Behold, it’s been scientifically proven. She’s capable of working the satisfied muscles of her mouth. And she’s capable of doing it genuinely.
In the dragonfly cove, any signs of cynicism or mockery had vanished, and with them, Envy’s focus. He’d never seen anything so baffling.
Another word for it is attractive. Another word for it is hot.
Naturally, that which is denied increases in value. That’s scarcely a novel idea. Give a cracker to a starving person, and it will taste like a Danish.
Is Sorrow’s smile profound because she never does it?
Envy shakes off the infestation of questions. With his brain currently broken, he’s in no condition to analyze. Doing so will only result in frown lines. He’s determined to look his best, not least while ailing from shattered bones.
According to the transition of light, they’ve been clucking until the cusp of dawn. He replays the highlights. Her naked body glistening in the enclave bath. Her smile in the dragonfly cove, as that winged creature perched on her finger. Her eyes fixed on him as she agreed to his proposition.
This assortment of moments should have made him gloat, should have gotten him as hard as one of his arrows. Yet they’d had a punishing, lingering affect.
When he can’t conceive why, the stars twinkle, as though asking, How many guesses do you need, Envy?
Maybe she had begun to show him pain long before he’d requested it?
The notion brings Envy up short, twisting his mood into a foul one. He scrapes his fingers through his mane. If friendship with this goddess leaves him muddled and inconsistent, he can’t fathom the disaster that love would do.
Very well. He has seen what it does to his classmates, and it doesn’t make them absurd. The couples are happy, empowered. By the stars, those bonds are passionate, born of desire and respect. The couples fluctuate between disputes and laughter; they do both as frequently as they kiss—probably as often as they fuck.
Envy sniffs. But it must get boring, mustn’t it? To be with the same partner repeatedly? For eternity?
For fucking eternity?
All the same, he’d witnessed plenty of intimate gestures between the lovers, the likes of which are blank slates to him. He’s been with countless deities, yet he’s unable to translate the brush of Love’s hand through Andrew’s hair. The way Anger and Merry entwine while sleeping, him strapping her to his chest as if she’ll disappear. The erotic tenderness between Malice and Wonder when they read to one another. The instinctive touches between these pairings, the way they predict one another’s actions, bringing out the worst and best in each other.
Is all that emotional hubbub an aphrodisiac? Does it enhance the sex?
Envy doesn’t care for being left in the dark. However, for once in his existence, he hasn’t been able to ask his companions. Because another thing he doesn’t like is advertising his cluelessness, acknowledging his inadequacy.
The God of Envy knows what others know. In fact, he knows it better.
He puffs up his chest. Forget about love and his friends’ romances. That has no bearing in this enclave.
They make a swift journey to the cavern, where the lagoon emits a veil of steam from the opposite side. Their picnic is still there, abandoned. Envy waves a hand, and the dishes and platters disappear.
Inside, the mood thickens, and the candles pulse. The stream winds around the moss-covered ground.
He shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks on his heels, waiting for the female beside him to take the initiative. “We might have to draft terms and conditions. For example, I should be permitted to request my pain, like an appetizer from a menu. What options do you have in mind? I’ll choose.”
Leaning against the wall, Sorrow says, “What’s your most embarrassing moment?”
His brows slam together. “I see,” he sneers. “Am I giving you too much credit? Or am I to believe this is the most you think I can take?”
Her irises flash. As for her voice, it sounds like a shadow, aerial and overpowering. “If we’re going to do this, I have one condition: Don’t bullshit me.”
The archeress’s transformation is nothing short of astounding, nothing short of a goddess. Though on second thought, she sounds like a goddess who has lived and served in the vicinity of mortals. Comes with the territory.
“You’d be surprised the lengths people will go, in order to avoid humiliation, the pain they’ll endure,” she continues. “You’re the God of Envy. Like it or not, our root emotions are more synonymous than we want. You know what lengths humans and immortals will go to, just to spare themselves of disgrace. So again: What was your most embarrassing moment?
