Chapter 17 #2
They also shift to massive sizes when beseeched by The Fate Court. Though, the necessity is rare.
One by one, the avians break away and dash through the air. They sail about, chasing phosphorescent motes in a beautiful dance.
It’s magical, a term that has grown bland to Sorrow, so commonplace that its resonance has been diluted. When was the last time she saw or felt something that was truly remarkable? Anything to which she hadn’t developed an immunity? Anything that reminded her how breathtaking magic can be?
An ambiguous emotion scrapes her throat raw. “I had no idea,” she exhales. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I was a stripling when I first came upon this cove,” Envy murmurs.
“I got lost in the enclave and ended up here, where I almost drowned in a bottomless vortex. Like in any realm, no environment is ever fully safe, dangerous, grim, or divine. It’s routinely both.
You can know all there is about your world, but you’ll never understand everything.
This place reminds me there’s infinitely more to discover.
” He huffs under his breath. “It sounds trite, I’m fully aware. ”
“No. It isn’t,” she says. “But even if that were the case, don’t you mind sounding trite in front of me?”
His voice sobers, as does his expression. “Not tonight.”
So either this god feels comfortable being transparent in her company, or she’s just that inconsequential. Envy curates the universe’s impression of him. Everyone but her, perhaps because she matters so little.
The herons drop and fly around the cove. Some of them skate along the water’s surface, scattering translucent beads of liquid.
Sorrow does her utmost to ignore the strange grip on her ribs. “It doesn’t sound trite,” she repeats. “It sounds like you’re an outcast, like the rest of us.”
“A fashionable outcast,” Envy improvises, placing a finger against his smooth mouth. “Shh. It will be our secret.”
“It’s only been several hours. Are we already leveling up which secrets we share?”
The god tilts his head, his eyes squinting in a way that’s too sexy to be tolerated. “Dear me, was that another quip? Is the Goddess of Sorrow teasing again?”
She shoves his shoulder. They twist, reclining across from each other, their backs lounging against the rocks. Speechless, they admire the scene, piebald in a swirl of darkness and lightness.
Envy once chastised Love for idling in the evergreens while she served the mortal realm. Maybe his judgment had been a front back then, a persona he’d adopted, the picture of a haughty god.
Case in point, the closer their crewmates grow, the less Envy ridicules Love’s fetish for climbing trees. In fact, he commends it these days, just as he endorses Wonder’s habit of meditating.
The herons rotate. As they spiral, the whole place ignites.
Sorrow’s profile feels the tangible caress of Envy’s gaze, the force brushing every inch of her skin. She peeks behind her hair and finds him maintaining an indolent sprawl.
“What?” she says, defensive.
“You’re smiling,” he answers, serious.
She would have expected him to gloat, to praise himself for diverting her. On the contrary, the god appears perplexed, as though he’s never seen anyone smile and doesn’t know how to interpret it.
Sorrow can’t fathom what to do with her grin, invisible to her eyes yet balanced precariously on her face like a puzzle piece that has come loose. Getting a grip, she reassembles the muscles of her countenance, rearranging them into an impervious expression. Something sarcastic, dignified, or both.
Yet he’s still watching her. His broad features absorb Sorrow like a sponge, consuming every facet.
She smacks the grass. “Stop doing that!”
His lips twitch. “I can’t help it. Your face is doing such peculiar things, lifting in places, crinkling in others. I’ve never seen it change structure like this. Tell me, is the smile heavy? Or was it weightless until I pointed it out?”
“You are the most pompous motherfucker in the galaxy.”
“That may have to do with my being—what’s it called? A deity? A pride god?”
“Just watch the fauna, not me.”
“As a youth, I tried talking with them.” Envy slants his head, a lock of his mane slipping off his shoulders. “Not that they understood me.”
“You never know.” She surveys the avians as they soar through the cove. “What would it be like to live as fully as animals do? To live as unbridled as nature does? Do you think we would thrive or collapse?”
“You sound enthralled,” Envy remarks.
“Yeah, I must be in a sappy mood.”
