Selfish Myths 2

by Natalia Jaster

  Anger’s palms sweep from her hair, dive under the rear straps of the overalls, and drag down to Merry’s bottom. He grips her ass, which is covered in lace briefs, crushing the dainty material and holding her in place while he rips their kiss to shreds. They chase a rhythm, hard lips folding and unfolding together, tongues riding one another.

  It’s a lovemaking tempo, an act that mimics another act entirely.

  This is nothing like the kisses she’s tried before. This is like kissing a live wire, their mouths fusing and then detonating, with a blitzing texture and a shoving weight that blows her off her feet.

  And now she knows what passion feels like.

  And then she knows what its end feels like.

  On a hiss, Anger tears away from her, his mouth swollen and panting. Shock pierces the drunken glaze in his eyes, the maelstrom receding to a drizzle.

  He releases Merry so swiftly that she staggers. He’s just as clumsy, jolting backward. “I can’t,” he rasps. “I won’t.”

  “What?” she wheezes. “Why not? Didn’t you like it?”

  “This isn’t supposed to happen. Not with you.”

  The words have the craggy texture of desperation.

  “Not with me…,” she draws out. “Because I’m not her.”

  Anger shakes his head, like he doesn’t know whether he’ll say no—or yes.

  Merry’s stomach roils. Volts of fury climbs up her throat, reminding her of a circuit breaker gone rogue.

  She nods. “I might not have that goddess’s hold on you, but I certainly wouldn’t want to.”

  “She doesn’t have a hold on me!” Anger barks. “She took my heart and tossed it away. She’s the reason I’m banished. That infernal emotion called love is a curse, not a gift.”

  “You ignoramus! It’s only a curse because you’re used to calling it that. Because you’re determined to call it that. Because you’re scared to think of it any other way. You’re too busy obsessing over what you can’t have, that you don’t stop for one second to recognize if you even want it. You’re too busy lamenting to ask yourself the question you deserve: Who sees you?”

  “What the Fates does that mean?”

  “Who truly sees you, Anger? All of you?”

  “You…I don’t…How would you know?! You’re infatuated. You have an idea of me, a vision, a fantasy. You don’t know the real me. You don’t understand!”

  “Oh, I—,” Merry chuckles sharply, “—I understand. I understand it’s easier to blame everyone else for holding you back. It’s easier for the God of Anger to be angry at everyone else, than to be angry at himself.”

  She bumps past him and hastens from the rooftop.

  15

  Anger

  Anger stands rooted to the spot, the spot where he’d kissed her, the spot where he’d stopped kissing her.

  The spot where he’d watched her leave.

  The moon drizzles across the rooftop, glazing the surfaces and clinging to light fixtures. The hour submerges him in a lunar wash of stoic and soft colors.

  …it’s easier to blame everyone else for holding you back. It’s easier for the God of Anger to be angry at everyone else, than to be angry at himself.

  She’s right. She’s so right that her words fling him into the past, into his childhood.

  If that’s what deities can call it…

  16

  Anger

  There’s a star that flashes too harshly in the sky. It’s nailed there, a dark stub drumming within an even darker canopy, punching a graphite sheen through the heavens. It thrashes above the Peaks, wrestling against its restraints.

  In this immortal realm, the star isn’t pale or serene. It’s a furious black diamond. An angry one.

  Once the five members of the Fate Court glance in the star’s direction, the flashing ebbs, restricted to a vexed but disciplined pulsation. It’s a militant star, able to contain itself, if required.

  It’s enough to impress the rulers. They’ve gathered in a glass dome surrounding a central stargazer—the human term is telescope—the funnel supported by coiling posts, the dais painted in constellations.

  From this vantage point, the Court is pleased.

  Beside them, the Guide of Anger nods in confirmation. “That is him.”

  Him, the next rage god. The next archer waiting to be birthed. The next one ordained to serve destiny.

  When the Guide extends his upturned palm and beseeches the firmament, the metallic black star fizzes out momentarily. A ray spears from the sky, a stellar seedling appearing in the mentor’s cupped hand.

