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Every young doe and buck loved the autumn festival.

But every young doe and every young buck also feared the autumn festival.

Once a year, in October, before the snow made travelling difficult, the tribes all came together. It had been like that since ancient times. It meant exchanging news, talks, negotiations, trade. A big feast, and dancing, and the e ceremony.

Every year the young girls would become grown does, and the young bucks would become grown stags.

All the girls had to jump through the fire. It was a ritual dance, more an overcoming of fear than an actual threat. The young bucks had to go through their first clash of antlers and proof themselves in ritual combat.

But there were dangers. Every doe was paired with a stag, and their fate was linked. It was rare that any young buck got injured, even rarer for the injury to be serious. It had not happened for many many years. But everyone knew, if worst came worst, then it was a sign that the gods demanded a sacrifice. The same fate awaited the buck, should his doe be claimed by the flames.

And unlike other young couples who would spent the night together, a gruesome fate awaited the unlucky survivor. That night the ritual would take a darker turn. And no one dreaded it most than the old shaman who had to conduct it.

Aharkar was an old stag. His fur was snow white and his eyes red. That had predestined him to become the shaman of shamans. He was wise and smart, he had a cure for every ailment and a prayer for every doubt. He spoke with the animals, the spirits and the dead, and he knew every plant, every herb, every potion.

But to this day, the fateful night, so many winters ago haunted him. Her eyes... her smile...

...

Aharkar was conducting the big ritual for the first time. His mentor, ancient Suburkhar, had become ill. He wouldn't make it through the winter, everyone knew that. His own daughter, Alyssa, was going to jump the fire tonight, and her childhood friend Mierka was going to clash his antlers for the first time.

Aharkar had been preparing for the evenings ceremony when he heard the shouting. He came to the scene where the ritual fight had taken place. Mierka was on the ground, Alyssa by his side, holding his head, crying bitterly.

She wasn't supposed to be here. The couples were not supposed to meet each other until the ceremony.

But his eyes were drawn to the gaping gash in the buck's belly. Loops of his entrails had been ripped out and his blood still stained the antlers of his opponent. A brute youngster from one of the mountain tribes.

Aharkar did all he could. Countless nights later, he had woken, shaken, wondered if he could have saved the boy. But it wasn't just his belly that had been gauged, he was bleeding inside. Like from a ruptured wine-skin, his lifeblood poured out of him and over Aharkar's helpless hands, unable to contain it.

A shiver had gone through the young buck. Then he had been still.

Noone had said a word. That moment had been so utterly silent.

Aharkar had looked up into his daughter's eyes. That gaze.... That moment where he knew he had lost them both. And he of all had to conduct the dreaded ritual. It was that moment that haunted him ever since.

Alyssa never blamed him in the short time they had to prepare. She never argued, never tried to flee. She had gone through the sacrifice willingly. But that one moment where they both realized that he, her father, had to sacrifice his own daughter... No count of years, and no amount of herbs, spells, mushrooms or potions could ever ease his pain.

...

No one cheered, no one sang. A morbid silence was around the fires, as that fateful ceremony was to happen. Aharkar had built an altar for his daughter. The tribe's carpenters had helped him set it up. The fires burned high, lit and warmed the chilly evening.

Then Alyssa came. No guards by her side, and no restraints. Only her face expression was a bit dulled. He had given her sap of the moonfire tree to make her oblivious to the worst pain. Lots of it. The same drug also made her udder pointy and sensitive. Her teats were visible through her white dress. Some couples used it to make their first mating less painful and more enjoyable at the same time, but her only mate tonight would be her father's knife.

He himself was drugged too. He knew he couldn't do it if he was sober. He felt numb, as if all emotion had left him. He knew it wouldn't help the next morning. He'd remember everything, but at least he spared the other shamans from having to take his place.

She knelt down while Aharkar's held his ritual speech. Her father spoke about the will of the gods, the wrath of the spirits, and the couple they had already claimed. But he did not hear his own words. It was to him as if someone else was speaking and he wasn't listening.

Alyssa didn't listen either. Her thoughts were with her friend and his gruesome death. Her own, she didn't even think of it. Not yet. She undid her dress, now clad only in her fur. Soon later, she'd wear not even that.

She settled down on the altar and stared up into the sky. She trusted her dad to do things right, she wasn't afraid of the knife. Only when the ritual blade sunk into her belly, she looked in surprise.

Aharkar smiled down on her. He knew she had expected pain and instead felt something else. The potion did its magic, but it could only take away the sensation itself, not the fear and dread of what was to come. It was his daughter's own acceptance that allowed her to feel pleasure where others would have been consumed by terror.

But it was forbidden pleasure that could only ever be felt once.

Aharkar drew the knife upwards. She gave in to the sensation, her own hands reached for her belly and came to rest on her udder, shaking slightly, grasping for her aroused teats while her belly started gaping open.

She arched slightly, moaning, as he reached into her and emptied her like a butcher, separating the organs that had sustained her all her life. Each was to be cast into the ritual fire, each dedicated to another deity. Her stomaches, her liver, even her very womb.

Alyssa couldn't lay still. She felt obscene sensations of pleasure where agonizing pain should have been. Feeling herself taken apart and destroyed drove her into a state of bliss that nearly made her fall of the altar.

Aharkar worked quick now. He sealed the vessels he cut, he made sure she did not bleed out right under his knife, but he knew, he could only delay the inevitable. The ritual required one more act of surrender and devotion, and she needed to be alive for it.

But first, he had to remove her very pelt. He made the cuts along her arms and legs, but she knew what was expected and surprised him - as soon as he had started to peel her skin.

As if it was an old shirt, she slid her hands underneath her own pelt and started to undress. Then she sat up on the altar and peeled herself out of the very fur that had clad her since birth, until it was all draped down over the table. With it, she lost her girlhood. Her teats, her nethers, everything. Although she seemed to receive a final gift of pleasure from the act of leaving the last trace of her girlhood behind.

Now she sat there. Hollow, bare. Her cheekbones visible, her body red with muscle and white with fat. And her belly devoid of content. Where her sex had been was now a hole between her legs and he could see right through.

He stepped back, rose his arms and his voice for the final part of the speech. The final act. The most difficult.

She walked, majestically, into the fire. Without her skin she barely felt the heat, nor the burning. She climbed the blazing embers until she sat down on the pyre, the burning wood entering her and burning inside her.

Her flesh sizzled and hissed as it was first roasted, then burnt to nothing. Her last gaze went skywards, as if her dying eyes could see her friend among the stars, ready to be united with him once again.

Then the flames rose and hid her from view. When the fire burnt down, there was nothing left of Ahakar's daughter.

Many times he had considered to follow her. But he was the shaman. He was needed.