Belgar Gods

I

The code of a Doveswoman is a rigid one. We are the holders of peace across all of Honch, my Country, my Home. We are the lands' defenders through spoken word, through tactic of wit, and through power of integrity, to the land and to the Lord. And through it all, we must remain chaste so as to not let the passion of man deviate us from our noble purpose.

I was not always like this. I admit. There was a time, long back, in a meadow, where I was just another silly, young girl, worshipping the gods and hoping to get married someday. I even had a boy singled out, my neighbour, Jason Goulding,

But those were the thoughts of a silly young girl in a silly young world. A silly young girl who lived in a world in which she had faith in the gods.

I still believe the gods exist- no, that is a lie, I know that they exist, for I have seen them with my own two eyes. Choosing to worship the One True Lord is not a sign of acknowledgement that there is truly only one God, it is a denouncement of all the others. For I know that which all others know not- I know, firsthand, the cruelty of the gods.

I don't remember much about the day that I got kidnapped. Or, really, the first few weeks after that. What I do remember was the feelings I felt. Fear, anger, sorrow, disbelief, hunger, loneliness. They kept me in a cage in the dark for quite some time. At first I thought that I was going to be sold off as a slave- I had heard of that happening. But no, it seemed that they had other plans for me.

The cell was cold, dark, and damp. He was eighteen- maybe nineteen at the time. My age. His friend was getting married soon, and they were having a stag night.

Well dressed. Suit and tie. Curly, brown hair. A virgin. They'd paid for me for an hour, just the standard head. But as he unzipped his pants, I felt the hesitation and doubt kick in.

"Come closer," I said, my voice low. "Come here, I can make you feel good."

"I don't want to do this," he apologised. Foreign accent, he wasn't from Honch or Utra.

"Sssh," my dysfunctional brain promised him the many delights that I knew my body could offer. The steady, practiced hand of a working woman brought him to life.

He came back after that. He said just once, which turned out to be twice and then thrice, until soon I knew the taste of his skin better than I knew my own name. His name was James Taylor. And though one of the first things that you learn in the brothel is to not form relationships, that to them you're just a transaction carried out, I honestly, genuinely felt a spark.

He was a relatively wealthy son of a merchant who had recently taken up residence here in Utra. He had a brother and a sister. No, he had never been to Honch, no he had never heard of my gods or my ways or my people.

"The rules of our pantheon are simple." I had explained. "There are three Courts: Ama, Tors, and Belgar. Each court has a different ruler god and a different set of gods. We believe that even though they're all gods, they're not necessarily the same species- and yet we decided that they all look human-like and human-enough! My family, we worship the Ama, the Warrior Caste tribe, led by SiTrogan; Tors, the Earth-bound class, is led by Morgantí. Belgar; the Fire-People Caste, is led by Chostrad. The main gods of the Ama are: SiTrogan, Shiba, Morgan, Sulphour, Fertíssa, Mantger and Fechlessli. I am unsure about the other pantheons to be quite honest. SiTrogan is obviously the king-god, and governs weather phenomena and military tactics; Shiba, his wife, is the goddess of summer and madness; Morgan, their son, is the god of the sun; Sulphour, a member of the court, is the god of evil- we pray to him to keep evil away from us, legend has it that he became the god of evil by eating it-; Fetríssa is the goddess of fire and dreams; her consort, Mantger, is the god of passion and warfare; and lastly, Fechlessli is a loner god. He inhabits the Ironwood, he is the god of all that dwell there, a creator-god of sorts, I suppose, as he is the one who created all of the animals who live there, from the bunny-rabbit to the bunyip."

"Gods? That is ridiculous, there are no gods!" Had been his reply. So naive, so misguided.

And yet I still found myself falling for him.

Which was why when, on his eighth visit to see me, he proposed us running away together, I accepted.

What a mistake that would turn out to be.