Gale & Hymn

by Wendy T Lyoness

  The woman gasped, and glared at her, but relaxed into her hand. Hymn was softer than she’d imagined, yet her features had a certain coarseness to them too which bestowed them with a strange maturity. Perhaps she’d lived longer than her youthful appearance would suggest.

  “I shouldn’t allow this to go on,” Hymn whispered, pressed her nose into Iorvil’s wrist, and breathed in whatever scent she discovered there. “Don’t take it the wrong way. It’s not you. I don’t want love. I’ve learnt what she does to people.”

  Iorvil removed her hand from Hymn’s face, looked down at the half moon around her own neck, and flicked the holy symbol so it flipped into a fuller moon. “If you fear your own goddess so, why follow her?”

  “Because I fear her.” Hymn grabbed the rum, took another sip to seek solace in alcohol, and shuddered, but Iorvil couldn’t tell if it was because of the taste or because of her goddess. “Who knows what she’d do to me if she learnt I’d sooner work my life away than give in to her fanciful insanity? She should be condemned for what happened to my mothers.”

  The goddess of love had not attacked her brethren, and if Iorvil angered her, it might mean the end for Rhabour and herself. Yet if she sat idly by and did nothing, she may not forgive herself.

  “Do you want to give it another taste?” Hymn offered her the rum again. “It doesn’t taste so bad once—“

  “Once it’s killed your sense of taste?” Iorvil declined the bottle, laid a protective arm around Hymn’s shoulders, and scooted up against her smaller frame. “Rhabour made me his champion. You don’t have to follow your goddess, any longer, if you don’t want to.”

  Hymn shifted nervously but leaned her head against her side. “What do you mean I don’t?”

  “You could join us.”

  “I…” Hymn paused, stared at the deck, and drank. “I could. But what would happen to my family? My mothers? My twin? Stupid Gale will chase Furore’s ass until the end of time if she promises her fame, world renown, but she might just lead her to her doom. Because I didn’t get on my knees. Because I decided to listen to someone wiser.”

  “Time doesn’t have an end.” Iorvil assured her. “And I will always protect my brethren to the best of my abilities. Till the day I die. My record may not look great, at the moment, but I would give my life for you and your twin. It’s harder to help those who are far away, like your mothers, but they’ve survived one encounter with this Furore, haven’t they?”

  “I have a little brother too. He’s too cute for this world.”

  “Everyone would be included. Even if they weren’t born in the Voiceless Mountains.” Iorvil sighed. “I don’t think anyone has been born there in years now though. Time did its best for my brethren, but there’s only so much it can do.”

  “You probably shouldn’t mention that when you’re trying to convince me to join you. I might prefer to take my chances with love.” Hymn snorted. “Not that I do, but…”

  “I understand.”

  “No, no.” Hymn placed the bottle at her side and turned to Iorvil with a serious expression. “You’re right. I should join you. My family is strong enough to survive without me, and I’m not abandoning them. I’m abandoning evil. Someone who corrupts love with their very existence.”

  “You’re sure that’s not the rum talking?”

  “It’s not.” Hymn stretched her neck and planted a kiss on Iorvil’s lips. Somehow, the sweet woman made the taste of the rum on her tongue bearable. Iorvil pulled her closer against herself, but Hymn put a hand on her chest and ended the kiss before either of them could take it further. “Maybe we shouldn’t seal this arrangement with love.”

  “Maybe not.” Iorvil would have enjoyed love, for an hour or two, but she could live without it. “We could spend time together instead, get to know each other better. I have nothing else to do except sleep, and I don’t feel tired. Not in your company.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I meant it as one.”

  “Well, I’m not sure you would have if you’d lived with Gale for years.” Hymn groaned. “I swear she can go for days on end without sleep, without slowing down, as if someone had lit her tail on fire. And if she doesn’t run around like a headless hen, she’ll burst into flames herself.”

  “Your twin loves you, Hymn. She wouldn’t shut up about you earlier, when she followed me along while I did my best to hunt in her loud company.”

  “It’s a miracle you caught anything then.”

