Afoti Abeçu
An outrageous smirk covered the lower part of the lurid-looking mask of the Goddess Afoti. This was horrible. Everything was slipping right out of her elegantly manicured hands...
Ameena - that despicable little creature! - had turned eigteen today, and as a gift, she had received two Canda wolves from that shady huntress, Gretchen Fetchem. That confirmed Afoti's hunch of a conspiracy against the True Gods being plotted; the highly intelligent Mallowolf pack had contributed to their fall back in the day, after all.
The Dark Goddess growled agitatedly. She could just leave her hiding place in the bushes, sneak into that sanctimonious girlie's garden and smack the wolves before they could cause any damage... The other Gods and she were busy devising and a stragety to recapture The True Reign, after all, and it'd be a waste if their new plans would be ruined by a pair of paper dogs...
Yet, no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't undertake any action. She had promised Cueraça, who was the most respected God in the entire Neragua Universe, not to give away her location, no matter what happened.
He had told her that she was a spy, and that she had to leave the fieldwork to the demons. Only Cueraça's deadly claws withheld her from strangling Ameena with her own...
Afoti heaved a sigh as she realized that she had clenched her fists around an innocent varen. She let go of the mangled plant and crossed her legs tailor style.
''Sorry, love,'' she murmured. Even though she couldn't stand its humans and piñatas, she cared a lot about the Island's flora.
Afoti focused on the house again. Ameena wouldn't wake up until sunrise. She had the time to think now, to let all the things she had discovered over the past month sink in. The most shocking thing was probably... ugh. The most shocking thing was probably the fact that another disgrace stained the Goddess' bloodline.
Afoti's un-crossed her legs again and leaned back to look at the clouds that were rolling by. She liked this kind of nightsky. It was her favorite. In her part of the Neragua, the sky was permanently yellow, but she really wanted to try this for a change...
A smile spread across her terrifying mask as the thought of her younger sister Abdela came to her mind. That bitch didn't like skies like these, neither did Afoti think she would enjoy yellow welkins.
The dirty, hypocritical being. Abdela, and her branch of the family tree, were a filthy stain on the Abeçu blood line. They had brought nothing but misery...
A long time ago - Afoti could still recall the exact date, Saturnus had been in the sixth house, which was a harbinger of calamity - Abdela had left the underworld to start a small tribe of her own in the World of the Mortals.
Afoti had been enthusiast at first...
''Abdela! Go ahead, yes, please! Create a people that is more powerful than the ones Bulan, Mze and Cueraça have made! Make them stronger of will, sharper of mind and colder of heart than any of our current subjects!''
''Yes, I will my friend and blood sister. I will create a people unlike any others, and I will be their queen.'' The warm smile Abdela had worn on her round, platina mask still haunted Afoti nowadays... The same was for the last embrace they ever shared, for some reason, her younger sibling's touch lingered on her skin whenever she was consciously aware of the fact that she still existed...
However, the problem, the thing that shattered their relationship that had felt so reliable into a thousand pieces, was the fact that Abdela and she had understand a completely different thing by ''a people unlike others''...
Twenty years after Abdela's departure, Afoti had decided to set off for a trip to the Mortal World to visit her younger sister... Not only had she missed her pretty mask, she also wanted to have a good laugh again, the other Gods were far not as fun as her dear baby sister was.
After two weeks of wandering through the jungle and the traversion of several wild rivers, Afoti finally reached something that looked like a campsite.
''Hello?'' The place she had ended up in - which turned out to be a group of several tents and campfires, a small village - was surprisingly quiet and serene.
'Where are the blood splatters, and where are the skewers with lizard meat? Where are the spears with the heads of the conquered enemies? Where are the drums and the other ceremonial instruments?' Afoti had wondered.
This sure didn't look like anything she had expected the village of the ''ultimate mortals'' to be...
Not much later, the humans in question appeared from the wilderness. Abdela, who was unmasked, much to Afoti's shock, was marching in the back of the procession.
''Abdela!'' Afoti huffed, as a frightening red glow ignited in her usually deep brown eyes. ''You have not kept your promise!''
''My sister!'' Adbela exclaimed in surprise. ''I have missed you!''
Abdela scooted up to her older sister and role model to embrace her, but Afoti created a magical barrier and looked at the apostate with the coldest glance imaginable.
''Spare me your hugs! Where is your mask, Abdela? Do you regard yourself as worthless as a mortal now, you Syrupent?''
''Afoti, please! My people are not worthless!''
The mortals surrounding them were getting curious, now that their leader and creator was talking to this strange, evil-looking lady, who was surrounded by a weird, glowing bubble of energy.
One curious man touched the barrier. The cry he let out was piercing; the man could do nothing but run around circles while watching how his entire forearm molt away, until there was nothing left of it but a bloody stub.
Abdela stopped arguing with her sister to hurry towards the unfortunate man.
