Her Rightful Place

Commissioned by Danio13

Written by HikerAngel

The lanky archeologist adjusted a wide-brimmed hat over his greying dark hair before pulling a belay device from his vest pocket and turning it over in his tanned, weathered fingers. Giving the taut webbing in his other hand a couple of test tugs to gauge the viability of his anchor, the creases around his stern, dark eyes eased slightly in barely perceptible satisfaction. He dropped the snakelike coil into the darkness below, then weaved twin bights of rope through the tube of his descender, clipping it into his harness before spinning the gate on the carabiner shut. Turning until his back was facing the hole in the ground, he leaned backward, letting his body lever out from the edge until he sat down into the emptiness, supported only by his harness and the rope attached to it. The man let the rope play through his gloved hand, sitting at his right hip, hearing the comforting sound of whirring nylon as he repelled into the black unknown below.

When his booted feet touched down a moment later, he flicked on his headlamp, then turned in a circle, scanning his immediate surroundings with the small circle of light. He saw smoothly rounded sandstone bricks lining both walls of what appeared to be a long corridor. The floor’s masonry was made of the same rounded brick, though it was covered by a light coating of sandy dust.

“Amber? It’s safe to come down,” Professor Henry Marquez called upward into the darkness, unclipping the rope from his harness and stepping back.

He heard a couple of clicks and the squeaky creak of a carabiner’s gate, closely followed by a similar buzzing hum of nylon rope through metal. His assistant descended into range of his headlamp a moment later. The young woman was slender and petite but the thin, bare legs that flowed from her short shorts were toned from regular exercise – including the two weeks of arduous hiking that it had taken to find the place. Henry was thankful it hadn’t taken longer. The archeologist’s GPS calculations had been precise, and the long abandoned temple was almost exactly where he had expected it to be.

As his graduate student assistant touched the floor with a slight stumble, the older man reached out his hands to steady the 24-year-old, the top of her head not even coming to his chin as he held her shapeless hips until she caught her balance.

“Careful,” he admonished her with thinned lips but gentle eyes. “It wouldn’t be good to twist an ankle out here. It would make for a very long, very uncomfortable trip back.”

The girl turned to him, her greyish blue eyes demure as they flashed, then squinted in the dim light of his headlamp. Timidly, she nodded her acknowledgement before unclipping from the rope. She adjusted the ill-fitting button-up shirt inside her tan vest, tugging it down over her nearly nonexistent breasts. “Yes, Professor Marquez.”

Henry removed his pack and extracted an LED lantern, which radiated far more light than his small headlamp. He immediately noticed the faded, fertility artwork on the wall. A tall, buxom figure seemed to loom over a woman who was prone and clearly giving birth. The sight sent a pang of sorrow through him as he was reminded of the conversation he’d had with his brother just before leaving on this trip. His younger sibling had tearfully confessed his wife’s inability to have children. The memory of his brother’s anguish made his stomach clench in sympathy for his sibling’s pain.

The usually stoic man pushed the dark thoughts from his mind, however, knowing that he needed to focus on the present – the discovery he’d spent the last decade of his life pursuing.

“So this is a temple to the fertility goddess after all,” the professor breathed, letting his awe at the long awaited discovery replace the painful memory. He pulled out his phone to take a photo of the artwork as his wide-eyed assistant reached out a small hand, running her slender fingers over the curvaceous figure at the top of the drawing.

“This art, it seems so familiar,” she whispered, seeming completely entranced by the drawing. The drawing almost seemed to glow for a moment under the lantern light as she touched it.

“Familiar?” Henry scoffed before correcting her. “Hardly. We’re the first people to set foot in this temple for at least a thousand years. Nothing we find here has ever been seen by anyone in the modern world.”

Amber turned to him, still touching the image of the fertility goddess. In the creeping shadows, her eyes appeared to loom larger, her cheekbones seeming more prominent as they caught the light. “I guess so, but I could swear I’ve seen this before.”

“No,” the professor replied with absolute certainty. “You haven’t. I would remember if there were any other finds like it, but there aren’t. I’ve spent my entire career studying the remnants of this particular civilization, and I’m quite certain that image is one of a kind.”

Again gazing at the art, Amber’s brows furrowed, but she said nothing further. She lifted her hand from the wall to give her fingers a curious glance, as if she had felt something out of the ordinary while touching the stone. Henry considered asking her about it, but before he could, she had turned and disappeared into the darkness, her small form swallowed completely by the shadows as she exited the small radius of light that the lantern provided. Watching her go, Henry swallowed his question, hefted his pack, and hustled in the same direction.

