Belenus ran a hand through his hair, the sharp nails of his fingers were able to make precise openings through the stands of his thick and blondish strands. Walking around in the grassy fields, he seemed to have dawned nothing over his body except a lavishly red robe. The sleeves of the robe were thicker than the part of the torso. In fact, the sleeves possessed a thick wool. It was almost as though they were made to protect the wearer's forearms, like a kind of cloth-gauntlet.
"Hey, um, Belenus, uh, did you want to go find Danu or Abellio yet?" There came the cawing of a female's voice so quiet and sweet that no one could have met it with any aggression. This voice, however, did have a touch of painful shyness to it. It exhaled from a girl who dawned a purple shirt, blue jeans, and had long black hair that of a raven. Perhaps as black as an eclipse.
"Chloe, I don't really want to go anywhere. I know you may think I'm powerful, but I'm not very good with directions." Belenus raised his arms up in the air with an awkward sort of defense about himself. "Sorry, dear."
"Dear." Chloe hesitated at first, letting out a sexy sort of sigh. However, she soon enough began to allow her eyes to go from mid-ranged to fully open and agitated. "DEAR? Look, you're freaking Belenus, God of the Sun! How are you bad with directions? We've been stuck here for weeks ever since we got separated from the others. Aren't you tougher than this? Haven't you fought with King Oberon on a dozen of occasions?"
"Against. I have fought against Oberon, indeed. Despite being the true commander of the court and thus the pantheon, he couldn't deny that I was a match for him. Every cross we had was a sore draw for the both of us." the pointy ears on the head of the God of Fire twitched just then. "Hm. I fear we are not alone in this forest. The Herbstwald, as it is called, is home to a thousand homes full of plastered dwarfs and elves."
Through the crunching of the leaves, and across the wonderful view of the gigantic never-ending woodlands, tiny creatures were running rampant around nearby a house of sorts. Spicy looking candy such as flaring peppermint, paprika salted gingerbread, and red-hot gumballs had decorated a fountain of chocolate near the home of candied architecture.
The well of juicy chocolate sprung from a hole in the ground, surrounded by a moat of spikes, which sat next to the house in a very squashed sort of way. It was all too close. Belenus looked on with bemusement.
How does no one hurt themselves on all those spikes whenever they come out of that house? He put the palm of his hand up to his chin, the sleeves of his long robe hung funnily from his thin arms.
Chloe put a hand to her hip. Rumbling noises came from the lower hemisphere of her torso. Belenus looked over to her, a grin from his fair-skinned face forming ever so slightly with every passing second.
"Oh, cut that out, would you?" Chloe scowled at the deity that stood next to her, gazing at the candied house with him. "Not every bodily function I make has to make you smile, you creep."
Belenus playfully frowned. "If you say so." his British accent getting thicker by the second. "You still haven't taken me up on my offer, so I am free to tease you as much as I want." he put a hand to his chest as though he were making some sort of pledge.
"That's right. It's a rule you deities of the Seelie Court have. Annoying people into covenants. Until they accept or deny, you reserve the godly right to pester people. Hmph."
"Covenants, contracts, pledges, oaths- the whole nine yards. Ha. Not sure why that saying only ever had nine yards. Why not ten? Eleven? Twelve? Thir-"
"Belenus." Chloe put a palm up to her face, covering her eyes out of a sort of shame due to who had been accompanying her in this forest. "How old did you say you were?"
"Well, it's a bit rude to ask an old man his age, right?" Belenus blushed at the girl who always seemed to make him smile. "Nonetheless, I shall do anything for you, dear."
A pause. A break. A beat. Birds chirped. Insects sucked.
Chloe began tapping her foot on the crunchy and leafy grounded impatiently. "Um. So-"
"3780 solar revolutions. No, wait. Maybe some 3000 more than that, too. And maybe even another 3000 more-"
"Holy cow!" Chloe tripped backwards, falling over a fallen branch from one of the over-looming trees that surrounded them and almost covered their view of the sky.
"A holy cow? No such thing, I'm afraid. The festival of Beltane may have you believe otherwise, however." Belenus pointed two fingers at Chloe as she fell over. "Also, watch out for overgrown twigs like those. Those are what I like to call, 'tricky-twigs'. The dwarfs make them around their candied houses as to harm lesser trespassers, such as the elves or katakans."
"Festival of Beltane? Slow down. What is that?" the young girl's eyes raised as she pulled herself up; her black eyebrows were always so thick.
"It's a festival about the sun. In honor of yours truly." Belenus spoke whilst pointing to himself, his voice slightly gaining reverb off of the succulent greenery around him. "Not Abellio. Me. It used to be celebrated in the human world too, before the religion of Sarajevo kicked in and took over literally everything. Ah, so these days it's stuck to this world. Tir Na Mabi."