“You must be. Either that, or it has to do with present, masculine company.”
“Don’t let this night go to your head. That cranium is already full enough, and I doubt anything else can fit in there.”
“Wanna bet?”
Fates forbid. He’s been granted the expansive features of a river. Flawless, smooth, and vast. Destiny spoiled him, which is saying something considering deities thrive on perfection.
Sorrow is hardly ignorant of her own looks. Despite Envy’s harassment over the millennia, she’s aware that she’s pretty. Yet she doesn’t care. For her, it’s a trivial fact, not something to celebrate. And she’d rather be honest than beautiful.
Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she says, “Thanks for this.”
Impressed, Envy quirks a brow. “I’m all ears. Thanks for what? Dare I say, you’ve experienced a moment of serenity in this cove? Pleasure?”
“Quit while you’re ahead, asshole.”
“One more request, and then I vow to hold my tongue, provided you don’t use it for other purposes.”
She shifts in place, suddenly restless. “What’s the request? And you had better not say a lap dance.”
“Show me pain.”
Sorrow reels back. If she had been drinking something, she’d have spit it out. Or if she were eating something, she would have choked. “What kind of request is that?”
Envy turns away, his eyes landing on a distant point. “You ponder what it would be like to live as fully as nature. Alas,” he mock-sighs. “That means relinquishing control. Thus, what you said about me avoiding pain, the same way you avoid pleasure? Let no one call the God of Envy a coward.”
That’s probably the closest she’ll get to him admitting she was right.
“I showed you a decadent evening,” he prompts. “Now it’s your turn. Show me pain as only you can.”
“This is madness,” she insists. “This whole night is madness, all the things we’ve been doing and saying. We’re in the middle of a war.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but war hasn’t begun yet. Our people have no clue we’re here, save for a few ambitious deities. For how long? Who knows. But the fight hasn’t started, and something tells me it won’t in the next couple of days.”
“A year ago, we would have predicted it would take generations for us to finish negotiating, before resorting to battle. Look how fast everything is happening.”
“That depends on how long this has been brewing under the surface. It took The Court eons to create a Goddess of Love. At which point, that very goddess turned out to be a renegade who fell for a human, changing the course of our people. Perhaps The Stars had this plan in mind. Thus, this was always our destiny, and we’ve been preparing without knowing it.
Otherwise, yes, it would have taken ages for the negotiations to fail.
That we’re susceptible to such a rapid change of heart can’t be incidental. ”
“Fine, but teaching you about pain isn’t as easy as teaching me pleasure.”
“I’ll do my utmost not to take offense to that,” Envy drawls.
“I can’t just map out a lesson plan,” Sorrow insists.
He raises a single obsidian eyebrow, illustrating what he thinks of that statement. Yet no deity in their right mind should make this request, asking the Goddess of Sorrow to show them grief, melancholy, and sadness.
Be that as it may, pragmatism sets in. They could do this, become friends, show each other pleasure and pain without involving physical contact. As she theorized earlier, it might supply them with a new kind of strength to benefit this campaign.
It will also take their minds off that infernal legend.
This challenge won’t be about the latter.
It will be practical, an efficient kind of training.
If Sorrow and Envy establish an alternative connection, something that evolves from antagonist rivalry to genuine fellowship, they will have more to contribute.
If they’re unwilling to force amorous emotions, this might atone for that decision.
When Sorrow communicates this, Envy nods. Maybe he’d been thinking along the same lines.
Technically, she should start slowly. However, they don’t have that kind of time. In less than three days, he must leap, crash, and break.
Like a waterfall. Like a rapid.
On that score, she’ll have to do it with him. This needs to be consensual, the lessons of pleasure and pain.
Herons commune amid the foliage. One winged soul sneaks up on Sorrow and settles beside her on spindle limbs. Then without a farewell, it launches into the air and rejoins its allies.
She’s aware of the shift in her features, the smile that manifests. Sorrow turns to Envy, who witnessed the exchange, who’s waiting for her answer.
“Deal,” she says.