“Why have you devoted your entire career to studying one civilization?” Amber asked idly as they walked slowly down the corridor, her voice seeming richer as it reverberated within the confines of the echoing hallway.

“I’m not sure, really,” Henry confessed. “I’ve just always felt drawn to it.”

“Me too,” Amber agreed, her eyes roaming the narrow hallway. “Something about it always seemed kind of familiar to me. Ever since I first stumbled across it as an undergrad in your archeology class.”

As they continued cautiously forward, Amber came to a sudden stop. She reached behind her to touch Henry’s thin but muscular arm, as if seeking reassurance. As her soft fingertips brushed his leathery skin, Henry felt an electric pulse that caused his flesh to break out in goosebumps. The sensation wasn’t painful at all, perhaps even mildly pleasant.

“It looks like this is a dead end,” Amber said, shining the light of her headlamp back and forth over a wall that cut off the corridor, searching in vain for an opening of any sort.

Noticing another painting on the wall that blocked their progress, the young woman stepped forward once again, running her fingers over the dried, cracking paint. The archeologist stepped to the side to get a better look at the next find. It was a portrait of a gorgeous woman caring for a group of children who were seated around a garden. The well-endowed woman, likely the same goddess depicted in the previous drawing. As Amber’s fingertips traced the elegantly flowing lines of the woman’s face, however, the lines of the artwork seemed to glow.

Surprised, Henry blinked. By the time his eyes had refocused on the artwork, however, the glow was gone. Had he simply imagined it?

Wondering if she had seen that momentary radiance, he cast a sidelong glance at Amber, noticing, for the first time, how thick and healthy her dark hair was as it shimmered by the low white light of his small, handheld lantern. The young woman was shifting her hips and crossing her arms as if having just felt something that made her uncomfortable.

“Are you okay?” Henry asked.

“Sure,” Amber replied, voice slightly breathless. “I just felt odd for a moment there.”

“Your ankle?” Henry asked, his eyes descending legs than seemed a bit longer and more fleshed out than they had been earlier. Another trick of the light, probably.

“No, this feeling was actually kind of… good.”

Henry gave Amber a curious look, but a loud scraping sound quickly drew his attention from his assistant to the small section of wall that blocked their way. The pair of researchers gaped in amazement as the stone wall descended into the floor with a grinding clunk, revealing another long expanse of hallway before them.

The two looked at one another in surprise, Amber’s modest breasts jiggling under her shirt with the sudden swivel of her neck. Henry’s gaze descended to her chest, noticing something different about it. It had jiggled. He couldn’t remember that ever happening before.

As he puzzled the odd sight out in his mind, his young assistant spoke. “Want me to keep going?”

Henry paused for a moment, her words seeming to carry more meaning than simply the obvious one. Unsure whether he should comment about her sudden seeming voluptuousness, Henry opted for a simple nod, and his assistant smiled and responded with a curt nod of her own before proceeding forward.

A short distance down the hall, the corridor emptied into a small chamber. It looked like some sort of anteroom to the main inner sanctum that Henry was hoping to find.

Looking around at the new environment, Henry failed to notice that Amber had drawn to a stop before him. He ran into her from behind, his hips bumping into her firm, shapely backside.

Firm? Shapely? The idea didn’t seem congruent with what he knew of her straight, curveless body, but he knew what he had just felt.

The lantern clattered to the stone floor of the temple as he steadied both of them by gripping both sides of her tiny waist, just above the gracefully sloping outward curve of her rounded hips.

Outward curve? That didn’t seem right either! His assistant’s body was reasonably fit but almost completely devoid of curves. What was happening here?

She turned to face him, but he couldn’t see her face in the darkness. He merely sensed her presence by the wonderful floral smell of her hair as it had brushed his lips, just beneath his nose.

Wait! Just below his nose?

His assistant was quite petite, the top of her head normally not even reaching his chin!? He stiffened as if attempting to rise to his full height, but he was already standing erect. He frowned, puzzled. Was she standing on something?

He looked down at her small, booted feet, the only part of her he could see with the lantern lying face down on the ground, barely providing any light.

No, her feet were standing on the ground, level with his own. They were not elevated at all.

Before Henry could figure out how to broach the subject of their relative heights changing, the girl spun on her heel and walked off into the darkness of the room beyond.

