before she had attained the title of queen of the gods. Her legs began to reshape themselves and developed shiny scales, almost as though they were made of emeralds and then they began to merge together into a single tail with a long, beautiful, colorful and ornate caudal fin.

She twirled around and tested her freshly transformed mermaid body out, propelling herself upward so that she could see how far and easily she could lift her body up and above the water while still keeping her balance.

Then she dove forward and down, darting to and fro like a playful dolphin, corkscrewing down into the deeper parts of the pool and slipping in and out of the structures built down there with ease, then down into a wide chasm intentionally placed at the bottom and straight down through a massive and exceedingly long tunnel until she reached an open chamber, at least ten times the size of the simple pool above that was lit by a luminescent algae that lined the room of the structure. At the very bottom was a complex that almost perfectly mirrored the temple above, an underwater refuge placed there should the gods visiting wish to escape the constant prying of their mortal servants and worshipers, but also as a place designed primarily as a comfortable guest house for the god of the seas, should he for some reason decide to grace this place with his presence.

She danced nimbly through this underwater temple for hours, rarely taking time to rest and her smile turned into a wide grin as she played in a way she hadn’t in literally eons. Eventually, she seemed to become bored and she turned her attention upward, darting up with ever increasing speed as a massive wake began forming behind her as she rocketed up faster than a bird could dive until she passed through the tunnel toward the surface and then up into the swimming pool into dark waters above and pierced through the surface like a sword through a pane of glass, bursting up into the moonlight, her golden locks flowing in the breeze and water spraying in all directions as she arched her back, pressing her face and chest skyward, basking in the soft glow of the night until she reached the peak of her leap, then she spread her arms wide and fell back and back and back toward the waters below until at the last minute she tucked her arms upward and folded into a dive that slipped through the water with barely a ripple.

Down she went to the underwater cavern, then turned around and repeated the leap high up into the air again, then a third time and a fourth time until at the fifth leap, she went even higher than before until the point where she became weightless, then as she fell back, she tucked her arms in to her bountiful bosom and began spinning in circles ever faster as she fell back towards the water headfirst until she was spinning so fast her entire body was a white blur.

A little more than a body length from the water, she opened her body up again presenting herself transformed once again into the shape of a massive and beautiful white hawk with gold tipped feathers on the trailing edges of her wings. She spread her wings wide, dragging their tips along the surface of the water before flapping and climbing ever higher around in circles, then danced in the sky before diving down and dancing among the buildings of her temple complex much as she had far below as a mermaid.

She continued these games until the moon had crossed the majority of the sky and then dove back towards the pool, rolling over onto her back as she soared over the calm water with her wings still wide and then her form shifted gracefully back into her normal form, a completely nude, supernaturally beautiful blonde woman, whose body was now becoming recaptured by gravity as she fell back, skimming the surface at first, then slowing gradually and falling deeper into the waters until she was able to bend at the waist and touch the bottom to stand up right, giggling and laughing to herself giddily the entire time.

A few centuries like this certainly would be a nice change of pace before she returned to the celestial palace to face her fate.

So pleased with herself she was that she continued laughing and grinning to herself as she waded back to the edge of the pool and climbed out, allowing her freshly cleaned body to air dry in the cool moonlit air. She took another deep, cleansing breath and then looked to her right where a structure stood for a great pyre, then frowned for the first time since arriving. She sighed and then ringed her hair out again with her hands.

“I suppose I shall have to go gather some wood tomorrow,” she decided, then walked back to the patio and retrieved her gown, looking at it with displeasure.

She was now more than fully cleansed from the sullying her husband had subjected her to before she had escaped to this little oasis, but her gown was still encrusted with the sexual fluids of both him and his whore. This was especially unpleasant since this was one of her most favored gowns, one that had been a gift to her by another goddess and dear friend. She struggled for a moment then growled to herself.

“Forget it. I have other clothes already here,” she grumbled and then with a flourish of her hand and wrist produced a tight blue flame at the tip of her finger. She took a deep breath and looked at her soiled and crusty gown, struggling to finish her final goodbye and then touched said fingertip to the dress and watched sullenly as it was consumed with flame, it’s ashes wafting softly up into the night air.

“It’s been a few days,” she remarked, smiling and quickly cheering herself up again. “Perhaps a night’s sleep,” she suggested to herself and then strolled naked again up to her quarters and inside to a long corridor with numerous white pillars until she reached the gates to her bedroom. She opened the door and sighed with a smile at the ruby red floors, the gold silken comforter and sheets and the balcony view in the distance of the courtyard, which to a mortal looked more like a lush forest with a clear pond in the center of it.

She strolled in, her arms hanging at her sides and her fingers pointed slightly outward away from her hips and then in one fluid motion, she rolled backward and across, into her bed.

Cozy indeed.

The next morning, she awoke to her face being tickled by mid morning sunlight and rolled over, smiling at the simplicity of her scenic view. “I am so glad I insisted most of the gardens here be self sustaining,” she praised herself.

Originally she had complained that when she was having the temple constructed that such a decision would spoil her worshipers, who could use it as an excuse to avoid hard work, but eventually, much to her own surprise more than others, her high priestess at the time convinced her that designing the gardens in such a way was a lovely opportunity for her to showcase her design skills.

Now she reveled in this decision that allowed her a small refuge from her troubled life elsewhere that had managed quite nicely without human caretakers. She jumped to her feet and practically pranced out of the room, back to the kitchen where she again fetched herself food and prepared it as she had before and ate on the patio as she had before her eyes widened and she giggled to herself.

“I forgot! Chores!” she tittered to herself as the sun approached mid day. She spun fluidly to her feet and levitated her dishes back to the kitchen where they could remain until she felt like cleaning them and then strolled casually out to the main road and up to the main gates, unlatching the bolts and pressing on them to open until her face went awash with a start and she covered her mouth, tittering even more fervently. “I forgot I am still naked!” she giggled, “I cannot let the mortals see me like this,” and then relocked the gates and strolled back to her quarters.

True, the area according to the last high priestess was abandoned, but she hadn’t ventured outside of the temple yet and wasn’t entirely certain, and besides, she’d more than once found herself letting her guard down in places where she had thought there were no mortals anywhere near, only to be surprised by one unexpectedly, and it somehow had always turned out to be a male. She really wasn’t in the mood to need to turn anyone to stone that day.

She dressed in another dress, this one more like a simple summer dress and then decided to use a side gate, as it was less likely to have undesired guests near it and out into a dense forest. She strolled along with a basket in hand for her firewood and hummed to herself listening to the chirping of little birds in the trees as she walked.

There wasn’t much that was useable in the middle of the forest, so she continued walking toward the edge and then peeked out crouching from behind a few bushes to see if there was any sign of mortal settlements, and happily enough, there weren’t She smiled to herself and decided to step out into the sunlight and strolled casually along, singing and humming to herself while picking up stray branches and other useful wood until she reached a grassy hillside near the back corner of the temple covered with wildflowers.

Her smile widened again and she strolled out to enjoy it for a moment until she caught something out of the corner of her eye as she bent over at her waist to pick up another branch. She turned her head and grunted unhappily.

Sure enough, there off in the distance lying in the grass facing the southeast sky was a mortal. “I suppose it had to happen at some point. I just got here, though,” she complained and placed her hand on her hip, then began to back away slowly, sighing with relief that she hadn’t been seen.

She was nearly out of sight, back inside the cover of the forest when she found herself looking at the mortal again, and curiosity got the better of her. She set her basket down and then trotted back away from sight until she could run back out onto the hillside unseen and then fluidly transformed once more into the same hawk form she’d had the night before and circled around climbing skyward until she was soaring up with the clouds above her target, scanning with uncanny precision.

It was a typical preadolescent male, just lying there, seemingly asleep and oblivious to the world, but also uncharacteristically thin, rather grimy and a little scuffed and unkempt. She circled far above him for several minutes observing him before she banked to her left and toward the temple walls, then turned and glided back toward her interloper, drifting silently and gently down until she was just above where his head lay in the grass and she fluidly transformed back to her normal state, taking extra care to touch her feet back down as delicately and gently so as to not alert him to her presence as he basked in the summer breeze and sun.

She grinned cheekily to herself and bent over the waist at him, allowing her heavenly breasts to hang just above him and looking directly down at him smiling pleasantly.

Though he was just an adolescent, he looked to be old enough to have discovered the pleasantness of a womanly form, though his male hormones had yet to fully kick in, and she had always found it amusing to see a mortal male astounded by her bountiful, heavenly bosom unexpectedly.

She’d always been a tease at heart, but her station hadn’t allowed her this immature opportunity in ages, so why not take advantage given how free she’d been for the last several days? At first he didn’t respond as her shadow drifted over him, but then he crinkled his brow, then relaxed as he waited for whatever clouds must be above to pass. He patiently waited like that until the duration of shade seemed odd to him. His brow crinkled again and he opened his eyes, then confusion washed over him and then utter shock as he stared up at enormous breasts and a face upside down to his perspective well above him that smiled both innocently and mischievously all at once.

He gulped audibly and hard and then spun around until he was sitting on his rump and staring up and up and up as Astravia stood upright again fully, still smiling widely and happily down far below through her immense cleavage at the boy who never in his life had seen a fifteen foot tall woman before.

His jaw dropped further than she knew a human’s jaw could drop, but she maintained her pleasant, smiling façade as he simply stared far above up to her waiting patiently. The boy, however, could only stare and gawk in wonder, utterly gob smacked and stunned into silence that denied him access to language.

Normally, she would find this level of gawking to be rude, however after having an opportunity to frolic as she had in recent days for the first time in what was almost literally forever, she was in an extremely charitable mood.

“Hello,” she chirped in his native language, then bent at the knees and dropped to them, placing her hands on her knees as she cheerfully plopped down, her magnificent breasts rippling and waving and they jiggled and bounced unfathomably just in front of him right now. Judging by his new expression and the healthy red glow his skin held, it was clear that indeed he was just old enough to understand the pleasantness of a womanly form.

Perhaps it was excessive and unfair as well to take advantage of a young mortal like this, but Zantharan had been making rude comments regarding her appearance like the one he’d made as he humiliated her in front of an audience of other gods and goddesses for millennia now. Truthfully, he’d actually said far worse, and he likely would have that day as well, except he was flustered by her reducing his phallus as much as she had. So perhaps teasing this little mortal like this was unfair, but the delicious feeling of another gazing appreciatively at her was a feeling too tempting for her to ignore at this moment.

“May I ask you a question?” she asked, and she did so cheerfully, intentionally swaying her breasts to and fro slightly and thoroughly enjoying how his eyes followed them hypnotically.

He was so young and so… mortal but also she was just so hungry for even a little bit of positive attention. After a moment for him to pull himself together, he finally managed to nod up at her smiling face again.

“Oh good!” she chirped, bouncing on her knees and allowing her bosom to jiggle in ripples once more. His eyes went so wide this time that they looked as though they might pop out altogether. “I was afraid you did not understand language!”

He leaned back, stunned and his mind finally starting to engage slowly but surely. “So,” she began slowly, but also cheerfully. “What are you doing on my land?” she asked him sweetly. He looked around him as though he was looking for someone else that she might be talking to but he found no one.

“You’re land?” he asked, utterly perplexed.

“He speaks!” she chirped, raising her hands high. This time the exaggerated motions of her bosom was enough that he actually fell over. She was enjoying this far too much, though she was doing a good job of continuing to hide her amusement. She used a single finger to help him sit upright and then tapped the end of his nose with the tip of her finger, repeating her question to him slowly, but also patiently.

“How is this your land?” he asked her, still befuddled and a deep, crimson red.

“This is all my land,” she answered simply, waving her arms out wide.

“That’s not… no one owns this land,” he answered deliberately. “No one is allowed to.”

“Because I own it,” she answered him cheerfully. “It belongs to me. So, why are you here?”

“Well, I… I didn’t mean to trespass,” he apologized. “I can leave if I’m bothering you.”

He was so sincere, and even sweet. She couldn’t help but coo at the little mortal.

“So that is your excuse? You just did not know you were trespassing?” she pressed, enjoying this game far too much.

“It’s not an excuse,” he answered confidently. She still smiled, but raised an eyebrow slightly at him. He wasn’t exactly defiant; he was more… self-assured. “Really. Everyone I’ve ever heard talk about this place says that no one owns it.”

“Well of course someone owns it,” she told him still patiently but also teasingly. “The entire temple is mine.”

Now his eyebrow cocked upward. “I’m not in the temple,” he answered, though it was evident by his tone of voice he was suggesting there was far more on his mind than that simple statement, and his confusion was rising.

She opened her mouth to scold him and pointed an enormous finger at the little mortal, then paused. “Are you trying to be smart with me?” she asked him, just a little confrontationally.

“No ma’am. I know the temple is off limits. It’s forbidden. I’ve stayed away from it.”

“Forbidden you say,” she questioned.

“Yes ma’am,” he replied politely.

“Why is it forbidden?” she asked him.

“The last priestess there locked it up. No one is allowed in there anymore.”

“So no one has been in there in… how long?” The boy shrugged his shoulders.

“Not many of the older folk remember that far back, but she locked it up and no one is allowed in there.”

“So no one has been in there,” she pressed, leaning a little closer to him and scrutinizing him carefully.

“A few,” he admitted.

“And where are they?”

“It’s forbidden. Anyone caught breaking in is sentenced to death,” he answered her dutifully. “But there’s no reason to go in there unless you’re searching for treasure anyways. And once you try to sell one of those treasures, it won’t be long until you’re caught.” She thoughtfully considered his story and nodded slightly to him. Forgotten or not, she was still respected.

“I am happy to see my temple is still respected, even if it has been abandoned,” she told the boy, whose eyebrow rose even higher.

“How is it yours?” he asked the giant woman, whose jaw now dropped as well for the first time.

“What do you mean, how is it mine? I built it!”

“It was built by workers and craftsmen,” the boy intervened. Again, not defiant, just strangely self-assured. She looked at the boy with questioning eyes. “I know it was built by workers and craftsmen because the craftsmen still teach the techniques they used here.”

Her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips. The little smart ass.

“Alright fine, I did not actually build it but I did commission it to be built.”

“That’s not possible,” the boy intervened. Could he really be this dense?

“Of course it is possible. I provided the funds and anything else that was needed. Why would you not believe I commissioned it?”

“Because this place is over a thousand years old, and you seriously can’t be older than nineteen,” the boy answered her rather obviously.

Astravia hadn’t expected this answer. She couldn’t help but grin giddily and she even blushed a little at this unexpected compliment. It certainly was a far cry better than Zantharan’s constant demeaning her as looking old and haggard. “Nineteen,” she remarked with unending amusement. “As in nineteen years?” she asked, struggling not to laugh. The boy simply nodded. “I am much older than nineteen years,” she informed him with a stifled laugh.

“Twenty five?” he suggested, and this time she laughed much more audibly. She gently poked the tip of his nose with her giant fingertip, and then showed him a thumb pointing upward to encourage him to aim higher. “You are not,” he told her as though SHE were the one pulling HIS leg. He certainly seemed genuine, though.

“Little boy,” she chuckled, “I was here over one thousand years ago and I commissioned this temple to be built to worship me. I oversaw the commencement in a ceremony from that peak over there,” she said, pointing to a rocky plateau off in the distance past the long, high wall behind them on the other side of the forest.

“But… this is a temple dedicated to Astravia, the goddess,” he muttered. The little wheels in his mortal mind seemed to be breaking down from the strain.

“Yes,” she answered him, leaning forward and smiling almost smugly at him.

“You’re… claiming… to be… Astravia?” he asked, still seriously struggling. She nodded down at him and leaned forward, showing him her own self-assurance. “But she’s a myth,” he explained to her.

“I am not a myth,” she informed him, practically brimming with amusement at this strange little mortal. “Why, oh why would you not believe me?” she asked him, struggling to contain her laughter at him as he struggled harder and harder.

“Astravia was… a goddess,” he answered her. She grinned and sat up, placed her hands on her hips and stared down at him, pursing her lips. This game was fun, but she was ready for it to end now.

“Do I not look like a goddess?” she asked, waving her hands over her entire body.

“No,” the boy answered flatly.

Astravia didn’t move so much as a single muscle. This was too much to bear, especially given her recent treatment from her husband. She continued to smile at him, though her eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. This game was about to end, but she would at least allow this little mortal to explain himself before she disintegrated him.

“How,” she said in an airy voice, just above a whisper. She was suppressing her irritation, but only just barely and for no other reason than she didn’t want him to see he had gotten to her so badly. “How do you think I do not look like a goddess?” she asked him.

“Because even a goddess couldn’t be as beautiful as you are,” he answered with wonder.

Her jaw dropped slightly and she stared down at the little mortal with an open mouth. He seemed perfectly innocent the way he said it, so genuine and sincere and no matter how closely she looked at him, she couldn’t see any sign of deceit.

She let loose a single, weak huff of laughter and her skin turned red as she blushed more deeply than she had in her very long and storied memory. She gulped and began giggling to herself uncontrollably. Oh how fortuitous she hadn’t chosen to disintegrate this wonderful little mortal the instant he questioned her godhood! He watched her with continued wonder, only beginning to smile a little near the end when the release of emotions at this wonderful and unexpected validation filled her heart and she had to fight back a tear.

A moment later, she corrected herself and overcame her rush of emotions and pointed at him with a mischievous grin. “You are a little rapscallion, aren’t you?” she teased.

“A what?” the boy asked, confused once again.

“What I mean is you fancy yourself a ladies man,” she explained.

“Not really,” he answered. “I mean, it’s not like I have anything to offer,” he told her forthrightly. She released her breath again and looked at him, now wonder in her eyes as well. When was the last time she’d encountered a mortal this precious before?

“You offered me something very special today,” she praised him almost regally, then scooped him up in her arms and hugged him with all of her body, nuzzling his tiny little cheeks with her own. He didn’t seem to know what exactly to do but lie there in her arms and let her. When she finally set him back on his feet, she petted his cheek with a fingertip and smiled down at him. “I do believe you, but I still do not understand how you could not believe I am a goddess,” she told the strange little mortal.

“Goddesses are a myth,” he stated as though it were simply a matter of fact.

“And my size compared to yours?” she questioned him.

“There are giants that live just across the mountains to the east of here. They even travel to the port near the sea side to do trade,” he answered simply. She lowered her head and looked at him, thoroughly amused again.

“Have you ever heard of a giant as beautiful as me?” she asked him patiently once again. He merely shook his head no. She smirked now. “That was your cue to tell me,” she encouraged him.

“I’ve never heard of anyone as beautiful as you,” he remarked, again with wonder. Her heart filled. She’d heard this said to her so many times, even from Zantharan once upon a time, but almost always when it was said it was as though it were part of a worshipper’s prewritten prayer. This little mortal said it with such awe and wonder. Even this she’d encountered before, but never from a mortal much older than a toddler.

“How exactly do I convince you, then?” she pondered absentmindedly as with a wave of her hand the grass beneath him parted and he was lifted up into a custom made, form fit granite chair for him to sit in as he fell back into it with wide, shocked eyes.

“I believe you,” he muttered in a low voice. She raised her eyebrows and leaned a little more closely. Then he looked up at her, his eyes wide. “Giants can’t do that,” he muttered, which made her laugh even more.

He was so precious! Sure, in a few short years, probably less (which to a goddess might as well have been less than a blink of the eye), he would grow into a horny, testosterone and hormone driven monster, but in this briefest of moments, he was absolutely precious and adorable.

“Tell me why you are here,” she said with a warm, tender smile and with immeasurable patience.

“I’m not in the temple,” he insisted. “I was told to stay out of the temple and I did. These aren’t the temple grounds.” Now that he was fully aware of the gravity of his situation, he was quite adamant about making sure he was not in the wrong here.

She leaned down to (gently) scold him, but then she paused and thought for one second. “You are technically correct,” she told him. “But what is the purpose of this mountain if not then to hold up my temple?”

“The mountain existed before you came here and selected it,” he answered her. He certainly was forthright. Again, not defiant, not even cheeky, just… self-assured. She looked down at him and her brow furrowed once more, tapping her knee with her fingertip.

“I’ve been gone for a short while,” she explained to him.

“The last time anyone claimed to have seen you was centuries ago,” he answered her.

“For a goddess, that is a short while,” she explained to him patiently. “In fact, it is a very short, short while.”

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked her bluntly.

She considered him once more and tilted her head to the side. “No,” she answered very gently. “I haven’t quite decided yet what it is I am going to do with you.”

“But you’re not going to kill me,” he wanted to confirm.

“Most certainly not,” she answered him with a warm smile. “Why? Do I now have a reputation as a killer?” The boy shook his head no.

“But there were tales of you punishing people who angered you.”

“Yes, I have done that,” she admitted.

“And you were pretty angry with me a moment ago,” he pointed out. Yes, she’d caught her eye twitching, but she’d been very careful not to let her ire show to this boy. She must have been careless and let it slip.

“You caught me by surprise is all.”

“You can’t surprise a goddess,” he answered her.

She smiled and petted his cheek again with her fingertip. “You are unique for a mortal,” she explained. “But I would not get too used to thinking you can get one over on me.” He nodded obediently to her. “There is more to you than meets the eye. Tell me why you are here,” she said to him patiently and sweetly.

“I just needed to get away,” he said rather cryptically to her. She leaned down and placed her elbow on her knee and her chin into the palm of her hand.

“Did you violate the law?” she asked him and in response he shook his head. “Then get away from what?”

“I just needed to be by myself,” he answered her obediently. This was certainly a sentiment she empathized with.

“What if you were alone with me for a little while?” she asked him. “Would you like to see the inside of the temple? You look quite hungry. I could make you a feast the likes of which you’ve never tasted,” she offered.

“You mean your servants could,” he pointed out. This little mortal did seem to be astute, in his own way.

“I am here by myself as well,” she answered patiently. “What do you say? Do you want to see the home of a goddess and be her guest for dinner?” she asked, then smiled sympathetically as she heard his stomach growl. “That answers it for me,” she teased, tapping the tip of his nose again. “I will be certain to get you back to your home in time for you to get to bed,” she promised him.

She thought she was being kind and generous, but she took pause when he lowered his head, seemingly with shame and blushed. “What is it?” she asked him. “Go ahead. Tell me.”

“I came up here because I… there’s nothing really to go back to.”

“Are you saying you are an orphan?” she asked him.

“I guess,” he replied to her. “I used to stay down under the docks but they ran me out of there a few weeks ago.”

“Oh. A little stray,” she teased. “Come on then, and you can tell me all about it,” she commanded him casually, then scooped him up in her hand and picked him up, pressing him against her side and carrying him like a mother would her baby. He screamed in surprise as she did this so nonchalantly and set off still strolling, but moving this time with much more purpose than she had before.

“HEY!” he screamed up at her. She looked down at him with a cocked eyebrow, amused by this sudden impertinence. “I can walk!”

“I know you can,” she answered back as a mother would her small child. “But I am not going to wait for your short little legs. Now come then. We have chores!” she chirped quite enthusiastically.
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ralgar
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by ralgar » Wed May 11, 2022 2:34 am

Is that zantharas or how ever u say that name, also very interesting start I like it.

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Wed May 11, 2022 3:25 am

ralgar wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 2:34 am
Is that zantharas or how ever u say that name, also very interesting start I like it.
You mean is the boy Zantharan in disguise? Well, only time will tell. ;) I guess I'd ask if Zantharan seemed like the type to follow her in disguise and banter cheerfully with her after their last encounter?
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by MrWitness » Wed May 11, 2022 8:29 am

The way you build your stories is really great.

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Thu May 12, 2022 12:42 am

As Astravia gathered wood, she ordered him to tell her about himself and his history, though she was quite amused by the awe on his face and how he would stutter as she used her magic to do the majority of her work.

“Originally, I was going to do this the same way you would do it,” she explained to him as with a wave of her fingers he watched wide eyed as several fallen tree limbs simply lifted up into the air of their own accord and floated toward her as she set down her basket and stepped a few steps to the side as it unexpectedly grew to a height almost as tall as her. Then the tree limbs floated in and joined the other pieces of wood she’d already collected from earlier. Then, in an instant, the basket shrank back down to a much more manageable size to carry in her free arm as she strolled along in search of more suitable timber. “I thought it might be fun for a change,” she chirped cheerfully. “But then I got a little distracted by a trespasser,” she teased with a cheeky grin down to him while he stared up at her at a loss for words.

“How big can you make that thing?” he asked her breathlessly as she set the basket down at their next stop.

“I am not really sure,” she commented casually as most of a fallen tree effortlessly slid of its own accord into the basket, which was now much taller than her and then in a wisp it shrank back down to its original size again. “I have never really tried to test myself.”

“Well… okay, so if I’m too little why can’t you just make me big enough so that I could walk on my own with you?” he asked her, blushing as she adjusted her grip on him and his face smooshed against her enormous breast.

“You are a mortal, dear. You need to be content with what size you are,” she informed him gently.

“Okay, fine. Then you could shrink yourself down to my size to walk with me. Right?” he insisted. For some reason he didn’t seem to like being carried like a baby that much. She looked down at him with a cocked eyebrow. “You could, right?”

“Yes,” she answered patiently, “but I do not want to.”

“But I don’t want to be carried like a baby,” he complained to her. She merely chuckled to herself, smiling down at him as he moved his face away from her jiggling breast again.

“You will get used to it,” she assured him with a pleasant smile, and then strode on as her stroll practically became a prance.

Once he was done complaining and marveling over her powers, he finally began to open up as requested.

His story was a sad one, but hardly as imaginative as she’d hoped based on his interesting behavior thus far. He grew up on the coast in a town not far from the goddess’ temple. When he was a few years old, his mother took ill with cholera and died not long after, leaving only the father to fend for them. He did his best, and he didn’t have any stories of abuse or poor words to say about his father, but neither was there much remarkable about him. He was simply a workingman who needed to venture out as often as possible to provide for them, which left little time for nurturing or teaching them.

Their neighbors tried to pitch in, but times were tough for many of the towns in the region, so to a large degree her new little companion had to fend for himself. He did have siblings, the oldest of which did her best to take care of her younger siblings, but when she was old enough she married into a better life while her father took the modest dowry and used it as best he could to supplement their living needs. The next oldest, a son, went off to war for the promise of a healthy salary, but he was lost in battle while Astravia’s newfound friend was merely five.

He explained life in the wake of those two events as she sorted the many artifacts of wood she’d gathered with artful waves of her hands then scooped him up into her arm and made her way to the kitchen while the little mortal pouted at once again being treated like an infant. Once there, she set him on a countertop and proceeded to her cellar, which he marveled at wide eyed from a distance.

Once she returned with a ham large enough to feed an army as well as a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables that were on a scale the young mortal had never seen before, she pressed him to continue his story, before stopping him with a wave of her hand in the middle of his first syllable.

“This was so rude,” she remarked, laughing a little at herself. “I let myself get so carried away, I forgot: do you have a name?”

“Maceo,” he answered back dutifully. She leaned on her arm against the table and smiled quite pleasantly down at the lad.

“I am pleased to meet you, Maceo,” she told him and then presented her hand to him, palm down. He looked at her, confused, and then lifted his own hand, palm up, and she placed her index finger in it and tipped her head slightly to him with a warm smile. “I am the Queen Goddess Astravia.” He wasn’t quite sure how to respond, so he tucked his left arm inward and bowed to her, which made her smile even more before she returned to preparing her food.

“Why do this yourself?” He asked, fascinated with the fact that she was carving up vegetables with a knife using her hands, rather than using her amazing powers. “I mean, you have to have servants, and you have magical abilities…”

“Oh, I thought it would be fun for a change,” she answered him with a smile. “I have not cooked like this in eons.”

“Not even once?”

“No. There has never been a need. But then, I have had attendants since before your people ever existed.”

“So where are they?” he asked.

“I left them behind in the palace. Like you, I wished to be alone,” she answered politely and patiently.

“Palace? But… isn’t this your palace?” he asked her, and then gave her a crooked glance as she laughed heartily at him.

“No, dear. This is more of… let us say a cottage.”

“But this place is enormous! They call it a temple, but it’s more like a city!”

“My temples require quite a bit in order to function in the manner I intend them to, so yes. I would say that in your terms it is more of a city. But to me? It’s really more of a cozy little cottage. For instance, in the palace, my bed chambers were about a third of the size of the surface level of this temple.”

His eyes went so wide again she thought they might pop out, but she simply giggled at his quaint little notions. “So, Maceo, tell me more about yourself,” she told him.

“Can I ask you something first?” he asked her. She paused in her cooking and looked at him directly, interested in how boldly he responded, as though something quite important was on his mind.

“Alright,” she smiled and set her knife down. “Go ahead and ask me.”

“This… city,” he began.

“My temple?” she asked him and he nodded.

“But here, to us, it’s more of a city,” he explained. She wagged her head a little, but nodded. “You meant for a lot of people to live here,” he deduced. She crinkled her brow just slightly and leaned downward toward him just a bit.

“My hope was that by now there would at least be 100,000 here,” she confided. He was surprised, but managing to contain it.

“Does that bother you?” Now it was her turn to be surprised.

“Does what bother me?” she asked him. He was interesting indeed.

“That you wanted hundreds of thousands of people to live here and… it’s abandoned,” he pointed out. “Are you angry?” She smiled at him and petted his cheek with her fingertip, then grabbed a chair and pulled it forward, sitting down and leaning on her elbow to speak to him earnestly.

“I was a little hurt,” she admitted softly.

“But… you built this place for us to worship you and we completely abandoned it. You’re not mad? People don’t even believe you’re real, and now you’re here and you couldn’t even believe that I couldn’t believe you were real. It’s like… it would be like if I completely forgot my family.”

“This is why I love your people so much,” she praised him and gave him a sweet little peck on his forehead. “You are always so considerate and always trying so hard to understand how I feel. Other worlds, they fall so quickly into asking for things for themselves.”

“Other worlds?” he asked her breathlessly.

“Oh yes. More worlds than you can count, little mortal,” she answered him cheerfully.

“Maceo,” he answered her back. “Could you please call me Maceo?” he asked her. She had to catch herself from giggling at his request. She took a deep breath and released.

“Very well. Maceo. There are many, many worlds under the care of the gods.”

“But you’re the only one that’s come here,” he said. She smiled again.

“You’re culture is very, very young. We’ve only had reason to visit recently. This temple was the first and meant to be a place where the other gods could relax and see this world for themselves before deciding if they wanted a presence here or not. Of course, the members of the Celestial council will all have temples here.”

“What is the celestial council?” he asked her.

“The twelve highest of all the gods,” she answered him. “We all establish a presence on all of our worlds. The lower gods have a little more discretion on where they want a presence. But back to your question. Maceo,” she said, catching herself in honor of his request, “I shall speak a little more in terms as you use them. This temple was very much intended to be a city. It was to worship me, but it has many purposes, not just that. For instance, it is the hub where our network of portals to and from and around this world will operate. It acts as a center of knowledge and wisdom for the gods and also as a center of law. But also we benefit greatly from your worship, and for that, we need a place of worship.”

“So our worship gives you your powers,” he intuited, but she only smiled and petted his cheek again with her fingertip.

“No, it does not give us our powers. But we do benefit from it. In exchange for these things and others that we get from you, we have decided it best to give you something back in return.” She lifted her hand up and rested her jaw in it. “The temples on each world are created based off of the people there and what we feel is suitable to give them. This temple isn’t particularly large or elaborate like some others, but it is special in its own way.”

“How is it special?”

“Well, your world isn’t particularly bountiful. It has its resources, but we have places that are much more rich. What I was impressed with was the consideration your people gave me and the genuineness of your love. Not all of you, mind you, but enough that I wanted to give you something a little extra special, but not particularly flashy. Much like yourselves,” she told him with a smile.

“Often times, when we build a temple, what we are actually building is a city for our worshippers and in the case of your world, I built a robust city. You see, cities normally have down sides. They rarely ever create anything tangible, at least not until you get to a certain level of advancement, but even then, they consume far more than they create. Also, a city normally specializes in one area. For instance, a city build on a coast will usually specialize in overseas trade or seafood. I built a city for you that over time could easily evolve into both something that created as much as it consumed as well as function very well in all areas of commerce and culture.”

“And we abandoned it,” he pointed out again.

“Yes, you did,” she answered with a little sadness in her voice. “That certainly hurts. I was only gone for a little more than 500 years, but I’ve been all but forgotten.”

“You’ve always been described as something that was too good to be true,” Maceo explained to her. “But also… maybe 500 years isn’t much to you, but it’s so many lifetimes for us. You kind of abandoned us too, didn’t you?”

In most situations, a mortal speaking like this to a goddess would not be tolerated in any way and seen as defiance. However, in this one, there seemed to be something more at the base of his words.

“I did not abandon you,” she explained patiently, but quite clearly. “I have simply been very busy these last few hundred years.”

“Busy with your other worlds?”

“No, I have not been able to check on all of my worlds like I would like either. There is much going on in the upper realms and a great deal to be seen to in the celestial palace as of late. I just didn’t expect an entire city to be abandoned like this,” she explained.

“I was told that the temple only exists to worship you. When the worshippers stopped going to services, they were told that this place wasn’t for them. That’s what I was told. I was told that I couldn’t be a follower of Astravia, so this place wasn’t for me.”

“Well it is today,” she proclaimed cheerfully. “You are my guest,” she added with a smile.

“So you are going to bring this city back to life?” he asked her.

“Not just yet. I was disappointed at first when I saw it had been abandoned, but I actually would have most likely spent most of my time here in the subterranean caverns if it hadn’t been emptied. This actually works out quite nicely for me.”

“Subterranean caverns?” He gasped. “Big enough for you?” She tittered a little at him.

“Perhaps one day I can show them to you,” she suggested, which made him stare at her in wonder. “We shall see. Now, will you tell me the rest of your tale, or must I resort to more drastic measures?” she asked, though it almost felt as if it were a threat.

So Maceo told her everything she wanted to know. How his father had died at sea on a fishing expedition, and how they were kicked out of their home and eventually the three that remained of Maceo’s siblings had scattered to the winds. In Maceo’s case, he’d ended up working odd jobs in another coastal town south of where he’d been born, but when that work dried up he found himself begging for scraps and sleeping under docks right up until he was caught and essentially run out of town.

All he knew was coastal life, but the next nearest town south was well outside of walking distance for him, especially on an empty stomach, and the only way back north for him was back through the town he’d been run out of, so with nowhere else to go, he made his way inland and up into the nearby mountains finding nowhere to rest and no sustenance for himself until he found himself sitting on a hillside outside of the temple, staring at the skies and contemplating his fate.

Again, Astravia had heard many, many such tales in her time, especially among the less developed cultures.

“So why my temple?” she asked him over dessert as they sat near a bright fire beside the pool.

“I wanted to see something beautiful,” he answered her. “People come from all around to see the light tower over the main gate. I thought I might be able to catch a glimpse because it’s so famous for it’s beauty.”

