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I won’t say that Morrígan entirely gave up on her desires, but she kept her advances to a minimum and limited her actions to some light groping and kissing.
Maybe she would have tried for more, but I remembered that I had come here with things to ask her and forced the issue.
“Your Majesty, I have to discuss certain matters with you. I must ask you to restrain yourself.”
“Awww,” she pouted teasingly. By the way, she still had her arms and tail wrapped around me.
“Your Majesty…” I squirmed to get out of her grasp.
“Oh, very well,” she said, in a (teasingly) huffy voice, and let me go. At least partially. Her impossibly flexible tail continued to wrap around mine and one arm remained around my waist.
She pursed her lips in thought, then stated, “You wanted to discuss whether you are truly the only one who can bear your mother’s new mortal vessel. Do I recollect correctly?”
“As expected, Your Majesty,” I nodded. “And you are one of only a very few acquaintances who might have sufficient wisdom to consider the question.”
She gave me a wry smile. “Really, rather than wisdom, what I have is the accumulation of millennia of stubborn research. I’ve yet to find the path to successfully recover Immortality, so I may not understand as much about the soul as you hope.”
Frustratingly, the matter of souls and cultivation was Senhion’s weakest subject. Having been born immortal, she never really needed to have an understanding of such things. Morrígan had been born an Elder and lost it to the Affliction in childhood, long before she had a chance to learn much about cultivation.
She had been reduced by her mother to a ‘Fragment’ in order to save her life. The procedure had been crude and simple. Destroy all of either the Monstrous or Magical flesh in the body, whichever was more infected with the dreaded disease. Then amputate all infected flesh that remained. All while keeping what little remained alive through Healing magic and regenerating it.
Thus, either the Monstrous half or the Magical half could live, but not both. The Fragments then had to survive on sheer healing magic and willpower, and reform into creatures capable of thriving naturally. They could only live as monsters or as magical creatures, never again living as hybrids like the Elders.
In a few cases, the Elder had themselves literally ripped in two first, because one side of their body was losing more of its Monstrous biology and the other was losing more of its Magical biology. The opposing treatments were applied to each half, in hopes that at least one of the halves would survive.
Senhion knew of one case, one of her own lieutenants, who had allowed herself to be torn apart in this manner, only for both halves to survive. In one Elder’s place now existed both a monstrous Fragment and a magical Fragment, two different individuals.
I wonder what became of the two? Did they live their lives thinking of each other as rivals or as sisters? I should see if Oberon knows.
Most of the monsters were initially freakish monstrosities, living up to the Earthly sense of the word. But, with patience, and Gaia’s help, they became the various Elder-descended monster races, the vampires, succubi, amazons and others. Or their children became these, patterned after the few Fragments who managed to make the leap themselves.
In contrast, the magical Fragments had a prototype in nature to follow, the pixies, who had existed since before Oranos and company arrived. They reformed into these almost instantly. And once Oberon was born and his physique demonstrated a more advanced pattern to follow, they began cultivating themselves into Lesser Fairies, a sort of crude facsimile of him, and eventually, True Fairies, modeled after him.
Morrígan had followed this path, from Fragment to Pixie to Lesser Fairy and finally to Greater Fairy. Very, very few managed to cultivate Greater Fairy bodies like she did. Oberon was the only male Greater Fairy for over a thousand years, and only a handful of women reached this primary Fairy form.
Most Elder Fragments eventually became the various fairies of nature instead, like Sylphs, Nymphs, Naiads, etc. Some remained Lesser Fairies, or even still remain pixies like Kiki. Although it remains a mystery to me how a pixie as powerful as Kiki could remain a pixie.
Other male Lesser Fairies did eventually cultivate into Greater Fairies, so that Oberon’s daughters did eventually have men of their own kind to approach, but it has been a slow process. Just as many of his children are hybrids with other kinds, like my half-Naiad mother, it was a long time before he had any Greater Fairy grandchildren.
I understand from Diurhimath, who told all of this to me, that the sum total of Elders who survived in this manner numbered in the hundreds, not the thousands. The great majority of Fragments died as Fragments after lingering on for some time, and the great majority of today’s fairies and Elder-descended monsters are descendants of the few survivors and the Fragments who had offspring before they perished.
“Esteemed Mother-in-Law, have you fallen asleep with your eyes open?”
I jerked back to awareness. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty!”
That has been happening to me a lot lately. The more my mind expanded, the more it was prone to wandering, getting lost in the flood of memories and knowledge.
Her bright laughter filled the forest surrounding the pool.
“What made you so distracted? I was sorely tempted to play a prank on you.”
I smiled. “Your comment reminded me of the terrible path you have been on, for the last ten thousand years.”
“It was hardly as terrible as yours, Little One. Nor as confusing. The you that I’m holding in my arms seems at one time like a child and at another like an ancient celestial maiden.”
Yeah, she just called me ‘Little One’, Inanmi, like Grandmother does.
I smiled. “I seem to be both. It’s confusing for me, too. But it’s the child who needs advice, Your Majesty. And you seem to be the only one in this world I can ask.”
“You said I was one of the few, previously.”
“The others are the three main gods, and my immortal mother. I’m hoping to get a hold of her, but the gods…”
“I heard some distrust in them in your voice during dinner.”
“I don’t want to distrust them!” I retorted, my frustrations welling up. “It’s just… how can it be possible that I’m the only one? That Mother has to become like me?”
“Well, I hope you do not mind, but I called in some colleagues for you to consult.”
