The Love Of A God
I finally wrote this after having a vague idea for something enemies-to-lovers-centric with Raiden in the back of my mind for weeks. I managed to shape the idea into something usable at last (and kept putting off actually writing it for storyboarding, @help-wtf-am-i-even-doing knows) and now, after much ado, it’s here! I’m really and truly proud of this one. It’s quite long, way longer than anything I usually write for this blog, so I’m sticking it under a read more! This is also me desperately asking rngesus for a miracle to bring her home after losing the 50/50-
You were convinced that this was it.
A pall settled over your mind as you accepted your fate. You had tried to escape on the road between Kondo Village and the capital, but they soldiers easily recaptured you. You weren’t going to get free, that much was plainly obvious.
You were on a simple scout mission. Nothing serious, only gathering intel about the Shogun’s Army’s positioning. But you got caught, and that was the only thing that mattered. Now you were a prisoner… a prisoner who likely wouldn’t see another dawn. The soldiers had told you that you were to be presented to the Shogun personally. She apparently had orchestrated quite the manhunt for you, and now you were finally within her grasp.
The stares and hushed whispers as the soldiers escorted you through Inazuma City made your heart constrict with fear. You were close now. Close to Tenshukaku, close to the Almighty Shogun’s judgement.
As you began to ascend the stairs, you heard the soldiers murmuring amongst themselves.
One of them snickered. “I bet she’ll make an example of this one. She’s had an order out for (her/him/them) for months.”
You felt the pit in your stomach growing. You were still new in the resistance, you’d hardly done more than train and go on a few minor scouting missions. You couldn’t fathom why the Shogun herself would order the capture of you specifically, a low-ranking officer. But you grimly supposed you were about to find out.
When you arrived, the soldiers hauled you up close, then shoved you to your knees before the Shogun.
“As I trust the messenger told you, (she/he/they) have finally been captured, Your Excellency.” The leader of the battalion spoke up.
“I found you.” The Shogun whispered under her breath.
She uttered the words so faintly, you’d hardly heard them. Your gaze snapped up from the floor where you’d fixed it.
“Good.” She continued in a more audible voice. “Take (her/him/them) away. Nobuko will show you where.”
You gaped, rendered speechless. The soldiers were just as surprised as you were, but they dared not defy her. They recovered quickly from their shock, doing as she had ordered.
You were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, guilty of treason against the Inazuma Shogunate, but you were being… shepherded off rather than executed. You were perplexed, but grateful for the strange twist of fate. It seemed you wouldn’t be meeting the end of her blade as you were certain you would, at least not at the moment.
~
You looked around your new home, exhausted and confused. You expected to be dead within the hour, yet here you stood, unmistakably alive. A prisoner, to be certain; but a prisoner kept in the most lavish cell you’d ever seen. It was… little more than a guest room with a locked door, in truth.
Tentatively, you began to explore the room. It was in keeping with the general style of the palace, but far more welcoming than its imposing exterior.
The wardrobe was filled with beautiful garments, all of them just to your taste. It was almost disturbing how lovely you found them. You rubbed the fabric of one between your fingers. It was quite soft to the touch, richly colored in what must have been a fine dye, and clearly luxurious. It only baffled you more. Why would the Shogun go to such lengths to keep you in comfort?
You remembered the first time you’d seen the Raiden Shogun in person. You were just a face in a crowd, and yet she’d seemed to look directly at you… the expression on her face changed minutely as she first laid eyes on you. Perhaps that was why you were being spared- some mysterious reasoning, some purpose behind those slightly widened violet eyes?
But, unbeknownst to you, that was not your first meeting.
In one look, she knew.
As she locked eyes with you, a single person in the crowd of many, she knew. Her eyes were drawn to you like a moth to a flame. She found you.
But you met her gaze with a steely, cold stare. You clearly did not recognize her, nor see her as anything more than a domineering sovereign.
She later ordered an elite group of her subordinates to find you, but they returned with only devastating news. There was no sign of you, and the villagers who knew you in passing were all saying you had run off to join the resistance.
Fate, cruel fate, why have you forsaken me?
She considered lashing out against the resistance right then, but something stayed her hand. If she harmed your precious resistance, you would hate her even more. You already seemed to harbor nothing but disdain for her, something she had always thought to be impossible. If she pushed you any further… it was likely that you would never forgive her.
She had you listed as wanted. An order for your arrest was put out, but she specified very carefully that you were not to be harmed under any circumstances.
One day, you would be hers again. She swore it.
