Benevolence with a WoL offered for Sacrifice?
me: thisโll be short n sweet!me, 1705 words later: huh
this is less a WoL than a Reader in general butย ยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏ what else can ya do when the bug strikes
Benevolence/Reader
Seasons are different when it's eternally day, eternally mild; plants flower all year round, those that prefer the night have long since died, snow is equally unlikely under the blazing sky, and cool breezes only come from the coast.
Still, in the last ten years there's been something of a cycle--curious as it is. By now, everyone knows what it means when the eternally bright sky darkens with clouds, not night--never night--but still a difference, a respite. When thunder that shakes the very foundations of Eulmore and every settlement in Kholusia rolls in and lighting splits the sky, forking out from Mt. Gulg, it's just further confirmation that the balance of power has shifted back.
Innocence has been torn both from his throne and limb from limb yet again by Benevolence, bringing with her the rain and some small amount of shade. Not only that, but when the six-winged creature siezes sovereignty those Sin-Eaters that roam the lands are displaced to the Empty, or at the very least the few that remain are more passive, attacking only when provoked. The people have learnt to hold on tight to whatever modicum of peace they can, and this, however, spurs a new course of action to the fore in the hopes of prolonging it. Those who remember a time when they curried favour with the Sin-Eaters can't help but lean into the old ways of thought when they fret over the length of her stay before she vanishes again, and so the plan to gift the Lightwarden one of the city's number germinates.
You're chosen for the honour for a reason, though what reason is a stab in the dark on your leader's part. No-one knows what Benevolence is like, aside from the forces of nature that come with her presence to give her her name. Perhaps you sing, perhaps you dance, perhaps you paint, perhaps you write, or perhaps you're simply beautiful--regardless, they hope she likes you and in liking you will stay longer--keep Innocence from returning to exert his spoilt will from on high again. They don't tell you of the thought in the back of their minds: that you go to die. To be consumed. That you'll be the first in a long line of people just like you, fed the the Lightwarden in exchange for protection. You're hardly a fool, however. You wouldn't change your mind even if they had told you such up front--you've a desire to see the people you love safe, regardless if the cost is your freedom or your life.
And so you're draped in white silks, gold jewellery hung on your wrists, around your neck, your ankles--bare feet and aside from the drapery, bare skin. Your last meal is taken in Eulmore, in opulence, and you're allowed whatever you desire in thanks for your bravery--you take advantage of this as much as you can, but nerves will only allow you to eat so much before you excuse yourself to stare at the mountain that looms in the sky from a balcony and wonder just what exactly the creature you're to be offered to is like.
Terrifying, most likely. Especially if she can rend Innocence to shreds.
ย ---
ย You're deposited as far up the arm of the Talos as your escorts can take you without fear rendering them completely useless, and not for the first time you're made aware of just how impractical the white finery you're wrapped with is for climbing rock, especially in bare feet, especially in the rain--no matter how warm it is. Still, you haven't especially far to go, the others turned tail only a short while ago and already you're at the boundary line where the rain stops falling and granite becomes marble, searing white as the sky is usually. You almost have to avert your eyes before they acclimatise and instead cast your gaze around for...whatever it is you're meant to be doing next before you hear it.
Across the winding floorplan of this place there's a staircase shrouded by a gold archway, and beyond it you think you hear...sobbing?
With little else to go on and a distinct lack of Sin-Eaters present to put any further fear into you, you make your way toward the sound. It takes a little while--this place is clearly built for those with far greater stride lengths than you--but you pick your way across cool, dry marble for long enough that you're simply 'damp' and less 'soaked' by the time you reach the foot of the (blessedly normal-sized) staircase and begin to climb.
