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windup-dragoon · 4 years

Text

【Ｇｏｄｄｅｓｓ】

Word Count: 5033

Hien x Kiri

[[ Water Goddess AU ]]

Waterlilies

Drifting. Silence. Shadows.

She hates it here. It feels empty yet her stomach churns and her heart aches.

Helpless. Lost. Alone.

She yearns for the days of color. The sounds of daily life to fill her ears. A sweet song she wasn’t aware existed ‘til now.

This world, so bleak and abysmal. It would swallow her one day but she prays that it will not be so soon. She begs the powers that be to listen to her silent plea. To rescue her from the darkness that stretches so eagerly towards her. Reaching, always searching.

And then there is light. Strings that glitter and ripple; a web of fractured light and curtains falling across her face in swaths of warmth and life. She recognizes the patterns and is filled with relief.

Drifting. Silence. Light. Hope.

She exists beneath the waves, the womb of all life. It is here that she feels safe and yet her heart yearns for more. The ocean is vast and full of life... yet she is alone. Beneath the tides, between worlds of light and darkness, life and death... she mourns her loss.

It was beginning to feel as if the young prince may never see his goddess again. Hours gave way to full night and day rotations, so many that he dare not ask again for a count or suffer more ache in his chest than he could bear. Soroban, the Kojin who haunted the sunken library was his only form of company and even then the grand old tortoise mused at how impatient men could be. And while he did make an effort to speak with Leviathan, the great beast only spoke in a melody he was unable to comprehend and the occasional unsatisfied hiss.

“It is bewildering,” Remarked the prince one afternoon (or perhaps morning?) while thumbing through pages of century old books, taking pause to admire drawings or squinting at passages his eyes could not make heads nor tails of. “Why would a goddess have need for such a collection?”

Soroban, nose buried in a book of his own choosing, chuckled. “Collection?”

“Aye,” He nods in affirmation, his jaw set while re-shelving the old leather bound tome where he had found it. “While most, or at least a grand majority, belong to this forgotten civilization; written in a language I do not recognize, there are still few that I can discern. Children’s books of fairy tales and ship logs. Are these all belongings she has plundered?”

Upon his first evening spent in the library, when Soroban ushered him to a bedroom to rest, he had made his first of many discoveries about the sea goddess. The bedroom, perhaps once a study room for scholars to read in peace, had been decorated with tattered but fine silk curtains; the bedding salvaged pelts most certainly crafted from creatures on land and not of the sea. Even the garments he was gifted to replace his water logged garb seemed out of place. A collection of lost treasure.

Night after night he returned to rest among the familiarity of land culture, comforted by the portraits of long since gone people, staring up at a ceiling which had been decorated with jewels that mimicked a night sky when the candles burned low. And when he roused from slumber, the anxious feeling in his stomach waking him with concern for the goddess, he found ways to distract himself, namely picking through a personal shelf of assorted books and regarding their contents.

He had half expected the written text to be in a language he did not know, as all the other tomes that filled the library, but to his surprise, the prince was greeted with characters he could recognize at a mere glance! Small books, the leather soft from usage, were often ship logs or other such documents. Occasionally he stumbled across books with only beautiful ink drawings on each gilded page. All spanning from depictions of a ships mechanism to more fanciful things like pixies dancing, painted in the most vivid colors he had ever seen.

But only one book in particular caught his attention. After discovering it, tucked away beneath the bedding he had slept upon, he could only laugh. A book on how to dance. He found it humorous that it had taken several nights and several days to realize just who the bedroom belonged to.

“As a prince, ya’ have’ta attend parties, yea?” She had inquired one evening after swearing an oath to him. He remembered it so well, the night sky caught in her eyes as the ship cut silently through the still tide.

The question had taken him by surprise but he answered with a grin. “Aye. Lavish parties with horribly uncomfortable attires and even worse company. It’s all formality and severely unappealing. Why do you ask?”

“Parties are suppose’ta be fun. Ya’ must be doin’ it wrong.” The goddess laughed but not her typical bark of laughter. This was soft, amused and interested.