“Amber?!” Henry called after her, his voice concerned.

“Yes?” she asked softly, the glow of an exaggerated hourglass shape, this time filling a fountain with her milk in the center of a lush garden, briefly lighting a distant wall in his peripheral vision.

His head swiveled as he attempted to use the dim light of the glow to get a better look at his assistant, but it faded too quickly for him to get a proper view.

“More artwork?” he asked, reaching down for the lantern, for the first time also considering the outlandish notion that he might be shrinking.

“Oh, yes…” she replied, her even richer than it had been in the echoing hallway. It was almost husky. The sudden realization about her voice, along with the feel of her pert ass, slim waist and curvaceous hips sent unwanted shivers of desire down his spine.

He scolded himself internally. Amber was his student, not his girlfriend. He really shouldn’t be entertaining such thoughts!

He heard the tearing of leather, then the distinct tumble of hardened rubber. Not once, but twice. Had she just kicked off her shoes? As if in answer, he heard bare feet pattering toward him on the cool stone surface of the temple’s floor.

He lifted the lantern just as she stepped into its radius of light, gasping as his gaze traveled over long, well-muscled legs that looked as if they were something of a blend between those of a model and those of a ballerina.

As she came to a stop, the rest of her body emerged into the light as if emerging from a vertical pool of dark liquid.

The side seams of her shorts – which looked positively tiny now on her far-longer legs – appeared close to bursting, so tightly did they cling to her voluptuous hips. And those hips flowed deliciously from a miniscule waist as if they’d been poured into the fabric. The young woman’s figure had gone from sticklike to lush, her body both taut and tantalizingly curvaceous.

How had this happened?!

Amber’s long fingers slipped under the hem of her white cotton shirt, pulling it slightly upward to reveal the soft inward curve of her sculpted stomach as she caressed its perfect skin.

As if reading his unspoken question, she spoke in a breathy voice. “Something is happening to me, professor. Something wonderful…”

Henry’s lips trembled, his throat involuntarily swallowing as his eyes continued their ascent, drinking in the twin swells of her large breasts as they pressed against the fabric so tightly that the shirt’s buttons strained to contain them. God help him, they were so perfectly formed that he wanted to reach out and grab hold of them. Maybe even touch his lips to her—

“Would you like to take the lead for a bit?” the woman thankfully interrupting his thoughts. “You’re so strong and fit – and you do have the lantern, after all.” Amber’s voice seemed slightly deeper and more mature yet still full of her typical youthful curiosity as she spoke. Underlying her words was a sensual undertone. The sound of her complimentary words made the hair on the back of Henry’s neck rise with a shiver as they rolled off her nimble tongue.

But her body and voice weren’t her only changes.

As the young woman gazed intently at him, her eyes now nearly level with his, he was taken aback by just how gorgeous her face had become. Her full lips curled upward at the corners in sly amusement, her luminous eyes sparkling flirtatiously in the soft light.

“What? Oh! Um... don’t you think we should stop for a moment and figure out what’s happening to you?” Henry stammered in reply, unaccustomed to his assistant making requests of him at all, let alone this stunningly sexy version of her. What on earth was happening to her?

She stepped to the side, the movement of her lithe body made so graceful by her shapely legs and willowy arms that it seemed more like she had flowed in that direction than stepped. “Actually, I’d like to keep going. The main sanctum is just ahead. I can sense it. Why don’t we stop there?”

“Are you sure you’re alright, Amber?” Henry asked hesitantly, as if wanting to do as she requested in spite of his better judgement. “Your body looks like it’s changing somehow...”

“Oh, I’m quite sure it’s changing, professor. It feels absolutely amazing.” Her tongue seemed to caress the final word as it emerged from her sultry lips, her slight smile widening.

“Lead on, prof,” she continued, her slender arm rising to point the way. “That way.”

So she was aware of her changes? Shouldn’t she be alarmed? Why was she taking this so calmly? And how did she know the layout of the temple? She couldn’t have ever been here before. No one had!

As if compelled by her gentle command, he walked forward, but a short time later, Henry became aware of a glow from behind him. He whirled, turning to see Amber walking toward him with both arms outstretched, her perfectly manicured fingertips dragging over a series of images that lined the walls just outside the temple’s inner sanctum. Her gait was like that of a runway model, her legs crossing as they stepped, hips swaying seductively from side to side.

He staggered backward as her body developed again, this time right before his wondering eyes fully revealed by the sphere of light from his small lantern.

