The boy had come to a clearing atop the ridge where he could look out over the blue pine valley. The gray sky let down golden rays of sun, cutting through the clouds like translucent pillars holding up the heavens. Across the dale, sharp gray mountains rose from beyond the foothills to watch either side of the range, basking in chilled morning light. The view was so profoundly ancient and wild that, as he admired, the boy found himself moved to some inborn nostalgia, and a sudden connection to the scenery bubbled within him.
The girl came up beside him, and for a moment they let the world integrate them completely, becoming momentary subjects in the eternal canvas. It was often in these precious seconds that the girl’s own spirit became most attuned. Even now, beneath the subtle sounds of the forest, she heard the call of the deep woods from down the ridge, like the steady and languished breathing of the earth itself.
The two of them made their way down into the valley, passing the ancient trees with tentative respect, and touching their hand briefly to the primordial pines, marked with their ancient runes. They moved without speaking, but communicated in short looks or whispers uttered through the eyes. At first, he guided her, helping her down the slope and across the creeks, but as they moved deeper, she began to lead him between the trees and rocks, and he followed close behind her, knowing that to stray from her guidance so close to the forest’s heart would be lethal. The sky became subtly darker and the roof of the world had hardened and begun its transformation from the ethereal form of the day into the raw core, the truth that men look for in the frigid night.
Their clothes pulled behind them as they waded through thickets and bushes. The girl pulled her white robe closely around her, and in the fading daylight the boy thought she looked like a ghost. Each passing moment made her seem more ephemeral as she merged into the gray and green of the mist. When they came to the hollow, she knelt by the edge of a deep blue pool. She quickly took her brogues off and clasped her hands in prayer. She was compelled to sudden worship.
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“Here?” The boy asked. The girl, eyes tightly shut, subtly nodded.
The boy set down his rucksack and unsheathed his blade, letting the bronze shimmer a moment in the open air. He knelt down behind the girl, and pressed his head into the thin grass, giving due devotion, but also as retribution in his own mind for the violation of the sacred heart of the forest with thoughtless words. In the center of the pond, a mossy gray stone peaked above the water, and indicated a kind of altar. The girl stood, in her mind admonishing her every movement for a lack of clerical grace. She stepped into the pool, and the water clung to her robe around her ankles. The hollow was in a state of exact and complete silence, and the pool's water seemed to rise up around the girl, consuming her as she walked the slow procession to the consecrated center.
The boy knew they would remain here for hours, and when the moon passed over the altar, blood would be given again to the ancient Earth.
The boy waited, head bowed, as the last vestiges of the cold gray sky disappeared and the hollow became submerged in the fresh pitch black. In the thin moments between the end of the living hours and the revival ushered to Earth my the Moon, the human spirit was at its most malleable, so the girl had been taught, and it is through these hours that a priestess must conquer herself, and clear her mind of every impurity. In the pitch black, they couldn't see each other, and their voices had been stolen by the great and terrible power of the ancient wood surrounding them. Despite this they remained acutely aware of each other, and the odd moments when the constant sounds of the forest alive at night disappeared summoned a dull fear in the back of their minds - that the other might have been spirited away when the Moon shined on the hollow again.
When the moon again rose. The girl moved again silently, producing from inside her robe a thin dagger, faintly inscribed with the Earthly name of the North Star. The wind had begun to swirl above the forest, and they knew the Wild Hunt was alive across the dark sky. The girl was struck with fervor, and around her she could hear the chanting of the Old Gods above her, and beneath was an eerie hum from the dark lips of Gaiea.
She steeled herself. From her hand, pale blue in the night’s illumination, blood spilled over the altar and stained the dark blue with the bright red tint, the color of their devotion.