Chapter 131: Voices in the Capital
The team finally stands just beyond the border of the Dwarven Kingdom. Closer to their next goal than they’ve ever been.
The Desert Spirit bows low as she sees the group off.
"Thank you again. Truly." She says, "You’ve given my mother and me a second chance at everything." She straightens, smiling warmly, glowly softly. "I’ll pray to the Great Mother. To guide and protect you the rest of the way."
"Yeah, yeah!" Vuvi says, already turning to go. "Next time I see you, I want a flask. Made of diamonds!"
The Spirit laughs. "I’ll have two waiting."
"Two?" Vuvi mutters, already walking away. "Good idea. I’ll need one for backup, in case the first one gets stolen by another damn diety."
"Wise choice, m’lady." the Spirit calls after her.
Vuvi scoffs, spins to face the horizon, stops, "More forests." she groans. "Great!"
Miles and miles of rolling grassland stretch ahead of them, a dark, brooding forest beyond it, and far past even that, touching the sky itself, the jagged silhouette of the Western Fire Mountains, home of the Dwarven Kingdom.
"Oooooh... now I get why they’re called the Fire Mountains," Penelo says, shielding her eyes. "Look how the sunset lights up the clouds over the peaks. It looks like they’re actually burning. So cool!"
"No, um, actually," the Desert Spirit says brightly. "They’re called that because the Temple of the Flame Mother supposedly rests deep inside them."
"Nope!" Vuvi whips around, eyes wide with dawning horror. "No no no! We are going to the Dwarven Kingdom to pleasure some ladies, make some money, power Pip up, and MOVE. ON. No temples. No demi-goddesses. Dwarves. Money. Go!"
The team snickers in unison. "Right, right. Of course," Sera says solemnly. "Definitely. No temples."
Veena pouts. "A visit to the Flame Mother sounds fun, though."
"Agreed." Zora nods, "and I’m sure she’ll appreciate a visit from our Prince."
Vuvi levels her sharpest glare at them, but they all just laugh, walking on ahead.
"I’m just saying," Zora adds, drifting past with an armload of the Earth Mother’s gemstones still tucked under one arm, "the pattern does suggest a certain... inevitability."
"There is no pattern." Vuvi barks back.
"There is absolutely a pattern."
"THERE’S NO PATTERN!"
"The Seedmother’s," Zora counts off "Now the Earth Mother’s. And I’d wager a big, fat, ruby,|" he says, holding up a big, fat, ruby. "There’s a ’Flame Mother’ somewhere in those mountains with your name already carved into her guest registry."
Vuvi opens her mouth, says nothing and growls deeply from her chest instead, before she starts walking faster toward the horizon ahead of the rest.
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Meanwhile, far away, in the Royal Capital.
The Maiden Mother, Melissa, sits at her desk in the Cathedral of the Great Mother, reviewing the latest report from the Seventh Sister, Evania of Nettlehusk.
It confirms, again, in great, graphic detail, Pip’s divinity and gift of ’healing’. His mastery of water and verdant magic. His death and rebirth at the Great Mother’s own hand. His apparent growth, getting stronger with every passing week. The Saint Sister laments, again, that she could not bring the promised Prince into the Church’s fold. She notes, finally, that the team is now bound for the Dwarven Kingdom.
Melissa folds the report away neatly, then slams a flat hand against the desk in frustration. And immediately mutters a prayer to the Great Mother, asking forgiveness for her impatience, begging guidance on how to bring the Pleasure Prince into the Great Mother’s embrace, into the fold of her earthly home, her Great Church, as surely must be his destiny.
Silence answers her.
As it always does...
"Of course," She sighs, ringing a bell, which calls for one of the church’s sisters.
A young acolyte scurries in, and Melissa orders a message sent to the Eighth and Fifth Saint Sisters. They are to intercept the Prince and his team at the Dwarven Kingdom. The Prince must be brought under the Church’s guiding hands, by any means the Great Mother would deem acceptable.
The acolyte hurries off, and Melissa slumps back into her chair, mind drifting, unburdened, unbidden, thoughts swimming in a sea of detailed, breathless descriptions, the ones from the Saint Sister’s own reports.
Fact upon spine-shivering fact... of exactly what Pip’s gifts feel like.
"Oh! Great Mother, forgive me!" she yelps, finding her hands quietly digging themselves between her thighs without her consent.
She flushes with shame, chastising her own wandering thoughts.
"Those thoughts are perfectly natural~" a voice whispers, directly into her mind, a thought swimming behind her own like a song stuck in her head. "Even goddesses have them."
Melissa tumbles out of her chair completely. "The... oh, Great Mother?!" she stammers, scrambling to her knees, palms to the ceiling. "Is you that speaks to me?"
"Not quite..." a second voice answers, amused. "But the next best thing. Her daughters. The Sisters Of Mercy, at your service."
"We heard your prayers," a third chimes in. "We want to help you... to help the Prince."
Melissa drops to the floor completely, weeping openly with gratitude. "You were listening?! You were listening!"
"We always listen," the first voice says. "But now... it’s time for us to act. And we need your help to do so."
