Hindmost - Another Word for Chaos

3: The Winding Way Back

Discord sat in the cave, watching Lotte worry a bone he'd torn from the corpse of the bear.

"This, is the weirdest coincidence," she muttered, "What are you doing here anyway?"

"What are you talking about?" Flander wondered, he'd been searching the cave for the better part of an hour.

"Eh," she shrugged, scratching her puppy behind the ears, "Why look a gift horse in the mouth."

"What the Hell are you talking about?!"

"Don't worry about it," She rolled over and closed her eyes.

"You were talking out loud."

"I do that sometimes," she shrugged, "Get over it."

"Freak," Flander scoffed.

Ignoring him, Discord allowed herself to drift off to sleep. Darkness faded in and after a while she was dreaming, a beautiful memory of her summer at the hot spring, the honeymoon she had with her husband. Lotte as a tiny pup, nipping at her toes and playing in the sand, Discord sat on the bank, sopping wet skin and hair drying in the noonday sun while her husband continued to swim.

"Eris..." the wind seemed to whisper in her ear, "Eeeerrrrriiiisssss...."

"Oh what the Hell," Discord complained, burying her face in her hands.

"Eeeeeerrrrrrrrriiiiiissss..."

"You know I'm actually fucking sleeping right now, this is bullshit!"

"Eeeeeeerrrrrrrriiiiiiisssssssss...."

"Stop Calling Me That!" she yelled, "That's not who I am!"

"Then what would you prefer," to her livid and unending rage, her husband out in the hotspring engorged and changed, becoming the exact image of her father, the God of Thunder and lightning, Zeus, "Discord? Or Alfrade? Which alias are you using now?"

Undaunted, Discord growled at him her hand crushing a clump of dirt as blood pounded in her brain, and her rage repainted the landscape a horrid red color.

"Calm down," a soothing woman's voice washed over her, "Be at ease daughter, we've not come to harm you."

Discord searched for the source of the words and wound up spitting in pure hatred when she found her dog staring up at her and speaking with a human voice.

"Mom?"

"We have a request of you," the person inside Lotte began to explain, "And you're a bit hard to reach at the moment."

"Get out of my fucking dog," she growled.

"You will be silent," Zeus commanded as he emerged from the hot spring, steam roiling off of his glistening naked skin, "And respect your betters."

"Oh, come on, really?" Discord closed her eyes in irritation, massaging away a throbbing migraine.

"You will obey your father!" he shouted.

"You do understand how fucking creepy that sounds when you're standing buck-ass naked in front of your own child?"

"What?" he looked honestly confused.

"Would you look at yourself," Lotte walked over to him, his body transforming into a tall dark haired woman in red and gold robes.

"I have nothing to be ashamed of," he insisted, folding his arms and spreading his legs in an open stance.

"You are in front of your daughter, for our sake put some clothes on!"

"Hmmm, so damn needy," Zeus rolled his eyes, the water of the hotspring rushed around him, swirling over his body and leaving behind a covering of white cloth, "Not like she's wearing that much."