Something reeks.
It's hardly the most dignified thought to wake up from a barren, empty sleep to, but smell has always been the most powerful sense, and despite floating in a lightless, endless void, the scents of my surroundings, still unknown to me, start building a map for me.
My breathing grows heavier. My chest rises and falls in steady, confident strokes, whether it's an earned description or not. There's something florid in the air--begonias or a field of flittering grasses. But it's concentrated, and thick, and heady, and there's something behind it too, something that wants to break free.
Sweat.
A musk.
Gentle. Not overbearing or oppressive. Light. Vulnerable. Thrilling. It wants to be wanted. It wants to be loved, like I can love. It doesn't judge. I lay there, breathing in the first true accepting sense in memory.
Memory.
Close.
The cave--!
My eyes fly open, and my suddenly clenched form stays plastered to the rocky ground. This is good, because the face looming over me with familiar, beautiful eyes, is perhaps a few inches from my own.
"Welcome back", Listener says softly, and smiles ever so gently. My hand slowly raises to touch her features. A warm, tight hand embraces my own, swaddling it in warmth I've craved forever. I let my eyes close, and simply soak in the sensation. More of me comes back; the digging discomfort of the rocks into my back is alarming, and there's a distinct sense of coolness in the air, like the both of us are underground. But those are problems for the next few seconds, the next few moments of self. Right now, Listener and I have the moment, the now. I exhale. A tired, relieved, loving gasp follows it. My eyes open again.
"Where's everyone?" I don't want an answer. I don't want to care. They don't matter in the moment, but the moment is changing, and I know I'll never forgive myself if I let my own needs come first.
Listener doesn't answer. She just holds my hand, rubbing it like she's trying to
bring feeling back to it. Her smile doesn't wilt like normal. It stays still, and yet dynamic. It glitters through her perfect eyes.
She's heard everything.
"That's not fair", I murmur to her, but Listener looks up, past me, past the most
vulnerable instant of my existence. I wanted to catch her, hold her tight, never let go. But she's already found something better, something that makes her want to look away.
A flash of red thrills through me.
"She's returned to us, Goddess", says Listener. Her voice is filled with quiet rapture, and a gentle lilt. She's pleased. All around. She's not evil.
But she's not my friend anymore.
The woman in red looks down at me.
I wish there were better words in my vocabulary. I wish I could slam a trillion needles of delight straight into your soul, and suspend you in a second of time that you never want to leave. I wish I could force the Goddess' beauty upon you, and the world at large, for it's not something you behold yourself by choice. It hurts too deeply, too richly. It's truth. It's sin. It's absolution. It's red velvet. It's sweet and savory and raw and cruel and biting and ferocious and sensuous and-
-and I know where that flowery, musky scent stems from. I dare not move--she'll hear the slickness in my thighs, the heat of my cheeks, the richness of me. The richness of me in her presence. Her presence.
"I see that, Tonya." Goddess smiles warmly, but there's a glimmer in her perfect green windows of the soul. Her lips, impossibly red with immaculate blood, are moistened with an alluring lick of her tongue. It's experienced. Tamed. My chest rises to her, an offering, a rapture.
Tonya. Her name is Tonya.
She'd never told me. No one on the team mentioned their true names. I should have realized it earlier, in the first cavern with the Twins. My clit throbs willfully at the mere thought of them, locked, vibrating, trembling, screaming voiceless screams of torturous, hungry pleasure. I grit my teeth. I have to focus. I didn't pick up on Goddess--the... lady in red... knowing their names, probably because I'd never met the Twins before. There was nothing else to know them by. But Listener... Tonya... It was like seeing her truly naked for the first time. Even in the locker rooms, where I'd tried so desperately to not take note of Penny's taut, mounded musculature, or Thundress' perfect nipples. They all deserved better than that, even if I wasn't afraid that Li... Tonya... would one day see through my mind's eye, and hold me in effigy out disgust.
And now... now that nakedness was nothing. Willingness of the flesh seemed... gosche. Easy. Fleeting. As Goddess and Tonya stared into each other's eyes, like maws of the soul, I can only feel a bubbling, acidic envy lacing my every breath.
Why do they get it? Why can't I just indulge in that, just once?
If I wasn't looking directly at them, I never would have noticed Goddess' surprised, delighted grin. She turns to me. Desire reveals what professionalism cannot hide.
"Why, you can", Goddess says, each word like satin to my ears. Her eyes entice. The red is gone, suffused. But they're no less entrancing. Green and pearlescent and perfect in all the unholy ways. She's willing. She doesn't have to hide Her truth. She IS Truth. With a capitol T. I am whatever She tells me to be. I feel my soul bending to meet Her standards, feel the willingness to burn the universe to the ground for a single moment under Her unyielding, inspecting gaze.
