Cal sat serenely in lotus position, letting the gentle light wash over her. With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see the light, but she could feel it, shining onto her — into her — as it suffused her with warmth.

It was calming. Serene. Meditati-

“You are fidgeting, child,” Aarris chided.

Cal was fidgeting.

It was boring!

What the hells was that about? You’d think getting abducted by a god would at least be a good story, but so far it had been nothing but guided meditation. If such a thing was even possible, it was even more boring than her life in the palace!

The first day had at least been pretty exciting. She remembered regaining consciousness, the last thing she could remember being faceplanting into a pool of her own blood. If that hadn’t been enough, a literal god had showed up next. With all the bat-shit unbelievable information Aarris had given her about Ephesis and what had happened to her companions, Cal could only imagine that things were going to get even wilder yet. And that was before Aarris had told her that she was going to train Cal.

Personal training from a god! Hells, she hadn’t really even done anything in the fight against Ephesis. How good did her luck have to be to get a reward like this? She was certainly sure that her actual Luck wasn’t high enough to justify it. All that she could assume was that it was a side effect of hanging around Tess. Protagonists, after all, tended to have that effect on the world.

Thanks Tess! Cal would have to get her a gift basket when she got back.

She pictured herself stealing treasures and then running away from her pursuers on beams of light, too fast to catch. Dissolving into light to get into fully locked-down vaults without a trace. Or oh! Maybe light magic could even help her upgrade her invisibility skill somehow.

In fact, she was fairly certain that even the height of her imagination would pale in comparison to what she learned. Gods were, after all, gods.

Which was why it came as so much of a surprise when her training turned out to be slow, agonizingly, painfully dull meditation. Something about “understanding the true nature of the Light before delving into its practical purposes.” If it were anyone else, Cal would have thought she was getting punked.

What Cal didn’t say was that she already understood the true nature of the Light: Helping her pretend to be a priest so she could sneak around and steal things.

She, of course, did not say this to Aarris. Cal was already feeling pretty lucky that she hadn’t gotten smote down or something. If the goddess was aware that she’d spent the last few years faking divine revelations and pretending to be a priestess, she thankfully seemed not to care. That hardly meant Cal was going to bring it up, however.

Cal schooled her expression, apologizing to Aarris and attempting to still her body. What else was she supposed to do? Turn down the private training from a god? Mouth off? It wasn’t like she wasn’t tempted to once in a while, but two decades in the palace had made her an expert at quashing those desires.

“Child, you are fidgeting again,” Aarris noted.

Aghhh!

“Apologies, goddess.” She controlled her tone, while inside, she screamed. The only thing she’d learned about the Light so far was that it was great at driving her insane.

“I’m going to level with you.” Hex brought her arms to her hips, craning her neck upwards to make eye contact with Hartha. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here.”

Hartha matched the god’s stare, blinking without saying anything.

“It just seemed like a cool idea, you know? I’d grab myself a little apprentice. Teach you something. Was kind of spur of the moment though. Didn’t prepare any lesson plans.”

Hartha maintained her stare, her lips curling downwards into a slight frown.

“Sooo, whatcha thinking here? Anything you want to learn? Dissolve into motes of darkness? Read people’s minds? Blind an entire army with cloying darkness? I mean I guess I also trained in the bassoon for a couple of years — I guess I could probably teach that too. Not really godly, but always nice to have someone who appreciates some good bassoonary, you know? Underappreciated instrument.”

Hartha’s frown visibly deepened and deepened until her lips threatened to escape her face. Then, rapidly schooling her expression, she bowed deeply, her prodigious frame almost as tall as Hex even after fully bowing.

“Apologies goddess. This one would not presume to trouble one such as you for your time. I am sure that my friends are worried for me, and I should return to my tribe as quickly as possible. The honored dryad will be relying on me.” Though Hartha did her best to deliver the words as kindly as she could, Hex immediately started to pout.

“Boooo. Come on, you must want something. You know how bad of a look that is for me? ‘Hey everyone! I’m going to abduct Hartha and give her something amazing!’ Then bam, you come back with nothing? Plus, you have that cool new class now! And those freaky dark veins! I’m sure I can fulfill at least a few of your class quests for you, yeah?”

Despite Hex’s strength, Hartha was finding it incredibly hard to take the goddess seriously. What sort of deity decides to look like that? Hex had briefly explained that the style was something called ‘goth’, but it certainly wasn’t anything Hartha had ever heard of. Who would want to wear all of those spikes? Was it a special form of armor?

That, however, wasn’t the most important detail. Apparently Ephesis had been beaten. The dark force that had spread over the deadlands — which, apparently, had been Hex’s mana — was now gone. Her tribe would be needing her, and instead she was stuck here.

Maybe she’d take things more seriously if anything Hex had suggested could be used to help the tribe, but dark attacks and mind control didn’t hold any interest for her.

The bassoon sounded kind of nice, actually, but she could learn that back home.

Frankly, it was why she’d been so reluctant to accept her new class in the first place. With the exception of helping with stealth, there wasn’t much of a healthy, communal aspect to dark spells. And frankly, the shadows already had no trouble with their stealth abilities, at least compared to anything in the forest. One of the perks with being camouflage-colored since birth.

She didn’t think that dark magic was dirty per se. Hartha had no strong hatred for it. She just found it slightly… distasteful.

Hartha opened her mouth to reiterate her decision, only to have Hex jump in, preemptively cutting her off.

