2024-06-12
Part of The New Goddess
3872 words (19 minutes)
My thoughts heave and surge like the tide, flooding, claiming, reshaping the world around me. However, so little of this is my design. The world is clay in my hands, but my hands are not alone, and my hands are not even entirely my own. I recognize Velle’s fingerprints here and there, nudging reality in delicate and subtle ways that contrast with my own wild flailing. Something within me lashes out even at those I love, possibly because I love them. My mind has become a kitchen with too many cooks, all of whom hate me.
2024-06-11
Part of The New Goddess
3322 words (17 minutes)
Not what I would call ideal timing for You to indulge Your hunger, Goddess, I have to say. Did You really have so much faith in the three of us, or have You been lying even to me about how in control of Your urges You are?
Stalking Nina and Velle as they descend through the palace, it’s immediately clear that Velle has regained some of her former self. How much, I wonder? I want to believe that her brusque attitude with the princess is a matter of urgency, and that her heart has not entirely discarded the woman she loved just this morning.
2024-06-07
Part of The New Goddess
3147 words (16 minutes)
The king’s palace leaves much to be desired. The moment I step foot inside, the first thing I notice is how poorly lit it is compared to mine. Dim and drab and dull, this is what passes for opulence, I guess, anywhere that lacks the benefit of Goddess’s touch. And that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? We will fix this world.
2024-06-06
Part of The New Goddess
4497 words (22 minutes)
For the first time in longer than I can remember, I wake up pain-free.
I also seem to be completely naked in an unfamiliar bed with someone else’s arms around me. I feel and smell filthy. With a groan of disgust, I try to regain my bearings. Memories of what happened yesterday slowly drift back to me as though from a great distance away.
2024-06-05
Part of The New Goddess
2717 words (14 minutes)
The princess makes a fine show of roleplaying as a maid, perusing her own wine collection and presenting several bottles for me to choose from. I play my own part, acting as though I have strongly held opinions on which vintage is most ideal for the occasion. She fetches us glasses and pours for the both of us. We lounge on the couch together directly opposite Canina’s favorite mirror, clinking glasses and toasting to each other.
2024-06-04
Part of The New Goddess
2957 words (15 minutes)
In truth, I feel nothing toward Princess Canina, despite the effort I put into obtaining a position of service within the palace and the long years I labored to earn this position as her personal attendant.
I have a Plan, and that Plan requires me to earn the confidence of the princess.
2024-06-03
Part of The New Goddess
2607 words (13 minutes)
Collared. Chained. Dressed in finery, given the finest meals, housed in opulence. Even these chains are gold. That girl keeps me like a pet. No, not even like a dog, which can be trained for some valued purpose, but something lower: a pitiful, pampered, useless bauble of a prisoner.
2024-05-27
Part of The New Goddess
3470 words (17 minutes)
It’s spring, and I’m seated near father as he introduces to his court a new magician. It is considered auspicious to time announcements of major changes with the Feast of Augury, and so it is the first time most of the assembled guests hear the news that old Magister Lange has passed.
2024-05-24
Part of The New Goddess
1903 words (10 minutes)
Clouds break in slow motion upon the walls of the crystal palace. The grand structure floats high in the sky, far above a kingdom bathed in the rays of the morning sun.
The view is stunning from up here. It’s like eating breakfast on the sky’s shoreline. Almost hard to imagine that not so long ago I was one of those tiny specks struggling for survival down below, in the streets of a city that looks very different from this vantage.
I can’t say I miss that life.
2024-02-17
Part of The New Goddess
1429 words (7 minutes)
They say there are powers—unfathomable and unnamed—buried deep within the earth. Boons and banes and spirits and seductions call to the ambitious, but I’ve never known of someone actually finding one until now.
What does one say to a dark sorceress on the cusp of her victory?
2023-05-05
Part of Cursed Sword
3612 words (18 minutes)
I remember Emilia. I could have loved her, but in the end her heart was set on another.
I gave her everything—all my hate and all my power—and we would have had the world if she hadn’t thrown it all away for that foul priestess of hers.
2022-12-06
Part of Cursed Sword
2691 words (13 minutes)
The knight was a hero once. The princess called her that, at least, before sending her on this quest.
2022-10-25
686 words (3 minutes)
There is always a Dark Monarch. There is always a Princess in Gold. There is always a Hero and always a conflict between light and shadow.
In defeat, in victory, in death—whatever the outcome—the cycle begins again with the coming of a new age.
But this cycle is different.
2022-09-27
1206 words (6 minutes)
The greasy, spindly woman who wormed her way into the king’s court should not, by any reasonable estimation, have been able to get as close to him as she did. She was foul, unsavory, and with a sharp tongue that did her few favors in the great courtly games of diplomacy.
2022-07-27
1284 words (6 minutes)
The King’s new advisor was a treacherous man, this much was obvious to most members of the court. There was a scheming air about him, and there had to be supernatural reasons why the King seemed to hang on his advisor’s every word, surely.
2021-10-15
861 words (4 minutes)
The Dark Lady of Nightmares glided silently through the night’s cool air, her body magically transformed into her giant bat form perfectly suited for stealth. As she approached the City of Light, she swept her eyes over it, scanning for the tower where the princess slept.
2021-09-03
456 words (2 minutes)
The Hive’s slow spread through the city’s most neglected parts was, for a long time, not even noticed. Then, when it was first noticed, it was confused for something much lesser. A new religious movement, perhaps? It seemed to be growing mostly from the city’s vulnerable.