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Seiros had always loved her. From the very moment she was born, she was told, Seiros doted on her. Of course, all of her father’s siblings did, as well as Sothis herself, but she had a special place in Seiros’ heart. It was Seiros who had chosen her name, who held her when her mother and father were tired, who guided her through her first steps. Some of her happiest memories were spent in Seiros’ lap, being told cautionary tales and fables, almost as enthralling as her father’s. The Children of the Goddess were tight-knit, but she and Seiros were even closer than that. Seiros loved Cethleann’s kind and gentle nature; Cethleann loved Seiros’ passion and strength.
This was the only family that Cethleann had ever known. Back then, she had no way of knowing what was right and wrong.
Even so, as she grew older, there was something like a sixth sense that began to nag at her. She hadn’t yet reached her teenage years when, while sitting on Seiros’ lap like always, something happened that startled her. Cethleann was reading from a storybook, and Seiros was holding her close. Abruptly—gently, but still abruptly—Seiros laid her hand on Cethleann’s thigh, and squeezed her, sliding her hand back and forth, from her knee to her hip. Cethleann looked up from her book, and up at Seiros, who was looking at her with sleepy eyes. Seiros told her to keep reading, so she did.
She went to her father, and told him what had happened as best she could, and his jaw set in place.
She asked, “Am I in trouble?”
“No, you are not in trouble.”
She thought about Seiros, and her father’s awful habit of scolding his siblings, and regretted saying anything. “Is Seiros in trouble?”
“…No, she is not. She merely...I will have to talk to her, is all.”
“A friendly talk?”
“Yes, Cethleann, I will be friendly.”
From then on, she wasn’t allowed to sit on Seiros’ lap anymore.
Some time later, Seiros helped her hone her natural talent for white magic. Cethleann loved the attention, especially given her father’s restrictions on how she and Seiros spent time together, but she found the sudden interest in her light magic skills peculiar.
Then the war started, and things started making sense.
Things got hectic rather quickly. Cethleann had been known to heal incidental injuries and illnesses, but before she knew it, bodies were piling up around her in every skirmish. It’s alright, Cethleann, her loved ones comforted, you did all that you could, but that didn’t lessen the pain at all. She had to keep up morale, but her mother passed, and her father grew tired, and she found that she had nobody to talk to about the bloody dreams she had. At least, she always thought, she had Seiros—Seiros, who could balance an army and still find time for little Cethleann.
Once Sothis died, though, things weren’t quite the same.
The war had taken a toll on everyone, but Sothis’ death made the sadness all the more palpable. Seiros was no longer kind and brave. She was now bitter and hyper-focused on revenge, on bloodshed, on violence, all things that she had once detested. By this point, Cethleann had long forgotten the lap incident and what her father had forbidden her from doing, and was thinking only about what she could do to make things normal again. She didn’t care what her father had told her, or the vestiges of some memory past. She wanted to fix things. That was her job as a healer.
Some part of her still knew she was doing something wrong, though. When she received a summons, ordering her to report to Seiros’ bedroom after sunset, she made sure to do so without alerting her father. She was older, now, and had a feeling that she was getting into something dangerous, but those memories of Seiros holding her so tightly and speaking to her so sweetly propelled her forward.
When she arrived, Seiros was already in bed. Pale and wistful, she looked almost sickly, staring blankly at the door until she heard it shut behind Cethleann. Even then, the light that appeared in her eyes was woefully dim. “Seiros? You called for me?”
“Cethleann...thank you for coming.” Cethleann nodded, but did not come any closer. Seiros raised a hand, and the duvet fell off of her, exposing the slope of one of her breasts. She wasn’t wearing anything, Cethleann realized, and her heart beat faster. She had seen Seiros’ bare body before, as a young girl, but that was years ago, and she was less innocent now. Now, it meant something. “Will you come lay with me, for tonight?”
“I do not think I should.”
“You do not want to? Have you grown too old for me, then?”
Cethleann wasn’t thinking about what she wanted. When she thought about sitting in Seiros’ lap, and the turning of her stomach, she didn’t know what she wanted. “My father...”
“He would have no reason to know. Please, Cethleann, do not make me beg. I cannot sleep like this. I only want to hold you for a little while.”
Seiros’ barrage of words did nothing to convince Cethleann, but it did wear her down. Denying Seiros was not the natural order of things. Even if Cethleann had wanted to say no—and she wasn’t sure whether she did or not—doing so would have yielded a result unknown to her, and at a time where the entire world was crumbling at her feet, Cethleann did not want to face any more unknowns.
She went to get into Seiros’ bed, beckoned closer when Seiros pulled the duvet off of her. As she thought, Seiros wasn’t wearing anything, and Cethleann wondered why she wouldn’t have dressed herself, if she’d known that someone was coming to visit her.
