Light bare feet on the pine-covered forest floor made no sound as the mysterious woman hopped off the shoulder of the massive red, humanoid creature. She had a slender frame wrapped in hard muscle, and her long platinum blonde hair spilled over her shoulders to cover modest breasts. Ben’s gaze wandered up and down the length of her long, pure-white, elegant spear held casually over one shoulder. She was beautiful and petite with unmarred pale skin, which was a contrast to the dangerous aura she emanated. And short, Ben thought, very short.

An odd feeling accompanied the woman and the horned giant when they had entered the clearing moments before; it felt familiar yet so very foreign. The red-skinned creature walked past the woman toward Ben, who calmly observed the giant, surprisingly unafraid of an attack. It sat down next to the obsidian beast, who met its gaze briefly before huffing and facing the unknown woman once more.

“Oooh, I had a feeling. And I was right, hey, big boy?” the woman addressed her red companion, whose wordless reply felt like a shrug, yet it didn’t move or speak.

“Who are you?” Ben asked.

The nude woman arched her back and placed her free hand on her hip suggestively. She flicked her hair with a whip of her head and met his gaze with a terrifyingly mocking grin.

No way…

“You can call me; Mistress, her dreadful yet stunningly ravishing majesty-”

“-Ainsle!?” Ben exclaimed an interruption. His eyes went wide, and heat flushed his face. Only moments prior, he had drunk in her alluring, unclothed form, and the juxtaposing image of the scarred old woman brushed his mind, causing his eye to twitch.

Ainsle let out a ‘hmph’ as she pouted, abandoning her seductive pose. “Aw, you’re really no fun, you know that?”

“Uh, yeah. I think you’ve mentioned that once or twice,” he paused, trying to make sense of the scene before him. “What’s… How did you get here?” he asked.

“Not even a bloody, ‘Hey, you look good enough to eat’?” the young-looking old woman teased with feigned affront. “If I’d known that you had one of the same old bastards inside you, I would’ve come and visited in your dreams a lot sooner,” she said with a wink, and Ben shivered at the gesture.

He had associated the teasing and mocking with his elderly mentor, yet before him stood a beautiful young woman, speaking and acting the way his beloved companion and teacher did. Her voice was smooth and sweet, almost what he would describe as… adorable? He missed the low, husky rasp of the sharp woman, he thought.

Ainsle continued. “You probably have a shitload of questions in that potato of yours,” the near-white-haired woman said as she let go of the beautiful white spear, which dispersed in wisps of red and black smoke before it touched the ground. “But let Ol’ Ain show you something good first.” She winked and gestured to the red giant with a flick of her chin.

“Are you really Ainsle? And… is that your Avatar?” he interrupted, unsure whether the woman and her large companion were figments of his delirium.

She stopped and faced the young man once more with a raised brow. “Can’t you tell?” She grinned and twirled her lithe form; her bare feet twisted on the forest floor, yet the brown pine needles were undisturbed. “Ah fuck it. Listen, lover boy,” she said after a huff before placing both hands on her hips, “the body you wear is the image of your inner self, you see?” She shook her head slightly with incredulity. “Gods, I know he’s dim, but this is some different lev-,” she muttered under her breath before being interrupted by the young man.

Ben stepped forward and leaned down to wrap his arms around the woman, his similarly nude body embracing her petite form in a tight hug. She stiffened at the contact yet relaxed after a heartbeat.

“I always say foreplay is important, but…” she trailed off.

Ben smiled and leaned back as he held her with a tight grip on her shoulders, afraid that she might disappear if he let go. “I thought…” he chuckled. “I thought that you were dead. That we both were dead.”

The Berserker grimaced and averted her gaze bashfully. “Very nearly was. But, I’m thinking we’ll be all right.” She patted his chest, and he released his hold on her shoulders. Ainsle gazed at the pair of Avatars with lips drawn into a line, and brows furrowed in thought. “The fighting stopped, and I’m also thinking that little Kieran got us to safety. Besides, I’ve had worse than that little prick inside me.”

“A little prick? Ainsle. I saw that… thing stab you with a blade this big,” Ben said as he mimed the girth of the blade with his hands.

“Pah, have you seen what my big boy is packing?”

The young man winced and decided not to turn and inspect the Avatar’s package.

Ainsle’s mocking grin grew impossibly wide. “Watch this,” she said before letting out a sharp whistle.

