Freya watched Aine embrace Athena in silence. Her gaze deep and enigmatic with subtle emotions at the sight. Her gaze flickered to the other pair in the room. Ishtar watched on from the sidelines, though her emotions were less hidden. Jealousy, desire, frustration and love were just to mention a few of the many emotions clouding Ishtar’s expression. Freya, however, felt a greater wariness and concern for the last being.

Lugh Macnia Lámfada!

The father of Aine and the treacherous thief that had stolen her from them, Athena, Ishtar and herself. Bitter resentment and deep rage flared within her heart at the memory of the act. Freya forced it down, like swallowing bile. Freya had seen the relationship between her daughter and Lugh. Aine treated him with concern and affection. Freya didn’t care if Lugh’s response to that emotion was genuine or not, she just knew that Aine thought it was. That, and only that, had meaning. The stage they found themselves on was already in motion and set for them, the newcomers to the play. Resisting or struggling against it would cost them more ground than they could possibly gain!

So, Freya choose restraint, still besieged by her overpowering urge to strangle Lugh the moment she laid her eyes upon him

Athena, wise as ever, just directly ignored him. Ishtar . . . seems to be just as passionate and complex as ever. Freya focused her sight on the other goddess. Freya could see Ishtar persisting in being as frustratingly two-faced as possible.

Is she really a raging lioness of prevailing emotions, her actions a mere consequent from her cravings and desires? Did her passions truly rule her like it always seemed?

Or is she a cunning queen of queens of inscrutable reasoning, her thoughts and motives a mere mystery to all but herself? Were her emotions and passions an act, like Freya feared?

Ishtar had waited twenty-some years; a mere blink to her accumulated age true but Freya knew from personal experience that that time felt like eternity, before suddenly acting at the most important moment. Had that been a calculated move? Made the moment they were not needed anymore and so could be discarded?

Or is it like she said, momentary and fuelled by hateful passion? An act of desperate rage, one made out of lost hope and an unquenchable thirst for revenge?

Freya knew Ishtar said that their alliance had been out of convenience and they had all used each other in one way or another. Freya didn’t want to believe it, but apart from Aine, was there anything genuine connecting them?

Freya tore her gaze from Ishtar, anger welling up at her fascination with the other goddess. Narrowing her eyes, she instead stared at Lugh. By happenstance, she thought she noticed a plotting expression flash across his face, before it disappeared, his expression showing fondness and love as he watched Aine meet Athena. Freya blinked, her thoughts suddenly suspicious of his intentions, before she shook her head. Her hate and resentment of Lugh seemed to be making her see things. He wouldn’t plot against his own daughter, even if he would against them, and he had clearly been looking at Aine when she had seen that look on his face. Freya turned to look at the mother and daughter pair. She soon captured Athena’s gaze over Aine’s shoulder, staring into Athena’s joy filled eyes. Athena quickly pulled her sight away, refocusing on Aine.

Freya sighed.

Was it really so difficult to just have one normal relationship? Ishtar and Athena. Freya took Athena’s example and just ignored and stopped thinking about Lugh, since just looking at the scheming cur made her paranoid.

Freya wanted to just stop obsessing, over them and focus on building a relationship with Aine, to try and make up for lost time, to be the mother she had never gotten to be.

But she knew. Knew! Aine had already grown up and started walking her own path, one that Lugh had started her on.

There wasn’t any time or space for them to guide or advise her, to intervene or protect anymore. They could only watch on and try to be there for her when they could. They had lost all the time in-between conceiving her and now, even Aine’s true birth!

Finding her like this was bittersweet to say the least.

Like skipping to the middle or even the end of a book. You got to know how things end, but you also lost the chance to be a part of the story, a part of the journey of it all. The ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, the laughter and the tears, the triumphs and loses of her life.

But Freya regretted only the lost time.

She did not regret the effort needed to find Aine nor the goddess her daughter had become. She could never be prouder nor more eager to be a part of Aine’s life now.

Even with the complicated relationships she had with Aine’s other mothers.

However, . . .

Freya looked down, sensing another connection to herself within Aine’s Territory.

She had almost forgotten her ‘other’ daughter. The alien demigod ‘another’ Freya had seemingly thrown away. Intense hatred, beyond even that which she held for Lugh, roared to life within her lungs, like choking smoke. Hatred for this ‘other’ self that could so foolishly throw away that which she had so longed for, ‘her’ daughter.

Freya now found herself unsure of how to act to this ‘other self’s’ daughter. She, the demi-god, is, theoretically, just as much her daughter as Aine is. What or how did she treat this interloper?

She just didn’t trust her. How could she? She knew even less about her than she did about Aine.

