I know Kassandora has written about this concept, and she claims that fairness simply does not exist. In her opinion, it is an idealised concept that can only be simulated in thought experiments. Even in controlled environments such as games, Of War will claim that fairness does not exist because variables such as the rest of the contestants; what they ate, whether they just argued with a loved a one, will have some effect on the game. In this case, any concept of fairness must be inherently made shallow else we would be paralyzed through pure analysis of the subject.

However, whereas what Kassie says make sense on a technical level, she is simply too material and sad of a mind to comprehend fairness. In the same way that beauty cannot be defined, yet we all know that I am beautiful; fairness cannot be quantified, yet we all know that I am unfair, for some reason. This way, fairness can forever be ridiculed and decried, yet it is an ideal that is striven for. Fairness allows for the judgement of tyrants, for mass outcries in support of those deemed to need it and it is the sweetener that makes the rancid taste of compromise palatable.

By sheer definition, Kassandora, me, all Divinity should be killed to make the world fair. We are fundamentally exceptional, Of Darkness, of Light, of Chaos and of Magic serve as the most extreme examples, yet they most brilliantly demonstrate it. How can the world be fair if they exist? Yet this is farce, we call the world fair even though these monsters live, so we realise that fairness is not some material calculation of value.

There is some greater value put into fairness. This is why Kassandora has such an issue with it. Whereas Of War realises it or not, she has come across the true meaning of fairness already. It is simply so unsatisfactory an answer that she naturally recoils in disgust. Maybe it was Kassandora herself who did it, maybe it long ago, before any of us where alive, some fairness really did exist. But with the state of the world as it is now, teetering on the edge of a war that will mark the start of the next Era, fairness has been sewn for one purpose only.

Fairness is the rallying cry of the powerless.

– Excerpt from “Fairness in Divinity”, written by Goddess Malam, of Hatred. Published just before the start of the Great War.

Helenna sighed and traced, with her pencil, a scratch into the wooden table. The pencil’s graphite broke off before the wood so much as even dented. And Helenna sighed as she leaned back and looked through her papers. She should have known that Iniri’s handiwork would break a pencil, especially if it was grown on the same day.

The Goddess of Nature had arrived from a nearby city in the same time as Elassa was sent off to KAFAF-One in order to meet Arascus. Apparently, Iniri had been given total control over rebuilding the entire city. Why Arascus let that happen, Helenna honestly had no idea. Yet Arascus had treated her well and she was fond of her friend, so there was no reason to try and put Iniri down just because the woman wasn’t an urban planner.

And, since Iniri had come here, Malam had quickly enlisted the woman to grown them some sort of structure that could serve as a management office. Iniri had been surprised, but the Goddess of Nature had always carried a heart full of warm honey, so she was probably happy that someone who once fought against her now was relying on her for assistance, even if it was so minor as just growing a child hollow tree with plenty of rooms and windows.

Helenna ran her fingers along the papers as she heard Malam enter. Separating the heels from Malam would be like trying to get the bones out of a person, yet the woman walked terribly quietly. Something that large, with pointed heels and a dress that should have been swishing through the air, a nose that should be audibly breathing should not be so silent.

Malam stopped just behind Helenna. The Goddess of Love did not even move, she just sighed and shrugged to show off the papers before her. “Why are you doing that?” Malam asked as she put her chin on Helenna’s shoulder to look over at what the Goddess of Love was doing. Helenna blinked and looked down at her piece of paper, wasn’t it obvious?

“I’m budgeting bribes.” Helenna said.

“Mmh. I see that.” Malam cooed as she put more weight onto Helenna’s shoulder.

“Is there an issue?” This is how Helenna had always done it, there was no reason to change systems that weren’t broken. “Malam…” Helenna said the other Goddess’ name as of Hatred put yet more weight on Helenna’s shoulder. “MALAM!” Helenna shouted. “You fat fuck, you’re heavy!”

Malam burst out in laughter at the comment as Helenna turned her shoulder. Malam actually was heavy! What was that!? And she had a pointy chin too! “Well well well.” Malam cooed, immediately Helenna prepared herself for some counter-attack. Malam always had one and more often than not, Helenna found them hilarious. “You shouldn’t be complaining, I’m at least half your weight.”

Helenna raised an eyebrow at that. She knew she was being baited into a trap, but she wanted to hear what Malam was going to say. She set up her own bait for Malam to hook onto. She leaned her head back, looked straight up to see the Goddess of Hatred looking down at her, white hair framed Malam’s face as Helenna grinned up at her and crossed her own arms underneath her bosom to push it up. “I’d say you’re not even a quarter.” It was touchy subject amongst Divinity, individual beauty, and none compared to Helenna in terms of perfect shape and size.

