A/N as of 7/10/2015: Hey guys still healing up…this is going to go by staggeringly slow at this rate…ugh…anyway, I wanted to post something, and since this has long been completed, I thought, well why not.
A/N: So, a while back an anonymous reviewer requested a Belldandy/Skuld fiction…I know I like writing really off the wall things, but given the nature of what that would actually mean (Incest, since they are sisters) I was a bit on the fence about it. Turns out, crazily enough, that during the poll, which got 10 total votes on it, 2 were undecided, and 2 voted in favor of the pairing. Out of 10 total voters, that means that even though 6 were opposed to it, the underdogs carried a stronger weight than I thought they would.
Honestly, I thought I would see a much higher opposition than I did to the pairing…I mean 6 opposed is only 60%, and that's not exactly overwhelming odds. This is a fiction that just won't be for everyone, know that going into it, for your sake as well as mine. This is largely a confession/fluff fiction with a tiny bit of angst tossed in for good measure.
Likely a bad idea, but readers of mine should know by now that on polls I really need to see a strong opposition to something to keep myself from doing it…and 60% just isn't enough for me to say no to something that was requested…as a side note, there are so many relationships dealing with incest in mythology that it's kind of freaky.
Take Zeus and Hera, or Freyr and Freyja just to name two examples of sibling romance. With that all said, let's up begin, shall we?
Only Like This
Opulence was a lonely thing.
Belldandy had always felt that way. It was, for a woman such as herself...a goddess such as herself, suffocating. Status was a way to categorize people, not bring them together. The heavens loved their differences, and didn't hesitate to segregate the masses at a mere whim. It happened often enough, too often for her taste. It disgusted her so greatly that she didn't speak about it.
Belldandy had always felt strongly opposed to such regulation, even though she was often exempt from it.
In fact, she considered herself to be one of the luckiest deities ever to be given the chance to see creation for all that it was, and all that it would ever be. It was a vast place after all, and no one could ever understand every tiny detail, not even the scholars who aspired to that particular goal.
The sprawling hallways of her home were empty, and there was very little to do. She spent her time by the telephone, waiting to grant a wish of a lifetime…but, such wishes only come once in countless years. Predicting when such a call would grace her again was nearly impossible.
Yet, she waited, because that was the life she'd always known.
On the days she wasn't spending her hours tending to her work in the offices of the heavens, she sat home, knitting. The act was well practiced, but, it was by no means something warm like it used to be. It was lonely too...
"Belldandy, don't you think you should settle down?" Urd asked one afternoon when even heaven's sky seemed to pelt rain upon everything that touched it. "You've been at that phone for eons…"
Blue eyes didn't lift from their work. Belldandy, composed as ever, made a small noise of disapproval. "One day, perhaps." At that, she reached over to take a sip of tea. "However, that day isn't today, and I doubt it will be tomorrow, or the next after that."
"How long do you intend to wait for him?" Urd groused then. "He might not ever come at this rate."
"Oh, he will come. It is inevitable. I know this, because I know his heart." A finality in her tone was cheerful and content. "Keiichi is quite the slow man on the uptake, but, he is also very resolute." Belldandy finally concluded. "There will come a time when his spirit will reach our father. I'm sure that when Keiichi does, he will be granted the powers of the gods."
"I hate to be a downer, but that's kind of a shot in the dark, isn't it?" Urd asked, but she could tell that her sister refused to waver on the fact.
"No, it isn't." Belldandy smiled then as she put away her knitting. "One day, those feelings that we share will become far stronger than our separation now." She went to the window, pushing open the glass that kept the rain at bay, letting the droplets fall upon the flowers that sat upon the sill. "I feel that a great time must come to pass before Keiichi himself is ready to begin life once more. That choice is not so easy a thing to overcome, but, once he does, I have no doubt we will be side by side."
"Well, that's fine to say for now, but what about Skuld?" Urd asked quietly, eyebrow raised. "She's grown attached to you, and she hasn't had to share since she was a child."
"Skuld isn't the wayward youth she once was." Belldandy reminded Urd with a gentle sternness to her voice. "Besides, you and I both know that I am not Skuld's most destined love."
"She doesn't see it that way, you know." Urd said with a shake of her head, the booze on the table was left forgotten when she reclined back upon the plush sofa that she frequented. "She's going to return today, a full-fledged Valkyrie at that…have you thought about what she told you?"
Belldandy laughed lightly at that. "How could I forget?" It was in fact very hard to forget her younger sister's words. In a small way it was a very heartwarming thing, but, it was also something that lingered beyond warmth. "Skuld has always been very possessive of me, so, it comes as no surprise that she seeks my affections…you can't say that we didn't anticipate such things."
"That's true." Urd relented, none to pleased about the truth of the matter. "It was only a matter of time, I suppose." Coming to a rather obscure observation, she noticed the tense broadness of Belldandy's shoulders. "Skuld has always been very fond of you, but, even if that's the case, I can't imagine it's easy for you to accept her feelings so boldly."
"It isn't so easy, no, not by any means." Belldandy sighed then. "She waited, and that was the only thing I asked her to do." She recalled the day that Skuld left to begin training. There wasn't a single day that Belldandy didn't worry. Taking flight for battle was no small task, and Skuld had chosen the profession willingly. "She was so young when she left, I was willing to chalk it up to childishness. I wanted to think that maybe she was just frightened, I know I would be, if I had been in her place." Belldandy had been proven wrong over the years. "I know now, that's simply not the case."
Skuld had attempted to be every bit the suitor that she had proclaimed herself to be. Time had not changed Skuld's feelings, and her distance only made her fondness for Belldandy grow stronger.