“And was it all you hoped it would be?”

“I hadn’t made it that far yet,” he explained. She smiled at him and encouraged him to eat the remainder of his dessert with a tap of the back of her fingernail, then sat up in her lounge chair and moved to the edge, sitting with her chin in the palm of her hand.

“So now that you have seen the temple and you’ve contemplated your fate? Where to now, little mortal?” she asked him. He crossed his legs and stared up at the giant woman.

“I don’t know,” he pondered aloud. He took a moment and then opened his mouth to speak, but she did the honor for him.

“You will stay here,” she proclaimed. “I have decided that I would enjoy a little bit of company. You will stay in one of the quarters for the priestesses.” His jaw dropped and he stared up at her flabbergasted.

“D… do I even get a say in the matter?” he asked her with such naivety that she couldn’t help but laugh at him.

“Very well. I normally allow my worshippers their free will, if you’d prefer to deny a goddess her wish.”

He blushed heavily and shied away a little. “N-no,” he stuttered. “I just… I mean… what could I even do to be of any use in a place like this?” he asked her.

Once again, she was quite pleased with the results of her patience for this people. This little retreat was proving to be just what she needed indeed. “So you will grant this goddess her wish?” she asked him teasingly.

“Of course! What can I do?”

“You will learn, dear little mortal,” she announced, but then caught herself. “I am sorry. I did agree, after all,” she apologized formally with a faux bow to him. “Maceo. You will learn. We will begin by me teaching you all I can. All of the stores of knowledge of this place are at your disposal. Whatever you can learn, you are welcome to here,” she promised.

“But that’s you just giving to me again,” he protested. “All I’ve done is sit here doing nothing while you did everything for me.”

She grinned and breathed out happily as she did so. “I shall put you to work then,” she promised him. “As you are able,” she added.

Following dinner, she gave Maceo a tour of her quarters, describing the many rooms as well as the ones that existed for servants to work and care for the building. Being a building she had intended primarily for the gods, many places simply were not usable for mortals. For the purpose of cleaning or maintenance, there was scaffolding and ladders kept in some storage closets to allow the mortals to more easily reach areas they couldn’t otherwise work in.

Several areas within her quarters were adapted, though, to allow access for the mortals, such as their bathrooms, where Maceo was shocked to see running water for the first time. She showed him the apparatus set up in the dining and ballrooms where mortal servants could enter through the ceiling in order to deliver plates of food and drink for the gods as they dined and socialized using cables and ropes attached to platters and she showed him the den with a fireplace twice as tall as he was.

She even showed him the stables in the lower levels made to hold both horses for mortals as well as beasts of burden large and powerful enough for the gods to utilize.

Finally, she set him down and allowed him to walk on his own for the first time, though she did seem rather impatient for how slowly his little legs could carry him and they made their way to the barracks where the priestesses were meant to stay.

“What about the priests?” he asked as they approached the large building that though beautiful and ornate was not nearly as impressive as Astravia’s quarters.

“I do not have priests,” she answered forthrightly.

“Why not?” he asked her. She glanced down at him, less than pleased, but she might as well get it out of the way. After all, he was in the beginning stages of puberty; it would have to be explained at some point why his stay with her would be so incredibly short.

“Because men are… you will learn soon enough first hand,” she said to him sweetly. “You will change and as you change, your hunger for women will grow insatiably. I do not keep priests because I do not have the patience for men whose ambitions outstrip their stations,” she informed him. He stopped dead in his tracks. She made it another couple steps further before she stopped as well and looked back at him. She could see in his eyes that he wanted to argue vociferously and passionately, but he also was carefully considering her words.

“I’m not dumb,” he told her. “I know what you’re talking about.”

“I am sure you do,” she agreed calmly. “But before long you will begin to experience it first hand.”

“If I’m nothing but a problem to you, then maybe you should just send me away now.” She began to become irritated until he spoke up again, “earlier I thought you meant that I would live here with you.”

She smiled and then turned back and knelt down in front of him, placing her hand on his shoulder. “You will live here,” she informed him. “And I will enjoy having you here quite a bit, but when the time comes, when the blood burns so fierce and hot within your veins that you find yourself needing to act, that will be the time for you to leave. I will know when that is. You will have no need to concern yourself with it. Until then, you will stay here with me, you will learn things most mortals can only dream of learning, doing things you have never imagined and you will leave here a very wealthy man, with all the resources you need to grow that wealth and you will leave here with my blessing.”

“You’re already planning for me to leave though. Why even bother? You’re afraid that..”

“I am afraid of nothing,” she interrupted firmly. “It is simply your nature. A nature that even the gods are not immune to. I am not angry with you, nor do I have any malice for what you are. You will see. It is your nature and as you discover that nature, it will become your time to set out. When I say I wanted to enjoy time alone here, what I mean is that I will still be relaxing and relishing in the pleasure of peace and quiet and tranquility well after you have died an old man before I am ready to start bringing mortals back here again. Not only should you leave because your nature will drive you to strive for things you have no business striving for; you should leave because that fierce, burning blood will also drive you to forge a world of your own, and create it in your own manner. I hold no resentment for your nature. I actually cherish it, but it is your nature. All I expect of you is to learn to harness and focus that nature so that you are respectful of the hearts you encounter. If you do that for me, you will be very blessed. I promise you that.”

Maceo looked at her rather skeptically, but as she extended a hand to him, he accepted it and she guided him, stooping over and holding his hand while they entered into the barracks, the only area high enough to accommodate Astravia being the main corridor that ran the majority of the length of the building.

With a snap of her fingers, long dried out torches suddenly burst to life, illuminating the building, which, while quite ornately decorated and beautiful, was covered in many layers of dust.

“Oh,” she stated flatly. “I forgot that I hadn’t bothered to clean this building,” she admitted with more than a touch of embarrassment.

“It’s fine,” he told her eagerly.

“No, it is not.” She tapped her foot and thought the situation over. The small decorations here certainly wouldn’t hold up as well as the ones in the bathhouse or her quarters, so those options were off the table. She smiled to herself and then knelt down, smiling brightly at her new guest. “You can sleep on my pillow, just this once,” she promised him. He looked at her in shock and even took a step back, but she scooped him up into her arms without even bothering to consider his trepidation.

“I can clean it up before I go to bed,” he insisted.

“Perhaps,” she chuckled as she rose to her feet again, “but there are other things we need to consider as well.” She then proceeded out of the building, carrying him along with him squirming even harder against her than before. “Calm down,” she ordered him.

“I’ll be fine!” he insisted emphatically. “I’ve been sleeping on dirt for years.”

“I know you have,” she told him gently. “And you are not doing that anymore,” she determined.

“What if you roll over me in the night?” he asked, which was enough to convince her to stop and look down at him in the crook of her arm.

“I certainly will not do that,” she promised, then petted his cheek with her finger. He sighed and didn’t exactly look happy about the situation, but he was also out of arguments for the time being.

Up in her room, Astravia went to her bathroom to freshen up and left him sitting on a bed that stood a little taller than he did. He sat there looking around uncomfortably, then made the jump down to the floor and walked out to the balcony, looking through the pillars of the railing and enjoying the night scene before him.

Eventually, she came out and looked to the bed, then around until she found him standing out on the balcony and grinned at him. When he noticed her return, he looked up at her, dressed in a beautiful, but also somewhat conservative nightgown and headed straight for him. She scooped him up in her arms and then carried him back to the bathroom again, and when they entered in that room, his eyes went wide in a near panic as he realized that his path was directly to the bathtub.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a panic.

“I am going to clean you up. You are filthy,” she answered him simply.

“No… wait… I can do that myself,” he complained as she turned on the water and then began pulling on his shirt. He tried to fend her off, but he might as well have been battling a collapsing mountain. “I said I can do this myself,” he begged as she ripped his shirt off.

“Yes, yes, yes, I know,” she dismissed and reached for his pants. At this point he froze and looked directly up at her.

“PLEASE STOP!” he screamed, trying to catch his racing breath. She finally stopped and looked at him, slightly confused. “I know how to clean myself.”

“Then why are you such a mess?” she asked him.

“Because I haven’t been able to find anywhere for a bath in months,” he explained to her. “Please! I’m not a baby! I can do these things on my own!”

“Do not be embarrassed, dear,” she consoled him and hooked his pants again, but he clenched his hand as tightly as he could around her finger. Enough that she noticed.

“It’s too much. Please,” he begged her. She sighed and sat on the edge of the tub and stood him there.

“And your clothes? They are filthy too.”

“I can wash them. I know how. I’ve been doing it since I was five.”

“You are very insistent, aren’t you, little mortal?”

“Please call me by my name,” he begged. Finally she sat upright and it seemed to occur that this new pet might actually flee her if she pressed too hard.

“Very well, then. Knock if you cannot get the door open when you are done,” she instructed him and stood, leaving the room without any further altercation.

She walked out to the balcony and leaned against the banister, pondering this new pet and mumbling softly to herself about it. He certainly was willful, but then again, she’d never kept a human as a pet before. Perhaps this was just how they behaved in this particular set of circumstances. Or perhaps she was underestimating how far along he was in growing up. She had, after all, seen evidence that he was already able to abstract, which was unique for mortals of his age. But then again, he should be at a stage where he was transitioning away from needing a mother’s help for everything. Mortals not much more developed than he was had been known to start families in this culture, which certainly didn’t sit well with the goddess who had very much looked forward to this unique pet.

She pondered on and on, muttering softly and gently to herself until she heard a soft creak and turned around to see that the mortal had somehow actually managed to open the door on his own, despite not being quite tall enough to reach the door handle. That was certainly intriguing.

“Are you tired?” she asked him pleasantly.

“A little,” he admitted. “The last few days have been sort of tough.” She waved him over to join her, so he strolled along and she smiled at how much cleaner he and his clothes were, and also how much better they smelled.

“I suppose you can wash yourself,” she was forced to compliment. He offered a halfhearted smile, but didn’t otherwise respond. “Would you like to relax with me out here for a short while before sleep?” she asked him. His smile was a little more genuine this time and he nodded, though once again she scooped him up into her hands without even asking and set him on top of the banister next to her, looking out at a dense forest well lit by a bright moon above.

They didn’t talk, they just stared out at the scenery together. “I love this view,” she confessed to him, smiling pleasantly to herself and sighing with pride. “I designed it specifically for this balcony.”

“Do you think I could learn to design things that well?” he asked her. She glanced at him and considered his question.

“Perhaps,” she said, curious if at all possible he might actually be able to. There was a moment of silence following his question, and then he turned his entire body to face her.

“I’d like to ask you a question,” he said to her, and she turned her head and looked at him.

“Go ahead, then,” she bid him.

“Why are you so sad?” he asked her, and she froze suddenly.

“What makes you think that I am sad?” she asked him, not quite sure how to answer.

“I can see it in your eyes,” he told her.

She tipped her head slightly and looked at him, trying to decide how to proceed from here. “You are very observant for a mortal,” she told him without answering his question. “It is very interesting.”

He waited for her to say more, but she went back to looking at her scenery once more. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked her.

“Why are you so sad?” she asked back, dodging the question again.

“I told you why. My parents and brother are all gone and I have no idea where my other siblings went.” She looked at him and then touched his forehead. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again after concentrating, her eyes had returned to that pitch black with burning stars for pupils again. He opened his mouth to speak, but she put her finger to his lips and shushed him gently. A moment later she lowered her hand again.

“One of them is gone,” she informed him sadly. “His path from you has been cut, and it seems he has entered the next world. Your two remaining sisters have each found homes. They are not perfect homes, but they are cared for.”

He gulped and processed the information she’d shared. “How can you tell?” he asked her and she gave him a little glare, but he continued. “What I mean is… how do you see that? How does it work?”

“There is a type of energy that are like strings that lead like trails to each person you’ve touched. The more you have touched them, the more bright that string is. I can follow those strings to those you care about and glimpse into their hearts.” Maceo was quite impressed, which made her smile.

“I should find them,” he determined, but she shook her head at him.

“Paths have already developed for them. They will see you again, but I do not recommend you do that right now. It will disrupt their paths.”

“So they’re going to be alright? You know that?”

“It is not certain, but that is why you should let them travel their paths on their own. I can offer them some gentle guidance to help keep them on those paths, however.”

“What about my path?”

“Your path is in a state of heavy flux. It has shifted so much that it is not clear how it will end. This is fairly common for someone who meets a deity and makes an impression on them.”

“So how long will my path be in flux?”

“Usually it lasts a few months or so. We shall see.”

He nodded and looked out at the night landscape again. “I won’t ask why you’re sad again,” he told her, and she smiled, “but I do need to know if there is anything I can do.”

She smiled and turned, petting his cheek with her fingertip again. “Unfortunately my dear little mortal…” she said, then seemed to think better of her words. “Maceo. Mortals do not have the ability to affect the paths of gods. But I am very glad that I now see a string connecting you to me. Not many mortals have that honor,” she informed him.

That night, as promised, he slept on a pillow a short distance to her right from her head. He fell asleep very quickly and fell into a deep dream while Astravia lay awake for a while thinking to herself. When he mumbled to himself and then curled up under the hand towel she had provided him as a blanket, she rolled over and stared at him, tucking her arms under her own pillow, staring at him now.

“It is sad that mortals like yourself grow up so quickly,” she mentioned so softly the breeze barely picked up her words. “Our time will be over in the blink of an eye, and you are very interesting,” she said, then closed her eyes and slept herself.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Sun May 15, 2022 2:28 am

Nine years had passed, and just as the goddess had predicted, it happened so quickly for her that she hadn’t even realized it. She was sitting at a small, bronze bistro near one of the gardens sipping on a drink and paging through a book. Off in the corner of her eye, she saw movement and she turned to see Maceo, now long since grown into manhood downhill from her, working to diligently restore yet another mortal building for the eventual return of the city dwellers she’d intended this place to be for.

“I gave him an entire battalion of golems to help him; why does he insist on doing it all himself?” she muttered, shaking her head and then turning back to her book. She read for a moment, then sighed deeply, but also contentedly and leaned back, staring up at the bright blue sky. A sky that for normal eyes was only blue, but for the eyes of a goddess could be seen past even in daylight to glance at the stars above.

She seemed lost in thought until something about the position of the stars caught her attention and she sat upright, perplexed and her brow crinkling. A moment later, a conclusion arrived and she tensed, her eyes going wide. “Has it been that long?” she gasped. She seemed utterly flabbergasted, then turned to look at Maceo. “No,” she denied to herself, then looked more closely at him.

They actually hadn’t spoken in nearly two weeks. Not out of anger or any kind of spite, just simply because he was busy, hard at work learning, pursuing interests in the hopes of bettering himself as well as working hard to clean and refresh her temple. She, on the other hand, rarely engaged in labor. Only when she found it amusing. Most of her time was devoted to refreshing herself following the recent spat with her husband and his humiliating treatment of her.

“You seem better than when we first met,” he’d told her recently while serving her a three course meal he’d made following his latest studies, “but that sadness is still in your eyes.” She merely petted his cheek with her fingertip as she always did and was merrily on her way again after complimenting him on his improved cooking.

It was common for the two of them to not see each other for days or even weeks at a time now because of how self sufficient he had become, and this seemed to be the catalyst that forced Astravia to reconsider.

He was actually quite devoted to her, and never once in the years since she’d chanced upon him had he managed to anger her. Yes, he’d irritated her a few times, for certain, but each time he’d managed to recover the conversation in a way that amused her or tickled her in some fashion. Now she was squinting at him, scrutinizing him carefully from a distance. This was the first time his work had carried him this close to her quarters in days. She grunted in frustration to herself and then her eyes turned black, those same burning stars in the center and her body seemed to shimmer and become partially transparent as she slipped herself out of time for a moment. She turned and looked to the pool and with a wave of her hand, rewound time in that direction to their first day together, and she watched the scene of them sitting by a pyre together enjoying their first meal. She froze the scene with a sudden gesture, then reached forward and plucked his frozen image from the scene and placed it mid air in front of her. Then she reached out to the frozen current Maceo and similarly plucked his image from that scene and placed the two together comparing them, her mouth hanging slightly as she forced herself to finally notice the difference.

“No,” she gasped again, stunned. In the first image she’d plucked of him, he was standing before her, just the little boy she’d taken in as a pet in the evening hours, and now, this latest version, a handsome, tall, muscular man with thick nearly black hair, toiling hard with his own two hands. She laughed as she realized the two images were very literally night and day, but then leaned closer again, tipping her head as though looking at him from a different angle would give her another conclusion.

“But how?” she asked herself. “He shouldn’t have even lasted four, let alone NINE!” she concluded, referring to the number of years since he’d come to her temple. She spread her arms wide and then waved them back in again, creating an image of the entire temple that condensed in her hands and began spinning through time and their interactions together.

Initially, he’d been difficult to teach. Not because of any personality or behavioral issues. He was quite eager to learn and to please, but there were just so many gaps in knowledge that had to be overcome. Once he got rolling, however, his progress improved nearly exponentially. She scanned through those first days of him struggling even with reading, but also the skills she attempted to teach him which ranged all the way from building and cooking to types of magic that few mortals were ever allowed to touch.

She scanned ahead to a few months into their time together where he was finally succeeding at his first potion- a simple concoction that recreated a delicate flower she’d described to him from another world.

“What’s it like being immortal?” he’d asked her as he struggled with the ingredients.

“Rather boring, actually,” she chuckled to him, gently nudging his hand toward an ingredient with her fingertip.

“Boring?” he had asked, frustrating her as he paused in his work to stare up at her in disbelief.

“Yes, boring. Extremely dull and tedious,” she answered him.

“How can it be boring for you? You can do practically anything, go anywhere.”

“My dearest Maceo,” she smiled and shook her head at him, then tipped his head back to his lesson. “You know you never ask a lady her age, correct?” He nodded, though he was also focusing on his work. “Do you remember when you told me it was not possible that I was over 25 years old?”

He blushed and nodded, allowing her to laugh a little. “Defining my age is difficult, partially because much of my existence I’ve spent outside of time as you understand it. But if I were to put a number to it, I would say I am around eighty seven million years old,” she explained to him. His jaw dropped and he looked up at her in shock, which made her laugh again.

“Incomprehensible, yes?” she asked him jovially. He could only nod to her.

“But even so. How could life be boring with everything you can do?”

“Because I’ve done it all,” she answered simply. “I have done it all over and over again, more times than you can imagine. I’ve walked the surface of bright burning stars, glided the icy rings of gaseous worlds one hundred times as large as this one, jumped through time like it were a rope, seen to the creation of entire star systems, frolicked in the deepest depths of oceans, soared skies that turn a bright pink at night and more things than I have time to describe to you in your lifetime. So as I said, it is rather boring.”

“So there’s nothing you’ve never done?”

“My powers allow me to do whatever I’d wish, just as you stated,” she explained patiently. “If it exists, I have done it.”

“And it’s boring.”

“Quite,” she smiled at him.

“I will find something you’ve never done before,” he promised her. She glowed with appreciation at his promise.

“That is very sweet,” she told him, then kissed the top of his head. “That would certainly be the greatest gift I could ever receive. Unfortunately, as I have said, my powers allow me to do it all, so I am afraid there is nothing left for me to try,” she said, then urged him back to completing his potion. She jumped ahead to another time where he was putting this stated ambition of his to the test, where she laughed and told him a few examples of when she’d done just as he was suggesting. Then again, and again. He’d tried many times over the nine years since he’d arrived, and each time she glowed as he made his best, futile attempts.

“How do you stand it if it’s so boring?” he had asked her a few years before the current day.

“Well, I watch it through eyes that are experiencing things for the first time, such as with you. For you, it is all fresh and new, and I can watch you and in a way, it is like experiencing it myself again for the first time.”

She continued to scan through time, following Maceo’s adventures and then whisked it all away, leaving only the two images of Maceo she’d just compared before her eyes. “Nine years,” she remarked with her arms folded in front of her, her enormous breasts heaved over them. “Well this has never happened before. I wonder if this counts,” she pondered, putting her index finger to her lips contemplatively. “I wonder if I should tell him,” she chuckled gently. Then she bit her lip, with a bit of frustration in her expression. “How?” she asked in a whisper, then suddenly phased back into time again.

She stood and walked from her bistro, then paused and thought only several steps along her path to go confront him. She smiled to herself and then snapped her fingers, freezing time again before strolling casually up to him and grinning mirthfully at the unsuspecting mortal who stood beneath her caught in the middle of loading a cart. She stepped behind him and time began moving again and she stood there, watching as he wiped his brow with his sleeve.

As he did so, she bent forward at the hips, leaning directly over him until her shadow covered him. He stood frozen, clearly caught off guard and turned and looked up at her, her beautiful, smiling face and supernaturally large, perky breasts mostly hidden behind her fresh white gown hanging immediately above him and offering him a tantalizing glimpse at a far too inviting cleavage.

Before and after. Then and now. She would test if it really was night and day.

“Hello,” she chirped then bent at the knees and dropped to them, placing her hands on her knees as she cheerfully plopped down, her magnificent breasts rippling and waving and they jiggled and bounced unfathomably just in front of him right now.

His face was one of surprise, and also flustered, but even a goddess such as her had trouble making out exactly what vexed him. The first time she’d done this exactly as she’d done now, it was painfully obvious. She full well knew what distracting assets she carried on her torso, and she knew exactly how hypnotic they were. She’d even literally hypnotized emperors in her time with nothing but these immense, welcoming breasts, just for her own amusement. Just a short while ago, that other version of Maceo was very much transfixed as she’d expected, and even as young as he was, his eyes only managed to escape their gravity because she’d wished it. Now, though? She couldn’t read him, and what’s more, while he did very much look directly at her bouncing bosom as planned, as soon as she was kneeling in front of him, still showcasing them but from a different angle, his eyes were only focused on her own eyes.

What’s more, his eyes focused effortlessly on hers. With even gods, they struggled to keep a lock on her eyes, especially when she flaunted her heavenly assets, and yet the intense centers of visual gravity that she carried with her could not seem to pull his gaze even a little, despite the fact that only just a short while before, she’d played the exact same trick on him, though for different reasons and despite him being well beyond the point where he should be completely consumed by his nature, she’d had almost no affect on him.

“Good day, goddess,” he greeted her, smiling now pleasantly up at her. She frowned and folded her arms, intentionally heaving and bouncing her breasts playfully, but he still didn’t take the bait.

“Maceo, what have I told you?” he turned his head slightly with a touch of shame. “Well? Must I say it myself? Have you forgotten? We’ve had this conversation enough times.”

“You’ve said that if you must keep company here while relaxing on your weekend, you would at least like to hear your own name spoken,” he answered obediently.

“Then why are we talking about it yet again?”

“Probably for the same reason you kept calling me your dear little mortal,” he answered back. “Or similar, at least.” She grimaced a bit, but remained firm.

“I over came that, however,” she scolded him.

“I only wanted to be respectful,” he answered her looking back up at her. There was that self-assurance again.

“You only wanted to be respectful, what?” she demanded.

“I only wanted to be respectful to you, Astravia,” he answered her. She smiled and tapped her finger on her knee somewhat impulsively, carefully scrutinizing him and looking closer as she leaned a bit forward and stared a little more intensely. “Is something wrong Astravia?” he asked her. She tipped her head slightly to the side, focusing a little more.

“Huh. I can hear it,” she muttered. “How peculiar,” she added, pondering further.

“Can I be of service?” he asked. Not passively, or uncomfortably. No passivity. He asked somewhat boldly, but in a way that seemed eager. She of course had seen this before in mortals, but when they’d reached that level of comfort with her in the past they’d always shown themselves to be fancying themselves above their lot in life.

“Yes,” she answered after a good moment to think. He was actually appraising her much the same as she was him. “Peculiar,” she whispered to herself. His eyebrow raised and she shook her head. “But first I must ask you: you literally have thousands of golems at your disposal to assist you in what you are doing and yet over and over again, I see you doing this yourself. Why are you resorting to manual labor when I thought you were going to be focusing on more advanced subjects?”

“It gives me clarity,” he answered directly. “I better appreciate practically everything when I use my own hands to do some kind of job or build something. Also, because if I want a job done right, I do it myself.”

“What do you mean, done right?” she asked him.

“The golems are sloppy,” he answered her. “They’re imprecise.”

“They are extremely precise. They’ve never so much as broken a dish.”

“But they do scuff them. They scratch things so I prefer to do work of that detail myself.” Astravia took a deep breath and stared at him. This self-assurance seemed almost to be like granite, though there was no brashness or hardness in his eyes. Of course she’d noticed these things before, but she’d never actually thought about them.

“I am pleased at least that you take pride in the work that you do. And I am also impressed by how clean this entire temple has become,” she informed him, still pondering this mortal and watching him with scrutinizing eyes.

“But?” he asked her. She snapped to again and returned back to the present moment.

“No buts,” she replied. “I do not need to qualify that statement. You have done quite well. I was merely taking my time getting back to my original point.”

“There’s something I can be of service with,” he said eagerly.

“Not as such,” she answered him thoughtfully. “I wish to speak with you,” she told him with a quick nod. “You will join me for lunch. It is time for you to take a break for that anyways, yes?”

“Yes,” he answered dutifully.

“I’ll accept the.. scuffs,” she said with a pause and a smile. “Put the golems to work. All of them. I have more important matters that must be attended to.”

“If that’s your wish, Astravia.” She nodded and straightened her body. “May I clean myself up first, or is it that urgent?”

She grinned again, amused. How polite of him. “Yes, of course. Take a shower, but do not dally too long. I am going to make you something nice and I do not want it to go cold before you arrive.” He nodded and turned partially, but stopped before marching off.

“Thank you Astravia,” he told her. She smiled pleasantly and then flicked her hand to encourage him to hurry along before standing and heading back to her kitchen where she prepared his favorite food- a thick steak with mushrooms and onions sautéed along with fresh asparagus and roasted vegetables. She even did most of the work with her own hands, rather than relying on her divine abilities.

She was nearly finished when she heard Maceo arrive, earlier than anticipated. “Can I help?” he asked her politely.

“No,” she answered with a smile and bright eyes. “Go sit. I will have the golems serve us in a moment,” she informed him, pointing back toward the pool. Maceo did as asked, noticing as a pyre lit up near the lounge chair he was climbing into. A moment later, Astravia strolled in and sat in her chair beside him and smiled out over the water. He looked out with her, sitting back and relaxing, showing no interest in pressing her to address her point. She was merely enjoying a beautiful day, so he sat back and relaxed.

“This is just like that first day we met,” she commented after some silence. He sat up, thought for a moment and then turned toward her, sitting on the edge of the lounge chair and facing her directly. “Isn’t it?” she asked him. He nodded and she looked at him. “Hmm,” she added, noting a look on his face that suggested he felt he knew what she was calling on him to discuss. “I’d like to go back to that day,” she told him. “Do you remember it?”

“I’ll never forget it,” he told her with a warm smile.

She nodded and leaned her head back as a soft breeze brushed her face, moving a few locks of her golden hair. “You remember what I said that night about your nature?”

“Yes. I never forgot what you told me, Astravia,” he informed her. She looked at him as he sat upright. “So the time has come,” he intuited. When she’d first warned him, she’d expected he would be resistant, like a baby unwilling to give up nursing on it’s mother’s milk, but as he looked at her, he was calm and resolute.

She now sat up and turned facing him directly as he was her as a few golems walked out with plates and glasses and handed them to Astravia and Maceo. “Maceo,” she began slowly. “That time was supposed to have been at least five years ago,” she informed him, again showing that strange curiosity she’d shown while looking him up and down on the street. Maceo looked left and right, contemplating her announcement, but not really understanding the implications of it.

“Maceo, when I met you, you were on the cusp of transitioning into manhood, and that was why I expected my time with you to be so short. By this time, I had expected you to be a very wealthy and powerful man and I was looking forward to seeing what great things you’d accomplished. I even thought I might visit you from time to time. But I was enjoying myself and I lost track of the time.”

“Lost track of the time? But I’ve been here for nine years,” he pointed out.

“Yes, I know, but remember what I am. Think of it like this: if you had lived 87 million years, what do you think 9 years would be like to you?”

“Probably like stepping out of my door and sitting down on the curb,” he answered, trying to comprehend and put himself in her shoes.

“That is a very good analogy. There is something very specific in you I was waiting to manifest, but it did not, which is… very peculiar. Do you understand what I meant when I discussed your nature with you? Do you really understand? Can you tell me what it is about you that didn’t have a place here with me?”

“Lust,” he answered directly. She stared at him, leaning her chin against her hand.

“Yes,” she answered softly, nodding slightly to him. “Only, it is actually more than just that.”

“Well, yes. I’ve read history. I know the stories of men and their insatiable lust.”

“It is not just that,” she explained. “There is a fire that burns in a man’s blood, especially when he is young, but really for his whole life. It drives them toward heroism, toward adversity, toward the search for power and glory. And of course, toward women. It creates a rebellious spirit in them, and that is why I do not keep priests in my temple. Men were always welcome to live in my temple… this city… but in the sanctuary, where worship is conducted, the matters relating to it, there is no place for men among those who commune closest to me. It has always proved disastrous when I have made an exception, especially with a teenager. You have lasted well beyond what I have experienced before.”

“What do you mean, lasted? All I have done is not… treat you rudely.”

She took another deep breath and looked at him, tapping her finger against her jaw as she held her chin in her hand.

“I am going to have a frank discussion with you,” she informed him. “I am going to ask you a question, and I expect you to be completely honest with me. Whatever you say to me, I will accept it without question, so long as you are honest with me.” Maceo nodded to her and sat a little more comfortably, waiting.

“Maceo, are you attracted to me?”

“Yes, I am,” he answered her.

“Maceo, tell me how attracted you are to me.”

“I think you are more beautiful than anything I have ever imagined,” he answered honestly. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“Do you not experience lust?” she asked him.

“Oh yes,” he answered her.

“Describe it to me,” she added coldly. He now finally looked uncomfortable, but oddly not embarrassed. “Go on. All I ask is honesty.”

“I think about your body,” he told her. “I think about your breasts and your hips and I think about touching them,” he explained. She motioned with her hand for him to go on, watching with fascination as he described his passion for her surprisingly objectively. “I think about your womanhood and how I want to feel it, and I think constantly about how I want to make love to you and never stop.”

“You are only a little over six feet tall,” she teased him with a bit of a laugh. “How exactly do you think that would work with me standing fifteen?”

“Do you really want me to describe it?” he asked her earnestly, but she shook her head at him and sat up, taking a bite of her food.

“But you haven’t acted,” she said, though it wasn’t clear if she was actually speaking to him. “Why?”

“Because you don’t want me to,” he answered her plainly.

“Oh, plenty of men have reached out to touch regardless of whether I wanted it,” she said, shaking her head at him and taking another bite. “And of them, nearly all freely admitted that they were dying happy men for it.”

“I’m not interested in them. You do not want it. It is that simple.”

“No it is not,” she answered back thoughtfully.

“How is it not?” he demanded to know. She turned her head and looked at him, then pulled an end table by her to set her plate on it and did the same for Maceo’s plate, urging him to eat.

“I am going to explain something to you that is rarely ever explained to mortals,” she informed him. He nodded and began eating his food as requested. “Maceo, a mortal man cannot be in my presence for long before he must act on his lust. Even with most gods, the same can be said. This may sound like an arrogant or boastful statement, but you will believe me when I say it is nothing of the sort. You know what pheromones are.”

“Yes,” Maceo answered with a nod.

“The pheromones gods and goddesses emit are many, many times more concentrated and intense than the ones a mortal does. We are all driven by our passions to some degree, even the gods, and even goddesses experience the desires you just shared with me. I have actually cursed women who made statements like I just did for their hubris, so understand I do not make that statement lightly. When mortals are young, these pheromones we emit allow them to imprint on us and become devoted to us in a way that is like a child to his mother, only magnified. When he grows older, his nature begins to emerge and those same pheromones will cause a fire in his veins like no other. In short durations, he will be fine. Longer, he will feel an intense desire that will be extremely difficult to deny and the strongest willed among mortals will actually be able to resist. The price in doing so however, is his health. I once knew a man who wished to serve me and begged me to keep him as part of my clergy. I knew his resolve and willpower would allow me to trust him, so I did, and he very much did show himself to be every bit worthy of that trust. Right up until the moment he died from a heart attack from the stress. I know your life spans are short, but his was cut less than half way into it. And I can sense it. I can hear it in your veins.”

“This is not the case for goddesses alone,” she continued. “This is true of gods as well. Women are drawn to gods as though they were magnetized, and they will do all manner of acts just so that they can even get the attention of him. And just like with mortal men, if they do not act on those desires, the stress will damage them more and more severely over time. This is a fact that Zantharan has used to his advantage over and over again in his… addiction.”

“I’ve read the stories about your husband and his exploits,” Maceo answered her, though Astravia winced unexpectedly at the mention of that word.

“Many mortals, far more than you can know, cannot even control themselves and their desires among other mortals. But interacting among gods and goddesses? This is the reason I had that discussion with you that day. The only options for mortals are to be kept at distance from a god or goddess or for them to constantly act out on those desires.”

“But you’re husband obviously lets that happen often.” Once again, Astravia winced at that word.

“And he has caused more problems than you can ever know because of it,” she explained.

“I understand though,” Maceo insisted. “Gods and mortals don’t belong together.”

“But you do not understand!” she insisted. “The effects of this are ALWAYS extremely damaging to mortals! Except you, apparently,” she said, quite perplexed. “You have been a wonderful companion these few short years, and suddenly, I was looking at the stars and realized just how much of your lifespan has been used and it occurred to me that your blood should be beyond boiling by now, and yet? Here you are. Healthy and vital and surprisingly non-feral.”

He sat and observed her. “Should I leave this place?” he asked her.

“I… don’t know,” she considered carefully, then laughed at him with a toothy grin. “Do you know how rare it is for a goddess to say those words together?”

“Extremely?” he asked her.

“Oh yes,” she confirmed with a joking nod. “For some strange reason, would you like to stay?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked her, but she sighed with frustration.

“You are a young man now. You have been for some time. You should be out, bending the world to your will. I have seen enough in your studies. You could be a king. You could build an empire. You should have women pining to be yours, and you are here. You do good work. Very good work. You are very good and knowledgeable for someone so inexperienced, but you are here alone. I have seen to your body through your food. You should only be one-fifth through your lifespan if you take care of yourself, but that is still one fifth. Why would you want to waste it being alone here?”

“I’m not alone,” he answered her. “I’m with you.”

“You could have power few men on your world could even dream of.”

“For what?” he asked her.

“What do you mean, for what? It is power! The magic alone I have taught you will give you power enough to use for whatever you wish.”

He looked at his lap, then up at her. “Power doesn’t exist to be used,” he informed her.

“What do you mean it doesn’t exist to be used?” she laughed hysterically at him. “Of course it exists to be used! Why else have it if you are not going to use it? That is why I put it within your reach!”