His curiosity got the better of him, and he turned to see the red giant mimic her grin. Out of nowhere, it materialized a ludicrously large implement of destruction, and its haft rested on a lean muscled shoulder. The mind-shattering size and the apparent weight of the great mace were dizzying, yet Ben watched as the entity handled the weapon as if it were a stick.

“Things are starting to make sense now,” Ben thought aloud. “Yeah. You’re both ridiculous.”

“Anyways,” Ainsle cleared her throat. “The point is, my Path and this guy over here make it so that I can recover pretty damn quickly from nasty wounds. Luckily, the fucker missed my heart, but my bloody lung was filling up with, uh, blood, and I passed out. If his aim wasn’t so shit, he might’ve actually gotten me.” She winked with her right eye, the one the Witigo had stolen from her.

She can’t regrow parts she lost, but her natural regeneration is pretty wild. That’s a relief.

Ben folded his arms and regarded the nude woman. “So, what happened? One moment everything was fine, then the next… the city was under attack? Kieran said something about the migrations passing through areas a bit farther from the city.”

“Fucked if I know.” Ainsle shrugged before pausing to consider something. “Hmm. Actually, I might have an idea why, but we can talk about that later. Time moves extra slowly here, especially when we’re really fucked up in Aetheria.” She frowned as she observed the area. “While I think your domain is quaint… wait. Is this the clearing between the blight and ancient woods in the Vale of Moons?”

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“Yeah. I don’t know why this place looks- looked like that.” He corrected as his eyes scanned the black glassy shards that replaced the forest's pine trees.

The Berserker’s brows softened, and her grin wavered. “Yeah, that’s the thing. It’ll show you the place that is most significant to you. It can change over time like mine did over the years. But… I’m thinking; in your case, you have to find a place in Aetheria that means something to you.”

Ben nodded at the old woman’s words and felt a light melancholy settle on his shoulders.

“Well, with the impending apocalypse and all, I suppose I don’t really have much time to anchor down somewhere…” he trailed off.

Ainsle grimaced before straightening. “I think we should go.”

“Go where?” he asked, head tilted in confusion.

Ainsle sighed. “Just do as I say, Benny-boy. Trust me, it’ll be good,” she teased.

The petite woman winked at her Avatar, who returned the gesture with one of its own. The red giant stood, and the nude woman leapt high to land on its shoulders. She grinned at Ben as she reclined to let her head rest against the muscled neck.

“We’re going for a little stroll, the four of us. We can’t cross over alone, so they have to take us there.” She indicated with a tilt of her head to the feline amalgamation of angular obsidian and slow billowing black flames.

The beast huffed as it reclined unmoving, perfectly content to ignore the woman’s words. Its tail whistled dully through the air as it swished to batter against the ground in vibrating thuds. Ben considered the entity for a moment before looking up at Ainsle.

“Am I supposed to ride it?” he asked, apprehensive.

The Berserker’s reply was a wink and a grin. Ben sighed, and his shoulders slumped as he approached his Avatar.

“Will you take me where she wants us to go?” he asked the beast.

A thought of reluctance caressed his mind before the beast stood and stretched, its claws digging furrows into the dirt. It sauntered over and nudged him with its massive head. Ben nodded and circled to climb atop the Avatar’s back, using the smooth angular spikes of obsidian as hands and footholds. Amusement radiated from the beast, who walked in a circle and stretched once more.

Ainsle let out a deafening whistle. “Hold on tight, lover boy,” was the last thing she said.

Ainsle’s Avatar crouched and launched itself in a sprint toward the glassy forest, narrowly avoiding the sharp, jagged shards that protruded from the pine-needle ground. The Beast leapt after the red giant, and Ben’s vision went black and then red. He felt as if they moved at a blistering speed, yet his growing locks of hair didn’t flutter in the intangible wind that buffeted his form. A speck of light in the distance grew larger as the seconds passed, and the blood-red backdrop began to fade to a violet sky with two suns, one red, and one blue.

The two ancient Avatars and their Wielders soared through the air of an unknown sky. The beast’s trajectory met its apex and began to tilt for its descent. The young man saw the serene sands of an undisturbed beach, bordered by thriving fields of unknown green crops, hurtle toward them; a lone simple wooden cottage sat cozily on the border of the sand and the greenery. They landed impossibly softly on the sands of the beach, and Ben dismounted his Avatar to find that his bare feet didn’t disturb the beach upon contact.

