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She was a small goddess, and by no means a popular one. Dark goddesses rarely were. Kyoko, best known as a goddess of vengeance, was only sought out by the truly desperate. By the mad. Many considered her touch, her attention, to be a curse.
Fools.
Kuon knew better. He had been chosen at birth to be her lone priest. To serve her, in whatever way she so desired, from one dusk to the next. He knew her better than anyone else dared to dream. He knew her other aspects.
Some, others knew - she was the goddess of the victory feast, the one to whom victors toasted… but only if they knew their cause to be just and the fight to be fairly won. Those who dared invoke her name otherwise found their meals poisoned.
Others were more obscure - few who did not bake knew her to be the goddess of pastry. After all, pastry is a spiteful thing, and any battle against it is hard-fought. Bakers were her most common worshipers; the flour on their hands was their incense and their sweat was her sacrifice.
Kuon was the only one who knew her true aspect. In their language, it was called Skip Beat, or as we know it, playing the long game. She was the goddess of patience, of strategy, of waiting for plans to come to fruition.
And he, her lone priest, knew that better than anyone.
His day started by cleaning her altar. It was a simple one, by deity standards; a waist-high slab of marble, set in with storage on the longer sides. His dawn duty was to make sure it was spotless and ready to receive her sacrifice.
A sacrifice which she insisted on preparing herself. Never let it be said she was an ordinary goddess. Nor a foolish one, as she had let him prepare her sacrifice on his own exactly once.
Goddesses did not repeat mistakes.
So he wiped down the marble for her, swept the area, and ensured that her tools were pristine. Then, and only then, did he seek her out.
He found her, as he so often did, communing with the lesser spirits of her garden. Spirits, pixies, sprites - they went by many names, but most of all they were hers. Hers, as he was; loyal, devoted, and hopelessly in awe. He approached the moss-covered bench where she sat and knelt before her. She dismissed the lesser spirits and nodded in acknowledgement of his presence.
"Your altar is ready." She had forbidden him from using deferential language long ago, aside from select circumstances. She found it tiresome. Who was he to argue with a goddess?
"Thank you." She extended a hand. He took it in his and brushed his lips against her knuckles, then helped her to stand. It was a symbolic gesture, not a necessary one, but one she appreciated nonetheless. As a goddess of the long game, she was one to revel in the small moments.
She approached her altar, Kuon ever a step behind her. She called out the needed components and he fetched them from her cooling box. Then she took one of her knives to them with brutal efficiency. Finally, she rained fire upon them.
Today's first sacrifice was vegetable omelets. Kyoko nodded to Kuon, who picked up the plates and carried them to her unofficial altar. They sat down at it together.
As a goddess of the long game, Kyoko demanded that her lone priest sacrifice meals to her by eating them. She needed him to be healthy, after all, to maintain her temple. She would even go so far as to say that his body was part of her temple, and so he must be maintained with as much diligence as her altar.
He had tried arguing, at first, when he was young and stupid. She had swiftly cured him of that.
So they sat, and he performed his first sacrifice of the day. He had to admit it was delicious. She had told him once, smugly, that every sacrifice she had him perform was a victory feast because it was such a battle to get him to eat. He had not had a rebuttal to that, instead taking another bite.
After this first sacrifice of the day, she would meet with any supplicants who made the journey to her temple while he shined her altar. When he was done, he would come sit on the large cushion at her feet. If she was in a benevolent mood, she would give him her sword to polish during this time.
More than once, she had snatched it from his hands to wield against a supplicant whose cause she had not deemed worthy of her divine vengeance. They left in pieces, if at all. So his next duty of the day was to clean the temple floor.
The bakers, on the rare occasion they journeyed to her temple - usually on her festival day - would sacrifice pastries to her. She would insist on them joining in the feast with her and her priest. They were almost never threatened by her blade, and Kuon only had to clean up crumbs afterwards.
She liked the pastry days better, but Kuon had to admit the sight of his goddess adorned with the blood of the damned inspired a devotion like no other.
When noon came, his goddess called for a second sacrifice. He dutifully aided where he could and then performed the ritual consumption under her watchful, approving eye.
In the warm hours of the afternoon, Kyoko would take to the spring behind her temple for a ritual cleansing. On his luckiest days, she would invite Kuon to join her. But too much of a good thing might spoil it for the long game, so it was not a daily affair. Still, the precious hours he was allowed to dip into his goddess' spring and drink from her bounty were among his favorites.
Once she had cleansed herself, Kyoko would return to her garden. Kuon would follow her and her directions, trailing behind her to help her tend to her plants. Herbs, vegetables, fruits, and poisons all grew together here, all blessed by Kyoko's delicate touch. Kuon buried his hands in the dirt, savoring every drop of her power she bestowed upon it.
Today, once they had tended to the plants, Kyoko sat upon her mossy bench. He looked beseechingly upon her, and she smiled, permitting that which he asked.
He tenderly took one of her ankles in his hand, and slowly, reverently, began kissing his way up her leg. She compelled him to look up as he did so, and he became trapped in her gaze. He stopped mid-thigh as she shifted, switching one ankle for the other in his grasp. He began again.
They played this game often, his goddess and him. A game, a ritual, a prayer - he could not say where one ended and the others began.
When he reached mid-thigh this time, she offered him a hand. He knew the rules, and so began by kissing the pad of each finger, all the while never breaking her gaze. To look away was to end the ritual.
He had made that mistake. Once.
So he kissed up to her shoulder, and she tapped his face with her opposite hand, inviting him to start again. He did, and finally, mercifully, his goddess placed a finger under his chin, tilting upwards.
He would rather be cursed by her kiss than bear the blessing of any other goddess.
She pulled back, running a finger along the curve of his jaw. "One final sacrifice before the ritual, I believe."
They returned to the altar for ground meat and eggs - her favorite sacrifice. She didn't allow it too often, lest it lose its novelty. The last ritual of the night, however… she was glad it never would.
That evening, as he so often did, he knelt before her as she sat upon her altar, and praised her wordlessly with his tongue. This was his favorite ritual to perform for her. Any good priest knew that devotion was best given kneeling. His goddess was effusive with her praise, singing his name as if he was the deity. When he had sated her twice, she called him closer. He carried her to her chambers - the ones she called theirs - to complete his devotion.
They fell asleep together as the stars rose in the sky. After all, Kuon had to be up at dawn to prepare the altar for the next sacrifice.