“You said yourself that all your power has brought you is boredom,” he pointed out soberly. She sat far back, stunned. “If using that power hasn’t brought you happiness, then why would I think using it would bring me happiness?” She turned her head and thought for a moment, then put her mouth into her fist, thinking hard at this unexpected challenge.

“Then what exactly do you think power is for, my dear little mortal?” she asked him scrutinizingly.

“To protect,” he answered her.

“To protect what?” she asked him. “People?”

“To protect from misuse,” he answered.

“Where did you get these strange ideas?” she asked breathlessly. “Certainly not from me,” she remarked.

“You never taught me to use my power,” he told her.

“Of course not! Why should I have to teach you how to use it? It’s there!”

“But only to leave me with sadness in my eyes confessing that the only thing in my life is boredom?” he challenged again.

“You reached this on your own,” she deduced, pondering carefully. “I would have never expected seeds like this to take root.”

“So it’s foolish?” he asked, fully expecting to be admonished.

Astravia thought and considered long and hard. Something about what this strange little mortal had said was beginning to take a form in her mind. “You may actually be on to something,” she admitted. “This odd philosophy certainly would be a welcome change to how Zantharan and Chronstrus have ruled.” He began to smile, but she quickly pointed a giant finger at him, scolding him silently. “Don’t you ever dare tell anyone you were teaching a goddess a thing or two,” she warned him.

“You did teach to me first, though, Astravia.”

“I certainly did not mean this,” she mumbled back in a low voice.

“So it’s not stupid?”

“It is certainly worth considering,” she pondered. “And I do have an entire weekend to do so,” she concluded with a smile. “But that does not change the fact that spending your entire life alone would be a waste. Even if you do not wish to wield power, you could still have a family. You could have much. The knowledge alone I’ve shared with you will see to that. You knew exactly what I was referring to that first night, didn’t you? And you knew that the moment of which I spoke was meant to have been several years ago. You may not have understood all of the implications, but you understood enough to know that you would not be able to stay here forever. So why? Why stay so silent well after you knew what I was referring to had come to pass?”

“You said I shouldn’t concern myself with it. You said you would know when the time was right.”

Her eyes narrowed and she leaned closer to him. “You are simply making an argument for the argument’s sake. Answer my question,” she commanded him.

“Because I am in love with you,” he said to her, quite unashamedly.

She looked at him and didn’t move. Her expression was nearly void. “I have killed men for saying what you just did.”

“I know you have,” he answered her. “But you also did ask.”

She took a deep breath and sighed. “And I also promised no reprisal for your words,” she added with regret.

“Is my love really that offensive?” he asked her.

“You are a mortal, Maceo,” she answered back unemotionally. “The differences between us are far, far beyond me being nine feet taller than you.” He nodded, neither appearing to be hurt, or dismayed by her answer. “Besides,” she went on, “how would I be any different than Zantharan if I said otherwise?”

“I don’t expect you to return my love for you,” Maceo assured her. “I don’t expect you to feel the same. I understand how… immature I must seem to you to say the least. I just didn’t think it would be that offensive.”

She turned and looked down at him again, considering the mortal before her. She then lowered her hands to him and placed them on his knees, palms up. He placed his much smaller hands in hers and she squeezed them gently.

“You have not offended me, my dearest Maceo,” she assured him back. “I have much to consider. But keep in mind that time for you is an extremely precious commodity. Do not waste it on endeavors that can never bare fruit for you. Love or no love.” He nodded and stepped down from the lounge chair he was sitting on and began to walk away.

“Maceo,” she called after him before he’d gone too far. He turned and faced her again. “Return for dinner,” she ordered him. “I wish to celebrate the precious gift I have been given.”

“Of course, Astravia,” he answered her dutifully.

When she was alone, she looked around and over her shoulder, and then with a swish of her hand conjured an image of Maceo walking back to continue his work. “Very peculiar,” she muttered to herself, then erased the image and leaned back to bask in the sun.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Mon May 16, 2022 2:19 am

Astravia shared a meal that evening with Maceo as promised and made light banter the entire evening. At first, Astravia had gathered several golems together and gave them each instruments to play, however no matter how good her instructions were for them, the sounds they made were horrid and resembled nothing even approaching music.

“Ugh..,” she complained and waved them to leave. “I suppose they are imprecise,” she complained to Maceo. “Perhaps we can make some better ones,” she suggested. “I shall let you help, as you’ve advanced enough,” she promised.

Since the music hadn’t exactly worked out, she snapped her fingers and a few minutes later, a gaggle of blue jays descended. Maceo watched as she approached each one perched in a line the branch of a tree nearby, touched it on the forehead and then it would fly off in a direction different than the one before it.

“What was that for?” Maceo asked her as she sat down.

“Hmm? Oh, to replace the music,” she answered. “It occurs to me that I have waited long enough to reintroduce wildlife here anyways. They will be back.”

They sat by the fire talking as the evening began to take hold and sure enough a short while later, several birds came flying in from the north and began to settle in the garden, which really looked more like a forest not far from them. As they began to fly in and settle, they began chirping and singing in a beautiful harmony that was quite soothing to the goddess’ ears.

“Oh, what I would not give to take a swim right now,” she mentioned, pointing her face to the sky.

“Why don’t you?” he asked her.

“Not with you here,” she answered back with a scoff.

“Why not? Why am I stopping you from taking a swim?” he asked her and she glared at him sourly.

“You did not just ask me that,” she accused, and he looked either way, not quite sure how to take her comment. “And here I thought you were actually more disciplined than that. Perhaps I misjudged you.”

“Misjudged me how?” he asked, quite dumbfounded.

“I am not stripping naked in front of you, you mortal little lover boy,” she teased him.

“I didn’t ask you to,” he answered back, somewhat defiantly, which caught her off guard.

“Yes you did,”

“No I didn’t.”

“What do you think is going to happen if I go for a swim?” she asked. “What you just suggested is very inappropriate.”

“Whu… Astravia… why can’t you just wear a bathing suit?” he asked her. She sat back a little, shocked.

“You wear suits when you bath?” she asked, stunned.

“No! They’re just… they’re just garments you can wear while you go swimming.”

“Doesn’t that get in the way?” she asked, thoroughly repulsed by the concept.

“No, they’re made of thinner fabric so they don’t cause issues while you’re in the water. And not white. Definitely not white.”

“When did your people start doing this?” she asked him.

“I’m not sure. Must have been some time after you were here last.”

“But why? Why wear clothing into the water for a swim?”

“No, not clothing. It’s just a simple garment to cover up what’s necessary while you swim.”

“That still doesn’t’ explain the why,” she said, shaking her head at him.

“To keep perverted little mortals from staring at your nude body?” he suggested, smirking at her.

“That seems very strange,” she said, shaking her head at him.

“Without them, we wouldn’t have been allowed to swim in the ocean with both boys and girls when I was a boy,” he explained.

“Why would you ever swim with each other, unless you were…”

“For fun, Astravia,” he laughed at her. “We are capable of thinking about more than just fornication. Sometimes at least,” he told her. She raised an eyebrow and considered his odd suggestion.

“It sounds very constricting,” she complained.

“They’re not,” he promised. “They’re certainly not perfect, but they’re not constricting. I suppose their biggest problem is that if you swim too fast, they have a tendency to fall off.”

“I can swim very, very fast,” she complained to him. He nodded and accepted her rebuttal, though she did at least seem amused with him and this odd conversation.

Much to his surprise, she began having him over for meals every day, multiple times. Something about their forthright conversation must have convinced her to desire his company more often. These more regular gatherings began to turn into discussing more business related matters, such as an improved group of golems to use for labor to help Maceo but also changes she wanted made to the temple complex, mostly relating to the mortal areas of residence and commerce.

A few weeks had passed when they were sitting over dinner, this time in Astravia’s kitchen when Astravia told him a decision.

“Maceo, you are well into manhood,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin, “but the last time you ever saw a woman was more than nine years ago.”

“You mean other than you?” he asked her.

“Do not test me, Maceo,” she warned with a bit of a smirk.

“You want me to leave the temple,” he said to her, trying to beat her to the punch.

“No I do not,” she answered him formally. “I would actually miss you, I think,” she decided. “But time is important here,” she insisted. He set his fork down and looked at his plate.

“Astravia,” he began and she looked at him. “Something has been bothering me.”

“Well then tell me,” she insisted with a bright smile.

“Let me preface this first.” She nodded and he continued. “You are immortal.” She nodded. “You normally don’t even exist within time like we are right now.” Again, she nodded. “You’ve been bringing up time a lot. I’m worried that a goddess to whom time has no real meaning is so concerned with time. In the scrolls I’ve read related to your worshippers, I don’t remember ever reading anything about you mentioning time at all.”

She stared at him and then placed both hands on the table. “You are very observant. Especially for a mortal,” she commented.

“I know that means I shouldn’t push. I just have an uneasy feeling whenever you mention time. For some reason, it doesn’t feel like you’re talking about me, and I don’t know why.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then pushed her plate aside and stood, picked him up in her hands and sat him on the ledge of the table to face her. “This is the first weekend I’ve had to myself to relax in eons,” she told him. “As queen, I have always been too busy with other matters and before that, I was too busy establishing my place in the hierarchy.”

“I feel like something is wrong,” he said after she paused.

“For you, we are still talking about things that will occur long after you have passed on,” she smiled. He looked at her with great concern and she seemed to melt a little. “Do you remember when I first asked you whether I looked like a goddess?” He nodded. “You have no idea how special that moment was for me. I had been here only a few days when I stumbled across you on that hillside, and I had been enjoying the unexpected pleasure of the entire temple to myself. When I met you, you said I was so beautiful that you did not believe that even a goddess could be that beautiful. What made my heart sing so much was that the last conversation I had had before that was with Zantharan, who said very much the opposite. It did not help that he said it as he humiliated me in front of many of the other gods.”

Maceo swallowed hard. “Why would he say that?” he asked.

She then proceeded to tell Maceo the story about her last encounter with Zantharan and all the sordid details surrounding it. Maceo sat in shock as he listened to it all.

“You are so sweet, my dearest Maceo,” she said to him as she finished the story. “I very much needed that after being humiliated in the manner I had been. If that was all I did when I came here, then it would have been enough just to hear that. But you keep telling me that you are going to find something new for me to try. Something to break the boredom and monotony of endless existence. When that happened with Zantharan, I did something no god or goddess ever does. I incurred the wrath of the king of the gods. The last god to do such a thing was Zantharan’s father, and though Zantharan was not able to kill him, he was able to imprison him in a place where none of us could ever free him from. I will likely only have as much as a weekend or so before Zantharan decides I am missing and search for me in earnest. Once he does, he will eventually find me and he will visit death and destruction on whatever place I was hiding in. So that is why once I have rested and relaxed here for a short while, I will go back to the celestial palace and face my fate.”

“You’re his wife,” Maceo insisted. “He can’t do that.”

“He is the highest celestial being. He can do whatever he pleases. He has the power, and he will use it. He certainly doesn’t share the quaint notions you do regarding protecting power instead of using it.”

“But… you didn’t actually hurt him. You said so…”

“Because I cannot hurt him. The difference in our powers is almost as much as the difference between you and me. But I did do much worse. I shrank his genitals down inside of the whore he was fornicating with, and not only that, but that indignity was seen by others. He will make an example of me.”

Maceo sat and contemplated, clearly troubled.

“I probably should not have told you this. I did not intend to. After all, this will all occur from your perspective long after you have moved on from this life. But for me? I am at the very end. An end I have never contemplated before. You say that time means nothing to me, and yet that is not entirely true. It is just that up until now, time to me has been like left and right to you. It just is there. But now my time is up, and I am getting a glimpse of what it is like to be bound by it. For me, I want your time to be as fulfilling as it possibly can be.”

“How long exactly is a weekend to you?” he asked her. She shrugged her shoulders.

“In my terms? It is more of a general concept, rather than a set of days. Time to refresh and mentally recharge, so to speak. Three hundred years would be on the outer sides of this. Certainly no longer than four hundred. When the time comes for me to leave, I will cut the portals to this place off, which may give your people enough time to evolve before you are noticed again by the gods. And with a little bit of luck, I will leave behind this temple, which will become a vast and successful city, even for a god.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do to convince him?”

“Zantharan has a legendary temper. He will not let this stand. Chanderi will also do everything in her power to facilitate it. She has much to gain from my death. For some reason, she does not seem to understand that should she take my place, eventually she will reach the same place as I am in now.”

“Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe you could convince her that she’s better off just as his… consort.”

“She is too consumed by her thirst for power and her spite for me. There’s no convincing her of anything. Besides, I am tired of my own dignity being sacrificed by his indiscretions. I am at peace with it. In any event, my dearest Maceo, you see, I really have done it all. I have even incurred the wrath of the king of the gods. My last thrill.”

He sat on the table and contemplated before Astravia lifted his chin up and looked him in the eyes. “You distracted me,” she told him with a playful grin. “I have a task for you. I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

“Name it,” he replied back. Astravia sat up pertly and smiled.

“Excellent,” she declared happily. “Tomorrow night, you are going to the nearby town and you are going to meet some women.” Now Maceo’s eyes shifted and his face contorted, not expecting this decree in the slightest.

“How is that a task?” he asked her, only to be poked on his node by the tip of her finger.

“You already swore to me you would do this for me.”

“How is this a task for you?” he asked her, really not pleased with this assignment.

“Because, Maceo, I did not go through the trouble to teach you and help you all this time only to have you waste it living as a glorified janitor. I have put a great deal of thought into your situation, and I have come to the conclusion that this temple is simply not ready to have more inhabitants yet. If you are going to find a mate, you will need to go out into the world to find her and you are not bringing her back here.”

Maceo exhaled and slumped over, but Astravia tipped his chin up again. “You have been here too long. It is time for you to go out into the world again and reintroduce yourself. My decision, Maceo, is that there is no need to send you from this place. You will choose your future, even though I have made it clear by now what I hope that future will contain for you. But in either case, my expectation is that you go out, you meet some people. You will meet some women,” she ordered sternly, “and you will engage in normal mortal affairs and you will make an earnest effort to do so before you make a decision of where you will go.”

He grumbled and sighed, but nodded his head in agreement.

“You will be always welcome here,” she informed him. “As I said, there is no need to send you from my temple, but you are certainly going to go forth and get some more experience before you decide what path you shall follow.”

“As you wish, Astravia,” he answered her. Thankfully, he was no longer pouting.
Last edited by CKent45 on Mon May 16, 2022 3:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by chocolatejr9 » Mon May 16, 2022 2:52 am

Potentially stupid question: has Astravia considered posing as a mortal? Or is that not possible?

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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Mon May 16, 2022 3:10 am

chocolatejr9 wrote:
Mon May 16, 2022 2:52 am
Potentially stupid question: has Astravia considered posing as a mortal? Or is that not possible?

It's a good question, actually. Posing as a mortal is definitely well within her abilities; she simply doesn't feel like doing it. I wouldn't say that Astravia is omnipotent, however it's safe to say that there really aren't any limits on her abilities, aside from running into a being (like Zantharan) who is even more powerful than she is.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Tue May 17, 2022 2:08 am

The next morning, Astravia escorted him to the main gate after breakfast and smiled proudly at him as she opened the main gate for him. “One night,” she insisted, kneeling down to him to address the knee high mortal from a closer perspective to his own. “And have fun. I insist.”

“At least you’ll finally get your swim,” he teased her, only to get a raised eyebrow and a poke in his chest.

“Maceo, if you find a girl you like, I expect you to give her a chance,” she warned him. “Even if she is willing to give her body to you.” He frowned, but didn’t bother to argue.

Once he was on his way, Astravia strolled back in and indeed enjoyed a long swim as she had when she first arrived at her temple. This time, though, rather than just simply frolicking, she stopped at a number of places and contemplated the various structures around the underground chamber.

Late in the day, she finally surfaced and stepped out, her naked skin glistening in the sun and considered what to do next. Ultimately, she decided to spend the evening on a sofa reading while enjoying the company of a number of different birds who’d arrived to keep her company and chirp and sing to her. She was thoroughly enjoying herself until near sundown when she seemed to become restless and then set her book down and left for her study, where she found a crystal globe and stared at it.

In front of her, she found a map of the region and then zoomed in until she found Maceo, standing in a marketplace discussing some matter with a man he’d just met. She looked closer still and listened in with interest.

“I’ve sometimes thought of captaining a ship,” Maceo explained. “It’s a bit of a fantasy, but I grew up on the coast and sometimes helped with the fishing.”

“A fishing boat is a completely different animal than a ship,” the man warned Maceo, who then offered the man a bronze coin for a drink and turned and looked at a few more goods at his tent. “There is much you need to know in order to operate a ship in the blue waters.”

“Well, I did say it was a fantasy,” Maceo added with a smile. “I don’t know that my roots in a fishing village fit me anymore.”

“You certainly seem to be doing better than a fisherman.”

“I was lucky to find an amazing apprenticeship,” Maceo explained.

“I certainly was impressed,” he commented. “We haven’t had a blacksmith here since I was a boy and to have a stranger roll through who could just repair door hinges so easily was quite a treat.”

“I have better tools at home,” Maceo explained. “I could make some better tools for you if you’d like.”

“How much?” the man asked him. Astravia watched closely, interested in how Maceo would negotiate.

“I’m more interested in business contacts,” he told the shop owner. “If you can help me with that, I just might let you name your price.”

“How about a piece of silver for ten hammers?” the shop owner asked.

“And that is why I said ‘might,’” Maceo informed the man. “If you are going to low ball me like that, it makes me think twice about your connections.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” the man said, immediately surrendering and trying to walk Maceo back. “I was just joking.”

“Alright,” Maceo said as a neighboring shop owner walked over to listen in. “I will bring the tools, I’ll add in equal number of tongs and hatchets that are much better quality than those half hearted hinges you wanted and I’ll do it for two gold pieces, and if you can help me find a contact for a trade caravan to Cyclathus, I’ll front the cash for some more quartz that you can use for your wares.” The shop owner thought quite hard while his neighbor’s eyes widened.

“It’s not that the price wouldn’t be worth it, given your handy work,” the shop owner told him. “It’s just too rich for my blood.”

“Well your shop is a little light on products. Are you sure you can afford to miss this?”

“I do need more quartz,” he contemplated. “But I just don’t have the gold to spare.”

“But you do have it,” Maceo suggested.

“Not to spare,” he insisted.

“If I’m going to do an order like that, I’d like to make it worth my while,” Maceo told him.

“If you can provide that many tools, I will sign a contract to buy it all from you as I can. I’ll buy half up front.”

“But you can get me in contact with this caravan?”

“He can,” his neighbor vouched.

“How much interest do you want for the loan on the quartz?” the shop owner asked him.

“How much do you need?” Maceo asked.

“Nine silver worth should be more than enough to get me going again.”

Maceo thought for a moment. “Three silver will be enough,” Maceo offered.

“You’re sure?”

“Eight is already a touch steep,” Maceo told him. “The only reason I’m asking eight is because the order is so small. Again, I’m trying to make it worth my while. I’m not interested in competing with the loan sharks around here.”

The shopkeeper wrapped his fingers on the table and looked Maceo over. “It certainly would be helpful if we had a money lender like you around here.”

“I’m not ready for that just yet. Do you think that order of quartz would get you back to where you were?” the man nodded. “Alright, but I’ll only give you the quartz when you’ve paid me back my principal.”

“Agreed,” the shop owner said, shaking Maceo’s hand firmly. “Any chance I can send my boy with you to learn some of your metalworking?”

“I’m afraid I’m not ready for that either,” Maceo answered.

“That’s fine. If this works out, I’ll be wanting to do a fair amount of business with you.”

“Let’s make it work out, then,” Maceo told him.

“I’m buying you a drink tonight,” he told Maceo. “Meet me at the tavern when I close up shop.”

Maceo was then on his way with Astravia watching proudly over him. The deal wasn’t exactly like she’d hoped for him to cut, but it set him up for much more lucrative business in the future. She continued to watch him as he made his way around town, checking out shops and speaking to people and developing contacts when she saw a trio of young ladies smiling coyly at him.

“I don’t care if you got a touch of help from me to get their attention,” she told the globe in front of her. “You had better take advantage of this.” At first, Maceo didn’t even seem to notice them and Astravia looked furious that he was going to squander this opportunity until just before he was about to pass them, he turned his head and smiled at them, then slowed down to speak to them. “Good,” she declared victoriously, then covered her mouth. “I never showed him how to flirt,” she gasped, then rethought her reaction. “I’m a goddess! Why should I have to teach a man how to flirt? Besides, he would just turn it around and try to use it on me. You had better get this right!” she ordered the globe, then grinned as she watched him.

She was very entertained as she watched him work his own magic with the ladies, though he struggled quite a bit. He did, however, manage well enough that these girls allowed him to take them to a nearby contest for ax throwing. She smiled watching him flirt and mingle with each of the three girls, though she was less than impressed by how liberal he was with the money he spent on them.

“They are not going to respect that,” she complained to the globe.

In the evening, he was sitting in the tavern with these ladies who were still smiling and bubbly, but as she predicted, they seemed more interested in the money he was spending on them than they were on him.

By the time Maceo’s new business partner arrived, they were ready to move on since business wasn’t a discussion they were interested in, and Maceo bid them goodnight, much to Astravia’s frustration.

However, his business went well as the shop owner brought a few other businessmen and they discussed matters with each other, though there was quite a bit of trying to pry loose coins from Maceo. Thankfully, he seemed to be picking up on the fact that he seemed to have drawn a bit too much attention to himself and the money he’d brought with him and this destitute little town had produced a number of latchers on that were hoping to catch a bit of his excess.

Thankfully, he seemed to be aware of the problem and at one point he reminded his compatriots, “I didn’t actually bring that much with me. I do need enough to make my way back home,” he pointed out. “If you want to be able to make money that you can spend here, you may want to assist me with these hangers on,” he warned the first shopkeeper.

Toward the end of their evening, another woman seemed to notice Maceo and Astravia watched excitedly as they seemed to hit it off. They even danced together before the musicians called it an evening and he received a passionate kiss before she said goodnight to head home.

Most of the patrons of the tavern had headed home by the time Maceo and a few men saw him out. As they were heading back to the inn that Maceo was staying at, Astravia frowned as a pair of women approached who were certainly pretty enough, but a little more revealing in their clothing than she’d expected.

Both of these women approached him and took a side and flirted much more aggressively than any of the other ladies earlier and Astravia shook her head at the scene. “This was not what I was referring to, Maceo,” she scolded the globe.

These women were extremely interested and she frowned as his new friends made a quiet exit while he was left to handle both of these ladies at once. Astravia’s disapproval reached a high point when one of the ladies began rubbing her body against his and even managed to steal a kiss from him, but Maceo politely declined and separated himself from them, offering to see them the next morning before he had to head out of town.

She sat back and watched him all the way back to his room smiled. “Very good for a first time out in nine years,” she praised the globe, quite happy with the results of her little experiment. She raised her hand to the globe as he began preparing for bed but then froze and watched the scene, then went wide eyed as she noticed a very large man quietly pick the lock of the door and slip in behind Maceo unnoticed. She sat up and forward, then just before he grabbed Maceo, Maceo turned and fought back, not doing particularly well, but barely holding his own against this big, burly mortal. She was watching intently, but not with immense worry until she watched two women, the same women that had tried to seduce him on the street just a short while before jump on him as well, one of whom had a piece of cloth that she put over Maceo’s mouth as he struggled against the three intruders and slowly went down as whatever that cloth had been soaked with slowly rendered him unconscious.

Astravia stood, hands clenched in a fist and watched as they picked his pockets. “I should not get involved,” she told herself. “If I do, the people will begin to realize I have returned to this world. It is just some coin,” she reassured herself, but then inflamed with immense rage as she watched the three of them wrap burlap around him and hoist him onto the large man’s shoulder and sneak him out the door.

She paced back and forth briefly, stomping and cursing herself before she finally made a decision and ran for the balcony, leapt over the edge and transformed into her hawk form mid air, soaring high and fast as she raced to catch up to them.

One advantage to being a goddess, she had the ability to continue to follow the scene in the globe as she raced to catch the thieves.

By the time the thieves had made it to their hideout, Astravia was already half way there. They entered with Maceo still bound up and locked their door before they unwrapped Maceo and dumped him on the floor, laughing.

By this time, Maceo was partially awake and groggy with the large man allowing him with a grin to get to his feet and try to fight back so that he could enjoy beating Maceo to a pulp more as he staggered around. When Maceo fell to the floor from a knockout blow, they stripped him naked, taking even his clothes and personal affects, not just the healthy take of coins they’d nabbed.

Minutes passed by and he began to wake up again, though even more dazed than before as the man pinned him down and the ladies had a good laugh at his expense.

“I know why you were afraid to go to bed with us,” one laughed, grabbing his penis and then slapping it. Maceo stirred from the pain and then got another punch to the face, stunning him almost fully again.

“It’s fuckin’ puny,” the other woman mocked him. “Who the hell do you think you’re gonna please with that little thing?” she asked, then the first one kicked him in the groin. “No one. That’s who,” she told him and the large man punched him, knocking him out again.

“Oh he’s out,” the first woman complained. “It’s no fun looking at the tiny dick if we can’t tell him about it.”

“Just tie him up,” the man told them both. “When he wakes up he can take us back to the rest of his coin or we’ll kill him,” he informed them. They bound him up and the large man picked Maceo up with one hand and threw him across the room against the wall.

“Pathetic,” the first woman said to Maceo while she stood over him and then kicked his dick again, then returned to her cohorts to begin sorting out the take so far.

Behind the building, Astravia had arrived and as she touched down, she transformed once again, but this time not back into her normal form. Her form contracted and when she was finished, Astravia stood there in the shadows behind the thieves’ base of operations in the form of a mortal woman, still recognizable as herself, just in a more realistic form. She took a step forward and then stopped, looking down at herself and shook her head. She put her hand over her head and moved it forward toward the wall she was staring at as though she were measuring herself and then scoffed.

“Fine then,” she complained to herself. “I am not taking the time for something more imaginative,” she said, settling simply on a scaled down version of herself with dirty blonde hair. She did however look at her immense bust, shook her head and then her breasts deflated down to a healthy D-cup and she marched forward as a still rather attractive 4’10” woman, but much less noticeable than her normal form.

She walked around the building quickly, frowning at how short her stride was at this size. She growled again at herself and then put her hand on the door handle, opening it and stepping inside with without even pausing.

All three of the thieves turned and looked at the very petite woman dressed in very plain clothing as she simply walked in with no expression whatsoever.

“What the hell?” the man asked loudly.

“I locked it! I swear!” the first woman insisted. The man grunted and stepped toward her.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded and stormed up to Astravia.

Astravia, though, gave the man a very sweet, even sultry smile as he approached and stood still, staring far up at the hulking mortal. “Oh, you are so big and muscular,” she said in a seductive voice, not even flinching as he took a massive swing at her and then nearly fell over as his fist passed right through her as though she weren’t even there. “So masculine,” she added and he took another swing at her with the exact same results. “Practically irresistible,” she added. He must have been more than two feet taller than her, and a wall of muscle. “You must be so popular with the ladies,” she said with a nod to his groin and he reached out to grab her, but again, his hands passed through her as though she weren’t even there.

Astravia reached up and put her fingertip to his forehead while he looked at his hands, bewildered at how impossibly he’d missed his target repeatedly.

“Ah, you have giant’s blood running through your veins,” she remarked with interest as he looked at her, stunned and still bewildered, then tried again to grab her, only again for his hands to pass right through her once more. “You do not even know, do you? You have always been so strong and powerful, even as a small child. Much stronger than the other children. And you have used it to your advantage your entire life, haven’t you? And you never even had to put even a little effort into it.”

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked her, though she didn’t seem particularly interested in anything he had to say, she just continued smiling up at him seductively.

“You probably also do not know how rare it is for giants to interbreed, do you?” she asked him. “It is a very, very rare and special gift,” she complimented. “Oh well,” she concluded in a sing song voice that had a finality to it that sent a chill up the spines of the two harlots holding each other behind him out of fear of the otherwise unintimidating figure that even stood more than a full head below them as well.

Then they all gasped as the huge, hulking man seemed to deflate in front of their eyes. His muscles faded and his height dropped until he stood at a much more average 5’9” as his clothes sagged around his now pale, gaunt and shriveled body that in a matter of seconds became very little more than skin and bone.

One of the women tried to scream, but there didn’t seem to be any air in her lungs to fuel it. Astravia stepped back and looked up at the gaunt, ghostly figure that replaced the massive hulk, and he struggled, shaking, straining to even lift his arms now. Then, Astravia lifted her hand, extended her index finger and with a soft, pleasant smile, she pressed it firmly against his chest and he fell over onto his back as though she’d hit him in the chest with a sledgehammer.

The two women shivered and grasped desperately at each other, stumbling back toward the wall in a desperate attempt to keep away from the vengeful goddess.

“You have no idea,” she said with an exasperated voice to the much taller women with exaggerated arm and hand motions, “how rushed and upset I had to have been to take this form,” she explained to them both. Both women turned a ghostly white as they pressed even more tightly against the wall, absolutely terrified of a petite, dainty looking woman that didn’t even look angry as she explained herself to them.

“That is fine, however,” she told them both. “We shall make the best of it,” she said and walked up to them both and pointed that same index finger up, causing them to whimper pathetically. “You are both very beautiful,” she complimented, brushing the locks of hair across their faces with the backs of her fingers. “I do not even have to look into your pasts to know you have used that beauty countless times to literally seduce men out of their money,” she said, then brushed their cheeks with the backs of her fingers as they stared far down at this extremely dainty beauty, whimpering in high pitched, weak voices. “Normally in these cases I would take away your youth,” she informed them casually. “But your obsession at humiliating him has me inspired this evening,” she said and one tensed. “Oh, do not wet yourself just yet. I would hate for you to ruin this,” she told the taller of the two women. “Now hold it,” she said gently with her index finger pointed upward.

Astravia then turned and went back to the same locked door and stared at it while the two women relaxed, but only slightly. “Oh, this will do nicely,” she said. She then opened the door and the women’s jaws dropped as they looked through it and instead of the alleyway that was supposed to be there, they found a bedroom beyond the door. Astravia stepped through and looked back at the two women.

“Come along,” she sang cheerfully to them and waved them on. “And do not run. If you make me chase you, it will be far, far worse.” Her voice was like that of a boisterous child, explaining the rules of the game for teatime to a guest.

Both women shook and trembled, the first one struggling to even take her first step. “There you go,” Astravia praised happily. “Go ahead. You can make it,” she encouraged again as beyond her they could see a figure slowly stirring on the bed. “Very good,” she complimented them as they made it to the halfway point. “Now come along. I have a schedule to keep,” she sang to them. “You are not going to make me do it myself, are you?” she asked them as they stumbled along at a snails pace, still struggling to even stand without the help of the wall.

This additional encouragement did help them speed up quite a bit, though they fell over more than once in their hastened pace until they finally reached the door and Astravia walked ahead into the room to find a very drunk and very confused somewhat older man, not really in the best shape of his life, while she was still waving the ladies inward.

“Good evening,” Astravia greeted cheerfully. The man tried to sit up, but Astravia held her petite hand up as a sign to stop. “We are only here for pleasure,” she informed the man. “No trouble will befall you this evening,” she promised. The man lay there, half up on his elbows, but he continued to stare at Astravia in confusion. The air was rich with the smell of the alcohol on his breath. “Come, come,” she sang to the two woman, waving them on and then pointing one to one side of the bed, and the other to the farther side. “Now climb up,” she sang to them. “There. By his hips,” she encouraged positively.

They both climbed up onto the bed and knelt on either side of the man. They turned and looked at Astravia as she smiled at them and Astravia clasped her hands together. “Now, you know what to do,” she told them in a singsong voice.

“No… we don’t,” one woman whimpered.

“Oh come now! Open your present!” she told them as she stepped to the foot of the bed. “Fun for all, yes?” She then pointed to the man’s groin and they both looked at each other, then down at his pants and with trembling hands they unbuttoned the man’s pants as he seemed more frightened now than ever.

“We are only here to give,” she promised him. “Tonight will be very special. I shall make sure you can remember it, despite the alcohol,” she said to the man. The women looked at each other, then to Astravia whose eyes showed eagerness and excitement as she waved frantically for them to continue and as they pulled his clothes down from the waste down, they were shocked and stunned to see a penis so small that flaccid it barely protruded past his pubic hair.

“He is shy,” she explained patiently with a sweet, innocent smile. “You will need to help him along. Now go ahead. Both of you! Can’t leave one out,” she told them.

They were still terrified and trembling, but also extremely confused. But as commanded, they each grabbed what they could of his penis with their thumb and forefinger and began stroking it. It didn’t take long before the man became erect and his penis elongated, but only so much that two finger widths from each woman was just slightly beyond his full length.

“Very good,” she praised. “Now make him very happy,” she whispered excitedly.

“What are you going to do?” the second woman asked her, tears welling up in her eyes.

“I am going to see to it that you never have a complaint again,” Astravia told them with a flare. “Now quickly! Work together! Fast and hard! I will tell you when it’s big enough,” she said.

Both of the women began stroking the man off in unison, struggling to find a rhythm that worked for a penis that was realistically too small to jerk off comfortably with one set of fingers. Two definitely made this challenging. As they began to develop a rhythm though, the man moaned with pleasure.

“Oh, cup is scrotum!” Astravia suggested. Both ladies did as ordered, squeezing his scrotum to much appreciative moans for this bewildered man and Astravia grinned widely. Then, just as promised, they both noticed with amazement that his penis did seem to be growing as they stared at it. Lengthening and thickening ever so slowly that at first they didn’t even notice it, until their four combined fingers were comfortably handling it.

They watched awestruck as it continued to expand spreading up and out until one could add a third finger, and then the other could as well. “Keep going!” Astravia cheered. “Faster!”

It was immediately after this that the taller of the women lifted her head in shock and looked to her left to see the entire collar of her dress had fallen completely off of her shoulder. She turned and looked at her compatriot to see her feverishly stroking away at the tiny cock, unaware that her once form fitting dress was now loose and sagging off of her, exposing her breasts in the bust of her dress, which were swinging from the effort she exerted to satisfy both the man and the angry goddess forcing them to perform this heinous act. The taller of the women gasped, but Astravia immediately warned her.

“Don’t you dare stop!” she warned with the closest to an actual threatening voice she’d used since she arrived at their den.

The second woman looked up from the cock, which from her perspective was nearly big enough for a fist, rather than fingers. She looked at her cohort and her eyes went wide and her skin pale again as she saw her friend’s body sinking down ever so slowly into her ever more ballooning dress.

Both women now realized what was happening and they continued to shrink down slowly and steadily as what had once been a less than four-inch penis to them, now extended to eight. “Please,” one woman begged as her dress expanded too large to conceal her tiny body any longer and began to fall down around her, first exposing her from the chest up, then waist up.

