[Velvet POV]
It took us longer than expected to deliver the supplies to their destinations because I got distracted by the things in this village. I never really left the areas about a day from the capital, so everything I saw was interesting. We did manage to finish our request and were now on our way back to the shrine.
“Sorry for making us take so long, Luna.”
“It’s fine. Maybe I can get Soleil to show you around as well.”
“You know, I don’t think she likes me.”
“Well, the two of you just met today, so it makes sense. I want the two of you to get along with each other though since she will join us on our travels in a few years.”
Luna said this but I felt she also had some other intentions beside just us getting along but I didn’t ask about it. We walked through the gate to the shrine and were met by Lord Deacon coming toward us.
“Welcome back you two, it seems it took longer than you originally thought.”
“Yeah, I took Velvet around a bit, and we made it to where we were supposed to go later than I planned.”
“Ok. Luna come with me, the both of us need to have a talk with Soleil.”
“What for?”
“About the reason for her fascination with you.”
“Ok. Sorry Velvet but this is something that needs to be taken care of.”
“It’s fine.”
“Miss Velvet my wife has something to discuss with you as well, can you find your way to her office?”
“I remember the way.”
“That’s good, now come with me Luna.”
“See ya Velvet.”
Lord Deacon and Luna went inside and turned toward the open grounds that I assumed was used for training. I walked inside and headed to Lady Amagi’s office. After a few minutes I arrived in front of the door and knocked.
“Please come in.”
“You needed to talk with me, Lady Amagi?”
“Yes, there are some things I need to confirm with you.”
She had a serious look in her eyes that allowed for no refusal.
“What do you want to know?”
“I’ll start with the most important thing: Are you Luna’s Apostle?”
I froze. I haven’t told anyone but my mother about that so how could they possibly know? If I answer, will they tell Luna?
“Calm down, this conversation will only be between the two of us, Ana, and Deacon. I’ll give the details to the other two later.”
“What about Luna?”
“She will not know. The Goddess asked us to keep quiet.”
“In that case then, yes, I am Luna’s Apostle.”
“How did it happen?”
“I picked her up after her first fox transformation and I just got the title. The Goddess said that she did it unintentionally.”
“What do you know of Apostles and their relation to the gods?”
“They are the voices of the gods in the mortal world, and they can come and go from the divine domain at will.”
“I see, that was the explanation I got as well.”
“Are you also an Apostle of a god Lady Amagi?”
“I will be if I choose to accept the position. Just after the two of you left, the Goddess offered to make me the Apostle of the Moon.”
“So you were the one she was talking about.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I became Luna’s Apostle, the Goddess gave me a brief explanation about it and at the end said that she would have an Apostle soon and that their identity should be kept from Luna as a surprise for the future.”
“I see, I guess the Goddess had this planned for quite a while now.”
“Seems like it.”
“I wonder how we’ll break the news to Soleil?”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. From what I know about Luna, she’ll definitely make Miss Soleil an Apostle as well.”
“Will she be able to do that?”
“In the Goddess’s explanation to me, she told me that gods can have the same number of Apostles as they do Authorities and that Luna will have at minimum two Authorities, possibly three.”
“That’s good then. But that also raises a new question; if two Apostle slots are filled, who will her third one be?”
“I don’t know, I bet the Goddess of Fate does, but there is no way she would tell us.”
{She would if you had the ability to talk to her.}
“Really?”
{Yes, she would derive some sort of joy from the fact that you know something like this and watching how you get to that point.}
“Do you need something from us, Goddess?”
{Not really, I’m here to answer any questions you have about Apostles to aid in your decision. I decided to speak with both of you present since Velvet here will need to learn about this eventually, so the earlier the better.}
“Then is it true Luna will have multiple Authorities?”
{Yes, I clearly know one as it is stated in Velvet’s Apostle title, but the other two I don’t know, but I have a suspicion about one of them. At first, I thought she would only have two, but after further observation, I concluded that she will definitely have three.}
“Can you tell us the one you suspect she will have?”
{I believe she will have the Authority over Space.}
“Isn’t there already a god of space?”
{Believe it or not, no. The space concept is currently being managed by spirits.}
“There are space spirits!?”
{Yes, they’re just not spread around the world because they spend too much time managing their concept. Once Luna takes this role, they will spread across the world and be usable by spirit mages.}
“Does that mean there are Fluff spirits?”
{No or at least not yet. That was an original concept and Authority born of Luna’s Abyssal Fluff title. Her somehow creating that even surprised the gods at the top.}
“On a different topic, if I accept your proposition, will I have to move into the divine domain or will I be allowed to stay in the mortal world?”