“Just think on it, yeah? Leaf through your class quests for a while. Do some heartfelt introspection. Look deep, deep within yourself, specifically into the part of yourself that secretly thinks that dark magic is super awesome and that Hex is the coolest goddess ever.” She shot Hartha a winning smile and a double thumbs up. “You do that while I go… do important god things, yeah? Later!”

She winked out of existence, leaving Hartha standing there in the expansive void. Stuck all alone, with nothing to see anywhere, Hartha could not describe herself as happy, per se.

This… does not feel like a reward.

“I am feeling like I may not be a good guiding light to mortals,” Aarris admitted. No longer in front of any of the mortals in question, she’d eschewed her angelic form, opting to show herself as a ball of pure, blinding light.

“What? Of course that’s not true.” Hex, having similarly returned to darkness, consoled her. “I mean, sure, there was the whole thing with Ephesis — not either of our finest moments — but you got this! I’m sure your mortal will have a breakthrough soon.”

Aarris’s light momentarily dimmed, the deific equivalent of a light sigh. “Thank you, but I… do not think so. I am not reaching her. I do not have your proficiency with mental magic, but I can tell. Her progress is not slow. It is… nonexistent.”

Hex humphed at that. “Well, maybe the fault lies with the student. We’re gods! We’re doing a godly job, by definition!” It was nice being awesome by definition. Far preferable to having to actually work at things, Hex thought.

“Thank you. I will think on this. And you? How goes your progress with the forest shadow girl?” Evidently done wallowing over her own situation, Aarris attempted to redirect the conversation.

“Ehhhhhhh. I’m confident it’ll go well. Eventually. When I start teaching her something.” Hex was a good teacher! She’d knock it out of the park. Speedy progress from the get-go. “She’s, uh, just having some problems picking where to start, you know? Lots of really exciting things that I can teach. Overwhelming really.”

The following silence was deafening.

“I do not believe this is working, is it?”

“No, not really, huh?”

They sat in companionable silence for a time, something that they’d grown exceptionally good at over the years and years and years and years.

“Maybe they need some mortal time? Probably intimidating to get things done surrounded by nothing but our godliness all day, right? Should we let them have a little play date?” There’d been a time where Hex had known more about mortals than they did themselves. She still did when it came to a lot of things. Outside the small handful of people she’d read the minds of after getting released, however, it had been a long time since she’d had any serious mortal exposure. Some things had gotten a little foggy.

Aarris bobbed up and down, nodding with her immaterial form. “This is a good idea. Perhaps they will unblock themselves.”

Satisfied with her brilliant idea, Hex bumped into Aarris, somewhere between a comforting nudge and a high five. This was going to work great!

“Oh thank fuck you’re here. I’ve been going crazy. I don’t even care if they can hear me anymore.” Cal practically dove into Hartha’s legs, doing her best to latch onto the hulking shadow. Her grip was tight as if afraid that Hartha would be ripped away from her at any moment.

Hex and Hartha stood within an expanse of pure darkness, every inch in every direction blacker than night. Impossibly, Hartha was only able to see because some patches of the darkness were visibly darker than others. Hex was a good example of this, her form somehow seeming to suck in reality around her, pulling Hartha’s eyes towards her.

Ducking down, Hartha returned the hug. “It’s nice to see you too. Although, it wasn’t actually that bad for me. Think I’m learning things about myself.” Specifically that if someone ever wanted to torture her, sensory deprivation probably wasn’t the way to go about it. Kind of soothing actually. Lots of time for calm introspection. Really put the world in focus.

Occasionally she wished that she’d taken up Hex on her bassoon lessons offer — it would have given her something to do, at least — but she hadn’t gotten much alone time since the whole “Heart of the Forest” thing. Maybe she’d have to set some boundar-

“Hi. You’re spacing out. Please don’t space out on me. I need constant stimulus right now.” Cal was used to pretending to sit in a small room and do nothing for hours, but of course, that had just been a front for her sneaking out and stealing things. Infuriatingly, there wasn’t much sneaking around to do in Aarris’s domain of light. Not even any shadows to hide in.

Presently, the two of them were in some sort of mixed domain, with light and dark intersecting at strange and unnatural angles. While it might have been gripping in any other instance, their time with the goddesses had inured them to such oddities.

Feeling strangely motherly, Hartha ran her hand over Cal’s head, stroking her hair. “I apologize. I have not been speaking with others much. Why don’t you tell me about your time with Aarris?” Hartha would admit to being slightly curious, but more than that, she just wanted Cal to have something to focus on.

“It’s boring. It’s boring. It’s all meditation! Discovering the meaning of the Light. She’s a god! Where are the super destructo lasers! Light speed travel! Hells, I’d be okay with making myself really shiny at this point! But nooooo. That’s not the right place to start.” Cal pulled at her hair, Hartha momentarily being afraid she’d start ripping it out. With a huff, she stopped, bringing her hands to her sides. “Sorry. I’m rambling. What about you? Are you okay? How are you holding up?”

Hartha shrugged. “I feel sane. Just unhappy. I do not feel like Hex has anything to teach me that I would like to learn. It’s all ‘blinding enemies’ and ‘attacking people with darkness.’ I have little desire to read minds or sneak around more than I do either. I am not selfless, but accepting my class means that my skills are much more aligned with helping the entire forest and my people.”

They let their words hang in the air for a time, realization slowly dawning on them.

Cal detached herself from Hartha, craning her neck upwards to lock eyes — eyes that matched her own, suddenly much wider than they’d been before.

“We should-”

“I think-”

“You want to-”

They paused, nodding at one another before opening their mouths in unison.

“We should switch.”