“You heard me,” Astravia reminded. “I said I will tell you when it is big enough.”

Both women began to sob as they shrank slowly, bit by bit, each stroke leaving the tiny cock just a smidgen larger in their dwindling hands. They were both small enough to use one full fist each, with room to spare as the man stared wide eyed and mouth agape at the unreal scene before him.

They stroked him off, struggling to not look around them as the room, the man, and the dainty little woman controlling their fates loomed ever larger, slowly, gradually and imminently. This of course was futile, as the ever-shifting world around them required them to move and adjust as their dresses pooled around them so loose that merely standing up would shuck them off.

Eight inches expanded ever so gradually to twelve as the second woman gripped the impressive shaft with both hands while the other stroked the end and massaged his scrotum. They both squirmed and struggled as the elevation of his rod that had originally been far too low for comfort became perfect and then extended upward as they had to reach out farther in order to continue their duty. Twelve inches expanded up to sixteen and both women were now straddling either of his hips in order to maintain a grip, stroking his rod and head with both hands.

Still they dwindled, ever so slowly, sixteen inches swelling to twenty as the women began to grow closer to it, their breasts now dragging along his length as their own bodies began to come to be dragged into their mission.

“I’m sorry,” the second woman sobbed. “I’m so sorry! I’ll do anything! Please! Please stop!” she begged in a pathetic and tiny, high pitched whimper. “Whatever you want! Please!” she screamed while the other joined in her pleas for mercy, all the while continuing on without question. “We’ll give back the money! We’ll confess to the constable! Please!” they begged, all the while shrinking before Astravia who smiled innocently at them.

The man’s penis was well over twenty inches to them and they were descending to twelve inches and below tall when a hint of sympathy seemed to wash over Astravia. She stepped up and leaned over the miniscule woman and she smiled softly as the two Barbie sized women stared up at her, eyes filled with tears as they were forced to throw their torsos into the act.

“I shall offer you a deal,” she said happily. “The instant he is satisfied, it will stop,” she proclaimed.

Both women looked at each other with eyes wide, and a sudden hope rose up within them. They threw their entire bodies vigorously into their work to compensate for not just their dwindling stature, but also their dwindling strength.

Battling the now more than twenty four inch cock, sitting atop a more than thirty foot giant’s hips, they fought as though their lives depended on his ejaculation and Astravia let out a surprised “Ooh,” at their increased vigor. “He is close,” she whispered.

The women stroked harder and faster, their bodies alternating between their dwindling bodies rubbing it up and down in unison and opposing each other. The man moaned loudly and his hips pushed up into the air, causing the doll-sized women to scream, but also intensify yet again as they felt their goal coming within reach.

They panted from the strenuous work of stroking a cock more than thirty inches long, and sweat poured down the skin of their tiny nude forms as one had a bright idea and began grinding her pussy against his shaft as she stroked him and wrapped her legs around it. A moment later, the taller cohort looked at her and her eyes lit with hope as she added her own efforts in kind as their bodies became small enough to straddle and hug this less than four inch penis with the entirety of their bodies as they knelt against it, moaning and screaming as though they were about to climax themselves with explosive force and finally, the man bucked, his hips angling up into the sky before dropping back down to the bed as gallons of his semen spilled out over the tiny women who were now hugging his spasming cock for safety and nothing more. Three more spurts of pent up ejaculate, spilling over the tiny woman was enough to finish the event as he laid back sighing contentedly as two five inch tall women, covered and soaking in their own sweat as well as gallons of his semen lay on his hips wheezing for air.

As promised, they stopped shrinking instantly the moment he ejaculated and Astravia towered over them, glowing with pride.

Then, she reached inside one of the dresses and fished out a handkerchief, and she scooped one woman into it, then the other and wrapped it around them carefully. Neither woman even had the energy any longer to scream as they soared stories up into the air and Astravia held the two five inch tall women carefully in two hands within the handkerchief, sparing her direct contact with his bodily fluids.

“Good night, sir,” she stated eloquently. “We thank you for your service,” she said with a formal bow and then made her departure, closing the door behind them.

The once burly man still lay on the floor, lacking the strength to even sit up any longer and watched with an airy breath as Astravia returned and set the handkerchief delicately on his chest.

“There is a fairy forest, eight days ride by horse north of here,” she informed the three thieves politely and cheerfully. “If you are lucky, they may take you in. I suggest you try to find your way there before winter, however,” she warned and then turned back to her naked and bruised companion, who was still out cold. “You may keep the coin,” she said looking back at them over her shoulder as she walked away. “You will need it,” she told them both formally and cheerfully.

“I can’t even move,” the man gasped at her begging for anything resembling mercy.

“You can regain strength,” she answered him coldly without even looking at him. “Only this time you will be forced to work for it. It will not be gifted to you as it was before.”

When she reached Maceo, she looked at him with immense sympathy and brushed his cheek with the backs of her fingers.

“My dearest little Maceo,” she cooed to him with melancholy eyes at a man that currently was more than head and shoulders taller than her. “What have they done to you?” she asked.

She looked back over her shoulder upon the criminals who were all together and staring at her, still too afraid to even speak. She stared back with a cold glance, and then ahead to the wall, which inexplicably lowered down into the ground and then the floor rolled up and ushered them both gently and gracefully to the ground outside before the wall rose back up again and separated Astravia and the thieves forever.

Astravia held her arms wide and then fluidly transformed into her giant hawk form. She stepped over Maceo and wrapped her clawed toes around him carefully while flapping her wings and ascended up into the air where she picked a comfortable altitude from which to glide gracefully and speedily back to her temple.
Last edited by CKent45 on Tue May 17, 2022 2:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Knightstable
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by Knightstable » Tue May 17, 2022 2:46 am

Hey awesome update :) I’m loving the dynamic between these characters. It’s really unique and interesting. Really looking forward to reading more!

CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Wed May 18, 2022 3:57 am

The next morning, Maceo awoke slowly to the warmth of sunshine on his cheeks as he lay back against a soft, silky surface, with a light, yet warm and comforting blanket covering him. His eyes struggled to open, but when they did, he was met with the sight of Astravia sitting over him, looking down from her fifteen-foot tall height, smiling pleasantly and with gratitude to see him awake again and petting his cheek affectionately with her fingertip.

“Goddess,” he said to her wispily.

Even her eyes smiled to him now and her head angled slightly. “We have had this discussion,” she informed him patiently and ever so gently. He frowned a little as he coped with her disappointment and opened his mouth to speak, but then winced with pain and coughed pathetically as he accidentally triggered movement among his broken ribs. “Shh,” she hushed him, using her voice to convince him to relax and lie still. “I know. You only wish to be respectful.”

Maceo lay there stoically, nodding to her.

Maceo looked like he’d been dropped of a cliff. His face was heavily bruised, his left eye nearly swollen shut, his lip bloated and split. His bare chest was exposed to the air and above the blanket provided to him and covered in deep purple contusions. Maceo moved his legs and breathed out, realizing that beneath the blanket he was still completely naked.

“You have questions,” she told him. A somewhat rare smile formed on his lips.

“I always have questions,” he joked up at her. “I’m used to it.” This answer pleased her and her warm smile intensified.

“You should ask them, then,” she encouraged. She watched over him, though he seemed in no rush to speak further. She focused a little more on him, realizing how happy he was to be there in the way he was with her.

He was refusing to say it, however, knowing how taboo his feelings for her were, but more so because it was expected of him to refrain from voicing them. After their conversation by the pool, however, there was no denying it any longer. But protocol was protocol.

Strangely, the awkwardness of the forbidden subject at hand seemed to be solely hers. Most mortals who developed crushes on goddesses could not help but proclaim it to them, consequences be damned. Usually, they couldn’t help themselves. Astravia didn’t particularly like the fact that she would so effortlessly seduce the hearts of mortal men, but she was a goddess and this was her nature. Why should a goddess suppress her nature?

Still, though, Maceo lay there silently, yet proudly bearing the burden placed on his heart. This was why she so rarely allowed herself to befriend mortal men in any way. This was why his stay with her was supposed to have ended years before. In the end, Astravia was the one who felt the need to speak first.

“Ask your questions,” she commanded, but her words were so soft, so delicate they sounded more like a request.

He took a breath and then opened his eyes. Eyes that seemed so happy to be looking up at her. “You knew?” he asked her finally.

“I am a goddess. Of course I knew,” she smiled warmly back.

“You see when you decide to see,” he pointed out to her. “When it’s of interest to you.” She continued to smile down at him, not reacting to his statement. “You said you wanted me to go out on my own.”

“I was bored,” she finally answered him.

“You’re always bored,” he teased her.

“I have put a lot of time and effort into guiding you to see what you would do with the knowledge and skills I have taught you. I wanted to see what you did with them on your own.”

“And I did very poorly,” he answered with a somewhat mournful smile.

“Oh no. You did quite well,” she praised. “You courted potential partners in business affairs and negotiated deals that you could use to expand your opportunities. And you showed wisdom in the ventures you proposed, not simply throwing money at them and expecting them to perform for you. You did very well, my dearest little Maceo.”

“I was too flashy with the money I’d brought with me,” he confessed readily, closing his eyes. “I made a target of myself.”

She smiled at him and took a deep breath. He wasn’t wrong, and yet she seemed to want to argue the point anyways. “I thought you might be wondering why I didn’t just heal you,” she said, breaking the lengthy silence once again.

“I know you have your reasons,” he answered peacefully.

“But you don’t ask what they are.”

“This was my mistake,” he told her calmly. “I accept the consequences.” So peculiar, this mortal was.

“I have realized why I let the time slip by so easily without realizing you’d stayed too long,” she said, trying to change the conversation again. He opened his eyes. He was interested to hear her insight.

“Why?” he asked once he realized he was expected to.

“Because you have not changed,” she answered him. “You’re body has grown. Your skills and knowledge have improved and your experience has accumulated, but deep down, you have not changed. You are still that same peculiar boy I met nine years ago on the hillside.”

His mouth turned ever so slightly, revealing her last statement was not what he wanted to hear, but he bore it otherwise, listening to her patiently and with continued interest. It was also true. Mortals’ life spans were so short that they couldn’t help but lack the maturity a god possessed. But for some reason, she continued to explain.

“I suppose that may have been what was peculiar about you. This odd perceptiveness you possessed and your unique point of view seem to be beyond your years even now.” He smiled at the compliment and she fell silent, demanding a response from him rather than letting her carry the conversation.

“I suppose I had to grow up at an early age,” he said. “But I knew I had so much to learn, so saying so felt arrogant.”

“It would have been,” she confirmed. “Even though it is also true.” He smiled again and looked around them, really for the first time since he’d awakened. He had been that content to lie there under the watchful eye of Astravia. They were in her bedchamber, with him lying atop one of her pillows on the bed.

He then looked up at her as she continued to wait patiently. “Did you kill them?” he asked her. She petted his cheek with her fingertip and leaned down slightly toward him.

“They certainly had earned it,” she pointed out to him. “And they were planning to do no less to you. Once they had you lead them back to your home so they could plunder it.” he watched her response, listening carefully to each word she spoke. “Does that bother you?”

“No,” he admitted, though he seemed to be having trouble verbalizing a point. “I guess it just feels unnecessary.” She crinkled her brow and her eyes questioned him. “As you say, our lives are too short. It’s one thing when one of us offends a god. It’s another when we’re bickering amongst ourselves. If I hadn’t passed out, I probably would have had no choice to kill them, but if you intervened, there really wasn’t even a contest.”

“No, there was not,” she laughed, shaking her head at him. “I did enjoy the looks in their eyes when that revelation occurred to them, however. But, if it eases your conscience, I did not kill them.”

“Did you curse them?”

“I took away their power to harm others,” she answered back cryptically. “They will never do anything like that again.” He nodded up to her and embraced her answer entirely.

“I’m sorry to have taken your day to have the temple to yourself,” he shared. “I was hoping it would be a good day for you.”

“Oh, those trollops and that ogre certainly ruined an otherwise lovely day,” she admitted. “But I am perfectly well, thank you very much,” she said with a smile and then a sigh as she rubbed two fingers along the side of his head through his hair.

“How long until I recover?” he asked her.

“Not long,” she answered him, still consoling the wounded mortal. “You will heal quickly,” she answered, still waiting for him to question as to why she hadn’t simply healed him in the first place.

“When can I get up?”

“Tomorrow,” she answered him patiently. “Today I expect you to rest. My home will be your home for the time being.”

“It doesn’t exactly fit me,” he joked subtly. She grinned enough that he could see her pearly teeth.

“With my help, it will be a perfect fit,” she promised.

“You’re not going to waste your entire day seeing to me, are you?” he asked her. She grinned again, letting it spill over into a soft laugh.

“Nothing a goddess chooses to do with her time is a waste,” she informed him. “I thought you knew better than to suggest otherwise.”

“I apologize, Astravia.” She released the air from her lungs and shook her head at him.

“I will consider what happened and make a better offer to you to try this again, but I promise to wait until you feel you are ready.”

“I’m ready now,” Maceo answered her, again startling her.

“You are? After what happened?”

“I still have that contract for those tools I need to deliver and I also have that caravan I need to make contact with. I need to be back on my feet at least by month end.”

“But you never even wanted to go in the first place,” she remarked, struggling with how easily he seemed to be bearing the consequences of his encounter. “And you honestly want to go back? After last night, it was my intention to send you to another, more established trade center.”

“I began this, and I intend to see it through,” he told her resolutely. She finally removed her finger from his cheek and put her hand to her mouth, staring down at him.

“I know you did not want to go in the first place,” she repeated.

“And I know that this was just the first time you were sending me out to try to establish myself,” he stated plainly. “The first of many times. You want me to set out and eventually find a woman to settle down with so that your task with me is complete.”

He was correct, of course, but she still couldn’t help but crinkle her brow in discomfort having heard the words spoken aloud.

“I told you that you would always be welcome here,” she stated, trying to ease his heart a bit.

“But my place here has already come to an end, hasn’t it? I just haven’t found the next city where I can lay a claim yet.”

She swallowed a little and stared down at him, quickly becoming displeased with this particular line of conversation.

“You know,” she said, forcing him to switch gears, “you are not the only one with the ability to peer into another’s eyes and glimpse their soul,” she reminded him. He nodded curtly and she continued. “I can see a new pain there. It wasn’t there until this morning. Since you refuse to ask, my dearest little Maceo, the reason I did not simply heal you outright while you rested is because I could feel that wound in your heart and healing your body will not heal your heart. So, my dearest Maceo; if the trauma you suffered at the hands of those hooligans is not the reason for this new wound, then I wish to know what is. As with the last time, you can speak with no fear of reprisal.”

She then sat up like a proper lady and prepared herself for whatever came. She then raised an eyebrow as he smiled at her.

“No, you were completely right,” he told her. “I’m scared,” he admitted. “I made a mistake and if you hadn’t been watching over me to come to my rescue, that would have been the end of me. It’s not like you could turn back time once you realized I wasn’t coming back.”

“Actually, I can,” she answered back. Her tone was rather matter of fact. Maceo looked at her with surprise. “I do not because doing so causes a great deal of damage. But I indeed do have the power, if I so chose.”

“I didn’t mean to underestimate your power,” he said apologetically, looking left and right, struggling to process something about this admission.

“It is quite alright,” she answered back. “If there is no mention of the gods ever doing it, why would you have imagined we have that power?”

“So the gods have never done this?”

“Not since before Chronstrus was deposed. A few of his type were able to do this without consequence, but that knowledge of how only lies with Chronstrus now. Reversing time is much like trying to stop miles long of carts chained together and pulled by a single horse at the head and then push them backwards. Even though we can do it, the damage is felt worse and worse going back to the tail end of the carts. Chronstrus actually did use this power against Zantharan, though there is no telling how many times he used it to stave off his demise until Zantharan finally imprisoned him.”

“You have the most amazing tales,” Maceo complimented with a bit of a laugh. She smiled down at him and petted his hair again.

“A benefit of a monotonous, everlasting existence,” she told him mirthfully. “But I digress. You are scared to go back. Why do you not show it?”

“I began something, and I am going to finish it,” he answered again.

She stared down at him again, lost in thought. “But it is not something you are passionate about, is it?” she asked.

“Does it matter?” he asked her.

“Do you feel passion?” she asked him.

“Of course, Astravia,” he answered her. She thought like she would question further, but decided against it. “The amazing opportunity this presents just occurred to me,” he then told her, grinning up at her.

“And what opportunity is that?” she asked, shaking her head at him. “I am not going to regret asking, am I?”

“With me bed ridden, it’s the perfect chance for you to get that swim in you’ve wanted. Without risking a mortal hanging around leering at you while you relax.”

She laughed heavily now at him and actually seemed to forget their troubles as she enjoyed his comment to such a degree that she nearly doubled over with laughter. “I thought I would stay here,” she eventually told him.

“I’d really like for you to relax,” he offered her. She leaned down, her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand as she looked at him.

“Do you know what is in that pool?” she asked him.

“I can see some structures in the bottom in the deeper waters,” he answered.

“Near the center is a tunnel that drops straight down into a cavern that lies a few miles below the temple. There is a replica of the temple down there, less the mortal accommodations.”

His eyes widened and reminded her of the wonder they’d held when she first had taunted him. “But why go down there just to swim around in pitch black?”

The ceiling of the cavern is lined with luminescent algae that glows and lights the entire cavern. Swimming down there is like swimming through an aurora borealis. You still haven’t seen one of those, have you?”

“I have,” he answered with a smile. “When I was very young, before my mother died, my father made a trip to the north lands and he took my oldest brother and me with him.”

“Oh, well I suppose you have seen it all, then haven’t you?” she teased him, stopping just shy of poking his battered chest.

“No. Definitely not,” he laughed back at her, but ended up coughing in pain from the unexpected pain. Astravia showed a momentary panic, but before he could notice it, she was gently using her fingers to rub his shoulders and guide him back from his stress, her magic calming him as well. Once he had settled again, she smiled at him contentedly.

“I think I would like to show it to you,” she told him. “At some point, I will bring you down there.”

“I can’t breath underwater,” he chuckled very carefully at her.

“I shall take care of that, of course,” she assured him ever so soothingly. “And it will give me a reason to create one of these bathing suits you are so obsessed with. All of my temples have a special area that lies hidden in some way as a special place for me to get away and relax. This is the one for this temple.”

“It’s very special then.”

“Oh yes,” she agreed with him. “I think you would love it down there.” She held his hand and continued smiling at him.

“If I slept for a while, would you go relax for a bit? Take a swim? It is your weekend, after all.” he asked her. Her brow curved sympathetically.

“Very well,” she agreed. She pulled his blanket up and over his chest, and kissed his forehead. “But you will get your rest,” she commanded him.

“Of course,” he agreed. She finally stood and walked toward the door of the room, calling for a golem that plodded in and took watch over Maceo before she finally made her exit.

“Oh, and one last thing, Maceo?” she called back over her shoulder. Maceo opened his eyes and looked at her. “The words of those wenches last night sits ill with me. Even someone of my height can see quite plainly that you are not small in the manner they mocked you for,” she informed him. “I know how much a man’s ego is tied to that,” she teased with a smile, and she even gave him a wink before she left him behind to take a swim in her miraculous pool.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Thu May 19, 2022 3:02 am

A few days following Maceo’s rescue and return to the temple, he was back on his feet again and walking around, though Astravia gave him strict instructions to limit his activity. She regularly checked his wounds and changed his bandages, using amazing precision and skill for objects so tiny to her touch.

His bruises were practically disappeared, thanks mostly to the balms and treatments she used on him, many of which she’d actually taught to him in his many studies. Their first conflict came when she had gone off to the west walls to open a gate and let a number of wildlife in to add to the gardens along with the birds.

When she returned, she looked around curiously for Maceo who wasn’t in her chambers like she had expected. She looked around, even underneath the bed, then crossed her arms and pouted, tapping her foot anxiously. She walked down the stairs and around her quarters checking room after room until she felt she’d exhausted all of her options and then out to the courtyard. From there she looked around as her ire grew and then she stomped off towards the barracks for her clergy, which also was empty.

“He had better not make me search this entire…” she complained, then stopped and listened. Off in the distance was a soft tinking noise of metal against metal. “AAAAUUGHH!” she yelled with her fists balled in frustration.

Lacking any further patience, she transformed into her hawk form and sped to the main blacksmithing shop where the noise was much louder and she set down at the main entrance, which was wide open, transforming back into her normal form as she touched down and stormed inside.

“What are you doing?” she demanded of him angrily as he stood at an anvil, his arm in a sling, holding a slab of red hot metal in a pair of tongs with the slung arm and a hammer high with the good arm. He turned immediately and looked up at her.

What made her even more angry was that despite her yelling for the very first time in nine years, he didn’t have a lick of fear on his face, he didn’t step back, he didn’t cower in the slightest. His only expression was one of concern; concern directed at her. “Answer me!” she demanded, stomping her foot. He raised an eyebrow.

“I’m working on the tongs I have to deliver,” he answered irritatingly calmly.

“You are supposed to be in bed,” she said, standing directly over him and pointing down furiously.

“I was restless. You were gone all day and I wanted to get some things done.”

“Not in your condition! I was worried sick over you when you disappeared!”

“I’m feeling much better now,” he assured her with a smile. “I’ve been sitting for too long. I need to do something.”

“No you do not,” she screamed, stomping her foot again. The walls shook merely by the sound of her voice. “I expected you to behave yourself while I just did a couple of errands!”

“How have I misbehaved? You said I would be fine to be back on my feet a couple days ago and you’ve been keeping me sitting ever since. Then you left first thing this morning and said you would be right back.”

“And? Do you have a point, little mortal?” she asked him angrily.

“It’s almost evening, Astravia,” he pointed out.

“Yes. I came right back,” she answered him curtly. He raised an eyebrow and looked up at her, his mouth hanging open slightly as he waited for her to make the connection in terms of the discrepancy regarding their perceptions of time, then suddenly it seemed to click for her. “That is beside the point!” she countered rather than openly admit to his point of view.

“Astravia, I am fine. I’m not exerting myself. This is an easy project that I can do with little effort.”

“You. Need. To. Be. Resting,” she asserted sternly.

“I have rested,” he answered back. “I can’t sit still any longer. My body needs the movement.”

“You do not comprehend the situation you found yourself in the other day. You might have died,” she scolded.

“I’m going to die,” he answered back plainly, which only angered her further to the point where she didn’t seem to even know how to speak momentarily. “Everything on this world is going to die. Even this world will eventually die. I’m not going to live in fear of that.”

“But you are afraid,” she scolded him. “You have had nightmares ever since I brought you back here. You are not ready to be up and about. That is FINAL,” she said with a stomp of her foot. He then set the hammer and metal down on his anvil and looked up at her and when he did, she nodded her head abruptly to reassert herself.

“Astravia, sit down,” Maceo said in a surprisingly calm and nurturing voice. She looked at him with an open mouth for a second, then bent her knees and sat down in front of him with her legs together and off to the right of her while leaning on her left arm. Even down in this position, he was barely shoulder height to her, but it made for communication much better than when she had been standing.

Then, sudden realization.

“You did NOT just order the queen of the gods to SIT!” she screamed with terrorizing fury, and then further realization. “I did not just sit on command!” she screamed, holding her head in her hands.

“It wasn’t a command,” Maceo said, stepping up and putting his hand on her arm. Still he was calm, and that self-assurance of his was more rock solid than ever. “I only needed to actually speak with you, not just be spoken to. You know our language isn’t as precise as yours.”

“I just sat on command like a puppy,” she lamented with frazzled nerves, “to a MORTAL!”

“If that’s really how you feel, then I’m lucky to still be alive,” he pointed out and then she clutched her chest as though her heart nearly jumped out of it. She took time to recover, and he offered it to her, standing by stoically, but also resting his hand on her arm to remind her he was there. Once she had enough time to process her emotions, she turned and looked at him sternly, but before she was ready to reprimand him again, he was ready with his own salvo, which he didn’t share harshly, but he did share with conviction.

“I am thankful for the twist that spared me from the fate I brought on myself that day. I certainly don’t deserve a goddess rushing to my aid to rescue me, nor do I deserve how caring you’ve been in helping me recover. However, you are babying me. You’ve tried to do it before, as well,” he reminded her. “If I don’t start moving and working, then my muscles will atrophy, my bones will wither little by little. My mind’s edge will dull. I still have work to do, tasks to accomplish. This was why you sent me out there to begin with, wasn’t it?”

“I watched at first thinking you might fight your way out of it, but the truth is even if those other two hadn’t joined in, you were not strong enough to fight that man off.”

“Then I’ll have to become stronger. I’ll have to think smarter and ahead more steps. As a child I didn’t have these problems because I had a community that I could tap, but now it’s just me when I walk out those gates. It’s just another lesson you are teaching me.”

“You are not ready to be irritating your wounds yet,” she insisted, though her tone was more emotional than he’d expected. She’d always shown care with him in their years together, but never this much concern. Even at the very beginning of his time at her temple, she would leave him alone for days at a time to fend for himself, but now she was hovering constantly.

“I made commitments. I need to honor them.”

“To men who abandoned you. I will promise you that the men you left the tavern with knew what those women were up to and that was why they made their retreat.”

“That thought had occurred to me,” Maceo admitted. “But I will still learn from this and gain what I can. You’ve been very generous with the money you’ve given me, but unless I buckle down and work harder to use it wisely, I’ll just have to keep begging for more from you. You wanted me to stand on my own, and I will do it. But in order to do so, I can’t sit and rest constantly waiting for matters to change for me. And I don’t have abilities to rearrange events so that they move in my favor. I have to meet these commitments,” he told her firmly.

She continued to stare at him sternly, though it seemed more of a façade at this point. “We will create the new golems and they will do the work for you,” she decided.

“This is my task, not something I can pass on to someone else.”

“You are not passing it on to someone else. You will have as much of a hand in these new golems as I, and they will be far more adaptable than the others, and then you will take these new servants you have created and you will delegate. That is what you were trained to do anyways. I was not teaching you so you could be a mere merchant. I was teaching you so you could stand out as a leader. Leaders delegate.”

“But I haven’t earned the right to lead,” he argued with her.

“This is the exception,” she insisted resolutely. “Yes. I am certain of this. If you must do something, then you can study, and your new workforce can create your wares you want so badly.”

“But Astravia,” he said quite patiently and for a moment, she actually hung on his words, waiting to hear what he would say, but then placed her finger to his lips.

“Three weeks. I insist on three weeks, so that I can be certain you are in good health.”

“But month end is in less than two, and I need to be back at the town to honor my contracts and meet with the caravan by that time.”

“I have been adding animals to the wildlife. There are herds of horses not far from here. I will call for some to arrive here and add them to the stables, and then you can carry your goods by cart,” she insisted.

“You’re giving me too much of a leg up, aren’t you?” he asked her with an earnest smile.

“You have nothing to prove to me,” she declared, some of her regal demeanor returning to her now. “And when I am proven right? And this merchant you befriended is revealed to have left you to be beaten and robbed by common thugs?”

“Then our business dealings will end,” Maceo answered her. “But until then I will honor my contracts.”

Astravia sighed, but didn’t argue. “Very well. Three weeks. You will spend your time studying in the library to pass the time and NOT performing manual labor. And you can make a trip to this town and conclude your dealings there.”

“It’s too bad,” Maceo added, shaking his head. “It would have been nice to have a better trade outpost so close to your temple. The next nearest town is almost two days travel to get to.”

“Yes,” she agreed more thoughtfully. “But I am not going to get involved with their affairs so intimately.” He nodded and turned back to the forge, covering it so the flames could smother and he placed his metal aside to cool and his hammer on the rack for storage.

The two of them later found themselves in another shop, this one dedicated to the creation of magical wares where Astravia used her abilities to quickly form together the bodies of ten golems, these ones looking much more human than their predecessors, mostly lacking facial features while Maceo set up ingredients and components they would need in order to imbue these statues of stone with life.

“How will they be better than the others?” he asked her.

“They will draw on the knowledge of the issuer of their commands,” she replied back. “And they’re senses of touch will be more refined. When you send them to blacksmith the tools for you, they will do it with the same skill and knowledge you have.”

He smiled and went on continuing with his work, finishing per Astravia’s instructions before she was finished with her part of the mission. They worked well into the night together with Maceo standing on a ladder much of the time to assist Astravia until they were able to infuse them with the life they needed.

The question, of course, is why didn’t Astravia simply construct the golems with nothing but her own abilities? Truthfully, she could have done it herself with not much more than her own thoughts and will in a tiny fraction of the time they were spending in this endeavor together. The difference here being this was yet another skill that she was imparting to Maceo that he could perform on his own. Maybe not as masterfully, and certainly not as quickly, but competently nonetheless. She also promised him that they would practice this skill repeatedly together as he mastered it fully.

Most importantly, though, these golems would not just be a creation of Maceo’s. They would also be something that could literally be an extension of his will. The previous golems were all direct extensions of Astravia’s will, with her explicit consent for them to be directed by Maceo because she wished it. These golems would not have to be directed solely by Maceo, but the point here was that they could be, and they would be able to do it with far greater perspicacity than their predecessors.

Their time was productive, but more interestingly, enjoyable together. Astravia actually seemed quite pleased to spend the time with Maceo, even commenting with him at one point, “I haven’t spent this much effort teaching you something since you were learning healing potions,” with a pleasant smile.

“I still have trouble with them,” Maceo answered with another smile from her.

It was well after midnight when they were all fully ready for work and performing admirably with Maceo testing them out with extremely high precision tasks like working on the gears of a small clock a past artisan had created in the days before the temple had been abandoned.

Once they were done, Maceo went back to his own room and Astravia watched from a distance as he made his way, slowly but surely given the damage one of his knees had taken during the fight. “I should have carried him,” she complained as he opened the door and left her sight, then departed herself and went up toward her own room, but stopped at the study, thought for a moment, then stepped inside to the same globe she’d used to observe the mortal when he was out and about. She held her hand up to it, but then stopped mid motion and finally turned and left the room apparently deciding not to use the device after all.

The next day, she arose from bed and went to the balcony to enjoy the early morning sunshine only to growl to herself at the distant, faint sound of metal on metal. She put her face in her hand and shook her head, then proceeded immediately to the bathroom to freshen up and then dressed in a beautiful light blue summer dress and proceeded directly to the forge where sure enough Maceo was located, watching his new automatons with interest as they powered through the job set before them.

“I told you to rest,” she scolded him as he smiled up at her.

“Good morning Astravia,” he replied back happily.

“You heard me,” she reiterated.

“I did. I was up early, so I came out here to get them started.”

“Why were you up early?” she asked him with disappointment in her voice.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted to her, though how abruptly he said it suggested a deeper story.

“Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“Just a bad dream,” he answered. “That’s all.”

“What are these dreams you are having?” she asked, but he seemed to stall rather than telling her. “You know I could look into them myself if I wanted,” she threatened, which made him cringe. “Am I going to have to?”

“No,” he relented.

“I would let you be and not force you to tell me, but your dreams seem to be getting worse,” she pointed out, kneeling beside him. He nodded and she placed her hand on his shoulder. “Will them their tasks,” she commanded the mortal.

“They’re noticeably slower at a project then I am,” he muttered to her.

“But they will do that task to nearly the same degree of mastery as you, and with the same flare. They are not simply automatons, they carry the vision and the knowledge you have earned and they have your same flare. They are slower because they are not machines, and they lack your drive and passions. But they should still be able to do the same work as you with perhaps three tenths more time. And there are ten of them, so this will more than make up for their slothfulness. Now go ahead, give your creations their tasks so we may speak. I am certain you haven’t bothered with breakfast.”

Maceo walked to each of the golems, one by one and placed his hand on their backs, concentrating until each one, one at a time went off to complete a task as assigned until no more metal remained for them to create it with. When he returned to Astravia, she smiled ever so pleasantly at him.

“Their only downside is that they cannot return to you the experience they gain as they do the work,” she told him proudly. She then rose to her feet and walked with Maceo back to her kitchen where they sat and ate breakfast together. “Now, please tell me of your dreams,” she stated formerly as she sipped on the nectar of a melon.

“They’re not always exactly the same,” Maceo began. “Last night, I was with you and we were by your poolside, sitting and watching the stars when one star turned a bright red and then it grew larger and larger like it was growing closer until it’s heat began scorching the ground around us and it descended on us. It landed right in front of us, like a boulder more than twice as big as you, except then I realized it wasn’t a boulder. It was a man, and he was literally burning with rage and I could feel my own skin sizzling from the heat.”

“Describe him to me,” Astravia said, her eyebrow raised.

“He was tall, lean and muscular in a way that almost seems too much to be true. In a way that I would even have a difficult time even drawing on parchment. He had a square, rigid jaw with a thick, trimmed beard running around his jaw line and a mustache that went nearly straight out just past his mouth and turned nearly perpendicular down to meet his beard. He had eyes that were a crystal blue, but they flamed a deeper red than I’ve ever seen before and bolts of lightning lit through and around those flames constantly.”

Astravia stared at him, her eyes widened. He was describing Zantharan to a T, and not just describing him, he was giving her a picture perfect rendition of her husband in his most powerful form, a form that the only time he’d taken it since Chronstrus had been deposed was to beat and humiliate Astravia. In short, the mortal worlds had never seen this form of his. Not once.

“He stood up and he just waved his hand and then it was like every last piece of you was being ripped apart in every direction. He tortured you on and on and on and I couldn’t do anything about it,” Maceo explained.

Astravia corrected her expression, but she still looked at Maceo with immense and grave concern.

“I was helpless. Completely helpless.”

Of course to Astravia, this was obvious. These weren’t strictly nightmares. They were visions, premonitions. Mortals sometimes had them, but what made this one odd was that mortals were incapable of having visions related to a god’s future, only to those who existed solely on the mortal plain. It was also very much in alignment with the fate Astravia expected to return home to.

“I haven’t just had this nightmare since the night those thugs grabbed me. I’ve had them since a few days before you told me about what happened to you before you came to the temple. They’ve just been getting worse. That’s all.”

She nodded and let him finish his story, allowing him to relax and calm himself. Telling her about it was very much reliving it for him in a very literal manner, and it was difficult for him to do it.

“The universe is reaching out to you,” she informed him. “It is reaching out a message and it is repeating it to you until you are able to answer back that the message has been received.” Maceo only stared up at her, considering her counsel. “Tonight, you will sleep in my bed chambers again and I will watch over you. When the dream comes it will be even more intense than all the previous times, but I will watch it with you and when the message is delivered, I will answer back that it has been received. The next time this happens, come to me, and I will do this again. In time, you will not need my help anymore and you will naturally learn to answer back on your own.”

“Why is the universe telling me about your death?” he asked her.

“Somehow you are meant to play a part in its unfolding,” she answered. “Normally these kinds of messages are reserved for oracles to be conveyed to someone else.”

