NOVEL NEXT Chapter 149: Myth Congeniality
Heloise came barreling back on her throne of tendrilled vines, just stopping short of his face. "Tell. Me. Everything," she hissed. "Starting with what a fucking monomyth is and why you're slapping that label on me."
"Loise, stop!" The voice of Zulema came from on high. Riding atop Carthas, the knightess hopped off swiftly, making a graceful landing to Derleth's side. She turned to face the witch, but upon seeing Heloise's eldritch form, she instead gasped in horror. "Dear Goddess! What has happened to you?!"
"That's what I'd like to know…" Heloise cast her gaze to the side before quickly backing off and ascending from Zulema's field of view, now looming just above her as she stared down awkwardly.
"Did you do this to her?!" Zulema asked, turning to Derleth. "You vile monster. Is there no low to which you won't stoop?"
Derleth merely huffed in indignation.
"Aw, he had nothing to do with it, Zulems." Carthas squawked after perching on the vines next to Heloise. "Ol' Heli here got herself the raw end of the ass stick."
"Shut the FUCK up!!" Heloise slammed her fist on the makeshift vine armrest, causing a few large thorns to shoot up below Carthas, narrowly missing him as he flew off. Heloise sighed dramatically as she lowered herself to eyelevel, resting her cheek against her palm as her eyelids shuttered wistfully. "Alas, this dumbass birdbrain is right for once. This whole tragedy? Totally the result of my, like, boisterous youth—still ongoing, FYI. Also, what took you so long?!"
"I'm sorry…" Zulema's helm melted away into glimmering snowflakes, revealing the tired face of a once devout priestess. A snow-white eyepatch ran along the top of her head, concealing what had been one of the most perfect emerald eyes in all of Malachias. "I was burying a friend."
"Her case is very much like yours," explained Derleth. "She is a monomyth. Those which we call the mortals who have been blessed with the sharing of a higher being's othering. And this sorceress is bound to not just one, but two Elder Ones. Which may or may not have been a blessing in disguise for her."
"Wait, did you say two?" The knightess asked worryingly.
"Blessing?! I'm not saying I hate the lil' power-up, but seriously… what part of this godawful mess is, like, blessed?!"
"Ignore him," interjected Zulema. "It seems we are naught but playthings to the will of frustratingly arrogant higher powers." She whipped around to face Derleth. "And you. You claim that she is possessed of two otherings. Such a thing you told me was impossible."
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"Huh? Wait, wait, wait—hold up. Did you say othering? Like, the same thing Alma's strutting around with?" Heloise was perplexed, remembering her bestie's cryptic parting words before she leapt back into that portal. She had quickly explained that an othering was a power somehow more powerful like magic. Bestowed to someone by the gods who have deemed them worthy. That it was in her eyes. Maybe it wasn't a curse, after all, she had said to her, right before she left, never explaining which god it was that had found her deserving enough or why. Not a curse? If you really believed that, babe, then why did your smile look so forlorn? The witch stared down at her hand now, marveling at the state of it. Her fair skin blighted by a chalky white. Her gorgeous veins now pulsing with a sickly black. And her nails! Still perfect, surprisingly. Heloise made a fist and squeezed. "Uh, OBVIOUSLY gods find me worthy. Look at me, sweetie, I'm literally perfect. Like, HELLO?! What's NOT to find worthy??"
"Technically possible, but exceedingly dangerous." There was an eerie, knowing glimmer in Derleth's eyes. "The consciousness of a mortal is not powerful enough to comprehend and utilize an othering to its fullest extent, let alone two. Othering is not simply knowledge to be understood, it is the core concept of an endless being which you call a god. A mortal mind is a singular frame of reference, bound to one continuity. When exposed to an Othering, the mind bends to accommodate the geometry of that will's higher dimension. But to bear two is to introduce incompatible realities into the same vessel. The frames collapse, the axioms contradict, and the mortal mind—being finite—cannot reconcile the dissonance. It fractures beneath the strain, as a body would under two opposing gravities."
"Wait, what are you saying?" Zulema tilted her head, once again trying to understand Derleth's eldritch babble.
Carthas flew down and landed between the two girls. "He's saying that the fleshy brain of you humans isn't built to handle that much power."
"The two otherings war with each other inside your body to maintain a sort of delicate balance," Derleth continued. "But eventually, that balance will collapse and so too will your mind."
Heloise dropped down next to Carthas, who had still happened to be in his awakened form, and attempted to wrap her small fingers around his brawny neck. "Excuse me?! Since when do YOU know any of this weird crap?! And why do you always keep me out of the damn loop! Me! Your boss Your master! Don't forget it!"
"Witch please. I've heard tell of the concept, but I'm no god. Truthfully, I never bought into the stuff you hear around the Familiar water cooler. But it's hard to deny the evidence when it's right front of us."
"Evidence? Puh-lease. I feel amazing. No, like, beyond amazing. I feel fabulous!"
"True. I guess you've always been this much a whackjob."
"Ughhh, I swear I'm gonna wring your fat, ugly neck! Get SMALLER, damn you!! Do you even KNOW how annoying you are this chunky?!" She tried to choke him again, doing her best to try and shake his head. Unfortunately, her grip suddenly felt weaker, and her claw-like nails retracted just slightly back to her regular acrylics. Then the rest of her eldritch form slowly dissipated and her body finally returned to normal. She watched pathetically as the imagined fleeting force leaving her body drifted off into nothing. "Wait, wait! I didn't mean me! Come back, sweetie! Come baaack…!"