Godsforsaken

Chapter 38: A Proper Victory Celebration I

I left Athena behind in that alley, her ragged breathing growing harsher and harsher with each step I took. By the time I left the alley proper her breathing sounded like something halfway between growling and sobbing and I half expected her to come rushing out of that alley and strangle me to death but she didn't.

Instead I set out to find my girls.

Selene was talking to one of Albrecht's wives, the cleric of the Aesir with the huge battleaxe strapped to her back. They were talking animatedly about fighting when I reached them and I was very pleasantly surprised to find Selene with her sleeves rolled up as the two women compared the scars they had received in battle.

“You fight well,” she told me as I stepped up next to Selene. “Few can keep up with my idiot husband like you did.”

“But you can,” I said. “Right?” Gods I hoped she wouldn't take this as me mocking her. She was impressively muscular for a woman. Not quite the buffest woman I'd ever seen but unlike those she still looked quite feminine, her curves not wholly taken over by her musculature. Although she did look strong enough to make Electra and Cora from the Atalanta cult look like blushing maidens.

“It's not the same,” she said, though with a wistful smile rather than an annoyed expression. “He holds back with me, even when he promises not to. He didn't with you.”

“I suppose.”

“What about you two, then?” she asked. “You spar?”

“He taught me most of what I know about fighting,” Selene said. “I didn't know anything when I was Chosen.”

“A common problem,” the cleric said with a nod. “Is she a good student?”

“Too good,” I said with a smile. “If she keeps learning like this I'll have to find someone better than myself to keep training her.”

“You're just saying that,” Selene said, as she often did when I brought up the subject.

“He isn't,” the cleric said to my surprise. “I can see the pride he has for you.”

Even in the firelight surrounding us I could see Selene blush.

“Say, what's your name?” I finally asked. “We weren't introduced.”

“Sigrun,” she said.

Of course it was.

Before I could say anything she looked back at Selene and said: “If you truly want to grow stronger, ask our goddess. She will help you. If you accept, I shall come and help you train.”

Selene gave a deep nod of her head. “Thank you. I'll think about it.”

**

“You didn't have to come with,” I said as I made my way to find Anna, Selene in tow. “You could have kept talking to her.”

“It was fun to talk to her but I really want to get to bed.”

“Have you not had enough?” I asked.

“Not after seeing you like that,” she said. “That was...”

“I didn't think fighting turned you on so much.”

“Normally it doesn't,” she said. “But seeing you beating a legend? Beating the Albrecht? And then seeing you looking at us all like we're pieces of meat?”

“Did I...?” I hadn't even noticed that.

“Oh yes.”

I shook it off as we found Anna talking to Atalanta.

The two of them were a funny juxtaposition. On the one side was Anna, an actual royal but more down to earth than any noble I had ever met, while on the other side was Atalanta, a woman who carried herself like a queen, tended to by her wives and husbands. A less kind person might also see another juxtaposition in the fact that Atalanta was fairly curvy where Anna... wasn't.

But despite the differences the two of them were clearly getting along famously, with Anna venting about her experiences with Electra and Cora.

“I have no excuses,” Atalanta said. “Anyone who can't notice at a glance how formidable you are shouldn't be leading my cult.”

“In all fairness, I was wearing a dress when we went there,” Anna said.

“No matter,” Atalanta said. “I enjoy wearing dresses from time to time. I'd still consider anyone a fool who considered me weak because of it.” A few of her husbands got dreamy looks on their faces when she mentioned wearing dresses. I was sure she could pull it off but I couldn't really imagine it with her toned body and bronzed skin.

As we stepped up behind Anna she turned around, smiled and then leaned back into Selene and me, pressing her back into us.

Atalanta got a silly smile on her face as she looked at me. “Ah. I had wondered if they all just flocked around you or enjoyed each other as well.”

“We are all precious to each other,” I confirmed, then looked at the way her lovers fawned over her but not each other. “What about you?”

She chuckled. “This is mostly for show. In private we're not so very different from you lot.”

“Why bother with the charade, then?”

“It's fun pretending to be a god queen,” she said with a silly smile. Then one of her wives added:

“People tend to underestimate us when they think we're just mindless sycophants.”

“That's stupid though,” I said. “Anyone can tell you're all Heroes in your own right.”

The wife who had spoken gave me a dopey smile that would have been extremely convincing if I hadn't known better. “Even if they know it intellectually, they'll forget so long as we don't act the part.”

