The Hierarch strolled through the market streets, ruminating in anger. He saw the way the others looked at him, muttering under their breaths and sizing him up even as they shunted aside. Loxodons like him—towering elephant-folk, a good seven feet tall with hundreds of pounds of muscle—were often held in suspicion by others. Even the gentlest of giants could still inspire fear in those smaller than them.

Of course, it didn’t help that today, the Hierarch was perhaps more forceful than usual. Anger spurred his heavy feet to slam down onto the cobbled streets, a thud heard a good half-mile away, and his trunk thrashed with every breath, broadcasting his pique. The temple of his people was close now, in a square on the far end of the market. It was their sacred site, the holiest place they had—a lone refuge where loxodons could move with the assurance of kindness and acceptance of others of their kin.

And it had been the site of a crime most heinous.

The market thinned as the stalls and hawkers gave way to the religious quarter. The humans’ grand temple dominated the square, of course, but what the loxodons lacked in space, they made up for in artisanry. Their temple boasted austere marble pillars and a series of stone steps scaled for their massive size. Modest statues of saints and heroes flanked the entryway. The stone steps, built to withstand a weight such as his, didn’t so much as budge even as the Hierarch stomped up them. He barely thought to nod to the temple guards as he passed.

A priest waited for him inside, grey hands folded inside pristine robes, tusks polished and pure. “Take me to her,” the Hierarch growled. His voice was a basso to set the heavens quaking. The priest nodded and led him deep into their sanctuary.

They traveled underground, the chambers spacious and lit with bright-colored torches; the flames had been blessed to burn forever and give off no smoke. The Hierarch was led down to a sub-basement, and then another, and another—until finally, they reached the place where the ne’er-do-well was being held captive.

The temple had no cells, per se, so they’d appropriated a room used for housing acolytes and guarded it well. As the priest opened the door, the occupant—a human female a few years into her twenties; she had a messy pile of wavy red hair and was short even by the standards of her diminutive species—bolted for the door. Her impetuousness angered the Hierarch. It was bad enough that she had disrespected his people already, but she didn’t even have the temerity to face her consequences?

His great trunk wrapped around her as she tried to squeeze past him and he flung her unceremoniously back into the chamber. As he stepped in, the priest followed and then locked the door behind them.

The thief spat in defiance, staring up at him. “What, another one of you big lugs? Am I supposed to be afraid?” She snorted. “Hey, nice gold. Wasted on a brute like you. Hand it over and we’ll call it square for imprisoning me.”

The Hierarch’s hand gripped even tighter around the gilded scepter he carried, a badge of his office. For a moment he felt like exploding at her.

Instead, when he spoke, it was with deadly calm. “Do you know, precisely, what it is you have done?”

She jeered at him and crossed her arms. She was an archetypal thief—dingy clothes, shifty eyes, wiry frame. The Hierarch almost felt bad for her. Likely she’d been born into a poor situation. But then, the loxodons were mistreated by society just as the human poor were—and they didn’t engage in sacrilege towards others.

“You have trespassed into our temple,” he said, folding his arms. “The most sacred place of our people. You have assaulted our priests and acolytes, gentle souls merely wishing to spread kindness and good feelings.” He felt his anger stoking and his voice grew even more level, more iron-like. The frigid tone visibly gave her pause. “But as if that wasn’t enough, you tried to steal one of our sacred relics—a vial said to contain the tears of our goddess herself. Those tears were to give our people a new future.”

“Yeah?” she sneered, bravado returned. “Fat fucking good it did you, huh! Didn’t exactly stop me from smashing the damn thing when I was caught.”

Ahhhhhhh, there it was. She admitted it. The fury in the Hierarch threatened to consume him. Such greed, such pettiness, that when she was cornered with the artifact, she would rather destroy it than return it. If she couldn’t have it, no one could.

“Guess that means your so-called faith is bunk, huh?” the human continued. She stared at him in challenge. “Big fucking surprise coming from a bunch of dumb, fat, stupid anim—”

He lost control. The Hierarch lunged forward, trunk coiling about the thief’s neck. Breath rushed out of her with a squeal as he hoisted her up to his eye-level and stared her down. Her eyes bugged out in alarm; her feet kicked helplessly in the air and her hands scrabbled at his trunk.

“You have no idea of the injustice you have done to us,” the Hierarch said. “That vial was a symbol of our faith, and more than that, it was hope to us. Hope. You sought to steal one of our most sacred treasures, and then would rather destroy the symbol of a people’s belief than surrender it to its rightful owners.” His trunk tightened; her face flushed as blood and oxygen stalled. “And because we are loxodons, your own government will just let you go with a slap on the wrist. A few nights in jail for failed theft, a few more for injuring elephant-folk that no one else cares about. A crime beyond all reason and you won’t even face punishment. You—”

He paused, suddenly realizing something. From its position near her body, his sensitive trunk was picking up an unexpected undercurrent of scent. The loxodon loosened his grip and the thief heaved desperately for air as soon as she could, trying to squirm away as his trunk snout probed experimentally at her.

Yes… the note was subtle, so subtle that even a loxodon could barely detect it. But it was definitely there. The human thief was giving off a pheromone… a pheromone that usually indicated a female loxodon was fertile and in heat.

What sort of divine prank was this?

The Hierarch commanded the priest to approach. “Smell her,” he commanded. “Tell me what you pick up.”

The priest’s trunk danced across the still-struggling human, and then his eyes suddenly widened and he met the Hierarch’s eyes. “But—that can’t—”

“Have any of our women handled her?” the Hierarch asked quietly.

The holy man shook his head. “No. Only males, and a small handful at that.”

The Hierarch nodded. It was as he thought. The pheromone was coming from the human herself. She had the smell of a fertile loxodon female.

“What does it mean?” the priest asked.

Thoughts tumbled over in the Hierarch’s head. It seemed strange and wrong that the tears had been destroyed without doing anything. They had been prophesied to lead his people down a new path. But what if they hadn’t failed at all?

“When she destroyed the tears,” he replied, “did some splash onto her?”

The priest nodded. “Oh, naturally. They went everywhere. She was drenched.”

Of course. So that was it.

“I believe,” he said to the holy man, “that this woman is a gift from our goddess. She unwittingly transformed herself into a vessel for our people’s future.”

The priest’s eyes widened. “You can’t mean…”

Instead of answering him, the Hierarch finally let the human drop. She collapsed to her hands and knees, massaging her throat with one hand while glaring daggers at him with watered eyes.

“You fucker,” she snarled. Her voice was hoarse and rough from the pressure he’d applied; an angry red welt circled her neck. “Thief or not, when the guards find out what you did to a human…”

The Hierarch didn’t dignify her with a response. Instead, he strode over to her. The human flinched—and then squawked with shock as his hand grabbed her hip. She was so petite, and he so large, that he could have fit her entire ass inside his hand if he wanted.

“H-hey—what—” she began. Her eyes widened as the Hierarch used his effortless strength to rip her clothing in one tug, leaving loose tatters about her upper body and completely exposing her lower one.