The creature you find yourself staring at the back of is larger than any Sin-Eater you've ever seen--you hazard at full height she's thirteen feet tall or thereabouts and with six white, feathered wings protruding from her back, which is toward you. She seems to be sat kneeling in a position that gives you space to roam your gaze over yalms of bare, smooth, dark skin from her spine down even as you feel the power of the light roll off her in waves. Facing away from the rest of Mt. Gulg as she is, with her head in both hands, the cries that emit from her seem somehow both heartwrenching and musical as her chest heaves with grief for something you don't know, her emotions intense enough to choke you up. Moving quietly, skin on stone, you look at her from the front--a decisionย immediately regretted since her sobs halt abruptly the moment you're directly ahead of her. From this angle you can see the liquid gold of her tears overflowing between clawed fingers, and distantly you realise that with the silenced sobbing also comes silenced rain beyond Gulg.
Her hands fall away from her face sharply and you note the scar that runs though her right eyebrow, down across the acute corner of her closed eye, and ends somewhere around a sharp cheekbone. She studies you as you study her and you don't know how you can tell with her eyes firmly shut, but you know she's looking at you. Suddenly you remember exactly why you're there--so caught up were you in the mystery of this place and the Lightwarden within.ย
"H--Hello." You start, for lack of anything better to say. Mercifully, she spares you further fumbling, canting her head to one side, snow white and curled hair bouncing lightly as she does so.
"What reason have you to be here?" Benevolence asks, and her voice vibrates through you in a way that weakens your knees. Her tone is an octave lower than you were expecting, her cadence measured in the manner of someone that weighs every single word before speaking, and behind it all is the chime-like sound of clear crystals against one another. It is, in a word, 'Angelic'.
"Iโฆ" You pause, wondering how best to frame this as the reality of your situation sinks in. You may die here, or you may not, and you have no idea which is worse. "I'm an offering." You steel yourself, "Or a sacrifice."
The creature regards you further for a moment before standing to her full height and towering above you in a manner that gives you an eyeful of the expanse of her bare skin, 'staring' down for a beat longer before facing the direction you know Eulmore to be in. A large, full lip curls in what you pin as a sneer as her wings shake out a little. The term 'ruffled feathers' comes to mind.
"Is that what He demanded?" The loathing that colours her voice is a surprise, but in some ways a welcome one--the enemy of my enemy and all that. You hasten to correct her.
"No!" You half-yelp, hoping she's not about to turn her ire on either Eulmore or yourself and wanting to head such a trolley of thought off at the pass. Benevolence faces you once more, frowning slightly and you take it as your cue. "We wished to thank you! For breaking the stranglehold--Innocence's tyranny. We--"
"--You wish me to stay, and take his place forever." She finishes for you and you nod once in answer after a moment's hesitation. There's another pause as she muses and you find yourself almost wishing she talked half as much as Innocence did--at least then you might have an idea of what was going through her head.
"If I'm not to your tastes, there will be others." You offer, even as you hope to be made a liar. Let this start and end with you, you hope. Benevolence continues to silently observe before she sighs, heavy and weary with a weight you feel settle leaden in your chest simply by hearing it.
"Innocence is a worm that shall always be churned back up out of the aetherial loam, sweet one." She intones, although she sounds as dissatisfied as you feel, "He is as endless as I am, no amount of...offerings will change this. I fight him because he believes he has a claim to this throne, I leave because to stay would rip this place apart when he returns. The cycle is the cycle, regardless."
"I--" Whatever you were to say dies in your throat as you tear your gaze from her closed eyelids and stare down at your hands, fingers knotting as you process this. There's no point to what you've done, Innocence shall always come back and she will always leave, and now you're stood vulnerable and alone in front of a Lightwarden with no way back. This whole thing has been an exercise in futility and you'll never be able to warn the others.
So wrapped up in these thoughts are you that you barely notice the large hand held out to you until its right in front of your face. You look back up at the Lightwarden, confusion clear as she smiles down to you, soft and with a warmth you feel in your bones, like basking in the sun.
"No need for an offering, nor a sacrifice." Benevolence's eyes open, and for the first time you bear witness to her unearthly gaze, eyes of solid gold peering down with a kindness that matches the name. "But a companion, perchance?"
