I know when my Goddess returns by the way the whole palace comes alive in Her presence. The floor, the walls, even the very air carries a subtle vibration of Her power when She, the beating heart of our home, steps foot inside. My legs buoyed with renewed energy, the anticipation of laying eyes upon Her again carries me onward with quickened steps.
I can feel the hum through my boots; it grows in intensity with every step of my approach. The glowing columns illuminating these halls seem a little bit brighter too.
She’s here. She’s here!
Light leaks all around the doors to my quarters. My breath hitches, my palms prickle with sweat, I wet my lips with my tongue. Her power has grown again, hasn’t it? It was almost too much to handle last time, but now…?
I push open the doors with a delicious mix of nervous excitement, and immediately my eyes betray me, reflexively closing to shield me from Her radiance. No. I force them back open again, but already Her brightness fades to a more manageable intensity.
How merciful She is, even when I would refuse Her mercy. Please don’t dim yourself for me, my Goddess. I can handle it!
Her laughter was always music to me, but now it has become an entire orchestra, waves of sound buffeting my whole body, driving me to my knees with tears in my eyes and ringing in my ears.
You always did want more than you could handle, little bird.
Little bird is a new one. I’ll happily try it on and see how it feels. I never liked names. They always seem to chafe after a while, and Her playfully shifting terms of address for me are a kindness I’d never thought to ask for. I love Her so much my heart could burst.
It might, if I touch you now. That’s how I nearly ruined a mortal on my way back here. I am still choking down the meal I made of this latest god, and I do not yet have mastery over this new surge of power.
Speaking straight into my thoughts like this is easier on my body, but it still feels like the scorching pressure of a hot iron on my mind. I can handle it, though. She blesses me, knowing how I relish the sheer excess of all this. Sure, it hurts, but it Herts.
That was barely a pun at all, but my Goddess still laughs with enough force to make me dizzy, make tunnel vision closing in, bring a trickle from my nose—oh, that tastes like blood—and cause me to nearly pass out. Still I’m determined to hang on to consciousness for Her, fixing my gaze on Her glorious body and willing myself to remain alert through pure worship.
She floats in midair between floor and ceiling, not a stitch of clothing hiding Her body from me. I’m not sure it could. Any paltry efforts of mere fabric to coneal Her would be thwarted by the intensity of Her radiance shining through, or maybe it would simply burn up on contact with the flesh of my Goddess. She’s beautiful beyond words, like a vessel for every color, every flavor of light ever dreamt by mortal minds and then some, like a piece of the cosmos brought down here to live with us in human form.
My eyes are drawn to Her extremities, and I might have to revise that thought, actually. Fingers and toes flicker between different shapes. For a moment I see the slender fingers of Her pre-ascension form, and then they shiver and shift into… claws? Talons? Something made to rip and tear, for sure, hands that could gouge new canyons into the earth and cleave continents to pieces.
Is that approval I hear in your thoughts, little bird?
More than approval. My heart aches at the new frontiers of beauty my Goddess is manifesting. “Don’t dim yourself for me” means more than just light. Don’t hide what You are becoming, please, I beg You! I want it all!
One reason among many why you are special to me. I had no reason to doubt you would feel this way, but I must admit I enjoy your mental slavering.
My Goddess sighs with the kind of satisfaction a mortal might express from removing a particularly constricting corset, and Her talons stabilize. They lengthen, even. A long, skeletal tail uncoils out of thin air and dangles in such a way that the wicked barb on the end points in my direction. My breath quickens again. A third eye opens on Her forehead. Then another between Her breasts. Then more, scores of eyes opening down Her arms and legs, all wildly inhuman. No, they’re not just inhuman; nothing I’ve ever seen has eyes like these, with multiple pupils in odd shapes and sizes swiming in irises of countless hues. As one, they all stare at me, unblinking.
My heart pounds in my chest. Goddess. Words do not suffice. You redefine the very concept of beauty.
I can’t help myself. I crawl toward Her, wordless pleading filling my thoughts with a desperate need I have no way to articulate. I raise my hand toward Her, and my Goddess blesses me by withdrawing Her mercy and allowing my hand to grasp Her ankle.
My mind survives in the same way a robin’s eggshell might hold a waterfall or an ant might sip from a volcano. Tattered fragments of self are carried on a storm of power not even She has mastered yet, my only awareness a scream that extends from the dawn of time to its conclusion. I am broken and scoured clean and pulverized into dust and partially reconstituted just enough to be shattered again and again.
Then my heart does burst, and I die for the second time.
As before, my Goddess saves me. Not with the gentleness She showed the first time—I think gentless is beyond Her for the moment—but with a fierce growl, ripping me from the grip of death and slamming me back into my fully restored body.
