GODDESS | RYEJI AU

(the trials.)#3.

Ryujin hadn't slept a wink.

The feast had gone long into the night, but Ryujin had retired early, needing the solitude of hers and Yeji's chambers. She'd returned to her human form and dressed in Yeji's clothes before climbing under the blankets and furs, but she'd laid awake all night, listening to the muffled music and chatter emanating from the feasting hall.

Ryujin had been restless and worried, but despite that, she must have passed out in the early morning, seeing as she was slowly being woken by the feeling of gentle fingers combing through her hair.

"Yeji?" Ryujin gasped, her eyes flying open as her head jerked up, but she deflated slightly when she found that it was Yuna sitting beside her in bed, and not Yeji. Blushing in embarrassment, she buried her face in her pillow again, pointedly avoiding the eyes of her sister as Yuna chuckled beside her.

"Hi, Yuna," Ryujin grumbled as she felt the tremor of Yuna's laugh.

"Morning, Ryuddaeng," Yuna murmured, Ryujin's millennia old pet name rolling off her tongue.

"I'm really not in the mood to be teased right now, Yuna," Ryujin sighed, face still buried in her pillow.

"For once, that's not what I'm here for," Yuna said. "is it so inconceivable that I might just want to be here for my sister?"

Ryujin finally looked up, giving Yuna a tired, disbelieving look. "The last several thousand years have set a pattern," She said dryly.

Yuna sighed and rolled her eyes. "I admit that a few centuries ago I would have, but this is different." She ran her knuckles down Ryujin's cheek. "She's changed you. You're softer now, with her here. I like it, and I don't want to see it pass."

"It will if she doesn't make it home." Ryujin said, eyes drifting to focus on nothing as her fingers brushed over the fabric of Yeji's pillow. "Yuna, every time I close my eyes I see Mother's guards carrying Yeji's body up the mountain on a stretcher. If Yeji's doesn't make it, Mother will have to turn me to stone again, or I will burn everything she loves in a hail of stars."

-------

Yeji's brief rest was interrupted by a sudden, jarring scraping that rocked the little longboat, and woke Yeji with a start.

Yeji scrambled into a sitting position, and found herself amongst chunks of ice, bumping up against the boat and each other, scraping against the white wood of the boat and making it unsteady under her feet. She grabbed the rudder and steadied to the boat, heart still pounding out of her chest.

The air had somehow gotten colder, and it stung Yeji's face, the breath in her lungs feeling like ice. Rin's Crown loomed closer, the eerie yellow light at the entrance growing brighter and bigger. The ice seemed to stretch for miles, large and small chunks bobbing in the black water.

With her heart in her throat, Yeji carefully navigated her way through the freezing, deadly maze.

-------

It seemed to take forever, but Yeji eventually found herself before the entrance of Rin's Crown.

It felt as if her blood had become ice along with her breath as she looked up at the massive mouth of an anglerfish that marked the entrance. its lure hung like a macabre lantern hundreds of feet above Yeji's head, and she didn't dare breathe as she sailed through it's great maw of jagged, sword-like teeth.

Soon, her boat bumped against the shore, and she couldn't tell if night had fallen already, or if it was always dark in Rin's Crown.

Yeji gathered her pack and her bow and quiver, her shield, and with a breath, she stepped onto the gravely shore, took Ryujin's lantern from the bow of the boat and tied it to her belt again, and set off.