Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086D3XGR7
Books2Read link: https://books2read.com/b/meg8Qg
“Somehow, I thought there would be more for a god to do.”
“Why husband, you always seem busy enough,” Petra replied.
“Those are my own projects, and I know I spend more time than you would prefer on them. But I presumed the position of being a god came with its own duties and requirements. Thus far, I have found none.”
“Husband, we are both Eternals – minor gods as such things go. We know there are at least two tiers above us. I spent ten thousand years and more as an Immortal. Outside of the chains of my creation, I was never tasked with anything. Art thou disappointed?” She’d taken to wearing what I called her Ultimate Lady from The Next Farm Over appearance most of the time we were together. She appeared as a dusky, light brown-skinned young lady with shoulder length medium brown hair, just barely into the first flush of maturity and shapely to the point where she drew eyes from all the men, even now at the end of her pregnancy with our first child. Petra’s skin glowed with health, her hair shone with golden highlights in the soft brown. Nothing exaggerated or fancy – her breasts and buttocks were if anything slightly smaller than average, her parts just all fit together perfectly. Her hairstyle was dead simple – straight with just a hint of wave. She never wore complex fashions or glaringly sexual clothes or anything that clung too tightly, just simple and loose, hinting at the lush curves beneath. Nor was she particularly thin. Maybe by some perverse standards she might even be a little overweight. She almost never used cosmetics of any sort. But most women of King Edvard Haraldsson’s court hated her for the way she drew male eyes despite everything they did to keep attention centered on themselves. They’d never understand what Petra had spent ten thousand years learning – men liked simple and elegant. These days, Petra was happy and content, and that amplified attraction even more.
“Nay, O Lady of My Heart, I am not disappointed, but happily surprised. The fact it is a happy surprise does not alter the fact it is a surprise. Why does the universe allow us to exist, when it does not require our assistance? Why are we thus privileged? There must be some purpose to allowing us this power.”
“Why question thy good fortune, husband?”
“I am ultsi, milady, by habit if not by fact. We are seekers after knowledge, which requires us to be askers of questions, and I’m not explaining myself clearly, so let’s approach it from another direction. Have you ever seen a living thing simply exist?”
“Trees. Grass.”
“Trees and grass do not simply exist. They’re in competition for soil and sunlight and water. All the other trees and blades of grass want these same things, and there’s only so much to go around. Where are our competitors?”
“Other gods.”
“The niche seems suspiciously empty. One of the rules is populations expand to make full use of resources. Doesn’t it seem that with so much energy available, there would be more and more beings clamoring to take it for their own survival? Yet it seems that there’s plenty there for all, and there’s a disturbing next question.”
“I would rather not be disturbed at present, husband, but it does seem that the number of gods is increasing.”
I let the next question lie for now. “And our rivals?”
“Kiltig and Klikitit would fit that description.”
She had a valid point. Perhaps I came from a place so energy-starved that we’d been forced to learn to make more efficient use – and now suddenly I’d been given access to a place where all the energy you could want was there for the taking, and my competitors simply had less ability to take advantage of that energy? But resource rich environments served as a beacon for organisms from less fecund locales. Aescalon was so energy rich its divinities never learned skills that even the weakest martsi and natsi – ordinary humans with the weakest level of mind power – learned as a matter of course. “Not the same thing, milady. Those are personal animosities. Given the energy rich environment of Aescalon and its fountain of plentiful energy, there should be so many gods clamoring to partake that there is none to spare. I can think of two possible reasons why this is not the case, but I’m unable at the present to test either hypothesis.”
“What are those possibilities?”
“First, that the amount of energy has seen a recent increase, although ‘recent’ in this case is in terms of natural time, and I’ve insufficient data on the length of divine generations. The second is that there was a population collapse – something caused the number of divinities to drop – and we’re still building back up to equilibrium. In either case, resources would seem to be plentiful until the new population increased to fill the niche.”
“And how long will it take us to fill this ‘niche’, husband?”
“Thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands.”
“Then does it not seem like thy worry is premature? We shall have plentiful time to solve it.”
“A true observation my love, and yet questions of this nature are better answered sooner than late. A full answer would point us to a method of securing needed sustenance for ourselves and our descendants when the resources become strained, and such procurement is much simpler when the resources are easily acquired.”
“I have faith in your abilities, milord. In ten thousand years, I have encountered none with so restless a mind.”
“But as resources become strained, the quality of competition will necessarily increase as well.”
“I thought I asked you not disturb my contented state, milord?”