Hien leaned further on the banister and tilted his head in hopes of catching a glimpse of her smile. “Oh? And what part do you believe should be fun? Sure, the wine and food are not always bad but beyond that, I am afraid I do not see what fun there is to be had.”

It was then that she turned to him, stars aglow in her eyes and moonlight tangled in her hair. All at once he had forgotten that the woman standing before him was a Goddess; she almost seemed childlike as she graced him with a smile. “What ‘bout dancin’? And the music!”

If only he had been wiser, he thought now with a chuckle. He might have noticed sooner her deep seeded curiosity for the world outside her own.

Soroban, setting aside his book at long last, lifted darkened eyes to the young prince. Beside him sat a heap of untouched books, taken from various nooks and levels of the library; Hien had witnessed it himself as Soroban climbed creaky wooden ladders to pluck books at random from their shelves and bring them here to add to his growing collection. It was from this very pile that the Kojin now sifted through.

Hien curiously turned to watch, abandoning whatever spine of a tome he had been trying to pronounce for the last couple minutes. A soft hum and a nod later Soroban offers the prince a plain looking book. The cover had been lost or removed, now bound only with corded leather, the pages soft from wear.

“I pray I can read this,” Hien mused with a chuckle as he graciously accepted the book. It was small in size and only a couple dozen pages long.

“Perhaps if you try hard enough?” Soroban returned with a laugh of his own. Hien couldn’t help but to feel this was a ruse to keep the prince busy so the Kojin could continue his studies in peace. “Take a candle with you, there’s an alcove on the first floor with another book for you to reference there.”

The prince smiled and thanked Soroban with a bow before doing as he was directed. He was most certainly being gotten rid of.

For all the days spent wandering the library with Soroban, Hien could still only scarcely manage the vast layout of the building. Several floors high it rose, a literal tower on the ocean floor. Each tier circled around the entrance, overlooking the fountain and the glittering jeweled motifs of Leviathan. Every floor had its own small pocket chambers; some filled with long since withered plants, perhaps a garden for scholars to read within? Others, Hien had discovered out of pure curiosity, had been repurposed for various reasons; more hidden treasures like scavenged ballgowns and small ornate chests filled with romantic jewelry for high class citizens; another a storage for spices plundered from trading ships. But none had been the alcove Soroban made mention of. But then again...

Hien leaned on the marble banister, unafraid of the dust that now caked the front pocket of his borrowed clothing; he was still three floors too high. His legs ached from trudging down staircase after staircase, in some cases having to shimmy across broken ledges where wooden stairs had rotted away from the moisture. Giving himself a moment of peace, the prince looked once more to the foyer of the library, sunken as it was.

He often found himself staring at the fountain from which ever floor he currently resided on. Water still babbled from the statues vase, casting ripples across the water at her feet. No matter how he stared, no matter the angle or the distance between the fountain and himself, he still had yet to see the goddess sleeping beneath the surface, blanketed in lily pads and an array of colorful blossoming lilies. Some days he would count the hours sitting at the ledge, humming songs to comfort himself and the slumbering goddess. But his only audience, who did enjoy listening, was Leviathan.

Even now, Hien glancing from the fountain to observe the snake like beast, Leviathan rested its massive head upon the broken stonework of the library floor. An eel peering out of its cavern. Beast or no, the prince couldn’t help but notice the almost melancholy air that it held as it stared unflinchingly at the fountain.

“Your loyalty to her is admirable, my friend.”

He could admit he felt the same. While Soroban was hopeful that she would awaken at any time, his own patience was wearing thin. He wanted to see her again. To hear her. Even if she was making demands of him or rolling with laughter; anything to fill this deafening silence.

His heart ached in his chest, hollow and cold at rising thoughts of what might yet come. She may never wake. And if that were to happen, what next? Would the crowned prince of Garlemald be announced as victorious? Or his female companion? Ah, the world has he knew it would be in trouble if Garlemald had some how possessed her powers over the sea.

