[Reckoning]
Tanya spent a little while longer in Babel before going back to the Hostess, browsing the various storefronts. She was mostly window shopping, keeping an eye out for something that could occupy her downtime. She was surprised to discover that while Orario had an abundance of taverns and even festivals, there wasn’t much in the way of personal entertainment. Books were relatively abundant, but other than that, practically nothing.
Eventually, she settled on a sketchpad and some stationary. She had dabbled with drawing in her previous lives, though mostly as an idle amusement. Perhaps she could turn it into an actual hobby in this new life.
The clerk at the stationery shop had recognized her, of course, but to the woman’s credit, she had only offered a polite congratulations and a recommendation for a particular brand of parchment that was supposedly smudge-resistant. Tanya had taken the upsell for what it was.
Tanya’s journey back to the Hostess was almost peaceful. Her mind had settled, and the weight of two lifetimes that seemed perpetually settled on her shoulders had lifted. For the first time in quite a while, she was at peace. Or at least as close to it as she had gotten since her childhood.
Of course, given her track record, it was inevitable that her turn of luck couldn’t last forever. It happened as Tanya turned down a street that would bring her closer to the Hostess while avoiding the main road which was usually rather busy this time of day. She had used the shortcut a dozen times before, but the moment she stepped into the street, she could instantly tell that something was different.
She stared at a silent street. Not merely quiet, silent. The kind of silent that only existed in the dead of night when the world itself seemed to fall asleep. The ambient noises of the city, from the crowded streets around to the birds nesting on rooftops, faded completely the moment she took a step onto the street. Even the wind itself seemed to be missing from this little pocket of the world
Tanya’s eyes scanned the buildings—empty. The whole street was completely bereft of any life, human or otherwise.
All except for one man standing only a few yards away, staring directly at Tanya.
The man was tall and lean, dressed in a fine black suit that seemed conjured into existence specifically for him. His hair was swept back from his face and dark as pitch, accentuating his sharp, pale features. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, utterly at ease.
Tanya’s hand drifted toward her saber on instinct, her eyes narrowing as she took in the stranger’s appearance. There was something about him that set her on edge, though she wasn’t sure what.
The man spoke before she could call it to him, his voice a smooth timbre that filled the whole street. “So here we are again.”
Tanya eyed him. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I don’t remember meeting you.”
The man chuckled. “No, I don’t suppose you would. It seems that no matter where I send you, you are determined to stick to your beliefs, or lack thereof.”
All at once, understanding washed over Tanya, alongside an intense rage that threatened to sweep away every bit of peace she’d managed to gather. “You.”
Being X spread his hands in a gesture of mock innocence. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”
“Friend? I’ve killed dozens of men far nicer than you,” Tanya spat, unsheathing her saber in one draw. Her bags from Babel fell to the street, writing utensils scattering over the stone as her saber came free with a rasp.
Tanya moved to take a step forward but the being in front of her held up a hand, an amused look on his face. “That’s enough.”
Tanya’s arms locked in place, frozen mid-swing before she could even bring her saber to bear. The grip was impossibly strong, and it felt as if they were made of concrete rather than flesh and bone. She jerked against the hold, her muscles straining, but the arms holding her didn’t so much as budge.
She twisted her head, her blue eyes widening as they found the scarred face of Azalea leering back at her.
“Hello, little mouse,” Azalea said, her eyes flashing with the same strange power coursing through the limbs that held Tanya steady. “How have you been? Better than me, I bet.”
Tanya’s answering noise could be easily construed as a snarl. She tried to move, but try as she might, she simply could not. She turned back to Being X who was watching them and spat. “So you’ve thrown your lot in with brigands now? She’s not exactly as pious as Mary was, is she?”
“Mary gave her life to defeat you, and in a way, she succeeded. Her role is done and she is at rest with her father, just as she wanted,” Being X turned his golden eyes upon the woman behind Tanya. “Azalea was lost. I have given her purpose just as I tried to do for you.”
Azalea’s grip tightened fractionally, her scarred face twisting into something ugly. “My Lord gave me more than Soma ever even offered. I’m filled with power far beyond anything I ever thought possible, and all it took was a little Faith.”
“A temporary loan, I assure you,” Tanya growled through gritted teeth. “You’d do well to remember what happens to his so-called champions when they’ve outlived their usefulness. The last one carried herself to an early grave seeking my death, and it seems you’re her replacement. I wonder how long it will take until you’ve reached the end of your rope as well.”
Azalea’s spirit wavered just a fraction, her eyes flickering to Being X for a single instant. Tanya caught it anyway and filed it away for later as the man stepped forward.
“Always the cynic, my dear Atheist,” he said, striding forward with his hands tucked neatly behind his back like some posh noble. “You’ve been through so much, survived only thanks to the gifts I have you, and yet here you remain, as stubborn to change as a stone.”
