V3 Incline 29: Thurnmourer, God of Thunder

Provocative giggling draws my eyes away from the fire-tainted heavens as thunder roars. Turning my gaze fully upon the maidly-dressed woman, I watch her shiver as my shadow is cast out over her. A golden bolt so quick to appear and vanish from behind me. The danger excites her even as she trembles increasingly so.

She comes closer.

"There is a serious deficit in your intelligence." I remark bluntly with little emotion in my freshly-forged words. She rests a pale-skinned hand against her cheek, under the tatty stealth of mocking laughter. Tainted power crackles along her long, delicate fingers with a light that is almost as pale as her.

"What can I say? I love a challenge that leaves me roughed up at the end of it. To be lovingly nurtured afterwards once all is said and done..." she giggles at first before her sincerity takes over. She looks back the way she came, the way she met the Lord of lords.

"There will not be anything left to nurture." I explain as she licks her fingers, shocking her tongue for cheap sadistic self-pleasure. A masochist who enjoys getting all of the bad out of her mind. Her trauma runs deep, too deep for a simple fix. Self-made defences so that she may laugh rather than cry.

She jumps with fright again as thunder booms once more.

Holding my hand up to receive my strength, a carefully placed net of traps and mines show themselves. Not of my efforts, but hers, she thinks she is being clever hiding her attempts to theoretically hurt me behind words. I will show her otherwise and she will learn that blunt, clear efforts are needed. All these different kinds of magic go off.

Tainted lightning, fire and ice explode, all of it eager for my supposed death. The melting of my armour and the consumption of its tapestries. It all strikes me as if it was never fired, to begin with, a dramatic blank meant for cinema. As the smoke settles, I watch her take a half step back, still smiling.

"Now, this is the way I like it!" she laughs before her hands whip up nets of tainted lightning. Such an imperfect display that it is broken as soon as the sky answers my call for its aid. All of her attempts blast away as I catch the golden lance striking from the sky. Holding the bolt in its interrupted path, she composes herself with a gulp.

"It's such a beautiful colour, your power, God of Thunder. I once thought the greatest lightning could ever be was when I learned to accept all parts of myself. The angelic and the demonic, but, none of that compares to the divine, does it?" she asks and I shake my head, slow and slight.

"A mortal can never come to challenge a god." I lay out clearly, in the event she is genuinely baffled.

"You remind me of Him... You know, Kyrvern, the way he called out to feelings only a woman can have without ever speaking. Streaking across the sky, surrounded by powerful magic with the land erupting around him. Battling whatever monster dared to stand against my Lady's clan." she tells me, blushing as her heart throbs alongside the glow of my held thunderbolt.

"I am not the Lord of lords, allow me to demonstrate why and how." I explain, shaking my head further as I think all the way back to the beginning. Before my family, before all of this, when all I could was cry into the utter nothing as a heart-wounded man strolled empty, ruined creation. I was born when the first act of renewal occurred, though I am Thunder, I am also Creation.

I cried thrice for someone to come to me, to hold me in that forever dark. He was baffled, the Lord of lords, of All. He had no idea how I came to be. But, from that third cry, I found myself with a family to love.

"I am Thurnmourer, God of Thunder, of Creation. I shall strike this bolt into this same piece of earth three times. On that third strike, I shall remake you, Maid of Sair." I explain and she howls with sulturious laughter. Her fear converts into excitement and the shivers are traced by her trembling, cackling fingertips. A heavy cloud of mist escapes her lips as she covers them, a demented gaze looking down on me.

She flies up with a pair of mismatching wings, one feathered black and another leather-skinned the same. A web develops from behind like a spider weaving its source of life and protection. The cage she makes for me is flawed, like all else she has tried, only this will be her fall. A hole at its peak, a perfect fit for jagged gold and its heat and power.

"I quite enjoyed the relationship with your dad, you know? I once drained him of energy right under the nose of the one he was supposed to marry." she explains under the false assumption that I care. I tighten my grip on the struggling bolt as she puts nearly her whole into the current preparations.

