Teenagers are stubborn and prideful things. Defying their parents, trashing their plans, casually throwing forever wars into disarray with their overwhelming and divine presence.

...

Okay so maybe that last one is just an Augusta thing. A Goddess of Strategy, and an opinionated one at that, belonging to  Coracroma!

Thumbnail by  Darkomi

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This was a rather fun story, turned commission, that I had the pleasure of knocking out for her. Augusta is one of her newer characters and she was eager to see my take on her.

Per  Coracroma!
Augusta is one of mutliple daughters of her father, the god of war of an yet unnamed pantheon in a realm very similar to our own roman empire.

She's young, has a huge issue with authority and ESPECIALLY her father who tries his best to make her properly live up to her expectations as a minor deity of strategy and the responisiblities that come with the field of work. Augusta couldn't care less about responsiblities though and acts befitting her (comparatively) young age. Possessing the standard abilities of a deity, immortality, projection and so on her most remarkable feature is directly linked to her divine armaments gifts from her father, a peacocks quill and a magical parchment that shifts to always depict the current battlefield allowing Augusta to take subtle influence on the minds of warriors and generals alike or even work minor miracles by lifting people off the map for a short blink and placing them in a sound strategical position. That is if she were to properly use her powers which she rarely does as it is much more fun to test her boundaries and how much direct interaction with mortals she can get away from before her father or her uncle (The head of the pantheon) catch wind of her meddling.

---

The Great Puny War
By: RaddaRaem

"Excuse you?" the elder wolf bellowed.

Muzzle scrunched, Augusta pouted as she crossed her arms about her chest. "I said it's BORING."

Augusta's father pinched at his wrinkled brow. "Such are our responsibilities, Augusta. We are deities, yes, but our influence is not absolute. It is to be wielded subtly not... not bombastically!" he sighed in exasperation. His sandaled feet clapped gently against the marble tiles lining their celestial villa as he paced. "I am our pantheon's God of War, am I not?"

"Yep," Augusta curtly replied while she kicked her feet to and fro.

"A lesser God of War, to be-"

"YEP," the young woman all but shouted.

"A lesser God of War, to be certain, but a deity all the same," he continued as his voice dripped with frustration. The wizened wolf, his hands clasped behind his back, came to a halt before a crimson chess board. "My powers, while perhaps not on par with those of Mars, enable me to draw out conflicts and prolong the passions of war."

Augusta slunk down in her chair. "Morale, provisions, reinforcements... your targets are many yet understated," she flatly recited.

Her father nodded. "The engine of war is a delicate machine indeed. Easily sabotaged and brought to a bloody equilibrium as forever wars come to swallow up entire generations. Augusta, as a Goddess of Strategy, you are to advise not act-"

Augusta tossed her head back and allowed her arms to flop at her sides. "Boooored."

Another set of wrinkles carved themselves into the graying wolf's forehead. "You are to-"

"I'm bored," the young woman declared.

"Unbelievable," her father mouthed to himself in exasperation. Eyes clenched shut, the wolf dragged his hands along his scruffy cheeks. "How could the tides of battle, the ebb and flow of swords crashing against spears, fail to captivate your attention?" he pitifully asked.

"It's so sameyyyyyyy," Augusta groaned as her eyes aimlessly traced the oily outlines of the murals decorating the domed ceiling. "There's no finality, there's... there's no closure!"

Augusta's father slouched forward and allowed his padded hands to rest against the chess board. Rooks, pawns, and knights of the white and black variety slid across the tiles of their own volition. Cracks accumulated upon their polished wooden surfaces as the soldiers they were meant to symbolize slowly crumbled under the demands of an endless conflict.

"Such concepts run contrary to my stated goal of prolonging wars, Augusta. If you'd just give it a chance I'm certain that you'd see the nuance, the trickery, the finesse required to-"

"Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrreeeeeeeddddddddddddddddddd," the teenaged wolf sighed as she crammed far more syllables than necessary into her exasperated exclamation.

Massaging at his temples, the graying wolf recalled that, as luck would have it, today was to be a terrific day to frequent the vineyards! Then again, with Augusta coming into her own, EVERY day was proving to be an ideal day to sample the finest wines that the pantheon could produce. "Be that way," he muttered.

Rolling his shoulders, plates of Centurion armor creaking as he did so, Augusta's father turned his attention towards the daughter who could not be bothered to return it. "Do you need anythohhhhh forget it," he trailed off. "One day, certainly not today, you'll come to understand the role and responsibilities expected of you, Augusta. Until then, behave yourself. I'll return by sundown."

"Later," Augusta replied as she lazily pulled herself back up into the sitting position. The vertebrae in her spine pressed against one another as she slunk in her cushioned seat. Perfectly content to allow it to swallow her up in its comforting embrace.