In fact, none of the gods of this world could bring themselves to trust these ‘children’ of theirs. It was why before ‘they’ arrived, the gods had gone to the heartache, at least for Athena, Ishter and herself, of trying to create Aine and others like her. Of creating a new Pantheon, bound walk the Earth itself, never to leave it, willing or not, and able to stabilise it, should these alien demigods prove a disaster.

Freya made a decision. She would leave it to Aine to decide.

If Aine wanted a sister, Freya would try to accept this demigod as her daughter. If she did not, Freya would let the daughter of her ‘other self’ fight and die alone.

Indecisive? Unquestionably. Cold? Certainly. Did Freya care? No.

Freya took a deep breath. Squaring her shoulders, Freya marched forward, approaching Aine.

Athena saw her coming, pulling away from Aine, gently disentangling herself. Freya knew Athena wanted to give Aine and herself space. But Freya didn’t want that.

Becoming a burr, Freya dashed forward.

In a mere moment later, she had wrapped the pair of them, Athena and Aine, in her arms tightly. She leaned over and kissed Athena’s cheek to her shock, before breaking the kiss to press her lips to Aine’s forehead. Athena stared at her, almost frozen. Aine looked surprised at first but her expression quickly melted into one of acceptance and leaned her head between her two mothers.

Ishtar’s jealousy and desire shot through the roof at the sight of the three of them together! Those were all hers! Her women and her daughter! How dare them to leave her out!

It was all Lugh’s fault!

Ishtar scowled menacingly at Lugh. He was nothing but a tedious distraction that needed to be removed. Ishtar calmed herself at the thought. Her thoughts rapidly becoming cold and calculating.

Getting rid of Lugh was simple. Kill him! But the consequences would not be.

Aine would hate her for it.

Ishtar wasn’t blind. She could see the bond between the pair of them. And as much as Ishtar wished to ignore it, she couldn’t.

She had not searched and waited twenty years to find her baby, only to lose her due to an impulse.

Ishtar knew what others thought of her. That she is creature of passions and lust, ruled by her emotions. But Ishtar simply enjoyed being that way, enjoyed the spontaneity of it all. It didn’t mean she couldn’t control herself; she just didn’t like doing it. She preferred acting on her desires, on deciding to do as she pleased and on giving into her emotions.

But Ishtar hated true loss of control. Of herself or of others. It terrified her. She knew the dangers of it. The momentary loss of control over Athena in her tent had forced Ishtar to tighten her grip on the beast of desire within her. To lessen its chain and freedom. It only had itself to blame, Ishtar sneered angerly. How dare it try to claim Athena before she had finished conquering her. The nerve! The Blasphemy!

Ishtar hungerly stared at both Athena and Freya.

Soon, she thought to herself.

She would conquer the both of them to enthrone them as her queen-consorts, collar and crown them, feed them grapes, sweetly caress and bathe them in milk and honey and drape them in gold and silks as they lounged gorgeously in her bed and beside her on thrones.

Her starved gaze soon softened, quickly getting over her aggressive fantasies as she took in the sight of her daughter in the arms of her beloveds’. Their daughter. Ishtar did not, however, approach them to join. She knew Freya still held a grudge and Athena had likely reached her limit for physical affection for the moment.

Instead, Ishter turned and started to observe her daughter’s Territory in actual fact and detail. She immediately became displeased.

It’s a shop! Or some kind of inn! Or both!

Her daughter, a princess destined to rule, who should be waited on hand and foot, somehow had a bar and lounge as her Territory! Ishtar felt her hair writhe and billow in her fury at the idea her daughter would have to serve others. Whipping around to stare at Lugh, pointed at him and roared in rage.

“You made her a SERVANT? She is the PRINCESS of the HEAVENS and you made her a SERVANT!!! She was DESTINED to be a RULER! A QUEEN! Her star ascending to sit beside MINE. You snivelling CUR!!! YOU STOLE HER BRITHRIGHT FROM HER!!! AND FOR WHAT? THIS!!!”

Ishtar’s roar broke the tender moment between Aine and her mothers. The three of them turning to stare at Ishtar jabbing her finger at Lugh and the room around them, shivering in rage. Blazing blue fiery starlight burned from Ishtar’s eyes, the temperature in the room soaring ferociously, her hair shimmered, flowing wildly with the violent power of her rising temper. Lugh, court off guard be the sudden flare in Ishtar’s emotions, almost stumbled as he backed away from Ishtar.

Athena and Freya seemed to notice the appearance of the room around them for the first time as well. Looking around, they seemed at a loss for words and were very unenthusiastic to help calm Ishtar’s rage at Lugh. Aine quickly appeared between Lugh and Ishtar, her arms raised, and her hands thrust forward and flat, as if she had started pushing against a massive wall.

Ishtar saw her interfere, and her rage spiked. Aine was protecting him! Ishtar stormed forward, the hand she had used to point at Lugh rapidly become a clenched fist. Pulling it back, Ishtar closed the distance between them in moments, her moves as swift and powerful as a leaping lioness. Ishtar roared with terrifying wrath.