Malam grinned back down. That viper’s mouth curled into a ravenous snarl as the Goddess of Hatred responded. “If we were food, I’d be a delicious apple, a green one, not a red one, just slightly tangy and acidic. Healthy, the sort that you need for a snack, you know?”

“I’m sure.” Helenna replied sarcastically.

“Do you know what you’d be?”

“A bigger apple?”

“A fat marshmallow.”

Helenna blinked, she felt her own hair change colour to an amused golden yellow in surprise and her cheeks slightly blush. She had been called all sorts of things in the Pantheon. Allasaria and Elassa and Fortia and Maisara had not held a single word back when they would talk about what they thought of such a worthless demesne such as love. And yet, for all her thousands of years of existence, this is the first time she had ever been called that.

And frankly, how Malam knew that it would be far more annoying than else, Helenna did not know. Yet Helenna was left in awe at just how petulant she felt upon being called a fat marshmallow. “You’d be sour milk.” Helenna said, she knew it wasn’t as strong, but Malam had forced an instinctual kick response from her. Of Hatred’s content smile revealed her pearly-white teeth, as clean as her hair.

“Better a cute little marshmallow to roast over the fire.” Malam poked Helenna’s rosy cheek. “Than some greasy meat patty.” When said in that tone, Malam really could make being a marshmallow sound downright lovely. Helenna took a deep breath, Of Hatred really was talented at what she did. Helenna had to give her that. Malam’s dark eyes finally pulled away from Helenna’s and she looked at the piece of paper.

Two seconds was all it too. “It’s terrible.” Malam said flatly. Helenna wasn’t even annoyed, this is simply how Malam gave feedback. Fortia would have said the same thing, but Fortia wouldn’t have put her hands on Helenna’s shoulders and gave them a little squeeze. Helenna did not even know if Malam realised how much she intruded on other’s space, but frankly, Helenna did not mind when Malam did it to her. “It’s not the worst.” Malam said again. “But it’s not good. I’d do it better.”

That was the kicker. Helenna knew Malam would do it better, every plan relating to the UNN, Malam simply did better. Whereas Helenna managed networks and could filter information like no one else, Malam could make moves that Helenna would not even dream of. “Do you have a drink?” Malam asked, that chin once again settled on Helenna’s red hair and Malam squeezed Helenna’s shoulders.

“Don’t you have your own?” Helenna asked flatly, she started tapping her pencil again in annoyance. This though, she could not stand. Love had never liked to share.

“It got stolen.” Malam answered.

“By who?!” Helenna almost couldn’t believe it. Someone was stealing alcohol from them? Iniri? What? That woman made her own drinks on the spot!

Malam’s reply was deathly serious. “My stomach.”

Helenna extended her hand, still holding the pencil she had broken through tapping, to one of the cabinets. “I have to warn you though.” Helenna said. “You won’t like it.”

Malam gave Helenna’s shoulder one final squeeze and moved so theatrically Helenna was worried for a moment whether the woman would fall over. She didn’t walk to the cabinet, she spun from one heel to the other, white hair and black blossoming like a flower before once again settling as the Goddess leaned down to open the cabinet. All red wines. Malam merely turned her head back to Helenna, a downright depressed glare painted on her face. “Why?”

“I like red wine.”

“You’re so generic!” Malam said. “Wowie!” The flat tone said that there was nothing to wowie about. “The Goddess of Love drinks red wine! Who would have guessed! It’s about as crazy as Kavaa drinking gin!” Helenna dropped her smile, she saw the few loose strands of hair Malam’s chin had thrown into her vision turn shade to a darker colour. Honestly, she had filled her cabinet up with red wine because she knew Malam didn’t like it.

And now she felt bad about it.

“Which one’s your least favourite?” Malam asked as she looked back into the cabinet.

Helenna said the one she liked the most immediately. “South Chateau.” Malam did reach for that one. “Wait! No!” Helenna jumped up and Malam stopped. She looked back towards Helenna in confusion. “Not that one.”

“I don’t mind if it’s bad.” Malam said.

“No! I like that one!” Malam rolled her eyes.

“They’re in your cabinet, I assume you like all of them.”

“That one’s my favourite!” Helenna admitted. She didn’t know why she was so difficult sometimes, why she would have such kneejerk reactions where she would lie about tiny little trite. It was never anything important either, it was always something like this.

“I asked for your least favourite.” Malam said, she put the bottle back in its place and looked back into the cabinet. Then stopped suddenly, her breath catching. “Fuck woman, did you think I’d steal your best wine?”

“I…” Helenna shyly trailed off. She what? She thought that Malam would just be bitchy on purpose and take the opposite of what Helenna said? Helenna sighed and shook her head, Malam wasn’t her after all. “You can have any of them.”

“I don’t want to take your best one though!” Malam said.