“Colleagues?” I echoed. Then I realized that a pair of presences were suddenly wading into the pool at the other end. I looked in that direction…
Then I looked away immediately, while wrapping my arms around my bosom and hunching down into the water.
“Your Majesty!” I protested.
Two men, being Diur and a complete stranger, were swimming our way now. Fortunately, things below my hips are concealed in my marine form, but I was still topless!
“Relax, Esteemed Mother-in-Law. They’re both perfect gentlemen.”
“What if my fiancée heard about this?!”
“If you avoid mentioning your state of dress, it’s just a discussion between four people?”
I rolled my eyes, then concentrated and formed my raiment. It isn’t great, it’s somewhat see-through, but it’s better than naked. I still kept one arm over my chest.
Composing myself, I tipped my head and stated, “Mr. Diurhimath, you look much better than when I saw you last.”
He nodded. “I am, and my deepest thanks for your efforts that preserved my life, Your Highness.”
I shook my head. “It was only natural to do that much for an ally.”
He chuckled. “It’s been very humbling, during my recovery, to become aware of exactly how arrogant I was back then. I actually dealt with a legion commander as if she were a child. I hope you can forgive me.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing to forgive, sir. I was still very early in the process of recovering my memories, and I still have a long way to go even now. It’s a fact that you were dealing with a child, and to some extent, you still are.”
As a legion commander, I was one of the twenty four most powerful individuals on the planet. Worse, as commander of one of the three original legions, I held a de facto seniority over the rest. A mere technician from the twenty-fourth legion, the very last one formed, would understandably consider me as high above himself as an Elder could be.
He nodded. “When you identified yourself back then, I perceived that, and the fact that you had very little access to your original memories, and continued treating you as a juvenile, but the speed of the progress you have made since then has been so extreme, I thought perhaps I judged wrong.”
“You judged correctly, and I am very grateful for your help,” I replied, then looked at the other man.
Everything my fairy and vampire eyes perceived told me that this man was a human. An extraordinarily well-muscled, heroic sort of human, but mortal nonetheless. But my spiritual senses were screaming something entirely different.
An Immortal.
I bowed my head and addressed him.
“I am Tiana of the High Forest. I am also the reincarnation of Senhion, Commander of the Third Legion of Stewards. Good Evening, Senior. May I ask how you came to be in the Mortal Realm?”
The corners of his mouth curled up the moment I said ‘Senior’ and he was positively beaming with approval by the end of my sentence.
“I’ve been here the entire time, Commander. We’ve actually met a few times in the past. Although we did so in Illusory Reality, while I was wearing my natural form.”
I frowned. For a very brief moment, I thought this might be Oranos wearing a mortal avatar, but nothing about what I saw agreed with that idea. This was no avatar but rather a true human body… and, while Oranos could probably disguise his aura and prevent me from recognizing him, that would be completely out of character.
“By the ‘entire time’ you mean…”
“Since long before you came to this world, my dear celestial maiden. My sisters and I continue to observe, and act when needed, as we were doing when your husband and wives first arrived.”
My hackles rose instantly. The only immortals before Oranos and company were…
Then I relaxed. No, a different group had also been here, a sort of Immortal recondo squad. They were even still mentioned in the Atian religion. And they fit what my senses were telling me far better than the Evil God or any of his ancient brethren would.
“You are male, so you must be… Briareos?” I suggested.
He nodded, his approving smile growing once again. “Indeed. Shall I call you ‘Your Highness’?”
A little stunned, I stammered, “You may address me however you wish, Senior.”
During the end of the primeval age and the rule of the old gods, the Hekatoncheires had been observers from Heaven, sent by powers far above Senhion, powers that she assumed were about the same level as Oranos. And, unlike the celestial maidens like me who descended, the Hekatoncheires were also Immortals of equal level to Oranos. But they weren’t in this world to fight the ancient gods. They were here as observers. As spies, frankly.
Atians fit the Hekatoncheires into their mythos by making them children of Gaia, the same as the Ancient Greeks did. Greek mythos gave all three of them, Briareos, Kottos and Gyges, masculine identities, but on Huade, Kottos and Gyges are female. So this one had to be Briareos.
Both Atians and Ancient Greeks describe them as bizarre beings with fifty heads and a hundred arms. Hence their name, ‘Hekatoncheires’, meaning ‘Hundred-Handed Ones’. But there is a more straightforward and less anatomically challenging way to have fifty heads and a hundred arms. Just inhabit fifty normal anthropoid bodies simultaneously. They do so in order to have sufficient capacity to host an Immortal soul. And I was currently addressing one of those bodies, while the other forty nine did whatever, somewhere else.
He smiled and noted, “We usually have more than fifty bodies at a time. Fifty would actually be quite a very low number of mortal bodies to accomplish the goal of maintaining our presence here in the Mortal Realm.”
“Then, rather than ‘how did you come to be here’, I should ask, ‘why are you still here, Senior?’ Didn’t you leave this world during the Elder Age?”
He nodded. “We only put our mortal vessels into hibernation for a time, Your Highness. Unlike you Elders, we are not considered proper denizens of the mortal realm, so Immortal Law prevented us from doing much to help. We reawakened our bodies after the demise of your species. Our role as observers had again become necessary once it was clear that the old gods were still causing trouble.”
Morrígan explained, “Briareos is lending his assistance to us, in the matter of the mysterious gidim and the dark spirit parasites, as he is likely to be immune to them. I thought he, and Diurhimath, as an Elder, might be of assistance regarding your questions.”