She’d certainly told him the truth; she was only withholding the pieces that she didn’t know the answer to. There was no precedent of a mortal seeing visions into the future of a goddess. It was also an extremely bad omen, one she would need time to try to decipher. The fact that he’d had these extreme visions with ever increasing intensity also spoke to how ominous it was. She also was not guaranteed any further clues once this one was past.

“So it was a lot more than just a nightmare,” he determined pulling her back to his reality.

“Yes, I am afraid so.”

“So I just saw your end,” he said with immense remorse.

“You were there in the vision,” she pointed out. “When a message like this is sent and it is the future, you will normally see the scene objectively, not from a subjective point of view. It will be like looking at the event from the outside through glass. There are exceptions, but you saw this through your own eyes?” He nodded to her and she smiled with a touch of relief. “Then no, this is not the future, it is only a message. As I said, tonight, we will answer that it has been received.”

“But it’s a message about your death,” he insisted.

“Not necessarily,” she answered back. “It is most likely a message that has nothing to do with me. Visions like this are spoken in metaphor, at least partially. What your mind will do is as it attempts to interpret the message it will fill in the blanks with references already established in your mind.”

“A reference to what, though? What blanks am I trying to fill in by using you?”

“Well, I am tempted to say that you were searching for an image that was a motherly one, except those normally occur to people who are a certain stage in their development. As much as it pains me to say it, you are well past that stage. I can only guess for now.”

“I’ll take a guess, then,” he told her, waiting on her next words with baited breath.

She huffed a tiny huff, and placed her hands on her knees. “You have admitted you are in love with me, so that is probably what it represents. It means that as I had hoped, you will be finding love, but your mind doesn’t have the right images to use, so it inserted me. What is most important here is the feelings of distress and helplessness you described. Your future love will have some kind of overwhelming challenge for you, and one that she probably has no control over,” she answered him.

He didn’t seem to really like her answer, but he nodded and accepted. “So that’s it?”

“How did the dream end?”

“That’s where it stops,” he told her. “You being pulled apart and then I wake up.”

“You haven’t seen the entire message, then. That is part of the problem. I should have suspected this could be something that could happen to you, given how uniquely observant you are. We’ll have to train you on how to manage your visions a bit better. But, bear in mind, this is all only an educated guess. There are secrets to this vision that you may never fully understand.”

“But you have a lot of experience interpreting visions?”

“Eighty seven million years worth,” she reported with a teasing grin.

“So you’re very good at it.”

“I’ve never been wrong,” she answered him. “But do not forget that I only spoke in generalities. What you saw is not set in stone, nor is it something that you should expect to see as it happened in your vision. That is why the message was sent.”

That evening, as she’d said, he slept on her bed on a pillow with her watching over him as he slept. It was still in the dark, early hours of the morning when he began to stir and she touched her finger to his forehead. Her eyes inverted to the black irises and sclera and bright star pupils and the vision he’d described began to play forward for her. She watched Maceo from within his vision and she stood outside of it, watching in as this time Maceo and herself sat on the hillside where they’d met laughing together and holding hands. She watched with a smile as they playfully bantered for longer than she’d expected until she needed to do a double take on herself within the vision.

“I am the same size as him,” she remarked as she looked again, a little unnerved to see herself so small. “I wonder why I didn’t notice that before,” she muttered, but continued to watch after shaking it off. The vision continued on and she raised an eyebrow. “This is such a long vision,” she noted to herself, though she still smiled as Maceo and herself seemed quite happy together until she did another double take, “wait no… our sizes are reversed,” she gasped. “I was watching the entire time… when did I change?” she said, struggling especially now with the much smaller sized version of herself. She looked inside, this time actually stepping into Maceo’s mind to get a better look, but was stunned to see this mindscape version of her was the same size as Maceo again. Somehow, this version of herself was not consistent in size, but through it all, she was certain she never observed any moment where her mindscape alter ego changed in size. The only thing that was constant was Maceo until the sun above them fell like a heavy boulder into the ground in front of them and then stood up as the frighteningly familiar form of an exact replica of her husband in his most powerful form.

Astravia watched the scene unfold but noted that every time she paid attention to her mindscape alter ego, she was a different size, ranging all the way from a few inches tall all the way up to her normal height. She didn’t particularly enjoy watching herself pulled apart in ever direction, but at this point she reached in to the vision and massaged him to sooth him, nodding with approval as he remained just calm enough to remain in the dream state until she realized that she needed both hands to rub his broad shoulders in order to keep him calm, rather than just a few fingers.

Her eyes betrayed the intense confusion she held as she struggled with the fact that even inside this mindscape, she was her normal 15 foot self towering over Maceo’s 6 foot self, and yet when she interacted with him in his mindscape, her hands now were almost like a small child’s on his shoulders.

Thankfully, the strange vision passed this point quickly and her mindscape alter ego fell to his lap, clinging for warmth as a massive darkness enveloped Zantharan and he faded away slowly. She looked back at Maceo and herself, and since keeping her eyes opened the entire time hadn’t worked to catch the changes in her size, she intentionally blinked, each time stunned to see herself in a different size, but each time she remained in his lap, curled up for comfort, even when she saw herself in her normal, fifteen foot tall size.

The scene calmed and she reached in, again shaking her head with confusion as she needed to reach in with both hands to turn his head skyward, then looked around herself and sure enough, she was her normal 15 foot tall self and he his normal 6 foot self.

She reached out to lift his arm up, but came up with a reach that was several inches short. “What in,” she asked herself but no, her reach was a few FEET short, but not only had she never seen a change, she’d never FELT a change. It was is if her size was completely unset within the universe.

Frustrated beyond all measure, she finally tipped her head into his mindscape and marveled that she needed to lean upward as though she were standing on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “Raise your arm and palm skyward,” she whispered, choosing to ignore this extremely strange reality where every time she noticed, her hands and head were different sizes, ranging from body parts of a woman 15 feet tall all the way down to only a few inches tall, but almost never were any of the few parts of her body she’d placed in this mindscape the same as each other.

“Breathe,” she whispered. She now did so as though she were on her hands and knees to perform this act. “Be calm,” she told him in a soft, gentle voice as a warm light opened up to them from behind the sky of this mindscape, revealing a pink and purple gaseous form surrounding this warm light.

“Feel the warmth and be one with it,” she told him calmly. WHY DID HE LOOK LIKE HE WAS TWELVE TIMES HER SIZE??!?!?!?

The warm light then encompassed him and she leaned back, the mindscape returning to normal and she was certain, even after blinking and checking numerous times intentionally that she was fifteen feet tall, he was six, and there was no instances where she checked it that this was not the case.

She put her head in her hand, shook it with exasperation and then reached back in again and helped him as she lay him on his back as she brought him back to that same hillside just outside the temple again and THANKFULLY no part of her was other than that of a fifteen foot tall goddess as she did so.

Finally, she pulled back and out of his mind and looked at her precious sleeping little Maceo through star centered black eyes that fluidly shifted back to her normal shimmering green ones. She released a great deal of pent up, tense air from her lungs and stared off into the distance, thoroughly perplexed by the experience, but then refocused on Maceo and smiled as he seemed to be dreaming again, this time very pleasantly.

“I need a shower,” she grumbled to herself. Anything to shake that strange event off of her, and she stood and walked away to let Maceo dream and toward the bathroom. “I HATE going down to their size,” she complained under her breath as her entire body shook violently as though she were suffering a severe case of the heebie-jeebies and ignoring entirely that many of the sizes she’d experienced in this strange mindscape were much, MUCH smaller. She shut the door, disrobed in a single motion and stepped into a hot shower to console herself.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Fri May 20, 2022 1:41 am

Thankfully, Maceo’s sleep was stable following that night. Astravia did her best to put the incident out of her mind, but it continually vexed her. She spent hours each day combing through the event over and over again the same way she’d pulled herself out of time when she’d realized nine whole years had passed in the company of Maceo.

Maceo was spending his time working in the library, searching for new books and things to learn as well as consulting a strange apparatus Astravia had shown him that allowed a scholar of the past to speak to him and teach a specific concept or skill. He also spent a good deal of time inspecting the work of the new golems before setting them about the task of improving their projects or assigning new ones.

In Astravia’s case, she found herself almost obsessively combing through the details of Maceo’s strange dream. Since she was doing this work outside of the pull of time, it’s impossible to describe how lengthy her toils were in this task, but it would be the equivalent of months.

What confounded her the most was that looking in on each instance of her alter ego, and even the parts of her that had reached within the mindscape themselves, she could never repeat an exact size even when she would go back to a single instant in time and look at it again.

Never in this strange place was she bigger than her normal 15 foot self, but she was certainly every size between that and only a few inches, though every time she would try to look more closely to identify a specific measurement, she was a different size there.

The vexing of this strange event was so heavy that Astravia had extreme difficulty relaxing or enjoying herself. So troubled was she that one night, she even resorted to Maceo rubbing her feet for her, and smiled at him after he managed to do a surprisingly good job.

As the days went by, she may have had difficulty relaxing, but each day, she would make it a point to go wherever Maceo was working. “Come to dinner,” she would tell him. “I am making something special for you.”

Over dinner they would talk and laugh as she would tell stories, but she would also listen to some of his from his time before they’d met, which up until this point she hadn’t done much of. Once she had his background story that day, she’d decided she knew him quite well, but now she found herself interested in life from his point of view growing up.

When the day came for Maceo to gather his goods and set out to conclude his business in the nearby town, she waved him goodbye at the main gates and then retreated back to a bistro made for a goddess overlooking the temple’s main market place. She sat there sipping a drink.

“These messages do not come from anyone,” she pondered. “They simply exist and resonate with the viewer. What exactly happened with this one?” she asked, thoroughly perplexed and ruminating it until she saw a golem walk by in the corner of her eye and sat upright tensely. “Oh he has made it there by now,” she said with urgency in her voice and began running in the direction of her quarters, but by the third step, she had already transformed into her hawk from and soared back to her balcony, then right through her bedroom, into the corridor beyond and banking back into the study, curling her wings inward and transforming back to her normal self just a few steps from her globe. She pranced up to it and with a wave of her hand, she was watching over Maceo as he was beginning with his meeting with the same merchant from before.

The merchant was quite pleased with the wares Maceo had brought and quite eager to buy as promised right up until Maceo held a hand up as the merchant fished out his coin purse. “You didn’t even bother to ask about the bruises on my face,” Maceo confronted and the man nearly dropped his purse.

“I thought that perhaps your business was your own,” the man stated nervously. Maceo leaned against a table and shook his head at his business partner.

“You do know what happened, don’t you?”

“It was late. I was tired. I just went home.”

“But you knew who they were,” Maceo insisted.

“I don’t know them. We’ve never spoken,” he insisted again abruptly.

“But you did know who they were,” Maceo repeated. The merchant lowered his head in shame, but he did acknowledge Maceo’s suspicions. Maceo tapped his finger impatiently. “I won’t allow myself to be called anything but a man of his word, but please explain to me why I should continue to do business with a man who abandoned me knowing I would be attacked the way I was.”

“I’m amazed you’re in as good of shape as you are,” he admitted. “That man doesn’t leave witnesses.” Maceo raised an eyebrow, shooting the merchant a side-glance. “I had no choice.”

“Why?”

“The women are said to have extensive expertise with poisons, and the man has unnatural strength. One of his alleged victims was found with both of his arms ripped off.”

“Even if that’s true, they’re not invincible,” Maceo confronted, pointing a finger while the neighboring merchant began to close up shop rather than risk being pulled into this argument. “You and a number of you knew what they were and you left me to them.”

“If you had slept with the ladies, your odds of surviving would have been much, much better,” the merchant informed Maceo, who seemed quite irritated.

“Do you honestly think I’m interested in bedding down with every whore I encounter? Between myself and those of you that were with me when they approached, we could have handled any problems, but instead you chose to sacrifice me.”

“How did you get away?” the man asked with an airy voice.

“I was lucky,” Maceo answered back in a low voice. “I was very, very lucky. And with any luck, those vagabonds won’t trouble your town any further.”

“Then this can be water under the bridge, eh?” the merchant asked, hopeful. Maceo didn’t appear to share that same hope, though.

“Your town is full of cowards,” Maceo accused. Now several others around were watching and listening with interest, though none of them seemed to look particularly proud. “You were all happy and excited as long as I had money to spend, but the instant the winds changed even in the slightest, you threw me to the wolves. I cannot rely on luck to pluck me out of every situation like that I find,” Maceo scolded.

“Oh yes you can,” Astravia replied to the globe with grim determination.

Maceo’s words seemed to stick and the merchant looked up at him. “I want to make it right with you,” he told Maceo.

“How?” Maceo asked. “Even if those three are gone, who is to say your town won’t harbor more like them? Or even that there aren’t more already here? I’m just trying to start up a line of business. I don’t have the ability to hire constant security to protect my assets and myself.”

“This town wasn’t always like this,” an elderly man interrupted from behind Maceo. Maceo turned and looked at him as he approached using a cane. The man then told a long and sordid tale of how the town had once been much more prosperous, but then the arid climate made life more and more difficult. Over time, younger people wanted less and less to do with the town as commerce began to dry up along with their water reserves. By this point the town was close to collapse and bandits and thieves had moved in due to the fact that the locals had become easy prey. Maceo coming along and showing he had a bit of wealth to use was too tempting of a target.

In the end, the elderly man told Maceo that if he came back after honoring his contracts, the village elders would see to it that any further business Maceo conducted there he would be guaranteed extra interest as a penance for what he’d gone through.

In the wake of events after that night, one of the elders had overheard the merchants discussing his being targeted by their problem children and a town meeting had been convened where the merchants were castigated for squandering such a rare opportunity in a way that got much desperately needed business literally killed. They hadn’t expected the opportunity of a second chance, so they were serious about making good and when this particular elder had heard that Maceo had wandered back into town, bruised and battered, but still alive and well otherwise, he dropped what he was doing immediately and rushed over.

“We will take up arms and anyone violating laws will be punished severely,” the elderly man promised. “And we will hold a town meeting tonight to discuss whatever other measures we can to better help facilitate an improvement of business there.”

“Is that so?” another voice called out from Maceo’s left. Maceo looked at the man, who was a middle-aged man, not particularly tall. He was stocky and wore a thick beard. “I’d be interested in attending this meeting.”

“I don’t remember you from the last time I was here,” Maceo told the new man.

“He is the leader of the caravan I told you about,” the merchant told Maceo. Maceo nodded and waited for the elder to nod in agreement.

Maceo was hesitant to join this meeting, since his promise to Astravia was to go into town and be back by nightfall. By late afternoon, he was already loading his wagon while the elder who’d approached him was watching with dismay when Maceo suddenly couldn’t help but wince as a bright light hit his eye directly. He moved around, trying to avoid it, but no matter what he did it followed him like a pesky fly until he saw a small, shining source from back in the woods. He looked at the elderly man, who was only staring at the ground and he only looked up as Maceo left his cart behind to investigate.

He had to walk deep into the woods before from behind and old, nearly dead and dried up tree Astravia stepped out, looking down to him.

“Stay the night,” she urged him immediately.

“You were watching? Again?”

“Of course I was,” she smiled and petted his cheek with her fingertip.

“Stay the night, and I will help them.”

“How?” he asked.

“Let me handle it. You will know when you see it. When you return to the temple tomorrow, I will have you oversee the next stage in what will help them.”

“If that is your wish,” he agreed and then turned to leave the forest again once Astravia had transformed once more into her hawk form and flew off back home. Once he returned to his cart, he grabbed his horse’s lead and walked it back to the elderly man. “I’ll give it a try,” Maceo agreed.

That night was more of a party than a meeting, as the town did their best to woo two important clients. Once Maceo and the caravan leader were introduced, he learned that only a part of his caravan ever visited the town for the same reasons that Maceo was talking about ending his business there after only one attempt.

“My grandfather used to do this route,” he explained. “That’s the only reason I even come up this way anymore.”

There was much talk of plans and loans to try to get the town back on their feet, though the Caravan leader was hardly impressed. Maceo mostly sat back and listened until he looked up in the early night sky and realized a number of heavy clouds had gathered overhead. “Hmm,” he remarked. And looked around. Other than the rain that Astravia called in when she felt like it, it rarely ever rained up this high, and never particularly hard.

Maceo leaned on his knees as he sat and listened to the elders do their best to court the caravan leader, still really failing to impress when the first drops fell. The townsfolk looked up in surprise to see rain clouds completely obscuring the night sky and when the drops slowly shifted into a downpour, the caravan leader and his troop ran for cover, while the townsfolk ran for barrels and any other catchment they could bring out as fast as possible as though they were well practiced at this.

Maceo continued to sit in his seat, watching the scene unfold around him while the caravan sheltered themselves and the rain seemed to intensify, slowly smothering the flames of the fire that had been lit to sit around for their discussion.

An hour later, the townsfolk were exhausted and amazed to see that every container they could scrounge up had been filled to the brink and the rains still poured down, almost threatening the landscape if it continued for much longer. Maceo, now drenched from the downpour stood up and walked toward the caravan leader who was watching Maceo curiously and joined him under an awning. A moment later, the elders came forward and approached, hoping to pick up where they’d left off as a few townsfolk muttered amongst themselves from nearby that if the rains continued like this for much longer, there would be mudslides.

Maceo was confident though, and it showed. A few minutes later, the rains began to ebb and the townsfolk sighed with relief as the clouds began to dissipate and roll away.

“I think this is a good omen,” Maceo said to the elder he’d spoken with earlier that day, catching the caravan leader’s attention. “I have a total of fifty gold coins I can lend to any man you will personally vouch for and I ask a total of five gold coins in addition to the principal returned to me. Every one of them must provide collateral, though,” Maceo insisted.

The elder nearly fell over and the caravan leader did a double take as well. Maceo did have the money, but this was most of the sum that Astravia had given to him for his years of diligent work. If this didn’t work out, it wouldn’t work out for him very well, and he knew what a gamble it was, but then, he knew that Astravia must have told him of her plan for a reason. He only could hope he’d understood her properly.

“Well, if they have that much to spend, I suppose I could bring my entire troop up here,” the caravan leader decided, shaking his head. “We’ll go from there, I guess. I’ll need proof the coin exists, though.”

“I can leave at daybreak tomorrow and have it here by mid day,” Maceo answered him. An agreement was struck and then Maceo walked up an spoke very softly to the elderly man. “I’ve always been taught to never put all my eggs into one basket, but that’s exactly what I’ve just done. If your town leaves me high and dry, I won’t have enough left to do this again and I won’t be back. And honestly? If you don’t find a way to make this work, I seriously doubt you’ll ever get another chance again,” Maceo warned.

“Every last gram will be paid back to you if I have to sell myself off,” the elderly man promised and shook Maceo’s hand with much more firmness than he expected. Maceo then waved, asking the Caravan leader to come over and join their private conversation.

“I had actually wanted to be introduced to you for one simple reason,” Maceo reasoned. “I saved up enough money to invest and I needed to learn how exactly to do it. I wanted to ask if you’d share your wisdom with me.”

The caravan leader smiled and patted Maceo on the shoulder. “I certainly hope that fifty gold coin isn’t everything you’ve saved up,” he jested.

“It’s more of it than I should have offered, but I will be alright if it doesn’t work out.” The man chuckled and shook his head at Maceo. “I could still use your wisdom, though. And I think they could use it more than me,” he said pointing back out to the town.

“When I came of age, my father sent me out with only enough money to get by meagerly for several months and a list of seven rules for wealth. He then told me that if I ever wanted my inheritance, I would come back to him and show him how I wouldn’t squander it. It worked out well for me,” he said, looking around. He certainly seemed more hopeful than before. “Gather your best merchants at whatever you can use as a hall here and I’ll teach you what my father taught me,” he told the elderly man. “The rest is up to you.”

With this decided, the town meeting continued on as the caravan leader had asked with a number of lookers on listening in as they went deep into the night listening to his advice and asking questions as well as sharing experiences together.

In fact, the event went so well that most of them spent the entire night talking and doing their best to learn from the wealthy caravan leader. At daybreak, Maceo set out for the temple again without any sleep and when he entered the main gate, Astravia was already waiting there for him with his gold ready to be loaded up and several golems there to load it.

“Was I foolish, betting all my money like that on this town?” he asked her, wondering if he’d interpreted her correctly. She smiled warmly and dropped to her knees and petted his cheek with her fingertip.

“I will give them every benefit so that they can pay you back,” she assured him. “Now hurry,” she urged him.

Maceo nodded and loaded up his cart with the golems, then set out as quickly as he could with a number of other new wares he’d had his newer golems create in the extra time they had in between his first and second visits to the town.

A few hours later, Maceo pulled back into town to a pleasantly surprised caravan leader, who nodded his head to him as he dismounted and began to conduct business with the elder. Between the three of them, they conducted business with the caravan leader and made contracts for all involved as prices for goods were negotiated and ordered as collateral was traded for gold, which was traded around quickly, but methodically.

A short while later, the caravan leader was loaded and ready to head out with a warning to the town before they rode off that should they not make good on their contract with Maceo, he would consider them to be unreliable trading partners going forward, but as he did, he looked up with surprise as rain began falling again to the amazement of the townspeople. This rain wasn’t nearly as heavy as the one the day before, but again spirits among the locals here seemed to rise precipitously as they once again topped off their stores of water.

Maceo and the Caravan both departed in separate directions and by evening, Maceo was standing back at the gates to the temple, which opened for him as he approached to the site of a beautiful and quite happy 15 foot tall goddess.

“I did well?” he asked her, hoping for approval from his goddess.

“You did,” she told him with a nod, then waved him forward. “Now come to dinner,” she bid him with a soft smile and equally soft voice. “I have made something special for you.”
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Sat May 21, 2022 2:36 am

Over dinner, Astravia explained the next level of her plan to Maceo. “When this temple was built,” she explained to him, “there were no settlements within a week’s ride here for a mortal. You know the river that you see that runs directly through the mortal districts, past my quarters and into the pool? At the time ground broke on construction here that river continued to run straight out near where the eastern gate stands today. At the time I took that river and poured it straight down into the mountain into an aquifer that was created beneath the temple. Now,” she said with an emphatic pause, “you may be thinking that this river ran to the town nearby, but that unfortunately is not the case. However, what the people of that town do not realize is that there is an ancient riverbed that… oh, never mind!” she said, throwing her hands up in frustration.

“Why am I telling you when I could just simply show you?” she asked him, certainly piquing Maceo’s interest. “We will finish our meal and then I will show you,” she said, then encouraged the little six-foot tall man to hurry along with his food.

Once she was finished, Maceo climbed down and Astravia bent down, her hands outstretched to pick him up. “I can walk,” Maceo insisted with a fair bit of embarrassment.

“Not here you cannot,” she answered back with a girlish giggle and then scooped him up into her arms, holding him snuggly to her bosom. With a wave of her hand, the birds around them stopped chirping, the animals stopped frolicking in the nearby garden and the golems froze solid in their tracks going to and from their assigned tasks. In the distance, Maceo could see a squirrel frozen mid air leaping from one tree to another.

“What just happened?” he gasped.

“We are outside of time,” she answered in an echoing voice and Maceo looked up to her familiar smiling face, but gasped with wonder at her eyes, which were now fiery little stars, surrounded by all black. Then, with an exaggerated flick of her wrist as though she were spinning an imaginary wheel, Maceo watched in amazement as time around him quickly reversed with dizzying speed as he watched glimpses of himself and Astravia in past incidences in various places around them, but then nothing for a long moment until they saw an elderly woman being helped along near the clergy’s barracks, then back as this frail elderly woman could be seen in glimpses here and there and everywhere as the years fell back and she grew younger and younger, then there were two priestesses, then three and then twelve as the elderly priestess no longer appeared in front of them, now being too young to have joined the clergy yet.

“I thought you couldn’t turn back time without causing damage,” Maceo marveled, but Astravia simply giggled at him.

“I am not turning back time,” she told him as though he were being silly. “We have stepped outside of time and we are simply observing. We can watch any event we wish like this exactly as it occurred in time.”

Maceo nodded as he felt his body slip a little toward her massive and inviting cleavage. “Can I get down yet?” he asked, growing mildly uncomfortable as his male hormones got the better of him in the arms of the woman he pined for.

“No,” she answered matter-of-factly. “If you step away from me here, time will pull you in all directions. Your existence will be erased to anyone but a god. You will have to stay with me,” she answered. She smiled and looked around as she watched the death of her temple reverse itself and absentmindedly hugged Maceo to her bosom while massaging his upper back and shoulders with affection, as she stared, lost in the site of her temple being restored to life as it morphed in reverse back into a small city.

Then the citizens were gone again, almost in a flash and they watched as the temple was disassembled, leaving nothing but mostly barren wilderness. And there before them was the deep river running as she’d mentioned. But time went further back still, thousands of more years, all the while holding and massaging Maceo absentmindedly as he squirmed his hips in an attempt to avert alarming her to his erection.

Maceo watched with amazement as the ground slowly dropped away from her feet, first an inch, then a few, then a few feet, then a couple of stories and Astravia finally pressed her free palm forward and they stopped right at that moment and then with a gentle hand gesture, time around them seemed to move forward again at a normal pace.

“If you wanted a better view, why not go up higher?” he asked Astravia, but she giggled again to him.

“We have not moved, my dear,” she answered, looking down at him. “We are looking at this mountain seven million years ago. At that time, the plates of this world’s outer crust had not pushed this mountain quite as high as it stands in your time.” Interestingly, as soon as he spoke and gained her full attention, she stopped caressing him affectionately without seeming to even realize it. Then she reached forward to the air and drew her fingers together as though she were squeezing a sponge and the ground dropped further away as they soared much, much higher.

Only that wasn’t exactly true. Everything in front of them didn’t simply look farther way, it looked as though it were considerably smaller and they were able to look out around the entire mountain from high above.

“There, you see?” she said and pointed down and to their left. In front of him was a snowy peak and at its base was a huge lake on the south side of it. This lake then split off into five rivers, one of which being the river he’d seen in the time just before the temple had been built, only much larger and more turbulent. Then, she reached out to another river, not nearly as pronounced, but of similar size to the one that existed by the time the temple was built.

She reached out again and put her thumb and forefinger together as though she were plucking a cherry up by its stem and flared her remaining three fingers outward and this river zoomed much larger and closer to them, but not so close as to obscure the view of the longest lasting of the five rivers.

Then she reached out and grabbed thin air, and she pulled out another image of a very similar, landscape, but much more worn and eroded, and empty of water, only being a dip in the contours of the landscape, mostly obscured by the random vegetation that covered it. Still though, seeing the world unfold around him the way that he had, it was recognizable to him, just as the elderly priestess was recognizable to him as a young and vital woman before she disappeared as they spun backwards in time.

“This is my plan,” Astravia explained. “I was aware that mortals dispersed as my temple was closed off and had settled here in a place that was less than ideal, but then, what would be ideal here any longer? You see, the first step in building the temple was to expand the aquifer that rests below that lake back there, so that water would be readily available to citizens of my temple. Once that was completed, the river was cut off and diverted into that aquifer, which is quite sizable. In time, that aquifer would have eventually filled and then all that would have been required would be to open a valve on the east wall and the river will flow back out again, just as it was before the temple was built. But, the aquifer is mostly full by now and I can simply divert the flow so that enough escapes the temple and refills the river ahead of schedule. Our conundrum is that river will flow several miles away from the town down a path that is too steep to build a settlement.”

“You want me to divert the flow from one riverbed to another?” Maceo asked.

“Yes I would,” she answered with a pleasant smile. “With more than two thousand golems, it should be quick work. The new river will cut through the corner of their town. A few houses will be a bit too close for comfort, but nothing is built inside the riverbed because it is not uncommon for heavier runoff to still get caught up in this old riverbed. I am sure they will adapt.”

“Why not simply use your powers to change the flow?”

“I do not wish to use my powers on that scale,” she answered simply. “Such a grand use and the townspeople will feel the ground shifting. If I only push berms up to divert the flow, the ground will still quake. If I do so at a slower pace, masking it as though it were natural changes in the landscape, it will take too long to be of use to the town. Of the utmost importance here is that I not make my presence known to the people of your world, so I would like you to divert the riverbeds quickly and quietly with normal methods. And you are still injured, so I expect you to only supervise,” she reminded him firmly.

She spun forward and backward in time, demonstrating to Maceo all the details of her project, comparing the current dried rivers with past versions that hadn’t run dry yet offering Maceo a clear view of his world in a way he’d never imagined before.

When they were done, the scene of frozen, distorted time around them vanished and time around them began to move forward again normally as he watched the squirrel finish his leap to the other tree.

“I had no idea you could do that,” Maceo said with wonder as she dropped to her knees and set him back down on the ground.

“I can do many things,” she glowed down to him.

“Have you ever done that before?”

“Hmm? Oh, I do that quite often,” she answered him with a smile.

“How often?” he asked her, still awestruck.

“Oh, I don’t really keep track. I did it this morning,” she shared.

The next day, Maceo did exactly as asked and rode a horse out of the East gate before daybreak leading several long columns of golems carrying tools and equipment at first down the road unkempt from centuries of disuse, then veering off into the woods until they found a gentle ridge that Maceo recognized as the dried riverbank he needed to divert away from.

The golems were perfectly suited to this task, much more so than any others they’d been assigned to date and their excessive strength allowed them to dig at a rate that was quite impressive.

They were miles away from any form of human settlement, but even so, any adjustments he saw that needed to be made, he delivered those instructions up close in a speaking voice to his automatons rather than yell them out, though thankfully he’d studied Astravia’s plans closely enough that work carried on quite well without any major changes to plan.

By late afternoon, they’d managed to create a large berm that would reroute the water flow from the one riverbed to it’s much older counterpart and Maceo filed his army of workers back to the East gate where a very happy and proud Astravia was already waiting.

From there, she led Maceo down into an unused building that led to a long, wide set of stairs that descended deep down underground to a simple facility carved out of the rock where water was pouring down in massive quantities and with a wave of her hand, a massive wheel turned clockwise, and as it did, the water slowed to a fraction of it’s previous speed and volume.

“And that is it,” she declared happily. “If we hurry we can see the river reborn,” she said excitedly. Maceo agreed, though he went pale as she scooped him up into her arms and then ran up the stairs, transforming into her hawk form and carrying Maceo up to the entrance with an arm in each of her clawed feet. Up they went until they were soaring above the city with Maceo watching with amazement at the landscape below and they arrived at the east wall immediately after a burp of a few thousand gallons of water poured out of a gated tunnel and began filling enough to begin a slow and arduous trek down hill.

They stayed aloft for a few hours, high up and just close enough that Maceo could see for himself as the waters finally had accumulated enough that more than a trickle was making it through the town as the majority of the town seemed to be gathered in the town center and then Astravia turned and quickly sped back to her temple, flew through the balcony landing of her bed chambers and transformed into her normal form, carrying him held tightly to her bouncing bosom and into the study, immediately activating the globe and quickly finding the meeting they’d seen from above so they could watch and listen in.

She was so excited and transfixed, she didn’t seem to realize once again she was affectionately massaging Maceo’s neck and shoulders as she watched.

It was now early evening and the sun was low, with most of the town gathered at another meeting at the center of town as the waters finally coursed through their town as a bonafide, reborn river. The townspeople were completely unaware of what had transpired right there among their homes and were discussing regulations and management of policing, as well as trying to discern where they might know of any local bandits that might be camped nearby.

In the midst of a discussion, a bewildered mother walked into the meeting from the outside with her young daughter and stumbled through the crowd to the center where the elders sat. She’d made her way almost entirely through to the center when voices quieted, wondering what ghost this woman had seen exactly to render her in such a state.

“There’s a river,” she barely managed to tell everyone. All they could do was stare back at her.

“What do you mean? There’s a river?” one elder asked her.

“There’s a river,” she repeated, only a little more solidly than the first time. There was murmuring and commotion until the woman’s husband placed his hand on her shoulder and had her lead them back to what she’d seen. A large crowd followed, many of whom fell to their knees from shock to see exactly what had been told to them. There was now a river running through a corner of their town with a man on the other side near his house calling out for help due to the fact that he had no idea how to cross back over again.

“Finally something new to try?” Maceo asked the fifteen-foot goddess hugging him while holding him against her chest.

“Oh no,” she replied knowingly. “I have done this so many times. But it is always a quaint little game to surprise mortals in a manner such as this.
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Sun May 22, 2022 3:43 am

A week had gone by and Maceo was back to his routine of studying hard in the main library as per Astravia’s insistence when he came across a very small book, roughly half the size of the others in the library. He looked it over and then opened it to see very small writing in it. He leaned more closely to see it was writing in the language of the gods and brought it to a desk to investigate further.

His skills at this language were not particularly great, but he managed along anyway reading some kind of first hand account of a spell. “What is this? A diary?” He flipped around back and forth until about two thirds through he caught a passage that seemed to catch his eye.

“Ten years now since I activated the spell and I have yet to be found out,” it read. “In retrospect, it was a mistake to try before I knew the spell’s duration, but I cannot say that I regret it. This experience has been indescribable. I have never undergone an endeavor that has felt this intense before in my entire existence. I am certain the queen would atomize me if she found out about this experiment, though. I have found a perfect place to hide out for hopefully a short enough time until it finally begins to run its course.” Following that line, there was a reference number, which he looked over and leaned back a little.

“What is… well, this is probably perfect!” he declared, then went about reading the entire journal from front to back.

This journal was obviously one of many, and details of what exactly the spell was eluded him, though he was a bit confused since normally the gods wrote in characters as tall as an inch. This writing was miniscule, even by mortal standards, probably related to the secretive nature of the project.

More interesting was the descriptions in the book by the author. The author described sensations they’d never experienced before: taste, smell, hearing and vision intensified in a way that was like they were saturated with experience and a warm feeling from time around them as though they were surfing a wave.

“If this isn’t something she’s never tried before, then nothing is,” he declared then looked at the reference numbers and thought hard. The reference numbers were for specific passages in another book. He searched and searched through it until tucked behind the cover of this book he found a note with another reference number. This one to the location of another book that should have been within the library.

He ran with his little guide in hand and checked the marking on the aisles, running left and right, then down until he realized he was on the wrong level, so he went down a flight and there he found the aisle he was looking for in a much darker area of the library used to house less important archives like temple maintenance or things of that nature.

He did find his book, which was significantly larger than the tiny journal, and written in god sized handwriting. He opened it and by the first page, it was apparent that he was reading something that belonged among the spell casting sections, not down here. Even the cover and the title of the book suggested it to be something entirely mundane.

“Someone was breaking the rules,” he chuckled to himself. Before he could get far, however, he heard Astravia’s voice calling out for him as she searched the library. He set his new treasure down and ran up to the stairs. “I’m here!” he called up to her. A moment later, Astravia peered from around the pillar at the top of the stairs as he ascended up to meet her.

“What are you doing down there?” she asked him, given the lack of interesting materials found in that section.

“I found a reference to a book that was down there, so I was down there looking for it.” she raised her eyebrow at him.

