Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and support. Before this chapter begins, I'd like to address something regarding the dynamic between Egeria and Buer. To clarify: this is not a yuri story, and there will not be any other yuri pairings in this fic. Egeria and Buer's relationship is not the central romance, nor does it take focus away from Kyle's journey. Their bond is meant to add emotional depth to the story and enrich the worldbuilding. These two characters are ancient, layered, and share a long history together. Their moments of closeness are there to reflect that emotional complexity not to shift the genre or change the story's core.
I understand that this dynamic may have caught some readers off guard, and I appreciate everyone's honesty. Just know that every scene is written with the greater narrative in mind, and with care for the characters' development. Again. I'm not going to write any Egeria x Buer scene that is more than a kiss or a cuddle. It was really surprising and unexpected for me that so many people were so against some featherlight yuri.
Thank you again for reading, and I hope you continue enjoying the story.
The mountain air was crisp with the scent of pine and distant mist, soft ripples dancing across the surface of the lake. A hush hung over the sanctuary grounds, broken only by the rhythmic rustling of leaves and the gentle splash of water along the shore. Just beyond the winding path, near the water's edge, Buer knelt beside a shallow patch of soil, her fingers brushing delicately over the bright petals of an exotic vine that shimmered with dew-kissed blues and purples. She was humming faintly, something wistful and half-forgotten, as if the melody had drifted in from another life.
Egeria stood a little ways back, watching in silence.
She'd come here half a dozen times over the last three days—only to turn around each time before making herself known. But not today. The ache in her chest had outgrown her pride. Today, she wasn't the divine Hydro Archon. She was just… a woman who had hurt someone she cared about, and needed to make it right.
"I didn't know you'd started cultivating Lacustra Bloom," she said.
Buer didn't look up. "It needs freshwater mist and warm nights. This mountain's perfect."
Egeria stepped closer, then knelt beside her in the grass. "And you're tending them yourself."
Buer's fingers didn't stop working. "Plants are easy. They don't lie. They just grow."
The words stung—but not unjustly.
Egeria winced at the unspoken weight behind those words.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. No divine proclamations. No elegant phrasing. Just that.
Buer didn't answer at first. Her hands moved gracefully, pressing down fresh soil around the vine, steady and practiced.
"I know you didn't mean to hurt him," Buer murmured finally. "Or me."
Egeria inhaled slowly, grounding herself. "I never meant to hurt him, Buer. And I never meant to drive a wedge between us."
There was a pause. The lake lapped quietly at the shore.
Buer finally sat back on her heels, brushing soil from her palms, her eyes fixed on the rippling water.
"Do you remember," she said softly, "when Kyle first came here?"
Egeria blinked. "Of course I do."
"You told me he was different. That he needed care, not commands." Buer's voice wavered, just enough to betray the emotion beneath. "So I trusted you."
Egeria felt her chest tighten. "And I betrayed that trust."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't need to." Her voice cracked.
Buer finally turned her head, her gaze calm but unreadable. "Why did you give him that choice, Egeria? Why corner him with it?"
Egeria closed her eyes for a breath, the wind tugging gently at her hair.
"Because I was scared," she whispered. "Of how much I cared. I was scared of my own feelings, so I pushed him away, gave him an impossible choice. I was wrong for it."
Buer looked at her for a long moment.
"That wasn't a choice," she said. "That was a gamble. And you bet with someone else's heart."
"I know." Egeria's voice was barely a breath now. "And I've regretted it every day since."
There was silence again—drawn out and painful. Egeria couldn't bring herself to meet Buer's eyes.
She expected more silence. Maybe a reprimand. Maybe a sigh.
Instead, she felt fingers graze her cheek, lifting her chin.
Buer's expression had softened, her eyes full of something unreadable—tenderness, sadness, and that sharp, knowing look that only the God of Wisdom could wear.
"You're a fool," Buer said gently. "But you're my fool."