The beast walked a short distance before circling in one spot and lying down on the pristine sand; the Avatar of Vengeance followed shortly after to recline next to the obsidian feline. Ben scanned his surroundings and found the gentle breeze intoxicatingly soothing, as gentle waves of a similarly violet sea lapped with a murmur at the shoreline. He was startled by a slap on his rear. He turned to face the mocking woman who grinned with sharp blue eyes that mirrored the emotion.

“So, what do you think?” she asked in a jarringly sweet voice.

“Is this your domain?” he asked, eyes wide at the little slice of paradise.

“Sure is. Though, you wouldn’t want to see how it looked a couple of years ago. An ocean of blood tends to leave the wrong impression on folks.” She ran a hand through her long platinum hair, exposing her modest breasts, which Ben -out of respect for his mentor- only glanced at once. “Well, I’d be shitting you if I said that I get many visitors; in fact, you, Benny-boy, are the third person to come here.”

“You never mentioned anything about traveling to other Wielder’s domains. Why show me now?”

Her grin grew wide, and her eyes seemed to brighten. “That’s the thing, you see? I guess I should’ve figured it out before, but you felt so…”

“Weak?” Ben interjected.

“Yeah, weak as all fuck. But no, it was your presence. It felt familiar, but it was muddied,” Ainsle grunted in frustration. “Look. I don’t know, but I suspected it, though I wasn’t sure,” she said with a frown and hands on her hips.

“Suspected what?” he asked after a few heartbeats passed.

“That you have the bloody Avatar of Domination. And more,” she grimaced. “It’s one of the three given by the same God. May he forever find a fly in his mug and ticks on his balls,” she spat, and Ben recalled her disdain for the pantheon.

The memories of a stormy morning in the eclectic store in Honeydew made him pause.

What did Ann say again? ‘Patron of Warriors, Martyrs, and Seekers of Vengeance. The God of Conflict and Struggle-’

“We are the Champions of Illephrre?” Ben asked and received a nod in reply from the woman. He considered the woman’s words for a breath.

Wait, that’s right. I always assumed she knew the name of my Avatar… But, come to think of it, I never mentioned it even once. Not even to Ann.

He nodded to himself. “I assumed you knew already, but after thinking about it, why didn’t you ask the name of my Avatar?”

Ainsle shrugged. “It’s not something you go around asking folks. Besides, me and the Princess, cousin-fucker, just so we know who we’re talking about, both guessed you had Pride.”

Ben’s jaw clenched at the mention of Jor, yet he suppressed the anger welling up from his stomach for the sake of his mentor. She sat on the sand and gestured for him to do the same, to which Ben complied, and the petite woman continued.

“So, yeah. Pride is kind of known in history to be, uh…”

“Prideful?” Ben supplied, much to the mild annoyance of the Berserker.

“Stubborn.” She paused to exhale. “Anyways, I figured you’d share when you were ready. But fuck me. Domination. Can you believe it?” she asked no one in particular.

“I don’t see the significance…”

“It's damn well very significant. A Champion of Domination hasn’t shown up in what… wait. I don’t think there has been one since the first.” Her brows furrowed in thought as if recalling something. “I heard that same story the Princess told you about the Herald being an Old Worlder and the Champion of Domination. So, when me and Willy were in the Academy, he looked it up in the library. There hasn’t been another Wielder of your Avatar since then.”

Ben stroked his growing beard and considered the woman’s words. “So, being Champions of the same God allows us to… communicate better?”

Ainsle winked and swept an open palm, gesturing to their surroundings. “This is unique to the three of us, or at least, I never heard of other wielders doing this. We can go inside our domains when we want to and visit each other’s minds when we sleep. Like what we’re doing now,” she leaned closer with a dangerous look in her eye. “Adds a whole new level to wet dreams, don’t you think, lover boy?” she teased as Ben pointedly ignored the comment. Ainsle feigned a pout and shrugged.

“Three of us? About the other visitors, who were they if not the Wielder of my Avatar?”

The young-looking woman’s grin relaxed into an impassive line, and she gazed over the water, pain conveyed by her steel-blue eyes.

“They never last long. Always throwing their lives away for some cunt who doesn’t deserve it,” she turned to face the young man. “I’ve met three Champions of Sacrifice in my lifetime. But something’s wrong with the newest one.”

“What, Ann? I mean, her Avatar does seem to be an aspect of Illephrre, but she said she can’t enter her domain…” Ben trailed off, as light bloomed within his mind; he met the woman’s gaze, whose grin had returned.

“I think I know why,” he said, tone bitter.