Urd smirked and shook her head. "Well, it probably won't last forever…"
"I know it won't…but, a love like that probably shouldn't. We're not destined to be, not like others of our ilk." Even so, Belldandy closed the window and gathered her things. "I'm going to tidy my room, and then sit down to read one of mother's tomes. When Skuld arrives, please let her know where I am."
…
It was strange, Belldandy knew that her sister's feelings for her were not unlike that of a lover's requiem. It was uncanny in tiny ways, although the heavens would think nothing of the union. They would see it as merely an expression of the feelings that had long sat dormant inside of the sisters. Belldandy's capacity for acceptance, and Skuld's wayward heart…it was no question to many that the two of them could be an item.
It would thunder through the heavens, ill-begotten, and eventually left to tarnish the purity held within the hearts of those who knew them.
"I'm home…" A muffled voice came from beyond the door.
"Just a moment." Belldandy said calmly, though she rushed to open the door that separated them. "Welcome home, Skuld. Your travel went well I take it?"
"As well as can be expected in stormy skies." Skuld said with a nod, still not yet entering her sister's lair. "Will you permit me your companionship on this afternoon?"
Suddenly, there it was, the question Belldandy had been dreading. With a step backwards, the first class goddess nodded. "Oh, come sit down for some tea."
"Only tea?" Skuld asked then, a hopeful yet distant tone in her voice. "The wind won't be at my back forever. One day, you'll have to give me a proper answer."
"I suppose one day, I shall." Belldandy agreed with a longstanding sigh. "Then, maybe it should be today…I received your letters, I know what you truly want to ask, but…" The elder of the two shook her head. "I do not know what it is that you expect me to say."
"A favorable reply would be something I'd want to hear." Skuld took a step forward then. "Just, accept me…that's all I really want you to do." Still, as Skuld stood before her sister in a white uniform of the heavens, that girlish nervousness still seemed to linger. Hardened by the training she received, but no less intense. "Say yes…that's all I want."
There were protocols for courting one of Belldandy's make, no suitor could just demand her interests. Not even Skuld, who was equally respected in the fold of gods and goddess that made up the heavens. Even though they were equals as sisters, as suitors, Belldandy stood far above Skuld's stature.
"Such a simple word…" Belldandy laughed a little before her smile faded. "Yet with you, it is not so simple."
"It can be." Skuld returned. "If you wish it so, it shall be that easy." With all of the ceremony expected of her, shoulders squared and determination in her eyes, she stood outside of Belldandy's door, waiting to be invited to join the woman's side. At the removal of Skuld's hat, it was clear just what answer she was waiting for, eagerly searching for the approval that wasn't the least bit like it had been in the past.
Belldandy could no longer hold at bay the questions lingering between them. A rift that should never be placed between siblings found them further away from an answer than ever before. Belldandy stood from her chair that overlooked a sprawling landscape and turned to open the balcony doors. "Skuld, join me if you would." It was soft, gently inviting the younger goddess to stand by her side. It was the first of many courtship rituals that took place among those who knew proper decorum. It was no sooner that they stepped out, that Belldandy closed the glass doors behind them, sighing at great length. "You've aged well."
"Have I?" Skuld remained hopeful, but she doubted it. "I don't feel that way."
"Maybe it is not your time to fell so. War is a thing that leaves even the strongest of immortals haggard." Belldandy agreed, running her fingers though Skuld's hair. "However, you have still aged well…very much the spitting image of our mother."
"All of the tenacity too." Skuld laughed. "Or so I'm told."
"She is that." Belldandy felt the weight of truth upon her, it fell heavily upon her heart. "Skuld…we…" Belldandy sighed, wondering how best to place her emotions into words. "We are not destined to be lovers. Fate has other plans for you, far reaching ones that have no discernible outcome. However, that fate is not to have me warm your bed at night. Even if it was, I'm sure that one day, you would discover something better. You would let go of me, in search of something far grander."
"You only say that because of Keiichi." Skuld said softly as she turned to look at the lone tree sitting off into the distant mountains. "I'm the Norn of the future, remember? I know that fate isn't so predictable. I know that things change, and that, the things we want to have happen...sometimes never come true." The tree of life and creation itself sat there. Skuld was old enough now to undertake its full burden, to protect it just as fiercely as her sisters did. "It's because I see the future, that I can choose to love you now. I know what the future holds…I always have."
There was nothing Belldandy could say to that, no words could express the vital question that Skuld herself refused to admit to, even as they stood side by side. Finally, after a long silence, Skuld turned to face Belldandy, and her words were that of the woman she became in her time away. "I'm not asking you to give him up. I respect him, for all that he is. I know I could never hold a candle to him. I don't even want to try." Skuld just smiled and shook her head as her eyes returned to the tree far in the distance. "When I was younger, and my body aged rapidly, I got to see Keiichi through your eyes…but even then, I was still just a child."
"Skuld, you don't love me. I know that you do not." Belldandy murmured heatedly. "You love the goddess that you think me to be, but, I am not so great. I am not so powerful."
"Well, duh." Even as she said it, she took Belldandy's hand in hers. "I know that you are not as powerful as I once thought. I'm sure I've even surpassed you in strength." In fact, there was no doubt of that, given Skuld's completed training. "You could be, if you enjoyed the ruthlessness of fighting. Belldandy, I'm not coming to you out of some misguided blindness. I know what future you're waiting for."
"If you understand that, then you also understand why I can't possibly return your feelings." Belldandy could fell the warmth of Skuld's hand upon her cheek, bringing them ever closer, face to face. "Please, Skuld do not make this difficult."
"For the future you want, you may wait forever." Skuld said heatedly. "We're the same in that. I'd wait forever too, for you."
"And that is why Skuld, we may stay like this." Belldandy said as she placed her lips atop Skuld's forehead, kissing the markings that lingered there. "But only like this."