Messenger

LeviathanxReader

Notes: NEVER EXPECTED TO DO A FOLLOW UP. Yet, someone left me a nice comment over on AO3, and I got hit over the head with some inspiration for a continuation. 

Summary: You’ve lived years with the Goddess of the sea, but it couldn’t last. Not yet anyways. There’s something you need to do first. 2080 words. 

It had been ages since you had walked into the sea’s
embrace. Thousands of years. You’d watched your village rise and then fall, and with them went the
hibiscus offering that were once yearly. Familiar landmarks had become
weathered away and foreign. Even your name had vanished into the years. But you
knew peace at Leviathan’s side. You didn’t know how your life had become so
prolonged and didn’t care enough to ask. All you knew was that you were
content.

Then there came a day when your small slice of the heavens
had another, a stranger to you, set foot on the sands of Leviathan’s
beach.  

“Who are you?” You called as you stood up straight, a basket
of seaweed on your hip, and hair trailing over your shoulders.

The woman stood on the beach with two dogs, her eyes closed
and a small, soft smile on her face. She was dressed richly in blacks and
golds. Her hair long and straight. The dogs at her side, an unfamiliar sight,
were opposites. One with a white coat, and dark markings around her eyes, and
the other with a black coat with white around his eyes.

How you knew what they were, you didn’t understand.

“The girl has been chosen yet doesn’t know her calling.” The
woman suddenly spoke and opened her eyes. The most brilliant green stare pinned
you in place, and all at once you knew who she was.

“Forgive me.” You quickly knelt on one knee in the tide,
bowing your head, “I didn’t recognize who you were, Lady Messenger. Leviathan
is in her home, if you wish to speak with her.”

You didn’t even feel the woman come near you until her hands
came to rest on your face and guided you into looking up at her. They were
cold, not like Leviathan’s sea cooled skin, but called to mind frozen lakes,
snow, and wind. You had to suppress a shiver as you met her gaze.

“The Tide Mother is not what beckons me here.” She said,
studying your face. “You are the one I needed to see.”

You couldn’t help the surprise that flashed across your
face, “Me? What could you need of me Lady Messenger?”

The Messenger guided you to your feet and took your hands to
hold in her own. But when she opened her mouth to speak, a wrath filled yell
echoed through the air, and all at once you were torn from the messenger’s
hold.

“Trespasser! Sneak!” Leviathan hissed, in her mortal form,
now standing with you wrapped in her arms. “I forbid all others from my realm!”

“You would hide the girl from her calling.” The woman
replied, her eyes flashing a pale blue for a single moment. And seeing it made
your heart leap into your throat. There was danger in those eyes, something you
weren’t sure that even Leviathan could hold her own against.

The hold on you tightened, and you felt Leviathan pressed
her face into your hair. But what you couldn’t see was that her eyes remained
uncovered and peered over your hair at the messengers. And even further behind
you both, serpents made of water had risen from the tides, fangs bared and
twisting through the air.

“You knew the cost of taking in a mortal, mother of the
tides,” She continued, taking a step forward. An almost inaudible hiss left Leviathan,
only heard by you due to how she was pressed against you. “Daughter of the
deep. The time has come for her to join us.”

A gasp left you when the messenger stepped onto the water
and it froze under her feet. Solid blocks of ice that touched the sea floor
that were unmoving.

“W-what is she talking about?” You asked quietly, a slight
tremble beginning to run through you. The water around all of you was nearly
ice, something that you had become unfamiliar with since Leviathan brought you
here. You were cold for the first time in a long time.

A few moments of silence passed, with you and Leviathan
simply standing in the tide together. Then she finally started to answer, “Mortals
are not meant for long lives. Nor are the creatures of Eos.”

You glanced up at the messenger and frowned. Her eyes were
closed again, but this felt like it should have been a private conversation for
the two of you. So, with one of the gifts that Leviathan had given you, you
waved your hand and a small curtain of water cut you off from the messenger. Only
then did you turn around in Leviathan’s arms, or rather you tried. When she
felt you move she tightened her hold on you, as if worried you would try to get
away.

“Dearest, please.” You whisper.

Reluctantly she began to loosen her hold but didn’t let you
go. Not entirely. As if she was scared you would willingly leave her arms. So,
you got to see the slightest hint of surprise on her face when you only turned
around. But then it was gone, and you could feel her arms relax. In turn, you
wrapped your arms around her waist and laid your head on her shoulder.

When both of you settled, Leviathan calmed by your
heartbeat, she began to speak again, “A deal, made long ago, was struck among
the gods. This deal was to find up to four we each found worthy, and name them
to a group that would never exceed 24.”

Something like discomfort began to settle into your stomach
as she continued, “The 24 would guide the bloodline of healers, until the last
of the line disappears from this world. These 24 were named messengers. The
Infernian selected two creatures of Eos, but no more, refusing to choose any
among men for fear of further betrayal. The Glacian selected only one, finding
one among the mortals serving the founder king of Lucis as the first shield, a
woman of grace and strength named Gentiana.”