“The ones on the top shelf I have for guests.” Helenna admitted and Malam turned back around. “Do you want some help picking one out?”

“Drink is drink.” Malam answered. “This one has a picture of a pretty pony. I’m taking it.” She had taken a Rancais purple. A decent bottle, not the best in the cabinet, not the worst.

“I have a bottle opener if yo…” Helenna trailed off when she saw Malam’s nails slice through the label and the woman bite the cork off. Or try to at least. “You need an opener with good…” Malam snapped the top half of the cork off. “Or that happens.” Helenna said flatly as she watched Malam spit half of the cork out onto the floor. “Great.”

“Do not worry, this is how we do it in the business.” Malam said and pressed the cork deeper in. There was a small pop, a splash and Malam proudly held the bottle of wine with the cork swimming inside it.

“What business?” Helenna asked dryly.

“The alcoholic one.” Malam replied with a laugh, took a swig directly from the bottle and held it out for Helenna. “Want some?” Helenna took some with a sigh and almost recoiled when her lips touched it. Malam used lipstick? And it was so sweet? Helenna didn’t say anything, but she passed the bottle back to Of Hatred. Malam quickly licked the part of the bottle where Helenna’s lips touched it. Of course she did. The Goddess of Love felt a shiver go down her spine when she saw that.

“Cherry.” Malam said as Helenna’s cheeks went crimson. “Good choice.”

“Well it’s better than yours!” Helenna shouted. “What do you even use? Pure sugar?!”

“I asked Iniri for hers.”

“INIRI USES THAT?” Helenna burst out and Malam shrugged.

“Can I have yours then?” Malam asked so innocently that Helenna… Helenna wanted to burst out in laughter. A thousand years of scheming in the Pantheon, and she had found only Iniri and Kavaa. And even then, she liked them, but she didn’t know if she would like them so much if they weren’t in that situation. Malam though?

Malam was downright intoxicating. She had known the woman only a couple of days at this point, and they were talking as if they came from the same egg.

“Just take it. Don’t use whatever that is.” Helenna said and Malam smiled as she dragged a chair back next to Helenna. As always, Malam got far too close, practically invading Helenna’s seat, but the woman didn’t mind. She leaned into Malam as Malam leaned into her. “So? What do you think of how to improve here?” Helenna asked as she looked at both the paper before her and kept Malam in the field of her vision.

“Why are we bribing?” Malam asked. The cork falling into the bottle may have actually been a positive, it acted as a plug whenever the woman tipped it up to drink. “Well? Can you speak Helenna? Why are we bribing?”

“We’re bribing because…” Helenna thought for a moment. Because they needed things to be done? Because they needed to buy action, if not loyalty? What sort of answer was the woman looking for? “Well, we need some incentive for them to work, right?” Helenna asked and Malam put her left hand around the Goddess of Love.

In that moment, just before Malam began to explain, as Helenna leaned further into Malam, the Goddess of Love felt a fortress wall within her heart begin to crack and crumble. The physical comfort wasn’t Malam making some grand proclamation of love, nor was it any attempt to indulge lust, it was simply physical touch for the sake of physical touch. Helenna didn’t know if Malam had the same thing, maybe she did after being underground for a whole millennium, but Helenna had it her whole life, since the very moment she incarnated.

Who could touch the Goddess of Love? Who would even attempt something like that? Helenna had known one person, and that was Arascus. But whereas she liked working closely with Arascus, the man had an empire to run. Did he know? He must know what Malam was like, the God had adopted her into his family after all. And Helenna knew that Arascus could play her like a fiddle, she let herself be played after all. But as she sat there, basking in Malam’s physical recognition of her, she smiled. She didn’t even care that Malam was about to eviscerate all the hard work she had done, she simply liked the feeling of leaning on someone and of someone’s arm around her.

“You had it right!” Malam said. “Incentive is the name of the game here.” Malam took another swig and got fed up with the cork. She bit the glass top of the bottle off and dug the cork out.

“You’re an animal.” Helenna dryly commented, only her eyes moving to watch whatever this utter failure of an attempt to drink wine.

“Damn right I’m an animal.” Malam’s tone was that teasing one again, full of connotations, yet Helenna simply didn’t care this time. She wasn’t going to fall for the bait as she let her head drop on Malam’s shoulder. “But incentive, that is what we are working on. This is where I’m better than you.”

“Mmh.” Helenna replied. There was a whole lot more that Malam was better in, but Helenna didn’t think that she needed to say that right now.

“The planning is not terrible in itself.” Malam said. “The individual cases I mean, here, were you found the companies contracted to do rebuilding, that’s good. Same with the governors and statesmen in charge of it. Faster than me in that.” Helenna smiled at the compliment. “Bribes on one hand are good, they’re fast, and they get to the point. But there’s two issues.”