{You will be able to stay there until your natural lifespan would have ended, after that you would move into the divine domain and be sent out to meet with other gods or to give messages to important people in the mortal world when I am too busy to do so myself. If I have no oracles alive in the world, you would be the one to give any revelations to the people, though I don’t expect you’ll need to do that for me since most of my oracles are vampires.}
“Would I be your only Apostle?”
{No, if you accept, you would be my first, but I can still have two more. I’m open to allowing that assistant of yours to be one, but she needs to start working on fulfilling the conditions.}
“What would those conditions be?”
{For the easier of the two, I would suggest she start working on her gravity magic. If she does that and asks her husband for help, she’ll easily clear the conditions. She needs to max its level and create or learn at least three new gravity spells.}
“What do you mean create or learn?”
{Exactly as I said, either create or learn new gravity spells that the people of the world have never thought of or have thought were lost to time.}
“What could her husband help her with then?”
{Like I said, people of this world. He is from a different one remember. She could also ask Luna, but that would in turn lead to her figuring out what is going on.}
“I’ll let her know then.”
“Goddess. What do Apostles do when the god or goddess they serve don’t need them to do work?”
{They go about their lives. The lives of Apostles aren’t that different from mortals except the fact that they are immortal. You should have a better understanding of that, Velvet, you being a vampire and all. They are free to do what they want, get married, have families, all that stuff. Us gods don’t really interfere with our Apostles much unless we need them to do work or a big event that needs our Apostles to go and fight before we need to step in. In an event like that, our Apostles will be sent to mitigate the damage we will inevitably cause.”
“I see, I wonder if I will find someone in the divine domain?”
{Ufufufu. Don’t worry about that, Velvet. Luna is actively trying to help with that.}
“That’s kind of worrying, Goddess. I don’t think Luna understands subtlety when it comes to relationships like that. She is the kind of person to push two people together and then get confused on why they don’t like each other yet. I’m surprised she hasn’t just presented the person to Miss Velvet.”
{She already has though.}
“Wat?”
{She already has. I think she has been pretty obvious about who she is trying to set you up with Velvet. I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet.}
“Miss Velvet, who is the person Luna tell you about the most?”
“Aside from the Goddess, it would be Miss Soleil. Oh.”
“But Soleil is a bit young for that.”
{Luna has a weird mindset regarding that which I think happened because of me. I am thousands of years old after all. I know she will hold off from truly trying to get the two of you together until Soleil becomes an adult, but that won’t stop her from trying to get the two of you on good terms.}
“What is your first impression of Soleil anyway?”
“An extremely clingy little sister.”
“That describes her perfectly, though she has settled down quite a bit from before. If we can get her to stop going after Luna’s tail, I think she can be relatively normal.”
{I recommend doing the opposite actually. Get her used to Luna’s abyss and she will be fine, it’ll just take many years to do so.}
“Why will it take so long?”
{You need to realize Velvet; she doesn’t have a skill or title to protect her mind like you do. Since she was under the effect of charm all these years, it’s not as bad as it could be, but if she is going to become an Apostle of Luna, she’ll need to be able to stay sane while sinking into the abyss. I’ve convinced Luna to be open to allowing people close to her to metaphorically dip their feet in slowly over time. I don’t want another incident like before to happen and cause her trouble while she lives in the mortal world.}
“Does that mean I’ll get to brush my daughter’s tail again?”
{It does, just tell her I gave you permission and she’ll most likely let you. Just make sure to have someone else with you so they can help you stop. Even with her resistance, she had to knock Velvet out last time.}
“So that’s why my head hut so much this morning.”
“I’m willing to take the risk. I want to do something to bond with my daughter like my mother did with me.”
{All I’ll say to that is hold on for as long as you can. Also tell Anastasia and Blake to keep their daughter away from Luna when she’s asleep while she’s here. She is already ankle deep in the Abyss, and she’s not mentally ready to sink deeper yet.}
“Just out of curiosity, how deep did I sink yesterday?”
{I’d say just below the knees, your resistance helped but until you fully become her Apostle, you’ll have to be careful. The same goes for you, Amagi. You haven’t even dipped your toes in yet.}
“I understand.”
{Now if you excuse me, I’ll be going back to watching Luna. I’ll be awaiting your answer, Amagi. Until then.}
“What are your thoughts on this, Miss Velvet?”
“Personally, I would accept. You would be given the chance to always see your daughter after she ascends, and she wouldn’t be saddened by watching you die.”
“I see your point. I’ll talk with Deacon about this later and make my decision. It’s gotten late, I’ll show you to an empty room that you can stay in. Treat this place like a second home.”
“Thank you very much.”
Author's Note:
Second chapter of the day. Here we have how Apostles work and some details on Authorities. I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
P.S.: I think I will get to Luna and Tamamo's date sometime this week, so look forward to it.
