[These hands held the stars, once upon a time.]
Kama looked on, apathetic, as she brought a group of wolfmen to their knees with a curl of her fingers. They whimpered as streaks of power pierced them one by one. She could have made their suffering greater, but there was no joy to be found in such sadism. She was not like the other woman, who reveled in the pleasure of physical pain.
She was better than that.
Red stains grew as the bodies fell before her. She was soon joined by heavy footsteps that crunched in the snow. They grew softer and slower as they came closer, and she drifted away as Billy picked at the corpses for any bullets. Like the others, he said nothing. Like the others, he paid her no mind.
Good. He knows his place.
The sky was near-colorless, white and gray with the threat of blizzards. Snow fell gently against her skin. It was both cold and not-cold, because gods do not feel cold. Gods only feel what their soul affines to. Her spirit was comfortable, but her flesh was not.
She breathed, in and out.
"Well, best get goin'," said Billy to no one, making his way back to the rendezvous point. She waited until he left before she did the same. She had seen the way people looked at her, or how they refused to. The other woman spoke of this, the shunning and how they would walk around you. This was how Chaldea accepted their old enemies as new allies.
"With silence," she said with a beatific smile and a gilded gaze, even as the red Archer came to take her plate away. "It will come in time."
What did it matter? None of them were worthy of her time, let alone her love. Let them do what they wish, act how they want. She was here to watch Master fail and fall apart over and over again. The soul-crushing weight of repeated genocide would break her, and Kama would savor every moment of it.
Everyone had come to the rendezvous point before her, and not a single one looked when she arrived. Even Master was too busy speaking with Da Vinci to pay her any mind. She smiled, because she knew it was pointed. She knew they were forcing themselves to look away, to ignore her, to blot out the goddess of love so that they wouldn't fall into her trap all over again.
"Okay, everyone, prepare for Rayshift," said Master, wearing a smile for the damned.
Kama returned with everyone else, the Rayshift letting her fall back into the coffin with nothing more than an inkling of nausea. She paid no mind to the staff or the other Servants as she left the Command Center and astralized. Let them ignore her. Let them turn their eyes.
Though this vessel was mortal, she was eternal. She would live while they decayed and died. She would continue to (wish for) love and be (undeserving of being) loved.
As things ought to be.
She frowned as she passed a junction of hallways and saw the other woman speaking easily with Amakusa. The other woman's gaze drifted off of the saint and found her, despite the fact that Kama was astralized. Her golden eyes only served to annoy her, but it was also the first time anyone had looked at her all day. The other woman smiled and said something to Amakusa before walking away—no, in this direction.
Tch. I don't need you pitying me.
She said nothing as the other woman strode down the halls and turned the corner, but she did trail behind a good distance away. After some time and many hallways, the other woman eventually stepped through the door that led to the arboretum and Kama grudgingly followed her in.
She materialized next to the other woman in a faux-field, surrounded by fake oaks and a lying blue sky.
"You are not trying," said the other woman, taking a seat in the grass.
"What would you know?" said Kama, annoyed. She sat down anyway, comfortably stretching out her legs.
The woman smiled. "Given I was exactly where you are now? More than you. I, at least, tried."
"They are blind—dumb—and I would rather be sought by voles."
"And yet, the animals do not seek you out." The woman motioned to their surroundings. "Perhaps your love is not lovely enough."
"Shut up," she growled, noting with rising frustration that the other woman's smirk only grew. At the very least, she obeyed, and Kama had a moment of relative quiet.
Why did I even follow her? She always bothers me. I can't stand her.
"If you cared," the woman tilted her head, "you could have them begging at your feet for a single glance, a single word."
"I am sure the same could be said for you," Kama pointed out dryly, "or the Babylonian."
"Ishtar is playing with her food," the woman dismissed the other goddess with a wave of her hand, "and I... well, let's just say this place has caused me to turn over a new leaf."
Kama snorted. "Please. Lie to the rest of them if you like, but I hate you enough to know what you truly are."
The woman giggled. "Are you sure about that?"