Helenna already knew the answer. “They leave a trail and they’re expensive.” She spoke, still leaning on Malam’s shoulder. And she felt her own hand creeping around Malam to return the hug. When was the last time she had been hugged? She honestly could not remember.

“There we go.” Malam said. “I think this is just demesne differences. I just naturally see these patterns.”

“Maybe.” Helenna said.

“Maybe not though.”

“I don’t see them.”

“I see how you do yours, but do you know why I don’t use bribes like that?” Malam asked. She moved and pressed into Helenna’s arm around her back.

“Why?”

“I’m just fucking lazy and can’t be bothered.” Malam said and Helenna smiled. Frankly, she saw Malam’s plans, and she saw nothing lazy about them. In fact, they were the opposite. “But we want a more general system, you have spies, which is good. Normally this part takes me the longest.”

“I’m good at handling people.” Helenna said.

“Do you know what you should do to handle me though?” Malam suddenly asked and Helenna almost sat up. Almost.

“What?”

“Touch my spine. I like that feeling.” Malam replied and Helenna acquiesced. Instead of hugging Malam, she simply traced a finger down the woman’s back. Malam gave no reaction, no shiver, nothing. She may as well have no been feeling it. But then, from the corner of her eye, Helenna saw the Goddess of Hatred smile to herself. Not Malam’s usual terrible wicked smile, but the smile of a child who had just been given ice-cream. And Malam continued. “So I want to use your spies, not for bribes, but for examples.”

“Examples?” Helenna asked.

“Well the trade-off is we get some of them arrested. Maybe executed. In the Great War, it was Ana who lost the most.”

“Of course it was.” Helenna said dryly. She had seen how Anassa treated her own sorcerers.

“Then me.” Malam said. “Kassie actually kept her own attrition rates lower than ours, somehow. So that’s the trade-off, but we have an excess of men and dad is barely keeping Kirinyaa afloat economically.” That much was true, this was the biggest hamper in Helenna’s plan. They simply didn’t have the millions, if not billions, that would be needed to buy out everyone in the UNN. “So we send your spies in and we make examples.”

“I don’t see it…” Helenna said and Malam kept on explaining. Allasaria would have gotten mad, Maisara would have probably just refused to elongate. But not Malam, Malam made sure that Helenna understand.

“Everyone has an incentive. Your bribes create a material incentive, the issue in that is that material incentives are…” Malam restarted. “Well, they’re material. Do you know the best way to stop a bribe is?”

“Outbribe it.” Helenna said.

“Exactly. Material incentives need the material to keep flowing. We shut off the money supply, they get back to work. Instead, we want our incentive to be one of fairness.” And Helenna got lost again, but Malam kept on going. “So when a worker sees one of your spies, who they assume is a worker too, openly talk about the fact he sold off a bag of concrete to someone else. Someone who is in your pocket too, what does that worker think? Does he know that these are Helenna’s people? Or does he instead stay and think about why he earns in a week what this man just made in five minutes? This is the most fragile point of a man’s heart. It’s this demoralization that just eats away at honour and duty and everything. What’s the point in duty and honour, if you’re the only one with it after all?”

“Oh…” Helenna started to see it.

“And there’s someone like this in every step of the hierarchy. Someone you know Helenna, being corrupt with someone else you know. The incentive then is not some material possession we need to keep supplying. The incentive is one’s personal honour. How can you keep working honestly when you see everyone around you getting rich like this?”

“Even though they’re all just actors.” Helenna said and Malam nodded.

“Exactly. What goes on in the dressing room doesn’t matter because the audience watches the stage.” Malam said. “And on stage, what is happening is just corruption. Corruption so flagrant and obvious that you can only ask yourself one thing.”

Helenna asked it. “Why aren’t I getting rich?”

“Exactly.” Malam said. “Because we’re not rolling a boulder here, we’re kickstarting an engine. Once it’s turned on, it fuels itself. Once the corruption sets in, you can pull everyone out because the audience suddenly is the actors.”

Helenna stared the piece of paper in awe. Every time Malam had to sit down with her to explain something like this, Helenna would simply be awe-struck. The sheer simplicity of it. Whereas Helenna was coming up with scenarios that would work, yet that required so much effort and input that they were like trying to start a flood with a hosepipe, Malam was throwing a snowball down a mountain and starting an avalanche. “Do you see it now?” Frankly, Helenna did not know if Malam had a true voice. She was always loud, her tone shifted from a nasally nails on a chalkboard to a seductive low rumble, yet if there was a real voice in there, Helenna hoped it was this one. Malam sounded as if she genuinely cared.

“You’re amazing Malam.” Helenna whispered from the side.

“Thanks.” Malam replied, almost oddly. Helenna saw the Goddess the blush. “Can you touch my spine again?” Malam whispered it this time.

And Helenna did.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep