Somewhere warm and gentle (A Mother's Love; Full)

►This chapter reiterates preview and then continues where it left off, but also includes a written description of Elmerelda.
►If you want new content; ctr-f and search or scroll down to the line: "Thank you!" She says, fingers tracing my hair. "We could just stay like this too, if you like..."
►Published Early due to maintaining a 6 vote lead over its nearest competitor when, atm, votes are only coming in 1-2 a day maybe.
{reveal "Author's Note"}[ AN: A lot of exposition this chapter. Much of it can be learned from reading through the extent reference materials, but the way the Goddess reacts the telling might also tell the discerning reader some things. ]{endreveal}

When the chaos stills... It's warm.

Water rustles about my body, stirred only by my breath, my pulse, and the slight ministrations of a gentle hand.

It's like I fell asleep in the bath? Not that I've done that, but that's the feeling. The perfect warmth, a slight dampness. An amniotic embrace.

What, am I being born again now?

"Would you like to be?" A voice - the same as before. Warm, motherly, friendly and... perhaps eager? "I could send you on your way, but-"

My eyes open and—

...then widen considerably.

A woman with a girlish face, perfectly soft-yet athletic body, and a pair of that're each the size of her whole damn ribs. Like, beyond G-Cup, yet somehow natural looking and retaining attractive form.

And they're just... out there, like the rest of her; totally naked and on display without a trace of shame as she holds me in her lap.

Her eyes are brilliant, strangely familiar blue, with similarly familiar brown hair that falls - long and straight - behind her ass to presumable pool in the water behind her.

She's got pointed ears with pale-teal fins, a set of massive double-arched horns the splay to either side of her head, and her legs and forearms are both adorned with aesthetically placed aqua-green fish scales.

The Goddess - what else could she be in this dark, yet luminous void? - giggles, blushing prettily like a schoolgirl. Somehow, I don't think it's an affectation, but she schools herself remarkably quickly.

I can't help it, the words just slip out: "-hot damn."

►"Thank you!" She says, fingers tracing my hair. "We could just stay like this too, if you like..."

It's tempting. Honestly, it really is. Comfortable, being tended to by a Goddess... but that's not life, right?

"Tempting as that is, and beautiful as you are," The Goddess trills at that. Like a bird or something - melodic clicks mixed with a feline purr, "I, um..."

I glance to one side with a blush. The water is unfathomably deep, yet I can see our reflections in it perfectly.

"You...?" The Goddess gently encourages, hands continuing to wind and unwind my hair as if to savor its texture. It kind of sounds like she already knows what I'm getting at, she just wants me to put it into words.

"Well, it kind of sounds dumb - or maybe ungrateful? - but... I don't want to die. I don't want to 'be dead,' either. I still... I never got to do so many things, you know?"

The Goddess hums encouragingly, and I continue.

"So... about being 'born again.' What does that entail? And could I just, um, go as I am if I want?"

The Goddess giggles, and her thighs flex beneath me, "Of course! I could send you just as you are - healthy and hale, of course - or birth you into the world anywhere my power resonates. Generally speaking - most any type of wilderness you can name, a coastal kingdom, the forests of the elves, or..." She pauses, and her reflection smiles coquettishly, "...somewhere special."

Then she blinks, and her fair-colored rosy flush again, "Oh! And you could understand it as something like..."

My scalps shivers, as if I just had a deep rinse, then she continues, "...a 'fantasy mix & match' type world I suppose? Humans and other creatures that seem wonderfully familiar like elves, dwarves, and goblins," All of these with the same level of affection and care, like a mother proudly talking about her children. Even the Goblins.

"Monster-Girls too, of course~" She giggles, shifting her thighs and angling her head such that her horns glisten. "If there's a variety our world lacks, but you'd like to embody," She leans in conspiratorially, "you could be the first~♥!"

She gives me a bit of time to process that, so I ask, "...Um. That sounds great but... what about the troubles? It's surely not a perfect world down there, right?"

The Goddess nods daintily, "Mhm. It's surely not. Twisted things gather in the miasma of the Tainted Peaks, warping mind, body, and sometimes soul to suit the Haze's insatiable need for 'more.'" She says, voice low and condemning, "and in certain hidden places, elves afflicted by a curse have made it self-sustaining and lost their way, twisting all they can claim to pleasure without purpose, sex without children, and lust without love." This, it seems, offends her even more.

Then she pauses.

"...And the demons of chilly Aphelios," she says solemnly and almost tenderly, "If you renounce the Gods which shelter you-" She gives a ghost of a wink, but the smile has left her eyes, "-and pray to the wrong being, or in the wrong circumstance, you'll find yourself changed and twisted. They have become a blight upon the world," she sighs, "a festering tumor that cannot be lanced, yet refuses to heal."

Her hands, playing with my hair, seem to hold it slightly tighter. Not enough to hurt, but as if to grasp something 'else' through me and desperately pull it close. Then she steadies herself, and resumes her gentle stroking - with extra care as if to apologize.

"Beyond these terrible, depraved, and tragic powers," The Goddess says, voice elevating back toward cheer in the way only one with long practice can do, "you would likely also be concerned with the ****-trading of the Dark Elves or Duergar, the zealotry of the well-meaning Tartagalia, or the typical raids of Goblins and other 'uncivilized,'" she says the world with a tilt of her head, audible apostrophes, and a roll of her cerulean eyes, "creatures."

"You say that almost like you don't care for civilization," I hedge daringly.

The Goddess blinks, hands releasing my hair to wave frantically, "No! No, of course not! I love all life born into the world - I put it there to be loved." And that tells a lot, although I suspected, "It's just..." She hums, "...the principle that outside exploitation for pleasure or exploitation's sake alone, such as with the Wyrd, or the Dark Elves, or the Duergar... the notion that any one being's way of life is inherently 'more' than another's is baffling to me."