You shook your head to clear it of your reminiscence. There wasn’t much to do in your room, but you still had drawers to open and things to investigate.
~
It had been almost a week, and you hadn’t heard so much as a word from the Shogun, or anyone, for that matter.
Every morning, afternoon, and evening a servant girl arrived at your door with food, usually accompanied by your favorite blend of tea. Yet another thing that baffled you about your host, the fact that she seemed to know what you liked to eat as well.
In your room, there was a fully stocked bookshelf and a cabinet filled with little games and things to busy yourself with. At first, you obstinately refused to touch any of it, but eventually relented to your boredom.
Though you were relatively entertained, you still weren’t relaxed. Questions swam feverishly in your mind, the same unanswered questions you’d had since coming to the capital. You had hoped that the Shogun would at least give you some kind of insight as to why she was keeping you in such a way, even if it was sending someone to interrogate you. But you hadn’t gotten so much as a word from anyone past mumbled pleasantries from the servant girl as she handed you your breakfast. You had simply been left to puzzle over your situation, and you were growing more and more impatient.
The Shogun had not been sleeping soundly.
She tossed and turned as she had every night since you arrived, plagued by countless thoughts of you, memories, and feelings that made her heart ache like an old war wound. In a way, it made a sick kind of sense. Her heart was scarred, that much was certain. She adamantly shoved down the old pains that tried to surface, turning over one last time in an effort to finally get comfortable.
When she did at last slip into a fitful sleep…
Green tea.
She dreamt of the green tea you made. It was soothing, deeply comforting in the same way your presence was. The memory of it was so distinctly full of your essence… she always found herself dreaming of it on nights like this.
She didn’t dare have any of the palace staff attempt to recreate it. The tea was sacred, and doing something like that was unthinkable; it would be an insult.
You handed her the steaming cup, and laughed so warmly when she immediately moved to drink from it.
“Careful, Ei. It’s hot, you’ll burn your lips.”
Your voice was like honey, just as she remembered, but it also sounded vaguely… far away. She looked up at you, but what she saw stole the breath from her lungs.
The cup fell from her hands and shattered on the floor.
Your face was foggy, dark, indiscernible. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t look directly at you. It was as if something was keeping her eyes from truly seeing you.
“Oh, dear.” When you spoke, it was distorted. “You’ve dropped your cup…”
She started awake, chest heaving and covered in cold sweat. All the memories of you came flooding back as she struggled to regain control of her breathing.
She loved you with all of her heart. You were her everything, her sun and all the stars in her sky. Anyone who saw how she looked at you would agree that she adored you above all else. She was so happy with you and her friends, happier than she’d ever been.
And then… then you fell horribly ill.
She could do nothing but watch as you faded away before her very eyes. Even your hold on her hand was weak as she sat beside your sickbed. Though you fought fiercely, your illness soon claimed your life, and she was never the same.
Over time, she lost everyone. Her friends were also taken from her in other horrid ways, and she found herself alone. Isolated on the cold, unforgiving plane of eternity.
She forcefully pulled herself from her reverie, looking down at her hands. She hadn’t noticed, but she had been clenching her fists so tightly that crescent-shaped indents were pressed into her palms from her nails. She blinked a few times, then sighed shakily.
Despite her best efforts to ground herself, she still wrestled with a nearly irresistible urge to go to you. To see you, to feel your eyes on her… she dared not hope for more.
Before, she couldn’t bear to face you. Not after the way you’d looked at her as she told the soldiers to take you away. The utter bafflement on your face stung more than you knew. Even then, there wasn’t a shred of recognition in your eyes.
She fought to resist the intense, restless desire to rise and go to your room. She knew the location by heart, and would often change her route to walk by the door. A few times she almost reached to open it, but flinched back, fearing the venom she might find in your voice and eyes. You didn’t want to see her.
But she needed to see you now more than ever before, to be sure you were really there, safe and sound. Maybe she could help you regain the memories of your treasured past life as well. Maybe, just maybe, she could do something to bring you back. And with that thought, somewhere in her mind, her resolve finally cracked.
She strode briskly down the hallway, with intense purpose. Though it was the middle of the night, she couldn’t allow anyone to see the state she was in. Her hands still trembled from her night terror, and her mind was clouded with a tumultuous mixture of emotions. Beneath her stubborn bravado was, most prominently, fear that gripped her heart almost painfully in its spindly, ice cold talons. She feared your immediate scorn, feared that you would never remember her, feared that she would never see your smile again as she’d yearned to for too long.
As she drew near to the door, she stopped dead.
