Chapter 167: Omen – Chapter 156: Winds of Change

GamingWolf

If you want more stuff to read and like solid worldbuilding and good characters, go and read Peculiar Soul by TMarkos. He also has two other finished stories that I can, and will, recommend, Grand Design and Inheritors of Eschaton.

Have a good day! :)

Caethya stretched out her arms and let out a small giggle as the wind blew past her. Aperio took her love’s enthusiasm as an invitation to go just a little bit faster. A strong beat of her wings pushed her past the resistance she felt in the air, the sound of Caethya's voice now fully drowned out by the noise of the air rushing past her, the roar of which continued on more than a bit behind them.

The Demigoddess caught on quickly enough, her voice now brushing past the edges of Aperio's mind instead. For a moment the All-Mother feared that she might have gone overboard, but her love only wanted to let her know that she was fine. Happy, even. Perhaps I should figure out how to give Caethya wings?

While neither she nor anyone else technically needed wings to fly, using them made the experience all the more enjoyable. At least for me. How anyone else felt about soaring through the sky was not something she knew, or even cared about. What she did care about was that it helped her think — helped her clear her mind.

Aperio shifted, only holding onto her love by one hand as a touch of magic ensured that Caethya would continue to fly beside her. Smiling slightly as she gave her love a taste of 'solo' flight, with another thought she caused the roaring of the air that raced past them to cease. The wind still pressed against the two of them as it did before, but the All-Mother had told the noise it made to kindly go elsewhere; a request the universe seemed happy to oblige.

"Do you think the Vinmaiers will adhere to the judgement I make?" Aperio asked as she turned herself to face the sky above them.

Caethya pulled herself onto Aperio, ignoring the quirked brow the action got her. "On the surface they will," she said, trying to find something to hold onto. "But they — and probably everyone else that does what they do — will try something, even if they know that you are the literal Creator of the universe."

The All-Mother wrapped her arms around Caethya again before she beat her wings and turned herself over once more. "But why?" she asked as the two of them passed a few random islands far below them. "Do they not realise that I will punish them?"

"How should I put this," Caethya began, lightly tapping at Aperio's arms that held her as she thought. The Demigoddess seemed to not be bothered by — or even question — the fact that the two of them were currently darting through the sky across a nearly empty ocean at speeds that probably defied physics. "The… 'concept' of what you are is hard to grasp outside of a myth. I know that you can do what you and others claim you can, but most people don't. To them it mostly seems like far-fetched stories, even if they have met you.

"If you had basically anyone else with us now," she continued, "they would probably be screaming and fearing for their lives. Or be weirded out by the fact that flying around like this helps you think and doesn’t seem to bother me either."

"It's just a better version of pacing around," Aperio countered as she beat her wings again, causing them to break through the clouds and to near the edges of Verenier's atmosphere. "And why would they have trouble believing that I can do what I claim I can? Mortals had no issue believing in deities they could not even talk to while Verenier was cut off." Plus they can see me break reality by merely existing.

Just taking in slightly more mana from her well caused it to leave her body and casually float around her. Not something she had ever seen happen to anybody else. The same was true for her aura being strong enough to break wards. At least it stopped happening on its own. That she had to be honest about what she was in order to stop her aura from conflicting with her own creation was another thing that Aperio would solidly place into the column of weird.

"I don't know how else to explain it," Caethya replied, offering a shrug. "Having someone tell you something and actually understanding it are vastly different, as you can see right now." The Demigoddess paused for a moment before she reached out, placing one hand on Aperio's cheek. "No matter what they do, I will be here for you."

"They should thank you for that when the time comes," Aperio mumbled, her voice perfectly clear as her magic held the noise of the raging winds at bay. "Without you, I would probably do something I would regret." Like killing them all…

"It would probably still be the right choice," Caethya said as she tried her best to give her love a hug as the two of them raced through the sky.

Aperio took what she thought was a hint and twisted reality apart. A moment later the two of them appeared lying in space with Verenier hanging above them. The Demigoddess immediately wrapped her arms more tightly around the All-Mother and slowly ran her hands over her love's wings.

"How much time do we have before you have to judge the mortals?"

