Chapter 21 — Gods and Monsters — Practical Theology
Part 1
Sofa
“Aephordaea’s words are kind and gentle, they flow smoothly from her mouth,” her finger danced out of Sofa’s mouth across her lips and down her body,
“Aephordaea’s breasts nurture and calm all her children as they lay their heads upon them,”
This was getting weirder by the second
“And Aephrodaea’s…”
“OK you’re not putting your fingers there!” Sofa finally protested
“Quiet this is important!” Kiraea responded angrily
“…here Aephrodaea gives herself and others pleasure and from here are all children are brought forth, the most sacred parts of us need the most attention,” her fingers gliding over Sofa in spite of her protests…at least her fingers were warm.
“That’s how we remember, with stories…those are the three places we produce pheromones from, most as part of natural lubrication, but some from glands under our tongues and mingled with modified sweat glands along our breasts…but that’s so technical so that’s why we use stories instead,”
“You can’t just write it down?”
Kiraea glance was scathing enough to make Sofa afraid she would spontaneously combust,
“You better listen girl, or you’ll get in a lot of trouble, you don’t want to get any more congested than you are trust me,”
“Girl?”
“Girl until you finish your lessons you’re still a girl,”
“Whatever bitch,” Sofa snidely replied
Kiraea leapt up, arms crossed and stared at the wall of the cabin, offence pouring off her.
“I don’t have to do this you know! I could let you fill up till you turn red!”
Sofa sagged down…Kiraea did not seem to appreciate how weird it was for Sofa to have a woman she barely knew touching every part of her and asking her the most intimate questions possible…but being
congested with pheromones sounded like a bad thing, Sofa already felt very clogged in very personal ways that she didn’t know how to relieve.
“I’m sorry…” she conceded, “I should listen to you…its strange but I respect its part of your…religion and culture…and I chose to join it…I shouldn’t refuse to participate…”
Recalling Milaea’s lesson Sofa sat up and waited to see if Kiraea would accept.
She spun around and spread her arms, like Sofa she was completely undressed…not an unappealing sight…but still odd.
“That’s alright…Milaea didn’t like it at first either, she had her own way of managing though… I still don’t understand how your ill-informed culture became so technologically advanced,” To seal the apology Sofa leaned into her hug…only to be assailed by a wet full mouth kiss as well.
“I can feel this is strange for you…” Kiraea climbed back on the bed,
“But you have to learn…our bodies are designed to make lots of babies and get lots of pleasure doing it…and they get confused when that doesn’t happen - if you don’t learn how to balance and release your pheromones and hormones you’ll become hysterical and over sexualised…”
“Great…”
“Not as much as you’d think…now listen carefully to this story…Once Aephordaea planted a seed in her garden and it grew for three days carefully, then three more days vigorously, each day its perfume grew stronger and stronger ”
Deeper meaning trickled into Sofa’s mind along with Kiraea’s words…
uterine lining develops over six days, during which sexual arousal and pheromone release gradually increases“Then for three days it was fully in bloom, beautiful red and pink petals and perfume that grew all the bees to it with their pollen…”
three day fertile period when pheromones are at their height attracting males…“And when by Aephordaea’s blessing the stigma of the flower was touched just right it released four eggs to join with the pollen…”
their four ovaries only release eggs during the fertile phase and in response to sexual stimulation “…But the moon was dull that day so the flower constricted the style so it wouldn’t quicken…”
contraception was achieved by aetherically constricting her own tubes…“And so it was every three by three days…but one time the bees didn’t come…the Flower was fully in bloom and got confused so it sent out more perfume…and more…and more…till it got very distressed…”
without any kind of stimulation during the fertile period pheromone production increases determined to attract a mate …mental states gradually shift to focus solely on mating with a nymphomaniacs hunger“But finally the bees came back and the Flower was most happy again…but one day the bees came every day…sometimes a dozen times a day…the flower liked it for a while…but after three by three days of constant visits the bee went away again…and the flower couldn’t function…it was so used to the excitement it got very depressed…”
the other danger to their reproductive biology was potential addiction to their own pleasure…out of cycle copulation was encouraged but needed to be moderated…too much would cause problems“It made so much perfume it couldn’t stop - forgetting it needed to drink in the water from the soil and carbon from the air….finally it began to wilt until another flower sensing its distress soothed it and helped it with its own pheromones….”
