They were out in the woods, the car a mile away, all alone together, and Socia was getting nervous.

  What if he makes me undress? To taper my chest so it covers my breasts — still, I would be so exposed, and I don’t want to show my skin to him.

  Yet.

  The sun was high in the sky, and it was a little hot, but the wind cooled, and lakes there were around, that kept the heat from excess.

  “So, girl. What have you learned about the arts,” he said.

  He was casually dressed, not for a fight, but for a night out, though his wear was a little rugged and practical.

  Socia too, wore pants, and dressed quite common.

  It could get dirty after all.

  “Made by the Kin. By wit and skill. To attune to the cosmos and the elements,” she said proud of herself.

  “Stone. Tide. Wind and much more, that the world is made of,” she said.

  “I ain’t knockin on your masters,” he said.

  “Your first one was the Lady after all. She is no phony, but she doesn’t tell it straight.”

  “I do.”

  You sure do.

  “There is only It.”

  His palm touched a tree, a big and gnarly one, with branches wide and far, leaves in abundance, and Socia could see some of its roots above the ground, like veins they were.

  “Stone. Tide. Wind. Those are only names we give — It.”

  “They taught you well, as I said, they have my respect.”

  He took a breath.

  “This tree… the wind it catches with its branches, and its leaves they… breathe it in.”

  He spit on the ground, which Socia found a little unbecoming. But his voice had her enthralled, as if he had cast a spell.

  But there were no spells in this world.

  “The roots they dig into the earth, and from the earth they take, what the seas once gave to the sky, only for it to fall down as rain, for the roots to pull it in.”

  Socia could feel the stone in her bones. The wind on her skin. The tide within her veins.

  “And then to release it back to the sky. It’s cycle after cycle. Connection after connection. Choice after choice,” he said.

  He locked his eyes on her, and his gaze caught her, her eyes could not stray from those eyes.

  So intense, vivid and fierce.

  “I ain’t gonna teach you to be a rock, a wave, or a gale, girl.”

  “I ain’t even gonna teach you to be It.”

  “I’m gonna teach you to be.”

  “You.”

  Me.

  Who am I?

  Who are you?

  “Show me,” she said.

  Show me who you are.

  Show me everything.

  And for a month he showed her all.

  In the wilds did they run, wild and free, she learned some quite crazy stuff.

  She ran on water and did not get wet, which was nice because it would have been inappropriate. Maybe he could have caught a glimpse.

  She made herself so heavy her feet sank into the ground, but she wore tall boots, so it worked out all right. Her pants remained free from dirt, and stylish did they remain.

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  She wore a blindfold and had to move about without sight, in the wilds, and with her nails smite little flying bugs, without stumbling around.

  To know that she was Socia.

  How she was the center of her own cosmos, yet only part of it.

  Born to mortals.

  Chosen by her Lady.

  Shaped by her, and many others, and now by herself.

  To become Socia.

  A rock that fell. A wave that did not come. A wind that shifts.

  What if in that ball, so long ago, when she her Lady met, the Scion would not have averted her gaze, instead kept it locked on her, and had his way, would she now still be home, a mistress of such a man.

  Perhaps even a babe in her belly she would have had.

  Or even in her arms.

  Not a wife, but a concubine.

  She would not then be Socia.

  But another.

  She knew now what she was not.

  But who was she?

  That she didn’t yet know.

  In the clubs they did hang too, for music, dance and drinks, people they met, and charmed, and sometimes he left a dame at his side and bid farewell for the night, and in a way, it made Socia quite upset.

  He took her to the movies, some quite interesting ones, and after the show he talked about angles, and frames, the lighting and other stuff. He didn’t hold her hand, nor whisper in her ear of other things not related to film making, and in a way, it made Socia quite upset.

  She invited him to parties with the highborn, Scions who owned companies, lived on stocks and dividends, or who held such vast estates, they saw life as a bore, and in this world, there was nothing more to conquer, for the Ambition had made it so.

  In all Scions a fire burned, for they all bore his blood, this Socia had been told even as a child.

  In their veins, the blood of ambition flows, in ancient times his seed he gave to mortal maids, mighty kings and queens they bore. By his blood they were graced with unyielding will, relentless might, beauty unmarred by wound or time, for age could not take them, only the blade.