"A few hours," Aperio replied as she let her aura inform her of the current time in Ebenlowe. "A few hours in which I intend to do nothing but lie here." And try to clear my head enough to not murder them all… Her hopes for both the mortals she had to judge and the people that had enslaved them were not very high.

"That sounds good to me," Caethya said before placing a kiss on the All-Mother's cheek. "Just remember that you are not alone in this."

Jester slowly lowered the glass he had been holding back onto the table, his hand shaking the entirety of the way. His meeting with the [Grandmaster] had been going pretty well until a winged Elf had barged into her office. He had acted like he should in the moment, showing the lowly creature that he did not care for it. That was a mistake. That 'lowly creature' was not as low as he had initially assumed, and in fact was not even a mere mortal like he was.

He had tasked Lita with observation, having her stay behind to try to listen to the conversation that supposed Elf had with the [Grandmaster]. That plan had not worked whatsoever as the leader of the [Guides] had made sure nobody would be able to hear what was going inside her office. At least she kept her word. The woman had told him that — no matter the request — nobody would be able to listen in.

A small sliver of doubt had surfaced in his mind as soon as Lita had come back to tell him that the Elf was in fact the All-Mother. That was what all the [Guides] that scurried around were talking about while doing their work. She was the very being he and the entire Order of Inaru despised so much. The one they blamed for the sick order of the world. Why had she given Elves and Dwarves a longer life? Why had she made the Dragons as attuned to the magics of the world as they were? Why had she given Humanity only the scraps of her creation?

In the end, it mattered not. What the other races had received in gifts, Humanity had made up for with ingenuity and adaptability. Jester doubted it was a coincidence that Humans ruled Verenier during the absence of the All-Mother, something he only felt himself reassured of now that he saw that she had molded the Elves after herself.

"Are you alright, Master?" Lita asked as she ran her hands over his shoulders and down his chest. The subtle, yellow glow of her eyes reflected slightly in the glass he had placed on the table, causing him to let out a sigh. Sometimes he truly wondered if Lita actually enjoyed the magic they had carved into her insides.

"No," Jester mumbled. "I'm not 'alright'. I basically told the literal Creator to go fuck herself. All I can do is hope that she doesn't know noble etiquette well enough to understand what I did and that her little… pet Elf doesn't tell her." He rubbed his temples. "Because Miss Martinek definitely knows the meaning of my lack of respect."

"You know her?"

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"Of her," he corrected. "It's hard not to. The wonder child of the Martinek family, basically a master mage by the age of sixteen." Jester picked up his glass, drowning the last bit of liquor inside before slamming it back down. "The nobles talked about nothing else when they heard that she was coming to Ebenlowe to visit our dungeon.

After a long moment of silence in which Lita continued to slowly move her hands over his chest, Jester let out another sigh. "What can I do…"

Most of his plans no longer worked with the All-Mother as an opponent. Bringing back Inaru — a God of Slavery — would not end well, and neither would it help if he took the dead God’s place like he had planned. From what Aperio had said, Jester gathered that she had attended the most recent meeting of the Council and had met his mother. And did not like what she had to say.

That was to be expected, however; Aperio was after all the antithesis to everything they wanted to achieve. And, sadly, she was likely able to achieve her goals before any mortal could even make a move. The only problem he now faced was that he could not come up with something that would see his goals come to fruition and not draw the ire of the strongest being he could think of.

He had no doubt that some people would still go along with what they had planned, simply choosing to not believe that the All-Mother was as strong as everyone said she was, but Jester himself saw that as a sure-fire way to die. It was true that he, too, did not think everything they said about her was true — being able to control everything just seemed a little far-fetched — but he had no doubt that she could just snuff out the entire world if needed. She did already kill hundreds of Gods…

It was true that he did not know how much effort that required or if she had had help, but it was best to assume that she did it on her own with little to no effort. Underestimating your foe would only get you killed and Jester had no desire to pass on just yet. That's reserved for fools like father.

While he did not know when Elariya would go through with her plans, his father's fate was sealed. Luckily, he had not included his father in most of his plans, and the ones he had been a part of were no longer feasible anyway.

"Right," Jester said, standing up and brushing Lita's hands away. He turned around, his gaze briefly lingering on the yellow glow that still lingered in his slave’s eyes as well as her slightly lopsided smile. "Could you get me a courier, Lita?"

