Prologue Part Two - The Capture
9:04 AMEven when sheltered under the wings of their creators, mankind had become accustomed to one, universal truth - nothing lasts forever. For Ginny, her end would come quicker than she had expected.
As the Goddess of Happiness, Laetitia was no stranger to the Iterum residence.
Despite the changes in world order, never once had Ginny's optimism faltered. Laetitia knew less of her husband, who remained unwaveringly solemn, but knew that the two lived together in a secluded cottage. It was pieced together by scraps of the old world and the husband's craftsmanship, and the two lived comfortably in harmony with nature. But for the small river, heavy rocks and mountains surrounded their homebase and served to isolate them from outer nonsense. Two years since the fall of the Goddesses had given the two just enough time to adjust. And that was about to change.
Though the couple would have never realized it, a man dressed in stolen goods sat on the far end bank of their very same river, scowling. He was a thief born from the new world, christened in the pilfered gold and poached lives of his adversaries, and yet, he felt spiritless. Robbing more than he could have possibly needed, he felt somehow cheated by his boredom.
A member of his crew, a physician of sorts, looked over the sulking Captain. "Sir, our men have discovered a pair of boats on the shoreline. Perhaps you'd like to see where they lead us?
Foolishly, the husband hadn't tied his boats to land, and they had floated idly down the river where they became tangled with the remnants of the dock.
The thief humphed. "And what would be the point of that?"
"Well, it is getting darker, sir. We need a place to rest in safety for the night."
With some surprise, he noted that the moon had indeed peaked. And as he gathered his crew, piling into the boats and paddling with large, flat branches that had recently fallen, he careful considered what his next move should be.
When Ginny heard the first crash, she was slightly worried, but not scared.
"Seth?" she offered to the night. No response.
-----
It shouldn't have ended like this.
It shouldn't have ended like this.
Laetitia ran a soft hand through the husband's hair, though she doubted that he could feel it at this point. He had probably been laying on the ground for about an hour now. Why hadn't she had arrived when she felt the sudden drop in happiness?
"You were not supposed to die," is all she could manage, after bringing him into the household. "Your legacy was going to lay with my beautiful Ginny. Not as a faceless casualty."
"Well," said a dislocated voice, "He's not a total waste. He's good practice, at the very least."
Visio leaned against a wall in an awkward attempt to seem mysterious. The youngest of the Goddesses at about two thousand years, she was the Goddess of Future.
"I already know what you're about to say," Visio teased as Laetitia opened her mouth in question. The joke had long overstayed its welcome, but Laetitia listened politely.
"Not a lot of Goddesses realize, but I'm also the Goddess of Death. All futures end in one thing, anyway. Makes sense. But since nobody's really died for the last thousand years, I haven't been needed. Kinda in the same boat as you."
She wanted to argue, but Visio had a point. Happiness hadn't been much of a problem when the Goddesses had supplied man with his every last whim. As for her other title...Uncomfortable thoughts Laetitia had long tucked away came flooding back, but she quietly dismissed them.
"Well," Visio stretched, "I'd love to sit around and chat, but I've got a few hundred souls to reap before the sun comes up. Oh, and by the way?"
"Yes?"
"You might want to start looking for that Ginny girl before things really go downhill."
-----
It shouldn't have started like this.
Ginny and her husband were supposed to carve out a simple existence on the beach side, and perhaps have a few children. The goddesses would see how humanity could be humbled, and would lift their curses. Yet as she marched, the marauders monitoring her every step, she could almost feel the alien distance from her house. Even the sunlight itself felt different. She had always thought of the sun as a kind, loving being, but now it beat her upon brow without mercy.
In the three days that they had been traveling, she had tried to escape four times. One particularly notable attempt would have ended in success if the water had muted her breaststroke nearly well as it had the movements of the ringleader.
He, in particular, had been watching her every breath with bitter vigor. From what little Ginny understood of the men's conversations, the man was Pierce, and his group had no permanent settlement nor goals. She would be condemned to a life of vagabondage...among other injustices.
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Oh, wow! Thank you so much for the honor!
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