Vassal by Sterling D'Este (ebook reader computer TXT) 📕

‘bathe in sunlight’ as she put it, casting off all clothes and parading about in jaunty glory.

At least today, she was still clothed, and while there was a crisp breeze, the sun was bright and warm. Alphonse did her best to focus on that rather than Enyo bickering with Tristan, yet again.

⚄

For Tristan, the last moon of the journey had been thoroughly less enjoyable than the first. He now had to vie for Enyo’s attention as though the halfbreed was anywhere near his equal. It was made worse by the fact that Delyth rarely seemed to do much to earn her place in Enyo’s affections. Other than a few memorable moments in which Tristan had managed to get the skinny manling spitting mad, Etienne was growing more and more distant, his entertainment value dwindling in the process. Alphonse and Delyth had become positively gushy when they thought he wouldn’t notice. All smiles and longing looks.

Damn them.

Enyo’s fixation on the ins and outs of bear fucking didn’t help either. She was so sure that he wasn’t man enough.

Well fine. He was done with the whole idea.

“Perhaps I wouldn’t be able to rise to the occasion,” Tristan said. His voice was all smooth smiles. “But if the stories about you are true, you’ve made mistakes in the art of sex as well.”

Delyth strode a few paces ahead of them, Etienne dragging a few behind. Tristan stopped in the middle of the road and called out to both of them.

“Have either of you heard the tale of how Enyo fucked herself and gave birth to a sniveling little forest sprite? It's a good one. It starts off something like ‘Enyo saw the children Ruyaa had made for herself and longed to be just like the other Goddess…’”

Tristan laughed delightedly at the expression on Enyo’s face. The Goddess was practically boiling. She would think that this was a story passed down about her for generations of humans—something to laugh about on long winter nights.

How else was a simple human like Tristan to have gotten the information?

❂

Enyo gasped in horror. How had he heard of Pwll?! Her grip tightened on Tristan’s arm with a snarl, hoping that breaking it would distract him from telling the rest of the wretched tale! How was she to know that spawning with herself would create a creature effectively akin to a forest or a glen? Pwll’s only happiness was drinking from streams, basking in morning sunlight, and avoiding all chaos. All conflict.

Pwll had no interest in ruling over the insignificant humans.

Even Ruyaa’s children had inspired and created.

Pwll just sniffed flowers and danced with willows.

She hadn’t seen the wretched child in eons! How could that one shameful event be thrown in her face now?!

Tristan snatched his arm out of Enyo’s grasp and danced away even as Etienne snorted with laughter. “So Enyo went and found a nice soft meadow and fucked herself for a night and a day.”

“Not like you have that type of stamina, you mewling idiot!” She lunged for him, teeth bared.

Tristan leaped away, a grin halving his face. “When she gave birth moons later, she was so proud! Her babe was corporeal, a feat even Ruyaa hadn’t managed.”

Skies above, Enyo’s cheeks were burning with embarrassment and rage. She had asked Ruyaa, years later, where she had gone wrong. Ruyaa had said her pregnancies, her creations were not from physical acts, but thoughts.

By being so literal, Enyo had created a living being composed entirely of her own essence.

The wild heart of the land.

She hadn’t told anyone that little detail! To think, a Goddess like herself could botch the attempt so dismally. As soon as Pwll could walk and talk, weaned off of her teat and needing her no longer, Enyo had set them free. But not before the other Gods had seen, and known, the gentle nature of her self exploration.

The rogue chortled, his eyes on Enyo’s face. “Only when Enyo looked closer, she found that her little babe was a doe-eyed creature of bark and grass that cared less for the Goddess than frolicking through streams and forest glades.”

Her fists were opening and closing, imagining her grip to be about Tristan’s throat. Fire-bright eyes flickered to Etienne, the fool, who was smiling and chuckling at her expense. To Delyth, whose lips were nearly upturned in a smirk.

She even felt Alphonse, deep down, crooning at the image. Thinking it sweet and darling. A nice thing that Enyo had done.

Enyo was not some sniveling mortal coddler like Esha.

No.

Her wrath directed itself skyward, the moaning of the overburdened mountains catching her interest. So heavy with snow. So tired. So very tired.

She would alleviate those peaks and have her vengeance too.

“You think yourself clever, regaling your little mortal friends with this tale?” she growled, lifting her chin to stare each and every one of them down, despite her inferior height. It didn’t matter; within this weak, trembling body was a Goddess of earthquakes and smoldering flame. She would not be laughed at.

“I suppose that laughter will keep you warm at night, for I most certainly won’t!”

With a fierce stomp of her foot, she pointed towards the mountain tips above them.  Nothing happened immediately, but Enyo didn’t blink or waver.

Slowly, the winds picked up, the temperature dropped, clouds rolled in from some unknown destination.  Surely, it had been a bright and clear day before?

Alphonse shivered and looked around. Enyo was gone.

But the swirling cauldron of clouds overhead seemed omen enough for what the Goddess had done.

༄

Delyth’s eyes were fixated on the roiling mass of approaching weather, the sudden drop in temperature. She had never before seen a storm move so quickly.

Behind her, Etienne had rounded on Tristan. “Now look what you’ve done!”

“What I’ve done?” he snarled back. “You laughed too! It’s just as much your fault as mine. Just like everything else is.”

Delyth ignored them. She knew those clouds.

She knew what was coming.

“Stop!” Her voice was ice. “We need to find shelter now. I’ll go. You all pull on every fur you have.”

Alphonse