"Of course, Master," she replied and vanished a moment later.

While his most prized slave went to fulfill his request, Jester made his way towards his desk. He might not be able to oppose the All-Mother in the open, but he still had access to a few people who sported at least half a brain and would be willing to help.

He just had to hope that Aperio would not care enough about a small fry like him to have him under constant surveillance. The feeling he had when she had looked at him had passed and Jester hoped that meant she was no longer paying attention to him. The letter he had to pen practically wrote itself; all he really needed to do was ask a few of the minor nobles from the other kingdoms dotting Vetus to lend him some people. People that had been promised to him years ago.

Of course, he would not tell them what he wanted their people for. They did not need to know that he fully intended on having them die for his plans or that some of them might get used to make their families the target of the All-Mother. How exactly he could accomplish the last one without the nobles simply telling the Goddess that he commanded their slaves was something he still had to figure out.

“A plan is better than no plan,” Jester mumbled to himself as he placed the first letter to the side and began to write another, almost identical, one.

O’lymni stared at the miniature tree that stood on her desk. The meeting with both the young Lord Vinmaier and the All-Mother had left her a little confused. What the noble wanted was easy enough to understand - some status symbols - but it did not make sense that he would come to her for that. The [Guides] were not a shipping company, nor did the Vinmaier family have any pull with them. In fact, O’lymni herself disliked them quite a lot.

What Aperio had told her, while also easy to understand, simply did not fit with what she had been told about the All-Mother or how her first encounter had played out. She had always imagined her as some kind incomprehensible being that just did things. After she had first met her it had become apparent that that was not the case; that the All-Mother was a lot more normal.

Now, though, Aperio had acted neither like a Goddess nor a noble, despite seemingly knowing the etiquette that should be required. But then, she doesn't have to care about etiquette. No noble wandering her creation could punish her for doing something wrong. Or even tell her that what she is doing is wrong. By her very nature, everything Aperio did was technically the right thing to do. She made the rules, after all.

"Does it always feel like she is four people at once?" the [Grandmaster] asked, her eyes still fixed on the tiny tree on her desk. "Or is this something that happened because she was gone for so long?"

"I do not know," the voice of Roots-Beneath-All replied, the miniature tree moving slightly as leaves sprouted from its branches. "I know that she has found something she had not truly known before; found many things she had not known before." The tree twisted a little further as if it wanted to look at O'lymni. "Nobody is impervious to change, Miss Videns, not even the Creator herself."

"She seemed pretty constant in all the records we have of her from before the Dark Age," O'lymni said. "So did she just... decide that she should change as well?"

"In essence, yes."

"Of course," the half-Dryad mumbled. She remained quiet for a moment before she shook her head. "Well, I should not question the All-Mother, now should I? At least she is back now and is actually taking measures to make sure people follow the rules."

She clapped her hands together and stood up from her chair. While she had a lot of things to do, O'lymni would simply have to attend the next impromptu meeting of the Council. Seeing the Vinmaiers finally get punished was not something she wanted to miss. Doubly so if she could bring out her old proposals afterwards — the ones to ban all forms of slavery in Ebenlowe as well as curtailing trade with empires that still practiced it — with the All-Mother present. It was pretty obvious that Aperio despised slavery. Perhaps even more than O'lymni herself.

"I wish father was here to meet her," she mumbled. "He would have been so happy."

"Indeed," the tiny tree on her desk rumbled, its voice far too deep for its size. "While he is no longer able to walk this soil, rest assured that he is proud of your achievements. Soon, like he should have done many springs ago, he will be able to begin his next life."

O'lymni let out a sigh as her gaze swept over the veritable jungle that was in her office. Ever since her mother and father had passed away, she had felt restless, but the Dryad part of herself had found a way to remain calm when surrounded by Roots' forest. Now that she no longer lived there, she had taken to surrounding herself with her floral friends. Even if it was a silly thing, they all made her feel more at home here. I suppose out of my two halves, the Human part withers more quickly. With another shake of her head, the [Grandmaster] vanished into her chambers. If she was to attend a Council meeting, she would have to look presentable.

GamingWolf

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