In the Service of the Goddess [Lightning/Tifa, AU]
The guardian staggers along the path, grasping at the rope bolted to the ice-covered cliff beside her. Snow whips into her face almost as painfully as shrapnel; the wind is nearly blowing her off the trail; with every step she has to put all her weight on the rope as her fur-lined boots slip out from under her. The only threat out here is the storm, and that’s the only defense the cavern needs, but that doesn’t matter. The guardian has to patrol. She has to watch for threats to the priestess.
Said priestess waits in the inner chamber, in front of the wall of bluish-white that stands where an alter might. She has said all the prayers but the closing petitions, and those require the presence of the guardian. They also require a cool heart, and the priestess is not in any such mood tonight. She is furious.
One of her hands is resting on the glassy sheet of clouded ice, melting it slightly. The frozen surface is mottled, opaque in most places. She can see almost nothing of its inhabitants. A reddish curl of hair, a glimpse of something that might be blue silk or just more ice. And just a glimpse of their hands, fingers entwined and knuckles white.
They were supposed to be the last sacrifices. The elders were told: Offer these two, and no more, and the Lady of Ice will never again demand your children for her halls. And so nobly they offered to become her sacred relics, so that their people would live in the goddess’s favor, and never again need to offer sacrifice.
Except, of course, that there were more sacrifices. And are. The sanctuary must have a priestess; the priestess must have a guardian. And so more sacrifices are marched up the mountain. Of course.
Tifa is the seventy-eighth priestess to serve in these caves. Lightning is the hundred and fourth guardian to continue these asinine patterns in weather that would make the gods themselves (except for theirs) cower.
Footsteps behind her proclaim that the hundred and fifth will not be needed yet. Tifa does not turn around. Cold fingers, fingers that have clearly been soaked through the gloves, unfold her fist and twine their hands together. For just a moment, the living sacrifices stand and watch the frozen ones, hand in hand, Lightning’s fingers spread beside Tifa’s on the ice.
Said priestess waits in the inner chamber, in front of the wall of bluish-white that stands where an alter might. She has said all the prayers but the closing petitions, and those require the presence of the guardian. They also require a cool heart, and the priestess is not in any such mood tonight. She is furious.
One of her hands is resting on the glassy sheet of clouded ice, melting it slightly. The frozen surface is mottled, opaque in most places. She can see almost nothing of its inhabitants. A reddish curl of hair, a glimpse of something that might be blue silk or just more ice. And just a glimpse of their hands, fingers entwined and knuckles white.
They were supposed to be the last sacrifices. The elders were told: Offer these two, and no more, and the Lady of Ice will never again demand your children for her halls. And so nobly they offered to become her sacred relics, so that their people would live in the goddess’s favor, and never again need to offer sacrifice.
Except, of course, that there were more sacrifices. And are. The sanctuary must have a priestess; the priestess must have a guardian. And so more sacrifices are marched up the mountain. Of course.
Tifa is the seventy-eighth priestess to serve in these caves. Lightning is the hundred and fourth guardian to continue these asinine patterns in weather that would make the gods themselves (except for theirs) cower.
Footsteps behind her proclaim that the hundred and fifth will not be needed yet. Tifa does not turn around. Cold fingers, fingers that have clearly been soaked through the gloves, unfold her fist and twine their hands together. For just a moment, the living sacrifices stand and watch the frozen ones, hand in hand, Lightning’s fingers spread beside Tifa’s on the ice.