She paused then, and for the first time since you’d come
here, you could hear the slightest waver in her voice, “A fourth chosen, gifted
long life and the strength of the sea by the Hydraean.”

You pulled your head off her shoulder and looked into her
eyes, shock playing across your face.

“Found worthy through the devotion and compassion, earning a
place among the 24.”

You were speechless, stunned by the revelation. So much so
that you didn’t notice that she waved a hand at the water wall you’d called,
and it fell back into the sea. It was only when you felt icy hands on your arms
that you realized you were back on the beach, moved there by Leviathan’s
strange magic. But also, when you turned your head to look, you saw that
Gentiana was the one who was holding onto you now as well.

“She must complete her calling.” She intoned, “Then the girl
will be able to return with her reward.”

“I don’t want a reward.” You said turning away from the
woman, Gentiana you reminded yourself, and looking up at Leviathan. “I want to
stay with you.”

Leviathan looked like she was about to say something, but
then shut her mouth and shook her head, her braids falling over her shoulders. “You
must go, all the same. No god magic could keep you from going.”

“B-but…” You were scared. You didn’t want to leave her side,
and yet she relaxed her hold on you and willingly pushed you away. The
messenger’s hands squeezed for the briefest of seconds, as if meant to be comforting,
and then let go. But one did hold your hand and begin guiding you toward where
the dogs sat.

You realized then that you were going. Right at that moment.
Before you could get much farther, you turned your head and met Leviathan’s
eyes, which were watching you walk away.

“I’ll come back.” You found yourself saying. “When this is
done, and I complete whatever it is, I’ll return to you.”

She pressed her lips together, as if trying her best to keep
her face neutral. You hated when she did that. Because behind her, the water
was churning, as if there was a storm in the air. Proof that she didn’t want
you to go either.

“The girl lives up to her title.” Gentiana said while still
gently pulling you along, “The devoted. You’ll find your reward more than
enough.”

It was only then, that you turned to look at your fellow
messenger, hissing. “Tell me what it is, and I’ll decide for myself if it’s
enough for awaking the ire of a Goddess.”

“It is true, the sea has been kinder since you were named
one of us.” She said, and then stopped when you were standing by the two dogs. “It’ll
be crueler while you’re away we imagine. But the reward has always been to
spend eternity among the gods if we so choose. Once our duty is complete, we
keep our eternity.”

That made your heart clench. Leviathan wanted eternity with
you as well, which you knew, but to KNOW was something else. “Then I’ll do it.
I don’t have a choice, but it feels like I do now. We complete our task, and I
return to Leviathan’s side.”

Gentiana opened her eyes again, this time smiling, and
simply nodding her head. With a sigh, you steeled yourself for whatever the
future held for you, and allowed the other messengers to whisk you away.

~

Leviathan watched from the beach as she left, and already
this place, crafted for you, felt a lot less welcoming to her. The water was
churning behind her, years of pent up energy inside the waves. It had been
restless, missing the days when Leviathan hadn’t been tempered by your
presence. She turned away from the beach and began to walk across the sands,
meaning to walk into the water and return to her truer form. But then something
caught her eye, and she turned to look.

In the waves, having washed up onto the sands, was the
basket of seaweed you’d been collecting. It caused her to pause again, and
inside her chest she could feel something grip what was her heart in this body,
and squeeze. She swallowed hard and then turned back to the water, looking into
it.

She didn’t know how to deal with missing someone. She hadn’t
been able to deal with it before, and she couldn’t deal with it now. Especially
since messengers could die before fulfilling their calling. Cupita, her messenger,
could die, just as Hibiscus the mortal did. And the older god Titan wouldn’t be
able to turn her into a flower for Leviathan to remember her this time. He was
under that accursed rock. She could lose all traces of her. Forever. She could feel
her breathing quicken, and her chest began to rise and fall rapidly. It was too
much.

She fell to her knees and let out a scream.

The sea became violent in a way that hadn’t been seen for
thousands of years, tossing and turn with waves higher than the cliffs that
surrounded their home. Leviathan poured out her energy into the waves, and they
reveled in the chaos. It made her feel better, at least until Leviathan
actually looked out into the sea. She saw the chaos and destruction and
wondered if Cupita would have approved. And when she found the answer lacking
she forced it all to stop. Her hands shook as she got to her feet, scared, for
the first time, of the destruction she could cause on a whim.

She didn’t want that.

Instead of letting out all her emotions and pushing them
into the waves, she walked into the water and allowed it to take her to a long-forgotten
altar, built by mortal hands after the god’s war had ended to long ago. There,
she was lucky. A few humans were doing a rite, trying to appease her. It had
been days of storms for them apparently, yet only felt like moments to her. She
turned into her serpent form and did as their story of her suggested.

She went to sleep, and the water turned calm before their
eyes. She’d sleep until the last Oracle came to wake her. Perhaps then Cupita
could return, or at the very least, she’d be able to see her Cupita at the
Oracle’s side.