“If you answer like a smart ass, or if you concoct a fib as high maintenance as your face, I’ll know. That’s my job, pretty god.” She taps his lips. “Sadness never lies.”
Her prompt incites a restlessness in his limbs. From soles, to kneecaps, to thighs, he feels an urge to flee.
There’s also an eagerness to tease and, thus, divert. Of course, that’s what a coward would do. Like she said, she’ll see right through it.
He’s beginning to doubt this impulsive arrangement. Who the Fates asks to be educated in the mechanics of pain?
Someone who has dared to. Someone with a bone to pick against his enemies. Someone who wants to be conditioned, prepared for pain, so that he knows how to avoid it during this war. Someone who will know how not to break.
Someone like her.
What was his most embarrassing moment?
Envy opens his mouth, but Sorrow increases the pressure of her finger. “Don’t say it aloud,” she instructs. “Just think about it, then tell me if you want to. Pain is a private thing.”
“So is pleasure,” he murmurs against her digit. “Unless we’re keen to share it.” He bites her finger, his teeth scraping the flesh.
It’s a gentle graze. And it’s only fair.
Sorrow yanks her finger away. Envy grins as she wipes the digit on those pajamas, jostling the clouds.
What boggles him is that he doesn’t need time to think about his embarrassing moment, circa adolescence. The instant she had propositioned him, the answer infested his consciousness.
An ugly god is easy to spot.
Which is why he’s grateful that she’d stopped him before he complied, before he said something he’d regret for eternity. Something he’d promised himself never to impart with her.
Situated among the cavern’s layout, there are multiple adjoining hollows, providing multiple methods of retreat.
Beneath the banners of cloth that loop from the ceiling, Envy pauses and regards her. “I’m not tired.”
“Neither am I,” Sorrow says.
For the life of him, that response sends a bolt crashing through his stomach. He remains calm, debonair as his hand swings toward the hearth. “Care to sit?”
***
And so it goes. Night yields to day, the hours seeping from one to the next.
For a start, Sorrow redresses his wound while explaining the various ways to nurse injuries, from cracked bones to punctures to gashes. She has learned from her mentor, as well as from immortal healers. Fixing what’s broken and watching it mend provides her with solace.
Envy says nothing, because he can’t say anything. All he can do is examine her bent head as she ministers to him.
Who knew first-aid could be this surreal? Nor this enticing?
They huddle in front of the flames, settling in a cocoon of pillows and cushions. They fill the space with verbal nonsense, Sorrow ribbing Envy for the hearth, since temperature is elusive to their kind. Envy responds with colorful defenses that have her sniggering. They make random jokes about the mysteries of heat and cold.
Indeed, the hearth is merely aesthetic. If Envy is one thing—although he’d call himself numerous marvelous things—he’s aesthetic. There’s no harm in surrounding himself with ambience.
Sorrow relents, acknowledging that the brimming flames are a com
fort. If this archeress is one thing—and historically, she has often declared herself only a handful of things—she’s an advocate of tranquility. That fact is becoming patently clear.
She admits that she wouldn’t have betted on such a setup from him. Ah, but there’s a lot she doesn’t know about Envy, as there might be secrets he doesn’t know about this female. He reclines against an ottoman, ready to peel those layers from her.
Another source of pleasure for this goddess is lighting. The glowing candles and swaying blaze illuminate her in whites and blues, while she sits cross-legged beside the sizzling logs. The visual is marvelous, his peer in pajamas, loose strips of hair falling around her face, a relaxed expression slackening her features.
The topic of aesthetics leads to a discussion about practicality versus frivolity. Envy and Sorrow compare notes, supplying one another with the objects they deem necessary and unnecessary, ruminating on tokens of bliss and whether they’re as valuable as base needs.
Mostly they disagree about this, their voices rising to the rafters, but the argument isn’t venomous or goading. It’s effortless and congenial. They whisper and laugh, snap and challenge.
For once, Envy isn’t hankering to be right. He’s too busy wondering what she’ll say next.
Three times, he covertly pinches himself. Simultaneously, this day feels new and nostalgic. It lasts a second and a millennium.