[Velvet POV]
It took us longer than expected to deliver the supplies to their destinations because I got distracted by the things in this village. I never really left the areas about a day from the capital, so everything I saw was interesting. We did manage to finish our request and were now on our way back to the shrine.
“Sorry for making us take so long, Luna.”
“It’s fine. Maybe I can get Soleil to show you around as well.”
“You know, I don’t think she likes me.”
“Well, the two of you just met today, so it makes sense. I want the two of you to get along with each other though since she will join us on our travels in a few years.”
Luna said this but I felt she also had some other intentions beside just us getting along but I didn’t ask about it. We walked through the gate to the shrine and were met by Lord Deacon coming toward us.
“Welcome back you two, it seems it took longer than you originally thought.”
“Yeah, I took Velvet around a bit, and we made it to where we were supposed to go later than I planned.”
“Ok. Luna come with me, the both of us need to have a talk with Soleil.”
“What for?”
“About the reason for her fascination with you.”
“Ok. Sorry Velvet but this is something that needs to be taken care of.”
“It’s fine.”
“Miss Velvet my wife has something to discuss with you as well, can you find your way to her office?”
“I remember the way.”
“That’s good, now come with me Luna.”
“See ya Velvet.”
Lord Deacon and Luna went inside and turned toward the open grounds that I assumed was used for training. I walked inside and headed to Lady Amagi’s office. After a few minutes I arrived in front of the door and knocked.
“Please come in.”
“You needed to talk with me, Lady Amagi?”
“Yes, there are some things I need to confirm with you.”
She had a serious look in her eyes that allowed for no refusal.
“What do you want to know?”
“I’ll start with the most important thing: Are you Luna’s Apostle?”
I froze. I haven’t told anyone but my mother about that so how could they possibly know? If I answer, will they tell Luna?
“Calm down, this conversation will only be between the two of us, Ana, and Deacon. I’ll give the details to the other two later.”
“What about Luna?”
“She will not know. The Goddess asked us to keep quiet.”
“In that case then, yes, I am Luna’s Apostle.”
“How did it happen?”
“I picked her up after her first fox transformation and I just got the title. The Goddess said that she did it unintentionally.”
“What do you know of Apostles and their relation to the gods?”
“They are the voices of the gods in the mortal world, and they can come and go from the divine domain at will.”
“I see, that was the explanation I got as well.”
“Are you also an Apostle of a god Lady Amagi?”
“I will be if I choose to accept the position. Just after the two of you left, the Goddess offered to make me the Apostle of the Moon.”
“So you were the one she was talking about.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I became Luna’s Apostle, the Goddess gave me a brief explanation about it and at the end said that she would have an Apostle soon and that their identity should be kept from Luna as a surprise for the future.”
“I see, I guess the Goddess had this planned for quite a while now.”
“Seems like it.”
“I wonder how we’ll break the news to Soleil?”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. From what I know about Luna, she’ll definitely make Miss Soleil an Apostle as well.”
“Will she be able to do that?”
“In the Goddess’s explanation to me, she told me that gods can have the same number of Apostles as they do Authorities and that Luna will have at minimum two Authorities, possibly three.”
“That’s good then. But that also raises a new question; if two Apostle slots are filled, who will her third one be?”
“I don’t know, I bet the Goddess of Fate does, but there is no way she would tell us.”
{She would if you had the ability to talk to her.}
“Really?”
{Yes, she would derive some sort of joy from the fact that you know something like this and watching how you get to that point.}
“Do you need something from us, Goddess?”
{Not really, I’m here to answer any questions you have about Apostles to aid in your decision. I decided to speak with both of you present since Velvet here will need to learn about this eventually, so the earlier the better.}
“Then is it true Luna will have multiple Authorities?”
{Yes, I clearly know one as it is stated in Velvet’s Apostle title, but the other two I don’t know, but I have a suspicion about one of them. At first, I thought she would only have two, but after further observation, I concluded that she will definitely have three.}
“Can you tell us the one you suspect she will have?”
{I believe she will have the Authority over Space.}
“Isn’t there already a god of space?”
{Believe it or not, no. The space concept is currently being managed by spirits.}
“There are space spirits!?”
{Yes, they’re just not spread around the world because they spend too much time managing their concept. Once Luna takes this role, they will spread across the world and be usable by spirit mages.}
“Does that mean there are Fluff spirits?”
{No or at least not yet. That was an original concept and Authority born of Luna’s Abyssal Fluff title. Her somehow creating that even surprised the gods at the top.}
“On a different topic, if I accept your proposition, will I have to move into the divine domain or will I be allowed to stay in the mortal world?”
