Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 01

*** The goddess in this was known to many people by many names. In this chapter, she prefers to be known as Astarte, while many others knew her as Ashtoreth.

Same-same, and she had many other names. This story came about partly because of my humorous thought that it must have been a bitch to be someone like that and try to figure out what you were supposed to be and to whom. :)

Anyway, I found this the other day. Couldn't believe it had been three years since I wrote it. Oh there are things languishing on hard drives and zip drives ....

4 chapters total, trying to post them all in one sitting. ~snicker~ Gawd, I hope this works. 0_o

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Hmm, I dunno, maybe 2000 years, BC.

She was drawn to it out of disbelief and a strong desire to learn that it was a mistake; drawn to the burning refuse pit in the valley set aside for the purpose and specifically, to one part of it - about the last place where she'd have ever wanted to go, Tophet – a place mentioned in many scriptures for a few cultures and many sects. The drums and the chants of the priests and priestesses, the songs of the temple prostitutes, the din which assaulted the ears.

And all of it there, all of that sound being made to cover the high, thin screams of agony which came from the poor unfortunates who were the sacrificial offerings.

When she'd first heard of the practice she'd been doubtful, not believing the talk from her sister goddess Ba'alat Gebal.

"Who would do such a thing?" she asked, "In the name of one of us? Even for them, it is hard to believe."

"Worse still than that," her sister had said, "the name is different there, but the offerings are to you, Astarte. As with many of us, we are known by many names to many of the humans. They know you as Tinnit there. To them, you are the wife of Hammon."

Astarte's jaw fell open, "But I have never been there; I have had my hands full finding out that the three of us sisters are wives to our brother.

These humans with their incessant din; wanting this, pleading for that. How did we become a part of this? They imagine something and then they chant that it is what is real. Some of the things that they fight and go to war over, I tell you, Gebal. There are times when I go to a battlefield and learn that BOTH of the kings claim to sleep with me every night. Once denounces the other as a prevaricator, and then armies clash. I have come close to smiting them all a good blow behind the ear."

Her sister nodded, "Worse than children."

Those words had brought her to see this abominable thing for herself.

And that was what she saw.

She turned away and walked off through the dust and blowing ashes, her nose assailed by the sweet and sickly smell of burning human flesh.

These fools, she thought, they possess only a tiny margin of intelligence above the cattle that they keep.

She snorted in disgust; wanting the stench to be gone from her mind and knowing that as long as she remained here, maybe even long afterward whenever the thought crossed her mind, she'd remember this smell.

The foulness of one of the worst acts that she could imagine caused her mind to reel. The breaking of perhaps the oldest and most profound trust and responsibility that these stupid creatures could possess made her want to vomit.

That took some doing in her case, she admitted to herself.

Besides a lot of other things which these idiots and others like them had assigned to her, she was a goddess of war to many. As such, it took a lot to affect her sensibilities, but she found them affected now. She preferred the smells of the battlefield to this; the scent of freshly-spilled blood in the air along with the sweat – even if it was sometimes the sweat of men's fear. The shit and the dust - even that was far better than this.

She didn't know these ones. She heard none of their prayers, knew nothing of their beseeching words to her and yet; it still affected her. Worse that she'd seen it now with her own eyes.

Children thrown alive into the roaring flames as sacrifices to her.

By their own parents.

And for what?

The hope that she'd be so pleased by this insanity that their unimportant little lives might go a little easier in any of the areas which their priests told them that she ruled over? As though the self-important little animals knew anything of this.

She'd never spoken to even one of the bearded fools, yet they told that she often spoke to them and demanded this of them. She spat in disgust, hoping that it would get the taste of the stench out of her mouth, and knowing that it wouldn't.

To have this done in your name – as though you were supposed to be pleased and honored by the practice ... She wanted to weep. She was drawn here in disbelief, and now that she'd seen it, all that she felt was horror and revulsion.

And a slowly rising rage.

