As far as Josh’s request for the location of ‘undesirable spirit beasts’ (to fill their cores and meet the first of Gaia’s instructions to build their cultivational strength), Gaia had let them know that there was indeed a “troublemaker.” Leading them through several rows of trees, they ultimately came upon a stretch of battered orchard with the remains of hundreds of ground-up and desiccated fruits littered the ground. The trees themselves were heavily damaged. Shattered boughs drooped in every direction, trunks all bearing a deep scoring and hundreds of punctures made by something very sharp and very strong.

  Taking in their shattered surroundings, Gaia’s expression turned sorrowful and her shoulders slumped as she patted a particularly pulverized trunk with no remaining branches. “…The life and light we could have shared from these…” Then she shook her head in acceptance and straightened her frame dusting her hands together. “Well, every garden has its share of pests don’t they?” Her smile still held a sad edge at the loss. Tilting her head up, she pointed with a lifted chin to the trail of continued devastation marching off into the distance. “. . . If you backtrack the destruction, I’m certain you will find what you are looking for to fill your cores for your next attunement.”

  Josh sucked through his teeth. “…This hardly seems like a rabbit burrowing in under your chicken wire Gaia. What are you sending us after?”

  The Matron of the Star Children’s expression grew complex as she stared hard down the back trail of wreckage. “A mother, one trying to provide for her young. Nothing more…” Then a sharper light lit up her eyes, “…and nothing less. “But, I do suspect you will find her a handful if you don’t consider all your options.” Gaia eyed Josh up and down for a moment. The cock of her brow left Josh with no illusions that part of her assessment had found him wanting. She spoke on, “Let me lay my cards on the table with you Josh. You are brave, a fast thinker who can achieve a razor focus when against the wall— And your cultivational intuitiveness is remarkable. I’m not certain I’ve ever seen its equal.” Then she raised a finger and pointed it right in Josh’s nose. “But you have bought way too far into the whole cultivational bravado nonsense requiring you to push yourself past the limits of what any sane person would call the threshold of imminent death and ruination to expand your strength.” Her face softened and she took on an almost pleading tone, putting both her small hands on his taller shoulders.“Listen to Senyak in combat. Take the time to make a solid plan . . . And, for the sake of my children, please, please be careful.” She finished with a hopeful look, but from the slight exasperation she wasn’t able to keep from her voice, it was all too clear that she was less than certain Josh would heed her advice.

  Josh’s eyes widened in surprise, and he almost followed up with his stock, knee-jerk reaction of denying anything and everything while emphatically saying that he had never done anything but listen to Senyak while being careful in the extreme. . .

  Gaia screwed up her eyes at him and he realized who he was about to lawyer bomb. He blushed and simply nodded in acknowledgment of her words.

  The Goddess of the Earth’s expression returned to her standard warm, beaming smile, and she folded her hands at her waist. A moment passed, and when they continued to look at her for more advice, she again chuckled and gently shooed them away with the small movements of a mother’s hands encouraging her five-year-old to trundle off on his first day of kindergarten. Then the small, timeless woman disappeared in a flash of golden-white light.

  Though Gaia was gone, Josh knew that physical presence and perceptual awareness of a Star Child on a neo zoi, were two very different things. He tilted his head up and asked into the empty air, “What did you mean . . . ‘For the sake of your children’?”

  From wherever she was, Gaia replied through the Bond, ~Well, my kids are all gods, aren’t they? So, for ‘gods’ sake’ of course . . .

  Sen smirked and they turned to follow the trail of broken trees.

  Ten minutes later…

  Sweat dripped from Josh’s brow with every step as they continued deeper into the groves.

  He looked up at Sen with a sour expression. “We are going to have to stop underestimating Gaia.”

  Sen widened his eyes quizzically at the sudden new topic while he nimbly ducked under a sweeping branch Josh had carelessly let swing when making his announcement. The lawyer continued, oblivious to his neglect. “Well, I mean, she obviously sees us coming a mile away and from every direction. I asked her specifically what we were going after and she head faked me with no real information. Just that it was a mother and then she distracted me telling me to be more careful. And I completely fell for it…Totally! The kicker is that everytime I think we can trust where she leads us and she is on our side, we end up trekking through a wasteland full of monsters, trying to escape as the world cataclysmically explodes, or just generally in harm's way…And I go willingly and with a smile!” Josh finished wiping a runnel of sweat from his eyes and raising his hands to the scene of widespread botanical destruction all about them as confirmation to his words.

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  Sen smirked through a single chuckle. “You are hardly the first middle-aged man to get distracted and unknowingly directed by a politically powerful femme fatale exhibiting maternalistic characteristics, are you?”

  Josh blinked in obtuseness at Sen’s words like a man who didn’t speak the language coming from Sen’s mouth.

  The young monk’s face made an ‘Oh-dear’ expression. “You really don’t understand how she is so easily out maneuvering and manipulating you, do you?” Sen held up a hand that forestalled Josh’s automatic verbal retorts and denials. Then, like an adult explaining something to a young child, he settled his shoulders and looked the taller man straight in the eyes. “You do know that your whole world lives in fear of having intimate affiliations with your mother figures don’t you.”

