The Creators Ch. 12

"What is it?" I ask, rubbing her back.

"Brian rejected me!" Lucilla's muffled voice says into the bedding. I can't help but smile.

"Brian is in the priesthood, Lucilla. Did you really think you could convince him to break his vows?"

"Yes," Lucilla whimpers. Now I'm laughing, and Lucilla turns over, not at all pleased with me.

"What the fuck is so funny?!" She snaps.

"You," I snigger at her. "If this isn't divine justice, I don't know what is."

"You vindictive bitch!" Lucilla growls. "My heart has been broken into a million pieces, and you got your booty whipped; how is that justice?!"

"Your heart is broken?" I laugh incredulously.

"Into a million pieces!" Lucilla laments dramatically to the ceiling. "I will never know true love! I am destined to die an old shriveled woman with no one to love me!"

"Ah, Brian was your true love," I chuckle.

"He was!" Lucilla cries, covering her tear-streaked face with her hands. "He was the one, Julia! We only get one soulmate in the world, and he has given his soul to god!"

"Truly, this is a horrible day for you," I sigh with grandiose sorrow. "You are forever doomed to be Lucilla Flitari, instead of Lucilla... Lucilla... what is your soulmate's last name, Lucilla?"

"Eat shit."

"Instead of Lucilla Eat-poop," I continue my tragic monologue. "Oh, what a cruel world the Holy Mother has created for us, where preteen princesses are denied the true love of boys whose last names are of fecal ingestion. Oh, what injustice there is, when those born with everything must settle for slightly less than everything. How can I, an orphan girl with no possessions or home, stand idly by while such atrocities are laid upon the undeserving? Clearly, I have been unduly blessed, and you have been wrongly cursed."

Lucilla glowers at me, her puffy eyes narrowing. "You've been practicing your sermons in front of your mirror."

"While you've been stuffing your bodice in front of yours," I snicker, poking her chest, and giggling when it deflates. Lucilla screws up her face in anger, then relaxes it, and relents a smile.

"I'm being ridiculous, aren't I?"

"You are," I grin. "But it is very amusing, so if you're not over your heartbreak, by all means, keep going."

"I think I'm done," Lucilla laughs, wiping her nose and eyes on her sleeve, and sitting up. I am young, not yet beholden to the urges that are beginning to take Lucilla, but even now, I can't help but notice how pretty she is. Her porcelain face is flushed, her pointed nose is rosy, her eyes are shadowed with the makeup of her grief. Her platinum hair falls from her head in perfectly-straight strands, and frames the delicate beauty of her face.

"I can tell you one thing, Julia," she smiles at me, "I am never going to try to have a boyfriend again; monogamy is for idiots."

I awoke to grey skies that seemed to touch the ground. I was confused for a moment, wondering why I wasn't in bed with Lucilla. Then I remembered, and it came crashing down on me. I curled myself in a ball, tightening my eyes against the tears, trying to go back to the paradise of memory. But it was gone, fading from me even as I grasped for it, and it was replaced with the dull face of a woman with a hole in her head. I didn't know how long the grief had me, but it felt like an eternity. It wracked me, crippled me, kept me curled into a fetal ball and hissing like a cat. Snot and tears marred my portrait, mixing with the dried blood that crusted my upper lip. When I regained myself, I wiped the filth from my face, and stared blankly out at the world.

Visibility was down to about fifty yards. That wouldn't do. I sent a pulse of heat through the air, and it cleared to reveal... nothing. Drastin was nothing. No... no, there was still something. In the distance, I saw twin pillars of melted iron. Was that Astrid's statue? Oh... Astrid. Oh, Tera! Brandon, Jade, Bianca, Justina... wait. Justina. I scanned the horizon, looking past the remnants of Astrid's statue. There was a bump, barely visible, but it was there. It was where Brandon's arboretum had been. So, there was something. The roots of his Great Maple, maybe? Maybe there was a basement! And Justina was a smart girl, she surely would have taken to lower ground, and she surely would've taken Diamond with her! Yes! Yes, she was alive! She had to be!

