A late arrival to the gala drew my attention to the main door, partly because I could sense Michelle’s disgust.  There was a man who looked to be in his 50’s, fit but not in the rush of youth.  The woman at his side, however, couldn’t have been over 30 or I’d drink something nasty.  His tux was standard issue for the night, but her dress made my eyes narrow.

                It was a cascade of red sequins that hugged her lush curves.  The gloating look on her face told me she expected to get away without repercussion for wearing a color the family had been told to avoid.  The red paired with a high-end bleach job made her impossible to ignore.  Zothie noted this as well, his eyes flashing with the darkness between the stars. 

                I laid a hand on his arm.  “I got this.”

                “I’ll back you play, Dread Sister,” he said, subtly reminding me of how he saw me. 

                “Michelle,” I called, loud enough that the people who’d congregated near us could hear.  “That female is breaking Our dress code.  Send her away to change.  She gets one chance to comply.”

                “Yes, My Sacred Psyche,” Michelle said, rising to her feet before bowing to us.  She walked away with an aggressive swing to her hips.  I be this was the CEO and his wife that had given her issues in the past.  Yeah, fun.

                I felt Dani’s unease behind me and when she asked to be allowed to fly up to the rafters supporting the giant skylights above us, I nodded my ascent.  She left my side in a flutter of white wings as I turned my attention to Michelle and the couple she was walking to.

                As she talked to them, I saw the couple move enough to the side to reveal a young woman, I almost wanted to say girl, in a drab black cocktail dress that was ill fitting at best.  Her eyes were wide as she looked toward us, meeting mine for a moment before looking at the floor, clearly distressed.  I reached for her mind without thinking about it.

                “Are you ok?”

                ”I don’t want to be here, they just want to offer me up like a concub-,” she sent back before gasping, jaw dropping.  She looked to me again.  “How did you- who are you- oh fuck!“

                “I’m the Psyche, the lady in red on the platform,” I thought to her with a wave.  I stepped down from the platform, tendrils held close behind me as I walked over.  “Why are you scared?  You’ve done nothing to offend me.  I’m not a goddess of fashion.”

                “This dress is awful,” she wailed mentally, olive cheeks turning bright pink.  “My step-unit made me wear it, said I couldn’t look better than her.”

                “Another mark against her,” I growled aloud.  At the sound of my voice so close by, the girl dropped to her one knee gracefully, bypassing bowing all together.  Clever girl.

                The man and woman looked at me haughtily, arrogance pouring from them both.  Michelle gave an audible sigh as she turned to bow to me.  Her tone was polite but had an exasperated undercurrent.  “My Sacred Psyche, these are Reginald and Mina Dunamis.  He’s-“

                “Don’t care,” I said, cutting her off.  “Why is this sow in MY color?  She’s not part of Our retinue, nor a candidate for being one of my Priestesses.”

                “Sow?  How dare you!”

                “Ah and you’re a Karen to,” I said, easily hearing the racial epithets she thought. 

                “You’ve no idea,” the girl thought at me.

                “And who are you, young one?”

                “I’m 18.”

                “And I’m #40-2, but most people here on the outside have names, not just numbers.”

                “Oh… I’m Ceres,” she said. 

                “Nice to meet you, bringer of Grain,” I said.  I offered her my hand and pulled her up when she took it.  “So, I ask again, why are you scared?”

                “You’ve never talked my daughter,” Reginald said, looking me up and down.  “She’s not here to chit chat with the likes of you, anyway.”

                It was my turn to frown.  “Oh, you think I’m just a coordinator.  Huh, well screw that idea.”

                At my request, Zothie hit the lights in the room with a bit of that old fashioned magic, leaving me to shimmer in the sudden darkness as I brought up power around me.  Black diamond sparkles filled my eyes and the air around me as I let my tendrils fan out, each ending in a molten glow.  The sparkles of power resonated through my jewelry before causing the gems on Michelle and Luna to light up as well.  Emergency lighting kicked on near the exits, just enough to see the room through but not enough to distract from the light show I was putting on.

                “You can’t be…” the older man whispered.

                “I thought we were supposed to meet gods, not special effects people,” the wife, Mina, said with a scowl. 

