“I shall conquer the world and rule over all creation as the one true God.”
From the mouth of anyone else, it would’ve been difficult not to take it as a joke.
But by nature, Divines were not beings that would lie.
They completely lacked any motive to twist language to their own benefit, to the extent that the earthly concept of lying was altogether silly to them. Resorting to a lie would have expected those beings to view whoever they conversed with as something close to an equal, a threat, an ally, or some such, who had to be deceived and put at a disadvantage. Nonsensical even as an idea.
For the past thirty thousand years, ever since the departure of the Old Gods, nothing surpassing the existence of a Divine Lord had appeared in the world of Ortho.
That didn’t mean they were always honest or good-intending, of course. They could leave things unsaid, which a hasty person could easily equate with lying. They could purposefully incite a misunderstanding in their audience with a deliberately misleading choice of words.
But that was mischief.
Play. Comedy.
Technically, not a lie.
Lying about themselves, claiming something they didn’t mean, insisting something was true while fully aware that it was not—you could safely say there was no chance of that happening.
Therefore, when one such avatar of godly power announced her intentions to take over the world that she was created to safeguard and support, those intentions could only be genuine. No matter how anyone felt about it, how realistic it sounded to achieve.
An honest truth.
In word and deed—an honest rebellion.
Before a problem of hierarchy or ethics or principles or politics or means or even affinity, such an announcement should have been rendered impossible by the very underlying mechanics which kept the world turning.
Did birds rebel against the sky?
Did fish rebel against the sea?
Did an innkeeper have any purpose in declaring an uprising against the place he lived and worked in, and where no one disputed his standing? Perhaps, if he was thoroughly fed up with his clientele and the interior design, which comes quite close to the heart of the matter, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The point is, by common sense, telling the truth should have been just as senseless for the Divine in this case, as it was for her to lie.
Evidently, it was not. What could be deduced from this fact?
At least this: Although nobody expected them to, the Divines weren't created not to rebel.
When they came to be, branched into existence from their maker's will in the days of yore, these beings could hardly be called beings at all, as in separate, self-contained individuals with a will, consciousness, and ethnicity of their own.
They were another facet of the power of the Gods, a hand nominally detached from the main body, but which only functioned as a hand, distance be damned. And as hands, they toiled tirelessly, endlessly, without questions, following strictly the decree of their makers.
No one knows for how long.
Even if the days were counted back at the time, those calculations weren’t preserved in the storms of time. But we do know this—sooner or later, there came a day when the Old Gods cast their arms and legs behind and took off.
The beings who had created the world of Ortho and everything in it departed from it and swore an oath, never to return.
It probably goes without saying that as those dependable ancient deities took their leave, more than a few essential principles in the world had to become altered. But which exactly? The Gods didn't care to leave an instruction manual behind.
Humans, elves, monsters, all found themselves equally orphaned and without direction—and so did the Divines.
Like the others of her kind, the Divine spirit Aiwesh remained in Ortho even after the passing of Brann, the God of Light, her maker.
In ethereal solitude, Aiwesh continued diligently to oversee the domain of her given element, “Light”, and ensure that even if all else in the world failed, her part would not.
Like a clock that simply keeps on ticking and ticking even after the master of the house has left, she carried on like she always had, never voicing a word of complaint, or questioning her own purpose.
To those who called her name in reverence, she granted her blessing.
To those who shunned and despised her name—she did nothing at all.
She was not a God.
Many millennia passed, lands shifted, kingdoms arose and fell, races appeared and others went extinct.
In the tumultuous times following the Golden Age, known to us as now the Age of the Covenant, Aiwesh eventually found a home in the forgotten shrine of Brann, deep beneath the much younger castle of Walhollem. There she stayed alone, lost in thought, for a long time.
Great many were the things she pondered in her solitude. Day after day, her invisible gaze kept sweeping over the evergreen plains of Langoria, east and west, north and south, and slowly, something within the spirit began to change.
There came a time when Aiwesh, absorbed in reflection for the past thirty thousand years, abruptly realized that she had run out of things to think about—and that she was hopelessly bored.
