After being placated somewhat by her bout of violence against the townsfolk, Hazeel had gone into the caravan to wait until we were ready to set off. Vanessa joined her, and told me that she would keep the wood elf company, since she seemed upset by the whole affair.

I leaned against the stable’s wall, and looked down at the unconscious bodies of the villagers, who were being attended to by the local physician.

“I’m terribly sorry about their actions! Please, please find it in your heart to forgive them!” Kokoro was talking to me, but I ignored her plea entirely.

In the first place, it wasn’t me that was the target of the verbal abuse, but Hazeel, who was currently trying to regain herself away from the scrutiny of the crowd that had gathered after they heard the bomb go off in the river.

Needless to say, the families of the young men came forward to their defense, and joined in calling Hazeel a slut, and blamed her for being a temptress that seduced their, ‘pure-minded boys,’ and led them astray from the teachings of the gods.

Hazeel, of course, was deeply hurt by their response, and thus we found ourselves in the situations we were in now, where Rexir and Leresa were trying to calm down the villagers, and Kokoro, who probably knew more about me than she let on, was begging me not to do anything rash about the situation, and to resolve it peacefully.

I had wanted to get some modicum of revenge at first, but realized that it would have been a worthless act. The families would have used it as further evidence of Hazeel’s wrongdoing, and alienated her further.

I realized that I had been tapping my foot in agitation, and had to physically stop myself. I let out a long sigh, which stopped Kokoro from running her mouth further.

“We won’t do anything. To be honest, I think Hazeel just wants to get out of the village, at this point. As long as you can assure no one will attack us on our way out, I can also guarantee that we will play nice.”

Kokoro looked at me, stunned, and vigorously nodded her head. “Oh, thank you, Leo! I knew I could count on you to make the right decision.” She breathed out a sigh of relief and turned to face the crowd, but I stepped in front of her.

“Before we go, however, I would like to address the crowd.” Her face paled, but I continued walking until I was standing behind Rexir and Leresa.

“Hey, you two.” They turned around, and Rexir spread his arms wide, as if to guard the villagers from my impending attack. I realized he had grown up in this village, and knew everyone here personally, but it still hurt to see him have so little faith in my self control.

Leresa, meanwhile, was standing next to me, her gaze darting between my face and those of the villagers. “You can stay there, Rexir. Leresa, can you go perform a final check on the carriage, and bring it out of the stables for departure.”

“Good, from your tone, it seems you won’t do anything rash.” Leresa smiled at me, and walked off to the stables, where Dantae was trying and failing to hook Biscuit up to the caravan. I grinned at the sight of it, before hardening my resolve.

I turned to face the villagers, and let my neutral expression collapse, my brows furrowing and a frown appearing on my face in anger.

“You are all idiots.” The crowd and Rexir were stunned by my declaration, so I used the extended silence as a cue to continue speaking.

“If you all can’t see that your sons were the ones at fault, and freely admit it, then you’re doing them a disservice. You’re letting them grow into the kind of piece of garbage that reprimands a woman just for living her life.”

“Quiet outsider!” An older man screamed at me. “That lesser life form doesn’t deserve to receive Tirania’s blessings!”

“So there’s the root of the problem.” I smiled, and a few of the villagers with no relation to the men shifted away from the old racist. If he was that old, then he probably remembered the war that Hazeel herself, and other demi-humans had participated in.

“I get that in small towns with no diversity, conservative views tend to perpetuate and become more extreme over generations. I didn’t think I’d find the problem here though, only a week’s travel from the port town.”

The man looked around him skittishly, and I could see that the crowd had turned in on itself, with those who supported the old man, and those who believed his claims to be outrageous. There was a clear divide in ideologies, and one which I didn’t delve deeper into.

“You know what?” I said, and the crowd turned to face me. “You aren’t even worth the air I breathe. Rexir, let’s go. I’m not wasting my time on these idiots any longer.”

I turned heel and walked away, and after a moment, I heard Rexir follow after me. Unfortunately, that was where things stopped being cordial, as a stone hit the back of my head, and caused me to stagger forward. I stumbled to my knees before coming to a stop.

The action had caught me so off guard that I couldn’t even sense the incoming stone before it impacted me. I reached to the back of my head, and came away with warm, wet, and sticky blood. I stared at it for a moment as what had just happened registered in my brain.

I turned around to face the crowd, and found the old man standing, frozen in place as if he had just thrown something. Upon meeting my gaze, he finally regained himself, and screamed, “L-leave this place! Begone you sacreligious fiends!”

The people in the crowd further distanced themselves, and before I could say anything, Dantae appeared next to the man, and swung a blade towards his neck.

Rexir barely intercepted it in time, and prevented the man from being killed outright. However, a small incision had been made on the man’s neck, and he dropped to his behind with a shriek. I was convinced he had nearly urinated on himself.