Ice shot through his veins. His country, his people, without their prince, what would become of them? Trapped in this library beneath the sea until his dying hours; forsaking the very thing he sought to protect with the blessing of the goddess. His throat tightened, mouth dry. So much to worry about, yet here he was, following orders from a tortoise.

“...A good read should clear my head....”

- - -

Once upon a time, there was a city on the cliffs by the sea. The people of this city, so fond of the sea, swore loyalty to the tide mother; she who controlled the oceans with a sigh. To the goddess they prayed for safe voyages, for loved ones to return home safely, and for a bountiful catch that would sustain throughout their days. Together the goddess and her people lived in harmony.

But one day a man arrived to the small town. He spoke of inventions and curious things! Metal shaped by fire! Ships that sailed among the clouds and birds! The town folk were enchanted by such curiosities. While they still cherished their goddess, the man began to spill poison in their ears.

‘What of this unseen goddess? Has none seen her? Do any commune with her? If she exists, would she not want to smile upon her loyal followers?’

It took time and careful wording, but the poison the man brought with him began to spread.

‘You pray that ships return safely, yet not all come home! Your goddess is no more than a fickle witch toying with you!’

In time her statues were torn down and cast into the sea. Saddened by her peoples distrust, the goddess wept. A full year passed with naught but storms and angry currents, true to the goddess’ pain.

The poisonous man angry at the goddess for slowing his products arriving to town with her tantrum, spoke up once more.

‘This is no more than curse upon your city. How could a loving goddess hurt you all so?’

The towns folk murmured, once again shunning their goddess. How could she have forsaken them?

Angry, the goddess did as the poisonous snake suggested. With her powers she gave the town a curse. Second born daughters would be born in her image, as she was the second goddess given form. The city would look upon their daughters and see her in them.

She would not be forgotten.

- - -

Water arched around her as she broke the surface, shimmering diamonds falling against torchlight. She parted her lips, sucking in stale but familiar air, filling her senses with the scent of the library. It was as if returning home at long last, warmth filling her chest to near bursting. Beads of water caught in her eyelashes, cascading down the crest of her cheekbones. Eyes of scarlet and sapphire opened at long last, greeted by a rainbow of lilies.

She was alive.

A delighted sound echoed around her in the cavernous library entrance. The sound mimicked that of whales singing in the depths, low pitched to high in a single breath. It was a melody she would recognize anywhere and had her eyes shooting up from the fountain’s water in a heartbeat.

“Levi, did’ja miss me?” She called in return while leaning on the lip of the stonework fountain. Yalms separated them, but it was hard to miss the tilt in Leviathan’s head or the glossy admiration that filled his massive scarlet eyes. Another song graced the foyer, echoing softly off the stone walls and rising all the way to the top tier of the library. Still singing, Leviathan sunk beneath the water and out of sight of the goddess, no doubt eager to stretch now that his master was sorted out.

She gave a lazy wave goodbye, regardless of the fact that Levi had already departed, then laid her cheek to the cold stone that returned her life.

“Missed you too, ya’ overgrown noodle.”

- - -

“Soroban? Where in the hells are ya’?” Her voice filled the corridors as she barked the Kojin’s name again and again. It had been a trial in of itself to rise from her watery bed, her body aching in places that shouldn’t even exist. And then there was the added weight that slowed her down.

It came as a distinct slapping of something wet against stone. Kiri, Goddess of the Ocean, had emerged from her pool reborn. With her ruined and bloody attire abandoned at the fountain she strode forth, her goddess form nearly luminescent in the unlit spots of the library. Her flesh shimmered with an opalescence unlike any time before, a faint shimmering of scales that traced her curved outline. If one did not look closely, it could easily have been mistaken for powder worn by prosperous women looking to catch eyes. Her hair tumbled down beyond her shoulders, spilling to the floor in a curtain of moonlight silver. Like a slug she left behind a trail of water, not only still pouring off from such long locks, but from a tail too long and heavy for her to hold up off the floor while out of water.

“Soroban???” She called again, a slight growl rising in her tone.

Many questions had begun to bubble in her mind now that she was awake and conscious enough to consider them. How many days had passed? Had anything else happened while she was away? And what of the prince? Or those goons who hunted her like prey? But oh... the thought of a certain young man had caused her questions to halt abruptly.