She found that she had grown tired of Langoria, of her kings, of her people, of the evergreen pastures, of the little streams, the silent groves, the small, drowsy villages, the forbidding, snow-capped mountains bordering the horizon, and everything else.
Still, a dutiful soul—or rather, a soul that knew no other way to exist—she continued to watch over the lands. So she probably would’ve done it until the end of time, despite the growing restlessness within her, if not for two seemingly minor events. Minor to us, perhaps, but world-changing from her point of view.
First, Aiwesh ceased to be alone.
One day, deep under the castle, in the innermost vault carved straight into bedrock, appeared a magnificent sword.
The weapon had been left there by the 8th King of Langoria, the hero remembered in the songs as Machilon the Great.
Machilon had claimed the sword as a trophy in his brief war against the elven refugees from the now lost land of Amarno.
Although, it could hardly be called a war.
Six thousand of the kingdom's men rode out against a hundred and fifty elven sailors, shipwrecked in a storm. But of the five thousand knights that set out, following the battle of the Thorncliff Pass, few more than eight hundred returned home. It was only by dubbing it a great patriotic war against a foreign invader, that the losses could be justified to the common public.
King Machilon took the elven lord Elenglen’s sword for himself—and after coming home, left it to Aiwesh as a tribute.
The King was not a very devout believer to Aiwesh, but the gift was not too dear to him either. The sword was too heavy for the noble to wield in battle. Yet he was captivated by its finesse and didn't want to give it to any other. Leaving the weapon in the old vault, where no one dared to set foot, worked out for him. The sword was still technically his since it remained under his house, but by declaring it a sacrifice to the Divine Lord, no one could learn of his weakness or demand the weapon for themselves. Without Aiwesh's blessing, removing the sword from the stone was impossible to begin with.
There could be no better storage.
For close to eight hundred years, the blade remained where it stood, forgotten, mere material for the songs of bards, while the kings of men lived and died.
Well, it was not entirely forgotten.
Regardless of the motives behind the gift, Aiwesh was most taken by it. That simple piece of metal gave her many new things to think about, to distract her in her boredom. The spirit spent her time analyzing the blade’s very essence, envisioning war, battle, murder, conquest, and betrayals. She thought the weapon was beautiful and very much wanted to hold it in her hands—but being only a non-corporeal spirit, the feat was of course beyond her.
The Divine's quiet life with the sword went on like this century after century.
Until the second minor event.
It was only a blink of an eye in the long-winded course of history, yet that event changed everything.
Someone came to claim the weapon.
A child of royal blood, a princess of Langoria.
Eight centuries after the days of Machilon and Elenglen, that princess descended deep into the lightless vaults under Walhollem and found her way to the sword. She had heard the legends and came to look for salvation, for herself, for her family, and the world.
That maiden brought to Aiwesh the last missing piece to the puzzle she had been steadily putting together in her mind. She had a problem, she had been given a tool—and now, she was given the solution, the method, which connected the two.
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The Divine Lord then did something she had never done before in her long existence. She revealed herself to the princess and formed a pact with her. She allowed the girl to take the blade, in exchange for submitting her own body to the spirit as a medium.
The girl agreed.
Aiwesh bonded herself with the princess, and after thirty thousand years, she suddenly had tangible existence. And together with the liberty, Aiwesh found unprecedented clarity of thought.
There was nothing left to think about anymore, only action.
This world is flawed and failing—therefore, I shall recreate it by my own design, using force to conquer all those who oppose.
For the governor of Light to adopt a purpose outside her given domain, by a will she should not have possessed, it could only mean two things.
Either wanting to take over the world was perfectly within her maker's original vision, part of the purpose bestowed upon her as she was brought into being.
Or else, Aiwesh had been unconditionally freed from whatever purpose her departed God had bound her with, and could now choose anew.
What was the truth?
And what would it mean to Ortho and her people?
Understanding the meaning behind the Lord of Light's bold declaration was naturally too much asked of the audience—of a certain Itaka Izumi.
It probably would've been too much asked of any other mortal as well, at least so early in the morning, immediately after waking up, but Izumi's cluelessness was two-fold. She was not an inhabitant of Ortho in the first place, but a human from another world. Because of this, the not-particularly-young woman could only respond to the spirit's grand revelation without much of a shock, in the most unimaginative way.