“It’s only human nature to want to live my life free from the meddling of self-important entities who fancy themselves divine,” Tanya retorted. “Your obsession with me borders on fanatical. It almost makes me wonder who the truly devout one is in this relationship.”
Being X’s expression shifted, the amusement bleeding away to reveal something colder beneath. “Obsession? You think this is obsession?”
“I think a being who claims to be the creator of all things yet devotes so much attention to a single unbeliever is either obsessed or profoundly insecure,” Tanya smirked as she saw the effect she was having on him, adding on, “perhaps both.”
Being X’s expression hardened, the last vestiges of amusement draining from his features like water from a cracked vase.
“You have been given every opportunity,” Being X said, his voice no longer carrying the pleasant timbre from before. “I have placed you in worlds where faith surrounds you like the air you breathe. I have offered you power, purpose, and the means to survive, and yet you persist in your delusion that the world operates on nothing but cold logic and chance.”
Being X tilted his head, regarding her with cold golden eyes. “Faith is not a choice, Atheist. Existence itself is designed in such a way that belief in the divine is not merely encouraged, but necessary. Those who reject this truth are willingly blinding themselves to live in the darkness they themselves created”
“Then I suppose there must be a certain comfort in that,” Tanya said, her jaw set. “Because I would rather worship you than recognize the micro-managing tyranny you peddle.”
Being X stared at her for a long moment, his golden eyes searching her face for something—some crack in her resolve, some hint of doubt that he could exploit. Tanya met his gaze unflinchingly, her blue eyes blazing with a fury that had been simmering for two lifetimes.
“So be it.”
Being X’s words resounded through the street like a gunshot, sharp an poignant. “I have tried to guide you to the truth, Atheist. I have placed tribulations before you, offered you salvation, given you every opportunity to open your eyes and see the world as it truly is.”
He stepped closer, and goosebumps rolled over Tanya’s skin at the look in his eyes. He seemed to be staring straight through her, gazing at something beyond what she had the ability to cognize.
“But you refuse,” Being X continued, stepping ever closer. “and have thus forced my hand.”
Before she could react, he raised a hand and placed it on her head. Tanya felt a rush of power burn through her, filling her veins with molten lead and her muscles with magma. She gasped, her eyes blowing wide and staring sightlessly in front of her as horrifyingly familiar magic burned through her.
The last thing she heard before her legs gave out was Being X’s resigned voice in her ear. “Since you will not accept the truth when it is offered, I shall place it plainly before your face.”
~~~
Licia stared at her half-finished mug of ale. The spiced alcohol dipped and moved in time with the thunderous noise around her, and she cast a glare to a man who got a little to close to her table, nearly bumping into it in his revelry. The man paled and dipped away, not quite drunk enough to miss the threat.
Licia sighed, sipping her drink, before pausing as a hand was put on her shoulder. She turned to find the familiar face of Dorian smiling softly at her. “Tough day?”
She shrugged, pitching her voice to be heard over the party going on around them. “Not really. I went down a little further than usual today but there wasn't really anything I couldn't handle. I guess I'm still just getting used to my new family. They aren't like the people in Apollo.”
“How so?” Dorian asked, and Licia smirked into her mug.
“They're louder, for one.”
She looked over the tavern and taking in faces that were slowly becoming familiar to her. It was a party in the Hostess of Fertility, and it seemed like half of the Twilight Manor had showed up. From the grunts to the Executives sequestered at their own table, everyone seemed to be having a good time. Even Loki herself was present, quickly getting tipsy off of whatever top-shelf spirit she'd managed to wring out of Mama Mia’s stores.
Dorian laughed. “They're an excitable bunch, that's for sure. I don't think we ever had a party this crazy with Apollo. It was all banquets and galas. I think I prefer this.”
Licia smiled. “Me too.”
“I'm glad you're fitting in,” Dorian said, watching as a man with a braided beard tripped over his own feet, landing squarely on top of a woman who didn't take kindly to how close his hands had strayed near her cleavage. “I was worried about you those first few weeks. I've never seen you so out of sorts.”
“Can you blame me? After everything we went through, who wouldn't be?”
Dorian’s smile turned rueful. “No, I suppose not. But we're doing better now.”
Licia nodded, taking another sip of her ale as Dorian did the same. As he did so, her eyes strayed to the stump of his arm, and she was hit with a pang of remorse. It was stupid, but she couldn't help but feel slightly responsible for her friend and mentor’s injury. If she had been stronger, he wouldn't have had to save them as he had.
“Have you seen Tanya today?” Licia asked. “I thought she'd be here by now.”
“She mentioned something about errands earlier, but she promised to be here. She's probably just waiting for things to die down before slipping in. For all we know, she's just hanging around outside.”
Licia snorted. “That sounds like her.”
