Vilja’s forest had once again grown to its full size and was waiting for the goddess to be sufficiently bored to burn it down, but what kept her from doing it, was a single tree right by the edge of the clearing she spent most of her time at. What was so special about this tree was its size: it outgrew every other tree in the forest and now even its tallest competitors weren’t even tenth of its height. Yet it still kept growing, as Vilja so willed. She sat on the ground next to it with her broken simulacrum companion and watched as the highest branches reached for the skies.

Sylvia had noticed the tree from afar as well and correctly guessed that it would be where she could find Vilja. “What is the purpose of this exercise, if I may ask?” She politely inquired and sat next to her fellow god.

“I’m going to poke the sun.” Vilja answered bluntly.

“Of course you are. I should have gathered as much…” Sylvia nodded. “But why?”

“He needs to know the rules. In here, the sun shines when I allow it to.” The young goddess declared and shook her fist at the sun. “Something about it really annoys me.”

The goddess of joy pondered whether she should tell Vilja that the sun she saw couldn’t be reached, as the Father of Light lacked any lasting physical form, and the glowing sphere in the sky was merely a sign that meant that he was watching. “It is only natural that you two should clash when you first meet. Not only is he not too fond of necromancers, but the sun itself is quite possibly the most important blessing any god has given to the mortals. His light is sought after by many as well and is often used as a metaphor for the single most important thing a person has in their life. Someone such as yourself must loathe him greatly.” She explained.

Vilja shrugged and kept growing the tree, adamant to take the sun god down a notch.

“At least make an attempt to be amiable towards each other. He is an ally of great importance to us.” Sylvia pleaded. “But that aside, I came to tell you that I have regained my strength and we will be moving ahead with the plan. I hoped that I could reconnect with my chosen one before this, but Anastacia has yet to resolve her troubles…”

Suddenly the tree stopped growing and Vilja turned to her fellow god. “What do I… What does she have to do with whether you can reconnect with Emilia or not?” She asked and pulled her pipe out from her hair.

“You must understand that Emilia is and will always be my highest priority, even above you and your old self. If I were to reconnect with her before Anastacia has dealt with her past, she would insist on helping, and that is a risk I can not allow her to take. So as much as it pains me, my chosen one will stay powerless for a while longer.” The goddess of joy explained and reached out to Vilja. “For someone like me, a devoted chosen one is what secures my existence, as soon as I lose that, I lose my ability to act in the mortal world and because of that, will be forgotten eventually. As things are, my believers are still too few in number to sustain me for the time it would take to find a replacement for Emilia. Even by just telling you this, I place myself in tremendous danger, if you were ever to stray from my side.”

Vilja took her hand and squeezed it. “Forgotten, huh? Wouldn’t that make you useless…” She muttered. Suddenly the flames in her eyes started to grow brighter and taller. The goddess grinned to bare her teeth as her hair wrapped around Sylvia’s arm. “Does that mean I could have you?” She asked as the silvery hair wrapped around Sylvia and lifted the goddess of joy from the ground.

Sylvia didn’t fight back at all, as Vilja tightened her grasp and dangled the goddess upside down in the air. “Perhaps, we do not know yet.” She answered and smiled gently.

Disappointed that her bluff had been seen through, Vilja dropped her act and lowered Sylvia so that they were face to face. “You could have at least played along and struggled a bit.” She sighed and pressed her forehead against Sylvia’s mask. “Whether I’m a human or a god, looks like my place in this world is to be a part of someone’s plans. Just make sure you’re not doing anything evil and I’ll help.”

Vilja grabbed the prince and headed to the middle of the clearing, where she looked around for a while before turning to Sylvia. “What were we going to do again?”

“We are merging our planes together. All you need to do is break yours and mine will flow in from the cracks.” Sylvia said while still entangled in Vilja’s hair. “Could you let me down as well?”

Ignoring the request, Vilja sat down to think how she would be able to break her realm, since it had no ceiling and no walls, she considered going for the floor, but even that was merely artificial. How was she supposed to break something that was basically just infinite emptiness in every direction? Ripping a hole through to another realm was easy enough to do, but the holes created that way always closed themselves eventually.