A hundred magic circles come to life and it all comes for me, only to not and then to do so once more. Amplifying itself again and again, folding in on itself as tightly packed as it can be, strengthening each other, compounding upon one another. The layers of magnification grow until I have only an arm's reach to move. I bring the bolt down to my marked spot.

The thunderclouds roar once and silence takes over.

Looking into her wide eyes as she forgets to flap, I watch as she comes closer to the ground. Everything she alone could produce, against an unmoving target and it is gone. I bring the bolt back up, cocking my arm back into position above my head, the distance lengthened by my straight back. May the starter pistol fire or the ignition be pressed, then I shall strike again.

Twice.

"Looks like I will need to call on help, I am sure you will get along with them!" the Maid of Sair explains with wavering confidence as she pulls out three marked sheets. Striking the three of them down with cracking whips, her help comes to be. Two large beasts in lamellar and plated armour, one blue, the other red. Both with hideous faces hidden behind white, porcelain masks.

She laughs with all she has as her uniform burns away, briefly revealing a naked form. Black, gold-rimmed armour lustfully clings onto her as their dimensional locks come undone. Then, they burn and melt away as a serpentine creature made of her tainted power combines with it. As the light dies down, I look upon her final resort, a suit of primitive thunder-gold from the world that was.

Looking at my own armour, I flex my free hand into a fist and gaze upon its golden shine. Hers is nothing but a child's doodle in comparison to my realised work of art. But, I honour the part it played in my life, for we are all but a figment of the Lord of lords' mind. What he knew was remade through me at the dawn of creation, my first inspiration.

Her pair of bodyguards drop to a knee each and swear their oaths with the beating of their chests. Two suppliers of life force in its entirety and all it can offer. It all goes up to her, to this maid in dull, roughly-edged armour. Part of a pointless display to grandstand before that which has seen much greater shows of power.

It all comes crashing down to me in a microscopic display of what the end of creation looks like. Moving forward, I strike the ground a second time, digging myself into a crater and filling the air with three screams. A single, great flap of her wings blows away the dust and a hiss leaves her lips. What remains of her power sparks as she heaves with growing frustration and a limp in her movement.

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH!" she screams angrily as she and her beasts fire off what power they have left. Holding my still position, I let it all draw closer and I raise a hand. Creating an amplification circle greater than anything she made previously, I offer help of my own. The spell grows into a mighty dragon, ready to snap its jaws around me.

Her emulsion of water, fire, ice, contradictory defensive magic, tainted lighting, demonic and angelic power. It's coming, brought up higher than it could have ever been on its own by the one it is meant to try and kill. Bringing my arm back a final time, the sky roars with thunder. I strike for the ground.

A third time.

Stepping from my smouldering crater, my armour glows bright as the eye of the storm passes over. In this moment of true calm, I look around at the damage done, at all that remains of the Maid of Sair. Picking up a piece of melting thunder-gold, it hardens cold. I close my hand and it crumbles to the ground like seeds from the palm of a farmer.

For all the flawed things she made in that moment she faced me, she made one thing perfect. Her terror was without compare to anything else she did. An angered groan rumbles out on my right, and, when I turn, a hand smacks me over the head.

I bow in apology to my creator.

"You just had to go overboard, Thurnmourer." the Lord of lords remarks as his power undoes my creation of destruction.

"W-W-Well... I did... I did say..." the Maid of Sair tries to joke before she breaks down crying.

"Now look what you did!" the Lord of lords complains as the recreation of the mortal vanishes. I turn my eyes to the throbbing orb of black energy rimmed with crimson within his telekinetic grasp. My power flares confusedly as I am unsure of how to treat it, of how to think of what it is. I look once again to his tense grip and the way it jolts with the lingering charge of anger and self-hatred.

"We are done here." I state after observing the obvious. The unfortunate conclusion has come to pass. The most perfect Equilibrium will continue to live a life with a mind wracked with torment. If only I had the power to create the opposite, something better than this...

"What?" He barks in question as His mind bounces between crushing and nurturing the orb.