By the afternoon, they’ve ventured into rocky terrain, pondering what they think of this campaign on behalf of humanity. What does this battle mean to Envy? What does it mean to Sorrow?
Envy concedes. They’re not like their friends, who each have tangible experiences with mortals. Love fell for a human. Anger fell for an immortal outcast who grew up in the sphere of humans. Wonder fell for a human-turned-god.
But Envy and Sorrow? What compels them?
“Being in love isn’t the only foundation for change,” Sorrow persists, tucking her feet under her. “Some just change on their own.”
“Or because of friendship.” Envy gazes at the flames. “Seeing Love, Anger, and Wonder like that? Seeing their stories unravel? That was enough for me. Wasn’t it for you?”
“But what about fate and free will?”
“I think they’re the same from different angles.”
“Jeez. How poetically evasive.”
“I’ll amend, you hussy. I think they can exist in harmony, but figuring out how to compromise?”
“That’s where it gets tricky,” she agrees. “That’s why our motley crew keeps arguing about the methods.”
Because even if Envy and Sorrow were to accept the legend binding them together, even if it led to some grand inspiration across the board and resulted in a truce, the Fates would still have to conceive a balance between destiny and chance.
And they’d have to do so with the stars’ blessing. Oh, how complications abound.
Envy frowns. “You didn’t answer my question about our band.”
Sorrow glances away. “I’d sprint into a monsoon with them.”
“But?” he prompts. “Come on, tell me something you would never tell them. I sense it coming.”
“But I don’t want to follow them into war. A giant part of me wants to stop them.”
Wow. He’d underestimated her knack for surprises. His tongue seizes as if she’d tightened a rope around it.
Her profile contorts, sucked into memories. Sorrow’s eyes jump across the fire, her pupils glazing over. The seconds morph into minutes, until her throat bobs. “I’ve had enough of war to last a hundred lives.”
She sounds old and exhausted, telling him about the mortal wars that she’s seen. The wastelands where she was stationed, the death tolls that she witnessed. From what Envy knows, those wars kept Sorrow, Anger, and Love busy. Them, in addition to Grief and many others.
Envy loses his sense of time and space. Both narrow to Sorrow’s crumbling face as she drags out each syllable. There were so many bodies, and she’d tried to strike as many as she could, to alleviate them of agony—not the physical pain, since that’s impossible, but the emotional torment. Yet their numbers were so great, she couldn’t get to all of them before they passed.
Sorrow swears that she’d tried. She tried so hard.
“There was a soldier,” she confides. “A boy of maybe seventeen. He was g-gutted on a m-mine field. And h-he w-was crying for his sister.”
Her shaky voice reaches Envy’s ribs, robbing him of breath. “There’s p-pain that’s essential, because it makes us who we are, and it strengthens us. But there’s also pain that just h-hurts like fuck and kills you, in body or spirit or both. I f-felt every chip and crater inside him.”
Tears collect on her lids, but she sniffles harshly, refusing to shed them. “You don’t want to know that side of pain, Envy. I only s-sampled a fraction of it, but if we fight, we might…it might…That’s not a p-pain I’d wish on anyone.” She grunts, wiping those unshed tears with the back of her arm. “Whatever. It’s selfish of me to wallow in their suffering, as if I have a right to claim it as my own.”
“There’s a disparity between selfishness and compassion,” Envy intones. “Just ask Compassion.”
Sorrow’s wobbly lips quirk. “We’re not supposed to be talking about my history with pain. I’m supposed to be helping you find yours.”
Envy cups her cheek. “I think you just did.”
She wavers, resisting his pull. “I don’t…I don’t know how to…”
“Now, now. Come on, relax those arms,” he says over her grousing, then demonstrates. “Like this. Come now, you can do it.”
She surrenders, allowing him to sidle her closer and weave their fingers together. Their bunched hands rest in the space between them, and their foreheads press together. They stay like that, inhaling, exhaling.