  High above the city, which called itself Liberty, surrounded by windows, so large, she could see that among these people — who should have been his kind — he didn’t like to hang around.

  So, when he rushed out, having pushed another and told him to do something to himself, that she found quite unbecoming, she followed him to the street.

  Angry he was, and it sort of made her shocked, after all he always was so cool and calm, a man he truly was.

  “Why do you take me to see… those people?” he said.

  A little taken aback, she pressed her hands on his chest. Felt his heart pound, like an anvil that a hammer struck, it was a forge, a ferocious one.

  “Are you not one of them?” she said.

  “Are you blind? Can’t you see? Did I not teach you better or are you just dense?” he said.

  His rudeness made her flustered and she did push him a little bit.

  “You were born a goddess, girl. I was not,” he said.

  Her eyes flashed, and a glare she gave, quite intimidating.

  “I was born nothing. Unlike you!” she said.

  She pushed him away now with frightful might and he flew away, but he was a mighty man, and he landed on his feet.

  “You’re the master, why can’t you see!” she said.

  “All my I life I wanted what you were given at birth!” she said.

  She ran away from him now, even though it hurt her heart, in the night, through the streets, into the wild where they once had such merry times.

  He ran after her for a master he was, one gifted relentless might by birth.

  And in the woods, he did her catch not with his hands but with a cry.

  “I’m sorry, girl. I can be a piece of shit,” he said.

  So, she turned around, with her moist eyes.

  No tears had she shed.

  Yet.

  “Don’t you see I want you. How obvious do I have to be?” she said.

  From those words he was taken aback, quite a lot, like a rock him would have struck.

  “Your Lady I don’t want to upset, I assumed…” he said.

  He paused and closer came, and they might have touched.

  “She would be upset,” he said.

  She grabbed him now, quite clumsily, but very emotionally.

  “I am her Socia, but I am not her property.”

  “Be a man!” she said.

  So, in the night, he made a move, and it was not rejected.

  In the night bodies intertwined, joined in delight.

  She might even have scratched his back.

  For he was a most able lover.

  Her hotshot.

  And she.

  His Socia.

  After that night everything was all right.

  No, it was perfect.

  They did not meet every day, for she had her duties to her Lady, a photoshoot for a glamour magazine and another man the camera held, but at night her hotshot she showed her skin.

  And some nights she had to attend a gala with her Lady, and sit through very boring speeches, so that when the next day arrived, she lavished him with kisses and hugs, and sometimes it escalated until they were in a tangle on the ground.

  And between them there were no secrets. For she was his and he was hers.

  Socia a mortal born, he learned, chosen by the Lady a god to be, and then to be shaped into what she was.

  “They left the first part out, didn’t they?” he said, as they lay side by side on his bed.

  She stretched herself out.

  “My Lady wished it to be so,” she said.

  And from her lovers mouth she learned the truth, that he was born to a mortal mother, a seamstress in a clothing plant.

  She was young, mortal and still very beautiful, an epitome of her kind, and she caught the eye of the owner’s son. Who with her, had an illicit affair, and he didn’t make her a concubine when she told him.

  “I carry your child.”

  In shame he was born, to a mother a seamstress no more, who to keep her babe alive, had to sell herself, to base men so vile.

  In the streets he grew up in, the rougher ones, where those who broke their backs in the factories were the lucky ones since they could feed their families.

  But born with might he was and thus even as a boy, he worked in the factories, earned a wage, and kept her mother from the streets.

  Even older, he ensured that no danger her mother could befell, for his fist could crush bricks, so what was a skull to him, not even an obstacle.

  He rose in rank, and learned a skill, for he had unrelenting will.

  Then the Lady came and taught him well, Anchored Stone among other things, and guided him to learn even more, from other masters in distant lands, such a prodigy he was, his own art he made.

  “Of you I will have use,” her Lady had said.

  His skill grew supernaturally, but also in photography, her mother a nice house he bought, far away from rough streets filled with base men.

  “Why did you wish to learn all those arts, wasn’t my Lady’s art enough?” his lover asked, as she kissed his neck.

  “This world of ours is one thing, an It.”

  “We are all part of it, but for one.”

  “He sits at the top and laughs at us, baby.”

  “I want to be the perfect man.”

  “So that I can kill God.”

  “Because it is what he deserves.”

  “That piece of shit.”