which was in essence what Kiraea was doing now “So…because I haven’t jumped my hyperdrive since leaving for Sinkhole…my thinking was altered by my sex drive?” Sofa interjected
“That’s an inelegant way of putting it….but yes…you didn’t attend to your needs – you have to look after what the Goddesses have given you carefully….too much or not enough…”
Sofa swallowed back a reply thinking on what that meant…taking her transformation as a starting point…that was nearly 15 days…well over a nine day cycle…and would put…
Did I forgive Valens…help him against the Jedi because of some hormonal imbalance… it was a disturbing thought that her recent actions might have been driven not by reason or her morality but instead base biology wanting to get her man in bed….
“Is that such a bad thing?” Kiraea queried her thoughts “You Jedi think too much of mind and body as different…” Kiraea’s finger pointed up across Sofa’s body
“You’re one whole person, the combination of all things…but you can worry about that later now you need to learn the specifics….”
Kiraea’s teaching was by necessity explicit, messy and hands on, using the aether to control her reproductive and endocrine systems as a method of contraception, working out how to release her pheromones out of cycle - even as Kiraea’s understanding and experience flowed into Sofa’s mind, her body reacted in differently…each woman unique in hormonal base levels and physical stimulation responses.
It combined physiology, biology and chemistry with theology, Kiraea reciting ever more special stories about the Goddesses to explain things…the story about Aethenaea and Aertemisaea using vibrational telekinesis to create ‘beautiful music’ in their ‘summer garden’ after ‘wrestling’ would read on paper as erotic fiction…but combined with telepathic prompts taught a useful method of rapidly adjusting thermoregulation and cognitive focus after exercise or combat by exploiting a reproductive feedback loop.
It was perhaps the oddest few hours of Sofa’s life to be doing such intimate things with a woman she had only spoken about four times…
Yet there was warmness …their minds and bodies were melded…Sofa began to understand Kiraea deeply - the physical, cultural and spiritual were all one - there was no delineation between public and private to her…Sofa’s body and its functions were as important to Kiraea as her own.
She felt strangely…home.
<<<<>>>>
Jarys
Trailing at the end of the convoy of Chiss ships the mood was far darker.
His brother looked utterly defeated…almost catatonic…compared to the heights of action he had experienced over the last week it was a surreal parallel. It was like sitting beside a black hole that wanted to suck him down into defeatism and despair
“It was too much to ask of yourself…of anyone to bring them back to life…” he tried to comfort Valens,
“It’s not failure to not achieve the impossible…” he thought about the other issues they were facing…the clones.
“You couldn’t have predicted they would be taken….who knows you might’ve been killed trying to stop them…we are only mortal” he doubted the Jedi would agree with that last sentence now, they had not only gotten away but Sofa’s plan had done a lot of damage – and not just physical.
It didn’t seem to be working…Jarys looked to Arxis whom they had picked up along with some 40 vornskrs kept in the hold, the Yruts in the third ship of their small flotilla kept away from the carnivores with Maynard and Xandra. The Vorynx simply blinked offering little in the way of help, made a small growl then paced back toward the hold.
Perhaps…the wookie…the simplicity of the accord they had reached.
He reached over to grasp his brother’s shoulder
“Don’t think so much brother, we plan like Aethenaea, fight like Aertemisaea, then go home and have sex like our woman is Aehprodaea…” he felt a sudden jump in his heart rate thinking about Kiraea and their moments before the hunt that had nearly killed him…his fantasies must’ve been a little strong as Valens gave him an quizzical look.