Afoti shook her head mockingly. ''Now that I know you rather treat the wounds of trifling humans than that you fulfill your tasks as a Goddess, I've seen enough. We are no family anymore, sweetheart.''
Abdela was too busy with the injured guy to pay attention to what her sister was saying. A fatal mistake.
''We will meet again in Neragua...''
And with those words: BOOM! Afoti disappeared in thin air, in a splitsecond she was sent back to the underworld where she belonged.
Abdela didn't notice that though, not until half an hour later, when the bleeding of the man had stopped.
''Goodness gracious,'' she had murmured, the sun setting against the jolly jungle scenery, which now was littered by splatters of scarlet blood. ''This may lead to much bigger problems than I had foreseen...''
It did, but it wasn't until the Religious Revolution or the Island's First War until the conflict finally heated up. By that time, Abdela had left the rainforest to move into what is nowadays called the Quemadas Volcano. Pester's lair is an exact replica of it, except for the fact that the 'Professor' has sculpted the volcano wall to ressemble his own face.
From the Quemadas however, Abdela kept an eye on her precious rainforest tribe as well as on the bigger towns that had been built by the ''True'' Gods' people. She liked the volcano, because it represented furtility. It was very hot in there with all the magma and molten rock of course, but she had lived in the Neragua for most of her life so she was quite used to heat.
Abdela of course was delighted when the ''Young Gods'' came up. They carried out her views more than the the ''True Gods'' did. Even though she descended from the same forefathers as the latter, she couldn't agree on oppressing the mortals just because it was 'fun' to see them suffer.
No, Abdela was very proud of those brave, young people who laid their lives on the line for freedom. Although she was all for equality, there was one girl in particular that had won her heart...
That girl was named Jeimiña, and she was born in the small village that Abdela had found a two centuries ago.
Jeimiña undubietly descended from Abdela herself, she had carried the children of a mortal after all. The girl's face was identical to hers, even if there were at least five generations between her and the former-Goddess...
Of course Afoti found out about Jeimiña shortly after Abdela did. She was outraged, especially when that sick little creature succeeded in making the True Gods' humans love piñatas.
That was only the beginning, though, nothing but pacific protest. A few months later, the actual War broke out.
After a chain of bloody battles even the former Goddess of Soil didn't enjoy recalling, the War was, surprisingly, won by the newcomers. The ''True Gods'' backed down and descended to the Neragua again, and Afoti's rage was unmeasurable. She weeded out her own demon legions by millions, just to get rid of her anger and rebuilt the strengths she had lost in the actual war.
The True Gods didn't leave the underworld for decades. They felt too humiliated to show up in the World of the Mortals, which gave the liberated humans the opportunity to develop themselves according to the ideology if the New Gods.
Abdela's people, which were known as 'Jeimiña's tribe' under the new regime, blossomed to be an even more loving, peaceable and learned community than they already were. After a while they managed to master the force of nature, a form of magic that had always been unknown to both the 'Old Gods' and their body of Priests.
Though succesful, the tribe was not that big. After a while, people started to marry their cousins and sometimes even their siblings. When the first disabled children were born, Jeimiña's people knew that if they didn't wanted their fairly developed society to perish in diseases and handicaps, they had to leave their place in the rainforest and set off to other places.
A considerably large group migrated to the villages. Both Suelos' and Jeimiña's villages were popular, since those were the Gods the Jeimiñians could relate most to.
The Jeimiñians were crazy about piñatas and started to tend their own gardens. Naturally, they were excellent gardeners. Some were gifted with great healing skills as well, even today most native doctors have Jeimiñian blood.
A smaller group of Jeimiñians went to the Central City. That was crazy for a tribe that stood so close to nature. Their brothers and sisters back in the rainforest shook their heads at this, moving away to end incest was one thing, but swapping the joy of feeling fresh grass under your feet and breathing the clean air of either the mountains or the jungle for a hectic life in a crowded place... That just baffled them.
One family, so Afoti was told, did something even more insane though. They permanently left Piñata Island.
Shortly after the Religious Revolution, boats from all over the world landed in the harbour near what had formerly been Mze's city. It was now a disorganized anarchy that was basically in the hands of the local mob.
The town was dangerous and filthy, but the foreign ships drew the attention of the father of the small, Jeimiñian family. He had always been adventurous, and the idea of sailing the other end of the world really appealed to him.
His wife wasn't all for the plan at first. Going on a three-month boattrip with two young children aboard was sheer madness to her. She had heard about the illnesses on deck and they frightened her. What if one of her little babies fell ill and died on the middle of the ocean?
Somehow, her husband managed to convince her though. It took him two years to do so, but on a warm, muggy summer night, the family finally set their first unsteady steps on the deck of a cargo ship for Ghana...
Afoti bit her lower lip so hard that the salt taste of blood brought her back to reality.
Ameena was a descandant of the Abeçu family.