Bolt Action Serenade

I sat in my chair by the window, the one with the leg I’d had to replace and the back that I tied an old cushion to. It was falling apart but every time I fixed something it felt more like mine and less like trash that I dug up. That was what most of my things were after all, trash I dug up from the dump. ____ and I worked hard to make sure anything we had in our little apartment above the forge at least felt like us. It mostly worked.

She pulled her own chair over, similarly trashed and repaired as mine, and sat. She leaned against me and I fought to make my heart stop racing. “Thank you.” she said, taking my hand in hers.

I shrugged, glancing down as I wove my fingers through her own. Her skin was always so soft, ever since starting to work with the scribe at town hall instead of hunting scraps with me. Letting Lord ____ use my body was disgusting, but he did give me favors for it. Favors like getting her a job that fit her brilliant and curious mind. She wasn’t sure how I’d done it at first but a few weeks in she seemed to have figured it out.

“You don’t have to go that far for me.” Her other hand gently turned my head to look at her. Dark eyes peered into my own and a smile rested on her face.

I always loved looking at her, she was the most beautiful being in all the world to me. Others took longer to adjust to her, if they ever did at all. Her skin was so dark it was nearly black, her dark hair in curls so tight that even she had difficulty taming it, she didn’t look like other people. Even finding out her parents had been from Olarunta, where everyone looked like her, only made people accuse her of being a Hegemony spy.

Truthfully, we didn’t know why her parents had come so far from their home. They died to a flu only some weeks after arriving in town and trying to make a life for themselves there. No real friends yet, no contacts anyone knew of, so she was a Dawnlight infant like me. Raised knowing only the temple orphanage priests as caretakers.

“Lietri. I mean it.” She said after I was silent for a time. “I appreciate it but-”

“You’re the smart one, you deserve to use that big brain of yours.” I cut her off. “Besides, I help you out and once you have some pull you can help me out in return. That’s how it works, yeah?” I smiled.

“Yeah, you and me, together forever.” She kissed my cheek. Chaste. Friendly. I hated it as much as I loved it. I knew she did too. “I have to get ready for work, taxes from the outlying properties are finally coming through and there is way more work than usual.”

She cleaned up, dressed, and headed out. I took a breath, knowing that I didn’t care if she was able to help me. As long as she got the life she deserved it would be worth it. I could survive, she needed to LIVE. I wouldn’t accept anything less.

Looking in the window at myself, I could feel my heart tearing in two both in my own chest and the memory me’s. I could remember what she looked like now. But somehow that made the pain worse.

Wait, no, that wasn’t why I was hurting so much. Something else had- CARMILLA!

“No! Noooo! Carmilla!” I screamed, knowing I was dreaming, knowing she probably couldn’t have heard me here even if the contract hadn’t-

“Calm yourself my Saint.” the voice spoke from behind me and I turned to see my night sky goddess. She looked, pained?

“What happened!? Where is she!?”

“Sleeping. She fought against being ejected from your anima so hard it was going to hurt or even kill one or both of you. I had to make her dream to keep you safe.”

“Safe!? I need her! Give her back!” I screamed at her, anger and pain and loss tearing holes in my mind.

But then fear overwrote those feelings as she became a mountain towering over me. Her skin burned with falling stars and her hair raged with a terrible storm. She stared down at me with eyes that promised destruction. “I have been extremely tolerant with you thus far. You have deserved it with what has been done to you, I will never deny this. But you will speak to your god with some level of respect. You will not make demands of me. Do you understand, my Saint?” her voice was raw divine anger and rolled over me like thunder and I felt my soul tremble in response to her power.

I nodded slowly “P-please, please give her back.” I bowed to her, kneeling down and pressing my face to the floor in submission “I will do anything you ask of me to the best of my ability, please.” tears fell from me and my face grew uncomfortably wet, but I didn’t dare do anything but bow and beg.

Her voice returned to normal, a small sigh of frustration from her. “That will be difficult. She grew more than we thought she sould when she received her Advancement. Though complications should have been expected. Elementals do not receive Advancements naturally after all.”

I lifted my head to look at her, she was me sized again and I risked sitting up. “You did this?”

“It was not my intention to sever her link to you, my Saint. In fact, it threatens some of my plans, though not so badly that I can’t adjust. That is the only saving grace of this absolute shit show of a day.” she rubbed her temples and curled up on herself in the air.