Or at least she pretended as such until her father's footsteps went quiet.

"Finally!" she excitedly barked. Clawed fingers digging into the arm rests, Augusta vaulted herself forward. Stumbling into a jog, the clap of the wolf's sandals echoed through the villa. She raced towards the chess board and immediately scooped all of the battered playing pieces into her grasp.

Said chess pieces wiggled confusedly against her forearms.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Augusta grumbled as she rushed herself. Hands full, she fumbled at the folds of cloth lining her toga. A toothy grin curled along her muzzle at the familiar sound, and touch, of crinkling paper.

"Was wondering where I left you," the wolf giggled as a nondescript map fluttered out from her person and landed atop the chess board. She hurriedly set the pieces back into what she thought had been their places, it was hard to tell with the tiles being covered, and knelt before it. Her tail wig wagged behind her as she thrummed her fingers along the parchment.

Such a simple action was all it took for her grace to be made manifest. Ink, flowing free from the nails adorning her fingers, spread across the map. Trickling along the wrinkles woven into the paper it meticulously traced the topography of the battlefield. Every hill, every valley, every trench, and every scar in the earth revealed itself to Augusta.

The wolf curled her fingers against her palm. With a squeeze, the ink bubbled and frothed as the parchment itself rose and collapsed where instructed to bring the battlefield to life. All while flakes of wood splintered off the chess pieces and they came to immaculately capture the features of the soldiers and generals they were truly meant to represent.

"Now then..." Augusta smirked as she cupped her hands against her cheeks and cooed. "Where to begin?"

---

"RAHHHHHH!"

"AHHHHHHH!"

Roaring in unison, an ivory clad badger and a hulking lion, adorned in armor dark enough to capture the very constellations, crashed their shields against one another. Drawing their weapons, a short sword and a mace respectively, each endeavored to end the other.

Yet... the lion halted his approach. Eyes wide and jaw agape, he stumbled back. "Oh my... umm... n-no. Oh your... god? Maybe?"

"Huh?" Chin tucked against his shoulder, the badger looked back and gasped. Augusta's self-assured visage looked down upon them from the wispy tufts of clouds dotting the skies.

"Nooooooo? I-I'm pretty sure?" said the badger.

At a loss, the two warriors offered one another emphatic shrugs.

---

"Father really made a mess of things," Augusta pouted. Twirling her hand about her wrist, she bit down on her lip as she scoured about for any weak points in either side's defenses. Her eyes settled on the hill where what had been the blackened King and Queen entrenched themselves. Wood shavings had peeled themselves free, bit by bit, to reveal a general and his most capable triarrii.

Augusta squinted at the resolute boar and battle hardened lioness. Their rear guard was non-existent. The trenches running along the west, long abandoned and strewn with refuse, would prove a perfect way to advance upon them! Provided the opposing side had had any scouts to spare. Augusta let out a disgusted sigh.

"No wonder," the wolf scowled. Her father had exhausted both side’s forces to the point that neither could afford the bodies needed for battlefield reconnaissance much less a blitz. Winning the war would prove tougher than expected...

---

"Is... is she still there?" Subdued tunks sounded out as the badger, clad in bone, half-heartedly thwacked against the side of the lion's shield.

"Yeahhhhhh..." answered the wary feline.

Their unthinking animosity fizzled as the two foes lazily circled one another. The tall grasses and wild flowers that once lined these killing fields had long since been trampled into the dirt by the well-worn leather strapped to their feet.

"She's just standing there. Menacinglyyyyy," the lion uncomfortably mrowled.

"Auuuuuuuugh. Gods above, I know we always pray for them to watch over us but n-not like this! It's... it's kinda creepy," came the badger's reply.

"I know, right?! I haven't had stage fright this bad since I performed at Palmyra."

The badger cocked his brows as he knocked back a wimpy swing of a mace. "Performed?"

---

"If I... No. Dammit."

Arms crossed about her chest, Augusta glowered down at the options available to her. Be it a flank, envelopment, or even a damned inverted wedge she lacked the resources to execute on any of her tactics. There simply weren't enough pieces to work with.

"He did this on purpose," the wolf harrumphed. The limitations her father had imposed made victory, or defeat, an impossibility. Flopped forward, she snorted dismissively. "I just want my good ennnnnd," she loudly sulked. She was the Goddess of Strategy! There was no challenge, no puzzle, no conundrum she couldn't think her way out of! Or at least that's what she liked to tell herself.

"Stupid father. Stupid rules. Stupid cute little playing pieces," the teenaged deity grumped. She knew, she just knew, that her father engineered this with the tacit understanding that she wouldn't be able to resist toying with his work. "If only I had more soldiers," she whined. "If only, if only, if only. Blech. If only I didn't have to follow these stupid rules."

