The Dragon of Desolation, as she was called by the umbral order of alchemists, felt her eyes drift open. She felt warm and comfortable, her limbs heavy... she couldn't remember the last time she had fallen asleep, nor felt so relaxed.

She zoned out while lying in the snow and watching the stars, sometimes, but that was not at all the same.

Mercy realized that the beautiful woman was watching her face, their bodies still cuddled together. Her brow furrowed as she attempted to remember her name. Ah. "Eoforhild."

The woman smiled. "That's me. How are you feeling, Little Mercy?"

"Good." Eoforhild looked at her expectantly, so she continued, "It feels like it's been forever since I was this warm."

"You should drink some water now." The woman stood up and walked over to fill Mercy's cup, her naked form slightly muscled, golden and shadowed in the flickering fireflight like some perfect statue made by a longdead civilization... what had it been called? Before Mercy could remember, Eoforhild came back, handing the cup to the goddess, and blinking as she remained lying down. "...you should probably sit up first... are you all right?"

Ah, yes, that's how humans drank. Mercy sat up and raised the cups to her lips again, taking another sip, and it wasn't so uncomfortably warm this time... the rest of her body had warmed up as it absorbed Eoforhild's heat, after all. She finished the glass of water, and held it back to the woman.

Eoforhild reached out and stroked her guest's hair. She had never met someone so unguarded. Despite being thrown out into the cold, and taken in to be the servant of a woman she had never meant, she had no sense of her Little Mercy having the slightest fear of her. She was like an animal who had never met humans before, a bit curious, but not yet knowing to be afraid. "Are you still thirsty?"

Mercy considered this for a moment. "No," she decided, "but the water was nice."

Eoforhild stroked Mercy's cheek, wondering how far she could take things. "You aren't afraid of me?"

"You rescued me from what anyone would see as probable death." Mercy smiled. "And, I can't imagine you ever truly harming me."

While Mercy was speaking of her power as an immortal, Eoforhild felt a surge of affection and just the faintest trace of guilt-- here she was, taking in the young woman so she could take advantage of her, and she was utterly vulnerable to her... well, that would make it easier in some ways, too.

"You... well, you're cleaner than I thought you'd be, and making sure you were nice and warm first was an issue, but... you do stink a little. I'm going to bathe you."

"All right," responded Mercy, smiling a little as the beautiful woman took her hand and led her off the bed, and then took a small piece of cloth and got it wet in a small bowl of water, slowly and sensuously rubbing it over the goddess's body, occasionally rinsing it again in the bowl before returning to her task.

Eoforhild was impressed by Mercy's seemingly effortless submission, letting her touch her however she wanted without the slightest protest as she cleaned her body.

Mercy, on the other hand, saw what Eoforhild was doing as a sort of worship and supplication-- her priestesses would clean statues of her similarly, and this woman was doing so so carefully and devotedly with a smile on her face. It felt nice.

Soon enough, Eoforhild had cleaned Mercy as much as she reasonably could without wasting water using slow, careful strokes of the rag, dried her off, and led her back to bed, sitting down and pulling Mercy very close.

The goddess blinked as their faces almost touched.

"Kiss me." Eoforhild's voice was soft, calm, and insistent. She often preferred to be the initiator rather than the one reacting to lewd things, but she wanted to see if Mercy would obey her, which was far more important.

Kiss a beautiful woman? Mercy didn't mind if she did, and leaned in, and placed her slightly cold lips against the closest place she could-- Eoforhild's cheek.

"On the lips," said Eoforhild, a little less patiently, commandingly, even.

It was novel. Mercy wasn't used to being commanded, and after she got over her initial confusion of that, she leaned in to kiss Eoforhild softly on the lips.

Eoforhild took hold of the back of her head, and slid her tongue into Mercy's mouth, kissing her deeply as the smaller woman's body trembled slightly... Mercy wasn't familiar with this sort of kissing.

Finally, she drew her tongue back, and broke the kiss, watching Mercy's face... flushed. A little confused. Not upset, just... confused. She wasn't used to this, clearly.

"...my Little Mercy... have you ever slept with someone before?" Eoforhild held back her own impatience. If the girl was unexperienced... well, that explained a lot, actually.

"...of course. I was just sleeping with you." Mercy thought this was a dumb question, and it showed on her face.

Eoforhild narrowed her eyes slightly, but rather than slap the unexperienced girl for her insolence, since it seemed to be out of ignorance rather than any desire to misbehave, she began to grope her left breast softly, circling a finger around her nipple. "Has anyone ever touched you like this before?"

"...no...." Mercy's voice was a little breathy already, feeling Eoforhild once again supplicate her body in an unfamiliar way that felt nice, but while Eoforhild seemed focused, Mercy didn't recognize the feeling of devotion she saw most often in her priestesses when they cleaned her statues.

Eoforhild pushed Mercy's shoulder down against the bed, causing the girl to look up at her quizically, the look vanishing as her other hand rubbed at her pussy lips a little, causing a soft moan to escape from Mercy's mouth.