She steeled herself. She would stay strong, face whatever was to come bravely, as she always had. And with that, she opened the door.
Then, when she saw you… everything came crumbling down.
She caved in so quickly just at the sight of you, moonlight cast across your sitting figure, your hand poised to pluck a book off of the bookshelf. Every scrap of logic and every bit of her plan simply fled her mind, and in their place her emotions took over.
At first, she could only stare at you. You were just as captivating as she remembered, and she could hardly believe her eyes. When she saw you being brought in by her soldiers, she had to keep her facade up, containing everything she felt. But now…
“A-ah, Shogun?” You spoke up, clearly confused by her late-night entry into your room. “Is there… something you need?”
She took a few unsteady steps forward, then fell to her knees before you and pulled you into a tight embrace.
She breathed you in like a drowning man gasping for air. She was slumped against you, head resting on your chest. The Almighty Shogun herself, the God of Thunder and Eternity… she was on her knees, quaking and holding onto you for dear life.
You were stunned, but… not displeased, which left you even more stupefied. The very woman you had sworn to oppose was clinging to you on the floor of your room, but couldn’t- no, you didn’t want to- push her away. It was as if all of the disdain you harbored for her on account of her strict policies had simply melted away.
You could feel her warmth radiating through her clothes, and without even giving it a thought you had wrapped your arms around her as well. She gasped softly as you did, looking up at you with desperate hope.
“Do you… do you remember me?” She managed.
“I… somehow feel that I should, but I don’t.”
Her eyes dimmed as she processed your statement, and something about it drove a dagger into your heart.
“How do we know each other?” You ventured hesitantly.
“It was a long time ago.” She chose her words carefully. “You were… very important to me, in a past life. You’ve finally come back to me.”
“How do you know?” You asked incredulously.
“You have (her/his/their) eyes… the eyes of the (woman/man/person) I love.”
Love. The word made your heart jump in your chest, but your mysterious calm persisted. By all accounts, you should be reacting badly, but you only felt disorientation due to your apparent lack of memory and a strange worry for her.
“They’re just eyes… how can you be sure?”
“You have (her/his/their) voice, (her/his/their) touch, (her/his/their) soul. I would recognize you blind.”
Your eyebrows knit together as you struggled fruitlessly to remember. You felt so deeply that what she was saying was true, yet you had no recollection of the past life she spoke of.
“I’m… sorry.” You felt guilt wash over you anew at the raw misery on her face. You couldn’t help but sympathize with the broken woman still holding you. She seemed like a completely different person than the cold Raiden Shogun you knew, with her notoriously stringent policies and severe attitude. In that moment, she was simply another being; one that had suffered far too much if the way her body shook was any indication. You could feel how unsteady she was.
“Is there anything you think might help? Maybe something could jog my memory.” You spoke up after a long moment of silence, mostly in hopes of alleviating her despair. Her pain was palpable, and you couldn’t bear it any longer.
She paused, then finally replied.
“Perhaps… there is one thing.”
The Shogun rose without another word and left the room. You waited tensely, hands folded in my lap, hoping you hadn’t given her false hope.
She returned a few moments later with something clasped in her hands. She knelt near me once again, moving notably more steadily than before.
She held the box out to you delicately, as if she was afraid she would break it.
“It was yours.” She said softly.
Her sense of carefulness seemed to carry over to you, and you gingerly took the box from her. After a moment’s hesitation, you opened it. The hinge creaked a little as you did, betraying its age.
Inside lay a perfectly polished turtle carved from what looked like jade, nestled in a silk cloth to keep it safe. It had been stored carefully, with such loving care…
“What is it?” You asked, eyes still locked on the little stone creature.
“It was your lucky charm. You named it Koharu.”
“Koharu…” You parroted the name. It felt familiar, but the memory was just out of reach.
You reached out to stroke its little head on impulse, and as your finger brushed its surface, you gasped.
You felt as if you’d been struck by lightning. So much was rushing through your mind at once… it was beyond dizzying. You were still reeling when you heard the Shogun asking if you were alright. You looked up at her, tears beginning to glisten in your eyes.
“Ei… Ei! It worked, I remember, I-”
She pulled you into her arms, holding you close just like she had before.
“There wasn’t a single night that went by without dreams of you. To be able to hold you again after all these years…” she managed to choke out.
“I’m here. I’m here, Ei. And I’ll never leave you again.”
You pulled back, but only so you could kiss her for the first time in far too long.
Ei loved you. She loved you deeply, fiercely, without end. And what could be more powerful than the love of a god?