                “Michelle, take the little psychic out of the way, please,” I crooned.  I began to walk in a slow, measured circle around them as Michelle pulled Ceres out.  They moved closer to Zothie as I laid my tendrils down into the marble, causing it to hiss and smoke.  I hit the ground sharply as the Zothie brought the lights back up part way, molten sparks of melted marble splashing around me.  Those smart enough to move pressed back, away from the couple that had incurred my wrath.

                “I am the Dread Sister of those born between the stars,” I hissed, tendrils lashing as the earth trembled beneath the ball room with each step I took.  “I see through those vapid little minds of yours and know you for who you truly are.  And were you not carrying a child, I would remind you of your place physically.”

                The floor stilled as I paused in my tightening circles.  “Or perhaps you’ve learned it?  Or at least learned who I am?”

                “The Elder Gods left our world eons ago,” Reginald pointed out, head turning to watch my progress around them.  He stepped between me and his wife when I stopped in front of them again.  “We all know that.”

                “And yet, here I am.”

                “You were grown in a fucking petri dish,” he snarled, bringing a gasp from the room.  “You’re not a real god.  Just a freak with some flashy powers.”

                “Oh, so your biased about how I was made,” I said, laying a hand on his cheek as I started ripping through him mind.  He let out a piteous cry as I searched through him, delving deeply into his memories.  “You, who indulged your third wife, that you cheated on your second with, by getting her IVF treatments to ensure a boy.  Your spawn no better formed than I am, Reggie.  In fact, given that your little trophy tarte here is only a quarter Deep One, I’d say even less so.”

                Gasps in the room- apparently trophy wife had claimed to be only a quarter human, but the fertility clinic had run the tests and shown otherwise. 

                “That’s a lie,” Mina growled at me, stepping from behind her husband as he collapsed to his knees.  He gasped there, body shaking from my assault as she took a wide stance in front of me, hands on her hips.  “You can’t hurt us like this!”

                “Really,” I said and snapped a tendril out to capture her wrist.  Before she could stop me, I pulled the bleach blond fool to me and laid a hand on her face.  I looked into her surface thoughts, though it made me feel really icky to do it.  “Gods, you are just as ignorant and hateful as I thought you’d be, Mina.  And you know the truth- your mother cheated on your father with a human.  Just like your grandmother did.  You’re a quarter Deep One at best.”

                “You bitch,” rang out from across the room followed some scuffling before a man stormed up to us.  He didn’t look that much older than Reginald but had the wits to bow before me, eyes upturned as he asked, “Is it true?  Did her mother cheat on me?”

                “It is indeed,” I said in a sing-song voice.  “That’s part of why Mina insisted on IVF- only real way to be sure of paternity when being a cheating slut is genetic.”

                Mina gave a scream as she attempted to claw my hand away from her cheek.  When that didn’t work, she went after my face, talons flashing in the light of my tendril tips.  I laughed, bringing another tendril to grab the offending wrist. I slammed a fist into her chest, knocking the air from her lungs and spun her around to face away from me.  Using my tendrils, I pulled her close to me, a burning tendril so close to her hair that part of it began to smoke.

                I wrinkled my nose at the scent as I murmured, “We didn’t have to do this, you know.  You could have just followed the rules.  I’m pretty easy going normally.”

                “My husband is the next in line to be Chief of the Family,” she hissed at me, still too mad for any kind of common sense.  “I don’t have to follow your rules.”

                “Your hair is burning,” I pointed out, using my hand to tap the ashes where she could see them.  “And what makes you think your husband’s potential position matters to me?”

                “Please, let my wife go,” Reginald said softly, seeing the danger his wife was in before she did.  Though as he was still on the floor from my digging through his skull, he had a better perspective than she did.

                “Is that really how you should plead to a goddess,” I purred, running a tendril over her bare arm.  She screamed in pain as her skin turned raw, red and obviously painful.  Her arm matched her dress now.  I slapped a tendril across her mouth to shut her up.  “Your latest wife is an idiot, Reggie, you know that.  Whatever could you see in her that would make you leave your second wife for her?”

                “She got pregnant during our affair, I had to marry her,” Reggie said and there was a trace of regret in his tone as he knelt on the floor.

                “But it was another daughter?”

                “Yes,” he said with a frown, and I could read in his mind that he had three daughters now.  None of which he cared for as deeply as the potential son in Mina’s womb. 

                I looked over my shoulder to Zothie.  “Is this bitch going to whelp a boy this time?”

                “If she survives long enough to do so,” he called back to me in a thunderous growl.