"Talla?"
She turned to see Meena looking at her, somewhat concerned.
"Hey."
"Hey. Uh -"
"What?" Talla asked.
"Whatchupto?" Meena asked.
"Not much," Talla said. She jerked her head to the doorway behind her, indicating the Office of the Sorceress of Strength. "I just got permission for a special upgrade."
"Really?" Meena asked, her voice still more worried than surprised.
"Yeah," Talla said. "I guess it's unhealthy to have four Abundance upgrades without any Strength."
"Lucky you," Meena acknowledged with a nod. "Be careful."
Talla became suddenly aware of the scroll cylinder in her hand. Meena had noticed her pilferage, even if no one else had.
"Uh, yeah."
"Use the brown wax," Meena said, very quietly. "And be careful, sister."
Meena left with a warning purse of her lips before darting off on some errand or other.
That gave Talla pause. She thought she had been subtle. No one else seemed to have spared her as much as a glance. Any girl in a white skirt, hurrying about, might as well be a drapery of some kind for all the higher ranks paid any attention.
No matter. Her mind was set. She could grab a sheet of parchment from anywhere. And if Meena told her to use brown wax, then brown wax it would be.
-----------===================-------------
The Goddess usually summoned her Sorceresses in the middle of the night. Whether that was for safety, habit or simply a desire to sleep during the day, one could never say.
Nevertheless, when one's Goddess sent a Summons -- even in the middle of the afternoon - one dropped one's business and went directly.
The Sorceress of Pussy was no exception to this rule.
The guards at the entrance to her Eminence's innermost sanctum didn't even nod as she passed. When she'd received the summons, she'd changed to her simplest outfit. She wore a dark green skirt, tight as they were made, together with the smallest bikini top the Temple afforded and a simple sash across one of her breasts.
She passed down a long hallway and through a pair of doors. There was a small room there where two more fully armoured guards waited. Wordlessly, she undid her skirt and handed it to one. If they were surprised that she wore nothing underneath it, they gave no indication upon seeing the luxurious hair that the skirt had covered.
After her skirt was examined and found to contain no weapons, it was handed back to her.
Goddesses took no chances. Neither did their guards. Pussy had known this when she'd received the summons and it was for the swiftness of her passage that she'd changed in the first place.
Through another set of doors, leaving the guards behind, she came finally to the central office of the Goddess.
Black was the motif here. Where obsidian and ebony could not be found, walls were painted black and glittered with silver and golden flecks. Curtains were grey and yellow and speckled the same way. Sunlight filtered in, shadowed in to yellow and gold, reflected off mirrors and brightly polished surfaces. Black torchstands stood unlit in the day time.
The Goddess stood in front of her desk, looking -- to Pussy's eyes - not quite right. It was too early for her to be dying, so it couldn't be that.
She was not alone, however. She and a dozen other women of varying ranks stood waiting by chairs in a circle.
Varying ranks, yes, the Sorceress thought, but not varying Disciplines.
She knew every one of them.
"That will be all," the Goddess called out to the Virgin and Initiate attendants that lined the wall by the entrance.
Each one curtsied carefully and the lot of them filed out in order.
When they were gone, she gave another order: "Seal the doors."
This was promptly done by two Adepts who braced the door with wooden beams left there for precisely that purpose. Strong women, they were. Women of Pussy, to be certain, but inducted in to this group for the other upgrades they held. Since Form women could not be recruited, others would have to serve their roles. And Form women would never be inducted in to this group.
When Pussy took her place in the circle, the Goddess carefully rose from her seat.
"We begin," she said, quite formally, making thirteen women come to stiffer attention.
She unlaced the ankle-length skirt about her waist and laid it over the back of her chair. Thick, luxurious hair, black as the fixtures that decorated her domain, covered her genitals. She sat down, leaving her legs spread just slightly. It would have been inappropriate anywhere else. But this meeting was special.
The Sorceress went next, removing her much simpler skirt and taking a seat. She left her legs slightly spread, just as her superior did.
They went down the ranks from there. Most of them were from the orange ranks -- Officers and Acolytes I and II. They removed their tiny underwear like bottoms and sat in their places. The last two members, the lowly Adepts chosen for their physical strength, removed their grass skirts.
It would have wildly unthinkable, in any other place, to have such a juxtaposition of clothing. A Goddess with her genitals exposed while those who held no Perfections weren't completely naked? Unforgivable! And here she was, a Sorceress stripped to a sash and bikini top while an Adept sat next to her in exactly the same clothing?
But here it didn't matter. What mattered was that this group, this clandestine group, were the genealogists. Genealogy was the province of Pussy. And so, to symbolize the true purpose of these meetings, they bared their genitals -- the very thing which defined them -- to one another.
"I carry a child," the Goddess said, provoking a gleeful and collective intake of breath.
"It is most certainly," she continued, "the child of Finch, a Goddess-born himself."
They had all known that getting pregnant via this man, or one of the few other Goddess-born available, had been the goal. It was still a relief, however, to understand that this goal had been achieved.
"Within has been here for my examination, and has been sworn to secrecy."
That was important to know, that a new member had been inducted -- even if forcibly -- in to their membership. The fact that the new member was a Sorceress made it a vital matter.
"How did she take it?" Pussy asked.
"Stoically. How else?"
It might have been a joke. No one laughed. They didn't do a lot of humour at these meetings.
"I am healthy and the child appears to be as well," the Goddess went on. "I will need to stay as secluded as I can for the next five months. Yana?"
"Eminence," one of the Officers acknowledged. "I've drawn up schedules to keep members of this group at your side as often as possible for the duration. We cannot trust Virgins and Initiates to keep secrets, nor can we exclude them from this room without arousing suspicion. You will have to remain behind your desk when they are here and dismiss them as often as it pleases you."
The Goddess rubbed her eyes.
"I have already made a habit of dismissing them with some frequency," she said. "No one should notice a continuation of that habit."
She took a breath and rubbed her belly.
"I don't remember any of my previous pregnancies being this difficult."
No one responded to this. 'Age' was the unspoken reply. Time was a precious commodity to someone carrying so much Perfection -- time that she was further sacrificing with this pregnancy. There was nothing for that. The long running mission of this group was more important than any single woman's health or longevity.
Besides, all those Perfections had to give her some shelter from the normal miseries of pregnancy, didn't they?
