FSE

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Thank you clicking on my story. Be warned that this story described animal sacrifice including blood and gore. Reader's discretion is advised.

The art is by myself, TazTopaz

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Sometimes, you must question the things you think you know are fundamental parts of the world around you. I want to tell you when I first started questioning my faith and the gods around us.

It was the 147th year of the Yenid Federacy,

Bleary eyed, I woke up to my brother shaking me.

“Hey Kara, Kara, you need to get ready! Today is Feast Day and it is almost noon!”

I paused in my woven reed bed, processing what was happening. I got up in a panic.

“Oh for fucks sake, it's FEAST DAY?! Kemelianu, grab my spear, I'll get my robes. Priestess Seliw won't accept tardiness!”

In a flurry of panic, I throw together my ceremonial robes. Red, black, gold, and blue are woven into intricate geometric patterns on this long tunic representing the blood, the earth, the mountain, and the sky respectively. It was held up to my body by a plain linen sash around my waist called a “Lumaw”. I placed upon my head a circlet of bronze with seashells and metal beads hanging from it that rattleed against each other as I shook my head.

Kemelianu lifted an edge the blanket-door to tell me he placed the spear at the entrance. When at peace, weapons are forbidden in the tents. I got up, grabbed the ceremonial spear covering the blade in a black hide to protect it and started walking to the Priestess's tent.

The camp site was on some rocky plains covered in rough shrubery, enclosed by mountains and overlooking a lake with a river lazily flowing into it that has carved through the rock over generations. It is an arid land now, but soon the valley will bloom to life. Contrasting this idyllic scene was the pungent scent of animals and their various bodily functions and the clamouring of fellow tribeswomen getting ready for the feast day, counting their supplies saved up from the previous settled season and cooking grain with a metallic scraping of spatula on pot.

Feast Day. This is when we welcome the settled season. When we start to grow crops on the land that our livestock have replenished and we thank the All-Mother and the Great-Father for their blessings of fertility.

I made it into the biggest tent in the encampment, decorated with a tall pole that flew a white flag indicating the status of who dwell within. Entering whilst leaving the spear outside, I was hit with the unmistakably aromatic scent of incense and the sharp air of sweat.

“Oh...! Kara! I was wondering where you were. You are usually much earlier to these things.” a raspy voice called out from behind a privacy screen, presumably they recognized the rattle of the seashells on metal. After a bit whispering and skittering about, Priestess Seliw came out from behind the screen, with a face flushed like a beet and breathing a marathon's worth of air, a dark furred man also crawled out from behind the screen, bowing and politely apologizing before departing.

“Oh? Who's your lover today oh mighty Priestess?” I gently teased “Don't answer that, I will let them keep their privacy. Is the altar set up?”

“Yes, and we narrowed down the candidate selection to 5, the Chieftess-General is still getting ready with her attendants.”

we sat down and chat for a while as we waited

“I'm glad I'm not in her position. It's a lot of work putting that ceremonial garb. My ambition ends at being an Exonerator.”

“Ambition? You don't have much of it if you want to stay as just an Exonerator. What about a Priestess? Then you wont have to perform the less savoury parts of your job.”

I considered for a moment before I heard a metallic jingle. We both turned our heads to the door and saw the Chieftess-General. She was dressed in long robes of night's pitch with long sleeves and decorated with a head dress that sprouted silver antlers which sat upon a old wizened face with deep-set eyes and grey fur dusted on her muzzle. From her neck hung precious stones and golden amulets, clinging onto her wrists were iron bangles that chained down to simple bronze rings that wrapped her fingers

We bowed our muzzles to the ground in deep reverence to the ethereal wise one. Welcoming her, offering her tea. She shook her head, the embellishments on her head reflecting the light from the hearth.

She spoke, with a voice of authoritative grace, “Priestess, Exonerator, I have selected a candidate. We may start now.”

The two of us lifted ourselves up, averting our gaze and following the brimming stream of cloth to the altar where a sea of women, children, and men await, silently sitting. A pile of grey, weathered stones that lifted a rocky platform off the ground with wooden pole staked into the ground sat overlooking the lake's glistening blue waters to the north and the mountains surrounding us on all sides served as the altar. It has an air of awe augmented by a small statuette of marble resembling an antlered Yenid figure holding burning incense in a bronze plate that perfumed the area with the gentle smell of petrichor.

I positioned myself, standing towards the crowd beside a bulky woman whose face was covered in a veil. She perched a large feathery reptile on her arm which calmly looked out into the crowd, there are several others in the tents, we keep a stock of these beauties. The handler knows them all by name, however, I wouldn't be able to tell them apart, they all look so similar.

As the Chieftess-General approached the altar the sea of people bowed. Her regalia is symbolic of the All-Mother's servant, Agamaw. She takes souls from the world of the living to their place in the Starry Skies with the All-Mother. With her, she brings a white guardabon calf on her back, bound by its feet, with its head lolling about from the rose-wine in its system to help reduce its fear and numb any pain.

Chieftess-General carefully placed the calf down on the altar, leashing it to the wood post and undoing its binds. The groggy calf looked around, just barely aware of its surroundings, almost falling asleep. The Chieftess-General offered remorseful comfort to the candidate, stroking it on the head tenderly.

She turned to the lake and recited her prayer

“Oh All-Mother, I have brought you this calf. I offer him to you so that he may meet your warm, loving embrace, so that you may give us abundance in return. Nurture him, feed him, and comfort him so that he may return his mother in the spring birth of next year. We are your calves and you keep us safe.”

She bows towards the crowd signalling for me to proceed.

I uncover my spear, curved like a sickle and made of mirror polished bronze. With a single confident swing I cut the head off the calf and the priestess held it up towards the lake, red liquid spilling onto the stone and dripping onto the grass below.

After carefully placing the head onto the altar, she produced a ritual dagger from her robes and plunged it into the body of the lamb, carefully removing the heart and holding it up towards the crowd as high as she could.

“Oh Great-Father! To you I offer his heart, so that you may give us the sandy life blood of the rivers with your gentle floods, and so that your heart is becalmed. Keep his heart safe, like you keep us safe from starvation and famine.”

A flurry of white feathers descended from the sky, grabbing the heart from her hand. The white messenger crow accepted the offering on the Great-Father's behalf. A good omen, this year is going to be abundant. I wonder though, if the calf is truly with the All-Mother? I clasp my hands together and offer a small prayer, wishing the calf a safe journey into her embrace but I could not shake the doubt that had taken root into my soul.