"Why?" I asked myself, feeling my manic hope fade. "Why does she have to be? Why do you deserve anything, Julia?" I rose numbly to my feet, my knees wobbling. My throat was so parched, and I was so hungry, but I didn't feel like water or food. I just needed to know. Diamond had been with Justina, and Justina was always with Brandon. If there was any hope in the world, it would be in that bump on the horizon. But hope was for fools. Hope was what made me think I could drive Corruption from Willowbud; or maybe that was just arrogance. All I had to do was kill her. All I had to do was raise my hand, and turn Willowbud Autumnsong to ash, and none of this would've happened, but I had convinced myself that God wanted Willowbud alive. Well, Night Eyes was just the messenger of Satan, as I had known all along, but his message wasn't Corruption, as I had presumed before. His message was an invitation, and I'd accepted it. Of all the names I'd included among the dead, Willowbud Autumnsong was not among them. For I'd seen her bury herself deep in the earth, and I knew she'd survived. The cockroaches always do.

"Run away, Willowbud," I whispered on the wind. She wasn't Night Eyes anymore, but it didn't matter. Saving Willowbud Autumnsong might've been the only good I'd done in my whole life, and that was why I was going to kill her. But first, I needed to confirm the death of my daughter. I took a wobbling step onto the ashen plateau, and then another. Soon, I was limping across the hell I'd made, my eyes fixed onto the bump on the horizon. She's dead. She's dead, she's dead, she's dead. The thought tortured me with every waking moment, accompanied by flashes of old memories and the ever-present portrait of a dull-eyed woman with a hole in her head. Maybe Diamond's cindered corpse would replace the thought, or maybe it would accompany it. No, she's alive. She's dead. Maybe it would just drive me mad.

Maybe I already am.

Interlude Three: Masks

PETRANUMEN

"Death became ever-present in the minds of our parents, and with it, came fear. The two ideas infected the new astral plane and gave fuel to the engine of society. Vitanimus encouraged it, believing that organization and efficiency would expedite ingenuity. We created civilization. I raised domiciles from the earth, Vitamins raised crops from the soil, and Joy irrigated the land. The people divided themselves into sects, then divided themselves again, and again, and again. They formed specializations, and Vitanimus said it was good, for a specialist could breach the walls of knowledge like an arrowhead, where a generalist would hit it like a club. But from the specializations came segregation, then hierarchy, then a bureaucracy, and before we knew it, we had a nation. Then, a new idea was spoken on the wind. Power. Oh, what a seductive idea it was. It ran through the minds of those who had it and those who did not, and its allure lighted the astral skies like auroras. Power coupled with fear, and their bastard child came to be. Murder. For death was no longer something to be conquered through knowledge, but was something to be used for power. And just as soon as the idea of 'power' came to be, so did another."

I stopped my monologue, and stopped the roll of my hips. I was straddled across Diamond's lap, holding her face against my breast. She halted her pelvic drives, and withdrew her mouth questioningly.

"That was when Corruption started, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered breathily, savoring her molten hardness in my tender depths. "I do not know why I was so attracted to the idea, but I latched onto it. Maybe I knew then that corruption would be the end of power, and therefore, the end of society. For it was at this time that I began to have my doubts."

"Vitanimus and Joy worked tirelessly to progress society, and their brilliant minds accelerated its evolution. But with that progress, came the ills of it. For through the centuries, power had not faded from the astral plane, but intensified. And as Vitanimus and Joy slaved upon the scaffolding of life, so our parents became architects of death. Society divided violently, then divided again, and again. Civil war turned to just 'war' as people entrenched themselves in their differences. The races were defined, the classes were etched, and the borders were drawn. When the leaders came to us, they no longer asked for the means of production, but the tools of destruction. They wanted swords, not plowshares; warhorses, not cattle; floods, not rivers. Vitanimus and Joy refused, horrified that our creators would ask us for such, but I did not refuse, for I saw the opportunity war could bring. But I could not act as I was, for word would reach Vitanimus's ear, and I could not bear the thought of him knowing of my betrayal. So, I clothed myself in the darkness of my purpose, and set out into the night.

I came to the bedchambers of a warlord whose bloodlust was infamous, and his cruelty renowned. His armies were poised to wash over the land, and conquer all beneath his banner. I would inundate him with the thought I wore upon my flesh, and send him and society into a death-spiral. Only when I arrived, there was another woman there already. She was skinned in gold, with hair and eyes just as garishly lustrous, and a body whose supple curves were meant to evoke avarice. She seemed unsure of herself, and well she should, for she was a virgin, but apparently not as innocent as I had thought. I recognized my daughter immediately, and she recognized me. We stared at each other across the sleeping warlord, accusation and shame filling our eyes in equal parts.