"You're allowed to be scared," she said gently. "But not alone. Never alone."
Egeria's eyes fluttered closed as her fingers closed around Buer's.
The silence between them wasn't hollow—it pulsed with everything left unsaid. With centuries of half-glances and swallowed words. With the quiet ache of affection they had both buried beneath duty, beneath titles, beneath the way they always stood just a little too far apart.
But here, beside the lake and the blooming flowers, there were no thrones. No sanctuary. No one to perform for.
Just two women kneeling in the dirt, stripped of pretense. And for once… honest.
Buer had always been there, hadn't she?
She was the embodiment of Irminsul—the world tree, ancient and alive, her roots stretching through the bones of the world. And Egeria was the embodiment of the primordial sea that nourished that tree. She was the origin. The first flow. The current that whispered dreams into existence.
They had always known each other. Not as gods. Not even as women. But as something older—something deeper. Before laws were written. Before the stars had names. When the world was still young and everything was breathless and new.
They had watched the same skies change. Watched ancient beings fall to dust. Watched civilizations bloom like wildflowers only to wither in the next season. Always side by side. Always quiet. Always… together.
Not in the way mortals understand it.
Was Buer her lover?
Egeria would say no.
Did she love Buer?
Egeria would say yes in a heartbeat.
Because love, for them, had never needed to be spoken aloud. It lingered in the way Buer would drift closer when Egeria stood too still. In the way Egeria would reach, gently, when Buer began to pull away. In glances held a breath too long. In the silence they shared when the stars turned strange and unfamiliar.
What if they kissed once in a green moon?
Or in a thousand years—whichever came first.
Would it matter?
Did it need to?
What use were names and labels to beings older than memory, older than time itself? When your soul had been tangled with another for longer than the sun had risen over the same mountains, what word could possibly hold it?
No, they weren't lovers. Not in the way mortals chart their hearts.
Buer leaned forward.
And Egeria didn't flinch.
Their lips met—not in fire or desperation, but in something softer. Older. Like the slow thaw of snow after a long, hard winter. It was a kiss full of forgiveness and quiet devotion, of all the mornings and memories they hadn't dared call what they were.
And Egeria… melted. Her lips responded without thinking, like they'd done this before—like it wasn't the first time. Like it wouldn't be the last.
"You… didn't have to forgive me so easily," she said, her voice quieter, smaller than she meant.
Buer smiled faintly. "I didn't. I just missed you more than I wanted to admit."
A pause. Then—
"And besides," Buer added with a teasing smile, standing up and brushing off her knees, "what do you think Kyle's reaction would be if he saw us like that? Poor Kyle is still so innocent about love, his only references are the ancient hopelessly romantic novels in your collection."
Egeria stood slowly, her fingers brushing the damp soil from her gown, but her eyes didn't leave Buer's. A flush crept across her cheeks—not from embarrassment, but from something softer, something private. Something she hadn't allowed herself to feel for a very long time.
"I think," she murmured, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear with careful grace, "he would stare. Stammer. Probably spill his tea again."
Buer laughed—quiet and genuine, the sound curling into the air like birdsong.
"Or he'd pretend not to notice," she added, brushing a smudge of dirt from Egeria's sleeve with an exaggerated air of helpfulness. "But his ears would turn red. Like they always do."
Egeria allowed herself a soft smile. "He's already started to wonder about us. I can tell."
"Then maybe it's time he learns." Buer's voice dropped just a touch—low and warm, laced with a knowing affection. "What we are. What we've always been."
Egeria tilted her head, eyes half-lidded. "And what would you call it?"
Buer's smile widened, but her tone was sincere. "I don't need to call it anything. You're the one I always return to. That's enough."
The words struck somewhere deep in Egeria's chest, settling like sunlight through stained glass.
"You always say things like that," Egeria whispered. "Then leave me to decipher the meaning like a riddle."
Buer's hand slid up to rest over Egeria's heart. "You always understood me anyway."