It wasn’t worth the argument at this point. I changed the subject, “How long until you believe yourself ready to give birth, milady?” But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to keep pursuing answers. Nor did Petra expect me to – she knew I was ultsi to the core. She just didn’t want to be disturbed at the moment. I hadn’t even touched upon the most disquieting notion of all: predators. Every ecosystem has predators, and they almost always strike without warning, when they think you’re most vulnerable.
“No more than two sennights in this body milord. Your instruction in the art of ‘necris’ as you name it has been most helpful. All of my existence I’ve been hearing women complain about ill-effects, yet you’ve enabled me to avoid any I do not desire to experience. It would seem I’ve made a fortuitous choice of husband.”
She’d learned much in the year we’d been together. “I am happy in thy choice milady, yet I am concerned you’ve not allowed me to share in raising our daughter as of yet.” Ultsi children were awake in the womb before birth. I’d been looking forward to helping keep my daughter amused and beginning her education, yet Petra was determined to be the only one in rapport with her until birth.
“The experience is demanding, milord. Yet I cannot but believe it is my own to enjoy. Mayhaps this is the effect of the change to my nature I chose.”
“You have done well with what I have taught thus far. But there is much more to learn, and techniques to aid learning that I have not yet taught. Our daughter may need what I could have taught her.”
“Husband, you’re not in the place of your birth. There are no other ultsi likely to come in search of us.”
“I concede the former, but the latter is not a given, milady. Especially given this new ability to create ‘splinters’ of one’s consciousness. Where before, there were perhaps two hundred of us, now each of us can pursue ten or twenty different interests, and be in as many different locations. I don’t know how my brother and whomever else found Aescalon in the first place, but given that at least two different ultsi have done so, the solution cannot be particularly difficult for us. Nor are ultsi the only danger.”
“There were ten thousand years between. With as little time until birth as remains, milord, I’m minded not to worry overmuch. My decision stands.”
I could have overpowered her. Petra wouldn’t have a hope in the world of resisting me if I made a trial of it. But I couldn’t do that to her. She’d spent ten thousand years set apart from humanity by her divine curse. I was the first one to treat her like a human being instead of a lust object or a hated rival. If I betrayed her, it would maim her psyche for all eternity. I couldn’t have done that to her even if the risk to our daughter was likely greater from it than from me waiting for her to be born. After ten thousand years alone in the universe, Petra had chosen to become pregnant within months of our marriage. I could no more betray her than I could stop being myself.
But when I conceded the issue, she continued the conversation, “Milord husband, I find myself enjoying this time with our daughter, enough that I am minded to volunteer to become mother to your other child.”
“You mean the one in stasis?”
“The very same.”
“That is a generous offer, milady, and if you are certain you wish to become his mother, I’m minded to accept gratefully. Yet there is no rush, and our wisest have established ‘tis better for a child to be allowed a few years before the appearance of a sibling. Let us spend some few years with our daughter to nurture her on her path before giving her a brother. And if you change your mind, I do possess an alternative.”
“A soulless machine? I think that a very poor alternative for a mother.”
“But our people don’t simply allow the machine to work. We have just as much contact with such children as with those born naturally. It simply relieves the mother of the physical burden. We still nurture their minds if they are awake. But when the time comes, if you still wish to carry him as well as nurture his mind, I will accept.”
“To change what I was, I chose to become a matron on your advice milord husband. Nurturing and motherhood are part of my nature now. To deny me this is to deny what I chose to become.”
“I accepted that when I asked to marry you, milady wife. I’m not advocating that you change it, merely that you focus it upon one subject for a time.”
“Perhaps there is virtue in that advice, milord. Yet I find myself wanting more.”
“Tell me, milady: when you began your previous role as a seductress, were you as proficient as you later became?”
“I do not remember my beginnings, but I was never irresistible, as milord husband knows full well.”
“Special circumstances, milady. I was aware of your divine curse when first you arrayed your feminine wiles against me, yet I have no desire to resist them now.” Teasing, “Would this not argue you have become more proficient?”
“Beast,” she replied, also teasing, “Yet I have come to enjoy our dalliances as no others before. Come, tell me what guise I should take upon myself, that we should enjoy one another’s company in the manner of husband and wife?”
“I shall revel in whatever guise you should care to assume, my lady wife, including thy current shape.”
She smiled. “I thank thee, my husband. Yet my current state makes certain matters difficult to enjoy as they should be. I shall choose another shape; the delay of our child’s birth by an hour is an acceptable price to pay for the convenience.” Instead of a slim compact dusky brunette, she became an athletic lighter-skinned honey blonde, perhaps a little more ‘padded’ in certain areas, but missing the distended belly of end-stage pregnancy.
I hadn’t known she could still do that, but I was certainly not going to complain.
Copyright 2020 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.
Leave a Reply