It required enomours amounts of power and energy for a natural god to stay in the physical realm. Ceatures like Kuzunoha or "cultivators" were an exception as they were born mortal, with a real physical body.
Loki, Syble, and Lystall had remained in the physical plane for quite some time and unfortunately had to go "rest" before Lynefra had the chance to wake up.
Since it seemed like Lynefra would be asleep for several hours, Cirwyn managed to convince all the men to leave her room as men in a maiden's bedchamber was extremely improper. Who could have known that a "few hours" was simply a fraction of the time it would take for Lynefra to wake up.
"What is this place?" Lynefra muttered to herself. She hadn't meant to say anything out loud but for some reason her thoughts were heard aloud. She didn't remember how she got here, more like she simply found herself here; an extremely odd looking, but pleasing to the eye, courtyard.
"Good morning," a soft voice wafted over as if it were the scent of freshly baked cookies rather than a person's voice. The voice itself was extremely pleasant to the ears and it seemed to match the odd courtyard perfectly.
The courtyard was rather large, complete with a lake filled with some fish Lynefra had never seen. It looked more like a moat as there was an island in the middle with several trees, bushes, and a small little teahouse in the center of the little island. There was a little bridge not far from where Lynefra stood that crossed the moat/lake and both ends had a little cobblestone and crushed granite path extending out from it. Each corner of the courtyard also seemed to have a completely different theme in both mood and colors but they all flowed together perfectly.
"The teahouse in the center of the courtyard," the voice beckoned.
Lynefra complied as she looked around at the foreign architecture and the various plant-life filled with vegetation she couldn't identify. After she crosshed the bridge, the exterior courtyard faded away and the moat/lake seemed to extend into infinity.
Shock colored her face as Lynefra saw the exterior of the courtyard fall away. She turned to look at the path in front of her, and past the few trees until her gaze finally rested on the small building that looked both familiar and foreign. The small single-room building had walls made of paper and a very exotic design.
A weight on her shoulder called her wandering thoughts back to reality. The weight turned out to be a pure-white hand.
Startled, Lynefra brushed the hand off her shoulder and whiled around while retreating from the hand's owner. The hand's owner turned out to be a man made of pure energy and he was so white that Lynefra couldn't tell his age or gender except from his body shape. The lack of roundness pointed to someone of the male gender unless life had truly been unfair and given a woman such a flat chest and butt.
"yes...I'm a man.." the man said somewhat embarrassed. "You can't hide your thoughts here."
Lynefra didn't say anything, she only glared at the man coldly, feeling somewhat violated as her thoughts should be for her and her alone. She met the man's gaze and quickly lost herself in her study of the man in front of her again. He had eyes so black that light wasn't reflected from them, giving her a fair bit of scare but what really took her breath away was the man's hair, as it glowed like the night sky, complete with all the stars and galaxies in the universe. The stars seemed to disappear into the horizon as new ones showed up as the man moved his head from side to side. As Lynefra couldn't hide her thoughts, naturally her curiousity towards his head of hair was made known to him.
"Hello Lynefra," the man spoke cheerfully after deciding Lynefra had studied him enough. As Lynefra couldn't see any facial features..at all on the man in front of her, she could only assume that he had spoken with his mouth, she also couldn't see the man's smile but she could guess that he was smiling as his eyes turned into two tiny crescent moons.
Lynefra didn't reply to his greeting, however, she only stood there and glared at him coldly.
"This place is only an illusion, the real thing is much more awe-inspiring, I assure you." The man seemed to be under the impression that Lynefra's mood was sourced by the courtyard, rather than how the man had snuck up on her. He of course, knew why she was irritated with him but ignored it.
Lynefra remained silent, but looked over the man, and carefully examined his clothes. His shoes were sandals of some kind, they only had two bands of fabric securing his footwear to his foot. One ran from the outer edge of the sole and met up in between the man's big toe and the rest of his toes on each foot. The other band of fabric met in the same area as the first but extended to the inner edge of the sole [flipflops (thongs yo)]. The man also wore a peach colored, form-fitting shirt and a very odd pair of tan colored shorts complete with many holes, stains and wrinkles.
Lynefra's eyes twitched, "ugly clothes...grease stains...and wrinkles!" The clothes didn't match the man's skin nor did they match eachother and they were filthy. 'Disgusting,' Lynefra signed to herself in exasperation. Unfortunately, like before, her thoughts were made audible.
The man's shoulders slumped in depression, "It's one thing for Veorful to say that to me but to hear it from myself is....depressing."
"Wha-" Lynefra started to ask but was interrupted by the man.
"Well..At least I'm wearing clothes."
"huh?" Lynefra looked down and saw her exposed skin. "EH?!" The girl's face flushed red to such an extent that even her ears were dyed red. She immediately ducked behind a close-by bush in an attempt to hide herself.
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"No need to worry," the man's eyes smiled again as he offered an appreciative look at the girl. "I wonder if this can be considered narcissism?" The man mused to himself.
"Pervert, wait..What?" Lynefra's mind was in chaos. After several different facial expressions, the girl decided her initial reaction was the correct one. "Pervert," she once again stated, then resumed her cold glare.
"haha," the man chuckled. His laugh stunned Lynefra, as if it were some kind of mental assault, directly attacking her subconscious and conscious barriers against the him. "Don't worry Lynefra. I'll only play with you for a little bit and I promise I'll be gentle."
Alarmed, Lynefra tried to retreat but she found that she couldn't move any part of her body save her head.
The man's smirk became visible as he slowly started to change his appearance. "I find this would be less alarming to you. heh." The man's white skin started to dim until it became a pale-white before turning into a healthy tan color. His cosmic hair appeared to "ungrow" and changed color until it settled for a brown crew-cut look.