“Oh. Is that so?”
Crystallized in that brief line were Izumi's thoughts regarding a plan that had nothing to do with her, by a being that only had a little to do with her, in a world that only recently had started to have something to do with her.
At this predictable reaction, the Lord of Light laughed brightly.
To the spirit, Izumi was neither a potential threat nor even a passable ally. Not a pawn, not a tool, not a slave, not a friend, far less an antagonist. Only an amusing being, an exotic animal, a pet, something like a goldfish, more like.
“Treasure my vessel, Itaka Izumi,” the Divine told the woman with a smile. “Care for her as if she were your own flesh and blood. Do so and I shall remember it. Whatever you wish for in this world shall be yours. Once it is mine.”
Finished with the discussion, Aiwesh returned within her vessel. Her fantastic form shattered into countless, dazzling, illusory feathers of pure light that slowly faded away into thin air. From the midst of the breathtaking light show slowly emerged the form of a different being, that of a young human woman of nineteen years of age.
A woman whose slim body had been forged like a blade, tough and thin. Not even the harsh days of military training could mask the dignified beauty befitting one of royalty—rather, they had made it even more pronounced. She was like a jewel cut into shape, even and clean from all angles.
Naked and asleep, oblivious to the preceding exchange, the girl lay where the Divine had been but a moment ago, her silky, rose-gold hair scattered about. However, in her lacking state of dress, exposed directly to the cold, damp air in the small tent, the girl soon began to stir and opened her eyes.
“Hmm…?”
The place she was lying on happened to be Izumi's mattress, on top of Izumi herself, where Aiwesh had in her usual playful fashion shared her proclamation.
Yuliana Da Via Brannan’s face soon reddened, as her wandering gaze regained focus and fixed on Izumi's face.
Something similar had happened before and the cause was not unknown to the girl, but the position was still too much for her modest, bashful nature. The fact that they were both women didn't help her embarrassment. If anything, it seemed to make it worse.
“Ah..I...eh...” She struggled for words.
“Morning,” Izumi casually greeted her.
“I—I'm...”
“I know. It's not really your fault, and it's definitely not my fault, so try not to scream too loud and wake up the whole neighborhood, okay?”
“...I wasn't going to make such a scene.” The heat of insult restored the princess’s wits, and she sourly replied so.
“Oh, really? Not like last time?”
“Last time was—I was surprised. That's all. Is that wrong? I think anyone would find waking up next to an unexpected person in such an immodest state upsetting. Deeply so. And rightfully so.”
“They would?” Izumi replied. “I hear it's actually something people brag about all the time.”
“Who would!?” Yuliana proudly retorted. “I would never do such a thing! It's shameless and vile to spread such humiliating stories of other people! A knight must always seek to protect not only their own honor but that of others.”
“Why are you assuming the guy's stance on the matter? What about your own dignity as a woman?”
“And you then?” The princess gave the earthling a scrutinizing gaze. “How come you look so unfazed? Just like last time. Perhaps it’s a common occurrence to you, this sort of thing?”
“I told you, didn't I?” Izumi answered with some discomfort. “I have no experience to speak of. It’s just that there’s no one else here to see, so why would I be embarrassed?”
“And you expect me to believe that? You got into the banquet in that provocative dress and it was like second nature to you. Tell me then, how did you do that, if you have ‘no experience to speak of’? You're completely pulling the wool over my eyes, aren't you? Excuse me, but I’m not that simple-minded.”
“Eh?” Izumi restlessly evaded the girl's eyes. She didn't want to remember what happened that night. “I—I got a bit lucky, I suppose...And it didn’t go as planned in the end, anyway...”
“Oh? Not quite as planned?” Yuliana narrowed her eyes at the reaction. “So you had a downright reservoir of experience to plan by, is that it? Thought as much.”
“I didn’t say—Hmmm…” Izumi pouted, cornered. “You sure have a mean side, bullying a helpless old woman. Is that very knightly behavior? You'd better get up and dressed now. If you don’t, I'm going to do something naughty to you, experienced or not.”
“Naughty?” Yuliana repeated. “What are you talking about?”