“It is quite clear from your puzzled expression that you are overthinking this. We are in your realm, it will do as you ask.” Sylvia pitched in. “But do release me first, please.”

Unsure about the supposed easiness of the task, Vilja lifted her finger like she was ordering something from a waitress. “Uh… Break?” She asked, and a massive crack appeared in the sky above them.

The crack began to slowly spread in every direction and large shards of the sky began to fall down. From the holes they had left, barbed wires spread in all directions and latched on to Vilja’s plane. It didn’t take long for the first ones to reach the absurdly tall tree and wrap themselves around it, and soon enough the entire sky was covered in a mesh of barbed wire that reached all the way to horizon in all directions.

Weirdly, the whole affair made no noise at all, the wires themselves latched on to nothing, so it didn’t make the scraping noise one would expect, and similarly the large fragments of sky crashed into the forest without so much as a plink, as they were also made of nothing. If a mortal were to see what was happening, it would certainly seem like the world was ending, even if it was completely silent.

“Seems I might have underestimated the effort required… Could you perhaps give it a slight pull from here?” Sylvia asked when the spreading of the cracks started to slow down. “And perhaps unhand me?”

In seconds, strands of silvery hair exploded and spread everywhere from Vilja’s head, they intertwined with the barbed wires and began pulling down on them, allowing the merger to continue. As more and more of the sky fell down, it became clear what they were trying to pull through: nothing. There was simply another endless white sky above the one that broke.

When the last piece of the old sky fell, the wires quickly melted away as a rain of red-hot metal and set the entire forest on fire once more. But aside from that, nothing had changed. What had seemed like an apocalypse for the couple of minutes it lasted, had resulted in absolutely nothing.

Vilja stared at the sky, looking extremely perplexed by what had just happened. Nothing about her realm seemed different. She had immediately picked up on the sun god sneaking into her plane, but Sylvia crashing her entire realm into Vilja’s changed nothing. She turned to the goddess of joy, who seemed awfully excited about the situation, hoping to get at least some answers.

“Magnificent! There was a slight chance that my plane would simply break before yours cracked and dispersed into the void, but everything transpired far better than I could have ever even hoped!” Sylvia giggled joyfully, making her sway back and forth in Vilja’s grasp.

“I’d like an explanation, please.” Vilja said and raised her hand.

“Have you perhaps forgotten the last five times I explained this to you? I am certain you were awake during one of them at least.” Sylvia asked and laughed heartily. She was obviously in a great mood. “Very well, allow me to word it in a way a mortal could understand: Imagine two bubbles of infinite size colliding. Since you are a very physical god, your bubble is far, far stronger in comparison to mine, and if you would have denied me access, my bubble would have simply burst. But since you did not, the two merged into a bigger bubble.”

“YOU COULD HAVE DIED?!” Vilja shouted and shook Sylvia around. “Fucking tell me about this shit beforehand!”

“But I did, on multiple occasions. You seemed to be fine with it back then. But that hardly matters anymore! From now on, we can both operate from here and support one another properly. With time, we can even start a pantheon of our own!” Sylvia said and swayed back and forth happily.

Vilja took a better look at her burning forest, the fire didn’t bother her all that much, since it was about time to destroy it anyway; but there were no lakes of molten metal, no chains or wires or anything she would have expected from the goddess of joy. “If we’re roommates now, where’s all your stuff?” She asked and moved Sylvia closer to herself.

“Roommates… I like that. I do not possess the gifts for decorating like you do, so after the first forest I created from your faith became your realm, mine was once again empty. But do not worry over it, I am quite content in living through the feelings of my followers alone and will not lift a finger to ruin your forest.” The trapped goddess reassured her. “Once you release me and once Anastacia has dealt with Mournvalley, we will take the next step in our plan. Please tell me you have not forgotten that as well…”

Vilja awkwardly looked around and tried her best to come up with anything, but she didn’t even have a vague idea of what they were doing anymore. She hadn’t been kept in the dark or anything, the goddess of unwanted things just sucked at listening and had the attention span of a young child. Instead of admitting to not remembering, Vilja just threw her new roommate into the distance.