The silence that followed was heavy—but no longer painful. It was full.
Comfortable.
Shared.
And in it, the lake shimmered like glass, and the mountain held its breath.
"I'll make it up to you," Egeria said finally, voice barely audible. "Not just with words. With action. With time. Whatever it takes."
"You already have," Buer replied. "You came here. That's what I needed."
Another long pause.
Then, mischievous now, Buer leaned in once more and whispered near her ear:
"And for the record… I wouldn't mind if you kissed me again. For clarification."
Egeria exhaled a breath of disbelief through a chuckle. "So bold…"
"So are you, when you're not too busy pretending to be ice incarnate."
Without another word, Egeria obliged.
And Buer melted into it, her hand rising to cradle the back of Egeria's neck, grounding her.
And when they parted again, lips barely inches apart, their foreheads touching, neither of them pulled away.
They simply stood there as the sun dipped low behind the mountain, casting the lake in golden twilight. Two ancient hearts, long acquainted, finding warmth in one another again.
The petals of the Lacustra Bloom swayed gently beside them.
And behind it all, faintly… a voice.
From up on the path.
"Uhh… should I… come back later?" Kyle's voice was half-mortified, half-incredulous.
They didn't turn around.
Buer smirked, resting her head on Egeria's shoulder like she'd been waiting for this moment all day.
"I told you," she whispered smugly, "he'd spill the tea."
A distant clatter followed from where Kyle had, in fact, dropped the teapot he'd brought with him.
Egeria's eyes fluttered shut with a sigh, her face pressing gently against Buer's hair as a tiny smile crept across her lips.
"…You win."
Egeria's breath caught—just slightly—as Buer leaned in again, their closeness still crackling with that lingering warmth from the kiss they'd just shared. Her lips were still tingling, the taste of blooming lake air and wildflowers still fresh on her tongue.
And then Buer, ever the mischievous scholar wrapped in elegance, whispered with a smirk that was far too innocent to be trusted:
"Mhm… I think I'll take that kiss you gave me—" she paused, brushing a knuckle teasingly under Egeria's chin, "—and give it to Kyle instead."
Egeria blinked, stunned for a heartbeat.
Then her brows lifted ever so slightly. "You wouldn't."
"Oh, wouldn't I?" Buer's voice was a purr now, coy and dangerous in equal measure. She drew back just enough to spin on her heel with theatrical grace, the hem of her dress catching the breeze. "A very good kiss, I must say. Seems a waste to keep it to myself."
Egeria stepped forward instinctively, reaching out with a hand that caught Buer gently at the waist, halting her. "If you so much as pucker near his face with my kiss, I swear by the lake—"
"What?" Buer turned back, all wide-eyed innocence, lips barely parted in mock curiosity. "Afraid he'll like it? Or that you will?"
Egeria's eyes narrowed, but her lips twitched upward. "You are insufferable."
"And you're jealous, don't you want to give that kiss to him yourself" Buer sing-songed, clearly delighted.
Egeria didn't deny it.
"…Maybe I do," she whispered like a mosquito. Her ear tips flushed pink.
Buer's teasing grin softened.
"Oh?" she asked, a touch less playful now. "That sounded dangerously close to honesty, my lady."
"Now that's the Egeria I like," she said, brushing a lazy finger down her cheek. "But I can tease him about it until you choose to give it to him yourself."
She tapped her own lips lightly, then leaned in again for a whisper that tickled Egeria's ear:
"Unless Kyle asks nicely, of course."
Egeria groaned softly, head tilting back toward the sky. "Just drown me in the lake already."
"Tempting," Buer said sweetly, already walking off toward the path, hips swaying just a little more than usual. "But I think I'll leave you alive… so I can tease you again tomorrow."
As she disappeared behind a curtain of mist and pines, Egeria stood by the water's edge, arms crossed—ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
"You wicked, wicked woman…"
And somewhere up the hill, poor Kyle sneezed.
Because he was in danger.