She recalled the pained look on his face as she laughed her injury off as if it were merely a scratch. That golden ichor hadn’t poured from beneath her rib and stained her coat. It felt like only moments had truly passed since then; his voice still rough in her ear as he begged her to stay awake. The drumming of his heart pounding against her temple....

Kiri blinked when she realized she had completely stopped walking, too absorbed in such a brief but intense memory. Her own heart was a flutter beneath her breast, oddly nervous and hesitant to continue on.

What of the prince? Did he return to the surface? To his countrymen?

Surely he must have. Only an idiot would stay when you had a kingdom waiting for you.

... So why did it hurt? Who now would she ask about the world on land? Who should tell her the way a garden smells after a spring rain? Or how birds sing in choirs in the forest when the air is gently sweeping the boughs. Her chest tightened and eyes began to sting.

“Soroban!!”

“Kiri?”

A voice echoed from the corridor she had yet to traverse. Her eyes wide and hands trembling, she spied a flicker of light and chased it. She needed reality more than ever now. She needed Soroban’s guidance and wisdom to remind her that the thing beating in her chest wasn’t to be trusted. That as a goddess, such treasured feelings should be discarded. A grim reminder that the ocean floor is desolate and lonely; and it was her kingdom.

Light began to flood the corridor, her own radiance growing as she ran.

The alcove with a candlelight flicker came into view and she came to a sudden stop, narrowly avoiding slipping on her own two feet.

Miscolored eyes searched the alcove, narrowing at the sight that greeted her. “Soroban, the hells-”

There was a clatter in the alcove; a book falling to the floor with a definite thump against the stone.

Soroban chuckled, sitting at a small desk inside the carved out nook and paging through a time worn journal. “Oh dear,”

But it wasn’t Soroban that had the goddess cursing.

An awestruck prince, not even aware that he had dropped his book, gaped at the goddess with a slack jaw and warm eyes wide.

Her heart swelled and sang and thundered in her chest all at once, only visible by a small twitch at the corner of her lips. Yet she managed to compose herself, completely disregarding her lack of attire at the given moment. “What’s he doin’ here?” She demanded with a cocked brow.

Soroban hummed as he shrugged. “It would seem he is gawking.”

“I-I am most certainly not gawking!” Hien stammered with averted eyes, kneeling now to fetch his discarded book.

“Catfish got’cha tongue, pretty boy?” Kiri mused and crossed her arms with a definitely-not-on-purpose sway of her hips.

“T-Tch! I thought you dead yet you rise to mock me.”

The goddess flashed a grin, proud to recognize the color blossoming along his cheekbones.

“And with added accessories, I should note.” Allowing himself a moments glance, Hien gestured vaguely to the goddess and her current form.

Her tail, mostly hidden beneath a waterfall of silvery hair, slapped the stone with a wet smack. The small fins along her hips and ears fanned out, stretching and collapsing against her skin. Having such attachments had often been a burden to her in the past; she resembled no ancestry that walked the land, making it difficult to hide on the very rare occasions she met with sailors before they washed ashore from a shipwreck. But seeing the prince have such a reaction, his failed attempt not to look, made her grin a cheshire’s grin.

“Part of the job. I get submerged in sea water, this is the end result.” As if to punctuate this fact, she lifted her tail once more to slap the floor at her feet.

“Mayhap the boy is frightened.” Soroban chimed in without looking up from his book.

“Frightened? Of such beauty? Hardly.” There was confidence in his as he addressed Soroban.

Kiri felt her heart skip a beat. A wave of heat touched her cheeks. Hien offered her a smile and her heart ruptured with butterflies. What a feeling of elation! To hear he did not fear her in this form but found her stunning? But the goddess struggled to find a proper reaction for this foreign feeling welling in her.

“S-Stop starin’!”

- - -

“Can ya’ help me...?”