She taps her thigh, choosing her words, "A human starts a grand and epic romance within a society of strict rules. A goblin steals a bride from a farm and makes her his own. So long as there's no needless **** not required by the natural cycles of the world, then to me these are both perfectly valid means of living. All my children are my children, however they have grown and evolved to be - so long as they are obeying their natural directives and inclinations, nurturing their young and the mothers of their children, and not profaning my domains (birth, fertility, adoption, charity, monster girls, and rebirth) - then I love them all just the same."

She pauses. "Do you... dislike that?"

Why does she sound so **** when I'm the supplicant held in her lap? Either way, I think I get it? 'Gods are not human.' Her standards are far looser and more all-encompassing than mine. "I understand, I think. Um. I can't say I like the notion of you enabling or empowering something to take a woman and ra-"

She waves her hands frantically again, "Of course not! I don't empower the courtship, am I a Goddess of Lo-" She sighs, trailing off wistfully, before demurely recomposing, "-ahem. Love? Not at all. However, I bless the results. The birth is painless, the child and mother healthy, but the union itself? I don't lean one way or another. Perhaps I might make you more virile if you've many children, or help you out subtly, but I won't **** things or enable you to **** yourself onto another. That wouldn't be very charitable of me, you see?"

So she doesn't directly endorse **** sex, she just blesses the results to keep the mother and child healthy. It feels like there should be an 'unfortunate' in there but I don't think, to this Goddess, any mother can be unfortunate to have a child unless it's like, literally cursed or something. It also sounds like if the process is needlessly cruel, she's liable to punish the perpetrator, but that feels - to my human morals - like a sliding scale of morality.

If I had to guess, she's definitely a very nature-aligned Goddess; fair largely in her unfairness, despite her generally well-meaning and benign personality. I should probably stop questioning her domains so much - I'm already literally in the lap of her power. I shouldn't offend her. Even if she, somehow, seems happy to keep me here and talk about nearly anything.

"Okay. Alright. Um, then..." I kind of feel like I need to get out of this conversation. Comfortable as her lap and this water is, my anxiety is finally catching up to the surrealness of the situation and I'm worried I'm about to say something unwise. "...about, um, being reborn...?"

The Goddess blinks, "Yes. Of course! Look at me, talking and rambling so much," she says, as if she weren't answering questions I asked, "What species would you like to be? What class? Where in the world? Anything's on the table as long as my power can reach," she says this last piece lightly, as if it's inconceivable I would do it yet she feels obliged to say it anyway, "and you don't profane my domains, of course."

Matter of factly, she continues, "As for classes.. other than the standard options and the rebirth I've already offered, basically any conventional 'fantasy' archetype is on the table? With some special flare; I could make you a Fertility Cleric, or Paladin, or a Mage of Genesis... or even a Monster-Girl Tamer," she winks salaciously, "if you like. So! What will it be, dear?"

I...

►[ Race Options: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Any Natural Monster Girl ]
►[ Class Options: Commoner, any stock fantasy class (Fighter, Mage, Rogue, etc.), Cleric (Sanctified or Fertility), Paladin (Sanctified or Fertility), Genesis Mage, Monster-Girl Tamer. ]
►[ Possible Starting Locations: Wilderness (specified biome), Maeraegean Reefs, Deepmoon, Goddess' Choice ]
►[ Starting Boons: Affection of the Goddess ]

⚠ [Banned Options:
—Class: Warlock, Thief, Necromancer - similarly exploitative classes or otherwise subversive of Elmerelda's domains (Birth, Fertility, Rebirth, Adoption, Charity, Natural Monster Girls)
—Race: Unnatural Monster Girls (Demonkind, Homunculi, Haze-Entities, Golems, Undead, etc.)
—Locations: Wilderness (Frost-Wastes, Tainted Peaks, Wyrdglade, Wyrd-Maw)

BASELINE PROFILE

James Jordanson: A twenty y/o man from a peculiar iteration of Earth - he was studying sexual entertainment and performance arts in the early track before one would split into focusing on either performance or management. He's got a keen intuition which is constantly at-war with his self-conscious anxiety. He's got blue eyes, relatively short and messy brown hair, and tends to wear very casual clothing. He has a love of anime and rpgs, particularly of the lewd variety, as well as adult female streamers.

Race & Class: Human Commoner
{reveal "Core Stats (Scaling from 1 to 5 within mortal limits)"}
Brawn: 2
Skill: 3
Constitution: 3
Willpower: 2
Academia: 3
Insight: 5
Affinity: 5
Spirit: 1 {endreveal}

Status Effects: Goddess' Affection
{reveal "Goddess' Affection"} Status: Goddess' Affection. Type: Nascent Divine Blessing (Luck, Love, Fertility) Description: Even the sea once fell as rain from a distant star. Effects: —Higher Base Affection with ??? —Higher Magic Affinity (Divine) —Good fortune. —Goddess has dibs on your soul; corruption and mind-control from unnatural sources is completely negated so long as you don't renounce this defense. {endreveal}

►Note: The author does not intend to have players micromanage James; stats are more a measure of how he operates, what he will generally fail or succeed at, etc. In a better world, I'd have the time to make some gated choices that scale off them but... well, I scarcely have time to write as it is - hence the planned weekly / bi-weekly update schedule. And avoidance of micromanaging.
►When You'll Vote: Major decision points - e.g. which city to visit while on the road, whether or not to aid or trust a traveler met on your way (if it's important for you to weigh in), etc.