{You will be able to stay there until your natural lifespan would have ended, after that you would move into the divine domain and be sent out to meet with other gods or to give messages to important people in the mortal world when I am too busy to do so myself. If I have no oracles alive in the world, you would be the one to give any revelations to the people, though I don’t expect you’ll need to do that for me since most of my oracles are vampires.}
“Would I be your only Apostle?”
{No, if you accept, you would be my first, but I can still have two more. I’m open to allowing that assistant of yours to be one, but she needs to start working on fulfilling the conditions.}
“What would those conditions be?”
{For the easier of the two, I would suggest she start working on her gravity magic. If she does that and asks her husband for help, she’ll easily clear the conditions. She needs to max its level and create or learn at least three new gravity spells.}
“What do you mean create or learn?”
{Exactly as I said, either create or learn new gravity spells that the people of the world have never thought of or have thought were lost to time.}
“What could her husband help her with then?”
{Like I said, people of this world. He is from a different one remember. She could also ask Luna, but that would in turn lead to her figuring out what is going on.}
“I’ll let her know then.”
“Goddess. What do Apostles do when the god or goddess they serve don’t need them to do work?”
{They go about their lives. The lives of Apostles aren’t that different from mortals except the fact that they are immortal. You should have a better understanding of that, Velvet, you being a vampire and all. They are free to do what they want, get married, have families, all that stuff. Us gods don’t really interfere with our Apostles much unless we need them to do work or a big event that needs our Apostles to go and fight before we need to step in. In an event like that, our Apostles will be sent to mitigate the damage we will inevitably cause.”
“I see, I wonder if I will find someone in the divine domain?”
{Ufufufu. Don’t worry about that, Velvet. Luna is actively trying to help with that.}
“That’s kind of worrying, Goddess. I don’t think Luna understands subtlety when it comes to relationships like that. She is the kind of person to push two people together and then get confused on why they don’t like each other yet. I’m surprised she hasn’t just presented the person to Miss Velvet.”
{She already has though.}
“Wat?”
{She already has. I think she has been pretty obvious about who she is trying to set you up with Velvet. I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet.}
“Miss Velvet, who is the person Luna tell you about the most?”
“Aside from the Goddess, it would be Miss Soleil. Oh.”
“But Soleil is a bit young for that.”
{Luna has a weird mindset regarding that which I think happened because of me. I am thousands of years old after all. I know she will hold off from truly trying to get the two of you together until Soleil becomes an adult, but that won’t stop her from trying to get the two of you on good terms.}
“What is your first impression of Soleil anyway?”
“An extremely clingy little sister.”
“That describes her perfectly, though she has settled down quite a bit from before. If we can get her to stop going after Luna’s tail, I think she can be relatively normal.”
{I recommend doing the opposite actually. Get her used to Luna’s abyss and she will be fine, it’ll just take many years to do so.}
“Why will it take so long?”
{You need to realize Velvet; she doesn’t have a skill or title to protect her mind like you do. Since she was under the effect of charm all these years, it’s not as bad as it could be, but if she is going to become an Apostle of Luna, she’ll need to be able to stay sane while sinking into the abyss. I’ve convinced Luna to be open to allowing people close to her to metaphorically dip their feet in slowly over time. I don’t want another incident like before to happen and cause her trouble while she lives in the mortal world.}
“Does that mean I’ll get to brush my daughter’s tail again?”
{It does, just tell her I gave you permission and she’ll most likely let you. Just make sure to have someone else with you so they can help you stop. Even with her resistance, she had to knock Velvet out last time.}
“So that’s why my head hut so much this morning.”
“I’m willing to take the risk. I want to do something to bond with my daughter like my mother did with me.”
{All I’ll say to that is hold on for as long as you can. Also tell Anastasia and Blake to keep their daughter away from Luna when she’s asleep while she’s here. She is already ankle deep in the Abyss, and she’s not mentally ready to sink deeper yet.}
“Just out of curiosity, how deep did I sink yesterday?”
{I’d say just below the knees, your resistance helped but until you fully become her Apostle, you’ll have to be careful. The same goes for you, Amagi. You haven’t even dipped your toes in yet.}
“I understand.”
{Now if you excuse me, I’ll be going back to watching Luna. I’ll be awaiting your answer, Amagi. Until then.}
“What are your thoughts on this, Miss Velvet?”
“Personally, I would accept. You would be given the chance to always see your daughter after she ascends, and she wouldn’t be saddened by watching you die.”
“I see your point. I’ll talk with Deacon about this later and make my decision. It’s gotten late, I’ll show you to an empty room that you can stay in. Treat this place like a second home.”
“Thank you very much.”
Author's Note:
Second chapter of the day. Here we have how Apostles work and some details on Authorities. I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
P.S.: I think I will get to Luna and Tamamo's date sometime this week, so look forward to it.