"Greed?" I hissed at her.

"Corruption?" Joy scoffed back.

"Power," another voice said from the darkness, and Vitanimus stepped forth, his skin and eyes a deep red, his horns overgrown, his body exaggerated in its display of muscle, and his manhood too large not to cause pain. If you wish to know why Satan is described as he is in the Maternal Path, the inspiration came from this moment. There we stood, Greed, Corruption, and Power, the ills of society made flesh to tempt a warlord for our purpose.

"Why, Joy?" Vitanimus asked our daughter.

"I want to centralize the wealth of the world to create a great city, where great minds will flock to," Joy answered smoothly. "And you, Father?"

"I wish to create an empire with a singular unifying will. A conqueror is needed to forge this for me," Vitanimus answered, then turned to me. "And you, Petranumen?"

"I desire as you do, Vitanimus, and you, Joy," I answered. "I wish for the world to be unified, and the wealth to be centralized. I wish this so that all of society's eggs are in one basket. Then, I wish to crush the basket."

"Mother!" Joy exclaimed, horrified, but Vitanimus just shook his head and laughed. When he looked at me, there was a glint in his eyes that hinted at a very real and very dark desire. The same look was shining from my black eyes, for power and corruption were forbidden lovers. Our attraction was detestable, our intentions were repulsive, and our desire was darker and greater than it had ever been. We liked our new skins; we liked them immensely.

"Progress needs correction, or it will run astray," Vitanimus said. "If there is not an antithesis to our purpose, then how can we know if it is right?"

"She betrayed us!" Joy narrowed her eyes at me.

"She thinks we betrayed our parents long ago," Vitanimus was still chuckling, apparently quite amused. Joy was not.

"We were happy when the world was simple," I tried to explain to her.

"Monkeys are happy to shit in their hands," Joy scoffed.

"If it is their nature," I retorted, incensed by her insolence.

"Is being true to our nature all that we should strive to be?" Vitanimus asked.

"What is your nature, Vitanimus?" I hissed. "This thought you wear fits you like a glove. As does yours, Daughter."

"As does yours, Mother," Joy sneered back. I think it was at that moment, seeing her vitriol shining from her avaricious mask, that my perception of her changed. Maybe it was my self-perception that changed, I did not know, nor did I care. For I was seeing a dark side of Joy, a side that desired to horde the wealth of nations and live in splendor as an idol. It aroused me, and the very thought that I would be sexually attracted to my own daughter only aroused me further, for such an attraction was abhorrent and wrong, and Petranumen would surely be ashamed of it. Petranumen would want to hide it. It would become Petranumen's... darkness. Joy saw the hunger in my eyes, and her sneer slowly faded.

"Mother?" She asked, her voice unsure. She looked to her father, and I followed her gaze. Vitanimus was staring at me, his eyes half-lidded and wild, his arousal stirring between his legs. I could see that he wanted to cause me pain, and that knowledge made me want it as well, but I sought further depravities, for Corruption always seeks to stoop lower. We went to low places that night, Diamond. Never had an Elemental laid a hand on one of our parents, but that night, I did. I took the sleeping warlord from his bed, and hurled him from the tower window. He awoke just in time to realize the end, and his horrific scream was cut with the sickening crack of his breaking body. Joy screamed, but Vitanimus just stared, unflinching, his hunger even greater. For power only covets more of itself, and now that the warlord was dead, there was a great vacuum of power.

"Why?!" Joy shrieked, staring out the window. She turned to me, her face twisted in rage, and she charged me with teeth bared. She pounced on me, and I wrapped my arms about her like a mother, and embraced her. She bit, scratched, and pulled, but the injuries she dealt healed instantly. I felt her naked suppleness pressed to me, and the way her lithe muscles worked beneath the flesh, and I could not stop myself. I sank my fingers into her succulent flank, and rolled us onto the bed.

"Mother, what are you—" but her objection was cut short with the press of my lips, which opened her own to deliver my tongue. She stared at me, her golden eyes wide with horror, tinging their natural white for a moment as the mask of her golden body fell. Her slenderness was unsheathed from the voluptuous golden profile, her pure white flesh glowing dimly. I coerced her avaricious nature back with the motions of my tongue, delivering to her the pleasures of an invasive caress. Joy would have found the ordeal traumatic, but Greed wanted to horde the experience. She changed back, willingly indulging in the wrongness of it, focusing on learning the ways of my kiss so that she could keep that knowledge in her treasure box of a mind. Her breasts pillowed against mine, the nipples stabbing pleasantly between us, and she moved boldly, but in an unpracticed manner atop me.