“You may disrobe, if you please,” Seiros said. It was an offer that didn’t sound like one. She was watching Cethleann expectantly.
Still not saying no, and still not quite wanting to (and not not wanting to), Cethleann only undressed down to her underwear. Seiros didn’t make her do anything more, but nodded in approval, and Cethleann got in next to her. The duvet was warm and soft, where Seiros’ body was cool and firm. Seiros held her close, so that they could feel every contour of the other’s form, and Cethleann was acutely aware of the fact that she didn’t hate it at all.
“I have missed you.”
The words came from Seiros, but they could have came from Cethleann herself. Disoriented, she responded, “I have missed you, too.”
“You have always been precious to me,” Seiros whispered, cupping Cethleann’s cheek. “But as you grow into a beautiful young woman, I find myself loving you even more.”
Love. Cethleann was loved by many, strangers and family and friends alike. Love, kindness, and unity were preached by Sothis day in and day out. Why, then, did it only feel wrong when it was Seiros? Why did it feel like Seiros’ love was gripping her by the neck and squeezing? Why could she only respond “I love you, too”?
What came next felt natural and unnatural at the same time. Cethleann could feel Seiros’ love in every touch, but she still didn’t know what that love was supposed to feel like. Seiros caressed her face, her hips, her arms, and they both started breathing faster, until the air between them was hot. Seiros smiled, and Cethleann mirrored it out of reflex. She hadn’t seen Seiros smile like that in so long. “You favor Sothis more and more every day.”
“Do I?” Cethleann hadn’t looked at herself in a while. The nonstop fighting and death had turned her into a different person.
“You do. Just as beautiful, if not more…my dearest Cethleann.”
Seiros gave her a kiss, not unlike the many kisses Seiros had given her before, in the space between her cheek and her lips. Then she kissed her again, closer to the corner of her mouth, before planting one directly on her lips. This, too, was Seiros’ love, and Cethleann accepted it. She was afraid of disobeying her father, sure, but she was even more afraid of disappointing Seiros. More than that, the way Seiros touched her made her feel just as precious as Seiros said she was. She wasn’t full-bodied and beautiful like Seiros, and far from being the perfect woman as Sothis was, but Seiros made her feel like it was true. Why had she denied herself this? What was so wrong about it, anyway?
Another kiss came, and Seiros opened her mouth, so Cethleann opened hers, too. Seiros tugged at her underwear, and Cethleann lifted her hips to ease the way. Cethleann laid back and let it happen, let Seiros touch the place her mother and father had told her should never be touched.
First came Seiros’ fingers, and next came her mouth. Cethleann tried to wriggle away—she didn’t know why, because it did feel good, maybe too good—and Seiros held her down by the hips, licking and licking and licking until Cethleann was crying like a wounded dog. As if possessed, she moved on her own, jutting her body into Seiros’ mouth. She forced the resisting thoughts out of her head throughout the whole thing, wanting to drown herself in the feelings that Seiros was giving her. She wanted more, but Seiros’ intensity quickly tired her, and everything was over too fast.
Seiros appeared from beneath the duvet, and Cethleann could see something shiny on her chin, something that had undoubtedly come from Cethleann’s body. Cethleann thought briefly that she might have been sick—she was warm and dizzy, after all—but that didn’t feel like the right way to describe it, either. Seiros was looking at her intently, the same way she stared down opponents on the battlefield, as if Cethleann were a conquest.
“Did that please you, dear Cethleann? It did not hurt?”
“It felt nice,” Cethleann awkwardly responded, lacking the vocabulary to describe it any other way. “It did not hurt at all.”
“…Thank you.”
Cethleann didn’t know why Seiros was thanking her. After all, it was Seiros who had given her those warm feelings. Moreover, Seiros sounded wistful, sad, almost, and Cethleann felt like she had to fix it.
That was her job as a healer, after all.
“I am quite tired. I think I will sleep with you, after all.”
Seiros smiled, wiping off her face with the back of her hand. She held Cethleann close to her breast, and her heartbeat, combined with her joyful yet distant humming, lulled Cethleann to sleep.
The next time she went to sleep, she did not wake for centuries.
Sothis became a deity. Her father, Cichol became her brother, Seteth. Saint Seiros became Archbishop Rhea.
She became Flayn.
The world she had left behind when she fell asleep last was far different from the one that was there when she woke up. The person she had been was now a legend, and anyone who she had once called a friend was now dead. At her own request, she was brought to the very monastery where her family was worshipped, and it overwhelmed her right away. Even her own father felt like a stranger.
Once more, Seiros—now Rhea—was her only solace.
