A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

As soon as he heard Nora's speech, Erik sighed and chuckled helplessly. He could feel Enkai's gaze justifiably burning into his side. He glanced at the older man and shrugged. "Let's just go take a look, huh?"

Enkai scoffed, his expression stormy, but he remained quiet.

After reaching the top of the stairs, they found themselves on a balustrade, overlooking the main hall where Nora was preaching. Erik listened to a few more lines, but it was all nonsense to him. He didn't mind she was saying it per se—he was just in disbelief that anyone would believe in it.

"Here we are, Master," Anne smiled proudly, hands cupped behind her back as she pushed her chest forward and leaned towards him. "We've worked hard! What do you think?"

Erik's eyes panned across the hall and turned speechless. Beside him, Enkai's eyebrows were twitching so hard, they might soon launch into orbit.

What they saw was a somewhat contemporary church setting. The hall, well-lit and luxurious, had Nora in her servant outfit standing in front of a pulpit, and a group of people on one knee in front of her. Nora's voice was powerful and filled with zealotry. Her eyes radiated with conviction as she spoke.

He noticed most of the supposed worshippers wore a bearing his and Elora's covenant mark of a howling wolf's head with fairy wings. He remembered seeing them during the ceremony.

However, that was about where the relatively normal stuff ended. Apart from those kneeling and listening intently, there was a group of people who seemed far less interested in any of it. They were bound and gagged in a corner, their heads forced in Nora's direction.

They frowned and struggled, uttering muffled complains. Erik's omnisense immediately told him of the sigils surrounding them, keeping their first—and second—ranked powers suppressed.

But, the thing actually causing him the biggest headache was what massive portrait behind Nora. This one actually caused him to palm his face, shuddering and sighing with a sense of embarrassment that he thought he'd lost long ago.

"Hah!" he heard Elora's voice in his head, full of impressed amusement. "They captured your likeness so well! There must be painters among your new worshippers."

Currently, the portal to his dimension was fixed in the palace, but the central viewing room always showed his direct surroundings. This way, his family could enter and leave whenever they wanted, as well as check up on his activities. He'd asked Elora to join him in this way when he started making his way here.

"You mean you aren't responsible for this…?" Erik responded, an eyebrow raised sceptically as he leaned on the balustrade. Exhaustion filled him as he wondered how he was going to deal with this.

Elora giggled gleefully. "You think I have the time to make something like that? You're cute. I've had nothing to do with any of this, but I fully approve."

Erik sighed. Borrowing a pre-awakening idiom, he imagined Elora was chewing on popcorn right now.

The painting took up half of the back wall, and depicted Erik, fully naked, standing heroically on a desert battlefield with a raised warhammer in his right hand. He was in human form, but a spectral, howling werewolf's head extend from him.

Lightning tore through the painted sky behind him. He appeared to be laughing, as broken and bloody bodies of hunters littered the ground. Four women lined up just behind him, on his left and right, bearing a remarkable likeness to Emma, Emily, Astrid, and Naeku. A fifth, much younger girl, sat on his left shoulder: Alice.

Finally, two more women, obviously meant to be Nora and Anne, kneeled in front of him. They faced the viewer with pride and confidence, despite the chains leading from their necks to Erik's left hand.

Anne noticed his exasperation and looked worried. "Do you not like it, Master? We can make a new one, if you like!" Although a little concerned, she didn't sound sad or dejected—as if she simply wanted it to be perfect for him.

Erik glanced at her wryly. After the once hatred-filled, fiercely independent Anne had first come to terms with the fate of her mother, and then submitted to him, her personality had changed significantly. The changes started gradually but, according to Nora, who knew Anne before the awakening, this was actually closer to the original Anne.

She was quieter and more introverted than before, happy to let Nora take the lead, and content in her service to Erik. The fierceness she'd learned was still there, however.

Seeing her worried expression and simple desire to please him, Erik sighed. "That's… why don't you tell me why you made it like this, first?"

"Sure!" she immediately agreed enthusiastically. "We designed our religion with all the things we thought were the most important things to you, and the painting depicts them all!"

She pointed at the various parts of the painting and explained: "Strength, honour, bravery, family, sex, and the natural laws of dominance and submission."

He smirked wryly, his eyes flying across the canvas. His voice was still a little exasperated and unsure. "Well, I'm not so sure about the honour thing, but it should work well with the Enkarians, at least. The rest is, admittedly, spot on, I guess."

"It's amazing, you mean!" Elora giggled uncontrollably through their bond.

Her voice instantly reminded Erik of something. "Is Elora not included in this?" he asked Anne, raising an eyebrow as he looked at her. He knew she preferred staying in the background, but if this was going to be the face of his religion, he wanted her included.

"She's on your shoulder, Master," Anne answered, a little surer of herself, as she pointed at the painting again. Frowning, Erik looked a little closer and, this time, noticed the tiny creature sitting on his right shoulder. It was truly a miniature, but impressively recognisable.

At this point, the only person missing was Seraphina, but he didn't expect any different. That fierce, power hungry vampire was neither family, nor really the same as Anne or Nora. In fact, Erik was still deciding what to do with her.

Truthfully, the longer he looked at the painting, the more he warmed up to it. It was obviously a little much, and he preferred not being naked in a painting that included Alice, but it included a lot of what he cared about. He took pride in seeing his wives portrayed as powerful warriors instead of mere adornments.

Anne noticed his growing approval, causing her to smile. "It's good, right?!"

Smirking, Erik nodded. "It's… not bad, but we'll need to talk about the nakedness. I don't want Alice involved in a painting like that."

"Anything you want!" Anne reacted readily, merely happy he didn't object to the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Enkai had been glaring holes in Erik's side since they came up here, and he finally turned to the older man next to him.

"…what?" he asked, with no small amount of cheek. On some level, Enkai's obvious annoyance was turning Erik even more in favour of all this.

Meanwhile, Nora's reading was coming to an end.