Her visage transformed from beautiful... to gorgeous... to breathtaking... to absolutely heart-stopping. Her blue eyes grew so brilliantly expressive, so smolderingly hypnotic, that they seemed to steal the thoughts from his mind even as they arrived. Her face grew heart-shaped, her jawline elegantly curving from either side to meet in a tiny chin beneath lofty cheekbones and sensual lips – lips that seemed to beckon to him, calling him forward for a kiss.

Her raven locks were black as midnight, their rich, flowing tresses curling beneath her chin, over her swan-like neck and toned shoulders as they grew longer, descending down her back.

A sensual shudder rolled through Amber’s growing body, her long lashes fluttering shut as a soft moan of pleasure issued from her full lips.

Buttons popped from her swelling chest, clacking against the stone walls as they shot from her burgeoning breasts, too prodigious, now, for her previously baggy clothing to contain. Her top fell open, vest falling away to reveal the inner halves of two huge, staggeringly perfect breasts, riding high and proud on her slender, sinuous body.

Her fingertips left the walls to drift over her still-growing chest before descending to her taut stomach. She brought her hands to each side of her body as a shaking breath hissed from her lungs, her waist so tiny now that her fingers nearly touched as her hands settled into place. The inward curve of her body was breathtaking, the lines of her body somehow long and lean while at the same time deliciously curvaceous.

As her hands began to tremble with pleasure, they slid downward in a sensual caress of her dramatically rounded hips. Her shorts finally burst at the seams, pulled apart by the luscious body they could no longer contain. A moment later, they fell away, leaving Amber’s deliciously sexy lower body completely bare, save for her moist, thinly stretched panties.

She glided toward the ogling archeologist as the lantern fell from his fingers a second time. This time, it shattered against the bricks that lined the floor, instantly bathing the area in utter darkness.

The archeologist smelled an ambrosial scent as it washed over him, alerting him to his transforming assistant’s approach. Reeling, dizzied by its heady combination of light femininity and carnal appeal, he swayed in the blackness at the edge of what felt like a vast room. The electricity of perfect lips crackled the scant millimeters between the man and his assistant-turned-angel of seduction as he sensed her nearness to his mouth. But in another instant, they were gone. His assistant had come achingly close, but his hungry lips were left searching hungrily for the owner of the erotic scent, feeling only the light brush of scented wind as she swept past him into the temple’s inner sanctum.

Attempting to regain control of his desire-addled mind, the professor shook his head, gathering his thoughts. How was she moving around in this total blackness? It really did seem like she instinctively knew the place. But how was that possible?!

The archeologist suddenly realized that he had a second solution for the darkness and reached up to fumble with his headlamp. His fingers shook, unnerved by what was happening to his sexy young assistant, however, and his headlamp, too, dropped to the floor. The man fell to his hands and knees, casting about in the darkness for the lost light source.

Suddenly, however, a bright light flared to life, illuminating a finger whose tip was pressed to a huge mural of the goddess about thirty meters away. The light expanded over the long-silent sanctuary, radiating from the wall before Amber for a moment before it spread to her body itself.

The voluptuous girl gasped, and her softly glowing form began to rise, her bare toes pressing downward to propel her fully from the ground. Her body floated upward, toward the professor and away from the wall, until it neared the center of the large room.

Her knees curled upward, her luxuriant mane of inky blackness swirling languidly about her head like the halo of the goddess she seemed destined to become. Her eyes were closed, her breathing coming in pants as the light which had been radiating outward from her skin suddenly changed direction, its glowing beams pulling back into her magnificent form.

Suddenly, her arms and legs shot out, in a sudden convulsive movement, the light now completely contained with her perfect form. Her clothes burned away as if incinerated by the fires of heaven itself. The woman was a sensual vision, the sleekly curved hemispheres of her huge, naked breasts seeming to float before her body, completely unaffected by gravity in spite of their ample size. Every part of her looked fit. Toned. Luscious. Desirable.

Her body finished its spellbinding transformation, her sculpturesque form sculpting itself into the living incarnation of feminine perfection.

She had become the very goddess this temple was built to worship.

Henry placed his arm before his eyes in an attempt to shield them from her ascending magnificence, squinting and holding his breath as his eyes drank in the golden aura of overpowering beauty that seemed to radiate from her in waves.

Her lips forming a brilliant smile, she spread her willowy arms, placed one interminable leg before her and descended toward him. He felt his body respond to her devastatingly sexual presence as she neared.