  That harsh vessel resumes flashing overhead, albeit less ornery, its womb emptied and the contents transferred into the Guide’s grasp. A birthed deity for its superiors to admire.

  To empower. To train.

  ***

  Anger’s limbs are too short and gangly. He hates that.

  How long must he be this size? It’s weak to be this size!

  Irritated, he thwacks the mirror in his room, shards crackling onto the floor. His Guide observes this meltdown, just as the mentor has observed copious amounts of meltdowns from his charge. He shakes his head warmly, then reminds Anger of this privileged existence.

  The immortality. The magic.

  The lush hills and coves of the Peaks. The cottage on stilts, propped over a swell of water, where Anger lives.

  The power of his bow, forged of iron, which had been his choice. His own choice at such a tender age.

  Blessings and duty. That’s what the Guide preaches, which only makes Anger angrier. He’s about to pound his foot, producing a ravine in the floor.

  But then, his mentor utters a new proclamation. “I promise, you’ll get taller when you stop doing that.”

  Stop throwing fits? That will make him taller?

  Anger halts, thinks. And he makes a conscious effort to keep his boots planted on the ground.

  When the Fate Court visits him later, they grin and shake his hand. He puffs himself up, because he can be a worthy deity. He can restrain himself, rage god or not.

  The Court members bow their heads, and they don’t look at him as if he’s too small, too feeble. They look at him as if he can do anything.

  As if he can grow up.

  ***

  He’s gained a few millimeters. Now he reaches Envy’s height, though not the boy’s muscle mass.

  But the best part is that Anger towers over her. That nuisance goddess, Love.

  Sitting in a misty enclave, he and his class—Envy, Sorrow, Wonder, and Love—listen to their respective Guides’ lecture about being the most exceptional class in the Peaks. Them, immortal archers destined to wield the most potent assembly of emotions.

  Anger’s attention diverts toward Love’s runty limbs hanging over her chair, her toes unable to meet the ground. She’s a rail with marble skin, threads of black hair, and an annoying face.

  Anger doesn’t know why it’s annoying. It just is.

  He wants to scratch her cheek, just so she’ll change expressions. What makes the Court deem this blushless waif worthy of being the first Goddess of Love? She’s pasty and bony, lacking pigment or paunch, with no curves or girth to speak of. Not like perfectly fleshy Wonder.

  And she’s not even listening to the lecture!

  He sees nothing tantalizing about this Love candidate. Yet his eyes continue to stray toward her during the lesson. And when she catches him, there’s a look.

  It strikes Anger in the chest. In those eyes, a coalescence of envy, sorrow, wonder, and anger—and something else that disables him. It’s the opposite of docile. He sees ardency, an audacious zest for companionship. The sort of need that might lead to revolution, a suppressed yearning for physical contact.

  For touch.

  Not from Anger, but from someone. It brings out the austere and rigorous in him. Despite his meager years, it’s a complex and intricate look, of which he’s never been on the receiving end. It’s the look of insubordination.

  It’s
the capacity to love.

  ***

  In order to regulate anger, he must know the emotion inside and out. In order to decipher which humans need a dose of it, and which humans need a reduction of it, he must study the art of fury. He must become fluent in its scents, sounds, tastes, textures.

  The sour bite of resentment. The chafe of frustration. The roar of hatred. The sulfuric rot of enmity.

  The composition of rivalry. The propulsion of tempers.

  He learns from his Guide, who takes Anger on field trips to the mortal realm, to examine inferior humans. Anger is an apt pupil. He soaks up the education with a porous but reserved air, observing his future targets like specimens.

  Not like Love, who peers at them with her whole body, with more than just her mind, more than logic. Anger isn’t biased. He’s withdrawn, as impervious as a proper deity. He schools himself to not invest in empathy or dwell beyond the intricacies of mortal conniption fits.

  He dismisses the little things like their creativity, their prayers, their dreams.

  What could any of that possibly teach him?

