Divine Guidance

[BlackAkuma]

Friday night. ICE, one of Japan’s premier strip clubs. It was just around 11:00 PM, more or less. Divine sat at the bar, drinking a tequila with a fancy name she couldn't recall off the top of her head, and out of nowhere, it hit her: nostalgia.

It had been a good, long while since she’d been to this particular club, but back in the day, she’d frequented it often with the other Valkyries, stopping by at least once a week. Their leader had loved the place, and while she could never get her to admit it, she suspected something was going on with her and the proprietor of the establishment, one Freia Kagami. Like clockwork, they would come over and pretty much run the place, making it a little hard for the other patrons to get any space, but none of the employees seemed to mind. They tipped well, after all, and helped run off some of the less respectable visitors, so they were an overall welcome presence.

Thinking back now, though, she didn’t remember the girls or the music or the lap dances—all of that stuff had been fun, sure, but it was all a blur to her now, meshing together as similar memories tended to. No, what stood out to her, clearer than day, was the time she and her fellow Valkyries spent together—that camaraderie. It was something she hadn't enjoyed since then, and as much as she enjoyed the solitary life, being on the road as the eternal vagabond, there were days when she wished she was still a part of it all. Still hanging at the bar, making jokes, flirting with every lady that came by…

Good times. Good times.

However, things were different these days, and she was here on business. More specifically, the sort of business that involved dressing up in tight bikinis and rolling around in various substances with other women. LAW was looking to expand into the wet and messy wrestling market, partly because they’d been so easy to snatch her up and bring her on as a regular attraction. That would mean official matches sooner rather than later, but for now, they were content to have her doing public appearances like this one, mixing it up with some of the local girls, an open challenge, oil and mud, and occasionally jello, though she was only interested in the first one.

She took another sip and looked over her shoulder, watching as the crowd enjoyed a mud match in the central area of the strip club, where the stage had been moved to make way for the action. They all seemed to enjoy the show enough, but Divine was, frankly, unimpressed. It was just two of the bar’s girls going at it, slapping and rolling around and making porn movie noises. While her preferences were in oil, she was familiar enough with mud wrestling to know they weren’t good at it, just a couple of friends rolling from one end of the pool to the other. But the boys seemed to like it enough, which mattered.

One woman had caught her eye, though—someone with some actual skill in the mud, handling herself like a professional. Divine had seen her wrestling a couple of times in between her bouts, and she almost made her wish she hadn't agreed to stick with oil wrestling tonight. She was a younger woman, an out-of-towner like herself, probably one of LAW’s new hires.

Come to think of it, where had she run off to? Divine was pretty much done for the day, just hanging out and enjoying the free drinks before she got dressed, but she wouldn’t have minded a quick word with the woman, whatever her name was. She sat up and looked about, seeing if she could spot her through the gloom…

Simply Divine

[HotWheels]

Aroha had never felt so simultaneously in her element and out of it.

The throngs of people? Yes, those she liked. She had always thrived socially, having not a single timid bone in her body. Having so many new people to meet and experience, especially ones who had not heard her many stories so many times as those back home in New Zealand, made her almost giddy, eager to throw herself at the next soul who crossed closely enough to fall within earshot. Well, a lot were already in earshot, so she could have started her babbling anytime she wished.

The problem? She didn't know how these sorts of things worked at a bar during an event like this one, and everyone seemed incredibly preoccupied with drinking, which Aroha didn't much care for, and watching, and staying in their own little established pockets of people. Despite the many people, she had felt strangely alone trying to attach herself to anyone. It was a problem she had never experienced at home since everyone knew everyone, and the- what was the word in English? Or was it one of their stolen French ones- the little groups of like-minded people did not form so easily. Here, it seemed the opposite.

But she had enjoyed herself, so she was not about to complain to anyone. As she drank her only-mildly-alcoholic juice and hovered between the music area (it was so loud!) and the place where some not-too-great wrestlers were having a good time in the mud, she wished she could have gotten back in the mud herself, but she didn't want to hog it. People here had seemed to like how well she had done tossing some other girls with much less skill around, but that hadn't earned her any long-term conversation, much to her dismay. She had thought her outfit might have grabbed some attention, too, but she was not the only one in tiny shorts and a bikini top. People out in public had looked at her strangely in it, though, so she had wondered.

