Grace (Chocolate, Rocky Road, CCM + Whipped Cream)
Verse: Sparksong
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Chocolate #6 (grace), Rocky Road #7 (holy place), Chocolate Chip Mint #21 (modest) + Whipped Cream
Rating: PG-13 (reference to mass murder)
Title: Grace
Summary: Zahra escapes.
Notes: "Zazy" is a teenager here and 30-something in the main timeline.
The little shrine in her home village was dark inside, and one of the few places in inner Tesni that was made of marble. She knelt down, torn between savoring the chill and hating it, and trailed her fingers over the worn face of her Goddess' likeness.
She'd heard the temples of the big cities to the south had grand statues of the Gods, in gold and silverstone and marble, but here there was just a crude bust, carved from a quarry stone, of a single diety - the patron Goddess of the desert, Ulane, the only one worshipped consistently and by name in the villages. Her face was pitted in some places; sand had blown in over the many years. The story went that Zahra's great-great-uncle tricked a Lauhkinian cart driver into hauling the marble through the desert, but miscalculated and didn't end up with enough to make a proper statue.
(Then the cart driver killed him for the insult, starting a blood feud that the Lauhkinians lost in a great massacre not long after. Zahra had been told ever since she could remember that it was highly likely someone had survived and their grandchild would come after the family. Which she thought was ridiculous - who would hold a grudge that long, and third-hand besides? But she would later see more far-fetched things.)
Zahra didn't mind, per se; the quarry stone was probably appropriate symbolically for a Goddess of the desert, but she did wish her village had more money. Enough to repair the damage done, so she might imagine she was actually looking upon Her face instead of the stark reality - the consequences of her elders' poor money-handling.
She ducked her head and whispered the absolution prayer, then rose. Standing there in the cool darkness with her arms wrapped around herself, she could almost think she was somewhere else.
Almost.
But she was tethered to her people, her family. In limbo between knowledge and love, yearning and duty.
With a sigh (you're such a teenager, Zazy, she could hear her cousin saying as clearly as if he was standing next to her, tugging on her hand) she turned and left the shrine. Her mother must be looking for her, wondering at the half-finished sewing.
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Chocolate #6 (grace), Rocky Road #7 (holy place), Chocolate Chip Mint #21 (modest) + Whipped Cream
Rating: PG-13 (reference to mass murder)
Title: Grace
Summary: Zahra escapes.
Notes: "Zazy" is a teenager here and 30-something in the main timeline.
The little shrine in her home village was dark inside, and one of the few places in inner Tesni that was made of marble. She knelt down, torn between savoring the chill and hating it, and trailed her fingers over the worn face of her Goddess' likeness.
She'd heard the temples of the big cities to the south had grand statues of the Gods, in gold and silverstone and marble, but here there was just a crude bust, carved from a quarry stone, of a single diety - the patron Goddess of the desert, Ulane, the only one worshipped consistently and by name in the villages. Her face was pitted in some places; sand had blown in over the many years. The story went that Zahra's great-great-uncle tricked a Lauhkinian cart driver into hauling the marble through the desert, but miscalculated and didn't end up with enough to make a proper statue.
(Then the cart driver killed him for the insult, starting a blood feud that the Lauhkinians lost in a great massacre not long after. Zahra had been told ever since she could remember that it was highly likely someone had survived and their grandchild would come after the family. Which she thought was ridiculous - who would hold a grudge that long, and third-hand besides? But she would later see more far-fetched things.)
Zahra didn't mind, per se; the quarry stone was probably appropriate symbolically for a Goddess of the desert, but she did wish her village had more money. Enough to repair the damage done, so she might imagine she was actually looking upon Her face instead of the stark reality - the consequences of her elders' poor money-handling.
She ducked her head and whispered the absolution prayer, then rose. Standing there in the cool darkness with her arms wrapped around herself, she could almost think she was somewhere else.
Almost.
But she was tethered to her people, her family. In limbo between knowledge and love, yearning and duty.
With a sigh (you're such a teenager, Zazy, she could hear her cousin saying as clearly as if he was standing next to her, tugging on her hand) she turned and left the shrine. Her mother must be looking for her, wondering at the half-finished sewing.