“And why is a book being referenced to something down there?” she asked skeptically.

“That’s what I was trying to figure out,” he added. She still seemed to not be satisfied. “Honestly, I’m just trying to make good on my promise,” he told her.

“Oh this again,” she laughed and rolled her eyes. “Still thinking you can best my 87 million years of experience?”

“Just trying to add to it,” he answered her.

She smiled at him quaintly and reached out a hand to him. “Come to dinner, my dearest Maceo. I have made something special for you.”

Dinner was pleasant and Astravia was more interested in the progress of the town. “The caravan leader will be quite surprised by the changes there by the time he makes it back,” she told him proudly. “You may want to go there soon and survey the scene. I have a feeling they will want to form a small caravan of their own before Tacitus returns.”

They discussed all manner of topics related to Maceo’s budding trade business as well as Maceo’s health which was now nearly back to where he had been before being assaulted. Maceo, though, eventually decided to pull the conversation back to his discovery, so he struggled to find an organic means to do so.

“I was wondering if you knew a name I hadn’t heard before. Kytyscia?”

Astravia raised an eyebrow at him. “How did you come across that name?” she asked him.

“I found a book whose author was Kytiscia.” She nodded and sipped on her wine.

“She was a mid level goddess. She oversaw a lower realm for me, but she was always a bit impulsive and sometimes reckless. Very kind and gentle, though and very much adored by her worshippers whom she spoiled terribly. Oh and she always gave me the impression that she was up to some kind of mischief, though I rarely caught her.”

“You said was…”

“She crossed Zantharan,” Astravia answered him. “Unfortunately, she had a bit of a rebellious streak in her. She tried to shelter a mortal man who had fallen in love with one of his… concubines. For that, he destroyed her around twenty thousand years ago.” Maceo nodded, a little saddened to hear this news. “You must be combing through the library quite a bit to live up to this promise of yours,” she teased and offered a little more food for him, which he accepted. “Most of her history has been destroyed. I only have a few of her books.”

“It was her book that had the reference to the lower level,” Maceo informed her.

“Mm, that is possible,” she entertained. “She loved the mortals quite a bit, so she frequently helped them with their maintenance documentation.”

“But the temple is only one thousand years old and she’s been gone for twenty times that.”

“Most of the books in that library are duplicates of older temples. I have what few books I have from her at those temples as well. That includes the maintenance and engineering guides. The temples may differ in form, but most of the principles to their build and operation are the same.”

“It sounds like she might have the key to giving you a new experience.”

“You are just not going to let it go, are you?” she laughed. “I doubt it. Kytyscia was very sweet and kind hearted and a joy to be around, but she tended to be rather small minded.”

“She mentioned something about surfing time as though it was a wave,” he suggested.

“And why would I want to do that?” she asked with indifference. He became confused, given the level of detail in Kytyscia’s journal and the excitement it conveyed. She smiled patiently at him and shook her head, taking another sip of wine. “Time is like a stream, trickling around my feet that I can step into or out of whenever I feel like it. It feels nice to soak my feet in it, which I am doing right now, but it is hardly something worth surfing. And before you get any ideas,” she scolded playfully while pointing her fork at him, “yes, I have tried it and it was BORING! I tried a number of ways to attempt to milk even a little amusement out of it, but it was BORING.”

He nodded and looked down, still perplexed by these conflicting accounts. She seemed to notice his despondence and showed sympathy. “Maceo,” she called softly, bidding him to meet her gaze again. “Do you know why I insist on these dinners together?” He opened his mouth to speak, but she raised a finger, asking him to wait. “Because I enjoy them immensely,” she complimented.

“There’s no way I could help but enjoy dining with you as well,” he complimented, and she actually blushed just the tiniest bit.

The next day, Maceo was back in the library ignoring the book he’d found in the lower level following Astravia’s lackluster response the night before. He was well into another book when he seemed to find the need to set it down and hold his chin in his hand thoughtfully.

“Something about that spell made it thrilling to her,” he pondered, then stood and went to the lower level again and began to peruse its contents.

This book was extremely difficult to interpret. Most of the concepts in it were things he was only beginning to understand as she wrote about theories and formulas ad nauseum. He was half way into it, and taking over half the day despite his otherwise fast reading speed and only a quarter of the way in when a thought occurred to him and he flipped back and forth between this page and previous pages describing her methods to put this spell together.

Whatever it was, it was painfully documented, and though it would take time, it seemed within his reach to understand it all. It was frustrating, though, because she certainly didn’t follow the normal writing decorum when it came to this kind of subject and she didn’t even bother to lay out the purpose of this spell or why she was researching it.

Finally, he went to the last page and THANKFULLY, there was a conclusion.

“This spell would certainly be a useful and tormenting weapon that could be used within the ranks of the gods, especially if used by means of subterfuge. The slow acting nature of the spell, however, acts sufficiently as a means to circumvent any threats before any god is rendered too vulnerable, should that god or goddess notice early enough. This high risk deployment of this spell would also be a threat for the assailant, who might be traced and punished heavily if discovered.”

That being said, shrinking myself down to 18 inches tall is by far the single most exhilarating and invigorating experience I have ever encountered. Lying hidden at the bottom of my closet for 70 years was not exactly the best way to handle a trial run of this divine award, but subsequent tests in better controlled environments away from the palace were euphoric.”

The gradual introduction of limits to my abilities unlocked an understanding that I had never even conceived of before and the clarity of thought I gained was worth the risk of this gamble alone.”

Maceo’s jaw dropped as he read it and he also dropped the huge tome on the table. It certainly made sense now why surfing an ankle deep trickle was such a rush now. Maceo flipped through the pages and searched for more details on the shrinking process and he was surprised to see a series of tables that described her decrease in stature only a few inches at a time.

He read on and found repeated mentions of a “trigger” for shrinking from one stage to the next, which was fairly straight line until the end of the process. He was interested to see that she’d started off at 18 feet tall, which raised an eyebrow. “She must have been really tall if Astravia is 15 feet tall,” he considered to himself.

Her descent first dropped down to 17 feet and 7 inches and the drops remained consistent of between four to five inches until she reached around four feet tall and then it slowed down to three to four inches at a time, then two to three, one to two and then around inch lost at a time until she bottomed out at just about eighteen inches tall and stayed there consistently for several decades after that.

He then turned his attentions to finding information on this trigger and what it was and going back and forth through the book discovered that every time this trigger was activated, she would dwindle those few inches and stabilize until the trigger was activated again. Learning that, he moved on to trying to understand what this trigger actually was, but found little to go off of until he found another footnote on one page with another reference to another book.

He then began his search again through the library until he found another journal, also hidden amongst the maintenance manuals labeled incorrectly as “Drainage System Cover Refurbishment and replacement.”

“Pick the old one up and put the new one in its place,” Maceo laughed to himself while shaking his head and opened it up and sure enough, several pages in, once you passed a wall of text that was written as though this were the most complex operation in the history of all worlds, he found the beginnings of her journal, again written in the language of the gods and normal sized for them this time.

The first stages of the shrinking process other than reduction of size in mass described heightened feelings of pleasure and pain. Nothing overly dramatic, but slight reduction resulted in interactions with the world around her as being more vivid, but only slightly. Enough that she didn’t notice it until she’d activated the trigger several times and then had to go back to catalogue it later.

He struggled and searched until he finally found the trigger as being described by a word that he didn’t recognize, so the next step was the gods’ dictionary. He looked up the word and found “the peak level of sexual arousal that is evidenced by ejaculation in males and spontaneous vaginal contracts in females.”

“Orgasm,” he said with frustration and threw the journal on the table. “Of course it would be something like that,” he complained and threw his hands up in surrender. “Well this was a waste of time. There is no possible way she would ever tolerate me suggesting anything like this to her.” He then put the books back in their places and ascended to focus his efforts on more conventional interests to him.

Another week passed and he decided it was time to head out again to the town and check in on them and just as Astravia had predicted, the town was abuzz with activity with a brand new source of continual water they’d never experienced before and already a great deal more greenery to the town.

Everyone there bustled hurriedly as Maceo pulled his cart through town and looked a rickety little bridge they’d put up to cross the new river to get to the remaining homes on the other side that probably wouldn’t support a horse and carriage.

“Is this the same town?” Maceo asked his friend, the elder.

“I don’t know that you can call it that anymore,” the old man smiled and warmly hugged Maceo. “The contract did say that we had a few more months to make first payments on your loans. Is there a problem?”

“No, I just thought I would stop by and see if I could peddle some new products for you, based on the conversations we had last time I was here.”

“And what kind of products are those?” he asked.

Maceo led the old man to the back of his cart and pulled back several tarps revealing swords, axes and spears, as well as metal arrow tips. “You said you wanted to improve security, so I thought maybe you might be interested in buying a few.”

“We especially want those arrowheads,” the old man said, looking greedily at them. “You would not believe it, but deer and boar have already discovered the new river and hunting is better than I’ve seen since I was a boy.”

“Not interested in the others?” Maceo asked him.

“These are very nice,” the old man marveled. “They’re beautiful. They’re.. damascus?” Maceo nodded and reached inside and took out one that was wrapped separately. “There is no way we could afford these,” he answered.

“They’re a test,” Maceo explained. “New methods, so I’m not one hundred percent confident in their quality. I’ll sell them to you at reduced price if you’ll take care of them and give me feedback.” This was actually a lie. Maceo had learned folding Damascus years before and was quite skilled at it.

“We can negotiate,” he said noncommittally. “If they are good enough quality, I’ll charge more next time.”

“I think you are underestimating your craftsmanship,” the old man countered. “I would have given my leg to have a sword like these when I served in the Bashfeld army.”

Maceo shook his head. Thankfully, this wasn’t an example of his best work. He made it a point to show error and imperfection one after another. These new golems were very good, but they’d made mistakes he wouldn’t have let himself make. Now that he was well again, it was probably time to get some practice in and better hone his own skills in order to give the golems better instructions. Maceo then unwrapped the individually wrapped one and handed it to the old man, revealing a gorgeous blade with ornate Damascus patterns, a wide, curved hilt and a handle that was wrapped in copper wire. The old man’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when Maceo said, “This one is for you. It’s one of the few really good ones of the lot.”

The old man was floored and tried to deny the gift, saying such nice blades belonged in the hands of young men, but Maceo insisted, saying he’d enjoyed his friendship.

As the elder had said, the merchants of the town were exceptionally interested in his weapons that he’d brought to sell, but mostly focused on the arrowheads. “How straight will they fly?” one merchant asked immediately.

“Test them,” Maceo answered confidently. So they did. In the end, the merchants were comfortable only buying half of Maceo’s inventory, but when the elders agreed to pool funds to buy two of them for policing and security, Maceo agreed and then threw two more on top of those. “I’d appreciate your patrols being a bit better prepared for the next time I find myself being beaten to a pulp,” he joked.

He only was going to stay past lunch, but it was in the midst of this that several elders approached him and sat around him. “We have a unique problem,” his friend explained to him.

“Things have improved so fast here, that word has already spread to a few villages and we are getting more visitors that are interested in doing a bit of business here. We’re still struggling with security, because bands of bandits are also very interested in our town. We’re putting up walls on the south side, because that is where most of the troublemakers come from, but it’s a lot of work.”

“I can’t stay and put up structures for you, Maceo told him apologetically.”

“I know, I know, but we are going to put together a small caravan of our own,” he informed Maceo. “We have a few very skilled craftsmen in jewelry who haven’t had much chance to work on their crafts in some time because of how much work it’s taken just to get by, but now that we have more meat in our bellies than we’ve had in a long, long time, they’ve found the time again and we’re pooling resources to try to send a group down to the town of Longsgallow and see what we could barter so we have more to develop here. We’re short handed, especially in the area of young, strong men. What would it take to make this trip worth it to you?”

“I’m not exactly experienced enough to lead a caravan,” Maceo told them truthfully.

“No, but we already have a leader picked out and leader or no, we think you have good enough judgment to help him a great deal, as well as the youth and energy to pick up the slack.”

Maceo sat and thought for a moment. “Make me an offer,” he said tentatively.

“We’ll share three per hundred of any coin that we earn,” one old man called out.

“Cheapskate!” Maceo’s friend yelled back. “Why do you insist on doing everything in your power to drive him out again?”

“Three per hundred does seem a little light,” Maceo chuckled. “Give me an honest estimate of how much you hope to bring in.”

“A few hundred silver, we hope,” another man responded and Maceo’s friend nodded in agreement. “But it’s not guaranteed.”

“Ten of every hundred, then,” Maceo countered.

“Five,” another countered.

“Nine,” Maceo said back.

“Seven,” another said sternly. “Anything above and we’ll have the old men stand guard and send the patrol in our place.”

“You’re going to lay guilt on me to do this for you?” Maceo asked and the old men laughed. “This shouldn’t take more than ten days?”

“We’re hoping eight,” Maceo’s friend answered. “We want to move quickly because there is a lot work to do here.”

“That won’t leave much time to bargain,” Maceo cautioned.

“Can’t be helped,” one old man told Maceo.

“Alright,” Maceo agreed.

“They leave three days from tomorrow,” Maceo’s friend told him and then sent him on his way back home to the temple.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Mon May 23, 2022 1:35 am

The morning before Maceo was scheduled to leave with the caravan, Maceo was working around Astravia’s quarters and cleaning as best as he could to prepare for Astravia to be alone for the time he would be gone.

“Do you think I cannot fend for myself?” Astravia asked him jokingly from behind and startling him. He turned around and looked far up to her smiling face.

“I think it’s my duty to see to it you will have to fend for yourself as little as possible,” he replied. “Why else would a mortal be here, after all?” he asked her, smirking at the giantess.

“Come with me,” she said to him softly, waving her hand for him to follow. They walked down three levels below ground before she finally reached a door that opened of its own accord and she stepped in and waited for him to follow. Then the door closed again and with a wave of her hand, the small room they found themselves in began descending.

“I’ve never been here before,” he remarked as he watched layers of stone pass by through the glass in front of him.

“Because I have only just built it,” she informed him in a manner showing she was quite pleased with herself.

“What is it?”

“Simply a lift. It is taking us where we want to be.” They descended several more stories down until they found themselves in a massive room that was perfectly spherical with a simple pillar of stone that reached out into its center with a circular platform at the end.

The only thing that was truly impressive about this place was how perfectly it was constructed. Round and at least ten times in diameter to Astravia’s impressive height. They walked out to the middle of the platform with Maceo looking around with interest. There was some kind of spell surrounding this place and there was a light shimmering, a soft green glow of magic permeating the distant walls and providing the soft light that bathed them from all sides.

“I spent all night making sure everything was perfect,” she said to him with a happy smile.

“What is it?”

“Call it… an observatory,” she answered.

“And what is it for?”

“I realized last night that I wanted to show you some place I sometimes like to go and enjoy the view. A far off world orbiting a very young star that just so happens to be passing through the edge of a nebula right now. Of course, the nebula will not last. Within the next few hundred thousand years its gasses will be drawn into the star that is passing by it, but for now? It is a wonderful view.”

Many of these were familiar terms to him, but he had no images to go by, only brief descriptions written down and recorded by eyes that found them so mundane and regular that they weren’t even inspired enough to add a flare to the definition of them to spark Maceo’s imagination.

“Of course, I could take you there, but if I did, there is a chance me doing so would attract the attention of someone at the celestial palace, so we two, you and I, will just simply have to be content to observe it from afar.” She reached out her hands and the entire room went black, then the room lit slowly around them until it was bright as day and above and around them Maceo could see blue sky and below them stood the temple in its entirety, seemingly from a few miles away. The platform and the pillar they had been standing on were completely gone, even though he could still feel his feet on firm ground.

“I will give you an idea of how far away the place I want you to see is,” she said and he gasped as the scene of the temple grew farther and farther away as though they were ascending at dizzying speeds until the blue sky around them slowly faded to black and further still until they were far enough away that his entire world was nothing but a slowly spinning globe, a brilliant blue ball, floating in a sea of black permeated by the night’s stars.

She continued to pull farther and farther away, reminding him to not lose his world’s place in the sea of black as it grew smaller and smaller, until it was a mere pin prick in the black sky all around them. “Now look up,” she told him. He did and directly above them, just above Astravia’s head was his sun, only it was far brighter now than anything he’d seen before and so massive he couldn’t see the edges.

“If I duplicated your world well over one million times, I could fit them all in this star with room to spare,” she explained, reveling in his wide-eyed, awe struck expressions. “But this gives you an idea of how far just your sun is from your world,” she said and then the room rotated 90 degrees so their sun was directly behind them and the pin prick of his world flickering like the light of a flame on a well polished blade in front.

Without a word, they seemed to be flying forward at unimaginable speeds and they passed his world in a quarter of the time they’d pulled away from it the first time. They flew out farther, seeming to accelerate as Maceo saw another world floating by like a dusty reddish marble to his left, then through a sea of stones that varied in sizes up to the size of mountains or larger and then on until he saw a form appearing out from the shadows of the darkness ahead. A moment later, they were passing so closely he could actually reach out and touch a poorly lit, but beautifully colored world that seemed to be made of nothing but mists that again dwarfed his world as though it were just a toy ball children play with.

Further and faster until in a blink of an eye, they passed through another field exactly like the one before, but this one of ice and then they were out in a sea of nothing but black with his own sun behind him looking barely any different from the many other stars in this all encompassing night sky. He turned to walk toward that now distant sun, but Astravia bent down and put her hand to his chest.

“Stay close,” she cautioned him. “The platform is still here, you simply cannot see it.” He faced forward and watched wide eyed, looking around him as he could actually see the stars moving all around him as though they were passing them by, faster and faster and faster until they were all a blur, whisking by him at dizzying speeds.

“How fast is this?” he asked, barely managing a whisper.

“Many times faster than the light travels to get to your world,” she explained simply.

A few moments later, they saw another star growing closer and closer and they seemed to slow gradually as they entered apparently from above another place much like the small collection of worlds they’d left behind, only in this place he could see them each come into view at once and they rushed in to a massive world much like the one he had touched on the way away from his world, only this one seemed to be even larger and colored a mixture of green, faded orange and rust.

The scene around them settled as though they were standing atop of a sea of rocks and ice that stretched out in front of and behind them, encircling this massive ball of gasses and in front of them was a purple, and blue cloud that glowed in waves in front of them while to his left he could see the edges of this world of a pink and red light, like a sunrise.

“It’s amazing to me still that this is common for you and boring,” Maceo remarked in awe, then turned to see Astravia dropping down to sit on her right hip behind him, resting on her right hand.

“In the time I have existed, I have seen this and many, many other things so many times, it all can’t help but become mundane,” she explained. “But, that does not mean that I cannot still appreciate its beauty. “This world only emerged from that cloud a few months ago,” she explained. “The last time it was in this position, your grandparents hadn’t quite been born yet.”

“So this is your favorite view,” he remarked with wonder, looking all around him, but she laughed mildly at him, enjoying some unspoken joke.

“No, my dear Maceo. Not my favorite view. But that view will not be what I like it to be again for another thirteen thousand years yet.”

Maceo was so caught up in the amazing scenery around him that at first he barely even noticed as she wrapped an arm around him and hugged him to her chest, also lost in the beauty of what lay all around them but especially the stunning silence of it all.

They actually stayed like this for hours, just enjoying the scenery with Astravia quietly drinking it all in, breathing gently as Maceo leaned back against her. Her eyes were soft and relaxed, and she seemed to be at peace.

“One day,” she told him quite some time into their time watching together, “When you are an old man and death is reaching his grasp out for you, I will come back, and I will take you here for real,” she promised. “I will get you back in time to say your goodbyes to your family. Don’t you worry.”

“I don’t’ have a family,” he reminded her.

“But you will,” she answered back, though there almost seemed to be a longing in her voice. “This caravan is another step for you. A step back into the lives of your own kind and a step for you to create your own world. I want you to cherish this new world,” she told him. She was sincere, but there was a sadness in her voice.

Maceo, of course was all too happy to stay with his body wrapped in the warm embrace of his giant goddess, so he said nothing and stood there, leaning back against her. He placed a hand over hers and when she didn’t reject it, he smiled happily to himself.

Several hours later, she seemed to have an epiphany and moved with a bit of a start. “Oh, it will be evening before long,” she reminded herself. She looked down and suddenly for the first time seemed to notice her arm around Maceo and pulled it away quickly, then stood up properly like a queen of the gods would and waved her hand, ending the mirage around them and returning them to the room she’d created.

She led him back up to the surface and they walked out together to a fully packed carriage with the horses already prepped and hooked up for him. “You should go,” she warned him. “It will already be dark by the time you reach town and you need your rest before you set out the next day,” she said with a wave of her hands to shush him along. He pulled his reigns up and then just before he waved them to signal his horses to pull forward, he stopped and looked up at her.

“That was the most amazing place I have ever seen in my life,” he told her with gratitude and she smiled knowingly down to him. “I never could have even imagined a place like that before. But truthfully, I’ll miss dinners with you the most while I’m gone,” he said.

She seemed genuinely touched and dropped to her knees and reached out to him, petting his cheek with her fingertip, cooing slightly. “Now go,” she whispered urgently. “Go build your new world.”

With that, he was off, traveling at a steady trot toward his destination while she watched happily at him at first but as the gates closed behind him, a little more sadly. “So fast,” she whispered. “Like the blink of an eye.”

Then she returned to her study and sat, reading quietly to herself.

Early the next morning, Maceo was out and prepared to go as the rest of their troop began to gather and Maceo looked at them with a raised eyebrow. The leader wasn’t all too out of the ordinary. A late middle-aged man with a weathered face. Maceo had been told he had been to the location they were headed multiple times, which played a major role into why he’d been chosen. The years hadn’t exactly been kind to him, but overall he seemed up for the task and confident enough in himself that he seemed up to his roll, but not so much so that he seemed arrogant.

The others of the group were more of a surprise. Of the entire troop, ten of them in total, there was only one other man. A man who stood not quite as tall as Maceo, and a few years older, but walked with a heavy limp as a result of some not described injury that likely was permanent. Next up was a trio of women, one who seemed to be an established mother, likely whose children were old enough to fend for themselves, but also not past her prime yet. She was a little gaunt, but only to a degree that you would use that term if you were being malicious. The second woman was roughly Maceo’s age or slightly younger, and seemed to be undamaged by the stresses of childbirth while the last one was right around eighteen, but judging by her figure and facial features, touched by those same stresses of childbirth relatively recently. This last woman wore a great deal of fatigue in her eyes, and it was easy to see that it was best not to ask about any children left behind on this voyage in her presence. The remaining six were younger teenagers, three boys and two girls, technically developed enough in their society to have started their own households, but each seemed to suffer one form of injury or ailment or another that stood in the way of them finding another just yet to settle down with.

“A bit of a motley crew,” Maceo commented dryly to the leader, a man who introduced himself as Gaetan.

“As you were told, we’re short handed,” he answered back unemotionally. “Don’t you worry one bit. They’ll all handle themselves just fine.” Maceo nodded and waved for the injured man and then brought Gaetan to the back of his cart and opened the gate. He pulled out two swords, two shields and two already strung bows with quivers and handed them to the men. Both men looked wide-eyed at their new weapons as the remaining seven gathered around, all marveling at the beautifully crafted weapons.

“I assumed we should be on the lookout for bandits and thieves,” Maceo shared.

“Why would you say that?” one teenage boy asked nervously.

“Because I used the same road we’re taking when I first came up this mountain as a boy and the road was littered with them.” The two teenage girls looked at each other nervously. “Do your job and don’t throw me to the wolves, and you can consider them yours,” Maceo promised while the middle of the three women stepped forward.

“And what makes you think I can’t handle a sword?” she demanded of Maceo. Standing before him now, Maceo could see she was not perfect, but unconventionally beautiful in her own right, as well as being tall and slender, perhaps 5’9”.

“What makes you think there’s going to be any shortage of jobs on this trip?” he asked her back equally as boldly. She was taken aback and searching for a retort as Maceo waved the others forward and pulled out another bundle that had been wrapped in burlap and unfolded it revealing a dozen sheathed knives with hand crafted handles and each forged with Damascus like the swords he’d just handed out.

Maceo immediately proceeded to hand out a knife to each member of their troop, saving the bold woman for last. “I think you’ll find this is useful for many more things than just slitting a man’s throat,” he told her gently.

For a moment she was surprised, but retorted back quickly, “Like cooking your meals for you, your highness?” she asked snidely. Maceo turned back to face her, not amused.

“Please don’t waste it cutting through chicken bones,” he asked rather unenthusiastically. “Maybe it doesn’t look like it to you, but a good deal of time was put into forging that.”

“But you do expect me to cook for you,” she accused, but Gaetan interrupted.

“You’ll consider yourself lucky if all you get on this trip is light work like cooking.”

“But cooking is a LOT of work,” one teenage girl insisted in a whiny voice.

“Exactly,” Maceo agreed, tossed a bow and quiver to each of the teenage boys and then closed the gate to his cart again.

They set out at daybreak and made a healthy pace southeast down a rough road in a train of four carriages that were mostly, but not completely filled except for Maceo’s, which was filled almost to the brink with goods to trade. For the first morning, Maceo rode with one teenage boy and the teenage girls at the tail of the four carriages. Ahead of them rode the injured man with another teenaged boy and one of the youngest of the three women. Next up the line was a carriage that was driven by the brazen woman that had confronted Maceo and another teenaged boy and the leader riding with the oldest of the women along this trip.

“Why did they put us in here?” one of the girls complained to Maceo. “This is the only cart that’s completely full!” Maceo laughed a little.

“Because the elders of your town have been trying to convince me to take on an apprentice for them. They probably think that getting to know a few of you will soften me up.”

“But I don’t wanna be a blacksmith,” the same girl whined again.

“I do a lot more than metalworking.”

“Like what?” the second girl asked him.

“Take a look,” he suggested. “We certainly have enough time. Just remember to keep your eyes on the sides of the road. We’re the most likely to get jumped first by robbers.”

Unbeknownst to them, Astravia was watching the entire scene from above and scowling as a foursome of large men were lying behind a mound, waiting for the perfect shot with their bows. “I am NOT flying that far away,” she complained. “You had better not,” she added viciously.

Unfortunately, they most certainly were going to. She watched with increasing anger as the men carefully took aim at each of the four drivers from a distance and then her eyes changed in a flash to black with a burning star in the center as the fourth man zeroed in on Maceo.

“You little rats,” she hissed.

“On my word,” the leader of the bandits whispered.

They held steady and then one man gasped. “What?” The other three turned to look and see that he’d dropped his bow without releasing his arrow and staring at hands that had odd pointy claws at the ends of his fingers. They were confused at first and looked to each other, but then all of them were shocked to see that their leader had large, sharp bucked teeth that were protruding just past his upper lip. More gasps then as they all realized their clothes were exceptionally baggy on them and growing worse so very rapidly as their furry shoulders began to pop out of their collars and their heights dropped below three feet.

“What’s happening?” one man asked the others in a panic in a voice that was barely recognizable as human any longer and one grabbed his behind due to the discomfort and fell over when a skin colored, almost scaly looking tail popped out from under his shirt above his fallen pants.

They continued shrinking and panicking until one attempted to scream, but only found a tiny squeak had replaced his voice as their clothes completely fell away from their forms revealing four rodents that only had a few human like features. They continued to transform until all that was left was four small brown rats, each of them not larger than 3 inches long.

“And just for that, you’ll retain your memories,” she added for good measure and went back to enjoying her show of Maceo and his travel mates.

At midday they stopped to water their horses and Maceo stayed with them, watching them and thinking to himself while a few of the others gathered and talked and the teenaged girls and the older of the women prepared some food for everyone. Once Maceo had considered everything he wanted to, he waved one of the teenaged boys over to keep and eye on the horses and keep them calm while he returned to his carriage and fished out a number of ingredients and began combining them. He took note that the caravan leader was looking at him with a couple of others, but paid little mind and then took a pair of large bowls and returned to the horses, pouring the contents into the bowls and pulling on their leads to encourage them to eat it.

A moment later, Gaeten approached and avoided the teenaged boy that stood nearby. “Something the matter?” Maceo asked, continuing to focus on his work.

“What are you doing?” he asked Maceo, stooping down and looking more closely.

“You’re horses aren’t exactly the best cared for,” Maceo informed him. “A little of this should help them a bit with their energy. Tonight we’ll want to make sure they get a good meal, so try to pick a place that has the best possible grass for them.”

“Thank you,” the man said honestly. “Until recently we haven’t had enough to take proper care of them.”

“I’m not trying to place any blame or accuse anyone. I just thought they could use this.”

“How many fields of study have you done, exactly?” he asked Maceo.

“Quite a few,” Maceo answered. “I’ve been very blessed with a very patient and generous mistress who saw to it I was well educated.”

“Who is this mistress? Is she up on the mountain?

“She has a number of homes, I just see to one of her places.”

“Do you think she might be interested in…”

“She is pressed with other matters these days. Matters that are very far from here,” Maceo cut him off. The man nodded and decided to not press the issue any farther.

They both stood and Gaeten looked around. “It’s not necessarily that there is anything wrong…”

“But?”

“Lale, the lass you had words with before we left?” Maceo raised en eyebrow. “She’s complained constantly about you since we left this morning. It’s getting on the nerves of those in her carriage. I’d like her to ride with you for a while and see if there is a way you might bury the hatchet.”

Maceo put his hands on his hips and looked off into the distance to his left. He was clearly frustrated. “What exactly did I do? I gave her one of my best knives. She’s that upset that it wasn’t a sword?”

“I don’t know what her issue really is,” he explained. “But this is going to be a relatively short trip. Only just over a week. If you could find some way to make peace with her, it would make things go all the more smoothly.”

Maceo let loose a huff of air. “Maybe it’s best to let her cool off a bit?” he suggested.

“She has a tendency to stew on things. Better to deal with this before it gets too out of hand. Is diplomacy anywhere in your list of skills?” Gaeten asked. Maceo turned and looked at his feet, then nodded and looked Gaeten in the eyes again, showing not even a hint of frustration anymore.

“Consider it done,” Maceo agreed. They discussed for a few more minutes while off in the distance, Lale stood behind a wagon, pretending to work, but glaring icily at Maceo while the two of them worked out details for a moment longer and then Gaeten shook Maceo’s hand and Maceo headed off, directly in her direction.

Astravia watched her globe with interested eyes, leaning more closely to see what juicy drama would develop.

“Lale, is it?” Maceo began as he approached her with a warm smile. “Gaeten has asked you move over to my cart for a while.

“He what?” she asked ferociously, then turned to glare at Gaeten who nodded at her and waved to her in order to encourage her on. “I am driving that cart,” she insisted, pointing at the carriage she’d controlled up to this point.

“Earlene will take over for you. Gaeten has asked this. If you want to argue, then argue with him.”

“I can’t think of anything more tedious than watching you while you drive. Let me drive the horses, then.”

“No, it’s my cart and my horses, and I will drive them for now.”

“You don’t think I can handle them,” she accused.

“These particular horses… tend to be a little wild. I will drive them.”

“You think I’m incapable,” she accused again. Maceo now struggled to hide his frustration.

“I’m not going to fix an overturned cart just so you can prove a point. If you are still stuck with me by that point, we can discuss it once I know they are more comfortable with you.”

“Because they’re wild horses,” she mocked. It didn’t seem appropriate to confirm that in fact, yes, they were.

And just like that, following lunch, Lale switched carts to join Maceo and the teenaged boy and one of the two girls moved up in the caravan to ride with others while the most easy going of the two girls stayed back with Maceo. They rode along and Maceo paid her little mind while he decided just when the right time was to try to work things out while Astravia watched, grinning ear to ear at the young woman while she pouted.

“She likes you, Maceo,” she teased, wagging her finger at the globe. “It is all an act.” A few minutes went by until the woman folded her arms and turned her back on Maceo, so he decided it was then or never as he caught the teenage girl eyeing both of them uncomfortably.

“Gaeten asked you to ride with me because he said you’re not happy with me. He asked if I could find some way to make peace with you,” Maceo said bluntly.

“How wonderfully direct of you, my dear little Maceo,” Astravia teased. “But you just made it worse,” she added with a giggle.

Sure enough, Lale turned and glared at him unbelievingly. “So you just come out and bluntly say it to me? In front of others?” she asked. “Do you have no tact?”

“Perhaps I don’t,” Maceo suggested in a conciliatory tone. “I’m used to working on my own most of the time. If I need to correct something, I’d be happy to do it if you’d be willing to help me.”

Astravia watched a little more closely and then giggled again. “Oh she wants that to be enough but she knows it is too soon,” she tittered.

Lale seemed to pause for a moment, then turned her head away from him again. Maceo then looked over his shoulder to the teenaged girl. “What about you, Cajsa? Can you tell me how to be more tactful?”

“I think you’re extremely tactful,” the girl replied kindly. “You’ve been so nice to us all day,” she praised, but Astravia fell back in her chair laughing hysterically.

“Oh, my dearest little Maceo, you just breathed new life into the game and you do not even know it!” as she said so, Lale turned back at him with a glare that could kill a rampaging boar.

“What is WRONG with you? Turning children on me to make me the villain here?” she asked. Just then, Maceo pulled on the reigns and brought the horses and carriage to a stop and turned to face her with an extremely stern look on his face.

The teenaged girl shrank back in fear of the fight to come and even Lale drew back a little in fear until Maceo spoke clearly, sternly, and yet softly with a deadpanned face.

“I have spoken to you in a respectful manner, and I expect the same in kind,” he informed her gently, his eyes never wavering once. She stared at him like a beaten little puppy dog from this gentlest of lectures, but nodded in agreement. Once she’d done so, he flicked his reigns again and they trotted up to make up the distance they’d lost.

“Oooh, Maceo, you’ve got just a touch more fire in you than I had originally thought,” she teased, practically dancing in her seat as she watched them. This little distraction was turning out to be such a quaint little soap opera.

“As I said,” Maceo began once again once tensions had settled again a bit. “I normally work alone. It’s been a very long time since I’ve spent this much time this close with other people.” She turned and looked at him, a little more thoughtfully this time. “I’m certainly not trying to turn people off. I suppose I’m just very rusty.”

“I don’t think you’re rusty at all. I think you’re very sweet,” Cajsa insisted after crawling and leaning over his shoulder to encourage him. Lale turned immediately and looked at Maceo as he responded to her immediately.

“Thank you, Cajsa, but please don’t take my side over hers. She must have a good reason to feel this strongly, so I need to take it seriously.” Lale now looked at him closely, her anger seemingly gone for the moment.

Astravia gasped and giggled. “You are stealing her thunder, my sweet Maceo! Let her keep it! Let her keep it! She is having fun with you!”

Lale turned away from him, apparently hiding her inability to scowl at him, and worked a little harder to sour her expression. A moment later, she looked again at him, rather seriously.

“If you must know, you’re nothing but a rich snob,” she finally told Maceo, who was a little taken aback.