“B-but… what do I do? My goddess, please, I need her. I love her.” I whimpered, it hurt so bad knowing I didn’t have her. I really would do anything to have her back.

She looked at me and I could see the conflict rolling through her, her face twisted up in the way only a person facing an impossible choice can manage. “Damn it my Saint, you make it so fucking hard to say no to you!”

“S-so, you can bring her back to me?” I felt my heart rising.

“Technically? Yes. But…” She let out a heavy sigh of frustration and rolled into her back. “You remember how I told you last time that anything I do for you can be dangerous for us all? This is a big one. Potentially devastating.” I swallowed hard, Carmilla would cost them safety. Why would she risk her group just for one little mortal, even her Saint? I started to cry anew. “Oh no, no no no! Don’t do that! Dammit! Fine! Okay I’ll fix it!”

My eyes locked on hers and she’d started crying too. Just a bit. “Wh-what will it cost?”

She reached out to pet my head softly. “I’m going to give you a boost. Which any patron of a champion can give in theory. But the strength of what you need for this one is, uh, big.”

“Big?”

“Big enough that anyone who can sense and understand such things will know that your patron is a god. Without question. The Fae-Lord cover will only work on the average folk. Other Champions, high priests, any Arch-Lord, higher level mages who know what to look at, they’ll all figure out the truth. Which sounds like rare encounters but anyone of importance you meet is likely to have access to someone or something that fits the bill.”

“And people of importance are already chasing after me.” I sighed and nodded.

“Worse still, other gods might, MIGHT, be able to notice you just because you exist and figure things out. It’s a very small chance and some gods might actually be okay with-… uh, what we’re doing. But it’s still much less ‘on the down low’ than we were hoping to be for a while longer.” She grunted with annoyance “Also, the extra power is just going to draw more things to you in general.”

“Things?”

“Demons and angels and elementals and fae for the most part. The mortals call them mana-infused beings. Magic races. They will feel that you have some extra going on underneath even if they won’t be able to figure out what.”

I took a breath and nodded “I can deal with that if I have her with me.”

She smiled “You’re worth the risk, you know that my Saint?” she floated closer and kissed my lips softly. “This isn’t a gift though, it’s something that will make your life even harder from this point on, and all because we messed up again.”

“I don’t blame you for trying to survive.” I rather knew how messy that got after all.

“Maybe, but I’m still going to give you a few little rewards and apologies.” She stood up and took on a regal stance and smiled softly down at me. “Firstly, I am Vei’Ryn Tayalora, Goddess of Dreams.” my heart leapt to my throat, I knew my goddess’s name now. “My mothers were a goddess of storms and a goddess of lust so my Dreams do lean towards the ‘wet’ variety.” She giggled at her own terrible pun. “But dreaming is my domain and here I am at my most powerful. It’s why I’m the one in charge and doing the talking and stuff. This is almost completely secret, someone would have to be another dream god and know exactly what to look for to find these dream pockets of mine and that’s not currently possible. So this is secure communication.”

I nodded “Makes sense.” I forced myself to say something, it felt somewhat disrespectful to not respond somehow.

“Secondly, some advice. Look at your Status more you idiot. You’ve missed some notable changes because you forget about it! Or notable lack of changes in some cases.” She shrugged and gave me a smirk.

“I… will do that, I promise.”

“Lastly…” she paused and looked down at the memory, still hanging there but it had changed. Me and the girl were dancing to some soft music playing from a radio in the forge downstairs. My goddess, Vei’Ryn, floated over close and whispered in my ear. “Her name is Tendri.” and I cried again.

“Th-thank you.” I sniffled and fought back the sobs. It felt like parts of my heart I didn’t realize were gone were slipping back into place. I turned to my goddess’s face and smiled through my tears. “And th-thank you for the other stuff too. Like Helanna’s dreams and whatever you d-did to Jaina’s Advancement.”

She crossed her arms and huffed “Dangit! I was gonna try and keep those as surprises! Didn’t expect you to be so good at getting people to talk. Oh well, I still have other things going on you haven’t noticed yet.” She said with a wink. “Now, brace yourself, even in dream form this is going to be intense.”

“Okay?” I said as she raised her hands and gathered stars and lighting between them. “Ooh, pretty~” and then it all slammed into me and it felt like every cell in my body was firing off sparks.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” I screamed as I sat up in pain, only for it to fade instantly.

“You stay away from my mother then.” I heard an unfamiliar voice speak nearby and turned. There was a woman there. A green, naked woman, sharpening an axe.