A Divine Initiation

This story is dedicated to my follower @Guyver-4, who suggested the idea in a conversation post a short while back. To all those reading: enjoy, and feel free to leave a comment with suggestions, comments on the story, suggestions for future stories, or just praise, if you feel :)
-----

Sunset. An orange glow painting the sky in vivid, warm hues, reflecting off the rippling surface of the endless river ahead and giving the clouds a thin, cotton-like appearance. Alice's eyes grew adjusted to the dream-like scenery as she blinked groggily. She pushed herself up on the heels of her elbows and observed side to side, noticing the pink-petaled spring blossom trees that lined either side of the river banks, shedding their leaves into the crystal-blue current. Alice focused her gaze back ahead, running a hand through her wavy, dark brown hair and wondering to herself: Where has my mind taken me?

"So," came a soft, yet booming voice from across the platform, "you're finally awake."
Alice craned her neck to see a black-haired, kimono-draped woman twirling a papercraft parasol in her slender, delicate hands. She looked back to Alice and offered a bright smile.

"I am Kichijōten, the goddess of beauty," came her soothing drawl. "I have brought you here for a vitally important purpose, and I hope you will accept all the terms it entails."
Alice gaped at the woman, her mouth left slightly ajar as if to form a question that wouldn't reach her lips. The impossibly attractive goddess approached, twirling her umbrella gracefully as her wooden sandals clacked against the exquisite marble raft.

She closed the parasol, sheathing it in a belt loop as she procured a masterfully wood-carved chair next to Alice's velvet-fleeced daybed from thin air. The cushion met her bottom side, and she gazed out at the river, catching Alice's curious eye.
"This is no dream, Alice. Everything you're feeling, hearing, gazing upon," Her perfect almond eyes met Alice's hazel-eyed ogle, and she took the bewildered woman's hand in her own, "Is real."

"Real as the flesh and blood you inhabit," she continued, "Real as the koi swimming through the clear, glassy currents alongside our raft, and the spring blossoms yielding their petals to the water next to them."
She beamed at Alice with a lively, youthful intrigue, looking not a moment over twenty-one despite her eternal state of being.
"You are real, Alice, and today you shall finally achieve your divine purpose." Kichijōten gently squeezed Alice's hand with both of her own, "I've been waiting your entire life for such a perfect specimen as yourself to bloom into the beauty of her womanhood and be appointed such an imperative role."

"Alice..." Kichijōten locked eyes with her subject, "I have brought you here today to present you with a crucial request, which I dearly hope you will accept."
"Erm... that is to say," the goddess's cheeks blushed a light rosy-pink as she brushed a swirl of flower-riddled locks behind her ear, "Will you undergo the Initiation process to become my... divine assistant, so to speak?"

Alice raised her eyebrows in surprise, not knowing what to think. But soon, her heart fluttered at the proposal, and she smiled her splendid, freckled grin. "Y—You think I'm capable of such a task?"
The goddess nodded her head, the flowers in her hair bobbing up and down, "Of course, my dear. I crafted you in my own image from the very beginning, carefully tuning your features and personality to the most unconditionally beautiful and pure proportions. You are the most universally beautiful of your entire species, and you're the only one capable of such a task."

Alice ran a hand through her thick, wavy locks once again, looking at the evening sunlight glinting off the river and taking in the weight of the proposition. To be a divine assistant of the goddess of beauty... who could possibly refuse?

"Oh, of course I accept!" Alice beamed, "but, may I ask..." she continued, "what will you do to me?" she paused, looking upon the goddess's puzzled expression.
"In the Initiation, I mean," she clarified.
In turn, Kichijōten only smiled, "My dear, I shall only reveal the true beauty that lies within."