I'm saying sorry in advance for making this. I hate it already lol
Uhhh don't worry all of my muts and followers I AM still making that Beach Bear art. I just needed this- NO actually I was forced to make this... yea...
It has been years since the fall of her God, years since she set out to bring His unruly flock to heel, years since this particular sheep continued twisting out of her grasp. A situation that was fully expected. Prinnsal, after all, had been one of the honour guard, a soldier she had trained herself, far above any of the little grunts that had died so easily under the stroke of her whip. She would have almost been disappointed with him if he hadn’t managed to evade her for this long.
Almost.
His performance in the hunt was much outweighed by her need to return to the city in a prompt manner. Time moved slowly, but still it moved, and there was no telling what the angels left behind might have done with the city of her God, without her there to take the lead.
Yes, pleasing as the fugitive’s skills had been, she needed to find him soon. Find him, end him, return to her proper station. Only when he died, when the last of the fugitives finally felt the squeeze of her whip against his throat and coughed out the blood of his treachery, would her task be complete. She would be able to move on.
Her thoughts ended there.
Find him, kill him, return to the city. The future beyond that was black and faceless, Unorganized, uncoordinated. All she could count on was that when she came back, something within her would stir. Something within her would tell her what to do next.
At least she hoped it would.
Without guidance, there was no life for her, no future to be found.
She had to kill Prinnsal.
The room he must have inhabited only a day ago was now cold and empty. She had turned it upside down and failed to find a single clue to where he was heading, what future might that crooked, broken mind of his have devised for his own benefit.
That was perfectly alright though.
Coretha had more ways to locate her prey than physical traces he left behind.
The small statue of Lurza was carefully tucked in the side of her bag. As soon as Coretha’s fingers touched the smooth marble, a warmth blossomed through her, a dizzying feeling that was her God’s not her own. His devotion, His love, His obsession. When she held the statue, she could hardly think of anything else but the Goddess behind it, the one that had stolen her God’s heart, the one He did everything for. And the one for who Coretha, as His extension, would also do anything for.
But it was never Lurza that answered the called, the prayer, that Coretha directed towards the statue.
And maybe that was for the best, because the one who did answer brought a glow into the dreary room that Coretha had never even been aware of until Lurza’s emissary answered her prayers that very first night she had called.
Irinia’s wings spread out behind her as she appeared, almost as wide as the room itself. Her skin practically glowed a warm brown, the rushing strength of her Goddess giving her shadow a golden glow. A peaceful expression rested on her face and peace spread from her arms as she opened them, setting them wide as if she was about to embrace the world as a whole. As if she was about to embrace Coretha.
There were no words that Coretha has been programmed with that could explain the way Irinia’s presence made her feel. She could only imagine that this was how her kin had felt when they were born from Rezasel’s still whole mind so many eons ago. This warmth that seeped through clothes and skin, settling into Coretha’s bones. This tranquillity that set her heart in it’s place like nothing else on earth ever did. This total, complete acceptance that just for a moment made Coretha feel like she was a being whole, not a being shattered.
“You called upon my Lady’s guidance?” Irinia’s voice was a chirping of birds, the first warm breeze of spring. Her eyes fluttered open and Coretha caught herself almost tipping into her gaze, attracted to that gentleness like a migratory bird finding it’s way home.
Coretha tightened her grip around the hilt of her whip, reminding herself to breath, to centre herself to time and place and not a person her broken soul longed for. It was hardly appropriate, to set something like this, a strange, eluding feeling, above one’s life function. Both her’s and Irinia’s.
“I’m still tracking the same escapee,” she said, tension seeping out of her shoulders when Irinia showed no derision towards her inadequacies. “He keeps dodging me. I need a hint. If Lady Lurza would be so kind to provide.”
Sadness clouded Irinia’s features for just a moment, casting her face in a shadow of uncertainty. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared. She closed her eyes. Coretha knew her wishes would not be fulfilled.
“My Lady concerns herself not with dealings of your Lord anymore,” Irinia whispered, the slightest touch of pity dyeing her tone blue. “I cannot provide guidance for you, and I implore you not to bother my Lady with such trifling things again.”
Coretha bowed her head. There was nothing more to be said of the topic, despite how that little thorn of resentment stung at her. The frantic adoration for the Lurza still burned in her veins just as it had burned in the veins of her God. But something else still rested beside it in her heart. The bitter feeling she had to chew through every time the Goddess refused to acknowledge any part of Rezasel’s legacy still left upon the earth.
She kept her head bowed as Irinia’s light started to fade, slowly making her way back to the plane that Coretha had never once in her short, painful life laid eyes upon. Warmth seeped out of the room, out of Coretha’s body, with her retreat, leaving the inner workings of Coretha’s mind once again spinning and frantic.
“It is not my Lady’s word, but I have observed your escapee.” The soft whisper, a confession of a crime, floated almost undetectably to Coretha’s ears once Irinia was almost only light. Coretha’s heart lurched in her chest, but she kept her head down as if she didn’t hear a thing. As if there was nothing being said. “He’s quite a bold one. He has made his nest with the predators of our kind. Find them and you will find him. That is all I can tell you.”
Coretha closed her eyes, committing that information and that gentle, reassuring tone to her memory.
“Do stay safe. I’ll stay listening.” The light whispered one last time, before being extinguished entirely.
Coretha righted herself, squared her shoulders against the returning cold and the ice picks lodging themselves into her spine. She would not let this information go to waste. She would find Prinnsal and bring along his end.
Lorenz crushing hard on Leonie and trying SO HARD to be distant yet polite and put his effort into finding a “proper noble woman.”
Then he and Dorothea have their b support conversation and right at the end, Leonie walks by and waves and Lorenz, who was just leaving the dining hall, trips over a chair and smacks into the wall. A bunch of people try to make sure he’s okay but he escapes as soon as possible.
But there’s Dorothea right outside, CACKLING LIKE. “OH I GET IT NOW. It’s not that I’m a commoner, it’s that I’m not one specific commoner, eh Lorenz?”
“I beg you to please stop talking at once.”
“Well, I’m off to the cathedral anyway. I have to offer up my thanks to the goddess for allowing me to witness such a blessed gift of irony.”