“All this because I didn’t give you a sword?”

“Because you roll into town thinking you can buy everyone off and give things away to bribe them like you’re their golden goose,” she declared. “You wave money around like it’s a toy just so you can impress people.”

“He’s not a snob!” Cajsa interrupted fiercely. She tended to be rather timid, being rather small and sickly for her age. “He’s done nothing but help us and be nice to us!”

“And how much is he getting for being nice? He’s not your friend Cajsa,” she argued back.

“Friends take time to make,” Maceo answered back calmly. “And I don’t exactly use that word lightly.” Once more his serious side was taking Lale by surprise, as it was with Astravia. Both of them watched him, gauging him carefully.

“That doesn’t change how you treated my friends that first night you pranced into town, Mr. High roller,” she mocked. “They were kind to you and put up with you and you just threw money at them like they were cheap prostitutes, hoping that would seduce them,” she accused.

“You are playing a little too rough, little lady,” Astravia scolded. “You must not be any more experienced than Maceo is,” she added in disapproval.

“I did no such thing. I even turned down the actual prostitutes that tried to con me after I left the tavern that night.”

“They didn’t strike a cheap enough bargain for you?” Lale asked cynically.

“It’s plain why you’re still unmarried,” Maceo answered back, though he winced a little, knowing he wasn’t exactly taking the diplomatic role he’d been asked to. Lale fell back in shock and horror while Astravia stifled an energetic laugh and Cajsa covered her mouth and turned away, giggling just a tiny bit to herself.

Their conversation went on like this until the sun was mostly down in the west and she seemed to be out of energy for more fighting. They rode on in silence while Cajsa fished out a couple strips of dried beef for them to chew on and Cajsa began conversing much more pleasantly with Maceo. As soon as this began to take place, Lale began side glancing at the teenaged girl whenever she could get away with it and not get caught.

“You are jealous!” Astravia teased her globe. “It is all over your face! You had to have your fight and now a teenaged girl who’s been addled with pneumonia her whole life is stealing his attention,” she giggled.

“Oh stop it, Cajsa!” she eventually snapped. “You’re not helping with his attitude problems by doting on him like some little leech!” Once again, Maceo yanked on the reigns and immediately brought the carriage to a stop. Cajsa this time seemed much less worried about the outcome, and watched wide-eyed while Lale shrank back in fear of his stern eyes.

“You’re not going to drag her into our fight,” he told her, again calmly, but fiercely.

“You’re so in control,” Astravia watched with fascination, apparently not even realizing the shiver she had just watching him

“I didn’t come here to be friends with you. I came to help out because a friend said you were short handed and hopefully make a bit of money myself for my trouble. I could be working on much more interesting things right now instead of being constantly berated and I’m certainly not going to stand around and watch you bully Cajsa.”

“I’m not a bully,” Lale responded rather meekly.

“Then prove it,” Maceo ordered her, again with incredible calm in his voice. Astravia watched them every bit as fascinated as Lale. “Eight days,” Maceo told her boldly. “We only have to manage for eight days. If you learn to behave more respectfully, then Gaeten will move you back to that other carriage and you’ll be in charge again in your own space. I certainly won’t hold you back here if we can find a way to simply get along for another few days.”

She nodded somewhat nervously, and Maceo nodded to her, though much more confidently and snapped his reigns again, putting the horses up to a trot to catch up once more. Astravia watched, apparently unaware that she was fanning herself a little with her hand, so fixated on him she was.

Not long after that, Gaeten pulled off into a field and they set up camp for the evening. Lale was pulled unwillingly into helping with cooking with the women while the two teenaged girls tended to the horses and the males set up fires and established a perimeter to easily see any approaching threats per Gaeten’s instructions.

“How’d it go back there?” Gaeten asked Maceo when they had a bit of time alone.

“She’s really not a fan of me,” Maceo reported. “It took some work, but I think we have some boundaries established now. No more outbursts.”

“I need more than base line, begrudging respect. We have a limited time to sell our goods and make your way back home again with new product. I need everyone working together.”

“Gaeten, why do you think I’m the right person for this job?” Maceo asked with frustration.

“Because you’re all I’ve got. Babjide is a fine man, but he hasn’t been the same since he came back from war, each of these women has their own burdens to bear or else they wouldn’t have been available to come with us, and the others are struggling to grow up in a world that’s suddenly changed for them. If you haven’t noticed, none of them have exactly been the healthiest or most vital children in the town. You may be green behind the ears, but you have a good head on your shoulder and I can count on you.”

Maceo nodded and considered his words again. “Consider it done,” Maceo answered.

“She rides with you again tomorrow,” he warned Maceo. “We arrive at Longsgallow day after tomorrow. You have that long to sort it out.”

Over dinner, Maceo sat and ate near the teenaged boys who were laughing and telling crude jokes together while two of the ladies sat with the girls sharing some of their domestic skills with them and Gaeten stood near the edge of their camp having a discussion with the wounded soldier.

Lale had essentially isolated herself, and was sitting off by herself curled up and shivering slightly so once Maceo was finished with his food, he went back to his cart and retrieved a small package wrapped in leaves, then walked over to Lale and handed it to her. “You look cold,” Maceo offered. “Before you decide to turn in, I really think it might be a good idea to warm up by the fire a bit. No one will bite you, especially not me. I promise.” She looked at the little package and poked the leaves.

“The fire won’t help,” she answered him after a moment. “I’ve just never dealt well with the cold.”

“Well, this will then. Just eat it, it will help with the chills through the night. And grab a couple of extra blankets from my cart. I can dust them off again before we sell them.” She looked up at him, seemingly a little wary of him. “I don’t know how to break the ice with people. I just haven’t done it for so long. That’s why I give things to people. I try to give things that will help them because otherwise I have trouble starting up a conversation.”

She gave him an odd glance and then he turned to walk away. “Thank you,” she called out softly as he walked away and he stopped and looked over his shoulder to her, then bowed slightly and left her alone.

Following talking to Lale, Maceo then visited Cajsa and pulled her aside and asked her questions about her health. She was hesitant to open up at first, but eventually she did and after listening to her talk in depth about her health problems he had her take a seat. “Tell me what symptoms you have right now,” he asked her, then listened again as she spoke and asked questions as she went, listening in detail and even writing a couple of notes for himself. He then put his ear to her back and asked her to breathe for him without speaking. Following that he delivered the bad news.

“The problem you have is probably from an infection you had when you were very young. I don’t think you ever fully recovered from it and now you are very susceptible to a type of illness that can cause your lungs to fill up with fluids. It’s happening right now, but I don’t think it’s that bad. I have a medicine for you that should help, but it’s not a cure. I’m not sure there is a cure, but it won’t be hard to help you. A lot of damage has been done because this hasn’t been caught before, but in the end, I think you can mostly recover.”

“How much is mostly?” she asked him, her eyes filled with hope.

“You’ll live a normal life. You can avoid getting sick constantly. But some of the other things that have made you a little more frail than other girls your age won’t fully go away.” This certainly was welcome news and she followed him to his cart with Lale watching jealously and then gave her a vial and asked her to drink with the promise that she would need to take more twice a day until they at least returned back to their town. “On the one hand, you made a mistake volunteering to come with. If I hadn’t talked to you about this, you likely would have gotten extremely sick and it would have been much harder to treat you. On the other hand, you got very lucky that someone like me with this type of education was along. Again, this isn’t a cure. We’re just dealing with the surface problem now and treating your underlying issues will have to wait.”

“Why do you even have this stuff?” she asked.

“I spent some time in Longsgallow some time ago. There were a lot of sick people there. I have to be careful about trying to play doctor, but I thought if I brought some herbs and medicines along it would be helpful in marketing ourselves.”

Maceo then spoke with each of the teenagers, and all but one of the remaining four he was able to provide some immediate relief. The last one Maceo guessed that he had some kind of developmental issue, most likely with his heart. It would take much more thought to see if he could be helped.

Of course Gaeten took a great deal of interest in Maceo’s doctoring and watched as much of the sessions as he could once he’d noticed what was happening.

That night, three of the teenagers were to get nothing but bed rest, leaving two of the boys healthy enough to stand watch during the night. The plan was simple. They would post guards consisting of these two teenagers and the three men two at a time in three separate shifts. One unlucky soul would take both the first and last shift, though the wounded soldier volunteered readily.

Late that night, the two teenage boys were sitting together not far from the fire chatting instead of paying attention to their surroundings as a group of ten men carefully and patiently crawled their way through the tall grass to get themselves to a good point of attack.

“We’ll wait,” the leader whispered to the two comrades closest to him as they watched while these two lazy teens talked and yawned, completely distracted from this simple, yet crucial task. “When they’re not looking, four of us will rush them and cut their throats before they can,” and then he stopped as his partner nudged him with his elbow and pointed him back to the two youths. One of them had actually fallen asleep sitting against a rock and the other was yawning and leaning pretty heavily against his bow, sitting on the edge of dozing off himself.

“Never mind,” the bandit laughed quietly. “Let’s just let them fall asleep and then we’ll go slit their throats in their sleep,” he said to several soft chuckles around him.

Unfortunately for them, Astravia was still watching with interest and also listening in on their conversation. “I am NOT flying all the way out there,” she complained bitterly. “Very well. I shall assist you with your patience,” she said in a low, ominous voice.

The next morning, Maceo awoke to the smell of meat cooking and turned to see Lale cooking alongside Cajsa in a much more pleasant mood than she’d been the day before. He smiled and relaxed a little until the wounded soldier limped over to him, having seen he was awake.

“We have a situation,” he said to Maceo who nodded, put his tunic on and followed him to the edge of their camp where Gaeten was standing over the two teenage boys with a quite angry face as he spoke quietly to them.

“They both fell asleep in the middle of the night,” the wounded soldier informed Maceo. “I woke up on my own and found them like that.” Maceo closed his eyes and absorbed the bad news.

“Well lucky for us that there wasn’t anyone watching our camp hoping to cash in on us.”

“Very lucky,” the wounded soldier responded in a deep, angry voice. “I had it under control so I made them stand watch the rest of the night with me.” Maceo watched as Gaeten dressed the two boys down in depth and really there wasn’t anything Maceo could add to the conversation. They made excuses about how no one had actually tried to rob them in the night and therefore all was well, but Gaeten and Babjide ensured they understood those kinds of excuses wouldn’t be tolerated, so Maceo decided to step back and observe until far off in the distance, he noticed the head of a deer pop up and look around then duck down again in the tall grasses.

He nudged Gaeten and asked if he was interested in a bit of extra meat for their trip and got a nod of approval, so Maceo went to his cart and retrieved his bow, leaving his sword behind and went out into the tall grass, sneaking up on the deer far too easily. So easily that it was rather peculiar.

When a perfect shot presented itself, he took it and managed to get a clean hit to its heart through the lungs. The deer tried to run, but only got a few feet before falling and by the time Maceo had arrived, it was quite dead. So he bound it’s feet and turned it over, then began pulling it back toward their camp, straining and sweating from the toil until he arrived at the very edges of the grasses and came across ten very oddly shaped stones lying just off of his path. At first he paid them no mind until he was passing directly by one and realized it’s shape was a bit too familiar. He looked more closely at it and stopped, staring.

It was a man. A man of stone. As was the one next to him, and the next and so on. Nature had its way of playing strange tricks on the minds of men, but ten perfect likenesses of men in the form of stone just a couple seconds’ dash from their camp? This was a coincidence he simply could not accept. He looked skyward, assuming Astravia was still watching, and as luck would have it, she was. He closed his eyes, put his hand to his chest and bowed to her solemnly.

Astravia smiled to herself, even blushing a little as he began hauling his catch back toward their camp just as Cajsa and Lale decided to head out in his direction to investigate. Maceo dragged the deer back into the open and away from the former attackers and then with a little help they carried it back to camp and quickly cleaned and butchered it to be dried as they headed out again.

Just before they set off, though, Maceo had a word with the two teenage slackers just a short distance away from the others. “I didn’t get involved because Gaeten wasn’t saying anything that I wouldn’t say myself. That being said, you’re going to get us killed with attitudes like that. I promised you those knives if you did your work and didn’t throw me to the wolves. Well, you may not have thrown me to the wolves, but you left us all open to them and I’m just supposed to let it go because the wolves just didn’t make it that far? Explain to me why I shouldn’t take those knives back right now?”

They both looked at each other and hung their heads in shame, promising to do better, but Maceo shook his head. “I certainly hope that Gaeten isn’t going to make the mistake of assigning you two anything together again,” he said, then marched off to ready his horses.

The mood was somber as they filed back out to the road with the same formation and groupings as they’d entered their camp with. Lale sat to Maceo’s right and Cajsa sat behind Maceo and sipped the vial he’d asked her to drink.

“Where did you learn to be a doctor?” Lale eventually asked him as Cajsa sat up behind Maceo, facing their rear.

“I’m not a doctor,” he answered back. “I know a few things, but like I’ve told others, I was very lucky to find a place where my apprenticeship covered a great deal of disciplines. I guess you could say I know a little about a lot of things.”

“You know more than our healer in town does. He had no idea why Cajsa is always so sick.” Maceo wagged his head, but didn’t really reply, though his expression didn’t speak of one who accepted the compliment. “So is this how it is? The wealthy all have access to all kind of knowledge and medicine?”

“I’m not wealthy,” Maceo answered back gently.

“You waved fifty gold coins in our faces like it was nothing.”

“It was most of all I have. I’m not wealthy, but I have had the luck of working for an extremely wealthy patron. That was most of my savings.”

“It’s a lot more wealth than anyone in town has,” she argued.

“You’ve been on hard times, something I can relate to.”

“How?” she asked skeptically.

“I grew up in a fishing village a couple days walk from Longsgallow. We didn’t have much and it got worse when my mother died when I was very young. A few years later, my father was lost at sea. I lost one brother to war and my oldest sister married and left the area. I had three siblings left after all of that, but I haven’t seen them in over ten years. I’ve heard that my other brother died, but I don’t know much else and my two remaining sisters I’ve heard that they found homes, but I don’t know where. I lived on the streets for some time after we were split up and eventually I wandered up the mountain. Then one day, I was found in the wilderness after getting lost by a very wealthy patron who took me in, gave me an amazing apprenticeship and let me earn my way. Now I’m just trying to get myself started and be a man of my own making with what I’ve earned up.”

They both listened to his story and Cajsa was the first to ask about it. “So what about our town? Is that why you care about it? Because we’re like you were?”

“To some degree,” he agreed. “But I know from living that in life that there is no possible way to escape that kind of life without working and toiling for it. I have lived in very good conditions for a number of years now, but I’ve also had to work extremely hard. There were a lot of challenges the last several years. When I came to your town and got to know the people there, I felt like I was seeing good omens. I think your opportunity has arrived now too, if you’re willing to work to claim it,” he told her. “So I bet on you all. I’m betting that your tough days are behind you now.”

For the remainder of the day, Cajsa sat on the bench between Lale and Maceo and Lale actually made an effort to better get to know Cajsa and before long the two of them seemed to be becoming friends with Maceo really playing more of a secondary role. When they made camp for the night, Gaeten didn’t even feel the need to check in with Maceo again based on the improved atmosphere and went directly to Lale.

“Seems you’ve sorted things out,” he told her. “Would you like to drive the second carriage tomorrow?”

Lale looked at him with surprise, but also nervously and she struggled to answer, which Gaeten seemed to note as a bit odd. She took a bit of a gulp then answered, “If you need me to, but I’ve been trying to help Cajsa,” she replied “She’s still a little weak given how sick she’s been. Gaeten drew back slightly and stared into her eyes, but nodded and turned around and left her to her own devices.

Looking down at them from her globe, Astravia was smirking. “You are such an amateur!” she giggled gleefully at Lale. “You need to be there so that Cajsa doesn’t steal his attention!”

That night, Maceo checked on each of the teens and the third teen boy was cleared as strong enough to stay up for a guard shift, this time with Gaeten insisting that none of the teens were paired together following Maceo’s advice. Much to his satisfaction, Cajsa was already feeling better and the fluid in her lungs seemed to be less pronounced as he listened to her breathing and Lale watched much more closely this time than the last.

Lale also sat much closer to everyone this evening as they ate and strategized the remainder of their trip with Lale participating, though she still made a point to challenge Maceo repeatedly, especially in regards to her interpretations of what her abilities were assessed to be.

The next morning, they headed off at daybreak again with no further incidents, nor any need for Astravia to intervene on Maceo’s behalf, which he was quite grateful for. By this point, all three in the last cart were interacting regularly, though Lale’s interactions bordered on abrasive more than once, such as when Maceo had asked about a meal that evening.

“So we’re back to you expecting us poor defenseless maidens to cook and clean for you again,” she accused. Maceo found himself caught off guard and turned to stare unhappily at her, but this time Cajsa jumped in to his aid.

“I’d be happy to cook for you,” she declared, showing that she’d developed a healthy crush on him.

“Cajsa, please stay out of this,” Lale complained.

“You’re just afraid that he’ll learn what a horrible cook you are,” the girl answered her.

“I’m not happy with him getting comfortable with seeing us as his servants. I’m capable of more than making cheap stew.”

“Alright, well, I’ve provided foods, medicines, stood guard each night and cared for the horses they desperately needed to make the trip, but I suppose it’s only fair to add cooking to the list of my duties,” Maceo answered back sarcastically. This made Astravia giggle as she got back into the mood of their bickering and drama, only this time in a much more tamed version.

“I am perfectly capable of standing watch just like any other.”

“Then speak to Gaeten. I wasn’t the one to determined plans for standing watch.”

“But you did provide the weapons,” she complained.

“Of course, the sword again,” Maceo muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me!” Lale lectured him.

“I didn’t roll my eyes,” Maceo replied, but then was stunned when Casja stood up for Lale.

“Actually, yeah, you did.”

“Well then I’m sorry,” Maceo said though without much gusto. “I’ll work on being a little more respectful.”

Lale folded her arms and pouted. “You just rolled in, and assumed that only the men could handle swords,” she complained.

“I did no such thing.”

“You did! Treating us women like we’re just here to dote on you and your wants and needs. If you didn’t assume that us poor women weren’t worthy of handling a sword, then why didn’t we get one? We’re all in equal danger on this trip.”

“I gave a sword to Gaeten because he is the leader of this caravan. I gave one to Babjide because I was told he was a soldier, so I knew he had the skills to handle one. The other was my personal sword.”

“You have an entire rack of them in the back,” she complained.

“To sell! If you need one so badly, go borrow one,” he complained.

“You don’t trust me with one,” she complained to Maceo.

“Have you ever handled a sword before?”

“You make it out as though it were like curing Cajsa’s ailments. All I want for myself, for the rest of us is an equal chance to be able to protect ourselves.”

“The knives I gave you will do very well for that,” Maceo insisted, but Lale refused to relent until they finally pulled to the side of the road to prepare for lunch. At that time, Lale jumped down from her seat and looked up at Maceo who was weary of this particular argument.

“I think she is laying bait for him,” Astravia giggled gleefully as she watched with her hands clasped.

“I’ll go prepare your lunch for you, master,” she told him politely, but also quite sarcastically as she pulled her dress out and bowed to him. Maceo had finally had enough and jumped down from his seat, then grabbed Lale by the arm. The entire rest of the group dismounted and watched with Gaeten jogging up with a concerned look on his face, but he slowed when Maceo held a cautionary hand up.

“What are you doing? Unhand me!” she declared, but Maceo pushed harder, essentially forcing her along.

“I’m about to give you exactly what you want. Go ahead and show me what you’ve got, warrior maiden,” he said to her, though she scowled quite heavily at being mocked.

Gaeten then ran up to Cajsa and became appraised of the current situation and then went to wave the others on to prepare lunch while he stood and observed Maceo as he opened the back of his cart and then took his belt holding his sword and scabbard off and also removed his shield and pushed them into Lale’s chest. “There you are. You’re sword. Take it. The best one I have.” She accepted it, but now seemed quite self-conscious, especially when Maceo pulled out a very plain shield and a wooden dole. “Go on. Put them on,” he told her as he walked out into the open away from the carts.

She did as asked, still looking around herself self-consciously and struggling to pull the belt tight enough to fit on her slim hips. “I just…”

“No. You wanted me to know your skills, so show them to me,” Maceo told her as Babjide also stepped up to watch and all of the others watched while also completing their assigned tasks. “Come at me,” he said, raising his stick and small, low quality shield.

She drew her sword and lifted it, though she glanced unbelievingly for a moment as she realized how much heavier it was than she’d guessed and then lifted her shield, then looked at him nervously. “Do it,” he commanded and after double checking with Gaeten, who nodded, she lunged at him and tried to stab Maceo, but he blocked it by knocking the sword out of her hands and then slapped the back of her knee making her yelp in pain and then drop to her knees.

“That sword took me two months to forge. Don’t drop it again,” Maceo warned her. “Again,” he said and assumed a defensive stance. Once again she lunged in, but had learned from her first mistake and swung the sword laterally, but Maceo ducked and deflected the blade up with his shield and smacked her with his stick in her abdomen. Again she yelped in pain, but at least this time she didn’t drop his sword.

Time and again Maceo had her attack, and each time she met similar conclusions, each one more embarrassing than the last. Finally, as she lined up for another round, Maceo lunged in this time. She aimed her sword for his stick but was caught off guard when he bashed his shield into hers and thrusted with his bodyweight, knocking her to the ground and before she could even look up, his stick was at her throat.

“So you’re more practiced than me! What exactly is this supposed to prove to me?” she demanded as Gaeten and Babjide both approached to join Maceo. Maceo tossed the stick back into the cart and stood over her.

“You have never handled a sword before in your life,” he informed her. “If you knew anything about handling a sword you would know that the shield is the most important weapon, not the blade.” She looked at him, her mouth hanging open. “Even when you finally got a chance to get your blade moving the way you imagined, you didn’t see my shield coming. You swung it at my stick as though the point of the sword is to clang it against other swords. When you do that, all that you can get is one razor sharp edge hacking into another razor sharp edge. When you do that all you will get is chips in your blade over and over again until it’s ruined, or worse, it breaks. The weapon is your body, and the shield is your fist. The sword is only good for stabbing and cutting where your enemy is vulnerable and you only use it when you get an opening to do just that. Do you have any idea how much work goes into creating one of these things? Do you think I’m just interested in rolling in ruining two months of work over a random brawl and still end up defenseless?”

Lale gulped hard and looked up at him, speechless. “If you don’t understand that much, then waving a sword around isn’t just useless for you, it’s dangerous for the rest of us.” She looked over to Babajide who nodded in agreement. “One more thing,” he added, catching her attention immediately again. “You haven’t directly said so, but I think you are assuming that I was taught how to handle a sword by a man.”

This shocked not only Lale, but also everyone else around him, who all stopped whatever they were doing and gawked. She finally nodded and sat up, holding her knees to her chest and staring down as the spectacle finished and everyone went back to doing their business. Then Maceo reached down and offered a hand up.

For an instant, she looked like she might have a bit more sass in her, but she took the hand and he gently helped her up to her feet again and graciously accepted his sword and shield back from her. “I gave swords to those who knew how to use it. You’ll notice I didn’t give swords to the boys either. I only gave them bows, and I only gave them those because they apparently didn’t have anything themselves. The entire purpose of those three while we’re on the road is to act as lookouts and try to hit a target before it gets too close. You weren’t brought along to cook. You were brought because we need all the help we can get. Those other three carts were loaded by fifteen people and our total band is eleven, plus another cart which I brought. Later today when we pull into our destination, we will have to set up tents and tables and we’ll need to do it quickly because we are only spending two days there. Were you not even listening to Gaeten when he told us our overall plan? There’s no glory in this trip, none. It’s just simple, basic trading. Having a fancy sword doesn’t change that.”

She looked down and away. Once he was sure his point had been made, she placed her hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Do you think you could teach me how to fight? I’ve actually been terrified the whole way down that we would have been jumped by bandits by now. I feel helpless.”

“We’ll talk after we finish setting up in town,” Maceo assured her, smiling when she suddenly beamed with glee.

Back at the temple, Astravia was giggling uncontrollably at the scenario, even kicking her legs with glee. “No, that was not her plan all along, but he still fell into her trap just the same!” she laughed. “Now, she finally gets an excuse to get him alone, close and hands on,” she glowed with amusement as Lale smiled and blushed to herself as she watched Maceo walk away from her.

With that out of the way, the weight of the feud between Lale and Maceo was finally resolved and the rest of the trip went off happily and without incident. Once they arrived at their destination near sunset, they quickly set up tents and laid out their goods and sat down around a fire, everyone happy and satisfied after a good days’ work, laughing and drinking together and within reach of help should they need it.
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CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Tue May 24, 2022 2:21 am

Following dinner, Lale approached Maceo again about her request and he agreed to make good on it and they stepped aside to a more private space and Maceo used a pair of sticks to teach her how to defend and attack using her knife as well as basics to help her fight hand to hand. Gaeten did eventually quietly approach to check in on them and watched from the distance in the shadows, but after a time he nodded to himself and left them alone to a lesson that before long was looking more like a dance as she picked up everything that was taught quickly, though she learned much more quickly when he would place his hands on her and demonstrate a motion or a stance, especially when he would end up behind her, holding her and shadowing her to keep her moving in all the right manners.

Astravia watched with interest, highly entertained and grinning openly, ear to ear. “Do you remember when you told me that you were not a ladies man, my dearest Maceo?” she asked rather proudly.

The next day went off without a hitch, except for one issue: customers were light and little interest was shown in doing business despite the fact that there were a number of other merchants set up nearby. Though business in general was light, Maceo’s group was especially having trouble gaining attention and other merchants were uninterested in trading as well.

Gaeten’s first attempt to rectify this was to send the best looking of the ladies out around the town to interact and encourage locals to visit for some goods, but despite the fact that each of the ladies who’d proved themselves to be skilled at flirting (especially Lale), it proved extremely difficult to lure customers in.

Gaeten found this disheartening since that really was the single best advantage he could think of for bringing the women and girls along was the appeal their presence would have on passersby. Unfortunately, the less than wealthy denizens of this town were going to need much better persuasion in order to part them from their hard earned coin.

Their group now was operating much like a well-oiled machine, but just the same it made almost no difference. Just after dinner, as the sun set over the sea, Gaeten sat down on the sand next to Maceo, Lale and Cajsa, who’d grown rather accustomed to each others’ company.

“Got any ideas?” he asked Maceo.

“Everything you’ve tried so far is better than how I would have approached it,” Maceo admitted readily.

“We should probably just wait for tomorrow and hopefully it will go better then,” Lale said to a number of nods in agreement around her, but Gaeten still wasn’t satisfied.

“If your entire strategy is to wait for business to just get better on its own, then you have no strategy. If that’s how you all want to do this then we might as well pack up and head home tonight.”

This certainly didn’t sit well with the other members of their group and they began brainstorming as best as they could while Gaeten turned to Maceo again, who was thinking hard to himself. “Well? What do you say, young master? Any other tricks up your sleeve?”

“It’s funny you say tricks,” Maceo answered and both Lale and Cajsa turned to hear what he’d come up with.

“Well? I’m all ears.”

“The best asset we’ve had over other merchants is the ladies in our group. It makes us more of a target on the road, but now that we’re here, it’s much easier to sell something with a pretty face to back it up. But… well yes, I do have a few things, but it’s the kind of things that I don’t normally want to draw attention to myself with.”

“And what is that?” Gaeten asked him.

“Well… if I do this, then it has to stay within this group. I don’t want rumors to spread when we get back home over people getting ideas of me being something I’m not. It has to stay between us.”

Gaeten looked around the group and said, “well, you heard him,” then one by one, each member of the group agreed to keep their tactics confidential.

“Alright,” Maceo said, climbing to his feet. “I’ll need one of those fans you have,” he said to Gaeten, who nodded and then walked with Maceo back to one of the tents where he produced a decorative fan. “Give me about fifteen minutes and then I want you to interrupt and tell me you have some menial job for me to do,” he told Gaeten, then walked back to the fire.

Everyone sat and watched Maceo as he stepped to the center of their circle and approached the fire, tossing several more logs on to get the flames good and high and then he turned and looked around.

“Anyone want to see some magic?” he asked the group, and a number of eyes went wide. He scanned and eventually his eyes landed on Lale, who was staring at him with glassy, wanting eyes, and she nodded to him, so he took a step back, sprinkled some powder on the tips of the fan and then waved it at the flames and then upward in one fluid motion.

These were the movements Maceo’s body made, but as he did so, something else entirely occurred separately, but in sync with his physical movements. The moment he’d created a breeze, a magnificent dragon made of flames erupted from the fire and surged out toward Lale and Cajsa and then turned straight up dozens of feet up into the air before it reached their faces and then slowly dissipated into the early night air to gasps and squeals of delight from the other members of his group.

Even Gaeten fell over, shocked by the display and Maceo began again, this time creating another dragon that swirled around and circled skyward to now screams of glee.

Naturally, this unexpected show quickly attracted attention as people from nearby homes as well as other merchants emerged from their tents, awe struck and moving like moths to a flame. Gaeten watched with all of the others in shocked amazement as creature after creature was created from the flames of their fire until he noticed that a sizeable crowd was beginning to form around their site.

Now he understood the meaning of Maceo’s directions and pushed himself to his feet, forcing himself to ignore the amazing show around and above them and walked directly up to Maceo. “Alright that’s enough. Quit farting around and get the dishes done,” Gaeten ordered Maceo, who turned and looked at Gaeten just before he started another unreal demonstration of flames and looked at Gaeten like a whipped puppy.

The amazed and boisterous crowd looked at Gaeten blankly, everyone going silent, even his own caravan, and even one seemingly wealthy merchant holding a half eaten plum in his hand dropped it in the sand as he stared at this unforgivable killjoy numbly.

“What do you mean? Dishes? Did you not see..” a voice called out from the crowd, but Gaeten waved then down without any patience.

“We’re here for the same reason as you. We came to sell goods and trade, not stand around playing childish games.” The crowd looked at him with even more shock and dismay.

“Then I’ll PAY YOU to continue the show!” The wealthy merchant who’d dropped his plum screamed.

“We’re not a circus,” Gaeten answered back. “We’re just merchants. Putting on a show does nothing to empty our carts.”

An urgent, worried murmur swept the crowd, then one man screamed, “fifteen minutes! Fifteen minutes and I will go in your tents and I swear I will buy something!” and then shouts and cheers in agreement.

Gaeten seemed quite irritated and tapped his foot angrily. “I brought him to tend horses and clean up after us, not dance around like some fool clown,” he answered to boos and loud pleas for Maceo to continue. “Alright, alright!” Gaeten relented. “You heard them, boy! Fifteen minutes, then get back to fucking work!” he declared and then stomped off.

Lale and Cajsa looked up at Maceo in disbelief and Maceo smiled wryly and winked at them, then restarted his unworldly show, changing the colors of the flames, creating wild, exotic creatures from them and even creating animated interactions for a completely captivated audience.

“It is about time,” Astravia said with satisfaction as she watched. “Why do you think I taught you all of this magic if you are never going to use it?”

Fifteen minutes passed and Gaeten returned, again showing impatience and pretending he hadn’t seen the bowl of coins set out to tip their entertainment that was quickly filling. “Alright! Dishes!” Gaeten hollered and as soon as he did Maceo stopped to gasps of shock and disappointment.

“ARE YOU STUPID, MAN!” a bewildered local screamed as he grabbed Gaeten’s arm. “We’ll buy up all your goods! We’ll pay you, we’ll buy you a ship to haul your wealth home if you JUST KEEP SHOWING US THESE AMAZING FEATS!”

“This takes energy,” Gaeten answered back. “You think he’s going to have the strength to do his work if all he does is screw around with stupid games?

“WHAT KIND OF PLACE DO YOU COME FROM WHERE THIS COULD ACTUALLY BE BORING TO YOU?” another man screamed.

“Give him a break, give him a break then,” a couple of others shouted. “It gives us more time to shop,” another man insisted to loud murmurs of agreement. Gaeten through his hands up, washing himself of the matter.

“If you are not doing your job, then you had better find some way to earn your keep,” he declared then walked away. Through it all, the other members of his group stared in shock and said nothing, utterly flabbergasted by the play that had just been performed.

Maceo continued to perform regularly into the night, performing roughly once per hour to an ever increasing crowd; a crowd that grew so large that all of the visitors couldn’t even fit into the tent to buy from the budding merchants. Before long, the entire beachfront was abuzz with activity, with several of the other caravans benefitting from the increased traffic.

Late into the night, Maceo held his hand up and warned them, “this is the last one I can do tonight,” to countless aww’s and sad moans. “But we’ll do it again tomorrow,” he promised to a round of thunderous cheers. It seemed that the entire town as well as those living out on the fringes around it had come running to see.

Maceo walked up to Cajsa and whispered in her ear. She nodded and stood and Maceo stepped around her. “Let me ask you,” he called out to the crowd, who listened with wonder. “Have you heard the myths of the lost goddess?” he asked them. “The tales of a celestial being that left us and never came back?” he asked theatrically as the flames behind him began to fade. “The generous, loving being that fed our lands and taught us to walk and then just one day disappeared?”

The crowd listened then gasped as deep red flames then suddenly burst from the base of the fire and extended far out through the crowd with deep gasps. “Astravia,” someone said, and Maceo pointed to her, nodding.

“Was she a myth?” he asked as the crowd seemed to lean in, hanging on his every word then screams as the fire behind him burst viciously and ferociously and everyone, including Maceo cowered while Astravia snickered. “Or perhaps only a fool would call her a myth,” he whispered and the flames soothed, pulling back and turning green.

Not a single word was spoken as they all stared, waiting for the next word in his story. “Perhaps a legend then?” he asked them, and again the flames turned angry and ferocious to gasps as they jumped thirty feet high. “But certainly she left us,” he said and suddenly the flames all disappeared in an instant, leaving them all in near complete dark. The crowd gasped again, leaning closer once more.

“But why? Where did she go?” Maceo asked them. “Why did she leave? Or is she here?” he asked them. Astravia sat laughing as she watched him.

“Do not take this too far,” she warned him in between chuckles.

The crowd was still shrouded in dark as their eyes adjusted to Maceo standing in shadow and approached behind Cajsa. “What if she is? Hiding amongst us? Watching us?” He walked again near Cajsa. “Entertaining herself with the dramas of our quaint little lives, sitting in plain sight, hiding in the most unlikely of places” he said, his voice growing softer and softer and then in a whisper that seemed to echo through the entire crowd, “a beauty so incomprehensible she can only be TRICKED into revealing herself!” he declared, then a bright light exploded in white, red, green and blue as a feminine form hovered above them with outstretched arms, bathing thousands in luminance and causing the crowd to fall over in gasps.

Then, the flames died back and slowly returned to normal as the form drifted back down to the ground and as the light returned to normal, only Cajsa stood there, staring bashfully at the crowd. A moment of silence, then loud, thunderous cheers as Maceo stepped back and allowed Cajsa to be the star for a moment in a sea of adoring fans. He stepped back until he almost bumped into Lale who was smirking at him.

