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Envy

What is this? Pick on Envy Day?

He doesn’t like it one bit. He doesn’t like her, either.

She’d made the wordprettysound like a cheap trick.

Envy swats her grimy fingers away, muttering that she’s going to stain him. By the time he finishes dusting himself off, she’s gone.

Very well. Let the witchy witch go. She doesn’t know what she’s missing.

It’s a profitable train of thought. His Guide, Siren, would approve.

So why, oh why, is Envy marching down the nearest trail, hoping to find and rile up Sorrow more?

Hiking along the outcroppings, he fails to locate the archeress. She must have gone in the other direction.

Eventually, he finds something else: an inlet.

Curious, Envy rushes home and retrieves his small boat, tethered to a stilt beneath his house. Sailing back to that inlet, he cruises down its course and happens upon a lagoon. Beyond which, vines cover the entrance to a cavern.

And beyond that, he discovers a haven of pools and mist.

Some kind of waterfall enclave.

***

Sorrow

She grows taller. From her Guide, Echo, she attends daily instructions, learning about the nitty-gritty of sadness. The clammy texture of melancholy. The clouded grays of desolation. The lumpy intersection between agony and despair.

She becomes fluent in the sagging facial expressions of a crestfallen soul, and the cracked voice that signals catastrophe, and the watery quaver of tears.

During field trips to the human realm, Sorrow learns how to predict sobbing and wailing—every nuance and coping mechanism. So many of them, in such misery. Beggars, prisoners, daughters, husbands, widowers, students, leaders, followers. She chides herself not to weep, not even when she’s alone, lying in a fetal position in bed.

She sucks it up, sucks it up, sucks it up.

Otherwise, she’ll drown.

***

Envy

During archery practice on the blooming hill, he twirls his arrow. The glass weapon glints, reflecting his visage a thousand times over.

The target marker across the range awaits his strike.

Oftentimes, it’s difficult to concentrate. Over the years, he’s developed two odious habits. One, a tendency to compare his skill with his classmates, which only spoils his mood, because he knows that Love is the best shot, and she’ll carry that title into eternity.

From Siren, Envy has been educated in the sensory signals of jealousy. The moldy reek of resentment, the briny sting of spite, the bumpy terrain of rivalry, the blaring horn of covetousness, and the underhanded, slippery slide of lust. He’s been trained to avoid those temptations in himself.

Deities aren’t meant to be overwhelmed by their root emotion. However, that doesn’t mean they’re impervious. At the ripe age of fifteen years, these things have become second nature amongst his peers.

Anger’s temper escalates with each failed shot.

Love is constantly preoccupied with the concept of mortal affection and touch, so that she traces her fingers more than she nocks her iron arrows.

Wonder’s mind drifts during practice. On a regular basis, either she ends up meditating, ruminating about the Archives—the great library of the Peaks, which she obsesses over—or daydreaming about mortal libraries.