forum Let's hope this stays alive (O/O)

Started June 03, 2025 by @Avhira-The-Eldritch-Horror group

tune

“Clothes shopping?” Clarissa asked raising a brow before shrugging. “Sure. If you're ready. Let me just grab my stuff and we can head out.” she informed, already taking a couple steps back.

Irae nodded, standing while she waited. She watched Clarissa leave, then examined the room, taking in the furniture and decor.

Clarissa smiled, giving a quick nod before darting off.

The living room was fairly simple. A hide-a-bed couch across from a very basic tv set up with a plain coffee table in between, leaving just enough room to pull out the bed. A few pictures hung up on the walls, most likely of a younger Clarissa, her family, a farm, and some meadow with a small lake. Simpler times, less worries, brighter smiles…

Irae smiled slightly at the pictures, before gently rubbing the raw wounds where her wings used to be, still healing, though accelerated due to the god of health and medicine. She would likely regrow the wings when she became immortal again, but it still felt unnecessarily cruel on the part of the other gods. She winced as she felt at the raw skin, wondering if they would regrow fully, or like they had been before they were ripped out- one burnt and tattered, the other mostly whole but missing a few feathers. She couldn't fly before her wings were torn off due to the burnt one, but they still acted as good defence and shielding, and she felt the loss deeply. None of the gods knew why they hadn't healed while she had them while immortal, most wounds healed with little to no scar in gods. She stopped messing with the wounds, realizing that she could tear them open again now that she was mortal. She stood still and quiet as she waited.

Clarissa walked back into the living room now carrying a purse and a travel mug of coffee. Her outfit was unchanged from her simple jeans and graphic tee-shirt, but her short black hair seemed to lay a bit neater, and a pair of slip-on sneakers indicated that she was ready to go.

A soft nostalgic smile tugged at her lips as she saw Irae looking at the pictures. “Nice, aren't they? My parents still own that farm. I don't get to visit as often as I’d like to but they always say I’m welcome anytime.”

Irae nodded. "Parents seem nice. I guess, technically, I might have some. Some of the gods do. But some of us just started existing. It's been so long, I've forgotten which I was…"

"Ah, right…" Clarissa nodded awkwardly, remembering how much she didn't know about Irae and how different they really were. She hadn't forgotten that Irae was a banished goddess but it was easy to forget that they didn't have that much actually in common. "Sorry. Umm, you ready to go?"

Irae nodded, moving to follow Clarissa. She didn't know where they were going and wasn't going to make a fool of herself by pretending she did. "You don't have to apologize for having parents-" she noted.

Clarissa lead Irae out of the apartment, locking the door behind them. "I just… I dunno. It felt weird thinking about how I have parents and you're not sure if you did." she explained as she started down the short flights of stairs. "Then again, when someone lives as long as you do… you probably see time differently and don't dwell much on things like your own origin, right?"

Irae paused, hesitating. "Yeah.. uh.. right. Most of the time. I'm almost always too busy to dwell on anything." She said, though there were definitely times she did dwell on her origin- and how she couldn't remember where she came from. "Some gods are also born when an immortal spouse gets really good at something- when a god married a mortal and makes them immortal, they often work for a god or create something new and become a minor god under their boss or a god of the thing they created. Crochet was created by a bored wife of the God of Poetry. She's the Goddess of Crochet now, it's pretty interesting." Irae noted.

“I have heard of myths… uh, stories of those scenarios.” Clarissa nodded. “The marriage ones can be pretty cute when you’re in the mood for a romance. But I didn't know about there even being a goddess of crochet. Is there really one for each individual thing?” she asked with a faint smirk.

"No, but there is the possibility for there to be. When a little thing gets big, sometimes a deity just- spawns? Into existence. If two gods have a kid, they're a god of something, usually something related to one or both of their parents' domains. And if an immortal spouse gets good at something , they become a god, though almost always just a minor god, of something that could fit under a different gods domain. Major gods are those with more vague (or sometimes hyper specific) domains that don't fit under any others'. I'm considered a Major god, as are most of the seats in the Pantheon. Minor gods often act under the seat of the larger domain they could fit under." Irae explained. "For example, poetry, painting, and sculpture would all fit under the broader domain of Art, or even Creativity, so the gods of poetry, painting, and sculpture would all be considered minor gods under the Goddess Creo of Art and Mortal Creation."

(I'm glad your dog didn't get the wasp. I have two dogs and know the panic of having at least a bee in the house. Why dogs chase after large buzzing insects, I have no idea.)

