When I awoke, two things were immediately obvious. First, I was alive. That was definitely a pleasant surprise. The second thing was that I was feeling only sore, sickly, and overall miserable; but, the searing agony from a shredded arm and bitten shoulder were gone. I was lying down. Something soft lay between me and the rugged ground beneath it. A blanket. Or something of that sort. It was itchy and warm. Wool.

Letting out a haggard, pained breath, my eyes opened to a rhinestone dripping sky, every shimmering glint backdropped by the inky black sea of a midnight’s reverie. Gone were the tree branches hugging the heavens as only a wide breadth of freedom surrounded my vision. It was beautifully daunting. Three moons smiled down at me, with milky ways and planets leisurely continuing their orbit from one horizon to the other. A pleasing, fresh air breathed over me, bringing scents of dew and flowers, accompanied with sounds of distant rustling, a wolf’s howl, and the hand of wind sweeping its way over ten million stalks of grass.

I barely believed it. I was alive! I was alive… or at least, heaven was drastically different than everyone had guessed.

My hands rose slowly before me, both jerking and shaking from the painful effort. I moved them before me and beside my right arm being wrapped in white bandages, it was still there, looking human. Looking… like it was still a part of me.

Ignoring the pain I quickly ran my hands over the rest of my body. Legs, still there. Shoulders, there. Face, check. Chest, check. And so on… and sure enough, I was still whole.

A sigh of relief left my lips and I just stared at the sky, not wanting to move. I had done it. I had survived! I had surpassed that dumb Goddess’ whims and overcome rather flamboyantly. But… that brought something else to mind. She had betrayed me. She had just watched as I nearly died. And if I had not been able to cast the spell, I would have died.

“Go chaotically crazy… just do stuff… I’ll grant you awesome powers, she said…” I mouthed it, not even allowing it to whisper. ‘Awesome powers? Like the staff that you said is just a loaner?’ I thought to myself. ‘Your champion and plaything? You mean the one you nearly let a river monster turn into fast food because he couldn’t draw Mana in the air?’

It was obvious, the world was against me. I had thought that I would at least have a chance at survival because Chaos would step in to save me. The staff would save me. But she wasn’t reliable. Didn’t give a crap about me… only whether I was entertaining enough or not. Andy couldn’t survive this. But Chaon? Chaon could.

“I will overcome all…” I whispered, painfully sitting up. I found myself looking at dying embers sitting within a small earthen bowl, with a few dirty dishes sitting beside that. Across from the embers was Chaos, shrouded in shadow, just staring at the embers; her face rather solemn as she was deep in thought.

She glanced up, offering a half smirk. “Overcoming all, huh?”

“Especially you…” I muttered, rolling to a stand and sitting across the embers from her. It hurt to move. But I wasn’t going to let her see my weakness. Never again. Pain, sorrow, anything… she was an enemy too, just one I had to use for my survival. A tool.

“To forgive is divine.”

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” I countered, frowning. “That frickin hurt.”

She nodded, giving a half hearted shrug, “Looked like.”

“You were going to let me die.”

“I like to make the stakes high,” she said.

My frown deepened, “So my life is a gamble… thanks for your honesty.”

“I’m an honest kind of gal. Anyways, now that you’re awake, let’s take a looksie at those bandages.” She stood and walked over, sitting on my right. Taking hold of my wrist with one hand, she used the other to unwrap the cloth. Pain zipped up and down my arm, but I only hissed. “You got tough quick.”

I looked down at the reddish, scarred skin being revealed. “I adapt quickly.” I looked at her. She wasn’t smiling as she worked. That was certainly a change of pace. Though, maybe it was just an act to try and get me to think she was remorseful in some way.

“That’s my prophet for ya. A real trooper,” she said, finally pulling off the last of the bandage. My arm was still there, but was definitely worse for wear. Nasty scars zipped up and down it like intricate tattoos of vines and slashes. It looked a pinch above cool, and a just a snippet below hideous.

“Isn’t magic powerful enough to heal stuff like this?” I asked, tracing a few of the larger scars with a finger. The skin collapsed in slightly wherever the whiter streaks lay.

She nodded, “Yeah, on normal people. But thanks to your crazy Spirit… any healing magic I tried was pretty much rejected. You’re lucky I was able to heal you at all. Anyone less than a Goddess would have been helpless.” She offered a thumb’s up though, “On the positive, once you learn Resistance Auras and spells, you could take a Divine Smite and shrug it off.”

“Yay for me…” I mumbled. Maybe I could learn how to heal them myself in the future. For now, I was just going to be a super scarred up kind of guy. I continued looking at my arm and then glanced at her. She was just watching me, silently. “What?”

“Well… I sorta owe you an apology. I mean, I di-”

I reached out and grabbed her by the throat, yanking her forward so we were eye to eye and nearly lip to lip. Surprise showed on her face. She didn’t resist.

I breathed in deeply to calm myself enough to not smack her. “I don’t want your damned forced apology, Goddess. I’d rather pour those embers into my ears than hear it. But what I will say is this… you still want a Prophet, we’re going in as partners. No pets, no playthings, no throwing me to the wolves because it’d be a show to watch.”

“So aggressive now… wowee, boya.” A smirk danced onto her lips. I gripped a little tighter, my fingers pressing into her skin, and the smirk vanished.

“I’m dead serious.”

“And if I don’t want to be partners?”

“Then you lose your Thalwesse and Prophet,” I replied.

Her eyes sparkled a little, daringly, “I could just make you.”

“Could you? Could you?” Now it was my turn to smirk. “You just said that my Spirit is crazy high, so you couldn’t even heal me fully. You, a Goddess, couldn’t do it. Better yet, you said I couldn’t use my Spirit to cast that type of spell. You can’t do that. But… I did.”

She nodded a little, “True.”

“You know why you’re so mellow right now?”

“…oh?” She cocked an eyebrow, now curious.

“Because you know that you’ve just lost control over me. You could kill me. Seal me. But not control me… you have not a tithy of an idea of what I can do, and because of that… you can’t actually keep me under your thumb through force or trickery. I broke the laws of this world. There’s nothing saying that I can’t break you.”

Her eyes went dark at that. “Granted. Now you’re actually a threat, boya…”

“And you can’t decide whether to get rid of me before I get more powerful, or wait around and watch one of the most exciting adventures you’ll ever see.”

“You’re good, boya. I’ll give you that,” she said with a breathy sigh that tickled my cheeks.

“I don’t like you. Heck, I might even hate you… but since having you on my side would be better than the alternatives, I’m willing to put up with you. You help me out. I help you out,” I said, lessening my grip on her throat. “But dance partners need to be just that… partners. You want to dance, come on equal terms. Otherwise, find some other sap to do it.”

She pursed her lips, emotions flashing in her eyes as she thought about it. Finally, she spoke, “Fine, boya… but I want two guarantees. One, you’ll make it interesting. And two, you don’t turn on me.”

“I’ll only do so if you turn on me again,” I said.

“Let’s do a Binding spell for the promise.”

My eyes slimmed and I glared into hers, “I’m no liar like you, Goddess. You’ve obviously been rummaging through my memories or something… so you know that already.”

With a click of her tongue, she nodded, “You drive a hard bargain.”

“I’m a businessman.” I let go of her throat and with my good arm, I offered my hand. “Partners?”

With a little pouting frown, she took my hand and shook it, “Dance partners… I hope you dance well.”

“I do.”