Hagia
Goddess of Family and Healing
What absolute nonsense.
She had only left the small encampment of humans for the morning, teaching several locals the different plants that could replicate the divine art of healing, and how to prepare them. Some took to it well, while she constantly had to save others from their own stupidity. By the time the sun had risen high in the sky she has led her students back to the main village, but it was far more empty than it had been before. There had been no announcement of a hunt, not for several more days, and yet where were the men? Tsk! This is why she never trusted them. The disgusting creatures never had to carry a child, leading to their tendency to go woman to woman, impregnating them while shirking all duty to their children. Even the wild beasts they hunted knew better.
Upon seeing her return, several weeping women and children ran to her, pleading for her help. A rival tribe had come earlier that day, after she had left, and challenged this tribe for the right to hunt on this patch of land. Like the fools they were, the men of the tribe had accepted, and let themselves be taken to the field to battle to fight for dominance. While she loathed to get involved in conflict, the vast majority of the missing men were fathers, and she felt tears welling in her eyes at the thought of the innocent faces of the young staring up at her being vulnerable to those who might seek to harm them in the future. It was only right to force this conflict to an end and bring these men home whether they wanted to or not.
Quickly commanding the attention of several worried women who had not been on her herb collection, see asked them to lead her in the direction of the battle. As it so happened, they walked less than ten minutes down to the river and then along its banks. The women who had seen the men leave didn't know where they went next, but a trail of footprints in the mud along the river led them down a short way, until they crested a hill. Stopping in a small copse of trees at the top, they observed a terrible sight. Dead bodies littered the grass of a shallow valley, and in the middle their tribe was being hemmed in, slowly drained of life. The chieftain, a simple brute of a man, was flailing under the onslaught, but somehow still able to continue crushing skulls.
These men were animals. Fathers who cared not for their families, but only for the glory of killing other fathers on the field of battle. But what was that, hovering in the sky above . . . ? Of course. Bellicosus sat, just high enough that he was out of her line of sight when she had been looking into the shallow valley below, urging these men to kill each other for his own amusement. What was worse, he had decided to favour the men of the village these women came from. Several of the women had already been overwhelmed by the aura of the warmongering god, cowering behind the thin trees, trying to shrink into the shadows. This would not do at all. For every human that fell, an orphan and widow would be left behind.
She sent out power of her own to wash over these warriors, cooling their blood lust and reminding them of those who would suffer if they died in such a meaningless conflict. Their children, wives, mothers. She visualised the wounds of the dying sealing up, internal damage reversed, but knew she could do nothing for those already deceased.
What a waste.
Action: End this frivolous skirmish and heal the wounded so they can return to their families in one piece.