The man's eyes also changed, paling until they became a kind of white emptiness with a faint blue light swirling in them.
The man approached Lynefra with confidence as he gazed into her eyes. He then abruptly frowned and put on what earthlings would be able to identify as aviator mirror sunglasses. "Meh, they say your eyes are gateways to the soul, or at least windows of it. With only a fragment it's no surprise my eyes are empty."
After hearing his words, Lynefra's fear turned to indignation. "You weren't looking at me but at yourself?" The irritation in her tone was obvious.
The man's smile broadened as he reached over and pinched Lynefra's cheeks before pulling them. "Looking at myself is the same as looking at you. Are you that desperate for praise from yourself?" The man then slipped his thumbs in Lynefra's mouth and forced it open as he looked in, like he was searching for something.
"Uh whhh thbth," Lynefra attempted to say but she couldn't use her mouth and her pride was hurt, causing her thoughts to lapse into chaos again.
"How can you be so stupid?" The man questioned. "You know that amazing god everyone keeps talking about? The one who Veorful slapped the death? The super handsome and suave dude?" The man's questioning quickly turned into a perverse form of self flattery.
Lynefra tried to speak, "yeshthb" (yes)
That's me," the man beaned, proud of himself. "Aand you..kind of. I'm Divinus and you're my reincarnation, more or less. Probably a little less as you're a girl and you're not nearly as attractive as myself but I'll still give you a passing grade."
"..." Lynefra didn't say anything.
"Anyways! Time for clothes!" Divinus declared as he clapped his hands against Lynefra's cheeks, causing her to wince.
The next thing Lynefra knew, she was wearing a white tube top and a lavender miniskirt. She quickly realized the that her new outfit was lacking any form of underwear and hatefully glared at Divinius. If looks could kill, Divinius would have been killed, again.
"ohya?" Divinus blinked. "Must be a case of nature versus nurture. You're more like Veorful than myself even though you have a fair bit of my soul. How unfortunate."
"Pervert," Lynefra once again accused the man.
"So you keep saying, but going commando is the best. Anyways -" Divinus voice trailed off and Lynefra found herself sitting in a little room across from Divinus with a teacup in hand. "There's some things you need to know," Divinus completed his previous comment.
Without giving Lynefra any warning, the room faded as Divinus spoke in a stern tone, "What you're about to see is something that will happen within the next decade and it can't be stopped, only managed. If you don't manage the chain of events following this well, we'll have lost everything."
What Lynefra saw next was beyond horrifying. Images of giants and humans, fairies and beasts and elves involved in some kind of war. A mass migration of people trying to move north, only to be mowed down by elves and fairies. Tears started to steam from Lynefra's eyes as she saw the untold amounts of cruelty.
"STOP!" She screamed and found herself back in the little teahouse with Divinus.
"Lynefra, that was only the preamble. It's approaching the point of no return from there but the next scene is the crux of the problem and the true turning point," Divinus paused, deep in thought, and then continued. "I can't help you much as I'm already dead. I'm in your dreamscape right now and quickly using the last of my divine intent and will to try and guide you. After our conversation here, I'll truly have ceased to exist and there's something trying to kill you and take everything you care about and everything that I once cared about with it." His expression turned grave as he sipped his tea.
Divinus then reached over and pressed his index finger against Lynefra's forehead, transmitting information directly into her head.
Images of a young man on the brink of death appeared in Lynefra's mind. The man died and was reincarnated again and again. It was as if Divinus was trying to find this man. 100 lifetimes passed for the man before Divinus found him, tragic lifetimes. Events so heartcrushing took place that eventually the man's very soul was tainted and it started to fracture on its own. Eventually Divinus found him and saved him. Divinus even took the mortal man under his wing and guided him to becoming a true immortal, and a powerful one at that.
"Who is he?" Lynefra questioned.
"You met Veorful?" Divinus countered with a question of his own.
"Is this her family or something? I thought she was born as a goddess."
Divinus smiled, if he wasn't such a massive pervert and hadn't already teased her to such an extent his smile might have melted Lynefra's heart. "Veorful is from a very distant place. In that place she killed fate but it cost her everything. Everyone she knew, her family, her friends...and she quickly fell into an abyss of her own making. In order to save herself, she forcefully ripped the memories of all her family and friends out of her mind and hurled them into space. Unfortunately, a sizable chunk of her soul went with it and ended up landing in the body of a mortal man. He ended up with a blessing so to speak but another incarnation of fate found him and granted him several lifetimes worth of pain and regret."
"so..he's a guy version of Veorful?" Lynefra blinked. "Does that make him to her as what I am to you?"
"More or less, except I didn't do anything other than teach him after I broke his chains to fate. I turned him into a cultivator and he turned himself into an unrelenting god of war. He calls himself a Daoist for some reason. I think he has a fetish with eastern cultures from earth's far east."
"..what?"
"Nevermind. Anyways, great news. He's on Pandora but it seems as if he's died again as well. He should be a human though, he's a bit of a racist..or is it speciesist?"
"...so what's so great about him?"
"Nothing except that he'll probably be naturally drawn to you. I'm pretty good at divining stuff you know? My name is Divinus. Anyways he does something in the next decade that's much worse than all those scenes I've shown you. Fate kind of factored him into another part of its plans. He ends up killing a wolf that shouldn't be killed. Not really his fault, violence and war are kind of his thing."
"That's really not helpful you know?"
Divinus smiled at Lynefra's retort and then grabbed her hand as the teahouse faded away once again. "This is where he kills the wolf. You can't let it happen."