[image description: A sly young green-eyed caramel blonde in a professional looking uniform offers a
[image description: A sly young green-eyed caramel blonde in a professional looking uniform offers a tasty-looking apple. But there is steam (?) rising from it, and the blackboard behind her seems to list ingredients for poisons. Text reads, “196, LOCUSTA, SMALL GOD OF ULTERIOR MOTIVES”]• • • • •Don’t call her a villain. She doesn’t like that, and it’s hypocritical anyway, because everyone serves her in their time. Everyone. The wicked and the virtuous, the innocent and the jaded, even the animals. No one’s motives are entirely pure. No one’s desires always align perfectly with the world around them, and no one is above trying to adjust that alignment when the time seems right. Not me. Not even you.When a child cleans their room unasked in hopes that it will make a parent more likely to agree to some unusual request, that’s an ulterior motive. When a parent says yes even though they recognize the cleaning for what it is, but mostly so they can have the house to themselves for a few hours, that’s an ulterior motive. When someone uses their best manners upon meeting a new person, out of the hopes that they’ll be liked, that’s an ulterior motive. Ulterior motives are the grease that keeps the wheels of society spinning, and they’re not innately dishonest, or wicked, or anything of the like.Oh, they can be, of course. Of that, there is no question. It’s entirely possible for someone’s ulterior motives to lead to ruin, and Locusta watches over them with the same fierce possessiveness as she watches the dogs who prance and fawn in hopes of receiving a treat. They belong to her, and what’s hers, she protects.She has an ulterior motive, of course. She wants us to love her.That’s all she’s ever wanted, and that’s all she’s never had.• • • • •Join Lee Moyer (Icon) and Seanan McGuire (Story) Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many small deities who manage our modern world:Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseriesInstagram: https://instagram.com/smallgodseries/Homepage: http://smallgodseries.com -- source link