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The Astral Sea was a beautiful, timeless expanse…
It was also incredibly boring.
Gale, the newly ascended God of Ambition, had thought—hope was too pedestrian an emotion for a god—that a stroll through the Astral Plane would ease his restlessness. Instead, he found himself impatient, irritable even. Sights that had once awed and enthralled his puny mortal mind now elicited little more than a yawn. Eternity, he was realizing, was principally comprised of tedium.
At first, he'd found plenty to amuse himself. He'd gathered followers, ordained clergy, and handed down his holy doctrine. It was entertaining for a time, setting up all the trappings of a real god following his apotheosis. But his followers were, in a word, tiresome. Their ambitions were petty and uninteresting, far beneath the notice of a god such as himself.
They were also too few. From the mortal perspective, he supposed his church and prestige were expanding rapidly, but to Gale, it felt like a snail's pace. His own beloved Waterdeep had not acknowledged the ascension of her favored son. No Galerian shrines dotted the City of Splendors, no hymns to him crossed Waterdhavian tongues.
Perhaps he should send a priest there to proselytize. At the very least, scaring a decade off the man's life with his appearance would provide a fraction of a second's worth of satisfaction. He did so love it when they groveled.
With a wave of his hand and another step, Gale left the Astral Sea behind, returning to the little niche he'd carved out for himself in Elysium. Tall columns with the appearance of marble mimicked Chessentan architecture, a cheeky nod to the homeland of his mother's people.
“You always were a pit of unending hunger, weren't you, Gale of Waterdeep?”
The familiar, sultry voice coiled around him like a caress; Gale ground his perfect molars together. “What do you want, Mystra?”
Her eyes appeared first, dark and fathomless as the deepest mystery and ringed with thick black lashes, before the rest of her materialized. Her hair was black as midnight in this form, wild and unbound, like the namesake of the woman she'd once been. The dress she'd wrapped herself in was a shimmering concoction of Weave, both there and not, revealing everything and nothing at all. Gale's eyes wandered boldly over her form, savoring the perfection of every curve.
“Divinity hasn't sated your lust.” She circled him as she spoke, running one sharp fingernail across his back. “For what is ambition, but the desire for more, more, more?” Her finger tapped his chest, his nose, and then his mouth with each repetition of 'more' as her poppy red lips curled up into a cruel smirk. “You will never be satisfied, Gale of Waterdeep, no matter what heights you reach; your very nature demands your discontent.”
Gale snatched her wrist in a crushing grip, and Mystra laughed, a musical trill that still sent tingles running up his spine. Her free hand gripped his throat. “Don't play games you can't win, Gale of Waterdeep.”
When he didn't immediately release her, she applied pressure. “This body may not need to breathe, but I can still destroy it with a thought.”
She yanked him to her, their mouths colliding in a furious press of lips, tongues, and teeth. When he pulled back, she bit his lower lip, dragging him back into the kiss.
Angry and aroused—mayhap they were one and the same—Gale shoved Mystra back. Her hand tore free of his throat, her nails leaving glowing gouges in the gilded flesh of his neck. “What do you want?” he demanded. Power crackled over his skin like tiny arcs of lightning.
"So ferocious," she said, her face twisting into a faux pout. “Tell me: do you still want to usurp me, God of Ambition?” she asked mockingly, stepping back into his personal space. One delicate hand grasped his garment, twisting it. “Do you think yourself my equal?”
“I am a god,” he growled.
“You are a child playing at being a grown-up,” she spat. Then, she seemed to remember she was trying to be pleasant, because she smiled. “I hear they're building you a temple in Amn.”
“Yes,” Gale said cautiously. He had not yet worked out what she wanted, but Mystra wasn't here to congratulate him on his first temple, of that much he was certain.
“Your influence is spreading.” She walked her fingers up the bare skin of his left pectoral. “It's only a matter of time before a god or two decides you are a threat. And you know what gods do with threats, Gale.”