I gasp, eyes shooting open, arching my back with the incomparable intensity of that experience. “Goddess… oh Goddess…” the words tumble out of my mouth, my need to worship Her, worship Her, worship Her an all-consuming bonfire inside me.
Ahhh, you enjoyed that somehow, didn’t you? The thought enters my mind with teeth bared in a savage grin.
I blink my eyes clear. “Goddess, yes.” I raise my eyes to look upon Her face again, but I get distracted by the ravishing danger of Her tail—so long, so thick, skeletal, not even sheathed by the softness of flesh, and that barb at the end looks razor sharp—and my thoughts of worship become much more specific.
You want me to break you again?
“Yes, Goddess, but…”
But?
“I need my mind intact when You break my body. I need to exist enough to experience it.” That barb glints so menacingly in the reflected light from Her body. Goddess, I need it in me.
A human mind cannot withstand my touch the way I am now. I lack the control, and moreover at the moment I lack the desire to exercise such control. Do you understand?
“You could pull me one step above humanity. Not too far. Just enough to be able to think when You touch me, but…” I lick my lips, unable to tear my eyes away from that barbed tail, “I want to feel it when You kill me again.”
Mmmm… She enjoyed hearing that request. The sound of Her pleasure coats my mind with a viscous glaze too thick to think through. My eyelids flutter, and I exhale a shuddering breath. Then Her talons clutch my head and pierce inside and…
“Ah.” Sudden clarity, even with Her palm caressing my cheek. My thoughts flow as though lubricated. Are my senses sharper? No, I’m just processing them differently. Better. I look upon my Goddess and no longer have to fight the reflex to squint. I could stare into the sun that is Her exquisite body, savoring the pain of it, until my eyes burn out completely. In response to that thought, She restores herself to the incredible brightness She radiated when I first entered the room. It hits my eyes like daggers, but I refuse to look away.
You impress me, little bird. If you truly wish to enjoy whatever agonies my touch may inflict, it pleases me to oblige. I do not yet know all the pleasures this form may experience, but I see in your thoughts how happy you will be for me to experiment on you.
“Yes,” I gasp. Goddess, yes. To be ruined by You is the greatest gift I might ask for, but to bring You pleasure is greater still.
She cracks Her tail like a whip—I really love Her flair for the dramatic—and coils it around my body, snaking it around my legs, squeezing my waist, bringing that delicious wicked barb right in front of my face. My lips part. I tilt my head toward it.
My Goddess plunges that natural weapon of hers into my mouth. “Aah,” I whimper helplessly with my mouth stuffed full. That thing is as sharp as it looks, and as I lick the razor’s edge it slices my tongue in half. My eyes water from the pain and blood dribbles past my lips, down my chin. Still I suck on it, welcoming the way Her body’s natural form tears my mouth to ribbons, waiting for the moment She plunges it yet deeper, past the point of survival…
No, not yet. My Goddess withdraws Her tail from my mouth, leaving me alive, coughing, struggling for each breath through the blood flowing freely down my throat. I try to close my mouth, but something hitches the wrong way, and I can’t make it happen. My coughing fit dislodges something from inside, and I watch what can only be a chunk of my own tongue, barely recognizable, land on the floor with a wet plop.
Her hands—more unyielding than stone, hotter than coals—grip my waist and sear my flesh in a possessive gesture that would make me weep with joy if I weren’t already sobbing in agony.
Mine.
Yours. Completely and utterly.
My Goddess opens Her mouth and unfurls a thick, heavy tongue, black as midnight and dotted with stars. The way it contrasts so starkly with the brightness of Her body, evoking a solar eclipse (have I ever seen one of those?) as She licks the blood and tears from my face… ah! To think I could ever have felt satisfied with the beauty of any mere human.
She pushes Her tongue into my mouth, not through the usual route, but through the hole in my cheek from fellating Her tail, and the tendrils wriggling on the sides of Her tongue dance among the shreds of mine. The pain is blinding, and my body writhes of its own accord as though I could ever want to break free of Her grip on my waist.
Delicious. To think I could ever have felt satisfied with the flavor of mere human food.
It would be my turn to laugh if I still could. Goddess, I love You desperately. Will You break me now? Please?
I feel Her smile more than see it. With a lighning-quick rush of Her tail, She plunges Her barb between my legs, tearing through flesh, past bone, plunging deeper inside me than any body could survive. I arch my back and barely even feel the scream tear my throat with the way She fills me up and mutilates my insides.
I die for the third time, and for the third time She pulls me back to shore.
My body is whole, but only for a blink before massive teeth descend on my throat and rip it out. I drown in blood and return to the embrace of darkness, where She catches me and restores me to my body once again.