Hien found himself fidgeting ever since the goddess had awaken. He had expected some grand show, a spectacle or miracle when she would finally rise up from her watery confinement. Yet instead with unceremonious grace, he was greeted by a naked woman with aquatic appendages decorating her body. While her scales were a thing of beauty, he had never seen such colors, there was little magic in the moment as she scolded him.

Even now, standing with his face buried against a pillow in her bedchamber, he felt as if he had missed some wondrous display of revival magic. What it must have been like to see her emerge from a bed of waterlilies! Unable to tell where her long hair stopped and water began. To have been able to say ‘good morning’ when she first woke up....

“Oi, Prince! I ask’cha ta’ help!”

“You said I wasn’t allowed to look.” He returned, albeit muffled by the pillow against his lips.

“I’m decent now, look all ya’ want.” She blew out a sigh.

Pillow aside, the prince looked up to view the goddess as directed. He half expected a return of her usual clothing; a stolen coat and trousers with thick boots. But his jaw slacked at the sight before him.

Her human form had yet to return, thus her choice in clothing had been limited. Instead of sailors clothing fabric hung from sparkling gold chains at her throat and around her waist; maroon colored silk draped her chest just enough to be considered decent, a cut of the same fabric a loincloth starting at the flat of her stomach and pooling on the floor at her feet. Bangles and more golden chains glittered from her wrists and even strung on the quills of her fins like jewelry.

“...Yer starin’ again.”

Hien coughed, sheepishly clearing his throat as he rose from the bed to stand beside her. “Your sense of fashion is astonishing is all.”

“Oi,”

Yet before she could continue, he smiled. “What did you need help with?”

Her hand extended to offer him an item. He reached out in return to accept, until he caught a spark of light dancing on the blades edge.

“A knife?” Dumbfounded again, he raised a brow. “Please do not ask me to descale-”

“No! Wait, what?? No!!!” Her cheeks puffed. Kiri reached for her hair, bundling it and draping it across her shoulder. It was still slick and dripping; a trail of water a new track of hers. “Cut it for me?”

He couldn’t help the tilt of his head as she asked so softly such a harmless request. “But you at last have hair longer than mine. Surely you don’t wish to cut all of it?”

“I do, actually. Hate havin’ it long like this.”

Without further argument and the knife now in his hands, Kiri twirled on her heel, her hair once again falling down the curve of her back.

Such long, silken hair. She could have easily worn it to cover herself. Dragging his fingertips through it, Hien leaned a bit closer to the Goddess. He could smell the ocean on her; the sea during a storm with rain and salty winds.

“Kirishimi....?” His voice dropped, his eyes tracing the outline of her shoulders and recognizing touches of scarred flesh peppering her skin just as much as dark and light freckles dusted her shoulders.

He was reminded in that moment of her beauty. Of her power and strength. So what then, had caused her scars?

Kiri shivered, his breath hot at the nape of her neck. “Yes...?”

The prince held the knife tightly just above his other hand still knotted in her hair. The blade’s edge skimmed her flesh which drew a subtle inhale from the goddess.

“What happened to the town you cursed?”

- - -

Silence filled the room. She felt him, so near that she felt the heat radiating from him. His breath a near whisper in her ear, his voice level as he delivered such a heavy question.

“So that’s what’cha were readin’...” Although the accent still came through, she did her best to imitate music. A siren could lure men into a false sense of comfort, why couldn’t she?

His hand tangled in her hair tightened its grip, pulling her slightly closer. “No games, Kiri. I want the truth. You’re still bound to me, are you not?”

Although armed with a weapon as he was, he had yet to directly threaten her with it. It did little to stop the rabbit like heartbeat in her chest, a mixture of hurt, annoyance, and a touch of panic. But yet his hand relaxed and soon she heard the blade gliding through her hair.

“Bound ta’ ya’ doesn’t mean I gotta spill all my secrets.” She replied in earnest. Her contract with the prince had plainly showed a lack of interest of either parties history. But when he inhaled sharply, the goddess sighed.

- - -

“First, I want’cha ta’ know, ya’ should’ve finished the book before accusin’ me of anythin’.”

