Page 19 of An Intimate Excerpt from the Diary of Our Lady

We'd not only come together for ourselves, but our congress, our union, ourmagichad combined to make something entirely new,shades.1

The word manifested in my mind like a revelation. A promise, a miracle,a prayer.

After,Orcusheldmeto him, our bodies and magics still intermingling in the afterglow. I traced my fingertips along his chest, and he toyed with my hair.

"What now?" I asked.

"Now? We grow. We learn. We do better."

"And more of this?"

"Somuch more of this." He rolled us over, so I lay fully atop him.

"But what does learning and growing look like?"

He furrowed his brow and kissed my forehead. "Well, I think, perhaps, we should look in on our newest creation, see what we've2wrought. I want us to take some time to double check your preparations—"

"Do you think I wouldn't have—" I gasped, affronted.

"No. No, it's not that." He ran a placating hand down my back.

"You didn't plan formeto be away. I was thinking that, perhaps we might make surethey don't need either of our intervention, so we couldtake, oh I don't know, the next few hundred years or so for ourselves."

"Oh, well, I suppose that sounds alright," I smiled. "But what shall we do?"

"I figure we'll do what we never got the chance to do... we'lllive.You cannot access your body from here, or Timonde, but there's an entire universe to explore. A universe of knowledge to learn about how we should run this confounded planet. Once we're done with our little honeymoon, we'll come back and get to work. What do you think?"

"You're asking me? Aren't you the one in charge here?"

He placed his wickedly sharp claws under my chin and looked deep into my eyes. "Only because you put me in charge."

He kissed me, soft and chaste. "They can have you back once I'm no longer starving for you round the clock. Right now, you'remine.All mine."

"All yours."

1. Honestly, I am speechless. A first, I know.

2. This visit is chronicled in Gunna the First's Logbooks. It contains an account of a physical visit from Orcus as well as a spectral visit from the Lady, an extremely rare occurrance, only possible with his assistance.