I smiled. “I'll keep that in mind next time Anna is forced to talk to other nobles.”

“You could never act like a clueless servant, Felix,” Anna told me.

“I could though,” Selene said. “They always treat the peasant girl like an idiot.”

I hated the way she said it but I couldn't disagree. Even I sometimes forgot just how sharp she was, even if she hadn't enjoyed the best education and sometimes had to ask for clarification.

“I think I'll leave you three to it, then,” Atalanta said. “Go enjoy the night.”

“You don't have to,” Anna said.

In response Atalanta very pointedly cupped the ass cheeks of her closest husband and her closest wife. “I didn't say it out of altruism.”

I snorted. “Enjoy yourselves.”

**

We found Yume sitting by herself, nursing a stacked plate of food on a little balcony that overlooked most of the settlement. The house was built atop a small hill and the balcony was accessible via flight of stairs outside the building, clearly meant for anyone to just walk up. It was a nice little place and it showed the celebration in a different light.

Where it had looked like a celebration of camaraderie with no divisions from the ground, from up here it was something else entirely. There were distinct cliques of people, grouped together and with clear boundaries between each.

“Are they split apart by faith?” I wondered aloud, causing Yume's fox ears to prick up.

“By age,” she said quietly.

I frowned as I looked at them. All groups consisted of people of clearly wildly differing ages, though age wasn't as clear as it was among the living. There was clearly some mechanism that made Heroes age back to their prime but it wasn't perfect. The ones who had died old held themselves a different way than those who had died in the summertime of youth, though it was less about them looking more frail and more about them looking more content, like they'd managed to accomplish more while alive. Naturally. I'm sure I'd die much more content if I managed to sire children before I had to go.

Whoa, where had that thought come from?

I shook it off.

“They seem fairly mixed,” Anna said, saving me from looking stupid.

Yume shook her head and I finally got it.

“You mean what age they were born in,” I said, “right?”

“Precisely,” she said. “They all prefer to talk to people who were born around the same time as them, regardless of how long they actually lived.”

“So, which group would you belong in, then?” Selene asked.

Yume had never given us her precise age. I knew it had to be somewhere between fifty and ninety due to her number of tails but I had never asked for the specific number. It didn't matter much to me. I loved her either way.

“Those,” Yume said, indicating a fairly small group. “Though I wonder why there are so few of them.”

“Either a peaceful time or a cowardly one,” I said.

“The former,” she said. “We didn't have much to talk about. I suppose me being from another kingdom has a lot to do with it, though.”

I suppressed the wince. Yume already tended to feel like she didn't belong, here in this kingdom where nobody looked like or acted like her. Normally she hid that by sticking close to me during big gatherings. Come to think of it...

“You could have stayed by my side rather than moping up here,” I said gently.

“Who's moping?” she asked with a wicked smirk. “I had an excellent view of what you did to Athena.”

“What did he do?” Anna asked.

“Something I will need to reward him for later,” she husked and I suddenly realized the smell of plums and cinnamon wasn't coming from her food. It was all her.

**

As we returned back to the celebration to find Alisha the little elf found us first, practically flinging herself at me. I knew her so well that just from the way she kissed me, just from the way she pressed herself against me, I could tell she needed me, and quick.

“Is there some room we can have?” I asked. My girls were crowding around me as if Alisha had burst a dam by tackling me, each of them pawing at me or rubbing themselves against me in some way.

“I already found us one,” Alisha said, half dragging half leading us to something that kind of looked like an inn if you squinted at it.

I was practically manhandled into the room, four increasingly horny women pushing and shoving and dragging me into the building, up the stairs and into a room that Alisha produced a key for.

The room held a single huge bed and a couple light crystals set into the ceiling to illuminate the whole thing. The girls shoved me onto the bed and were immediately on me again.

“What's gotten into you all?” I asked as they began tearing first my armor and then my clothes off me.

“I told you,” Selene said. “I want to reward my lover the legend slayer.”

“What she said,” Anna told me, yanking my boots off. “You awed everyone on the Elysian Fields but only the four of us get to have you.”

“Not just the four of us,” Yume said. “After seeing what you did to Athena in that alleyway I need you. Now.”

Alisha had nothing more to add. She simply pulled my tunic off and then kissed me, so much love and adoration sparkling in her eyes I thought I might drown in them.

Finally I was naked, with four nearly ravenous women looming over me, ready to pounce.