Valkyrie of Desire

32. Desired Outcome

Power is the ability to effect change

Skills refine this into something reliable

Whether mundane, mystic, or divine, please practice

—Ola Ishtaran

A warmth spreads from the back of Hildr's throat to the tip of her tongue. The slick man pointing his blade at her has a crack on the surface of his mind. It is a knowing, not a second sight or a vision. Her demigoddess must have granted her minor authority over her divine skill desire. Trust is primed and loaded, a ball of emotion balanced on Hildr's tongue. She huffs, blowing the enchanted air into his face.

Edgewick shrinks back and shudders. To Hildr's mind's eye, deep-red power seeps into the core of his being. His eyes go blank, and his glowing-hot blade dips.

She holds her hand up to his enchanted weapon, and her pale skin turns bronze. "It tingles."

"How are you ... some spell or item that gives you dwarven skin?"

"Something much more interesting than that." She licks her lips. "Unbeknownst to both Minark and Goldstone, I also was a host of Lute. In fact, if Goldstone had the sense to give my Lilethian costume more than a passing glance he would have recognized me as his former fiancée and long time colleague."

Truth is the best adornment for believable lies.

Edgewick taps his dagger's pommel, and it cools. "Your skin ... Is it some divine power because of being a host? Are you Red-aligned?"

Hildr nods and points into the pit where the giant female orc she has been watching straddles five men. The tusked giantess squeezes them between her massive legs. As they squirm and squeal, her enormous belly shudders but does not split.

Hildr pales and pats her stomach. "What are the odds that she gives birth?"

"Better and better each time." Edgewick rolls a full gold piece across his knuckles. "It is a holy carnage, a blessed sight to see. You'll be numb to any sort of butchering for weeks, and the brutality will be burned into your dreams for much much longer."

The orc squats and rubs her bulging belly across the fluffy men, who ruin their sheep costumes by coloring their cotton with piss.

Hildr rolls her eyes. "Nice theatrics, but I prefer a more sporting story than newborn orcs eating bound prey."

The orc straightens and steps away from the sniveling men. The cheers of the audience die down, a few boo, and coins exchange hands.

"Oh, well. Maybe next week." Edgewick tosses his thick gold coin to a dwarf woman wearing a pyramid-shaped hat of brass and a chain-mail dress made with tiny linked triangles of steel.

Hildr rubs her fingers together. "Gambling and pimping, you are the embodiment of Red's temple of sin stereotype."

Edgewick sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles. A scantily clad wench pulls a lever, releasing a thick rope ladder into the pit. The orc climbs out, her bare belly jiggling and little orc faces stretching her skin from the inside.

"This is Pam." He points at the hut-sized orc. "She's not a great conversationalist, but if you ever need someone's head ripped off—"

"I am your lady." Light and articulate, Pam's voice makes a joke of her appearance and Edgewick's words.

Wolf ears twitching, she bends down and holds out her chair-sized hand.

Hildr gulps and puts her own hand on the orc's cushy palm, like a newborn with a mom. "Pleased to meet you."