=:= Richard =:=
Everything had been dulled, white, almost like sensory static for so long, he'd almost forgotten what it was like to exist. There'd been no sense of time. No heartbeat, no rhythmic breathing, no indication at all that time had passed. It could have been seconds, it could have been centuries.
He didn't really exist, but he wasn't quite dead either.
Then suddenly, he was back.
Richard took a deep shuddering breath as he felt his heart pounding again with fear. His last memory had been the child-Goddess standing in front of him, Her hand on his throat, Her eyes glowing red. The malicious sneer on Her face as he felt Her picking through his mind.
And before that, he remembered the Brotherhood was falling. The building sounded like it would soon collapse, damaged beyond repair by magic and fire. Richard remembered being on the phone, pleading with their enigmatic leader. He knew the man was powerful. He suspected Alexander was more than just a man, he was perhaps a God himself. And Richard begged him for help, but Alexander refused.
Then the Goddess was there. Her physical form was that of a child, a little blonde girl no more than ten years old, but She had strength beyond imagination.
He glanced around in a panic, expecting Her to still be here threatening him, expecting the building to still be on fire around him. There was indeed a large fire burning, but it was contained within a circular fire-place.
Richard was on his knees, on the floor of what appeared to be a modern log cabin. He was in a large open-concept space, dominated by the big circular fire-place in the centre of the room. There was a sofa and a couple armchairs to one side. In a corner was a kitchen area, with table and chairs. Another corner held a desk and bookcase. There were three doors, one appeared to be the front door, another looked like an interior door, the last was probably a closet.
Through the windows he could tell the building was atop a hill or perhaps a small mountain. The surrounding lowlands were obscured by mist or fog, and the sky was a dull grey overcast.
Richard wasn't alone. Standing to the right of the front door was a life-sized statue carved from white stone.
It looked like a teen girl, perhaps eighteen years old. Her attire looked vaguely Celtic and held a small leaf-bladed sword in her right hand. Her pose wasn't threatening though, it wasn't a warlike stance. It appeared more like she was just standing at ease, sword held loosely, point down. The statue was positioned so it faced inward, towards the large fire.
There was someone else here in the room, and when he saw her, Richard felt his heart skip a beat. It was a girl, a blonde teen of about fifteen or sixteen years old. For a split second he feared it was the Goddess, that he'd been in limbo for years as she aged.
He almost let out a sigh of relief when he recognized who she actually was. It was the blonde teen cultist from Canada, and she looked more or less as she had in the surveillance photos. He hadn't been gone that long after all.
The girl was sitting cross-legged on one of the armchairs, watching him. She was barefoot, wearing dark leggings and a large loose black top.
He took a few more deep breaths then slowly got to his feet, glancing around again. As he did, he tried a simple spell, to check the cultist's aura and see if there was any other magic around.
Cindy shook her head and clicked her tongue, "Tsk tsk. That won't work, Richard. No magic for you."
He gulped, and asked "Where are we? Where is She?"
The young blonde motioned towards the sofa, "Have a seat."
Richard glanced around again. Without access to magic, there really wasn't anything else he could do right now. He moved to the sofa and sat down, watching the cultist.
"The Brotherhood is gone," Cindy stated. "Aeronwy destroyed your headquarters in London, killed everyone there, burned the place to the ground. And then I defeated Alexander."
He scoffed, "You?! Impossible. Alexander is..." He hesitated, realizing he shouldn't say too much incase this was some sort of trick.
Cindy smiled at him, "He's what? A God? I know exactly what he was, Richard. I've been studying him for a while now. As I said, I defeated him, but I didn't destroy him. He's trapped, contained."
Richard sighed. He didn't want to believe this girl, but he was starting to fear that she was telling the truth. "That name you mentioned... That's the child-Goddess? Who is she?"
"Aeronwy," Cindy replied. "Welsh Goddess of War. Her sisters woke her up and sent her to wipe you out. It took her what, twenty minutes? She could have done it in twenty seconds, but she was having fun. She enjoyed playing with your men."
"Are you Her vessel?" Richard asked. His stomach felt like it was full of lead now. It seemed like everything they'd believed was wrong. Nathan's hunch had been correct after all. Two Goddesses working together, a second Awakening... How could he have been so wrong?
Cindy shrugged and said "I was. Not sure if I still am. We're still connected of course, but I'm the one in control of that dynamic." She added, "I've been studying her too. Trying to make some small changes to her nature. Hopefully in time she'll be less murdery and I can let her out more, without having to worry about a large death-toll."
Richard stared at the girl, feeling completely confounded. She was talking as if she'd bested a Goddess herself. In fact, she was claiming to have beaten two Gods - this Welsh Goddess as well as Alexander.
"You asked where we are. This was Aeronwy's court. Now I suppose it's mine. Or maybe we share it, but I did the decor and stuff. The way she had it set up was kind of bleak. Like, iron-age-apocalypse bleak. This is more like, I dunno, pacific-north-west cabin retreat." She frowned a moment then said "I guess it needs more mountains to really capture that Cascadia aesthetic. I might add some mountains later."
