GODDESS | RYEJI AU

(the trials.) #1.

"Yeji, you don't have to do this," Ryujin said softly, watching Yeji from her place on their fur covered bed.

The torches cast warm light around the room, and the fire at the end of the bed merrily crackled, but Ryujin couldn't bring herself to find joy in it.

Beside the bed, Yeji knelt on the smooth wooden floor next to an ornate chest with a leather pack in her hand, and began pulling items from the chest. A change of clothes, a blanket, a book. She packed them neatly into the leather pack and tied it closed, slinging it onto her back as she stood.

Ryujin's pained eyes flicked over Yeji's frame as she stood, the sight of Yeji's traveling clothes causing her gut to twist uncomfortably.

Yeji wore the white tunic of a servant, the edges embroidered in runes, under a dark brown leather tunic, leather pants hanging on her hips, sturdy leather boots on her feet. A simple belt encircled her hips, a seax knife hanging from it.

"Yeji, we can find another way," Ryujin pleaded, hands fisting in the silver pelts under her fingers.

Yeji stepped forward to stand before Ryujin, and ran her fingers through Ryujin's dark hair, an easy, loving smile on her lips.

"I have to do this," Yeji said softly, her thumbs caressing Ryujin's jaw. Yeji knelt down in front of Ryujin, her hands dropping to Ryujin's knees. "I want to be with you forever, and I don't want you to be alone again." She reached up and brushed away the tear that rolled down Ryujin's cheek. "You're a goddess and I'm still mortal. There isn't any other way."

-------

It had been two years since Yeji had woken Ryujin from the statue.

Progress was being made, steady and sure.

Soyeon was banned from Ryujin's temple, Ryujin chasing her out the next time Soyeon showed her face.

Ryujin allowed those among her followers who wished to remain as warriors to stay and protect the temple, but Soyeon was not permitted to train them or have anything to do with them anymore. Where they had once worn tunics bearing Soyeon's colors, seeing as she had been the one teaching them, they now wore black in the likeness of their Goddess, and carried black bladed swords.

The number of scholars that resided at the temple was rising, but Ryujin still hoped to find more. She desperately missed the days where she would see scrolls and books in the hands of nearly all the temple's residents, ideas shared and debated, poetry written.

Despite the slow changes, Ryujin couldn't possibly be happier, because her and Yeji were deeply, irrevocably, madly in love.

They had kissed that first night, and Ryujin hadn't dared hope for more, but since she'd woken, they hadn't spent a night apart. Neither of them could bear it. Even so, Ryujin had been determined to properly court Yeji. She had brought her a single Ipomoea alba blossom every night for weeks, laying it carefully on Yeji's pillow.

Yeji had pressed each one in a book.

They slept each night, curled into one another, legs and hands intertwined, and when Ryujin began having nightmares of cold, eternal stone, shaking against Yeji in the dark, Ryujin had been afraid Yeji would leave, but Yeji just went to the kitchens for mint tea to soothe Ryujin's mind, and she would hold her until she fell sleep again, and wake her with kisses on her neck in the morning, fingers raking through her dark hair.

They'd made love for the first time at midnight among the Ipomoea alba flowers, and then returned to their chambers where they made love until the sun rose.