Envy hears the bass strum of anguish and registers the abrasion of despair. He wants to wrap her in cotton, a soothing textile that he’s certain she likes.
But then, he realizes. Those sensory hints aren’t coming from her—and that shouldn’t be possible anyway. Not between deities.
No. Those traces are coming from him.
This hurts, because he can’t relate to her past. This hurts, because he doesn’t know how to make it better for her. This hurts, because it just does.
Envy glances down to where his thumb strokes the cuts up her inner arms. When did he start doing that? When did he roll up her sleeve?
He doesn’t care to acknowledge this, and she keeps her comments to herself. They sink awkwardly onto the moss, adjusting to the rarity of her head pillowed on his chest, his palm on her hip.
Sorrow speaks in a hushed voice. “Some pain, like in those wars? It’s about loss. I can’t show you the agony of that. First, we’d have to care about something more than ourselves, to have a chance of understanding. That’s what my Guide taught me, and that’s what I’ve seen in my targets. The paradox is that I can’t relate fully. I have the power, and I’ve exercised the crap out of that power, yet I can’t relate. What kind of deity does that make me?”
“A raw one,” Envy says, combing through her hair. “Like the rest of us. We may embody our root emotions, but I doubt any of us have felt the brunt until recently. Love never loved until she met Andrew. I would bet that Anger never internalized his short fuse until it became personal with Merry. And I’m pretty certain Wonder never marveled at the universe more than when she’d encountered the demon we call Malice.”
“And you?”
“Drag your hand any lower, and I’ll be damned if I’m able to answer.”
Sorrow freezes, her digits having made a roundtrip from his sternum to his navel. That she hadn’t known what she was doing becomes indisputable as her fingers recoil, fleeing into the cove of her neck. “Sorry,” she mutters.
He’s not. At least, not until he comes to his senses. “I’ve been nipped by the envy bug several times. To cope, I sulk until I get my way or steer the advantage back in my direction. Compa
ring myself to others is a natural inclination, I’m afraid, but it’s never driven me to do things that mortals have in the name of jealousy.”
“Do you think you should?”
“According to mortal tales, the gods were viciously prone to grudges, bitterness, and resentment. But the reality of us? Fates if I know.”
“We’re self-aware and completely clueless, aren’t we?”
“If so, perhaps both go hand-in-hand.”
They swap tales of the people they’ve targeted, the ones they’ve struck to either infuse with or alleviate from sadness and jealousy. Sorrow puts him to shame as she lists the jails, hospitals, battlegrounds, graveyards, morgues, orphanages, homeless encampments, group counseling sessions, bathroom stalls, and, yes, drunken parties, in which she has aimed ice arrows at her quarries. People fraught with loneliness, bereavement, hopelessness, and failure.
Whereas Envy has made the rounds in bars, competitions, games, marathons, ceremonies, classrooms, offices, and weddings. People doused in combinations of frustration, prejudice, petulance, rivalry, or lust.
Mortal holidays tend to swamp them both.
As they talk, Envy belatedly realizes that Sorrow’s aversion to this war, as it harkens to her past experiences, should be a reason to accept the legend between Envy and her. It’s the lesser of the two evils.
She must know this, but perhaps she’s too scared to choose. Or she’s too selfish.
That makes two of them.
Just as the dawn has unfurled into afternoon, so does the afternoon unfurl into dusk. Envy gives her a tour of the adjacent hollows, including a wardrobe recess —similar to his dressing closet at home in the Astral Sea—and a storage alcove that contains an assortment of old clothing drafts. He has additional ones stacked in his house, but sometimes, he has preferred to design fashions here, seclusion being optimal for a fickle muse.
“I’ve always liked making clothes more than enchanting them,” he says with wistful humor. “Even if none of our kind needs it.”
Impressed, Sorrow shuffles through sketches of a midnight gown with chain embellishments, a maroon leather vest, and a tiered black skirt. Envy braces himself as she pauses on that last rendering, then relaxes when she sets it down. “They’re, um, really good. I’m betting our people would appreciate the inspiration, even if tailors are—”
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