And what did one do with herself at a bar if she didn't drink, wasn't a part of the fighting, couldn't find anyone to talk to, and didn't have anyone to dance with? Aroha hadn't quite figured it out. Well, she had in a way since most of the people about the place who weren't with a group had hopped on their smartphones, but she didn't... exactly take hers with her. It was so boring just staring at a screen. If the bar hadn't been enough sensory overload already, the phone would have just added to it.

So she stared at the mud pit instead, trying to think of what to do as she chomped on some of the ice from her drink.

[BlackAkuma]

Ah. There she was.

Divine had spied her, here and there, as the evening's events had worn on. At first, she hadn't thought too much of her—oh, she was beautiful, indeed, and sexy and fit and positively delectable, but in a place like this, those features alone weren’t enough to make you stand out. ICE was packed with temptation, wall to wall, with the hottest talent, with someone or multiple someones to suit so many tastes. In another context, she would’ve forgotten all about her by now. Another face in the crowd.

But that was before she’d seen the woman in action. While she wasn’t an expert at mud wrestling, it didn’t take an artist to recognize a masterpiece. Game recognized game, talent recognized talent, and Divine had enough of her own to see that this woman was stacked with both. She’d put her opponents to shame, outmaneuvering them at every turn, slipping out of their every hold and locking in her own, moving through the mud with the sort of natural grace that could only come from years of experience. This was no tournament and no prize at the top of the mountain, but Divine knew who she would be betting on if there were.

That made the woman’s current state all the more perplexing. Someone like her should’ve been attracting followers like moths to the flame had a few guys orbiting her at all times, but no - she was alone and aloof from the look of her. She reminded Divine of herself, back when she’d first come to Japan. No friends, no one to hang with, no direction, adrift amidst a sea of people, aimlessly floating. She couldn't guess her nationality, but judging by her dusky skin, she was far from home. Bored. Maybe she could use someone to talk to.

This, Divine could help with.

She took a sip from her drink, a dry Japanese wine with a name she couldn't recall off the top of her head, and approached the woman’s side, sitting on the stool next to her. ”Hey.” She spoke just loud enough to get her attention, then swiveled around to look at the mud pit, where two women were just getting started, circling each other, occasionally slipping. ”Do you mind if I sit beside you? The view is much better here, I think.”

[HotWheels]

It did occur to Aroha that she could simply... rush off and start blabbering at someone. Several members of her tribe, like her dad, had mentioned that people outside of the villages and in bigger cities like this one didn't respond as well to people "attacking" them with conversation. Aroha knew she did tend to attack with conversation, she supposed, and while offending people didn't exactly stress her out, she would have to work with a lot of these people. She had heard that working with people who had come to stop liking you was bad in general. It sounded worse in wrestling since most of the people had muscles either her size or bigger.

Besides, where would she even start? That group over there looked neat: one of them had pink, spiky hair. And those two women who were maybe a couple, what a neat pair of matching shirts they were wearing, like nothing Aroha had ever seen. The Kiwi entertained herself by making up mental stories about a few people around her, almost reaching the point that she started outright laughing at her own ideas and wondering if she shouldn't go up to someone and ask them if her fabricated stories were true-

But she was saved from something so foolish by a woman - a beautiful woman - announcing her presence. Aroha gaped at her, from her face down over her entire figure, with a boldness that could only be brought on by having spent her whole life around the same people rather than strangers. She wondered where one could find curves like those, and while jealousy had never been nurtured in her tribe so she hardly knew of the concept, she wouldn't have minded having them.

What... what had she said? Oh! "Yes, please!", she rang back, her Kiwi accent high-pitched and heavy, like she had just dropped in from riding a moa since people seemed to think they did that sort of thing. Or... wait, had she answered that backward? "I mean... no! No, I don't mind, so please do it." There. "You like mud matches then?"

[BlackAkuma]

Divine liked this woman straightaway. Granted, this said precious little—she rarely had problems befriending people or at least getting them to accept her presence, doing her best to be inviting and cordial. A vestige from her days in the music industry, when the wrong word said at the wrong time could cause major setbacks in your career or ruin it outright.

