Part 2
Pending rewrite
Vordea appeared on the desolate surface of the moon in a flash of energy. She flexed her hands. Finally, so far away from the pesky fragile mortals, she could take on her true form and kill Shadry once and for all. There would be no worry of collateral damage this time. She cackled as reality cracked and her entire self entered the mortal plane, huge tentacles growing from her back and her body growing in size until she was nearly 4 times her original height. Her eyes, blazing orbs of fire, scanned the landscape. Frustratingly, Shadry didn’t seem to want to confront her.
“Shadry! Come out and play!” Vordea yelled, the ground shaking. “You won’t escape, not this time! I’m done playing around!”
A roar in the distance answered her challenge, as a blue dragon took flight and headed for her. As it landed in front of her, she could swear it was smiling.
“So, you’ve come at last, Vordea the Kin-slayer.” Shadry stated.
“Oath-breaker Shadry, it’s time for you to pay the price for your crimes.” Vordea replied, taking on a fighting stance. “I should have never let you live.”
“Yet you did. I know why you did, though.” Shadry said, changing to his humanoid form, a dwarf in a toga holding a spear. He deftly dodged a tentacle lashing out from the enraged Goddess. “I thought we were still at the talking stage?”
Vordea snorted in response. “Words won’t save you this time, deceiver. We have all passed judgment on you.” Vordea smashed the ground and Shadry barely dodged in time.
“I suppose you’re right. They actually unshackled you, which means my time in this clockwork universe is over.” Shadry said with a sigh. “Is it too late to apologize, though? I am sorry, you know.”
Vordea stopped and slowly blinked her eyes. “You foolish, foolish boy. I know you’re sorry, Shadry. I know you never intended for it to come to this. I forgave you thousands of years ago. But rules are rules, and what is a society that does not uphold its own rules?”
“Then, let’s end this as it began?” Shadry suggested. Vordea nodded, and returned to her normal human form. She slowly approached him, and he knelt down in supplication.
“I won’t refuse the last request of a condemned man. Let your soul find redemption in death, Shadry, Lord of the Lost.” Vordea said sadly, using his true title for the first time in many millennia. Weeping bitterly, she grabbed his head and pulled it clear of his body, taking his spine with it. She tossed it in the air, and her tentacles erupted from her back and tore it apart, as blood poured from where his head used to be. She watched as his soul began to depart his body, and grabbed it.
“I lied, Shadry.” she said with a sad smile. She grabbed hold of his soul and tore it asunder, her tentacles greedily grabbing at pieces of it as his screams echoed across the desolate landscape. “There is no redemption for you. I’m sorry, old friend.”
Vordea sat by Shadry’s cooling corpse for quite some time. She knew it was going to end like this, but she didn’t think the foolish boy was going to go out like this. She had come for a fight, not an execution. Shadry deserved better than this, despite all that he did.
“Room for a second?” A voice asked her. She looked up, and saw a man in a glittering white robe. His white hair shimmered as he smiled at her.
“Is this there where you’ve been hiding, Agbus?” Vordea asked.
“Is it really hiding, though?” Agbus responded, taking a seat next to her. “So he’s finally gone?”
“Yes.” Vordea said after a period of silence.
“You don’t seem very thrilled about it. I remember you raged over how much you hated him.”
“I came for a fight, Agbus. He gave me an execution.” Vordea replied, shaking her head. “He didn’t even try to fight back.”
“So, unshackled and fully on the mortal plane.” Agbus said, noting Vordea’s sour mood and changing the subject. “You look dashing, by the way.”
“Sometimes I wonder, Agbus, was this all worth it?”
“Was what?”
“Mortals. We could have done something other than this.” Vordea said, gesturing at the planet taking up most of the sky in front of them.
“Is that the tang of regret I hear?”
Vordea sighed in response. She looked into Agbus’s milky white eyes. “I’m just saying, I miss you.”
“Shocked you at the Inn, didn’t I?” Agbus asked with a chuckle, putting an arm around Vordea’s shoulder. “Couldn’t even speak. So much for the ‘Lord of Chaos’.”
Vordea punched him in the shoulder with enough force to have killed anyone else. “You jerk!”
“Been a long time since we got to just sit and talk, though.” Agbus said with a smile.
“You think Eigen-” Vordea began, but then stopped. “No, she definitely knew. She always does. That’s why she lied at the meeting.”
“You can’t fool the God of Time!” Agbus said with a hearty laugh. “She gave you a little vacation.”
“Perhaps.” Vordea said quietly.
Vordea and Agbus sat in silence, Vordea’s tentacles wrapped around them, for several days. They watched the clouds slowly drift across the planet below, as life went uneventfully on in their absence. Eventually, Vordea was the one to break the silence.
“So why did you tell us?” she asked quietly. “You alone knew he was here.”
“I’ve had many years to talk with Shadry, you know.” Agbus said in response, his voice barely above a whisper. “We talked at length for years on how it came to this, him in hiding up here. He decided it was time, nothing more. But he knew he couldn’t get the death he wanted if he went down below, Eigen would have merely ended his time in an instant.”
“Was it fair to force you to sign his death warrant?” Vordea whispered, one of her tentacles caressing Agbus’s cheek.
“Of course it wasn’t.” Agbus said, ruffling Vordea’s hair. “Order is not justice, something my followers must learn.”
“The Church of the Dead God.”
“Indeed. Hamlin has done well though.”
“Why did you give him immortality, though? I never did figure that out.” Vordea asked, pulling Agbus closer.
“I handpicked him from all history with Eigen’s help. He was the only one who understood order on an instinctual level. He is perhaps the only one who ever will. That’s why he is the first and last High Priest of Order.” Agbus answered. “And what of your High Priestess Neptis?”
“I should apologize to her.” Vordea said, a sad look on her face. “I went too hard on her.”
“So I’ve heard. You shattered her mind.”
Vordea suddenly withdrew her tentacles and stood up. “I’m going to make it right, Agbus. Come with me to Dragonpost.”
“On one condition.” Agbus replied as he stood up.
“Oh?”
“Come visit me more often.” Agbus said with a smile and raised eyebrows. Vordea blushed and smiled back in response.
“Alright, come on then, let’s get going.” Vordea said.
A crack in the sky opened as Vordea sent away most of herself back to multidimensional space, leaving behind only the black armoured woman. She offered her arm to Agbus, and arm in arm, they launched off the moon, heading back to the planet below.