  “I suppose it is.” Iorvil nodded, opened herself to the moment they found themselves in, and welcomed Rhabour’s undeniable presence in the slow flow of minutes.

  “Can I sit in your lap?” Hymn asked in nothing but a whisper, burped, and grew flustered when she realized she’d been heard.

  “Sure.”

  “It’s not inappropriate for a follower of Rhabour?”

  “Faithful of Rhabour.” Iorvil corrected her, crossed her legs under herself, and waited for Hymn to move. The woman hesitated but eventually climbed over her legs and sat in her lap. “We call ourselves faithful.”

  “To set yourself apart?”

  “Who knows? Perhaps that’s how it began. My parents told me it’s to remind ourselves that we should remain loyal in our faith…”

  Iorvil found it problematic to deny to herself that she didn’t want to throw Hymn on one of the beds. The woman refused to sit still in her lap, and her limbs and bones pressed into Iorvil’s flesh. Thankfully, she’d not drunk half as much of the rum as Hymn had, or she might have done something she would have regretted.

  “You’re so big.” Hymn leaned the back of her head against her chest and yawned. “A giant pillow.”

  “Those are my…” Iorvil figured she best not tell Hymn what they were, lest she flee up the stairs before the goddess of love made an appearance. “Yup, I’m a giant pillow. Squeeze me all you want.”

  “Maybe I’ll hold you to that one day.” Hymn giggled and stroked Iorvil’s legs. “In the meantime, you should tell me everything I need to know to not commit unforgiveable sins by Rhabour’s standards.”

  “Time is precious. Don’t waste someone else’s.” Iorvil considered asking Hymn if they could get in bed, because the woman tortured all of her senses at once when she squirmed in her lap, but instead she made an attempt to enjoy what she was given.

  Lair

  While Fate had allied herself with the sizzling Furore, in recent times, the goddess of love wasn’t the first she’d sworn loyalty to. Once upon a time, she’d existed as part of a united pantheon. Way before gods and goddesses came to the conclusion that their powers originated from how many worshippers they had. Back then, they’d gotten along better with each other. They’d been forced to tolerate those of opposing views.

  Fate had been happier when she hadn’t needed to worry about dying because mortals might stop respecting her, yet even though she’d not cared for centuries, she’d never disappeared. Almost as if a number of humans and elves across the world pranced around and believed in destiny and luck, no matter what. Ridiculous.

  She strode into Thotrix’s gaudy temple of brass, iron, and bronze where her footsteps echoed against the metal beneath her feet. Thotrix sat on a throne built out of their failed inventions, waved for her to approach, and seemed to expect her to obey. If Fate hadn’t come to talk with Thotrix in particular, she would have left in protest.

  “Fate, long it’s been since we met.” Thotrix sounded inhuman, machine-like, when they spoke. Their blank face looked like it’d been crafted out of wood, while the rest of their body appeared humanoid at a glance. Since Thotrix wore a heavy coat that hid their body, however, she couldn’t determine for sure what materials they’d used to construct their limbs and torso. She assumed it wasn’t flesh and bone.

  “It has?” Fate crossed her arms under her chest, stopped halfway across the temple floor, and shut her eyes. “Can’t recall our last meeting. Not memorable.”

  “You worked well
for me until we parted.” Thotrix emitted a laughter that couldn’t possibly sound more mechanical. They must have practiced. “Have you returned to beg me to restore your place at my side? I fear I’ve lost the others too.”

  “Not in my interest.” Fate shouldn’t have bothered with the old god of inventions, and now progress. They would not change. If they listened to her, it would be because they intended to use her for their own purposes. Thotrix would betray her like she’d once betrayed many of the others.

  “What is in your interest? Falling in love?” Thotrix scoffed. “Have you gone soft in your old age?”

  “No older than you.”

  “So you like to claim, yet everyone mentions your face as the first face they laid their eyes upon when they awakened. Every god. Not one or two. All of them agree on the same detail. A golden deer.”

  “Silly you.” Fate opened her eyes when Thotrix stepped down from their throne and paced back and forth. “Silly them.”