Clarissa nodded at the information, taking a sip from her coffee, as it didn't really surprise her. "Makes sense. The possibility of something is quite a bug thing on it's own." she aknowledged. Though the random thought of the possibility of a god/goddess of computers suddenly popped into her head almost made her laugh. "Are you friends with many in your partheon? Or were before… all this?"

Irae shrugged. "Being the goddess of Wraith, many of the gods are hesitant to approach me- but I think the goddess of Love and Lust had a thing for me? It's hard to tell with her- Iibidine can be hard to read. Oh, and Desida, the goddess of exhaustion, would nap near me often- though that might have been just circumstance."

"Well, there is that saying about love and war… I think there's one about love and anger too but I don't know that one as well as the first." Clarissa risked teasing Irae a little as they exited the building. "And the fact that there's a goddess of exhaustion," she shook her head, "I feel kinda bad for her. There have been days where I come home feeling dead on my feet, and if that's even a fraction of what she goes through, then that's just so sad."

Irae nodded. "They are both my sisters- in a sense. We are all the same age, and none of us remember any parents, so we kinda helped each other as we grew. There's 7 of us actually-" She mentioned, thinking.

“7 siblings? Wow. I wouldn't know what that’s like. But it might explain why Desida is comfortable enough to take a nap near you.” Clarissa mused, knowing enough about pantheons to not think too hard on how certain members were or were not related. “Come on. My car’s over here.”

Irae nodded. "Do you have any siblings?" She asked, following Clarissa to the car. "Mine are mostly fine- though it does get weird sometimes. Especially because it's blurry if we actually are or not. Iibidine flirts with all of us- but she flirts with everyone, so it's really hard to tell when she means it-"

"Not exactly. I'm an only child but I have a cousin, Tony, who's older than me by 2 years an is kinda a jerk about it. It's close enough to actually having an older brother for me." Clarissa admitted, wrinkling her nose slightly. "But then there's my other cousin, Abby, who's 5 years younger than me and she's… well, she's a girly-girl but I love her." she shrugged with a smile as they approached a simple silver four-door. She chuckled a little and nodded as Irae confessed how confusing her relations were. "That certainly would make things more confusing."

"Abby sounds sweet. Reminds me of my sweet younger sister, Invidia, the Goddess of Envy, Theives and Longing. She's really sweet, but she steals anything and everything she can- she doesn't want to, she feels bad about it afterwards- but…" Irae trailed off, seeming sad. "I haven't had time to see her in almost a three hundred years-"

Clarissa couldn't help raising a brow at the idea of a goddess of envy and thieves being described as sweet… Granted she didn't even know anything about this pantheon or those involved until she met Irae, so she really didn't have room to make those kinds of judgements. "Kinda sounds like some kind of kleptomania…" she murmured as she climbed into her car. "I… I hope that you get a chance to see her soon." she admitted clearer.

Irae nodded. "I'm pretty sure she's the source of kleptomania- She feels really bad about it, and she tries to stop… I do too." She said, looking out the window. "I get along worst with Superbia.. or maybe Cupidtas.. Superbia is the Goddess of Pride, Ego and Self-righteousness, and Cupidtas is the Goddess of Greed, Selfishness, and Hoarding. It's not their fault they are the way they are either, but it's often really obnoxious to be around them-"

Clarissa furrowed her brow slightly at the thought of a deity trying to stop doing something they're in charge of, or being the deity of something that they don't enjoy doing. “Obviously, I know less about this whole thing than I thought,” she admitted softly. “But… just a warning, as much as I’m interested, you might want to keep this kind of conversation between just us. Not everyone is going to be… open-minded about all this.”

Irae nodded. "I'm sure. I won't talk to anyone else about it. It would bring bad and unwanted attention to both of us, right?"
She was still staring out the window.

"Unwanted, definitely. At most people might just think you're weird for all this specific knowledge. At worst, they'll say you're crazy." Clarissa explained with a shrug. And I'm not entirely convinced that I'm not crazy right now… She glanced over at Irae for a second, thinking of her scorpion tail. "You doing ok? Not car sick or anything?" she asked in an attempt to keep the conversation going.

Irae shook her head. "No. I'm just not used to travel. Most gods don't need to go anywhere often, and when we do, Feren takes us. Quickly. She can instantly travel almost anywhere."

“Lucky her.” Clarissa smirked. “I know several people who wish they had that ability. And times when I would have found that handy.” she chuckled, thinking back to when she had just finished one class and her next was practically on the other side of the building.