She looked up at the sky, seeing what these cretins could not see.

Demons.

Great circling flocks of the things wheeling overhead, darkening the sky for miles. They were drawn here by the sounds and the suffering. They fed on it.

"Ah, so you have come this time," a rasping voice grated in her ear.

The goddess turned to find one demon who was a little familiar to her – one that she loathed for what he'd done to her while she slept. He'd slipped his thin little thing into her and had his way and she'd known nothing. He'd done it many times, until she awoke one time and she'd very nearly killed him. If she'd known that she was pregnant by then, she'd have torn him to pieces.

The child that she was raising was his and she loved her son because the thing was her progeny too.

But she didn't have to like the father.

She saw him, but didn't look twice, "Can you understand these idiots? If so, you can explain things to me. If not, then come just a little nearer so that I may give you my love properly."

"Not likely," the foul one chuckled, "the memory of the pain that you caused me the last time is still fresh for me. But I can understand their words, yes. It is a great day for us, my kind. I would not have missed this for anything."

She stomped her foot down at her next step to turn and the valley echoed with the thunder of it.

Enough.

She walked back, seeing the humans paused in uncertainly over it. They saw nothing and looked to their priests – who immediately exhorted them to throw their progeny into the flames even faster.

Her eyebrows knitted together and she gritted her teeth. They wanted a sign?

Well she'd give them one then.

She appeared before them all just as the priests said that she looked; proud, angry, and in all of her naked and horned splendor, fifty feet tall and stamping her feet in her rage.

The parents of one small girl fell dead by her thought, just as they were stepping up to the precipice to commit this crime. The child fell to the ground in a little wailing ball, and a high priest ran up to grab the child and throw her, desperate now to appease the goddess. She couldn't believe it.

These snakes.

These filthy vermin, they even believed their own lies!

She flung out her hand beside her and the ones in the flames and not already gone fell dead then, ending this for them.

She seized the man before he could do any more harm and lifted him up.

His jewellery and the finery that he wore disappeared as he flailed screaming in fear with a long trail of the urine of his terror flowing out of him.

"LOOK!" she roared at them in speech they could not comprehend, "He is no different than you! His kind grow fat from not having to work. They demand that you give them food and gold because they lie to you! And you ALLOW this?"

She held him up higher and she looked into his eyes. He raised his hands in supplication and prayer, beseeching her.

She spit into his face and turned to the demon that the people could not see and she spoke in a tongue which only his kind understood and the humans knew nothing of.

Her words slid from between her teeth – to the absolute joy of the demon, "How many of his own children has this pig burned in his offering to me? Speak, oh flapping filth!"

"I so enjoy your rage, my dear, "he laughed, "I think it is why I love you so." But he drew away a little all the same. There was no gain to be had in raising her ire if it was to be directed at him.

"He has seven; five by his wife and one each with his mistress and one of the temple whores. The children of the priests are exempt as offerings in their cult to you."

Astarte sneered, "Tell them that it is not so. Tell them that the children of the priests who lead them are the ONLY ONES which I want. Tell them this." She tried to keep a straight face, doubting that her remark would result in many offerings now.

As the voice of the demon spoke to them all, seven people of various ages, four of them small children, dropped to the ground, their young live snuffed out painlessly in different places in the crowd. Three women began to wail. After a moment spent in her seeking to know who the women were, they fell dead as well, though their passing carried with it the knowledge that they were dying.

She'd stopped their hearts, and that was all, so there were the few seconds, ...

"Tell him that his observances to me are almost sufficient now."

There was no reply and she looked over, seeing the shock on that infernal face.

"Tell it to him," she seethed through her teeth.

She waited as it was said to the upset man and the rest. When it was done, she noticed the way that the demon had gotten a little too close to her and not seen his own peril. The priest still hung in the air, though what held him up could not be seen now.

What could be seen easily however was the large demon suddenly there in her grasp as she began to tear pieces from him.