Thick ropes of her power—her Weave—snaked around his wrists, locking in place like shackles and dragging him down to the ground. He hit his knees with a thud.
A flicker of fear—and an irritating rush of desire—ran through him. But he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of showing either. “Do I threaten you, Mother of Magic?” he asked, his lips curving into a smug smile.
Mystra laughed. “Hardly. Consider this an object lesson.” She gripped his hair, forcing him to look up at her face. “Restraining you like this is effortless, Gale of Waterdeep. You are at my mercy, as you would be before any greater power.
“You need a patroness,” she continued soothingly. The almost painful pressure of her hand in his hair eased as she stroked both hands through the silky locks. “A protector. Someone who can shield you from the other gods' ire, from their jealousy.”
“Someone like you?” he growled.
“Who better?” she asked with a lilting laugh. “You were an amusing mortal. And now, with this form, you can withstand so much more of my presence, my power.” She caressed his face, and Gale hated how good it felt. Her thumb pressed on his lower lip, forcing his mouth slightly agape. “You want that power, don't you?"
The shimmering veil of Weave that shielded her body from his gaze dissipated, leaving her naked before him. She gripped his face in both hands, pressing his nose into the dark curls of her mons. "All you have to do is take it.”
Gale remembered the first time he tasted her Silver Fire. He understood what she wanted, what she was offering, and he was hungry. He dove into her, his tongue parting her, tasting the sweet nectar of her divine body and the raw burn of her power. She was the Weave incarnate, and he wanted all of it.
He lapped at her, teasing and sucking, drinking deep of that fire as she writhed above him. Her fingers clutched his head, almost painful in their desperation.
Mystra cried out with her first release, a ragged, carnal sound.
With a sudden rush of divine power, Gale wrenched himself free of her bindings. His fingers dug into the meat of her thighs, yanking her closer, his tongue diving deeper into the core of her, chasing more of it.
Invisible bands of Weave coiled around him like a constrictor, yanking him flat to ever-shifting ground. They were in Mystra’s territory now, shrouded in her intoxicating essence. Gale could feel… everything. He no longer knew where his sensations ended, and hers began. Her arousal, scorching and wild, was his arousal.
She sank onto him with a hiss, her cunt hot and tight, and Gale experienced the dual sensations of the act. He would have spent himself then, but just as he began to crest that delicious peak, a band of Weave clamped itself at the root of him, leaving him trapped at the summit.
He bucked his hips, a useless gesture against the restraining force of Mystra’s Art. A growl, feral and enraged like a wounded animal, rumbled in his chest.
Mystra’s smile was wicked. “You can have yours when you can take it.”
Then she began to move, and Gale lost the ability to form coherent thoughts. Time lost all meaning. There was nothing but the Silver Fire, the flames raging higher with every vulgar roll of the goddess’s hips as she chased her pleasure. And with every crest and keen, Gale drowned in more of that molten magic.
More, he thought. More, more, more.
With a roar, the God of Ambition wrenched himself free of her bonds. For the tiniest fraction of a moment, he blinked out of existence. Then he was upon her, driving her face to the Weave-shrouded ground as he drove himself back into her sacred heat.
Yes, he thought. Yes, yes, yes. I will have what is mine.
Gale found himself rutting into empty air as Mystra's tinkling laugh surrounded him. He ground his teeth and took his cock in hand. She would not deny him!
"You can have what you want, Gale of Waterdeep," her disembodied voice whispered. "Power beyond even your wildest godly dreams. All you have to do is submit. You know where to find me…"
The last band of her restraining power snapped, and Gale came with a snarl, his glowing spend splattering the marble floor. The rosewater taste of Weave still coated his tongue.
Mystra thought that by lending him her power, she could control him, bind him to her as she'd done before. She thought she could distract him, making him chase her as the object of his ambition.
She was wrong.
For now, he would play her game. He would take what she offered and subvert her power for himself.
Someday, she would beg. And then he would consume her.
He was nothing if not ambitious.