“That is our role, nothing more than that, you’ve done your fighting, once we get to Station 3 and Sofa is initiated by Kiraea…it’s what we are made for, embrace our biology,” he finished with a smile.
There was a horrifically primitive simplicity to Jarys advice, but perhaps that was what Valens needed…to not have to think too much…to just…
“Live for once instead of fighting brother, just live” Jarys finished his thought.
<<<<>>>>
Xithar
White frost came from his mouth with each breath, druasteel and medi-plas was coated in thin layers of sleet. It was not especially comfortable for falleen in such cold places, but he would endure it.
Darth Sicara stood to the side with his monitoring equipment. The Siniteens expertise originally lay in chemical weapons, poisons and the like, but easily transferred to relate fields of genetic analysis and biology when they had been contacted by the ‘Dead Ones’ years before. Xithar did not trust the Black Sun’s experts in this matter, this was a matter for Darth Lucovis not Vigo Xithar.
The analysis compiled over a week of scans and sampling of the clones was…intriguing…fully unpacking what these humanoids were capable of would take years, even the best predictive models were limited, genotype to phenotype was difficult to determine in even the simplest species with much accuracy…and these creatures were far from simple.
“There are clear signs of manipulation and direct editing…natural selection does not produce such precision, does not eliminate scrap coding pairs this efficiently…” Sicara had noted
“Is it just this sample that has been edited or is it the template?”
“Uncertain at this point, I simply don’t see even the Kaminoans being capable of something like this…this is decades if not centuries of work assuming what I believe is a Human-Miraluka hybrid starting point…it would take years to analyse - the pubertal changes alone I have refrained from making predictions about…it is simply too complex.”
Xithar danced his fingers along the medi-trans-steel lid of a male infant - he had already begun his Sith Alchemical experiments, but with little success as the two offered up to Milaea as a prize showed, it seemed conventional genetics was of little aid either.
“If I were to obtain an adult sample…would that assist?”
“No…I wouldn’t be able to screen out what is environmental and what is genetic in an adult…I would need at least a few dozen to develop a reasonable model.”
His yellow eyes blinked beneath near white skin, evidence of a lack of sun exposure for his years in laboratories such as this.
“Perhaps if I understood your intentions my Lord…I could refine my analysis and work…”
“hmmmm….” Xithar mused considering his options…twenty of them…and the Terraforming Vectivus had noted…they were rebuilding a world…if not a civilization…
The Clones were a resource he did not want to waste…yet if he did not use them soon their true owners would come to claim them…a being like Milaea would find him sooner rather than later.
And so this became an opportunity…a chance to experiment with an idea he had entertained in recent years as he waited for Vectivus to attempt to kill him and take his mantle….
“Prepare five of them for awakening…I have a plan in mind,”
<<<<>>>>
Sofa
“So your Goddesses…” Sofa noted in between lessons, the small cabin filled with the creamy musk of pheromones,.
“They’re yours too now,”
“Right…so you actually believe in them, as in they exist out there somewhere,”
“Ugh so much ignorance,” Kiraea seemed exasperated
“The Goddesses exist in us, around us, outside us,”
“Riiiight…” Sofa replied not understanding at all,
“Ugh…” Kiraea propped herself up “Every time we perform a Rite we embody Aephordaea…She fills us, we become her, we are her, we make her…” she gave Sofa’s breast a squeeze “When we fight, when we are brave and daring or protective we become Aertemisaea, when we are clever or learn things we become Aethenaea,”
Meaning flowed in the aether…it was a Symbiotic relationship…their Goddesses were avatars of their own actions and culture…they were real in the same way a mascot represented a razor ball team….and relied on each other just as much – no team no mascot, but without a mascot the team had no focus.
