Chapter Text
The events of the day catch up to Snoegeim as she reaches the door of her tiny, sparse apartment, and she barely makes it to her shabby secondhand armchair in time to collapse.
She’d known there was something odd about Deryk, but not in a million years would she have guessed it was that. And obviously the whole business with the Warrior battling the Twelve in their own domains and winning had been leading to something, but she hadn’t expected—
Gods. (Should she stop using that as an expletive, given recent events?) Snoegeim runs both her hands over her face. It’s for the best, she tells herself. It’s what they wanted. And if it means that they had to break a few promises, well, what do the feelings of one mortal matter in the face of divine will?
A bath, she decides. She needs a nice long soak, and then she needs to sleep for about fourteen hours, and in the meantime she needs to not think about anything.
The water isn’t as hot as Snoegeim wishes, but it’s soothing enough. She draws her knees up to her chest in order to fit in the tub.
Just her, and the water, and the quiet.
Seconds stretch into minutes, and minutes stretch into… well, not hours. Not long enough for the water to get cold. But long enough to dull the ache behind a layer of soothing, drowsy calm, enough that she no longer feels like she’s going to fall apart.
At some point Snoegeim must have dozed off, because she awakes with a start, jerking forward with a noisy splash. Had she been dreaming of a waterfall…?
She looks around muzzily, and then with alarm. Her cramped bathtub, her tiny apartment, even the window overlooking Revenant’s Toll: all have vanished. Instead, Snoegeim finds herself reclining in an enormous, heated marble pool, fed by a fountain of burbling, bubbling water. She gasps—and her lungs fill with sweet, perfumed steam.
Snoegeim blinks back sudden tears. Then she pinches her own arm, hard. “Ow!”
“Oh, dear,” comes a high, sweet voice from across the room. Barely daring to breathe, Snoegeim glances over. Sure enough, despite everything, an impossibly tall, white-and-purple-gowned woman is picking her way between the myriad steaming pools. “My sincere apologies, dearest Snoegeim. I foresaw that our brave champion would muddle the details when they explained exactly what had happened between us in the highest heaven, but I didn’t realize until too late just how much the story would change.”
“Is this a dream?” Snoegeim warbles.
“No,” says Nymeia, casting off her dark mantle and stepping down into the other end of the pool, heedless of getting her long gown wet. “Our heavens are still here, and so are we. We’re only a bit less tethered to the physical realm than we were before.”
“Then—” Snoegeim wipes under her eye, and grimaces as it only gets water all over her face. “If you’re less tethered—is this goodbye?”
“No, no, nothing of the sort,” says Nymeia. Her brilliant ruby-red eyes should have been unnerving, but there’s an infinite gentleness to her expression and bearing, more than soothing enough to make up for it. “We’ve been fighting a war these past twelve thousand years—our champions and saints against the Paragons’ minions. Now that there’s no need for us to intervene so directly, we decided to turn our swords to ploughshares. Or, into the Instrument, rather. But we’ll be around a while yet.”
She reaches out. Snoegeim, unable to resist the tide of relief any longer, scoots across the bench that runs the perimeter of the pool and allows Nymeia to clasp her hands.
“I am sorry,” says Nymeia again. “We didn’t mean to make you think we were leaving you behind.” She reaches up to touch Snoegeim’s cheek, and smiles a bit sadly when Snoegeim, trembling, nuzzles her face against Nymeia’s palm, seeking reassurance in solid sensation.
Nymeia’s hand slides down to rest on her shoulder, fingers brushing the back of her neck. “So tense, you poor thing,” she murmurs. “We really gave you a fright, didn’t we?”
“It’s been a long week,” says Snoegeim. “Good! But… long.”
“Maybe I can help with that,” says Nymeia. Her fingertips dig in a little, and Snoegeim sighs at how good it feels.
“Promise me one thing first,” says Snoegeim, then giggles, startled at her own boldness. Extracting promises from a goddess!
“I swear,” says Nymeia. “Your words shall always reach us, when you wish them to. And we shall never leave you without both explanation and warning, if there should ever come a day when we cannot answer.”
“How did you—oh.” Nymeia’s lips quirk up into a smile, and Snoegeim, bashfully, smiles back. “Right.”
“Now,” says Nymeia, and lifts one hand to run her fingers through Snoegeim’s hair. Snoegeim shivers and sighs at the sensation of nails digging gently into her scalp. “Shall I make it up to you?”
******
She’s crafty, Azeyma had said, at the beginning of this year of a week, about Nymeia’s chances of getting Snoegeim into bed. It may well be true, but honestly, Snoegeim doesn’t think much craft was needed. One thing leads to another very naturally: from Nymeia’s hands in her hair, to a soft washcloth running over Snoegeim’s arms and back, and then her front, and from there, well.
If she had any brainpower left over, Snoegeim might ponder the strange turn her life has taken. At her own willingness to trust her body, her dignity—probably, if this continues much longer, her heart—into the care of the Twelve. But an oath from the Goddess of Fate herself is nothing to sneeze at, and besides, even though Snoegeim had never met any of the gods face-to-face before this whole business started, she still feels, very strongly, that she’s known each and every one of them since she was small. Which, in a manner of speaking, she has.
But then, of course, Nymeia will do something particularly delightful with her tongue, or her fingers, or the water all around them, and Snoegeim will lose her train of thought again.
When, at long, long last, Snoegeim can no longer muster more than a sleepy appreciation for the way that little droplets of water cling to the swell of Nymeia’s breast, for the sweetness of the goddess’s lips against her own, Nymeia lifts her from the water as though she weighed no more than a feather. To Snoegeim’s muted surprise, the lush surroundings swirl and warp until Nymeia is laying her down in her own narrow bed back in Revenant’s Toll.
“You probably can’t say, can you,” Snoegeim mumbles.
“Not here,” says Nymeia. “Not now, at least. But why don’t I leave you a token? I’d hate to have you think this was all a dream.” She drapes something over Snoegeim: a soft blanket, woven in some strange and subtle pattern, with a warmth and a luster like finest silk.
Snoegeim hmmmms, satisfied, and digs her fingers into the soft fabric.
“Good night, darling Snoegeim,” says Nymeia. “I don’t doubt Azeyma will take the very first opportunity to waylay you tomorrow.”
“Tell her I’m looking forward to it,” Snoegeim mumbles with a jaw-cracking yawn, asleep before Nymeia can reply.