Kama did not deign to answer, and another silence descended. She hoped that this one would last a little longer. It was not to be, though, as an animal cry tore through the forest.
Birdsong?
Kama furrowed her eyebrows as she listened. High-pitched calls echoed between the trees. Her frown deepened with every cry, every mating scream, every—
"Do you care at all for stories, Kama?"
The name drew her eyes to the other woman, whose gold eyes twinkled in the fake afternoon light.
"Not in the slightest," she sneered reflexively.
"Then indulge me a little," Kiara replied easily. She resituated herself to sit more comfortably, black tresses cascading down her shoulders. Folding her hands, she inhaled deeply.
Here we go. Why must they always make a production of it? She's as bad as that Scheherazade.
"There was once a man who hoarded everything he could," she began. "Anything he could find; trinkets and riches, base pleasures and high ideals, whatever he could clasp to himself. But there was something he was always missing—he did not have love, for he could not capture it in a bottle or pile it in his vaults."
Kama sighed. She could already tell where this was going.
Ignoring her, Kiara continued. "The man tried everything he could to attain it. Reluctantly, he gave his hoard away bit by bit; he gave the treasures to the poor and felt sparks of happiness come with their gratitude. He gave his ideas to the philosophers and knew comradery in their excited exchanges. And yet, he still couldn't find love."
Kama rolled her eyes.
"Eventually, he turned his house into an orphanage and left his home with little else but the clothes on his back. He had learned joy, enlightenment, and yet he was not fulfilled as he wanted to be."
"Let me guess," Kama interrupted, "he stumbles on a good-hearted woman, falls madly in love, and they lived happily ever after."
The twinkle in the other woman's eyes grew.
"Not quite." Kama frowned at this, and Kiara continued. "The man eventually found himself penniless, homeless, and starving on the street. With the last of his energy, he settled down in his favorite park, on his favorite bench, and watched the people pass by. He knew he could ply upon the generosity of kind hearts, but he was tired. He had searched all his life for love and had come up empty. He was ready to let go."
Kiara took another breath.
"As his eyes began to close, he saw a couple hug each other closely. He saw how the woman rested her weight on the man, how she trusted him to catch her. The epiphany almost stopped him from drifting away: he had given away everything he owned, but he never gave himself to someone."
A small wind drifted through the clearing in the quiet that followed.
"As tempting as it is," Kama drawled, "you'll need to seek your next bed warmer elsewhere."
The other woman smiled. "I expect that soon, you will have to do the same. At a certain point, chasing after me as you do will not satisfy your needs. You must learn to let someone catch you."
Kama scoffed and turned to leave, floating between the gaps in the trees.
As if anyone could bear my burden.
A few days later, there was a rustling of whispers down the halls. It didn't take long for Kama to learn what had transpired—a new Servant had been summoned, and he was already making himself useful by setting up a forge to improve the weaponry of Chaldea's army. What caught a fragment of her attention, however, was how he had withdrawn to wherever he had set up his workplace and had not come out—even for meals. Not that Servants needed to eat, but it was hard to forget that, given how they all indulged so deeply.
Despite this, he had not left a bad impression. Indeed, given all that she had overheard...
"Okay, I'm gonna do it." Kintoki strode down the halls, determination glinting in his sunglasses.
"And what are you going to do when she pushes you into her chest and cries?" Tamamo asked, her tone halfway between impressed and concerned. "If you fall apart again, like you've done before, then you'll only be making it worse."
"No, this time, it's for real," he replied firmly, breezing past Kama's dematerialized form. "Boss Raikou needs to hear this, or else..."
He stopped and sighed.
"...or else the old man's right. And I gotta be better than that." He banged his fists together. "Alright. Here I go."
"I'll be waiting outside for you," Tamamo said as she followed him around the corner.
...that new Servant gave a lot of good advice. Approachable, too, given how many Servants she'd seen coming out of his forge. Some of them were angry, some of them were smiling, but all were deep in thought. There was a low buzz of curiosity annoyingly nestled in her thoughts.
I wonder... She shook her head before the idea could take root. No, better not. It would only be the same. They're all the same.