  “…Aaaaa…Iiiii…”

  “It was a rhetorical question, brother.” Sen continued on rapidly as if he wanted to keep Josh from interrupting what he was saying. “This aversion to being attracted sexually to your mother is one of the strongest and most pervasive psychic underpinnings to unite the entire human race– At least Damni noticed this about you all immediately upon our arrival.” Sen muttered his last sentence to the side. Then, as if wanting to support his point with any source other than his own failed romantic liaison, his face grew serious and the top-knotted scrapper quickly nodded in likely confirmation to a new line of thoughts. “...Even your ancients feared such intimacy. One of the longest standing tales on your world involves a great warrior who was ultimately cursed with romantic ties to his own mother.” Sen scratched under his jaw as if he was pulling the remembrance forward. “... King Oedipus was his name, If I am remembering correctly…” Sen nodded again, “Yes, I think I am— Oedipus and his men fought with distinction, but out of pride and lack of precautions, he and his men murdered another king. This was considered disrespectful by his gods, and they sent the proud Oedipus to an unknowing incestuous fate.” Sen raised a brow. “... Ultimately it all ended poorly for him– a lot of eye gouging.” The monk shook his head and seemed to pull himself back to his original tack “The point is, Gaia– a very powerful and cunning leader— knows that you have these controllable psychosocial handles from birth. And she uses them to pull and turn you in the direction she wants. It is a classic strategy to manipulate a less informed mass by an intellectually superior leader.” Sen smiled warmly and leaned into Josh’s stunned face and spread his hands in honesty. “I’m only telling you this so that you can avoid her pitfalls in the future.”

  Several full beats passed while a black storm of dissent and negation steadily gathered over Josh’s face. It didn’t take long for the tempest to blow out at gale force 10.

  “...Are you insane!” Josh stamped his foot and held his arms out akimbo, both his hands spastically shaking at Sen. “She is the MOTHER— The mother of all humans!. I…I– I don’t want to have se— to be intimate with her! … I don't have any feelings of attraction for her to be ashamed of, secret or otherwise!” Spit had been flying out of Josh’s mouth and he started stuttering to make his anxious points, “She’s just … just… ultimately powerful, and really, really smart, and …and– very tricky! Yes, very, very tricky. And that is all!”

  “Um-huh…” Sen’s utterance trailed off as he wiped Josh’s arguments from his brow. The stone-flat look on his face making it plain that he was not at all convinced. He then drove his last point home with the brain freezing terror it was intended to inspire. ~Don't forget, brother, I feel everything you do. And right now–~ Sen pointed up with a single finger as a serious gleam entered his unblinking stare. ~...we all do.~

  Josh’s face caved in on itself. Uncertainty shown in his eyes as he rapidly followed Sen’s pregnant implications…Oh crap!

  Stark panic flooded Josh’s mind at the realization that Gaia and all the Titans were privy to the emotional pressure cooker in his gut all too quickly coming to a boil. Only left with honesty, the churning sensation was already telling him that no amount of denial was going to change the fact that Sen could…quite possibly be right.

  “Yes…I know. It’s also quite possible she made you all this way for just this effect…”

  Josh ignored the ’I told you so,’ that Sen was currently rebelling in and the greater insinuations for the whole human race. He needed to know what was going on in his own life before he had a minute to worry about all human men. Is it true? Am I always being disarmed around Gaia because I have unconscious guilt for my inappropriate attractions for the Mother of all Humans!? How do I feel about her?

  A quick and dirty check told Josh that, on a personal level, he felt several extremely knotted things about Gaia. But if he had to boil it down to specifics, the best he could do with her infinite variety as he knew it, was that she simultaneously reminded him of Carol Brady, La Femme Nikitta, and his first pre-teen crush all rolled into one!?!

  Oh gods, it is true!!!

  Josh’s eyes quickly scanned through the branches hanging over his head for divine retribution streaking across the sky in the form of Cronus and his siblings to bring a quick death for the impunity of daring to have impure thoughts about their mother…even unconsciously.

  …But there was nothing.

  Nudging the Bond they all shared, the Titans still felt far off. At least metaphysically. Straining his perception, there may have been a very fleeting feeling of amusement coming from Gaia’s quarter, but he was probably imagining that. Probably…

  Sen put a reassuring arm around Josh’s shoulders. “Even if they were eavesdropping on this conversation, I doubt they would smite you for a species-wide predisposition with female authority figures. Just be aware of your vulnerability the next time you interact with your Mother, yes?”

  Sen was right…again. It probably helped that he was a transformed human from a fallen Immortal. Not having any of his supposed predispositions to make him vulnerable to the Star Children’s Matron. Regardless, Josh nodded in acquiescence to his suggestion.

  “Thanks, brother.”

  Sen silently nodded Josh’s welcome.

  Allowing an uncontrollable emotional shiver to set his lips flapping, Josh attempted to purge the heretofore unknown Oedipal thoughts and got back on track. He said as much to Sen, “So, let’s get to business, then?”

  “Agreed.”

  And so they did.