“Is there a reason you chose her for that stunt?” she asked him.

“Someone as beautiful as you always stands out like the North Star among the blackest of nights,” Maceo answered nonchalantly. “Was it too much to ask someone else get the limelight for a moment?” Lale actually blushed and turned red, grinning at him almost stupidly as others in the crowd re-found him and rushed to talk to him and introduce themselves.

Far away, watching an entertaining show through a globe in her study, Astravia watched Maceo closely, blushing a little with her hand curled up and pressed against her mouth.

Following this last performance, as the crowds began to disburse slowly, Maceo found a slightly bashful Lale standing and waiting for him. “Are you too tired to give me another lesson?” she asked him. Maceo smiled and once again they found a private space to begin practicing her self-defense skills just as they had the night before. Just as before, Gaeten eventually made his way over to check on them, but this time he just gave a quick look, then went about his way, satisfied.

The next morning the group assessed the inventory and Gaeten sat laughing to himself the entire time as they tallied their earnings as well as their success. Eventually, Maceo walked in carrying a heavy bag and dumped the contents on a table he’d cleared off, showing off a sizeable collection of coins, most of them bronze, but a number of silver and more gold ones than they would have expected as well.

“I didn’t expect this,” Maceo chuckled.

“Well, you certainly earned it,” Gaeten answered.

“We need to talk about how we split it,” Maceo said, startling the entire group.

“But this is yours,” Cajsa said numbly.

“You definitely are getting a cut,” Maceo insisted.

“Careful, the budding goddess might have her ego go out of control,” Lale teased, while Cajsa could only blush, but Maceo waved her over and insisted she stand at the table.

“This was all your abilities, though,” one of the women pointed out and Maceo shook his head.

“I’m getting a cut of the total that is sold here, so the least I can do is be fair and give each of you a cut of what helped us sell everything. Fair is fair.”

“We’ll see how today goes,” Gaeten determined, cutting off the murmuring going on. “We can count our totals and when it’s all done and set, we can split it fairly. If at all possible, though, I would like to set some aside for the town itself.” Most heads nodded in agreement and Maceo began piling the coins back into the bag and they moved onto other business before they opened up for the day.

“Why did you hide this from us?” A teenage boy asked him, but before Maceo could answer, another interrupted with another question. “Was that real magic?” then others began jumping in all at once, but once again Gaeten immediately stepped in and put a stop to the chaos of questions and answers. Once the tent had settled down again, Maceo answered them as best as he could.

“Most of it was illusory magic,” Maceo explained. “And yes, I know magic.”

“You’re a sorcerer?”

“I have learned SOME magic,” Maceo answered. “This is why I didn’t want to call attention to it. Once people see you know magic, they make assumptions about what you can do and they have no idea what you should do with it. It’s a trump card I really didn’t plan on playing, and I’m hoping it doesn’t come back to bite me later.”

“It was all just a show, though,” Lale assured him. “Just say you’re a performer.”

“People asked me all night where we were from,” a teenage boy reported. “They want to go see the village that raises performers like that and talks about it like it’s just a child’s game.”

“You see? This is why I don’t advertise magic. There are always unintended consequences. Illusory magic comes with few to no consequences, but more major forms come with massive consequences. But even with illusory magic, now we have a consequence.”

“This is a good thing though,” Gaeten suggested. “It will increase travelers to the town and improve trade.”

“Until they arrive and see a town building from the ground up and no performers,” Maceo reminded him. “False advertising.”

“What else can you do with your magic? Can you cure us?” the other teenaged girl asked, but Maceo put his head in his hand.

“Like I said, people make assumptions about what you can do with magic. The truth is, that a few of you, yes, I could do quite a bit to help you with magic, but your bodies have suffered enough that it would likely cost someone else their life to help make you healthy again. Like I said, there are costs.”

“Where does your magic come from?” “Where can I learn it?” came more questions, but Gaeten waved for them to stop and give Maceo a moment.

“I do things to help people. With medicines and herbs, it’s very straightforward. With magic, you have to be very careful.”

“But what about illusory magic?” the youngest of the women asked. “Are you born with it?”

“No,” Maceo answered her. “Humans have no magic. What we can do is learn magic and find sources of magic and use them, and that’s why there is a cost. But illusory magic doesn’t really affect anything. It creates a quick spectacle and then it’s gone, or it can hide something, but only for a short time.”

“So anybody can learn it,” one boy deduced. Maceo turned and looked at him, carefully considering his unspoken request.

“Yes, but illusory magic leads to more consequential forms. If you begin experimenting with it, eventually you can learn higher forms but once you do that the consequences can be deadly. Even with illusory magic, you have to be careful with it. If you teach it to someone irresponsible they can eventually hurt a lot of people.”

The tent became silent and most lowered their heads. “For the young ones here, it could be an incredible opportunity,” Gaeten suggested. “Their futures aren’t particularly bright. With the same skills you showed last night, they could live very successful lives. Think about it: if we had five members of the community who could do what you can, we would attract visitors and merchants from everywhere.”

“But there is the temptation,” Maceo explained. “Eventually, when you master these arts, you can get a feeling that there is more beyond it, which I am certainly not going to instruct on. But just experimenting to find how much further you can take it could kill people or permanently poison your town if you make a mistake. Each of them is ill, they’ve lived difficult lives, Cajsa has told me about how she and the others are practically outcasts and not particularly well regarded. And now I come here and I give you this gateway that holds the hidden secret of their own health and vitality with it. I was only taught what I’ve been taught because there was an absolute certainty that I wouldn’t abuse what I’d learned. Anyone I would teach, I would have to have the same level of certainty, even for just illusory magic.”

“I wouldn’t hurt anyone with it,” Cajsa promised. Maceo looked at her and there was silence in the tent.

“I think I actually believe you,” he said, “but this is no simple matter. Sorcerers and sorceresses who have abused these skills have devastated more than you can ever know. There’s a reason why these arts are known by so few. There are sorcerers in our world, but they almost always keep a low profile and they do so for a reason.”

“I’ve heard of pacts before,” the most ill boy said to Maceo. “Where you give someone your word and if you don’t honor it you’re cursed. I would enter into a pact to be able to do this.”

“That’s enough,” Gaeten informed the group firmly. “He’s given his answer and we’re not going to pressure him. He’s made his points and we’ve made ours. Let’s be grateful for what he’s done for us and leave it at that.”

From there, they planned the rest of the day. They would open their tents by mid morning and the ladies would go out and advertise as they had the day before, but on this day, instead of Maceo heading out to help provide protection for them, he would stay behind and run intermittent performances.

After that initial run where all of the ladies would head out to try to draw in customers, they would head out in spread out shifts throughout the day in order to keep as many of their small group together as possible to deal with what would hopefully be a big surge in customers from the prior day.

They had a short break to catch some breakfast as well as prepare for the day, and after eating Maceo went back to his cart, removed his shirt and began pouring water over his torso to rinse off and freshen up. As he did so, Lale wandered around the corner and looked, both hands holding on to the corner of his cart as she watched him from behind hungrily at his broad shoulders.

The instant he turned even a little, though, she adjusted her expression to one far more proper and approached rather than get caught staring. He turned and looked directly at her, using a washcloth to wipe the dust from his shoulders.

“You won’t reconsider at all?” she asked him. She walked up to him and before she knew it, she was so close to him she could feel his body heat, but she only seemed to realize it as a portion of the water he was pouring splashed on her.

“It’s a very serious request,” Maceo insisted. She nodded and stared into space until she realized that space was his muscular chest. She shook herself to, but then blushed as she realized he’d finally caught her.

“What about this pact? Is it real?”

“Yes, it’s real.”

“Then please reconsider. This could change all of our lives,” she added.

“You’re assuming for the better,” Maceo pointed out soberly. “Remember how easily those two boys gave in and went to sleep. There were bandits in that area, I promise you that. You have no idea how lucky we were to not get attacked.”

“But in the years it takes for them to learn, you could teach them to be responsible,” she argued.

“What I did last night, I could teach them all in a week,” Maceo answered as though it were just a simple matter of fact to him. Lale, however, was quite surprised.

“Even with your medicines, will the five of them ever really get to normal? Cajsa is so small and frail. She’s fifteen and she’s not even as tall as I was when I was twelve.”

“Once we get her pneumonia reigned in, she’ll be fine and the medicines she takes from there will help. She still has time to grow a bit.”

“But she’s always going to be undersized because of how sick she’s been her whole life. The others have their own issues. Instead of being burdens for the town, they could be heroes.”

“Again, the temptation to take their magic a step further will always be there. What if it’s your life that is taken so that one can become healthy again? You’re assuming that if they try a spell that they will choose their victim. If done haphazardly, it easily could take away from someone random.”

She seemed to be whipped in this argument and turned while Maceo went back to washing himself, but before she got as far as a step, she turned back around and faced him, placing her hands on his chest and looking up into his eyes.

“Do you trust Gaeten?” she asked him. “Is he responsible enough?”

“I believe so, yes,” Maceo answered.

“Teach him then. Make him their master.” Maceo looked down at her, also caught in her eyes. He raised a hand and put it to her shoulder, taking a moment to indulge in his first real intimate touch.

“I’m not going to say yes to it today,” he answered firmly. She lowered her head and nodded, but he continued, “but I will think about it. Lale, please understand, I only want to help your town, I don’t want to open up a path that could lead down to catastrophe.”

“I understand,” she said, seemingly lost in his eyes. “I have to get ready to head into town,” she told him, still her eyes locked in his. “I’m going to miss not having you there to protect me.”

“You’re not as vulnerable a target as you were a few days ago,” Maceo encouraged. She stayed there for a long moment, simply staring up at him while Astravia watched, grinning and biting her fingertips.

“She wants you to kiss her,” Astravia said. “She wants it badly.” For a second, it looked like he would actually lean down to do so, but then she looked down and blushed.

“I can’t wait to see your show,” she whispered, and then quickly made her departure.
Check out my SW story Please..: https://ckent45.deviantart.com/

CKent45
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by CKent45 » Wed May 25, 2022 3:21 am

With the sun bright and lighting up the entire beach where the merchant tents were laid out, Maceo was forced to look to other means to impress potential clients. He was busy dragging barrels of water out in direct view to their tents when a crowd already began to form, muttering and mumbling to themselves in speculation of what wonders he would show this day.

“Was that magic last night?” a boy asked Maceo from a distance. Maceo only smiled and went about his business. When he was nearly ready, he turned and looked at the small crowd and smirked. Then he began walking across the sand toward a large collection of tents and waved for his spectators to follow.

Once there, he entered the tent as a wealthy old man surrounded by several large bodyguards that immediately surrounded Maceo as soon as he set his eyes on the old man, who despite his wealth was dressed in surprisingly plain attire.

“Your show last night was beautiful and mesmerizing,” the old man said, smirking to Maceo, “but you’ll find it takes more than that to separate me from my money.”

“I’m not going to ask for a single cent,” Maceo answered him. The old man smirked a little more strongly and stood, approached Maceo and stared at him.

“What do you want then?”

“A donation,” Maceo said forthrightly.”

“What kind?” this man had a very shrewd look about him.

“You’ll hear me out to the very end?” Maceo asked. The old man gazed at him, clearly appraising him carefully before he finally nodded in agreement. “Jewels, preferably your finest, but only as a loan. We had some of our own, but as luck has it, they were all bought out last night, so I can’t use those. If you lend them to me, I will return them at the end of the day, every last one, and if you write your name and whatever you want to say about your business, I’ll tell everyone who comes to see me today about you and encourage them to come see you to buy these jewels this evening.”

The old man smirked, chuckling a little at Maceo’s offer. “You can pay a hefty fee if you want to borrow my property,” he laughed. “If I’m going to lend something, I expect something more in return than vague promises.”

“Have it your way,” Maceo answered calmly. “But we both know that all of your business increased last night significantly. You have more than twenty witnesses here who can swear that I gave my word and if I broke it, a constable would be down our throats before we could even pack our tents, but go ahead and keep your wealth to yourself. I’ll still put on a great show, but I’ll do it without telling everyone about you and your services.”

The old man’s smirk turned into a tense smile as he struggled to contain it. They continued to stare at each other, waiting to see who would move first and then the man chuckled and shook his head. “You’ll sign for each one, and I want them back at sundown.”

“Consider it done,” Maceo agreed. “And send one of your body guards with to keep an eye on them. We’ll feed him well.” They shook hands and then conducted the agreed to business with Maceo picking and choosing jewels from a wide selection, but surprisingly passing on the largest, most expensive ones. “Consistent sizes is more important,” he explained to the merchant. “I don’t need them to be huge anyways.”

Several minutes later, Maceo was back at his impromptu stage, which slowly seemed to grow into a small hill, so slowly that at first no one even noticed it. The bodyguard knelt with Maceo as he laid out the jewels and explained briefly how his show would work and then had him memorize each one so that he could inventory them all again once he was done.

Once all was set, Maceo stood in the middle, surrounded by several barrels filled with water and closed his eyes. His spectators watched him, though he said something, hardly noticing that the light above them seemed to have dimmed slightly. A moment later, people began to take notice as a cloud had formed over their heads, shading them from the direct sun.

They looked back at Maceo, and a fog seemed to be growing from the ground up. Several gasps and a number of new people ran in to try to catch what was happening before it took off in earnest as the fog became thick enough that it became difficult to see even a few feet away. Then in the middle of the fog, intense, bright beams of light shot out to the sounds of cheers in all manner of colors in all directions in an elaborate show of lights that made the men, women and children watching from within the fog scream with glee.

These screams drew more attention and before long, larger and larger groups of people were crowding in, most of them trying to work their way into the foggy cloud that contained the gleeful spectators, but quickly the shroud of fog was overwhelmed with bystanders and the crowd moaned with disappointment as the fog sank to around their feet and the cloud above dissipated.

Maceo wasn’t finished, however. The night before had been almost as much about his dramatic fanning of the flames as it had been the control of those same flames. Today, Maceo stood still, eyes closed and concentrating quietly. They all looked at him and no one seemed to notice as the fog suddenly began parting in any number of directions and then suddenly sheets of water shot up everywhere around the crowd, transparent like a thin film of water, yet also so still it offered reflections as well, then light again shining everywhere as the ever growing crowd was bathed in emerald greens, ruby reds, sapphire blues, golden ambers, bixbite pinks, amethyst violets, a shimmering green to yellow ammolite glow and light that sparkled like diamonds as each of these thin sheets of water reflected the light passed through each gemstone from one cell to another to an astonished crowd.

Minutes passed and the crowd slowly discovered that when they touched these thin sheets of water, the ripples magnified the effect to an ever increasing degree and the crowd developed it’s own mind as the colors and shape presented from this cornucopia of light moved like a animal with its own will.

Fifteen minutes in and the crowd gasped again as they realized the thin sheets of water were moving, distorting their reflections as well as the view beyond, changing the shapes of the people in the crowd in a dizzying display in a motion that eventually moved and heaved like waves in the ocean and then the water around them began dissipating, spinning around them in circles, each little twister of mist spinning and joining with another, then another, and so on until the entire crowd was caught in a massive vortex that then began to form into rainbows, stretching in every direction until they were all swept up into a single rainbow that stretched up and away, leading directly to the tent of the merchant that had lent the gemstones for his performance to begin with.

“When you stare into a gemstone, you can find an entire world hidden there just for you. Luckily you have someone like Thanases whose generosity allowed us just a brief look inside of those worlds. If you don’t buy anything from him, please at least stop by to thank him for providing us all with this show.”

With that, the rainbow faded and the crowd applauded as Maceo stepped down to take a break, as well as sit in the shade and get a drink of water to replenish himself. As he did so, Cajsa doted on him affectionately until a group of children ran up.

“Was that magic?” Are you a sorcerer?” they asked him excitedly.

“Everything you saw are just illusions,” Maceo answered them. Again they begged him for the source of this strange magic, but Maceo stood firm. “Hold a piece of quartz up against the sun and look at it, or go to the docks and look down at the fish as they swim by. Or you could even turn a sheet of copper up and reflect the sun off of it. That’s really all I did.”

They begged, but Cajsa eventually managed to shoo them away while Maceo rested as the remainder of the group began to return and get back to work with Lale looking rather jealously at the young girl excitedly talking to him.

The rest of the day was a massive success. Not only was there a massive crowd to enjoy Maceo, a number of people in the area began filtering in with various performance skills that all wanted to compete for interest and before long the entire ocean front there had formed into a kind of impromptu festival. Not long after lunchtime nearly all of their goods that they’d brought down with them were sold and Gaeten was focusing more on setting up trade deals with whatever merchants he could manage to open dialogue with.

The good news was that the attention they’d brought to the other merchants there was excellent for encouraging them to give Gaeten some time, though most were solely interested in learning about Maceo and his skills and asking how they could hire him.

The shows continued on up until the sun began to dip, not leaving enough light to continue as they were, but still not dim enough to rely on, with Maceo using the ladies in his caravan by reflecting their images into the crowd and warping them just enough to make them appear like mermaids, which was a crowd pleaser. Another highlight was to reflect Babajide’s image as a giant warrior and reenact battles with the teenagers to a cheering crowd.

As sunset began to take over, Maceo stepped aside and business went into a lull as most people went off to get some food, but as this had developed into such a massive social event, there were a surprising number of people who’d shown up to sell food to visitors, leaving the area much more active than it had been the day before at that time.

People grilled food over open fires and Maceo went to help with the cooking while Gaeten thanked all of the ladies together and personally for everything they’d done to help make the event a success.

They’d hoped for some down time, but more people came around continually in search of Maceo, especially women who giggled and coyly pranced around him in an attempt to get his attention while Astravia watched proudly as her little bird began taking his first flaps of his wings in an unfamiliar sky. She also snickered as Lale quickly found that she had much stiffer competition than a sweet, but health addled girl that was no where near a position to start a life with someone like Maceo.

Eventually Lale found him by squeezing through the crowd and telling his adoring fans that he had limited time to get dinner before he started again. They made their way through his fans and back toward their carriages and Maceo thanked her profusely for her assistance, but before he could go to get himself a plate, she grabbed his arm and stopped him again.

“What can I do tonight to help out?” she asked him. Maceo smiled to her and took her hand to go have dinner together working through ideas with her.

Once the sky was dark enough, Maceo stepped out of his tent to a beach filled with people all seated and waiting for a show. He smiled and walked up to the top of the small hill that had inexplicably risen beneath his feet with healthy fires in front, behind and on either side of him, as well as six fires set at the foot of his little hill.

“I’d like to thank everyone for all your support and the kindness that’s been showed to us since we arrived here,” he called out to a fair amount of applause. “We’ve tried to spread the word as best as we could, but I need to announce that this will be our last night here,” he said to an audibly disappointed crowd but he waved his hands at them to try to calm them. “I promise you, though our time here was short, this will be a night to remember!” the crowd erupted and he nodded and waved out around the crowd and as the cheer and applause began to fade, suddenly the flames around him all died away, stunning the crowd into silence, aside from a few wondrous whispers.

This improved show began with a flourish of two fans wielded by Maceo and an eruption of all 10 fires into raging dragons that all swirled around each other and up into the sky before turning down and spreading out, flying just over the heads of the crowd before dissipating several hundred feet out.

The crowd roared wildly as the flames disappeared leaving them all in darkness again, then a single burst from Maceo’s right at the base of the small hill. Then a bright burst from behind him, then immediately to his left, in front of him to the right and on and on randomly with increasing speed until a fiery wolf exploded and attacked one of the flames like it was his prey.

By the time the wolf had disappeared, a hawk was soaring out with it’s talons open to grab another flame from another direction, then a lion pouncing viciously and a shark that burst up and attacked the lion and the crowd stared wide eyed and beyond words as the animal kingdom itself went to war with each other in an all out blood bath until a tall figure of a woman, sparkling and glowing behind them, several stories tall appeared and sparkling and glowing like citrine with her hands crossed in front of her chest and reached down, putting the war to an end by hand as ferocious predators of flame succumbed to her power.

This went on for several minutes until the beasts slowly adhered to this giantess’ will and with waves of her hands, the beasts now performed for her and did tricks according to her commands. This continued on until a single star began to form in front of Maceo’s stage which grew and grew in intensity until the form of a woman burst out, hanging mid air with her arms opened wide like the night before and the golden giantess behind them disappeared like she’d been blown away like dust in the wind as this figure shined down on them as though she were gifting light itself to the people of Longsgallow.

Then the light faded and Cajsa was left standing before them, her pale skin reflecting the dancing flames around her and the world returned to normal. The crowd roared with such enthusiasm the performers had to cover their ears, but as they did, Cajsa and Lale bowed to the thrilled crowds for their parts in the performance while Maceo slipped back into the shadows to take his break and catch his breath.

They performed four more times on a similar schedule to the one they’d kept throughout the day, though each performance was a little different than the last, given that there wasn’t an exact script to work with. The crowds were so enthusiastic that by the final performance, many of the spectators had lost their voices screaming with delight and the performance was ended by a mist that rolled in over the crowd as the flames illuminating the performances died back to little more than embers and torches near the edges of the beach and at the other merchants’ tents were lit to guide the crowds and an exhausted Maceo sat against the wheel of his cart wiping his brow and sipping on water that the other teenaged girl had brought to him.

The night finally quieted and Gaeten happily reported to the entire group that they only had a handful of items left to sell among all of their carts, but they had a small fortune in coin to bring back with them as well as a number of agreements for future trade.

They drank and sang and laughed into the night, quite happy with an extremely successful first trade attempt but as the fatigue of several straight days without rest began to take its toll, several members began to retire for the night. Maceo saw Cajsa to bed and tucked her in after he gave her medicine to her and then turned to see Lale standing and watching with a peaceful smile on her lips.

“I suppose you’re too tired for another lesson,” she suggested to Maceo, who only smirked back at her.

“I think I have a little left in me,” he said and the two disappeared off to somewhere private where they practiced her self-defense again, Maceo helping to advance her skills a little from the night before.

Astravia watched with a huge smile but also a little impatiently as she waited for things to escalate, then finally she squeaked with anticipation as Maceo placed his hands on her hips as he helped her improve her stance and she stopped and turned, looking up at him over her shoulder, staring into his eyes.

“Oh she wants you to kiss her, Maceo,” Astravia giggled. “Will you run away?” she teased.

The pair stared at each other and finally, Maceo’s hand slid up to her stomach and pulled her close. She laid back into his arms, still staring up at him and Astravia leaned more closely, finally getting to see the event she’d been waiting for all this time.

Maceo leaned down and he kissed Lale, who sighed quite happily as their lips met, but strangely, the instant this occurred, Astravia seemed to freeze, still smiling, but something in her eyes showed a lack of the excitement and anticipation she’d shown a moment before.

They continued to kiss, and Lale turned to face him properly, wrapping an arm around his neck as their embrace intensified, and though Astravia still hadn’t moved a muscle and was still smiling the same smile, her brow crinkled a little.

Finally, when she took his hand and pressed it against her breast, the smile faded from Astravia’s lips as she watched these new lovers engage in a passionate moment together that was slowly and steadily building up to ever more.

When she reached down and grabbed his crotch, her expression collapsed into a full frown and she fell back in her seat, her fingers tapping rapidly and impatiently on the arm of her chair as though she were struggling to understand exactly what it was she was finding so displeasing about all of this.

Their passion continued to climb as he grabbed her ass and she wrapped her leg around his waist and it was clear exactly where this would lead to until they both heard a noise and turned to look. A second later, they separated and stared into the shadows to see a very groggy and sleepy Gaeten emerge from the shadows rubbing his eyes, apparently unaware of the moment he’d disturbed. He yawned and shook his head to force himself more alert.

“I appreciate all the work you’re doing to learn how to fight, but we have a very long trip tomorrow,” he informed them. “I’m already near my limit and any bandits will like our gold far more than our goods on the way back.”

“You’re right,” Maceo agreed. “We should get to sleep.” Lale was a little reluctant, but the mood had been broken, so she agreed and Gaeten turned around and stumbled back, not seeing as Lale reached out and the two budding lovers clasped hands together and stared into each other’s eyes with a smile.

Astravia had certainly seen enough. She scowled angrily and time around her froze. Then she walked to her balcony, transformed into her hawk form and flew with haste all the way out to Longsgallow and descended on the pair and glared down unhappily upon them from above after returning to her normal form.

“There is something not right about you,” she scolded with a stern index finger pointed at Lale. She clenched her jaw and then bent over and picked Lale up with one hand like she were a figurine and lifted her up to her face and stared at her, anger flaring in her eyes. “I cannot quite put my finger on it,” she grumbled and began turning Lale around in her giant hands, inspecting her closely and picking at her with her fingers as though she were nothing more than an object.

She poked and prodded the much smaller mortal, turning her upside down, all the while looking unhappily at her, and then she held her up to her face again and stared at her with narrowed eyes. “Well if you are going to bed down with my sweet Maceo, let us see what you have to offer,” she said. Then, with her thumb and forefingers, she pinched the hem of her dress and pulled it up and began undressing her and before long she was peeling off the smaller woman’s undergarments and looking at her with disgust.

Lale, now completely naked and frozen in time with Astravia holding her in one hand with her fingers wrapped around her waist, had an extremely healthy looking bush of pubic hair that poofed out from her hips. Astravia actually had to fight back a gag a little and shook her head. She then grabbed Lale’s ankle with her thumb and forefinger, almost as though the smaller woman were so gross that she didn’t even want to touch her and pulled her legs apart to inspect an equally hairy pussy whose pubic hairs glistened with wetness. Astravia poked the bush with her fingertip and recoiled again at a furry nether region that extended out in a thick mess well more than an inch from her mons pubis.

“You come to my Maceo and expect him to plunge his manhood into this mess?” she asked a woman a third her height who couldn’t even speak or hear her. Astravia shook her head again and sighed with frustration, then looked at her, smirking as her pubic hair began to grow and spread until any sign of her genitals was gone and further yet until all of her hips, butt, upper thighs and midriff were covered in thick, curly pubic hair that measured as long as five inches.

Astravia sneered and pinched a tuft of her pubic hair and picked her up by it, dangling her and smiling sadistically, and then she placed the woman back into her hand and looked her over again. “You cannot even be bothered to so much as trim? I know your people are primitive, but you do have scissors,” she lectured. “And to make matters worse, I am nearly CERTAIN you are the type to expect cunnilingus, you disgusting tramp. Whore,” she added with extra spite. “So primitive,” she hissed then sneered as Lale’s facial and body features began to regress to earlier and earlier forms of hominid, first hair beginning to grow more thickly on her legs and arms, then around her jaw while her facial features became progressively more primitive as well until Astravia was laughing subtly yet maniacally at a Lale who looked more orangutan than woman.

She posed Lale with sadistic pleasure in more suitable of a primate and even manually manipulated her as though she were a toy, scrounging for insects on the ground. Astravia enjoyed herself quite a bit, but eventually picked her up again and sighed with even more frustration before returning her to normal and staring into her eyes again.

“I still do not know who this woman is that was represented in Maceo’s vision, but I know for certain she is not you,” she determined, glaring icily at the much smaller woman she held in her hand. “And what is he supposed to do with these?” she scoffed, flicking Lale’s breasts with her finger. Freed of their cloth prisons, they were very modest in size, and also sagging slightly, but still with healthy, rather perky nipples that were noticeably stiff from her reactions to Maceo.

Astravia sneered again and tapped each breast flippantly, popping them like soap bubbles, leaving her completely flat chested and sneered again at her. She stretched her ass out to be so large it looked like that of a woman several times Lale’s weight and gave her matching, cellulose ridden thighs laughing as she did so until she was once again amused and then again reverted her to her normal form, staring sourly at her once again.

“I dislike that smug smile of yours, as though you’ve accomplished something,” she growled and then Lale’s mouth faded away and disappeared. Astravia’s eyes narrowed as she continued to unhappily appraise this little plaything that had displeased her. “I am going to get to the bottom of what it is that I dislike about you,” she determined, pointing down at the figure in her hand.

Then, with a thought, Lale was yet again back to normal, and also clothed again and in the same pose as she’d been in when Astravia arrived. She set Lale back down again exactly as she’d been when Astravia arrived and turned around, walking away and transformed into her hawk form and flew away, leaving them both behind.

She’d made it no farther than reaching tree top height, though, when she turned around, landed and transformed again and marched up to the pair once again, staring down with displeasure. Now she paced around them, always glaring icily down at Lale before finally dropping to her knees facing them and plucked her away again and gripped her in her hand.

“I so dislike mortals who think they are more than they are,” she lectured. “You think you are his equal with all of your bantering about his treatment to you? You are not. He treated you with nothing but kindness, kindness I would have never shown you had you treated me with such disrespect and now you think yourself worthy of MY Maceo’s manhood? That shining, golden goddess you imitated tonight was not you. That was ME!” she hissed, though her voice was approaching a yell by now.

“I would revert you back to the tantrum throwing child you are, if I was not so certain you would revel in your regained youth,” she jeered.

She set Lale down on the ground facing Maceo and leaned down far enough that her face was at Lale’s level. “You belong at his feet,” she said, pinching Lale’s torso and bending her down expertly as though she’d done this countless times before until Lale was bowing with her face in the dirt at Maceo’s feet. “No,” she sneered wickedly now. “Not like that,” she added. With a snap of Astravia’s fingers, Lale was standing again and Astravia leaned on one hand while she extended a single finger and placed it on top of Lale’s head.

She grinned dastardly and then pressed and before her eyes, Lale stayed in her exact same position, however the level of her head dropped as she pressed. Her dress clung but became frumpy and disheveled, then began to hang ever looser as she shrank within her dress down to a little less than chest height to Maceo.

“You little harlot,” she grumbled, “As distended as your little unkempt vagina is, seeing him like this and how much bigger his dick would be to you would only make you wetter, wouldn’t it?” she asked. Lale, of course, didn’t respond in any way, she only continued to stare ahead obliviously frozen in time, standing in a dress that hung around her like a tarp exposing one breast along with most of her chest.

Astravia then pressed down again, shrinking her further still until she was only waist high and staring directly at Maceo’s groin. “Is this what you want you little tramp? That big, thick hard penis of his? Go ahead, reach out and take it then, wench,” she hissed as she manually manipulated Lale’s hands and arms to reach out for his manhood, then she took that same finger on top of her head and pressed, shrinking her further still down to knee height to Maceo, though her hands resisted the drop in perspective as though they were tied still at waist level and she was now reaching up for a crotch that was now completely out of reach from her as her dress fell completely off of her.

“Oops,” Astravia mocked her sarcastically. “It seems to have risen out of your reach, little trollop,” she said with a sneer. “Better get to climbing,” she told her, and then pressed down on her head again and Lale shrank further still, down to ankle height. “I did say you belonged at his feet,” Astravia whispered with a deep malice. “But why take half measures?” she asked and pressed down on Lale’s head again, shrinking her further until she was less than an inch tall.

“Any smaller and I will have to make myself smaller to pick you up,” she mocked, “And what would be the fun in that?” She picked her up using her fingernails and then presented the absolutely miniscule woman to Maceo, hissing once again to Lale, “you do not deserve him.”

She placed her hand to her mouth, more angry now even than before and dropped Lale, letting her fall to the ground and stood up, turning to walk away before she clenched her hands in fists and stared down as one would their feet, if they weren’t a woman with a bountifully full H cup pair of breasts to block the view.

“I can trust him to come to the right conclusions on his own,” she determined finally and with a snap of her fingers, Lale was completely back to normal again, standing with him exactly as she was when she’d arrived. She turned and looked down at them, still unhappily, then dropped to her knees and sneered once again at Lale. Then she put her finger on top of her head and pressed once again, though this time only shrinking her about two inches smaller. Just enough to give her a nagging feeling something was off, but not so much as to be easily noticeable.

“I will let it wear off in the morning,” she promised her and carefully adjusted Maceo and her gaze to perfectly meet each other’s again and then transformed and flew off at a much more relaxed pace than she’d traveled there with.

Once she was back in her study, she sat in front of the globe and time resumed. She watched as Maceo and Lale walked hand in hand for a moment together then separated to catch up with Gaeten and Astravia relaxed as they all finally separated and went to sleep.

“I need a swim,” she said and stood up stretching, but stopped and took a second look at the scene of the camp from above. She looked unhappily at the quiet scene and then leaned closer to look directly at Lale, who was curled up in her blanket grinning like a Cheshire cat and biting her lower lip.

“Don’t you dare,” she hissed. For a long moment, Lale was still and silent, but once she was sure all was clear, she climbed to her feet and made her way to Maceo, who was only just starting to doze off to sleep. Once Lale approached, though, he sat up to look at the shadowy intruder until he recognized her feminine form.

“I’m still cold,” she whispered to Maceo who smiled and wrapped his arm around her waist, guiding her down to lay beside him.

“It’s warm here,” he told her and then they kissed, quickly building up to the same level of passion they’d been at before and above as she sighed happily while he squeezed her breast and she gripped his cock through his pants and squeezed it.

“No,” a very angry Astravia growled, gripping the arms of her chair with white knuckles.

Their passions grew and before long, their hips were grinding against each other as Maceo reached up inside of her shirt and the inevitable was no longer deniable. Astravia waved her fingers over the globe as though she were sprinkling dust over it and both of their passions seemed to wane due to a thin drowsiness that slowly washed over them, but especially over Lale.

Lale fought it to the best of her abilities until she was forced to yawn in the middle of an otherwise passionate kiss, followed quickly by Maceo. “I’m sorry, I really want to, I’m just so tired.”

“We’ve been working hard for days now,” Maceo offered, and she smiled and kissed him, causing Astravia to frown, but then Maceo wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She smiled and nuzzled his neck and drifted off to blissful sleep with him, which seemed to make Astravia even more angry as she waited and waited for them to completely drift off and enter their dreams before she so much as moved a muscle.

“You insignificant little vamp,” Astravia growled, then held her hand up with her thumb and forefinger apart as though she could hold Lale in between them and then she began squeezing her fingers together, shrinking the little tart slowly and surely down and down away from strong, warm arms that gradually became too large to be of any use to her until she was buried in her own clothes, shrunken down to two inches tall.

Astravia stood up and paced angrily around in circles, screaming with a pent up rage. “How dare you trick me into giving you a good night’s rest?” she screeched. She lowered her head and ran her fingers through her hair, squeezing it to help relieve the stress, then took several deep breaths before waving her fingers dismissively and seamlessly returning Lale to normal yet again, less the two inches that had been taken from her before.

“I will give it back to you after lunch,” she determined. “I REALLY need a swim!” she yelled and then stomped off and down to the pool where she could relieve her stress for the night once and for all.
Check out my SW story Please..: https://ckent45.deviantart.com/

MrWitness
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Re: The Goddess' Retreat

Post by MrWitness » Wed May 25, 2022 5:57 am

You tease us - the readers - so much! Good job!

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