"Anything," Melissa breathes deeply. "Anything to achieve the Great Mother will."
The voices go quiet, whispering rapidly amongst themselves, just out of Melissa’s hearing.
"Is... is everything all right?" she asks nervously.
"Y-Yes!" they all answer, slightly out of sync. "It is just as you say... The Great Mother... wills it."
"I’m honored. Please tell me. What do you need me to do, Your Holiness...es?"
"We wish to enter the mortal realm. We’ll need three bodies. Strong ones." the first voice explains.
"Pure ones, capable of holding divine magic." the second adds.
"Pretty ones, please." pleads the third voice.
Melissa’s face lights up. "Of course! I know exactly the three."
"Perfect! See, I told you it will be easy, Nela!"
"Okay, okay. That was actually..."
"Shhhh!" the voices go quiet a moment, "Apologies, Maiden Mother, We’re ready whenever you are."
"Uhh... Understood, Oh, radiant ones," Mellsa replies reverently, "I’ll make preparations at once, and pray to you when the moment is right."
The voices fade with warm thanks for her devotion, and promises of great rewards.
Melissa wipes away tears of joy, and a few fleeting confusions, then bolts to her door and flings it wide, screaming down the corridor.
"Summon the First, Second, and Third Saint Sisters! IMMEDIATELY!", and softer, almost reverent, "... the Great Mother has spoken!"
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Back on the plains, the team ambles leisurely through waist-high grass under the warm light of Elthrea’s twin suns as they set below the eastern horizon.
Sera rides atop Frostlick, fingers combing idly through her mane. "You know," she says, nodding as she hops along on the hounds back, "I want a giant fluffy mount too. Veena, add it to the shopping list, would you?"
"I’ll consider it," Veena says with a non-committing chuckle, lounging beside Vuvi on a floating mattress that drifts along at walking pace, courtesy of Zora hovering nearby.
"Mounts aren’t a bad idea," Zora agrees. "Though I confess I’ve grown fond of being the team’s preferred mode of transport."
"You’re a pack mule with a vocabulary, Zora," Vuvi says, not opening her eyes.
"I prefer ’logistics specialist.’"
"And snack provider." Sera says as Veena tosses a creampuff directly into her mouth. "Puuuhfect!"
"A vital logistics function." Zora adds in agreement.
Sera pats Frostlick’s neck. "You’re just the cuddliest thing aren’t you?"
Frostlick, lets out a low, thoroughly pleased, growl.
Something screams past overhead at breakneck speed, close enough to ruffle every crimson hair on Vuvi’s head. She startles, sloshing her drink, and shakes a fist at the sky.
"PIP! SLOW DOWN YOU MENACE! I SWEAR TO THE GREAT MOTHER... YOUR CHASSIS’ BEING KEPT TOGETHER WITH TAR SLIME AND ETHER THREAD!"
"He’s magical manipulation is quite extraordinationary." Zora pipes up, clutching to his billowing coat. "It’s been barely a two days and he’s already mastered the basics of two new elements."
Above them, Penelo clings to Ka’Lula’s back and Raikya clings to Pip’s, both women shrieking directions as the construct and dragon-kin race each other across the plains in dizzying loops, sweeping across the grass at breakneck speeds.
Pip riding an increasingly fast vortex of wind at his feet, occasionally dodging sideways with a burst of water-jet propulsion from his palms, rocketing ahead of Ka’Lula who was chasing hot on his heels with a pair of massive dragon wings tearing smoke and embers through the sky behind her.
"LEFT! OTHER LEFT! WHY WOULD YOU GO RIGHT!" Raikya howls, one arm flung out to point uselessly at nothing as Pip banks hard the wrong way.
"HE’S DOING IT ON PURPOSE!" Penelo shrieks from Lula’s back, dazed and delighted. "HE LIKES WHEN WE SCREAM!"
"I KNOW HE LIKES WHEN WE SCREAM! THAT’S NOT THE ISSUE RIGHT NOW!"
Veena watches, sighing wistfully. "I genuinely don’t know what I did to deserve this life. But I’d do it all again. This is perfect." she smiles, popping a chocolate-coated strawberry in her mouth.
Vuvi throws an arm around her shoulder, smiling. "Something this good could only come from divine hands. We’re blessed, Veena. If this isn’t proof we’re doing right by the world, I don’t know what is."
A quiet moment of familial bliss is quickly shattered a few moments later when Frostlick suddenly goes rigid, nose in the air, a low growl rumbling in her chest, head snapping side to side.
"What’s wrong, girl?" Sera asks, sitting up straight.
"She’s probably just constipated." Vuvi says, lifting her glass. "All those jerky treats you keep feeding her... WAH!"
Vuvi’s glass explodes out of her hand, shattered as an arrow passes inches from her face.
She freezes in place instantly.
Dozens of masked figures rise up out of the tall grass around them in a wide, silent circle, bows and blades drawn, arrows trained on every member of the team at once.
Veena calmly pops a pastry into her mouth and sighs. "I wonder," she says, "what the Great Mother has planned for us this time."