He stared at her for a few more moments, then finally got to his feet again. He moved to one of the windows and looked outside.
The cabin appeared to be ontop of a large hill or small mountain. The very top of the hill was cleared and level, but from this vantage point he could see the slopes seemed to be covered in tall trees. It was a mixed forest, pines and hardwoods by the look of it. The hill had fairly steep slopes, but he couldn't tell how high it was. Maybe fifty or a hundred meters below the top of the hill, everything was obscured in mist or fog, that stretched out as far as he could see.
Richard glanced back at the teen and asked, "So you had two Goddesses working together? We'd been taught that didn't happen... That Gods didn't play well together."
Cindy shrugged, "Technically there's four of 'em. Three sisters that woke up together originally. Aeronwy was still asleep, till the first three woke her to go deal with you lot."
He shook his head slowly. "A triad... We believed that was the stuff of legend, that it didn't really happen."
The teen giggled. "You guys are so stuck-up! Your brotherhood wasn't even around three hundred years. That's out of what, ten thousand years or more, of human civilization? Some tiny little fraction of a percent, and you thought you knew everything. How many Gods did you guys face in that time?"
"Since the Brotherhood was founded, almost two dozen," Richard replied. "We put down twenty-one Gods over the years... Most though were in the first hundred and fifty years."
"So most were already gone by the time you guys got started." Cindy said. "You encountered a handful of Gods, over a handful of years, and you assumed it would just always be the same forever. Combine that with a bunch of rigid traditions and rules, no wonder you got your asses handed to you."
Richard sighed again, then asked "You're Her vessel, who's the priestess?"
Cindy replied, "I don't have one. The other three Goddesses did that part of the ritual, they woke Aeronwy up themselves while we were in one of their courts."
He shook his head slowly, staring out the window again. He tried to keep himself from giving in to the fear that was tugging at his thoughts. The teen had said too much, spoken too freely. He was sure he wouldn't be allowed to leave with this knowledge. He probably wouldn't be allowed to leave at all.
He took a deep breath, and asked, "Why am I here?"
Cindy replied, "I was bored. I decided it was time to figure out what to do with you."
He turned to face her, feeling growing anxiety again. "How long has it been?"
She was still sitting cross-legged on the chair, watching him. "About six months."
Richard sighed. "My family will believe I'm dead."
"Yeah, probably." Cindy shrugged. "If you're trying to play for sympathy or whatever, don't waste your breath. Becky had a family too you know. And then there's that little detail where you're the guy who had my girlfriend tortured."
Richard frowned, "Your girlfriend? You mean the young man, -"
Cindy cut him off with a glare, her eyes flaring with a light purple glow. "Choose your words carefully, Richard." Her voice was suddenly cold as ice and the look on her face sent chills down his spine. "You are in My domain, and there is nothing I cannot do to you here."
His hands were shaking now and his breath coming in short shallow gasps, and he could feel his heart pounding. She hadn't even done or said anything that was so objectively frightening, yet his body reacted as if he'd just been scared half to death.
"Anyways, so before we decide your fate, I want you to write out the names and addresses and everything else you know, about the Brotherhood guys who weren't in London. Like, everyone who woulda survived Aeronwy's attack on your headquarters." Cindy's expression and voice were back to normal again, as if nothing had happened. She gestured towards the kitchen area, "There's a notebook and pen on the table there. I've already seen the information in your mind, so I know you know this stuff."
He was still feeling shaky, but asked "And if I refuse?" He didn't even know if he had a choice, but he felt if he was her prisoner, he should at least try and resist.
She sighed, "Then I'll hafta pull all that outta your brain and write it down myself, and it seems like a lotta boring work. Also it'll make me kinda cross and grumpy, and I won't be so merciful about what happens to you afterwards."
Richard gulped again. "What is going to happen to me, if I may ask?"
"I dunno yet?" She shrugged. "I could kill you. Quickly or slowly, whatever. Or if you wanna be a dick about stuff, we could try some eternal torment. We'll figure something out. If you wanted to stay alive, we could maybe come to some arrangement and return you to the mortal realm." She added, "I mean, you wouldn't be 'Richard' anymore, and you definitely won't be doing magic ever again. But I can be merciful. I don't enjoy killing people, though it doesn't bother me anymore to do so."
He nodded slowly, and moved to the table. As he sat down, he pointed out "The information I have could be out-dated. They may have relocated, after the Brotherhood fell."
Cindy nodded "Yeah I know. It's a start though." She added, "Oh yeah, after you've finished that, I want you to write out all the spells you know. I bet you know more than William did."
Richard sighed but nodded "Very well."
"One more thing," she added. "All the account info for Brotherhood funds. I bet you guys had a lot of money hidden away all over the place and I bet you know where most of it is."
Richard sighed again, "Fine."
He picked up the pen, opened the notebook, and got to work.
AllendiaFarcrest· Nov 16, 2020
