The Goddess of Life grinned with relish as she read through Kenon’s letter to her. None of it was surprising to her. She had always expected her other half, her polar opposite, to one day turn on them all. In fact, Yisini had been preparing for such an event.
“Is everything well, my lady?”
A Temthan servant carrying a tray of chilled, blood red wine appeared from, well, somewhere. Yisini hadn’t been paying attention to the mortals around her. She had slept with and impregnated all the Temthans she wanted to today, as well as tended to a few experiments of her own, so now she was just lounging around the throne room of the Temthan empire, while the Empress of the Temthans herself had given Yisini some tasty treats.
“Everything is wonderful, little one!” Yisini ran a soggy claw along the servant’s face. “Why do you ask?”
“You were frowning. I was scared.”
“Scared of what?”
The Temthan hesitated. This one was female. A wonderful specimen. Skinny, blue skin, white scales and pretty much naked.
“Of, uh, you getting bored of us. Or you getting upset and taking it out on someone…”
Yisini laughed. “How could I ever get bored of my favourite little species? No, I have other matters on my mind. Go on, go continue your duty, you have nothing to fear.”
The servant bowed and scurried off. Yisini smiled, then tugged on part of her extremely long tail, which snaked off into another room, the room where Empress Agapia was cleaning herself up. After a few seconds, the naked Empress walked out and bowed in front of the Goddess.
“Dearest Allbirther, how can I assist you?”
Agapia was exhausted. Yisini smirked, mainly because she knew why Agapia was tired, but also because she knew that Agapia and the Temthans in general were completely under her control.
“Yes, you can. Do you know the secrets of the Vohran Swarms?”
The Empress blinked. “uh, no. I do not. Otherwise we would have defeated them a long time ago.”
“Very well. Do you know what I have been doing with all the organic matter I have been collecting from you all?”
This time, Agapia hesitated. The Allbirther had been living up to her godly name. Not only had half her staff ended up pregnant or getting their wives pregnant, but she had been sleeping with every powerful Raptoran she’d come across. What bothered Agapia most though was the ten percent who would turn up pregnant one day, go home then return a week later saying they miscarried or had false positives. That sort of thing was somewhat common around here, but lately it was getting rather silly.
Maybe Yisini was about to give an answer to all of this.
“I do not know.”
“Good. You do not want to know. But I am… going to show you anyway.”
Agapia blinked again. “Show me?”
Yisini nodded. She pulled over a servant and told them to keep an eye on things for a bit, then pushed them away again. Her tail wrapped tighter around Agapia’s legs, pulling the Empress’s body on top of her.
“Come now.”
The world around the two beings faded to white, then to grey, then into a weird, dull red colour. The colour of internal organs. Everything was overly warm and humid, but nothing was particularly sticky. It felt like being inside an uncooked sausage, with nothing but blackness in both directions.
“What the…”
“Now now… No swearing. Not here.” Yisini uncurled herself and wandered down the long, fleshy corridor. Becoming more scared by the second, Agapia followed. The corridor opened up into a large, meaty, somewhat triangular hall, with large pods hanging off each wall.
“What IS this place?” Agapia tried very hard to not scream, but her words ended up coming out as awkward screeches. “Can we leave please?”
“Don’t be so scared!” Yisini smiled as she inspected each glowing, yellow pod. “This is part of your handiwork!”
There were about thirty pods in total. All of them were pulsating and were attached to the walls by meaty slabs. Agapia rubbed her eyes, then realised what the pods were. They were sacs of amniotic fluid, each one connected to the walls by a massive placenta. Inside were… unborn fetuses. Highly developed ones.
“Are we…”
“We’re inside my womb! Well, one of my external ones. I have a lot of wombs. This one in particular is where I’m breeding perfect Temthan war machines.”
“… War… Machines..?”
Yisini beamed, pulling Agapia close. “You see, I have a brother. He’s a Death God. You know him, yes?”
Agapia nodded.
“He’s also captured my mum and exiled my dad. It’s all pretty bad right now. But we can save them and put my brother in his place. All we have to do is distract the fuck out of him, so I can slip in, free my mum and knock the bastard out. And we can distract him by, well, murdering a lot of things.”
Yisini pointed at the large sacs. Some of them were beginning to shake.
“How many is a lot?” Agapia asked awkwardly.
“I dunno. Millions? Billions? No one knows. We’ll find out.”
“I…”
“I’m not done!” Yisini hissed. “Be patient. Because this benefits you too. You see, I can’t really go and magically create an army of these magnificent war machines I’m making. I need real-world surrogates. An existing population to nurture and train them. About 1% of your female population, but probably closer to 0.3%. And they need to come willingly…”
“I can’t sacrifice my subjects!” Agapia protested. A swift, slimy claw covered her mouth, silencing her.
Yisini laughed, massaging Agapia’s shoulders. “I just need Temthans to birth my creations. The millions of dead that we need? Well… would you like to see your Vohra problems solved, permanently?”
Agapia relaxed, just a little. She realised what the Allbirther was on about now. “The Vohra will be the sacrifice?”
“Yes. Assuming you agree to all of this.”
The Empress hesitated, then relented. “Very well. I’ll let you use my Temthans. But if we start getting Temthan casualties, then you lose Temthan support.”
“Wonderful!” Yisini beamed as she snapped her fingers, teleporting them back to reality. “You start getting some volunteers, I’ll get the implantation devices ready!”