"You have much to learn," I smiled against her parted lips.

"Teach me, Mother," she whispered, her breath sweet in my nostrils, her eyes filled with desire. "Teach me everything!" She accentuated the last word with a cry that reflected her need. She spread her legs about me, and I pressed my pubis to hers. She shuddered when she felt our slits connect, and the beads of our erogeneity engorge from their hoods to play. I guided her hips to shift back and forth, gliding her pearl through my folds, letting my wet delicate petals caress the center of her lust. She hissed and moaned, her eyes glazing and lidding with hedonism, her mouth gaping, the lustrous gold lips glistening with my saliva. I looked over her shoulder, and saw Vitanimus watching us, his engorgement curving upward. I could see in his eyes that he was conflicted, but there was no denying the wants of his body. I just had to goad them.

"Take her, Vitanimus," I called over my daughter's shoulder as I gripped her cheeks and spread them. "She is yours."

Joy stopped her gyrations, her face stricken with alarm.

"Mother, no!" she cried, and the sweet fear and vulnerability in her voice tickled the power-lust in Vitanimus. He could not stop himself, and nor could she, for even though her mouth sung fearfully her protest, her body still curved to press greedily to mine. It was only when her Father grabbed her by the hips, that Joy finally found the will to resist. She thrashed and twisted, and Vitanimus caught both of her wrists, and pinned them together at the small of her back.

"Father, please don't!" Joy cried, not realizing that her protests only entrenched her fate. She squirmed atop me, each shift causing our connected slits to rub and stimulate, coercing the nectar from our flushing buds. There was a moment where I remembered who she was, and who I was. I remembered that these skins we wore were just indulgences we took in lesser pleasures, and that the people we were outside of them would regret this forever. The moment passed, and I angled my daughter's pelvis upward, relishing the sweet song of her fear. Vitanimus shared a megalomaniac look with me, then buried himself to the hilt.

Joy's scream sputtered to a breathless gasp. Her golden eyes bulged, her mouth gaped, and her body wrenched atop me. So great was Vitanimus's girth that I could feel his bulge through the pressing flat of my daughter's pelvis. It ran through her, then stopped with a smack as his crotch met her cheeks. Then, Joy found her voice. It screeched from her, terrible and pained, and her virgin blood dripped from her and onto my moistened petals. I embraced her once more as mother, whispering sweet nothings into her ear as her father pulled back, then pushed in again, and again, and again. Each thrust was forceful enough to lurch Joy atop me, and send a ripple down the succulent flesh of her golden backside.

"Shh, baby, shh," I soothed her, stroking her with tender fingers. "It will feel so good, I promise you. Just take him in, baby-girl. Take him all the way."

"Stop!" she screamed, writhing to escape the pain her father forced into her. With the sole of my foot, I guided Vitanimus to cease, then to pull from his daughter. Relief washed over her face, obvious and pathetic, breathy exhalations singing from her lips. I grabbed the back of her head, and pulled it upright until her bulging eyes met my teasing stare.

"If you will not have him, then I will take him from you," I whispered on her lips. "He belongs to me, after all, not you." My chin tilted as Vitanimus entered me, stretching me painfully, forcing my depths open with every inch he pushed inside. "Your father was so gracious to offer his gift to you, and you were so rude to deny it. But no matter," my words were moans, "I will keep him all to myself."

If there was a moment that made me fully embrace Corruption, it was the sight of my daughter's face after I'd tickled her greed. For my thrills were begot by the self-ruination of others, and Joy ruined herself in that moment. At first, she dawned an expression of bewilderment. Then, there was a look of annoyance, then anger, then pure, envy. She reached between us, grabbed her father's cock, tore it painfully from my depths, then pierced her own. She cried out with the pain of it, but she held eye-contact with me the whole time, glaring contemptuously as she defiled herself.

"Mine!" she snarled; face contorted in challenge. Then, like a greedy child who realized she's taken more into her mouth than her throat can swallow, Joy's expression slackened in horror.