Chapter Text
It was a relatively warm day in the glade, the sun was bright, and offered it’s gentle warmth to those working the fields. While a great many nymphs, naiads, and humans worked on harvesting the wheat fields, two quiet gods worked together as well, harvesting the actual germs of wheat from the stalks to use for medicine instead of food. The one was the actual God of Medicine, Asclepius or as most called him Loumen, the other was a current lesser known Goddess, the future Goddess of Spring, Kore, or as she preferred to be called Maomao.
The duo was a curious one, as the goddess should have been helping with the food collection that she had helped grow, but she was much more fascinated by helping the person she called her adoptive father. If it had been up to her she would have been his true apprentice or the goddess of poisons since she was so fascinated by it, alas as Fate would have it she was born to be the next Goddess of Spring….if only someone had told her the true destiny that Fate had held for her she might have tried harder to avoid it.
The quiet of the field was interrupted by the running of hooves, the Quack apprentice err Guen, was heading toward the two yelling for everyone to take cover. The glade evolved into mild chaos as almost everyone went searching for cover, the only two who didn’t were the ones the goat-man was running towards. When he finally reached them his face was flushed as he panted for breath and leaned down with his hands covering his knobby knees.
“Now Guen, what are you doing yelling for everyone to take cover. You know those who live here spook easily.” Loumen scolded the satyr.
With shallow pants the satyr spit out “The… the Straigest…”
He said more but Maomao blocked it out, instead grabbing the basket, and hefting it up onto her back. “I see, I’ll be taking my leave for now.” She mumbled to the two, giving a soft bow before jogging in the opposite direction of where the Quack had come from.
She kept a steady pace, being careful not to trip on tree roots, or have lower tree limbs smack her in the face. Distantly she could hear shouting and knew an eventual storm was coming.
“Hopefully, not too many will end up in the cross hairs this time.” She thought to herself as she ventured further into the forest.
The dark haired goddess continued, but took a brief pause when she saw a trio of nymphs she considered friends talking. Well, it looked more like the older ones were scolding the younger one as she slowed her jog and walked towards them, curious as to what was happening.
“You have to be more careful Xiaolan!” The middle nymph huffed, worried for the youngest.
“I said I was sorry, I just thought it looked so pretty and it looked so lonely being the only one by the river.” She whimpered back.
“What happened?” Maomao asked, sneaking up upon the three and causing them to jump in surprise.
“Maomao!” The three yelled in shock, different levels of both annoyance and happiness on their faces.
The goddess looked at them with a quirked brow, confused as to why they were looking at her like that, but decided to ignore them for more interesting topics, “Well, what is it that you found?” She asked the three curiously.
The three look in between themselves for a few moments before En’en, the eldest of the three nymphs, decided to begin telling the tale.
“Yao and I were walking around the outer edge of the forest, following the river, collecting firewood for tonight when we saw Xiaolan near the edge of the bank hovering over a strange flower we had never seen before.” She began evenly, giving the youngest nymph a slightly disappointed look as she did so. With a breath she continued “Worried for her safety Yao ran up to her and pulled her away from the mysterious bud and began chastising her about the dangers of unknown flora.”
The Spring Goddess listened intently, a certain sparkle in her blue eyes, “Did you at least try to excavate it?” She asked hopefully
The more busty of the three nymphs, Yao, gave the woman a glare “Of course we didn’t! En’en literally told you we thought it was dangerous and left it where it was.”
Maomao frowned at this, her shoulders drooping in disappointment that they didn’t collect this interesting and new specimen and bring it with them. Seeing her friends sadness caused the youngest nymph, Xiaolan, to take her friends hands in her own.
“I can tell you what it looks like so that you can search for it” She told the goddess, while Yao groaned in the background and En’en shook her head a mix of annoyed and bemused.
The dark haired girls lips curled into an excited grin as she responded with a cheerful “Yes please”
The brown haired nymph described a small cropping of white flowers with what looked like a bright yellow bell coming out from the center of the white petals. She then tried to give an estimate of the location where she had seen them down the river.
Maomao took mental notes of what her first friend had said, shaking off the looks her other two friends were giving her. As she was thanking the brown haired nymph a loud crash could be heard in the distance, with a mix of blue green smoke billowing up into the sky. The Spring Goddess turned back to her friends, a mix of seriousness and worry clouding her eyes.
“You guys should find shelter soon, the Madame and the old fart are at it again.” She warned them.
The four parted ways tensely, the three nymphs heading towards the tree shelter they had built for when the two angry gods had their spats, and the goddess towards the river to find the flower and ride out the violence happening at home.
Once she reaches the river, it truly doesn’t take long for her to walk down stream and find the flowers Xiaolan was talking about. The plant had a long green stem, with white petals forming a halo around yellow bell-like petals. A manically excited grin graces the goddess features as she wiggled happily in place at finding the rare specimen. With excitement coursing through her, she kneels down, and begins to caress the petals gently with her finger tips of one hand, while planting her other hand on the ground to stabilize herself.
As she was inspecting the new flora a strange sensation started to occur with the hand she was using to hold herself up. It felt like her hand was sinking into the muddy clay of the river bed. Peeling her eyes off the flower, she looked at her arm, which was now half way sunk into the earth almost to her elbow. She pulled once, twice, but it only served to make her arms sink quicker.
“It doesn’t feel nor look like normal quicksand…” She thought anxiously to herself. She couldn’t see any objects within view to help her out, but with the rate her arm was sinking it felt like it really wouldn’t matter much either way.
Slowly beginning to panic, she pulled and tugged, tripping a bit over her feet and landing on the hard ground, only for it to slowly give way to more clay that caused her to sink deeper into the earth. The Spring Goddess went to yell out for help, when the moving clay gave way to nothingness and she was free falling into the dark.
The scream that tore out of Maomao throat never heard the light of day.