The goddess had seen animals mate, now and then, but humans tended to do such things indoors, and thus Mercy had little idea of how it worked between them. Still, she wasn't completely ignorant. "Ah... you want to mate with me." Well, it's not like animals never mated with animals of the same sex, though the opposite sex was a fair bit more common.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Eoforhild replied as she slowly rubbed Mercy's pussy, the side of her hand rubbing against her inner thigh. She put a hint of warning in her voice... like it was a threat, but Mercy couldn't think of what she was threatening until she spoke further. "If you don't like obeying me, you don't have to stay here." A naked threat to turn this girl out into the cold, she thought... it'd be hard to actually do that, but the girl would at least compromise, right...?

It's not like Mercy really minded the cold, but she didn't think anyone had touched anyone like this before, and it felt really good, and listening to Eoforhild's voice with her commands sparked something in her, though she couldn't place it... a sense of justice? Needing to punish evil, or reward good? Maybe... she wasn't sure that was it, though, or which of the two, if so... she just wanted the mortal woman to keep talking to her, keep touching her. "No, please let me stay," she said as she stared up at Eoforhild.

The other deities saw Mercy as cold and distant and, most of all, awkward, and had little interest in dalliances with Wind's Dark Curse, as she had tried to spread her name several hundred years ago. It had never caught on, and though she still secretly thought it sounded cool, she never said so, as whenever it did come up, she just got made fun of for it.

Eoforhild smiled hungrily and leaned in for another kiss as she started caressing the curves of Mercy's body, and the goddess, starved for touch by living alone in the frozen for eons, moaned. Eoforhild pulled back and smiled down at Mercy, enjoying the increasingly desperate look on her face almost as much as her apparently increasing submission.

"Allow me to be your mate," said Mercy, wanting Eoforhild to touch her and talk to her like that more, but unsure how to ask about that.

Eoforhild blinked. "...shouldn't you be saying 'please' before that?"

Why should a goddess plead? She had already just said please... but with Eoforhild's voice sounding like that, she sort of wanted to obey her for some reason. "...please allow me to be your mate."

Eoforhild stroked her cheek, and that evil-seeming smile rose on her lips as she saw her Little Mercy utterly caving, desperate to please her. "You'll obey me?" She knew it was wrong to force this innocent girl to serve her just so she could survive, but something about that made it even sweeter... besides, it's not like anyone else had been about to rescue her, she justified to herself.

"Until the day you die, if you want, please...!" Mercy just wanted to be touched right now, and if Eoforhild died tomorrow or in a hundred years, it wasn't a really big deal to Mercy, who existed beyond time and could also just kill this woman whenever she wanted. But right now she needed more attention, and "until the day you die" was the sort of things mortals would say under extreme duress to each other sometimes.

"Shhhh... okay, okay... you're obedient like you promised, I understand...." As delicious as it was, Eoforhild didn't want to risk this innocent girl getting too scared of her, and decided it'd be easiest to rub between her legs again, give her pleasure to contrast with the lifelong submission she had just promised-- more than Eoforhild had intended to ask for, really, and maybe she'd let her go come spring if she wanted to escape, but it was very nice to hear.

Her Little Mercy moaned and pressed her hips up into Eoforhild's fingers, no doubt a mixture of pleasure and desperately wanting to reaffirm her place as Eoforhild's mate so she could get her protection.

...well, actually, Mercy just desperately wanted pleasure right now, and some secondary urge she didn't understand of obedience, but Eoforhild was viewing things through her own lens.

"Shhh... just relax and feel pleasure... you're mine... my mate..." A bit weird terminology, when Eoforhild came to think of it, but it did seem Mercy had lived in a slightly strange living situation before coming here.

Now, Mercy didn't feel fear of this mortal, but... acceptance? Someone calling her their mate and pleasuring her? Even if it was just a human, she wasn't at all used to this, and it was emotionally overwhelming and she started crying a little... she had been rejected by other deities so many times and in so many ways.

"Shh, it's okay, Mercy... is this too much? Do you need a break?"

"No, please keep going!" The building pleasure as Eoforhild's experienced fingers touched her was overwhelming Mercy-- but Eoforhild, while recognizing Mercy's desperation, thought it was to be allowed to live, rather than acceptance and being allowed to cum.

Eoforhild could feel Mercy was wet, and she wasn't going to deny her right now, she already was feeling a little bad for pushing the girl so hard even if she was simultaneously reveling in it... she finally had an obedient young woman of her own, desperate to serve her.

Soon enough, Mercy came, clinging to Eoforhild as she did so.

Mercy's grasp slowly loosened as the intense pleasure passed, and Eoforhild gently laid her down on the bed. She gazed up at her with sudden, intense devotion in her teary eyes-- after all these years, she finally had a mate of her own.

Eoforhild smiled down at her new possession. "It's okay. I'll take care of you, my Little Mercy." She stroked her cheek, and Mercy, being more familiar with how animals behaved affectionately than how humans did, and remembering the deep kiss with tongue she had received as well, licked her arm.

Eoforhild blinked at that, but then just smiled more... there was something definitely a little weird about the little stray she had taken in, she had known that all along, but she saw a lot of trust and devotion in her, felt practically worshipped, really, for rescuing Mercy's life and granting her a little kindness. Some sadistic part of her told her she should mercilessly use her new servant-- but she didn't want to see that devotion disappear from her face, and just continued to stroke her face and body, still sensitive from cumming, and murmured softly and reassuringly, more focused on reassuring tone than the words.

There'd be plenty of time to teach her new possession more intense things later.