Too Close to the SunNSFW

Celia's body can take a lot... but it turns out that fighting a goddess is beyond even her. And in another beam of searing light, she's had all she can take.

Her sword and shield clatter to the floor beside her as she catches herself on her hands and knees. Her breath comes in rapid, desperate gasps. Every inch of her body aches with exhaustion and bruises.

Azima's sword of light is extinguished, and the crystalline hilt shatters to dust as the goddess throws it aside. "Though I am disappointed, I am not surprised," Azima says, kneeling down and cradling Celia's cheek in Her hand. "My exhausted, brave sunbeam. You've fought so long and so hard, all in the name of bringing My light and warmth to all. But your trials are at an end now."

Celia's armor fades away, piece by piece, shattering in sprays of sparks. Leaving her naked, vulnerable. "Y... You're...? N-Not really going to... e-eat..."

"I warned you that, test or no, we would be playing for keeps, didn't I?" Azima whispers. Celia's dark, curly hair is haloed by the goddess's light as Her warm, tender hands cradle Celia's face on either side. "It's not your fault. I asked too much of you - too much to ask of any mortal. And now, I'll take you back into Myself, so I may use your strength to protect your friends."

"H... hh..." Too tired and beaten for words, Celia gazes up into the eyes of her goddess. Deep, shimmering gold, filled with the weight and wisdom of millenia - the kind of eyes Celia can get lost in.

... But it's not Azima's eyes Celia is about to get lost in. Her delicate pink lips - the sweet cotton-candy pink of the sky at dawn, seemingly as harmless as can be - part ways, revealing the promise of Celia's fate. Azima's tongue beckons Her champion home. The towering goddess is easily over a foot taller than even Celia, maybe even two. Beside Her, the normally head-and-shoulders-over-the-crowd Celia feels the way everyone else must feel around her. No, more than that - with how weak she is, and how incomprehensibly powerful her captor is by comparison, she feels like a doll. A toy - one that has, at last, broken despite years of care and love.

Her head fits easily into the goddess's mouth. Like she belongs there. And she does. Azima is taking Her time. Her tongue probing over the weary champion's body as She begins to swallow, coating Her prey in warm, sticky, all-enveloping saliva.

Even if she's so badly beaten she can barely move, Celia's body still resists being eaten alive. Automatic movements, sluggish though they are after how badly she's been torn down, pushing against her captor's throat, kicking weakly into the air.

If Azima notices Celia's attempts to fight her fate, She makes no sign of it. Swallow by swallow, inch by inch, Celia's body is enveloped in warmth. The comforting warmth of being out in the sun on a breezy day. Her former patron's breath still flows, even with Celia in Her throat, and the heat never gets too intense, never gets to the point of being uncomfortable. In fact, it's almost-

... Is that a goddess groping her ass?

"Mmmm," Azima purrs, kneading Her hands into Celia's generous rump without the tiniest hint of shame.

Years of devouring those who would do the realm harm have worked their magic on Celia's figure, and her rear end is succulently soft and rapturously round, her thighs pleasurably plush. ... And it seems that Azima is more than happy to enjoy Her star follower's curves one last time before melting her away...

Celia whimpers, squirming against the goddess's touch. She's used to being halfway down a throat, but... this is the first time anyone's been so brazen about touching her backside... "H-Hey...!"

Azima doesn't take even a second to stop Her torments, just shifts them from one place to another - from leaving Celia at the mercy of Her hands to letting Her teeth nibble into the fighter's chubby butt. In some ways, it would have been preferable to let it go on forever... because once She's done savoring Celia's thighs, it's over all too quickly. The nude knight's legs disappear, and it's only moments before her toes are lovingly cradled in Azima's lips.

And then those, too, are gone, and Azima wraps Her arms around Her swollen belly. She sits down, folding Her legs and rocking back to enjoy Her meal. "Oh, Celia... Has your adventure been worth it, all this time? Did you learn and grow and have fun?"

The thing is, right now, Celia isn't entirely sure. On the one hand, she's surrounded by tight, squeezing stomach flesh that imprisons her on every side. Her panicked movements do little against the divine stomach that surrounds her.

But on the other hand... it's like a tight hug. Like being embraced by a lover. So soft and safe... "... Yeah... Though it doesn't... have to end here, You know...!"

"My Mistress! The Nox march on Your temple, and Your desperate children anxiously await Your answer!" That voice - Gwyneth, a little five-foot-tall homunculus who acts as Azima's mortal mouthpiece. "What is Your decision?"

"... Tell them My hand will carry them to safety elsewhere," Azima says finally. "Let the ships fly. There will be other temples. And with My champion providing Me with her strength... I will be there with them before long." She runs Her fingertips down the contours of Her meal. "Tell them not to wait for Celia. She will be... staying behind, with Me."

Gwyneth's voice draws closer. Celia is distracted briefly from their conversation by the shiver-inducing sensation of a droplet of fluid running down her back. Looking around the faintly illuminated pink flesh walls surrounding her... she can see that more of the droplets are beginning to accumulate around her. Their pearlescent shine briefly distracts her from a greater discovery. Are Her stomach fluids... glowing?

Indeed, as the drops come faster and faster, pooling beneath her and beginning to well up around her, the light in the stomach grows just a tiny bit brighter. Just a tiny bit, though. Like a nightlight. Now that's a distant memory...