He managed to croak out a one-word question when he asked her why.

"Why did you use me as I slept?" she retorted.

"Someone must have told them to do this. You can understand them. Perhaps it was you, who would fuck a sleeping female with a prick so pitiful that she would sleep right through it. Do you feel pride for it and how you leave me to do the work of the raising of your child?"

He saw him shake his head feebly, but she went on until there was one less of them.

Good things come to those who wait, she thought to herself.

If they wait for their chance long enough.

There were screams from the crowd and she could see that they were about to panic, but she raised her hand and no one could move then.

She drew a breath, needing to think. She knew that she was too upset right now and frustrated that they couldn't understand her.

She turned to the man in her grasp, still needing an outlet for her revulsion over this barbarous practice. She held him in the air while the flames of her wrath licked over him very slowly. For his part in what had been done in her name, she intended to let him hang there and scream in agony for the rest of the day. Whenever she thought of it, she'd allow him to die, but not before he felt the agony of many fiery deaths.

But now she was just getting started.

"RUN!" she screamed at the people and the stampede began. She knew that they didn't understand what she'd said, but she'd had little doubt that their reaction was predictable and of course, they ran for their lives. Scores of them were trampled, but by then, she didn't care.

It made her smile a little, feeling just a little bit better now. The noise from the fool in the air beside her faded as she moved him off into the valley. The hottest part of the blaze would be his home for the next several hours. She wouldn't allow him to pass into peace, oh no, ...

Not for a long time yet.

She looked down as the sound of the exodus faded, hearing one sobbing voice still.

The goddess bent down, thinking to use a soft voice to calm the little one, but it was all too much for the child and when she looked up, she still saw a vision which caused her to reel backward as she jumped to her feet and backpedaled.

Right off the rocky edge.

Before her little body landed on the heated rocks below, the goddess had her in her hand.

She drew herself down to the right size for these creatures and she patiently held the child and spoke to her. It took a long time since they couldn't understand each other, but eventually, the soothing tone got through and the weariness in the aftermath of her terror overcame the youngster. She set the girl down where she stood weeping.

The goddess saw a little waif whose trust had been shattered and yet she didn't understand why her parents were dead. She was too young to comprehend why they'd been trying to throw her from the cliff. The goddess saw this and took the memories from her in a little mercy. The little girl sat down confused, still a little upset and now not knowing just why.

She began to settle down at last and the goddess did the only thing that she could think of and picked her up again, cradling her gently as she brought that tired and distraught little face to her breast.

The child was too old for this, but it was working; since after a moment, she felt the little one begin to suckle uncertainly. But the milk of a goddess can change many things, ...

She slowly walked away holding the girl, wondering just what she'd do with this one, who'd done nothing in her innocence to deserve the horrific fate from which she'd been spared. At least she'd saved one.

Thankfully, the sensation of nursing a child soothed her wrath. But it did nothing to stop the hardening of her resolve that this stupidity be ended.

Thirty minutes later, she sat the little one down in the temple which had been erected in her name – one of her names anyway, she smirked.

These people were Phoenicians of a sort. It was a long way from here to where she'd first been worshiped, she thought. But then, she knew that there were other groups who prayed to her, though these ones were the only ones who sacrificed their own to her and in her name as far as she was now aware.

She doubted that there was anything that she could do to get them to stop, but she knew what she was going to do to these ones.

She wrapped the girl up in a soft blanket and put her to sleep with a warm thought.

Then she stood up and turned.

All of the doorways in the large temple were sealed shut – even the open archways which had no doors.

Astarte strode through the halls and the corridors of the building, seeking the priests and the priestesses, looking now for every single attendant and temple prostitute. One by one she ended their foul lives in various horrific ways. All of the leading members of this cult to her – even the ones not there presently perished in agony.

When she was done an hour later, the walls and the floors were red and sticky with their blood.