"Father... Why did you..." I fail to finish before I sigh, taking a step back as I give up. The Lord of All's power bursts out with the utmost authority, ending all fights, all attacks and ceasing all strength but his own. Falling down, I clamp my armoured thigh as I channel what remains of my strength so that I can stand. Barely.

He smacks my head again, putting me to the ground with a resounding crash of armour and his tut.

"Again, how many times do I have to tell you not to be so extreme!?" he asks as I struggle to get back up. Barely turning to the sensation of four arriving signs of life, I frown at one in particular. I had almost forgotten it. Even though I should have never come close to such a thing.

The mortal is amongst them. My law-abiding brother. My first sister, my motherly sister. And...

My eyes widen as a pair of red wings, once hidden in Motrtha's grip, enter Father's hands. He holds them tight and I stumble onto a secure footing, barely able to get closer without help. The First Daughter comes forth and holds me so that I might stand. I take off my helmet and let it hit the ground like an unloved toy.

He's here, in the hands of a father with an expression only a reunited parent could ever have.

Iderim-Ovi, the Singular God, God of the Ddrai'och. My younger brother, one of. I may have fought him in ancient mortal times for his singular guardianship of his people drove him to fight. But, I cannot hate my brother for that, I cannot even hate the fourteen trapped forever in prisons of my own making.

I wobble closer to lay a hand on my once-thought-missing brother and stroke his scaly head. He looks my way, quaking at first, but, he grows into my affection. Coming out on a forked tongue, the little reptile hisses and purrs with delight. I let him see my smile as I realise I can finally take one of the names on the inside of my armour and put it on the out...

I can sand the interior and carve a name on the outside!

Father turns to Motrtha, "Where... Where did you find him?"

"I didn't!" my sister exclaims before walking off, only to come back with the nervous mortal, "Nin here did!"

Father steps towards the out-of-place human as more and more gods and goddesses come.

"Where did you find him, then...?" He asks in confusion as He holds back the urge to spoil the answer. Motrtha takes our brother back into her hands and the Lord of All places His hand on the mortal.

"The church..." the human mutters as he points a trembling finger towards a distant ruin. Father's eyes turn the direction he is gesturing and the two vanish without a left-behind trace. The flaming city suddenly comes to life with joy and all kinds of positive emotions as Motrtha is crowded. Not for her, but, for him, our missing brother.

I wait patiently until a flash of divine power reverts Iderim-Ovi back into his adult form. He laughs on his way out of the crowd and he comes and finds me as I wander off, uncertain of my place here given our history. Looking about the ruins, I start to fix things with idle waves of my hand, my eyes shifting between him and little pebbles of formerly whole bricks. My distraction isn't very good, however, and a pair of crimson wings stop me.

"So, uh... How are you, Thurnmourer?" he asks with the nervous fisting of the opposing palm. I lean around him, slightly, observing the greater nervousness in my family. Returning my focus to my returned brother, I smile and hold up my hand. We clasp each other's wrists and come in close for a pat on the back.

"Much better, now that you are here with us again, Iderim-Ovi." I tell him, making sure my smile is clear for all to see as we put some distance back between us. No thunder cracks, no lightning flashes.

"Oh... That's good, very much so." he nervously chuckles as he rubs the back of his draconic head.

My mind turns to the species he created, the unique circumstances of his existence. I felt that when he vanished, their miracles and ease of life vanished. All that time ago, when Thunder walked the earth with my blessing. His people will be able to have their prayers answered again.

Though I am responsible for their downfall in that old war, I kept them safe as well. They still live on and my brother has something to go back to in the mortal world. Yet, I worry still, Iderim-Ovi has been made weak for some time. Will he be able to pass on his divine strength to his people like he did in that time long gone?

Were it not for circumstances beyond my control, I would help him with all that I am. I cannot make him a great leader for his dwindling people, I cannot save them. He will need to figure that all out again. But, should my brother need anyone we are all here for him.

And although it is in my head alone, I promise to him that this will not be kindness that vanishes in the calming days following this great return.

"We should head back to them, I only took a moment away so that you would not be worried, given our history." I explain to him as I put a hand on my brother's back, turning him around to face our family. Everyone here can help him, we will be there for him.