My memories were blurry of the time after the gods had captured me. I blamed that partly on the shock of seeing the dead bodies of my family and partly on the tortures the gods put me through. Even though my memories were blurry and incomplete I was sure the god of order was never responsible for the massacre of my family nor my torture.
Because he appeared just as the gods decided to stop the torture and kill me.He was furious at that time. He believed that the acts of the gods were against order, not honorable. He was never a supporter of starting the wars to occupy the beasts' lands. Even I as a member of the beast heard of that. He believed the killing of my family as against order. We did not deserve such a punishment.
But everything was moot, his arrival was too late. The other gods had been surprised he could arrive so quickly as the god of darkness said he would do everything to stop the god of order from intervening. I guess they should not have believed in the god of darkness to begin with.
After much debate, it had been decided that they could leave my life alone. I just had to be imprisoned. And the god of order offered to do the job. I just never knew not only did he act as my warden, he also placed the spell on my soul. A spell that would set into motion to destroy my soul as soon as I set foot outside of the forest. Or maybe kill me with a thought too.
I started laughing manically. "So you're no different than the other gods. You can kill me anytime you want. Why didn't you do that?"
"The spell is just acting as safeguard to the other gods. If you don't go out of the forest, it won't ever come into effect," the god of order said calmly. "Let's go home." His hold over my wrist increased. Just like before, tingling pain appeared as he touched my soul.
"You're not so different as those gods who tortured me," I giggled. "You think you're better than them? You're wrong. You're their accomplice."
The lines between his brows appeared again. "Don't compare me to them."
"You're their accomplice. They wanted to kill me then and there. You just decided to delay it. If I'm a good girl, I can live on like your pet. You can just kill me off when you can't stand me anymore. What a nice act, you get your nice and merciful name. The other members of the beasts must have thanked you, even reverend you!"
"You're not my pet. I never plan on to set that spell into action," he was annoyed. His ever calm voice was no longer that calm. "When you escaped, I didn't destroy your soul then and there, did I?"
"I can't escape," I snorted. "You have a strong ward surrounding the forest. I just escaped from a smaller prison into a larger prison. To you we're just playing another one of our cat and mouse game. Do you have fun toying with me? Watching me being betrayed by my own species?"
He sighed again. "Then why did I stop you from leaving the forest? I could have just stood by when you tried to kill yourself."
"You just want to act merciful!"
"You know how many rules you have broken this time!" he raised his voice. "They won't say a word if I really kill you. But I didn't. Let's go home, Lorelei. Your soul cannot stand to leave your own body for a longer period of time."
He waved his hand and the leather bag Archer had been holding all along appeared in his hand. When he opened the bag a glass casket filled with water appeared on the ground. Inside the glass coffin, it's my body.
The group of mortals who had scattered into the deep woods when we started our fight cried, "It's a mermaid!" Seemed like they never escaped far to begin with.
That's when I realized my soul form had legs instead of tail. The dress my soul was wearing had been the dress I had worn the day I had hypnotized Rachelle to kill her lover, the day my family had died. My soul had also been frozen in time.
"So you had been lugging my body around like a psychopath?" I chuckled. "And stopped calling me a mermaid, you mortals," I tsked.
I turned to look at the god of order. "You want me to go back into my body?" I smiled daringly. "What if I don't want to?"
He rubbed his temple with his fingers. "It's not the time to throw a tantrum. The clock is ticking."
"Try me!" my smile widened.
He sighed. "It's going to be painful." Without waiting for my respond, he grabbed my hand and forcefully pushed my soul in the direction of my body.
It had never crossed my mind he would do this. Why hadn't I thought of this? It's the most direct and simple way. Maybe because he never forced me to do anything I did not want to. Maybe he usually spent some time to talk sense into me when I threw a tantrum.
As soon as my soul entered my body, I screamed in pain. Millions of needles seemed to stab into me all at once. This annoying god of order, he knew it's going to be ten times more painful if a soul was forcefully pushed into her own body than when a soul willingly returned to her body.
"Do you know how painful it is? Do you want to kill me?" I shouted as soon as I regained consciousness.
"I gave you the choice to return to your body on your own, but you refused," he said calmly as he caressed my hair gently. "Let's go home, Lorelei."
I refused to answer him as I flicked my tail in annoyance. I turned around to find the group of mortals still staring at us.
I curled my hair with my finger as I took in those mortals. Could I subtly plant a suggestion in them? They could be my break through to next escape. Just as I was thinking, a hand covered my eyes.
"Don't you find yourself contradictory? You want to live, but at the same time the way you choose to achieve this is to kill yourself."
I stayed silent. He's not wrong. I was contradictory, I wanted freedom, I wanted to live, but what I was doing was trying to kill myself in the process. When my plans failed, I wasn't really that sad, sometimes I was even grateful that they had failed, because if I lost my life, it's really the end. I knew deep down I kept doing dangerous, risky things without even an ounce of care was because I trusted the god of order to stop me in the last minute.
I was dejected after realizing that I trusted and relied on the god of order more than I had thought, it felt like betraying my family members.
The god of order must have noticed my dejection. He continued patting my head gently as he told those mortals, "I'll fulfill your wish in exchange of your memory."
That's enough, Lorelei, how long do you want to stay weeping? I struggled to get out of his hold. The god of order released me immediately. I eyed him in defiance. He released me so quickly, wasn't he afraid I would continue to plant suggestions in those mortals?
He sighed in exasperation and said, "Just do whatever you want." Like a weary person dealing with a spoiled child. "I'll just stop you again if you do something dangerous again."
Do you think I'll be grateful? I won't!
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Author's note
Hehehe another chapter I like xd See you next time!
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After the Villainess Failed to Overthrow the Gods
Fantasy'In every story, there is a villain who has been defeated. What happens to the defeated villain?' After Lorelei's plot to overthrow the gods failed, she was stripped of her power and voice. She became a mermaid bound to a lake, with her enemy (the...