Hien didn’t respond. Instead his mind replayed the moment; the book he had been engaged with falling from his hands at the sight of her. Heat returned to his cheeks but full glad was he that her back was to him.

“As for the curse.... I didn’t curse anyone. That was the original Tide Mother. The first Sea Goddess. Her grief and pain swelled into a mighty storm in her heart and clouded her eyes. Girls were born to look like her with and without her scales and tails. They were blessed by the Goddess but it frightened the towns folk.”

There was a sorrow to her voice that made the prince loosen his grip on her hair, even halting his cutting of her hair as he listened. Part of him had believed the story was a fairy tale written by mortals. A retelling of something the Goddess had done, good or bad.

“Scared people are easy to trick... And a man knew just how to talk to a crowd. He convinced them, every single one of them, that their daughters were to be sacrificed to the Goddess. Ta’ show her, ta’ put her in her place. Ta’ defy the very goddess whom they had loved so dearly before.”

Even though he couldn’t confirm it himself, Hien knew the goddess before him was struggling not to burst into tears. And who wouldn’t? The idea of it... His stomach churned as cogs began turning in his mind.

“You said she was the first,” He started slowly, “does that make you...the second...?”

“Aye.”

“Kiri....”

“She was disgusted by mortals. How could they? How could they be so cruel?!” Her shoulders shook. Hien couldn’t tell if it was because she was crying or shaking with fury. Or maybe it was a mixture of both. “Those mothers and fathers looked at us and smiled, convinced it was the right thing to do! The only option they had! Bloody cowards is what they were!”

With a twist of his wrist the remainder of her hair was cut through, the floor length locks shifting to salt water and landing on the stone with a splash at his feet. The knife clattered to the floor alongside the puddle, discarded so he could take her into his arms and hold her against his chest.

The goddess, so powerful and courageous, trembled in his arms; tears stained the front of his tunic when she curled into him.

“... When she tried ta’ stop them,” Kiri began again, a hiccup interrupting her, “the man attacked her with strange weapons. She was severely injured and in her rage and sorrow... She sunk the city. Brought the whole cliffs down and buried it beneath the ocean.”

“I’m sorry,” Hien found himself whispering it over and over again, a mantra that was some how supposed to help her feel better. At least her trembling had subsided.

“... I was the only one that survived. The Tide Mother was dying inside and out... but she saved me from drownin’ like the others... and passed it all ta’ me.”

More cogs began to stir. “That must be why Zenos and that Octavia woman were after you. The man in the story must have been Garlean. Perhaps someone survived and lived to tell the tale....” But when Kiri gave no answer, Hien dropped the subject. She was in no mood or condition to talk about her own death. Instead he drew her closer still, the scent of the ocean still stormy on her.

“The book you were readin’... Soroban found it in his travels before meetin’ me.”

“Speaking of which... Why the library? This whole sunken city, this library... It is the one she buried, right?”

Kiri gave a nod against his chest and sniffled. “The library was the only place they were allowed to worship her in secrecy. A few folk tried to expose it, so they destroyed the goddess’ face on the fountain. Anyone who questioned the library was then lead to believe that Leviathan was the one they prayed to.”

“...So why sink it at all?”

The goddess lifted herself from his chest, her eyes rimmed red with tears and mismatched eyes like jewels. “So no one would ever remember her... or me.”

Clearly the original Goddess hadn’t expected survivors of the tragedy. How else had he known the legend of the Ocean Goddess? Or the prince of Garlemald that seemed so determined to capture her?

Hien scrunched his nose and bid the thoughts leave him; at least for the moment. With all his heart, all he wanted to do now was hold her. A kingdom all her own, built upon the jealousy and hatred of a goddess and a single man. One she had to endure alone at the bottom of the sea...

#|| Untold Stories #|| Tide Mother (( au ))#Hien x Kiri #Hien x wol #Hien Rijin #Kirishimi #Water Goddess #Sea Goddess #/slaps this on the dash at 5 am #HERE WE GO #I STAYED UP ALL NIGHT WRITING IT #YEEHAW #if it doesn't make sense man idk I'm not responsible for that

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