He wasn’t surprised she couldn’t understand his attraction to Kid. In some ways, he didn’t either. But he could not deny the power that had drawn him to this wonderful creation, and still captivated him even after so long without his company.
A sound, like something moving in the nearby shrubbery, startled Eilee.
“Sshh,” Treycore insisted.
Wings, like those of a giant bat, fanned out in an overhanging branch and soared to another tree.
“Glippers,” Eilee muttered.
“Glippers?” Treycore asked.
“They’re our ancestors. The first attempt at higherlings. A failure on the Almighty’s part. They were imbued with some of His most unpleasant attributes.”
The creature’s wings fanned out again. It descended and landed before them on the ground, standing like any higherling, though it seemed to crouch somewhat, and its cock was far smaller than anything the Almighty would have gifted his privileged creations. Where the Almighty had normally placed hair on the scalp of his divine creations, this creature had serpents, which slithered around his face like they had been disturbed by his quick descent from the tree. The yellow-eyed snakes’ scales were green—just a few shades darker than the scales that covered the glipper’s olive-colored body.
He stared at them through black irises. As he opened his mouth, he revealed fangs.
“Oh, beautiful images of the Almighty, how effortlessly flawless you appear.” He spoke in the language of old, the language of heavenly realms. “And what great honor, might I ask, brings you in the presence of the most heinous pieces of creation? Have you come to remedy us? To transform us into something worthy of existence beneath the Almighty’s gaze? I speculate not.
“Regardless of your motive, I feel it’s generous of me to warn you that many others have come before you, members of your divine order. Some have come to destroy, some to save. Without exception, we have devised the most vicious and cruel of punishments for them.”
“Punishments?” Eilee asked. “What did they do to deserve to be punished?”
“For being allowed to reign in ways we never were. For being His pride, rather than His shame. For being adored, rather than detestable. You in particular, fair higherling, must know least about the sort of pain we have been through. With smooth hair like the yellow flowing secretions of our cocks, and eyes like a clear-blue morning, surely you have never known rejection as we have.”
Treycore glanced at Eilee, awaiting some indication of her own rejection—the one she had clearly dwelt upon all this time—after all these centuries. Her face was fixed in its unflinching, courageous stare. Treycore suspected she was too disciplined in the art of deceptive emotion to reveal something so personal.
“Who are you?” Treycore asked.
“I am Raph. And these are my friends, Finter…”
A creature leapt from nearby shrubbery. It stretched its wings out and flew into an overhanging branch. He had a similar physique and color as his friend, though he had several tentacles, and unlike Raph, his cock was enormous, twice as big as Treycore’s. His face appeared to be framed behind black thorns. He stared at them through bulbous, protruding gray eyes, which moved about so wildly Treycore could only imagine his perspective of this scene.
“… and this is Waller,” Raph continued.
A tree shook, and as Treycore’s gaze rose, he saw another set of wings fanned out as the creature they were attached to landed on the branch of another tree.
“We are the punished,” he continued. “We are those creations the Almighty no longer desired, the ones He abandoned. You, higherlings, need no introduction, for we know your kind. We have spent eons upon eons, even before your creation, festering in the agony of our disgusting existence compared to that of our cousins. Our jealousy… our hatred… and our rage have birthed new emotions, deeper, crueler, more sadistic than anything your kind is even capable of conceiving.”
“This one is so pretty,” Finter said. “I want to be inside her.”
Despite his pronoun, his words were directed at Treycore, not Eilee. The thorns around his face vibrated. Three tongues slipped from his lips and licked around the edges of his mouth. His tentacles bent and looped as he descended the tree and crawled across the black soil, toward Treycore, his cock extending outward like it was trying to get as close to the higherling as possible.
Treycore readied his sword.
Eilee drew hers back, stretching it over her head so it pointed toward the beast.
Raph chuckled. “Oh, the conceit of higherlings. Though we may not have physiques that suggest care from the Almighty’s touch, we assure you what energy He didn’t set in our form, he certainly compensated with in our strength.”
“If you’re going to attack us, then do it,” Eilee said, her words hissing past her lips. “Your long-winded threats will be of little value once we’ve ripped off your cocks and slung them from the limbs of these trees.”
The curve in one of the snakes that rested across Raph’s lips lifted so that he appeared to be smiling. “Just know,” he said, “this is the last request we will accommodate.”
Treycore and Eilee backed up to each other, preparing for the attack.
Raph and Finter sprinted toward them.
Treycore struck at Finter’s tentacle, which evaded him.