But right away, she liked how this woman looked at her, with this shocked, surprised gaze, like Divine was the hottest person she’d seen all night. It was adorable, and even more adorable coming from someone Divine would say was every bit the looker that she herself was, possessing the sort of lithe, athletic, pleasing body that most would never come close to attaining. Did they not have mirrors wherever she came from?

It took no effort to keep from laughing as the woman tried to compose herself, coming out as a stuttering mess, but Divine kept it light, with only a knowing smile and a slight chuckle under her breath. That accent was intriguing, too. It sounded Australian to her ears, but not quite, in a way that she couldn't put a finger on.

”Too kind, thank you.” She promptly sat and settled in, keen to hang around the edge of her companion’s personal space. ”And I’m not sure ‘like’ is the right word. I don’t dislike them, they can be fun to do sometimes, but to watch? I do not see the appeal. Oil is more my thing.”

Ah, her manners, she’d almost forgotten. ”Divine.” She tapped her chest, then extended a hand towards the woman. ”Though you can call me ‘Rosa’, if the stage name is too pretentious for you.”

[HotWheels]

Ah, well. There went Aroha's chance to ask the saucy lady if she had seen her earlier mud matches. Her stating that she didn't like watching them didn't mean she hadn't seen Aroha's strong performance earlier, made easier since no one here seemed to know how to maneuver in the mud any better than a housecat, but it did have her excited shoulders and sparkling eyes falling for a second. She had wondered if the friendly beauty hadn't wanted to "chat her up" about her earlier performance, but-

Oh, she mentioned something else entirely - oil - and Aroha became buoyant again, enough so that she almost sloshed the ice from her juice. Back home, oil wrestling hadn't been much of an option. People already only sort of tolerated how messy a mud match could become, but she knew the elders wouldn't have put up with oil getting slathered all over their belongings, even if it would have been an easy clean-up. And they didn't waste. Mud came naturally, but oil, they had to make or buy.

Besides, it sounded like a nightmare to wrestle in, except for... Aroha's eyes eagerly slid over the woman's figure again. Yeah, okay, that body seemed good for lots of battling between warm, slick bodies, but how one gripped another or managed to stay upright at all, Aroha couldn't figure.

And she had a name - one her mother might call blasphemous but that added intrigue to Aroha's perspective. Forgetting proper social protocol for a second, Aroha continued to stare in fascination at the woman before remembering the hand was meant for shaking. Right, right. She took it and locked it in an overeager shake. "Oh no, I like it. The fancy one," she told her. A "stage name"? That made her sound like quite the big deal. Aroha didn't have one of those, though she guessed they had told her she could pick a ring name. "I'm Aroha. I didn't do the stage name. Couldn't think of anything."

She wiggled a finger at her. "And that's one I haven't done. You look like what I woulda imagined, someone sliding around in the oil like that. You got the curves for it. Kinda sounds like a way to a broken ankle for me."

[BlackAkuma]

Yup. There were the eyes.

As a performer - and just a general flirt - Divine had learned to pay a great deal of attention to the way people looked at her, where their focus went, what they centered on and what they avoided. ‘Windows are the eye to the soul’. She hated the cliche, but there was so much truth to it, and this was a prime example. When she mentioned oil, Aroha’s eyes went all over her body, probably imagining what it looked like lathered up and shining, filling the blanks with creative flourishes, maybe thinking up ideas, creating fantasies. Who knew?

”Aroha.” Divine bathed the woman’s name in her own accent, just as her newfound companion remembered what an outstretched hand typically meant. Cute and sexy. ”I like it. Appropriately exotic, better than most stage names. If you’re ever looking for ideas, though, I could come up with a few.”

She wasn’t kidding, either. Divine had been running a few stage names in the back of her head from the first moment she saw her, guessing what a woman like this might go with. ‘Nightshade’. ‘Velvet’. ‘Midnight’ was her favorite, so far.

At the mention of her curves, Divine couldn't hold back an unsexy laugh snort. She covered it with her hand before it got out of control, but her smile was far too wide to hide. ”I’ve got the curves for it? And you don’t?” Her incredulous look ran over Aroha’s body, top to bottom, making sure she wasn’t going crazy. ”As for the broken ankle, it’s nothing you’re unused to, isn’t it? Last I heard, mud isn’t exactly the most stable surface.”

