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The Missing Goddess

As far as Ethan could tell, he was the only soldier capable of feeling the immense power radiating from the half-ruined building. No one else was shivering as energy crackled around them, so strong that Ethan couldn't help but be a little scared.

Not even Minewin, who he knew to be a powerful mage beneath the uniform of a General. He did not seem affected either, which only made Ethan more insecure.

"Ethan?" he asked, at least noticing the strange look in the eyes of his Lieutenant and lover.

"This place," Ethan said softly, glancing around the open area where the rest of the unit was already busy setting up camp for the night. He could hear a couple of the women laughing as they pitched a tent. "What is it?"

"You can feel it too?" Minewin asked, a slightly quizzical look crossing his face. "That doesn't surprise me, really. You have a still untapped power, you know."

"So you tell me," Ethan replied, silent a moment until he realized he should very much be helping pitch his and Minewin's tent instead of staring at the walls, waiting for them to swallow him whole in a frenzied rush.

As much as he tried to ignore it, the power buzzed around him until finally, after dinner when he knew they were safely guarded, he stepped into his shared tent and sat firmly in front of Minewin.

"You didn't tell me what this place is," he said, violet eyes hopefully doing their job. They'd only been a blessing in Agassia, but he'd quickly learned to use them.

Minewin looked down at his hands for a moment before reaching over to one of his packs.

"We're in a place that normal people cannot find," he explained, digging to find a small goddess statue set with a dark gem. "There are temples to the gods in each town, but there are other temples as well in which the gods themselves live. And other than Dayn's Palace in the South, the homes of the gods are not accessible to any but those they choose to have find them."

"A god lives here?" Ethan asked, incredulous. He hadn't seen anyone besides his own soldiers and certainly even a timid god would have come to see who was visiting.

"Not exactly," Minewin replied. "A god did live here once, but she doesn't any more. But her power lingers where she walked and where she touched."

"Who?" Ethan asked, taking the goddess statue from Minewin as he held it out. Obviously it was the key. But the statue looked ancient, unlike the statues he'd slowly been gathering more in fun than in particular worship.

Holding it up to get a little more light on her, he knew. It was his mother - The missing goddess was his mother. But she was safe at home in Clairmont while he was forced to a world other than Earth, other than...

"Razrantha," Minewin said, chuckling. "But I see that you, too, were not raised to believe that she ever walked the land like her children."

"I believe," Ethan said softly, fingers wrapping over the statue and wondering just how his world-traveling mother had come to be a goddess. Certainly it...

Pieces came together in Ethan's mind at the same time Minewin's fingers reached to take the statue back and tuck it away again, keeping the unit safe from harm and even from discovery. He'd never thought of her name as anything but an unpronounceable mishmash of foreign letters, his great-great-great grandfather's gypsy bride, Razrantha, buried safely in Clairmont on the property that she loved.

The goddess was dead. And he...

Minewin's hands were on him now, taking his own and squeezing them in what must have been an attempt to question some of the confusion that had to be washing through his eyes.

"Ethan?"

"It's nothing," Ethan replied, shifting so that he could lean against Minewin, his own fingers reaching to toy with the buttons of Minewin's dark shirt, his uniform jacket long discarded. "Just... a few flashes of memory."

His ancestors hadn't been witches - they'd been goddesses. But that blood was so thin in him that he couldn't help but feel a little inadequate, even with Minewin kissing his forehead softly.

"There'll be a battle tomorrow," Minewin said, his certainty making Ethan shiver a bit.

"I know," Ethan replied, curious about the subject shift until he felt Minewin's hands at his own jacket, not bothering to ask permission to remove it.

He never talked about his past anyway, so Minewin had no reason to ask. Minewin had to know by now that it was futile to poke or prod any deeper.

"It will be dangerous." They always went through this, dancing around what needed to be done. The buzzing in Ethan's mind wasn't getting any quieter, even with his revelation. He found himself wishing he knew how to drink from it and change it into his own as he shut Minewin up with a kiss.

They'd faced danger. And they'd lived to celebrate victory.

"Mine," Ethan murmured as they worked together to rid themselves of clothing, hands tangling in fabric until both were naked on Minewin's bedroll. He wasn't sure if Minewin had even heard him as they sought out the sensitive areas of one another's bodies, nor did Ethan know if he was even talking about Minewin or the power that flickered around him. Each touch felt amplified, each stroke of Minewin's hands on his arousal brought him much closer to the brink than he could bear. He thrust into those hands, thankful they were warm even on a mid-year northern night, wondering why he was spilling his seed so quickly other than because his entire body was being pushed by something he couldn't control.

Pulling his semen from Minewin's hands, he spread it on his own and began roughly stroking at Minewin's arousal, letting Minewin thrust into his hands. His lover, his leader... Ethan knelt more and took the head of Minewin's erection into his mouth, cleaning the tip of his seed before being caught nearly off guard by Minewin's orgasm. But he managed to swallow, drinking fast and barely managing to think that of course, Minewin felt it too.

"Battle tomorrow," Minewin said lazily a moment later, gesturing for Ethan to rest beside him. "Get some sleep."

"Minewin..."

"We'll be back at nightfall tomorrow," Minewin said. "And our celebration will begin."

Ethan looked up at the where the walls of the tent came to a peak and wished he could see beyond them, to the ancient stone of a temple long abandoned.

He would celebrate, yes, both victory and love, guiltily hiding that he'd solved another piece of the puzzle of his very existence.