“Close enough for someone raised by Outsiders,” Kiraea read her thoughts,
“They are sovereign beings they can help you, fill you with strength or knowledge when you need it…but they can only help if they are strong enough first…” Kiraea hand trailed down her ribs to her legs,
“So we have to do the things that make them strong…train and fight for Aertemisaea, Learn and Study for Aethenaea….”
“Make love and babies for Aephrodaea…” These were not all powerful Deities like the Mak’tor Maker, these were visceral entities focused on one People, one Planet, limited by their followers knowledge and power, but still able to harness power and give it to those who needed it.
“Exactly, what use is a Goddess without daughters to look after?”
Sofa’s brow furrowed, “Daughters only,”
Kiraea looked at her oddly,
“Of course, how can anything that can’t bear children be sacred…males are useful in their way that’s why we have the pheromones to control them,”
“So you’re matriarchal feminist lesbians who snookle each other as a religious act?”
Kiraea snorted,
“We’re People, we don’t need labels,” she turned on top of Sofa hair falling to the sides,
“Enough talking…time to embrace our Goddess,”
<<<<>>>>
Xithar
“Is everything ready,” he asked the Siniteen
“Everything is in readiness master…the candidate and the materials positioned according to your designs.” Kor’Sep or Darth Sicara as he thought himself to be bowed and pulled back.
Lucovis quite liked Sicara, of all his sub-apprentices he was by far the most intelligent, the shame was his connection to the force was barely Jedi average – he would never excel, could never perform a true Dark Séance or Black Rite of Transmutation on his own.
In the back of the room he noted the tubes containing other experiments on pieces recovered from ‘Dead Ones’…a trade of sorts…he would need to speak to their leader again soon, consider how best to manipulate them
into this situation. Setting the thought aside he plucked the first fear-filled subject of this experiment.
A little stroke was all it took and the wyrm bit in, its poison glands expelling their foul contents into his blood stream…he was used to it, having built up a resistance over decades...the poison lost on him - but the concentrated power it had fed on – fear, ecstasy, pain, rage – ah that flowed freely
His fingers tingled as he prepared, his mind forming the image of what he wished to create…for Sith alchemy was more art than science. The ancient practitioners had wrought wonders, the Massassi creatures of Exar Kun, the Sithspawn Leviathans of Remulus Dreypa…Yet Lucovis needed nothing so brutish or inelegant. This was a more civilized age for the Sith.
Energy began to flow off of him, he was a conduit, channelling the power of fear the wyrms had fed off into the infant in the pod before him…it began to thrash and kick against the nutrient rich stasis fluid as he focused his power on what Sicara had identified as its equivalent to a pituitary gland.
Hormones released within it as Sith power catalysed accelerated growth, it sucked in the fluids around it, the pain leaching off of it as bones began to grow faster than skin and muscle.
He moderated the flow…slowing the rate at which he placed more wyrms on his body – too fast and it would burst in furious meaty growth, too slow and it would stall and rebel against the unnatural genesis.
It got bigger, and bigger, it needed more and richer nutrients than they could provide…the most primitive part took its mind as it sought more nutrients, pure survival. The husks of wyrms, their power spent dropped off of Xithars body as he lay suspended above the tank, above him further the Wyrms vessels that he opened with the force as needed.
The infant, more toddler size now found a new source of food…newly ruptured teeth delved into the second infants flesh…it screamed in silent tones as it was consumed, the new creation growing ever faster with the influx of raw material.
This was what it was to be a God Lucovis mused as his body tingled with the flow through of energy…to create life, to twist it, to forge it to your own desires…and dominate its every thought and action.
There were three more infants for it to consume, it did so dutifully as raw pink tendrils of flesh erupted in the form of limbs, the creature swelling and pulsing with grotesquely beautiful cannibalised life.
Finally it was finished…Lucovis heaved in exhaustion as the now teenage sized being floated amongst the ruddy pink fluid that had been pure clean blue hours before, small flecks of bone and viscera floating past its face.
He had created...
life.
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