Long gone were the times where she sat on Rhea’s lap and heard stories. Now, they sipped tea and discussed the “teachings of the Goddess”, took strolls around the monastery, and sung hymns together. Seiros had lost her ferocity, but she had not lost her love.
Flayn hadn’t matured all that much, and certainly hadn’t learned anything as she had slept, but she woke up and suddenly saw Rhea differently. She understood better what their relationship was like, what Rhea was thinking, and why her father had acted the way he did when Rhea touched her. She understood everything, and she knew that what Rhea had done was wrong.
She understood it so well, and yet, that couldn’t stop her from loving Rhea. Perhaps she had been thoroughly manipulated, as heroines often were by deceptive villains in the romance novels her father didn’t want her to read, and now she didn’t know what was right and wrong; however, she got the distinct feeling that that was not the case. Even if Seiros had been capable of manipulating her, of controlling her, Rhea was not. Rhea was thoroughly broken, with none of the fight left in her that Seiros had had. Rhea was miserable. Rhea was lonely.
And Flayn...Flayn was not much better off.
She had been at the monastery for a few months when she took it upon herself to visit Rhea’s chambers one night. She prepared herself for a rejection; after all, things had changed since the last time, mostly for the worse, and Rhea hadn’t so much as laid a finger on her as of late. Flayn couldn’t say for sure why she was initiating things. Maybe it was because she was desperate to feel something again, something like what Seiros showed her on her last peaceful night in Zanado. Maybe it was because she wanted to comfort Rhea. Maybe she really had been manipulated, and Seiros’ trickery was at work, drawing her in.
No matter the reason, Rhea opened the door for her, and she found herself standing in a position not dissimilar to the one she had been in a millennium ago, with Rhea in bed, and her standing stiffly before her. But that time, Rhea was not sickly, but sullen, and fully-clothed; Flayn was no longer a pure maiden.
“Cethleann,” Rhea said, quietly. “What brings you here at this hour?”
Flayn did not object to the use of her true name. She just said the first thing that came to her mind: “I apologize.”
“Apologize? For?”
“I did not understand, back then, what you were doing,” Flayn continued, growing less sure of herself as she went. “I told my father because I did not understand.”
“And you understand, now?”
“Not completely. But I know that you did it out of love for me. That, I can understand.”
“Love,” Rhea repeated, as if in a trance. Flayn wondered again if she was being tricked, if she really was naïve. Rhea finally said, “Yes, Cethleann. I loved you dearly, then. I still do. Now, you and Cichol are my only...” Rhea sighed, as if she had exhausted herself just by speaking. “You need not apologize. You were but a child. I was selfish, and impulsive. You did exactly as you should have.”
Flayn shifted from foot to foot. She wished she could have said her next words with more conviction, but she couldn't manage it. “I missed you very much, after that. I was afraid when you called me to lay with you, and it was all so confusing, but I did not hate it. I was merely happy to have you hold me.”
“It was wrong of me.”
“Even so, I...I am here now of my own volition. Will you turn me away, now that I am here?”
“No,” Rhea responded. She smiled, and it wasn't that of Seiros, nor was it the practiced upturn of the lips doled out by the archbishop. It was something new, tinged with hope. “I would not dream of it.”
Without waiting for Rhea to call her, Flayn undressed herself, and got under Rhea’s blankets, allowing herself to be embraced and fondled. Rhea’s body was slightly less chiseled than it had been back then, curvier and more plush now that they were in peacetime. Flayn was no less enamored with her. If anything, Flayn felt like she was closer to her. Just like before, she could hear Rhea’s heartbeat, but it was less of a galloping thump and more of a soft drum. It grew more intense as she explored Flayn’s body, but never became deafening, even to Flayn’s sensitive ears. She knew what to expect, now, and didn’t flinch as dramatically when Rhea’s fingers went inside of her. She wasn’t thinking about how wrong it was, or fretting over whether she wanted it or not; this was her decision. She had chosen her love for Rhea, for Seiros, over everything else.
Her release felt so much sweeter than before, even without the sensation of Rhea’s talented tongue. Instead, Rhea kissed her, an open-mouthed kiss, and even though Flayn knew it wasn’t, she wanted to consider it their first. They were starting anew, her and Rhea, and this time, Flayn would fix everything properly.
Once they’d pulled away from each other, and she’d caught her breath, Flayn looked into Rhea’s eyes and saw what might have been the beginning of a waterfall of tears. “Please, do not cry,” Flayn begged. She hadn’t meant to sound as childish as she surely did, but her wish was so earnest that she couldn’t help it.
“Promise you will forgive me,” Rhea said, near-sobbing but not quite yet. “Promise you will not leave?”
Flayn wordlessly pulled Rhea into a tight embrace, holding her until her heartbeat evened out again and she fell asleep. As badly as she thought she wanted to, she couldn’t bring herself to make that promise.