The two lapsed into comfortable silence, watching the revelry around them. A man and a woman were arm-wrestling a few tables away, surrounded by a small crowd. The man was losing handily, to the jeers of his friends behind him. Licia spied Loki a table or two behind them, standing on her chair and shouting something at Ais who was straight-faced as always in the face of her goddess’s drunkenness.
Dorian spied where she was looking and eyes her. “How does she treat you?”
Licia shrugged. “Honestly, I've barely talked to her. The Loki Familia is much bigger than our old one. If one of the lower level adventurers have a problem, we talk to the Second Strings. I've chatted with Aki once or twice, and she seems nice.”
“Guess it's hard to manage a Familia that big,” Dorian said as they watched an Amazon pull Loki back into her chair, much to the goddess’s consternation.
Dorian shifted beside her, going to ask her something when his eyes caught on something over her shoulder. His face lit up with a grin and he raised his hand in greeting.
“Tanya! It's about time you showed... up...”
His voice trailed off, the smile on his face slowly dying as he got a better look at the approaching figure. Licia turned on her stool, a greeting already forming on her lips, and froze.
Tanya had indeed made her appearance and was walking towards them. Though, calling it walking was a bit generous. The girl seemed to be stumbling over her own feet, her gait unsteady and almost drunken as she navigated the partying adventurers.
Tanya’s head rose from the floor and Licia froze, her heart sinking to her stomach. Tanya looked absolutely furious, her eyes blazing with an incandescent rage that far outstripped anything that Licia had seen from her before. Her jaw was clenched so tightly that the tendons on her neck and forehead were bulging with tension. She looked like she wanted to murder someone.
Licia slid from her stool as someone bumped into Tanya, sending her sprawling to the floor, limbs askew. Both she and Dorian pushed through the crowd, coming to rest by the girl and helping her to her knees.
“Tanya, are you alright?” Dorian asked, his face flushed with concern.
“She's burning up,” Licia said, feeling the heat roiling under the girl’s shirt. Tanya turned to look up at her and Licia noted that her face was slicked with sweat, beads of perspiration rolling down her neck as if she had just got done working out. Or fighting. “What happened? Were you attacked?”
“You could say that,” Tanya huffed in a hoarse voice. “It seems the ghost of my past finally decided to show himself. I can’t say I missed him, but the feeling clearly isn’t mutual.”
Before Licia could even try to understand what that meant, they were interrupted. Licia looked up in surprise as Loki herself pushed through the crowd that had gathered around them. The goddess was sporting a frown on her flushed face and was holding an expensive looking bottle of wine in one hand.
“You went and got yourself another god?” she complained, teetering in place. “Man, that sucks! I was gonna work you over nice and slow until you accepted my blessing. Now I'm gonna have to jump through all sorts of hoops to steal you away from some other guy.”
Licia half expected Tanya to snap at the goddess for that remark, and genuinely thought that was what she was about to do given the way the vein pulsed on the side of her neck. Instead, she was surprised as Tanya whipped her head up to Loki, eyes shining with a desperation that looked completely out of place on the calm and composed girl that Licia was not ashamed to admit she looked up to.
“Can you?”
By this point, pretty much half the table Loki had been seated at had joined her. Licia recognized the Familia captain, Finn, as well as a few others, and she was surprised to see worry on his face. Did he know Tanya?
Loki paused, squinting down at Tanya in clear confusion. “Huh? Waddya mean?”
“I'd rather have your mark on me than his,” Tanya spat, before letting out a sudden groan. Licia watched in stunned horror as golden marks snaked up from Tanya’s neck, appearing from somewhere below her clothes. They were like living vines of light, etched into the girl’s skin and seeking to strangle her. They grew upwards, touching the curve of Tanya’s jaw before the girl muttered something under her breath.
The vines paused. Tanya muttered something else, her lips moving and releasing delicate whispers that were lost below the roar of the tavern. Being the closest to her, Licia caught snippets of the words, and what she heard left her extremely disturbed.
Is she... praying?
As they watched, the vines on Tanya’s neck began to recede, sneaking back into the neck of her clothes and disappearing as if they were never there to begin with. Tanya slumped, breathing heavily from the exertion of whatever had just happened to her, and looked up at Loki.
“I don't suppose you can help me?”
Licia turned to look at her goddess and was met with quite possibly the scariest sight of her life. Every trace of the drunken, mischievous goddess she had come to know over the past few weeks had vanished, stripped away in an instant and replaced with something barely human. Loki’s expression was etched from sone, her eyes wide and pupils shrunken to pinpricks
The bottle of wine slipped from the woman’s fingers, shattering against the floor and sending dark liquid spreading across the floor. The tavern went silent, the mood of celebration replaced with a tension thick enough to strangle as all eyes turned toward the diminutive goddess and the teenager asking her for help.
And then Loki spoke, and her voice was that of a god.
“Who did this to you?”