  “You can’t destroy me.” Thotrix extended a gleaming blade out of the sleeve of their coat. “You don’t have power over my destiny.”

  “…Your destiny?”

  “Someone must have created the planet, created us, or we wouldn’t be here.”

  Fate had listened to a lot of nonsense in her eons, but if Thotrix believed she was the goddess of creation itself, hmm… Perhaps she could use it for fun. She grinned to herself. It gave her tingles. Such a misconception could create endless drama.

  Boundless

  After hours of intense sex without any emotion except lust attached to it, Phoxene made a half-hearted attempt to escape Gale’s desire but didn’t get far. She possessed the strength to pull the candlestick down and open the door, but not enough to get outside.

  She ended up slumped on the carpet where she gasped for air, while involuntary quakes rocked her naked form. The contraptions clicked and whirred in her arms, yet they’d not really interfered with Phoxene’s ability to contribute. She’d been perfect.

  “Wanna go again?” Gale threw herself next to Phoxene, scratched her long, endless legs, and purred. “I’m setting a record here. No one’s stayed awake this long and shook anyone’s reality this hard, ever! The world won’t see me coming, but they’ll all know I was there. And I took their wives.”

  “How…” Phoxene hid under her red hair, curled up into a ball, and breathed as if she worried she’d run out of air before she could get a chance to play with Gale again. “How are you not exhausted? The half-demon thing, that wasn’t a joke, was it? You’re no mortal.”

  “Might be my goddess shines her light brighter on me tonight… today. Whatever time it is.” Gale shrugged. “I am but a humble servant of love. And you’re my temple now.”

  “Save me…” Phoxene muttered. “Rhabour.”

  Gale got tired as everyone else, and sure, her legs and arms had started to voice their complaints, their wishes to end the day, but how could she? Everything was so exciting. This day would go down in memory as one of the best.

  She wouldn’t be surprised if Furore did smile on her. If no one else in her family wanted to champion love’s cause, Gale may as well pick up its flag. She’d already waved it around for years while singing awful ballads. Genuinely, god-awful ballads that should offend Furore if she heard them.

  “So? What are we waiting for?” Gale rolled onto Phoxene, sweat glued their limbs together, and grinned up at her lover. She could get used to a taller wife, husband, or whatever Furore decided to toss into her arms when she gave her a true love. Hopefully they would have a chest as round as Phoxene’s. “Are we going again?”

  “You go again.” Phoxene blushed at her through the hair that concealed her face. “This is as far I as I push myself. I won’t break my back chasing your insatiable demands.”

  “Aww, is the scary lady too tired to play?” Gale sat up on her knees, dug her nails into Phoxene’s bruised thighs, and lifted one leg after another onto her shoulders until she ended up in the middle of them. “Will the singer have to carry their performance alone for a couple of hours?”

  “A couple of hours!?” Phoxene squirmed, listlessly, but only tightened the hold Gale had given her by laying her legs around her head. “I’m not a temple, or a machine. I’m a woman. I have tasks to do.”

  “Oh.” Gale licked her lips, hesitant. “You’re serious? You want to stop, here? Even if I’m used to carrying everyone’s entertainment on my own? I don’t think what we’ve done so far will inspire me to write hundreds of songs about you. Might write one called the lazy doll though.”

  That seemed to ignite a fire within Phoxene who glared at her with her grey-green eyes. “Why are you like this?”

  “Who can say?” Gale smirked. “Maybe I was born under the best signs. Maybe I was dropped on the head as a baby.”

  “The latter then.”

  “Or I just wanna impress you, so you won’t forget me either?” Gale laughed. “I’m going to be—“

  “Famous. Right, I got it.” Phoxene pinched the bridge of her nose, grunted, and arched her back to push Gale’s face down between her legs. “Carry the show then, daft girl. No one will please me like you. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Definitely.” Gale dug in and prepared to bring Phoxene well past exhaustion and beyond.

  For a while, Phoxene surrendered to Gale and allowed her to do anything she wished to her body. She only screamed in pleasure, every now and then, quivered, and shook harder every time Gale brought her to a higher high.