[HotWheels]

The Kiwi was almost tempted to ask if Divine could record a clip of her saying Aroha's name for later. She might not have handled too much technology in her life, but she knew it was a simple thing. And Atua, she wanted to be able to hear the woman say her name that way as often as possible. It sounded almost dirty. "Oh I would like to hear 'em anyway," she said instead. The recording? Maybe too much to ask for, she could hear her father telling her. The ideas for stage names? They seemed more like fair game. "Maybe I could write them down and use 'em if I get tired of hearing my own name, ey?"

The laugh, though, surprised her. That might have been the hottest part of the woman's whole aura so far, even if she tried to stop herself from making such noises. Aroha broke into gleeful laughter herself in response. Okay, this was going great. She had even gotten a laugh!

"I'm more of a twig," she retorted, repeating what the matrons, used to raising big, strong Maori men and women by stuffing them full of food, had told her too many times. Ultimately, she was one of the smaller women around back home. "You're more of a... a carving. A statue." Took her a second to remember the word as she gestured at Divine's, well, divine figure.

Her hands made it to her hips, though, her confidence growing from the compliment even as she downplayed it. More the flirty posture. "Ey, if it's mixed right, I can stand in it better than I can stand on-" She gestured at the floors. "Mud kind of hugs your feet, you know? It's nice when you get used to it."

[BlackAkuma]

Being complimented wasn’t anything Divine was unused to. Despite her nicknamesake, she never tried to play up the deity angle, but that didn’t stop overeager suitors from going for it and lavishing her with praise and worship. It never got them far unless she was well and truly hammered, but she could appreciate the effort regardless, especially when they were creative. Some came at with the standard pickup lines, others tried to flaunt wealth and prestige, a few sad ones used lines and strategies that they’d overpaid online gurus for. One even wrote her a poem, and a good one, too. She still had it in her apartment, somewhere.

Aroha was different. It was coming from a woman who, by Divine’s estimation, should get that sort of treatment, along with how it was delivered. It was humble and genuine, a natural quality that few could fake. ”A carving. A statue.” Simple praise, well delivered. She closed her eyes, meditated on the words, then opened them with a smile. ”You are a flatterer, Aroha. But too hard on yourself. When I look at you, the last thing that comes to mind is a stick.”

Divine finished her drink and motioned for the bartender to come her way when she was finished with her current customer, wanting to top off on liquid courage. In the meantime, she turned around to give Aroha a complete look at the body she seemed to admire, and to get a better look at her, as well. ”So I’m a work of art, you say. You wouldn’t spill mud all over the Pieta, would you?” She raised her hands, showing off the full view for a moment, before settling back down.

”Oil, though…” Her voice trailed off as she tipped her head to the side and got a better look at her newfound companion, sampling her from different angles. ”Oil makes you shine. Brings out everything. Hair, chest, the stomach, thighs. You’ve the perfect body for it. You’d shine.”

[HotWheels]

Aroha didn't know if she was the one too hard on herself. While it had not been too obvious to her back home since her people didn't care much for vanity and anything, like the world of celebrities, that could make anyone feel lesser about their looks and like they had a standard to meet. She had heard plenty about how good she looked from plenty of people, though, especially those in LAW. Still, it was hard for her to believe she merited anything special among a sea of what looked to her to be obscenely gorgeous people.

Still, that didn't seem like a thing to get into - she barely understood it all herself and didn't waste too much time thinking about it. But what she could say? "We say back home-" She squinted to think of its exact translation in English. Maori probably wouldn't take her far here. "'Leave your praises for someone else.' Easier to do when you're the one I get to praise."

While she didn't know what The Pieta was, either, she wasn't clueless enough to not know it was some sort of carving or statue. Again, best keep that - her ignorance - to herself. She did grimace, though, wondering if she admit to what she was about to admit to. "I do think mud looks good on anyone, so if you gave me the chance, I just might." Little did the elders know that part of what she found so fun about wrestling back home was having all the pretty bodies covered in so much mud. It was weirdly appealing.

But she did set Aroha to thinking. Oil made for a lot of... glistening. Aroha didn't know how much she would appreciate the feel of it, but thinking about Divine coated in it? It had her chewing her lip, a universal sign of fascination. Despite all that, her question was all-too-honest, entirely unsexy. "Is it... sticky? Heavy? It looks like I might get so sweaty coated in it."