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"You are the loveliest of the many lovely things I've ever laid my lowly, unworthy, eyes upon." He offers a tribute, holding it out to her with trembling hands, his eyes lowered respectfully, after so boldly declaring he'd gazed upon her loveliness with his unworthy eyes just moments ago.

She took his tribute, bored with his fawning already. Perhaps she'd gut him, as a lesson for the others that waited for their turn to grovel at her feet. Let them know that their deeds spoke more loudly, more clearly to her than their words. Am I really too beautiful to gaze upon? How can you know this without turning your eyes upon me, such a bloody action would ask of them.

Or perhaps she was just being too literal again. She had been in the past. So many dead by her hands, for no reason, other than she'd mistaken their reasoning. Their deeds versus their meanings. Terrible, that. Shame on her. But, in her defense, it had taken her several weeks to master their language. She smiled and looked at his gift, placed so carefully into her hand.

And then she smiled.

She looked down at him and she saw that he was looking up at her through his thick, dark lashes, gazing no higher than her breasts. An insult in many cultures and places, but here, nothing more than a sign of submission. He trembled before her with equal parts pleasure and fright in the face of *her* pleasure...

Power was so . . .powerful. She'd sometimes forgot that. Her upbringings had been so . . .harsh. And so very, very powerless.

She petted the top of his head and placed her hand beneath his chin, commanding that he look upon her, look at her face even though the very idea of such an action scared him senseless. But he, of course, did as she bade him to.

He beamed his love at her.

She leaned down and kissed the top of his head. The man shuddered in pure ecstasy and fell in a faint, dropping at her feet. The matron at her side snorted and quickly kicked the man aside, motioning for the next worshipper to take his place, but she ignored the new comer and, instead, held out the colorful bit of fluff in her hand and asked the matron what it was.

"Nothing but a fairy, my goddess, a nasty forest fairy. Nothing for you to be concerned with." She reached out as if to take it, but it was quickly withdrawn, protected in cupped, pale hands.

She couldn't hold back the smile, the spark of interest that lit her eyes. "A *fairy*? Like tinkerbell?"

"No, goddess, nothing like that." And the matron knew of such things. She'd spent more years than she cared to remember in the company of The Whites, captured and taken from her home, before she'd been able to escape back into the jungles that were home. She remembered many things. Stories, fantasies, and foolish tales. She remembered, also, their contempt and disbelief in the face of what she knew to be true. And yet, they preached so fervently to her of a god that made the world in less time than a moon's crossing and a man made in his image. She spat, as was her habit upon thinking of them and of that time.

"Naughty girl. That's *nasty* and dirty."

The matron smiled at her goddess. "It cleans them from me." She spoke freely, looked freely. She had learned that she could. She'd been chosen. A payment from the god's for her trials early in life. Now she was servant to one of the great ones. At a god's side.

The goddess spat and frowned up at her. "My them are still with me. Always with me."

Her goddess was young, obviously needing her guidance very much. She was very blessed.

The matron patted her shoulder, and then rubbed it. "You *let* them stay, great one. You must tell them to go. Tell them with all that is in you to go, to leave you."

"I'm almost very sure that I need them. That they are most of what I am." She looked up with clouded eyes, but they quickly cleared and then her pale face cleared and her eyes turned bright, almost as bright as when the bloodlust came into them, and then she held out her hands, opening them, and the fairy wagged its wings, fluttered them, rose, faltered, fluttered them again and, finally, flew away.

"It will come back to me, wont it? Soon?"

The matron tilted her head, confused in the face of her goddess's logic, as she often was. "No goddess, it will never venture into this part of the forest again. It's learned that it's not safe here. It will remember that."

"Oh, but I *loved* it."

The matron bit back her snort, not wanting her back to be flayed raw again for daring to find amusement at the goddess's beliefs. But she did ask. "Then why did you let it go?"

"You love something, you let it go, and it comes back to you."

The matron shook her had and stepped behind her goddess, combing her fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp; sure she'd have one of her headaches with such thinking. "Come back after being let go? What manner of creature would do such a thing, goddess? Only a feeble minded thing, one that you should have no use for. The fairy has wings, goddess, it's in its very nature to fly away. A smart fairy remembers where it's been and flies to different places, not returning to the same, dull places it's already seen and flown through."

"That's so sad."

The matron kissed the top of the goddess Drusilla's head. "No, not at all. Remember, there are many, many fairies. More will come."

Dru looked down at her feet and then beyond them. At all the pretty, pretty men and women ready to die for her. "And men, and women and luscious little boys and little girls? And demons? What of demons? All those that I've lost? All those that have left me? What of all that, woman?"

"Like the fairies, precious, more will come to you. Those that have not seen fit to stay with you are not worthy to keep you, goddess. But if you find that which you wish to keep we can chain them up in the cave. They'll never leave you then. Or we can let them go and wait for others, better beings to find you. We can do what ever it is you wish, my goddess. Whatever you desire."

Dru clapped her hands, once again happy and simply enthralled with the power she'd found here.

Not just one being's dark goddess, nor just another's obsession, but the dark princess of *many* and the obsession of all before her.