  Gale listened to her moan, with intent, as if she planned to write new songs to those very sounds. If she had, she would have loved to see Phoxene sitting in the audience, around a table in a tavern somewhere, rolling her eyes at her with a frown while she belted them out.

  After an hour or so, Phoxene regained her strength and repaid Gale for every favour she owed. She enforced her will on her. During those moments, when Phoxene forced her face down into the carpet on the floor, Gale wondered who had hurt the woman to the point where she felt the need to enslave someone else to feel comfortable in her own skin.

  Nothing gave her the kind of inspiration that Phoxene did when she tasted every sensitive spot on her body, teased, and muttered about how she was worthless. Gale preferred to be on top, but if she helped Phoxene, somehow, by making her forget whatever had happened, she didn’t mind getting spanked.

  If they’d known each other better, longer, Gale might have asked about the contraptions in her arms. They unsettled her, turned her stomach when they got too close to her face, but she ignored them for Phoxene’s sake.

  For her own sake too, admittedly, since she doubted Phoxene would have spent hours in her arms, between her legs, if she’d commented on them.

  They didn’t have to know each other. Phoxene wasn’t her love. They could remain strangers through nights and nights to come.

  Liquid Night

  Hymn didn’t recall falling asleep in a bed, yet when she woke up, she found herself tucked in under a blanket while Iorvil lay in the bunk next to hers. The giant snored, and the size of her might have scared anyone else. But Hymn could recall, through the haze of rum, how they’d talked and talked while hugging. She’d sat in Iorvil’s lap, and Iorvil had made no move to seduce her.

  She’d always assumed every potential lover she’d meet would be boring, until she encountered her true love, but Iorvil was far from it. If anyone called Iorvil boring, Hymn would defend her. After one night, she believed she knew enough about the woman to call her a close friend. Either she was correct, or she’d not shaken the effects of the rum yet.

  She heard singing from the deck above, so she got out of bed, brushed her dress, patted it down along her sides, and left Iorvil to sleep in peace. She remembered how she’d said she’d join Rhabour, over her own goddess, but she couldn’t tell for sure how long that choice would stand.

  Furore would take offence, if she found out, and then Hymn might get flung far, far from Iorvil. They might never see
each other again. The idea made her pause before she followed the singing up onto the top deck and into the brisk air.

  Gale stood leaned across the railing in the bow of the Gustfin. The sun climbed above the mountain range, painted the sky with yellow and orange brushstrokes, and splashed Gale in its light.

  “What are you doing up this early?” Hymn asked, stopped next to her twin, and noticed how she seemed to have forgotten to keep her clothes in a respectable condition. She’d no idea how Gale had managed to create all those stains, and she didn’t think she’d like to know either.

  “Phoxene said she wanted to watch the sunrise with me, but then she fell asleep, so I’m watching it for both of us.” Gale yawned and stretched her legs. “I think I broke her spirit last night. Now we might never get home to our beloved mothers. It makes me heartbroken.”

  “Don’t say that if it’s not true.” Hymn raised her hand to swat Gale but had a change of heart and lowered it instead. “What if this is it for the foreseeable future? What if one of us dies before we meet again?”

  “Venviel said she met her parents after they died. Our grandparents.” Gale looked down at the grass swaying in the wind below the ship. “Did you honestly plan to stay in Caelora until the end of your days, or was that something you said to encourage Hope to give you the tavern?”

  “Of course I—“

  “Honest truth, Hymn.” Gale interrupted. “I won’t tell a soul.”

  “I…” She’d been about to reprimand Gale for even asking such a question, but when she gave herself time to think, she realized she no longer had a quick answer. “I did plan to stay, but now, after all of this, after experiencing more of the world, I suppose it would be a shame to never leave our village.”

  Gale threw an arm around her, grinned, and rubbed her knuckles against her scalp until Hymn grabbed her hand. She stank of soot and ash. What exactly had she been doing with Phoxene?

  “I told Iorvil I preferred her god over you know who.” Hymn admitted it out loud while Gale hung on her. A flock of birds became visible on the horizon. “It feels good to spend time with her.”