“Rexir, back the fuck off!” Dantae roared, and although his legs were shaking, Rexir didn’t move an inch, and instead, raised his own dagger once more.

Dantae started to gather photons around her, but they suddenly dispersed. Vanessa stared at her hand in surprise, but no one else noticed besides me.

Instead, their gazes were locked towards the sky, where five green stars had begun to descend to the ground. They stopped above our heads, and from them spread an aurora.

“Tirania’s lights!” The old man cried as he prostrated himself. The rest of the villagers did the same, including Rexir and Kokoro, but Vanessa and I remained standing.

“Leo, this is-” Vanessa was cut off as her eyes began to glow white, and the five stars sped towards her body, before melting into her head. The villagers stared at her in awe as Dantae staggered backward. Finally, she lifted her head, and looked over the villagers with glowing, green eyes.

“Why do you use my name to justify your actions, mortal?” The words coming out from Dantae seemed to shake the very ground I stood on, and it was all I could do to keep myself from being sent to my knees once more.

Vanessa’s hair had turned from it’s usual platinum into a deep seafoam green. Her eyes were the shade of emeralds, and lightning crackled around her, running down from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.

The elderly man who had thrown a stone at me inched himself closer to the Tirania/Dantae hybrid, and prostrated himself even lower to the ground.

“Oh great goddess, protector of the realms, the demon in the carriage seduced our sons, awakening in them a demonic change that transformed the very nature of who they were! She changed them until they were unrecognizable!”

Tirania twirled Vanessa’s blade in her fingers, and turned to face me. And why, mortal, did you harm Leo with a stone?”

The man’s face paled, as he looked up at the goddess. “He was sowing seeds of discontent in the minds of the villagers! He was working with the demon to derail the sanctity of our community, and with it, raise more demon sympathizers! I was only carrying out his punishment as a natural consequence for his actions. All for the goddess!”

Tirania looked at me, and I returned her gaze. I shivered a bit as I stared into her deep, pitch-green eyes, only to recoil when I noticed that she had black irises staring back at me.

She held up a hand, and muttered something under her breath. My body started moving out of my control, and I rewound my actions until I was facing her again.

I reached a hand to the back of my head, and realized that the wound was no longer there, and the stone was lying next to the old man once more.

“What have you done!?” The man screamed, apparently not concerned for showing respect to the ancient goddess any longer. “Why did you revoke his punishment!?”

Tirania turned to face the crowd once more, and raised Vanessa’s knife to the sky. “I have no need for those who would inflict harm upon their fellow species on my planet. I swore that I would not interfere in worldly affairs where it does not concern me.”

Thunder began to rumble in the clear sky, and lightning began to crackle along the green aurora. “However, you have deemed it appropriate to do harm to my Chosen, and in doing so, have deemed it appropriate to make a slight against me.”

The man began to tremble, and sat up on his knees. “Oh great goddess, I beg for your forgiveness! Truly, it was all the demon-spawns fault for leading us astray! I was only-”

He never finished the sentence, as Tirania swung her blade down in a cleaving motion, and a bolt of lightning struck down from the sky, impacting the man directly.

He didn’t even have a chance to let out a scream as he burst into flames, and turned into ash within mere moments of being struck by Tirania.

The crowd was silent, but one glance at them would reveal that they felt threatened into silence. No more, and no less.

“That man has been smote for daring to twist the teachings of a God to fit his own warped view of reality. Not that the Gods have a problem with it, so long as your views don’t inflict pain on others. I do hope you will choose to be wiser in the future, mortals.”

Tirania then snapped her fingers and walked up to me, placing a hand on my cheek. Her hand felt as though it were burning up, and I endured the pain while she stroked my face. “My lovely Chosen. Do take care in this world. As you can tell, people here are not as accepting as they are in your own world. Thank you for returning my adept to me, and take caution in the coming days. Remember, I will always be watching over you.”

She separated from me, and the aurora disappeared, taking the green light from Vanessa’s eyes with it. She collapsed into my arms, and I gently fell with her to the floor. I stroked her hair as she snored, and buried her face into my chest. What the hell just happened?

---

Vanessa floated in the light. It wasn’t like when she was still broken, the light felt comfortable, familiar. “I didn’t think we’d get to meet again, Vanessa.”

She turned, and looked into the eyes of a woman who completely dwarfed her in size. She must have been ten feet tall at least, with the assets to match. Her skin was pure silver, and her seafoam green hair and green eyes with black irises marked her as someone Vanessa could have never forgotten.

“Who are you?” Vanessa asked, and the massive woman smiled down at her.

“My name is Tirania. I see that you do not remember me. I suppose that is to be expected, however. You were barely on the side of consciousness when you and Leo passed into this world. No matter. You’ll remember soon.”

The woman touched a silver finger to Vanessa’s forehead, and instantly, her memories came flooding back into existence.