Augusta's ears perked to attention as a thought occurred to her. "Wait..."

---

"Plautus' works, his comedies, were our bread and butter. The wit of that man!"

Laughing, the badger did little more that thrust his shield forward as their fight to the death had devolved into a genial tussle. "Asinaria, Mercator, Rudens... You couldn't make me pick my favorite. Oh! Who did you play?"

Clearing his throat, the lion proudly puffed out his chest. "Why, I was none other than..." As the maned feline spoke, a shadow swallowed up the land. A pair of hands, sky spanning and heralding from the heavens, reached out for the mortal realm.

---

Figures in hand, Augusta grinned at her newly captured scouts. "If the only things standing in my way are some arbitrary rules then I'd be a fool not to break them! To flout them and toss them aside for the rubbish they are."

The wolf happily swished the figurine sized fighters to and fro while she giggled. "Maybe this was father's plan all along? To help me realize that, as a deity of Strategy, my role is to twist circumstance to my favor however I can. Knowing that the only rules that can constrain me are the ones I choose to play by."

A gentle silence draped upon the villa as Augusta pondered the possibility. "Pfffft. Who am I kidding?" she snorted. "Let's wreck this wretched thing."

---

"AHHHHHHHHH!"

"RAHHHHHHHH!"

Screaming incoherently, the badger and lion emptied their lungs as they lurched through the air. Fingers as thick as columns, lined thick with fur and wiry muscle, ensnared them in the grasp of the goddess.

The remaining forces duking it out on the slopes and stomped grasses gasped as Augusta's regal form was properly revealed in full. Her torso on up, towering above the horizon, positively radiated in the midday sun. Her chest plate, adorned with the likeness of gryphons whose flowering tails intermingled, soaked up every last drop of light.

Jaws hung slack from the gobsmacked combatants on both sides of the conflict as the wolf's cape, and the rolls of crimson cloth draped from her sternum, fluttered deafeningly. Some dropped their weapons at the sight of the shimmering wreath of laurels perched atop her curly haired head. Others still stared confusedly at their shrieking compatriots pinched between her leather padded digits.

"Now what am I going to do with you two?" Augusta mused aloud as her voice boomed across the battlefield. Blades of grass and flakes of dirt colored the shockwaves that accompanied it.

Trembling, the badger and lion's respective brothers-in-arms could but helplessly watch as this mysterious deity cast judgement upon them.

THOOOOM

Augusta's curled fists slammed against the earth. Tremors accompanied her divine and larger than life presence. "First and foremost my newfound scouts will slink along the forgotten trenches..." the wolf narrated. Lips pursed, she repeatedly tapped her playing pieces against the sundered land as she walked them towards the base of a hill.

Exhausted, the lion and badger's shouts faded into pitiful cries as they were violently bounced about. The opposing armies, awed but moments earlier, looked on thoroughly bewildered.

"Arrows and the shouts of the fallen sail overhead as our courageous duo, risking life and limb, crawl through the broken legacy of a prior generation. Once the bitterest of enemies, the futility of this pointless war forced them to reconsider their alliances," Augusta continued to monologue with childish glee.

"No it didn't!" came the badger's reply as his knees knocked and scraped against forgotten armor, weapons, and wagons.

The towering wolf nodded otherwise. "The fiercely maned warrior, casting aside his misplaced loyalty to a pointless cause, offered to guide his foe turned friend to his commander. Knowing that-"

"I most certainly did not!" the lion shouted. He pitifully mewed when Augusta's grip on him tightened.

Her muzzle curled into a toothy grin, Augusta marched her forces up to the top of the hill. "Knowing that this war had to end. Their arrival heralded as such and-"

KATUNK

Augusta's eyes went wide at the clunk of a door and the heavy clap of a familiar set of sandals. "F-father! You're home early!"

Both the badger and lion cast wary side eyes at the flustered goddess.

"Unfortunately," the elder wolf grumbled. "Red wine stains so easily and if I ever want to wear this armor again I needed... to..." Her father narrowed his gaze at the daughter guiltily slouched over his chess board. "Augusta. What are you doing?"

"Ummmm."

"AUGUSTA."

The younger wolf's tail puffed out. N-No! This couldn't be it! The war was just about to come to a close! Cheeks puffed out, Augusta forced out a panicked sigh. Tacky as it was, she would have to settle for some deus ex machina. Divine intervention, as it were. Composing herself she turned to the battlefield and the miniscule soliders and generals now staring up at her incredulously. She cleared her throat. "AND THEN CAME THE GIANT FIST!"

Shrieks bellowed up from between her curled fingers, and the map matted over the chess board, as Augusta reared an arm back.

"AUGUSTA SO HELP ME!"