When she came back to the child, she found her awake and standing next to her son. The two young ones smiled as they looked at each other for a moment.

The little girl, not more than four years old, walked to the goddess uncertainly with her hand on the back of the four-footed little monster which the goddess had given birth to and when they reached her, the girl lifted her little arm and held onto the flank of the goddess to lay her head against the deity's lower belly and suck her thumb.

Astarte smiled because she was a mother and she couldn't help it. She eased herself down to her knees and reached for the unlikely pair. "Come then," she smiled softly, "my little family has no business in this place anymore. Take what I have for you first and then we may go home."

The young pair each found a blood-spattered breast and she closed her eyes as they suckled, each one hungry and yet straining their eyes to look at the other.

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Hammah grew to be an olive-skinned beauty, a source of pride to her adoptive goddess mother Astarte as the years passed. Graced with long black hair and a lithe and perfect build, she was the envy of even other goddesses, though she was not one herself.

The fact was that she wasn't human anymore either. The years passed her by with almost no effect at all, and other than being given to moments of wilfulness the odd time, she never once gave her mother cause to regret taking her as her own child all that time ago. Astarte hadn't given it any thought back then on that foul day, but there had been effects to what was done.

Hammah had taken to the breast again easily, and it gave the goddess a little time of a week or so to plan on weaning her son Jorret and re-weaning Hammah, feeding them both solid food at the same time and quite easily then. She remembered the time fondly when she'd nursed the two and spoke to them of many things.

Her milk gave Hammah a few godlike qualities and of course, the changeable Jorret already had them, but there had been another factor that day. It had only happened twice that first day, but that was all that was required. What coated the body of the goddess lightly that day was a mixture of dust, ash, sweat and the blood of her many victims. Her breasts ran with it more than once – several times, actually. Astarte had been a nursing mother back then and sometimes her nipples would weep a little milk if she was overfull and exerting herself.

What came to Jorret was nothing more than he already had, but what Hammah got in with the other things was the essence of a demon's blood from when Astarte had slaughtered Jorret's father. Along with the milk of the goddess, a few of the latent tendencies of a race of demons known to the various Mesopotamian tribes, for example as gallu came to the little one.

She only nursed at Astarte's blood-covered nipples twice. When the goddess took them to their home, she bathed them and herself before she went further in integrating the little girl into her life. But it was done then.

Hammah grew a little ill for only a day, but after that, Astarte wasn't the only one with horns on her head which could be hidden from everyone but those with the sight to see them. She learned the languages of gods and demons with the ease of a child.

The two children became inseparable – whenever they weren't squabbling. Hammah' strength and abilities grew, but until they waxed as she came into her own, her sibling Jorret kept her from harm in the dark places and scrapes that the two often found themselves in. He could easily pass for a human as well, but oftentimes, he found that his quadrapedal form was often 'handier'.

Like that, he was still changeable, but for the most part, he padded along beside Hammah looking a little reptilian and yet he wore some fur over his back. The face then wasn't human at all and his jaws were studded with long teeth and the finishing effect was the long tail. Wings were an option for both of them, but weren't often used, unless there was no other choice as a means of transportation.

A lot of the time, Hammah just rode on her adoptive brother's back.

Something which had bothered the girl a little and her sibling not at all was the knowledge that for them, there likely would never be anyone else for a mate. Jorret just never gave it a thought – he could see himself living for Hammah, since he pretty much always had from the first time that he'd laid his demonic eyes on her dirty little tear-streaked face that first day.

Hammah knew – somewhere inside herself, that they'd be together, but she tried to look elsewhere now and then. Her luck at times like that was often spectacular in the measure of its failure.

No god-child wanted her, the adopted human daughter of a goddess known to have lain with a demon. Not that it had happened that way, but the god-kind can be just as stupid as man in these things. No demon wanted her – other than for one thing, not that Hammah minded that too much, but there were times when she wanted a little conversation and a male who was fun to be with.