“Thank you for bringing me here, Henry. For allowing me to rediscover what I had lost for so long.” Her voice felt like a velvet curtain as it was pulled over every inch of his skin. It was soft, sensual, and addictive in its sultry appeal.

“S-so, you’re her?” Henry stammered, his jaw trembling. “The fertility goddess herself?”

“Reincarnate, but yes,” she said, her glowing eyes soft as they regarded him with caring warmth.

“Henry?”

“Uh, y-yeah?”

“I would like to offer you a gift.”

“You w-would?”

“I would indeed,” she said, floating about the man in a circular arc, her eyes surveying his quivering body with interest. “I would like you to be a missionary of sorts. You will be as the extension of my hand, traveling the world to bring it my gifts. I would like to help the mortal world, as I did in a far distant life. I desire to make up for the vast amount of lost time that I have been gone.”

Henry seemed to be dazed, simply staring at her in shocked silence, unable to speak, barely able to listen.

“Acceptance of my gift will, however, change you,” she continued, her long eyelashes lowering slightly over luminescent eyes. “You will become my champion, my priestess, immortal and powerful yet forever a woman, my vessel of fertility as you journey the mortal world.”

The goddess finished the circumnavigation of her former teacher, returning to a bobbing hover directly before him.

“Do you accept?” she queried, raising her thin eyebrows into an expectant arch.

Henry swallowed, the angelic woman’s words shocking him sufficiently to tear his gaze from her divine visage. He looked downward, taking in his hyper-aroused masculine form as he considered her words. Why had he always wanted to find this place? To find the hidden lair of the ancient goddess of fertility? He had never delved deeply into the questions. Not deeply. He’d never wanted to. He had always simply hidden behind the veil of ‘seeking knowledge’ when others had asked him the question.

Though, now that he dwelled on it, he supposed that the answer was true. He did seek knowledge, though it wasn’t exactly what he had led others – and even himself – to believe. The knowledge he sought was not truly that of an ancient civilization. What he truly desired, what he had always been driven to know, was how it felt to create life. To feel its fundamental spark as it ignited within his womb. He wanted to feel it grow within him, to be a part of the miracle of childbirth. He wanted to experience the other side of the sexual experience, nurturing the seed of life rather than planting it.

Slowly, his eyes rose to meet hers, tears forming in his eyes, then streaming down his cheeks as he answered in a barely audible whisper. “Yes. I do.”

The goddess smiled, moving languidly toward him, the sensual movement of her arms and body slow and impossibly elegant, as if she were under water.

She enveloped him in her arms, pulling him toward her. He couldn’t help but notice that she was now taller than he was – more than he was in every conceivable way.

His clothes burned away, ignited by the warm glow of her body. But the fire didn’t hurt. It merely flickered comfortably over his skin as their intertwined bodies floated upward into the center of the sanctum.

Henry’s erection was massive, far longer and thicker than he had ever seen it as she took it inside her body. His huge member filled her perfect body, the sensations rippling through his rigid flesh unspeakably rapturous. It was as if his goddess wanted him to experience the ultimate masculine experience before becoming feminine.

The beautiful lips of the goddess descended to his, her tongue filling his mouth in an impossibly rapturous kiss. Unable to contain himself, his hips thrust into her, driving his monstrous length all the way into her hot, moist womb as his body began to convulse in a series of blissful shudders.

“Oh, Goddess!” he screamed hoarsely, overcome with emotion and ecstasy.

He pulsed his seed into the nascent goddess in a never-ending explosion of orgamsms, filling her with so much staggeringly erotic power that it left him shaking and breathless.

The goddess pulled away from his lips and smiled, her fingers roaming his back as her bare legs tightened around his hips. Her body felt unbelievable, surrounding him in a strangely torrid sensual comfort. Impossibly, though he continued to orgasm, he felt an even more powerful climax building within him.

Then, it struck.

Henry’s world was obliterated by a tsunami of pleasure, his butt clenching, hips shoving into his goddess with every ounce of strength left in his body. He felt her hands pulling him into her, energy radiating from her soft skin into his bucking form. Some fundamental part of his being seemed to explode into her as his massive phallus erupted into her body in the climax to end all climaxes.

Henry raged into her, pouring everything he had ever been between his hips, feeling a part of him empty itself into her. The goddess was beaming now, coaxing every last drop of his masculine essence from his spasming loins with her rolling hips.

Then, he felt something else.