"Right. I'd prefer just to call it 'The Otherworld', if that's alright with you, big guy." Chloe grinned a toothy grin, the top teeth of her mouth were very firm and white.
"Hm. Oh, come now. I know you're a Sardain girl, which is merely a middle-class nobility, but isn't the other side to you an 'Aaroncroft'?"
Chloe practically turned to stone that moment. Her eyes darted down to the ground, tears welling up slowly. It was as though someone turned on a switch, causing her emotions to overflow. Belenus, perhaps, had that sort of power over her, so long as they were negative emotions, that is. He teased her quite a bit on their duet-adventures through the world of Tir Na Mabi. Sometimes it was a good nature's ribbing, other times it was absolutely cruel.
"I wish I could say something like, 'I wonder how my family is holding up right now' or something naive like that. Problem is, I know exactly what's become of them in these recent decades. It feels awful. Absolutely, fucking awful, Belenus! Only, like, two of the Aaroncrofts are left back in my dimension. I guess it's what happens when you try to play God."
Belenus stood still as well, the wind blowing his overgrown robe and long blonde hair. "I apologize deeply." the deity of fire, despite his constant teasing, found himself in situations like these where he soon felt bad for just how far a boundary it was which he would cross. "I owe you."
Chloe looked up, curious. Her head tilted as tears began to slow down from her eyes. She folded her arms behind her back. "Huh?"
"Indeed. This candy house right here, I can take you inside and pay for the feast myself. After all, that grumbling from you earlier was a sign of mortal hunger, was it not?" the red-robed deity laughed quietly, his face mostly morose.
"Well, I guess I can't deny that. Yeah." Chloe ran a hand through her hair. "And then perhaps, I'll think over your covenant some more."
"Hm. Good girl. By the way, there's more than just sweets in there. Actual swan roast, wolf's foot, berry soup, rabbit's tongue-"
"The only thing that sounded tasty in any of that was the 'berry soup'!" Chloe exclaimed, her eyes wide and her black hair falling down to her toes.
"Well, you will enjoy the pumpkin pie, I promise you that." Belenus leaned in, whispering seductively in her ear.
The young Sardain girl blushed. "There's p- pumpkin pie?"
Belenus nodded. "My lovely Chloe, there's just about anything you could dream of!"
Chloe shrugged. "I don't dream of 'swan roast', unfortunately."
"Ah, your sarcasm is powerful." Belenus crossed his arms.
"And then, after this, we should really get going. You've been wanting to slack off in this part of the forest ever since we got separated from the others, but we should at least find Morrganne." Chloe crossed her arms just as her godly companion did.
"Hm. Morrganne of the Faeries. There are legends of her in your world. Morgana le Fey. Quite. It's a championed tale based off of a man named Sir Arturius, right?"
"King Arturius. Shows how much you know." Chloe scoffed.
"Rude!" Belenus threw a fireball at a nearby bush.
"Hey! Don't set this whole damn grassland on fire!" Chloe panicked.
In that second, Belenus clapped his hands and the woods became absent of fire once more.
"I wasn't talking about you, dear. There is a crowd of ogres to the far left of this home. Spying. The fire scares them off."
"Oh, for reals? Man, even after years of being stuck in this place, it's as though that I'm having to sort of relearn everything ever since our group got separated, you know?" Chloe twirled a thick clump of her sable hairs.
"Ah, nonsense. You're not relearning. You just didn't listen before because you thought you would be well-protected in the group. But Abellio had to be an idiot and send Adalhelm through the portal, and then Adalhelm met a young boy named Evrich and all that. But that's besides the point. I'll have to reflect on that later. In the meantime, you're right. We need to find Morrganne." Belenus flicked his bangs from his eyes as the platinum-blonde hair tried to fall in his face.
"I know I'm right, big boy. You just always like to parade around the fact that you're a deity and patronize me." Chloe grinned deviously and walked closer to the candy house's entrance.
The deity of fire put a finger to his forehead. "My goodness, I hope that attitude is one thing that you never lose. You used to be so shy back when you went to school. But, I'd advise you to focus less on overcoming me in conversation and that you start ruminating on our contract."
________
YOU ARE READING
Final Phenomenon: E-Lunar, Route A (4) (MANUSCRIPT)
Fantasy2071. The legendary God of Apples, Abellio, was kidnapped from Earth and taken to the Otherworld. Though this world is his home, he seeks to track down and destroy those who have wronged him as they reside in this world. No man nor deity...