“Move! NOW!!!”

Aine felt the voice of Ishtar, slam into the protection she had hastily raised. Aine knew it was Ishtar, her father had described her to a T. Her volatile emotions, quick to flare passions, her ridiculous beauty and her dominating, all-conquering power, a power made and harnessed to crush all opposition. She felt her protection crumble, even bolstered by her aspect of the Hearth, like tissue paper before a flood. The air vibrated and shifted from the sound of Ishtar’s voice, shaking Aine’s bones. But even so, Aine didn’t move, resisting the compulsion and command within her mother’s roar to do so. She stared at the fist growing larger, seemingly slowly but in reality, would reach her momentarily. She didn’t blink.

And the fist, almost the same size of that of a giant’s to Aine now, stopped.

Just a single inch from her face. Time almost seemed to have stopped, when a storm’s wind slammed forward, knocking Aine off her feet. Aine, left looking up at Ishtar from her own floor, watched Ishtar lower her fist and stare down at her. Ishtar reached into her long coat’s inner pocket and pulled out a rattle. One made of smooth amethyst and green garnet. Aine’s eyes were draw to it. She could feel it. The emotions it held. Indeed, she could even feel the power it had, as though it were not a rattle but a sceptre of power and authority. A queen’s sceptre. Her sceptre.

Ishtar held it, still staring at Aine, her wayward daughter. Recalling how she had dreamed of giving this rattle to her baby girl, of watching her wave it and imagining of how cute and beautiful it would have been. Ishtar tightened her grip on the rattle.

*Crack*

The rattle gained a crack and soon . . .

*Craaaackasssh*

The sound of breaking glass and grinding stone filled the air.

The rattle had shattered within Ishtar’s grip, the pieces of jewel and precious stone dropped, falling to the ground. Freya and Athena stared in horror at the falling pieces. In the twenty years that they had spent with Ishtar, that rattle had never been far from her hands, her caressing touch had polished it lovingly and tenderly. She had loved it in place of her lost daughter, never letting either of them even come close to touching it.

Aine felt wretched, her heart tightening as she watched the burning rage on Ishtar’s expression become chillingly cold. The love the rattle had possessed had been like an ocean, it had clung to it and infused it, but now it had evaporated and become dust, Aine couldn’t believe anyone could love something so much and still be able to destroy it.

Ishtar used her thumb to push the shards still on her hand off, clearing and revealing a piece of an amulet. One fourth of an amulet in fact.

Ishtar looked at Lugh, standing mute and pale beyond Aine, who still stayed where she fell. Ishtar spoke through clenched teeth at him, her voice as bitterly cold as space.

“You reduce her to a servant. Trick her into letting her Territory become this! You let her stand in front of you, let her protect you! Fine . . . but you were not the only one to have a piece of her amulet. You are not the only one who can awaken the territory and divine spark you willed her. Not the only one who can influence her Territory with what you gave her. I gave her everything a princess would need! She . . . is . . . MY BABY, SHE IS ROYALTY! DIVINE, PRECIOUS AND MINE!!! NOT SOME SERVENT, NOT YOURS OR ANYONES ELSES!!!”

Ishtar thrust her part of the amulet into the air, the amulet, long hidden within the rattle, glowed and seemed to fade, becoming spiritual and ethereal. A massive Celtic Knot in the shape of a cross, with each of the limbs of the cross being of equal length, appeared in the air above Ishtar, the room groaning as it grew taller to accommodate it. The centre of the cross was dominated by a beautiful rough and roundish green garnet, while each of the cross’s limbs had a polished amethyst inlayed at the centre of the knots on the limb. If you looked closely you could tell that the amulet was not whole, it was missing exactly three pieces, its true form being a circle, however the amulet seemed to have been intentionally made that way.

The western piece, Lugh’s, had already been returned, while Ishtar’s piece grew in size and soon, after matching the western piece of the amulet in size, rose and slipped into the eastern part of the amulet.

Aine’s Territory shuddered and glowed. The supersized amulet shown with rekindled power, as it exerted its influence over Aine’s Territory as its core centrepiece, and as the physical representation of Aine Divine Spark. Aine felt bloated with power, as green, gold and amethyst light burst from her body and suffused into her Territory. The dimensions of her lounge expanded, the humble and warm wood features and comfortable furniture were reabsorbed into the Territory, Aine’s bar and the kitchen behind it fading as well.

Aine watched helpless as all that was familiar and her about her Territory got stripped away. Her home was being taken from her and it was by someone who should have loved and accepted her. Aine looked at Ishtar, who was too blinded by her blame for Lugh and her high expectations for Aine, to notice the pain she was now causing her beloved daughter with her good intentions.