Rather than flowing from him this time, it flowed into him. Golden energy, light and soft. He felt the power of absolute femininity pouring into his naked body. He knew intuitively what it was. The goddess was using her power to transform him into what he now knew he was always meant to be...

...her priestess.

His greying hair darkened and thickened even as it grew down the sleeker skin of his back. His eyes, or rather, her eyes drew outward into an almond shape around her dark irises, her cheekbones rising to increased prominence. Her chin thinned as her lips plumped into fleshy succulence.

The priestess-to-be’s lean chest erupted outward, her bare skin rounding into two sizable swells of firm, smooth, succulent flesh, topping by two erect, rose-colored nipples. Her arms lost mass, growing more slender but remaining toned, even sculpted. Now, however, the muscles of her arms seemed to flow more fluidly under her skin, giving them a softer, more elegant shape.

Her stomach maintained its lean firmness, but her waist cinched in at the sides even as her hips widened to give her body a sexy, feminine shape. The skin of her legs rippled, its surface becoming silky as their muscled shape slimmed into a more womanly shape. Finally, her still-throbbing phallus began to shrink, withdrawing from the goddess’ body and sucking into her own. She gasped as the last vestiges of male anatomy were erased, transformed into the sensitive inner organs of an eternally youthful female.

The priestess climaxed again, this time as a woman. The feeling was completely different than before, the sensation radiating from somewhere deep inside her rather than from something extending before her. Her orgasm shuddered the interior walls of her body, rippling from her womb outward, the core of her body quivering as the potency of her goddess filled her to bursting. She could sense extreme vitality as it flowed through her beautiful form, tingling the surface of her skin. She felt more alive than he ever had before. It was as if she were waking from a shadowy dream, her consciousness emerging from its former shades of gray into full, vibrant color.

The goddess smiled as she finished her work, gracefully extricating her body from that of her new priestess. She sent her breathless disciple slowly to the ground with a careful twist of her slender fingers.

The lovely young woman touched down on the floor beside the torn remnants of Amber’s shirt, reaching down to grab it and drape it over her slender shoulders.

The goddess’ glowing blue eyes surveyed her creation for a moment before she nodded her delighted approval. “Go now. You know what you must do first.”

Her priestess bowed, the girl’s dark hair falling forward, contrasting with her white shirt as she rose once more. The goddess raised a single hand and snapped a finger. Instantly, the priestess rose into the air, flowing through an overgrown oculus in the domed ceiling of the massive, subterranean sanctum. She burst through the green vines, rising into the sunlight, to see that the jungle over the temple had grown into healthy, lush greenness, its vitality boosted by the return of the goddess below.

The priestess flew over the landscape with accelerating speed, trees and water blurring below until she finally began to slow. She descended until her toes touched down outside a home she instantly recognized.

It was her brother’s house.

Closing her long lashes in a silent prayer of thanks to her goddess, tears glimmered over the lower edge of her eyes as she re-opened them. Her goddess had been right. She knew exactly what she must do. Possessed of a certainty of purpose she had never before known, she swept forward, opening the door to find her brother on the sofa. His wife lay with her head in the man’s lap as he stroked her hair. Her brother looked up in alarm, but the priestess simply smiled and placed a single long finger over her full lips.

Though it probably shouldn’t have, the shushing gesture completely stilled her brother’s rising concern. As she smiled at him, her brother seemed to realize that she was simply there to help.

The priestess knelt by the prone woman’s side as the blonde gave her a questioning look. The dark-haired disciple placed her fingers gently over the woman’s lower abdomen and closed her eyes once again, calling the healing power of her goddess through their shared connection.

The blonde woman gasped as a white glow radiated from her belly. Her mouth and eyes opened wide as she felt the flow of the goddess’ energy into her body.

“What…?” the blonde whispered in wonder, her eyes searching those of the priestess as the beautiful young woman removed her hand.

The priestess opened her eyes to find the couple staring back at her.

“You are now able to have children,” she said simply, all of them knowing instinctively that the words were true. “It is your gift from the goddess Ambrosia.”

The priestess rose to her feet as the pair exchanged shocked glances. The man’s lower lip began to quiver as tears of joy began to flow from his wife’s eyes.

The priestess felt her own cheeks begin to moisten as she watched them, backing silently away until she emerged from the house. She wiped away the tears, replacing them with a shuddering, emotion-laden sigh, then glanced around, eager to continue her goddess’ work.

She had found her calling, the culmination of her previous life’s work, and she couldn’t wait to carry it out.