Her thick tail wraps around my skull, and I feel every creak and groan before She crushes it completely and laps the blood off that skeletal appendage of hers. Huh, I shouldn’t be aware of what She does after—
My eyes flutter open. I’m on my back, my Goddess straddling me, flaring brighter and hotter than ever. The smell of cooked meat fills the air, my skin boils and chars, and I stay alive far longer than I thought possible while burning to death. I watch as though from over Her shoulder as She pulls my limbs apart and gorges on my roasted flesh before again—
I awaken in time to feel Her claws pierce through my back as She snaps me messily in half. I have a front-row seat to the way She desecrates my body—or would it be sanctifies?—with gore smeared all over Her thighs. Even those gorgeous eyes decorating Her limbs seem to be drinking my blood.
Oh, it makes my heart full to bursting (again) watching my Goddess enjoying Herself so thoroughly.
I watch with full awareness as She reaches toward my vantage point and pulls me down into a body that knits itself back together in an instant. The moment I return, however, that wild, feral look on Her face falters slightly.
You witnessed that. It wasn’t a question. My mind is an open book for Her. Everything I saw is as obvious to Her as the heady thrill I feel about it.
You shouldn’t have been able…
My Goddess pauses, idly trailing a clawed finger down my chest while She contemplates something that might puzzle even a god.
When I changed you, I made you susceptible to further changes. Every death and resurrection is mutating your soul, little by little, in a way I did not predict.
She bends forward, inhaling deeply of my scent.
You are even less human now than I intended. A moment’s pause.
And you approve.
I laugh, feeling lighter than air as I lay on my back. Of course I approve! How could I not?
Ah, that feeling. That’s yearning inside you. The words in my mind carry a lilt of mischief.
Not unlike the Knight upon witnessing the Rogue in rouge?
Oh, Goddess, of course You heard all of that. My laugh turns bashful and trails away. Even I can feel a touch of embarrassment now and then, it’s true. Wait, hold on, I had my suspicions about Wolfgang, but to compare us on this topic…?
Do not derail your thoughts. I will happily introduce you to precious Nina when the time is right, but now I would have you decide, my tasty little bird. My Goddess punctuates Her demand with a tap of Her claw on my sternum, drawing a single droplet of red.
This is a serious conversation. I will not moan in pleasure from feeling that. But I guess I will think these words, which my Goddess is listening to right now with what I’m sure is more amusement about this metacognition than if I had just given in and moaned all I wanted. Ah, well.
What do I want? What do I yearn for?
My eyes trace every line of the holy figure bearing down on my prone body. It’s not even any specific feature that ties my heart in knots of longing; it’s the stunning whole of Her, the sheer inhumanity of Her metamorphosis.
“Goddess, You’ve already given me everything I need and more, but I look at You now and feel blasphemous envy.” No reason to choose speaking aloud over thinking, except that it feels more ‘official’ or something this way. “I’m not envious of Your power, no, I’ve never wanted the kind of responsibility that comes with power of any sort. I don’t know what exactly I want, but…”
How do I find the words? She knows me better than I do, but She’s told me before: the act, the moment of active decision, changes us. She wants that choice to happen. So what do I want?
“I want to burst out of my own skin. I don’t like being referred to by name, or by any of the words people use to talk about people. And it just makes me feel disgusting when people are attracted to me in the ways they’re attracted to people.”
Yet you enjoy my attraction to you.
“Goddess, yes. You treat me like a… like a thing to play with and laugh at. Like I’m just a really weird bug You found, and then a filthy mess You get to enjoy making, and then dinner.” Her prodding helps clarify my thoughts. “I also wouldn’t mind someone being attracted to my body the way I am yours. Not because I have the genitals that please them, or a shapely nose, or a killer pair of… well, You know.” The less I directly think about my own body, the better. “Honestly, I’d rather look wrong. I’d rather be wrong.”
You would abandon your humanity as you encouraged me to evolve beyond mine.
“Eagerly, my Goddess. I want everyone who looks at me to recognize immediately that I am one of Yours, knowing that only You would claim the loyalty of a thing like me. I want to be defined by my position as Yours.”
Go on, little bird.
“You once said You wanted me for Your jester. Maybe that was a joke, because I’m kind of shit at actual ‘jokes’ and pretty much just leverage snark and the occasional bad pun to—” I’m rambling. “Well anyway! I think I changed my mind.”
I am watching your mind change in real time. You are a fascinating creature.
“See, like that, now I’m a cool shiny beetle or something to You again, and that’s…” I sigh dreamily. “It’s perfect. I want to have lots of opportunities to surprise You.”
She waits for me to settle on what I want to say.
“Let’s start small. One thing at a time, whenever something strikes me. For now… my teeth could stand to be much sharper.”
One clawed finger parts my lips and slips inside my mouth. This time I don’t bother suppressing a moan.
That is eminently doable.