  Instead, he pays attention to screams and tears, the weights of footsteps, the octaves of words. Not all humans control their anger, which leads them to chaos and poor decision-making, which only shreds their world asunder rather than maintain strength and unity. It reduces them to imperfection.

  That’s why they need the Fates. That’s why they require Anger’s arrows, to reel them in or fuel them with just enough indignation, in order to defend themselves.

  Yet during one expedition, he does pause. One time, he does this.

  In the bedroom of an aristocratic townhouse, Anger witnesses a middle-aged human wearing a loose cravat and strumming a guitar, acrimony leaking through his fingers and hitting the strings. When he’s done, he apologizes to the lover with whom he’d been arguing.

  The melody confounds Anger. The pure intensity of it. The voluntary manner in which the human atones for his mistake without intervention.

  Anger shakes himself. Not all humans are capable of this enlightenment on their own. He can’t be everywhere at once in this realm, taming every mortal simultaneously, but he can distribute his power to the crucial recipients. That creates a wave, small adjustments that culminate in a larger shift, a greater influence.

  Without the Fates, it would be a messier world than it already is.

  But when Anger returns to the Peaks with his Guide, the music replays in his head.

  ***

  During archery practice on the blooming hill, his temper festers. It’s an itch that he really, truly, seriously wants to scratch.

  Wonder ponders random subjects instead of training and takes forever to make decisions. Sorrow gets increasingly upset with each target she misses. Envy needs to quit viewing everyone as competition.

  And don’t even get Anger started on Love. Her presence is the biggest distraction of all. Though she’s the most proficient archer, she’s neglects practice today, fondling her hand and daydreaming instead.

  Cursed sentimentality. Her fixation with human touch grates on him, curling his knuckles into fists. The curious longing in her profile is dreadful. The more she does this, the farther away she seems, the less she cares how close Anger stands to her.

  Later, when Envy teases Love, it forces Anger to grab her shoulders and prevent her from attacking Envy. That’s Anger’s calling, after all. He has to manage the tantrums around him, including this loose-cannon goddess who cannot curb her impulses like a normal deity. He has to watch out for her, before she loses herself.

  Before he loses her.

  The Fate Court doesn’t approve of her sporadic whims, nor does her feisty intrigue toward mortal touch amuse them. It’s not the way of their kind.

  It could get her into trouble. Or it could change her.

  “Stop acting like a human,” Anger sneers at Love.

  When honestly, he wants to beg. Please, Love. Please, stop doing this.

  Anger shouldn’t pay this much attention to her. In fact, he never should have started. But it’s easier to mock, scorn, berate this goddess for her shortcomings.

  It’s easier to be angry at her, than at himself.

  ***

  On a class excursion to the human realm, he and his peers stand in the crux of a snowstorm, the flurries blasting through town. The Guides have brought them here, this time as a group.

  Anger can’t concentrate. The flakes spiral, hitting his face, whipping through his hair. The wind howls against stone edifices and horse-drawn carriages. The quagmire batters his tunic and slams into his quiver.

  His pulse quickens. His palms moisten. His feet shuffle, because he wants to run and hide.

  Because he’s…scared.

  Back home, he retreats to a mineral cave covered in tufts of cyan plants. As he takes refuge on a corrugated rock, his fingers finally stop shaking, but his heart remains a rogue percussion in his chest. He should get Fear’s advice about this, but he’s too ashamed.

  Just his luck, Love finds him. She approaches like he’s a sulky beast, picking around the foliage and squatting next to him. He wants her to go away. And he wants his arms entwined around her, around someone safe yet daring.

  “Why were you scared?” the nosy goddess asks.

  “It looked angry,” he says of the blizzard. “That’s one kind of angry I can’t control.”

  And if he can’t control anger, what’s the point of him?

  ***

  Wonder has been caught tampering with her power. She’s beguiled by a mortal boy, and as a result, she’s been sneaking unattended to the human realm, attempting to communicate with him.

  A disgrace. An affront. A crime.

  What happens to one class member, happens to all class members. They’re responsible for protecting and reprimanding each other.