Hands - smaller than the ones that had been getting fistfuls of her rump, certainly Gwyneth's - begin massaging the walls of the stomach into her skin. Teasing her long-untouched chest with tender, affectionate attention. But as nice as it feels--! Celia squeaks, flustered, and her body starts to move again in a weakened, undulating squirm. The best she can do in these tight quarters. What is it with these two and just... touching me? What is she doing? Is she trying to help Her digest me?

"Celia, my Mistress has always cared for you," Gwyneth murmurs to her through the stomach walls. "Even now, when Her fate is uncertain... She chooses to keep you with Her. To take you as Her own. She treasures you so much, Celia... Do not let this sour your thoughts of Her."

The weary warrior's response is hard to hear even for herself. As the level of the fluids rises, the chamber seems to conduct sound even better, and what little it does to help carry her voice lessense and lessens. The interleaving rhythms of Her heartbeat, Her breath... The bubbling, gurgling noises of Her digestive system... These take precedence over the last babblings of Her meal. "Sh... She doesn't have to... keep me..."

"But I do, My brave sunbeam." Azima's voice feels like a lullaby on her ears. "You have journeyed so far and fought so hard, all in My name. Now, all I ask is that you allow Me to do this for you. Lay down your arms. You have fought enough. It is time at last for you to rest."

It's hard to resist Her sales pitch. And with her body too hurt to continue its feeble resistance, that warmth seeping into her weary bones feels like peace. "To... rest...?"

"To rest," Azima affirms. Her arms have barely moved from their place embracing Her stomach. "Let Me take care of you from here. Trust Me to take care of you. Have I not always?"

That sounds appealing... It feels like Celia has been running and fighting constantly for years now. Rest sounds like a good idea. And with those luminescent stomach fluids beginning to rise toward the level of her head... she might not have a choice for much longer.

"... I trust You," Celia admits, letting her body finally go slack. The massaging never stopped, but now that she's stopped fighting it, it feels amazing. Gwyneth is way too good at this... Has she been doing this often? "I... I'm Yours..."

She feels so soft. Like a lump of wet clay, not yet fired. Made malleable once more. As if the clock is being rewound. All the pain, all the suffering, all the trauma, all the loss being lifted from her, body and soul... Leaving her fresh and new.

Her eyes close of their own volition. She couldn't open them again if she wanted to. The sweet scent of her goddess fills not only her nose, but her mind, her heart. A part of her is vaguely aware that she is being consumed. That her soul is being taken back into the greater one from whence it came. That her body, Azima's gift, is being reabsorbed into the body that gave it. That she is losing herself to Azima, entirely, permanently.

But it's so comfortable that she can't bring herself to care. She is Azima's. She always has been, and will be forevermore.

This is how things were always meant to be...

===

Gwyneth's hands continue their tender massage as Azima reclines, in utter bliss.

"My Mistress... I have never seen You so relaxed, so comfortable, in all my life," the homunculus says, her voice trembling and timid. "With her, You are whole once again..."

Azima smiles, looking down at Her softening gut. It's only been a few hours, and Celia's body is already an unrecognizable orb of half-digested girl. "Perhaps so. I certainly don't regret that things came to this..."

There is silence in the temple as the goddess and her acolyte allow Celia to digest and await the coming of the Nox. Silence but for the nearly-inaudible but undeniable sounds of Azima's body digesting Celia's.

slosh... slosh... grRRrrRRgl...

Celia's body is all too eager to join up with that of her former guardian deity. Melting away to be absorbed and used, body and soul alike, to fuel the wounded goddess's strength.

By the time night falls, what is left of Celia is nothing but a small, burbling paunch on her sleeping goddess's gut...

===

It's when dawn is supposed to break - when the sun fails to rise due to the Nox's presence - that Gwyneth wakes Azima.

"It's time, my Mistress," Gwyneth says. She offers another crystalline hilt to Azima. "Your blade and your armor await. You must confront them, stop them from following your children..."

"Mmm, of course," Azima says drowsily, getting to Her feet. Her body feels heavier than usual, but... it's a price well worth paying for the strength that now courses through Her veins. The energy that had once been the soul of a woman completely dedicated to Her cause.

Gwyneth is waiting with her breastplate, ready to put it on. Only... it doesn't fit. Gwyneth tries several times to seal the clasps that hold the armor together, but it just won't close.

Azima's chest - already generous in size, but now far more befitting of a goddess - is in the way. And though the new fat that Celia has become is soft and squishy, there's only so much squishing it can do. "You've given me quite the blessing, haven't you, my brave sunbeam," Azima teases, patting her chest.

"Not just there, either," Gwyneth says from behind Her. On looking down... the little homunculus is staring openly at Azima's ass. When the goddess tries to look for Herself, She nearly inadvertently knocks Gwyneth to the ground.

It's a sight to be seen. Azima's butt, rounder and tauter than the hips of the goddess of fertility. Her thighs threatening to burst out of Her kneesocks. Azima admires Herself in one of the full-length mirrors that adorn Her temple's inner sanctum.

"We might be able to modify it," Gwyneth says, still focused on the armor. "It's not exactly meant for it, but we can-"

A raised hand cuts Gwyneth off. "That will not be necessary. I defeated My champion with only My body and My sword... and I will defeat these invaders and stop them from pursuing My children the same way." Azima smirks confidently, giving Her rump another glance in the mirror before letting Her sword's blade blaze forth again. "I happen to know the Queen of the Nox has a particular vulnerability to the female form, so we might not need anything else..."