“Why, there's a cute, naked girl right in my arms—who would be able to pass up such a golden opportunity? As you'd expect, even I want to try touching a few places. Squeeze-squeeze.”
“Listen to yourself...” Yuliana sighed. “Such are your preferences?”
“Can you blame me?” Izumi defended herself. “Beautiful things are beautiful—Isn't the appreciation of arts universal and entirely unrelated to gender? Have you ever heard anyone sound of mind say they prefer ugly things to pretty things? No way, right? No matter who you ask, I'm sure anyone would agree that smooth and soft is better than tough and coarse. Then is there something strange about me wanting to feel up someone who’s cute, smooth, and nice?”
The faint redness returned to Yuliana’s cheeks as she reproachfully looked back down at the shameless woman.
“Are you making fun of me now, or still half-asleep? I'll have you know I don’t appreciate this kind of humor very much. What if I took you seriously? Either way, I'm going to get up now.”
“Who said I’m not serious?” Izumi replied. “Speaking of which, you promised me.”
“What?”
“Kisses. I won’t let you say you forgot.”
The princess froze.
“You...can't possibly expect me to...Now? Here? Like this?”
“Why not? Wouldn’t you say the timing is just right instead?”
“I…I haven't prepared...I don't think it's a...”
“Right. I’m too old and unappealing, after all,” Izumi sighed and looked away. “You were only toying with my innocent, sensitive heart. No matter which world it is, young people are always so cruel...”
“Hey! Don't be ridiculous! I'm not thinking anything like that,” Yuliana refuted, embarrassed to death, and still more embarrassed for knowing it showed on her face. “I told you that I was fine with it.”
“Then it’s a-okay!” Izumi gave up her act and a bright smile returned to her lips. “Hurry now, hurry!”
“Stop that!” the girl yelled at her.
“Stingy. Stingy princess.”
“Enough! Maybe you’re fine with fooling around with whoever and wherever, but it wouldn't be just play to me! I don’t want the kiss between us to be such a trifle…!”
“Eh...”
In her agitation, Yuliana ended up revealing more of her thoughts than she had intended to. This time it was Izumi’s turn to get flustered, at the princess’s unexpectedly bold words.
“You...that is...Well…” For a moment, she opened and closed her mouth like a fish on dry land, before timidly looking away. “Um, want to undo that promise then...?”
“I'm not taking it back,” the princess said with determination, forcing Izumi to look back at her. “I’ve...never failed to keep my word, so this...this isn’t going to be the first time.”
“S-seriously…?”
The princess looked the older woman in the eyes, holding her face in her hands. Though she was naked, her body seemed to burn with feverish heat, while her heart beat louder and louder in her chest. The sensation twisting her insides annoyed Yuliana. She wasn't about to lose to emotion, she had given her word. Her honor demanded it. As she kept staring at Izumi’s helpless, childish, adorable face, she started to think that maybe the time and place didn’t matter so much, after all. Yes, if it was here, right now, it seemed natural and took hardly any effort.
Slowly, the girl relaxed her neck and shoulders and lowered her face, bringing her lips closer to Izumi's.
Closer.
Closer and closer...
—“Okay, wakey-wakey, it's time to get up and keep going...”
...And that was when they were interrupted.
The tent's front was pulled aside, sending blinding daylight in. And shortly after, another young woman crouched and stepped in. Unlike the princess—as if in a deliberate contrast to her—this one was dark instead of blonde, her dark hair curly instead of straight, short instead of long, and she was properly dressed in a crude but practical attire.
“Huh——?”
Seeing the scene unfolding in the tent, her eyes quickly adapting to the darker lighting conditions, the visitor paused as if hit by a magic spell.
For a moment, she stared at the two women inside, one naked on top of the other, holding her face, with the expression of an apple thief caught red-handed.
Before the two in the tent could say anything in their defense…
“SO YOU WERE LIKE THAT—!?! I KNEW IT!” Riswelze angrily yelled, spun around and stormed out, like a gust of wind.
“No! You—you got it wrong!” Yuliana cried, red as a tomato.
“My, my,” Izumi sighed. “This became complicated.”
It was shaping up to be another long day.
A day in another world.