  That’s what Anger has been taught. That’s what he believes. That’s the rule in this land.

  So when Wonder is disciplined, his class is ordered to carry out the torture. In a rotunda full of deities, the congregation makes an example of her. Sorrow and Anger shackle Wonder to a chair while Envy slashes her hands with the blade that Love was forced to sharpen.

  Wonder’s wrists shudder beneath Anger’s grip, her wails of pain shearing into his canals. This isn’t right. None of his peers want to do this, a fact that radiates in every stunted lash from Envy, the tormented expression on Sorrow’s face, the shrieking protests from Love.

  It’s barbaric and unfair. It’s too much, too far.

  Would mortals do this to each other? Yes, they would. Over history, they have.

  So what’s the difference?

  To combat the sounds, the temptation to release Wonder, Anger resurrects that human guitar melody in his head.

  Love yowls and flings herself like a shield in front of Wonder.

  Anger restrains the sprite, hauling her from the room. In the hallway, he seizes her face. “Stop it! Shush, dammit! Do you want to get us banished?!”

  She doesn’t shush. She wrenches herself from him and points a shaky finger. “Why didn’t you help me stand up to them?”

  Because that would have gotten them all into trouble.

  It would have gotten Love into trouble.

  It does anyhow. When the Court sentences her to solitary, Anger hazards and sneaks to the cell, sliding his hand beneath the door, to tell her that she’s not alone. Love is fixated with touches of the gentle sort. He thinks this will comfort her, and he wants her to need him, wants to feel the pressure of her hand resting in his.

  She refuses and taunts him, bitter that he hadn’t vindicated Wonder.

  On a snarl, he pulls away, which is sort of a relief.

  ***

  He takes her that night. Hard and sweet.

  She answers her front door, which he’d been ramming his fists on. Not giving her a moment to speak, Anger grabs Love and slams his mouth onto hers. There’s a profusion of shock. Then her startled yelp dissolves int
o a fantastic sigh, and she digs her nails into his biceps.

  Fastening his arms around her, his tongue laps between her lips. Together, they stumble inside, the door shutting after them.

  He braces his fingers on her dress and rips. The material divides, hanging off her shoulders to reveal a lane of flesh, tight breasts, and coiling hair at the nexus of her thighs. She kisses him back and drives her hand into his pants, needy and urgent.

  Minutes later, he’s on top, their bodies rocking across the bed. Above her, he’s naked and pumping his hips, thrusting restlessly into dampness. She clasps him in a frenzy, her head thrown back.

  And it’s all he wants, all he wants, all he wants.

  The right to touch her. To be the first person who has ever touched her.

  There’s something crazed and desolate about this, but he doesn’t stop to analyze. He’s been dreaming of this, dreaming of this, dreaming of this…

  Anger lurches upright from the bed. His eyelids split open.

  Another bout of delirium. Another falsehood.

  But then a body shifts, making a drowsy noise from the hill of pillows. Clarity returns, and his head slopes toward the sound, identifying its source. Marigold locks spill over a curvaceous body, which rises and falls in sleep.

  ***

  They don’t talk about it. In bed, Wonder had been desperate for someone she can’t have.

  So had Anger.

  And perhaps he’d wanted to apologize for the abuse, to atone for her punishment in the only way he’d known how. And he’d wanted to make her feel good, make himself feel good. And while bedding another, he’d envisioned making Love feel ecstatic, none of which he’d accomplished.

  The compensation hadn’t worked. So it never happens again.

  ***

  He gets brave and foolish, approaching the Fate Court, begging for their audience. It’s an application on the pretense of mere curiosity, the arrogance of a well-bred student. A veneer of gravitas, so they won’t see through him when he asks what makes mortals inferior.

  Two gods and three goddesses. A frosted, androgynous female in pale lace. Another woman with slits for eyes and hair the same purple as Sorrow. An ebony-skinned beauty draped in butterfly gossamer. A man with a hawk’s nose and long braids. And a cloaked god with ramps for brows.