And yet, there she was, floating down the hallway in the direction of what she understood to be his forge. She scowled at herself.
Well, if nothing else, it will at least prove the point.
The moment she opened the door and her foot crossed the threshold, she was engulfed in heat. A blinding glow emitted from the piece of metal the Servant was hammering on an anvil, each blow pounding in her ears. She took a moment to compose herself before moving in, head raised high and back straight.
A goddess is above all sensation, especially petty discomforts.
She paused a distance away, purposely placing herself in his peripheral vision. The script was well-worn in her mind. He would turn to look at her, and for a moment there would be admiration and awe, before he realized who she was and turned away, never to see her again. Any moment now...
The hammer swung. The sparks flew. Clang.
She crossed her arms and waited. Any moment now...
The hammer swung. The sparks flew. Clang.
Look up, you inconsiderate man.
The hammer swung. The sparks flew. Clang.
He finally looked up from his work, and for a moment she saw the natural order fall back into place. Then he picked up the piece and swiveled right past her. Her jaw dropped as he quenched the metal in a water trough—as if she wasn't even there.
Kama was used to being ignored, but never quite so thoroughly. A spark of anger lit in her chest. She opened her mouth to chastise him for such disrespect—
"Well?" he cut in, turning to her with the cooling piece still in hand. "You gonna speak up, or are you just gonna gawp all day?"
The spark in her chest grew into a flame.
"How impudent!" she snapped. "If you knew who you were speaking to, you would be groveling at my knees for forgiveness!"
"Says the lady who waltzed in without even a knock," he drawled, taking the piece back to the anvil. "No one ever teach you any manners?"
The flame snarled.
"No one teaches a goddess anything!" she replied, raising her volume as the hammer blows resumed. "It is I who teaches men—and for you, the lesson will clearly taste of my wrath."
Though she couldn't quite hear him over the clanging of steel, she saw his shoulders shake with mirth.
"Well, if you've come here to sell yourself as a tutor, rethink your strategy." For the first time, he met her eyes, wearing an amused smile. "You clearly ain't dressed for the part."
She held back a growl and took a deep breath to center herself. When she opened her eyes again, he was shoving the metal back into the forge.
"Very well," she said calmly. "Let us see what kind of dull blade Master has added to her arsenal. I will grant you the mercy of stepping outside your forge before I break your steel into shards."
"Is that all you're here for?" He didn't even turn to look at her. "Stop wasting my time."
She choked on the anger rising in her throat.
"You... you..." she sputtered indignantly. "How dare you! I am not like the rest of these lower lifeforms. I once stood in opposition to all of Chaldea and nearly won."
"You got a contract, don't'cha?" he replied. "You look like the rest of 'em to me."
Before she could reconsider, she stomped over to the forge and pulled out the glowing red metal. It didn't hurt. A goddess was above pain. Grimacing, she looked at him.
"Then you've been staring into the forge too long," she growled. "For what? A sword I could shatter in one swing?"
She wanted to see his face twist in pain. No craftsman could stand seeing his work brought to ruin before it even took form. She drew her arm back and smashed the nascent blade against the forge. It exploded into hot fragments that scattered across the floor. With a triumphant smirk, she turned to see what she had wrought.
His eyes were filled with pity. He looked at her as if—as if—
The fire burnt cold inside of her. Kama could take anger and hatred, relish in them even. But she could not abide pity.
Being pitied is just another burden.
She threw the jagged remnant of the blade into the forge's fire and turned on her heel, strutting out. The uncomfortable heat gave way to the sterile coolness, and the fire in her chest dimmed out. Finally, she could relax. Out here, things made sense.
Let him stay in his den. A goddess scarcely cares for the words of a man who's barely lived more than a lifetime.
She failed to notice that he was the first person to look at her that day.
This fic has been steadily written on AO3 for the past weeks. Thought it was finally time to bring it over here. It's close to done over there, so you won't be waiting too long to see it ended here. This has been cowritten with TungstenCat and edited by Kat-2V.
Your ending theme is Goddess by Cepheid (feat. Nonon).
Thanks for reading.