This is a standalone story that features some of my recurring characters. This one is just a huge chunk of gentle, teasing maledom.
It was near sunset. Though it's been drizzling throughout the day, and clouds still rolled heavy through the sky, it was warm; typical fickle Kontarian summer. The weather would definitely not deter the festival bonfires, which were now starting all throughout the Ritual Field.
One went up by the forest wall, where some three dozen people were already gathered. A young man named Aerin sat on a wooden log and watched the wind foam the tall grass. It was strange that life was carrying on as usual. So much had happened over the past few months, so much had changed.
Someone patted him on the shoulder, and sat down by his side. It was his friend Moyna, and her crooked smile.
"Watchya thinking about?" she asked.
"Stuff," he replied.
"Where's Gabrielle?"
Aerin smiled. "She's with Haedde, getting ready."
"Excited about the ritual, is she?"
"Kind of stressed, but that only makes her put on a brave face." His smile grew dreamy. "You know what a dork she can be."
"Why's she stressed? Nothing scary about it." Something about Aerin's expression made her pause. "She knows how the ritual goes, right?"
He tried to look innocent. "She'll find out." Moyna said nothing for a moment, then smirked, and jabbed his ribs.
"You're a dog, Aerin. You seem nice, but you're such a fucking dog." He had the decency not to deny that. "So funny though. Would you ever have believed that someone like her was going to be initiated? I swear, life is ridiculous sometimes."
"Yeah." He leaned back, and gazed at the heavy clouds passing overhead. "You know, that's what I was actually thinking about. Life can sometimes be ridiculous."
Picture this: you are born to a princely family. You are brought up in a strict and puritanical society. Though your instincts rebel, you can see that your life will always demand a closely scrutinised outward correctness, and that your heart's keen desires will always have to be a guarded secret. And one day, completely unexpectedly, you get an opportunity to abandon all that. You tear yourself from the luxuries, the palaces, from your own noble House, and leap into the unknown; and, still not quite believing what has happened, you end up on the floor of an actual witch hut, in Kontaria of all places. What gives?
Gabrielle corrected herself. Haedde was not a witch. She was a shaman. There's a difference, though Gabrielle wasn't entirely sure what it was.
Either way, this place was slightly alarming. It was a circular wooden hut, with one window, a sunken fireplace in the middle, and... lots of stuff. Dried roots, herbs, cloves, sticks of bark, bleached bird skulls, clay jars, mortars and pestles, mushrooms on strings, bear claws, sacks, caskets, beeswax combs, gourds, jay feathers, sets of fine copper tools, salt crystals, grains of incense, and at least one stuffed toad. All of this was either stacked on the shelves, or hanging copiously from the ceiling.
No less alarming was Haedde herself. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front Gabrielle, tossing scrying pebbles, and muttering to herself. She looked to be roughly five hundred years old. A thin wisp of smoke from a small censer was swirling around her. She was surrounded by tiny mixing bowls filled with dyes. Her fingers were stained, red and blue and black.
But most alarming of all was Gabrielle herself. She was seated in her skimpy knickers alone. Alright, undressing in front of strangers isn't exactly calming, but Haedde was after all a physician of sorts, so Gabrielle could swallow that. Most physicians, however, don't paint all over your skin with runes. The cryptic letters now covered her thighs, stomach, breasts, back, and shoulders, dense inscriptions in red and blue and black.
Picture this before moving on, because it's a memorable sight: Gabrielle was a good looking girl, enough so that she'd been treated with suspicion by the morally upright, who just assumed she'd be given to earthly pleasures and enjoy leading young men astray. (They'd been totally right, but that's incidental). Her light blond hair had been shorn mid-way through her neck. Always fond of active pastimes, she had a fine, toned body. There was something steely about her, a fight response to feeling anxious -- a straight back, a curl to her lip, an attentive glint in her dark blue eyes. And on top of all that, the runes.
The runes were a part of the ritual. In less than an hour, at sunset, Gabrielle was to be initiated into the community of Kontaria. She hoped that the ritual itself, at least, wouldn't be as alarming. Aerin had assured her that she'd actually enjoy it, but was for some reason vague on its details.
Haedde determined something from how the pebbles fell and grabbed Gabrielle's wrist. With another low, throaty incantation she painted three new, short words.
"We are almost done." Her voice was gravelly and sure. "We only need one last answer: who should we thank for bringing you here?" Gabrielle did not understand, and only blinked. "How does a high-born lady from Harmen end up on my floor, getting ready for her initiation? What spirit drove you here?"
"Um." Yeah, right? Good question.
Aerin was largely to blame, of course. When the Kingdom of Harmen was going to war with Kontaria late that spring, she never thought it would affect her pre-planned future, a noble wife in some splendid palace. But one day, fates threw a young Kontarian prisoner of war into the dungeon of her castle. She just had to sneak around and get to know him, didn't she. She just had to discover that he understood her better than pretty much anyone in Harmen, didn't she. She just had to break him out and run away with him, didn't she. That's exactly how you end up in witch huts.
"I couldn't just let Aerin sit there in chains. They were going to kill him."
Haedde inclined her head, but her gaze remained fixed on Gabrielle's eyes.
"Compassion, then? Very well. And... he's a handsome lad, isn't he, our Aerin?"
"Excuse me?" The pitch of Gabrielle's voice was an answer enough. He wasn't handsome, he was flat-out gorgeous. It's that unruly auburn hair that gets into his clear blue eyes, and that enthusiastic grin, and, lady, you should see him naked, you should see his lithe body, you should see the way his abs flex when his hips buck forward and he plunges into you—
On second thought, Haedde was this village's healer. She probably poked around Aerin's body ever since he was a little kid and was perfectly aware how it looked, hopefully except for that last part.
"Compassion and desire," Haedde surmised. "A heady mix. They drove you to help him. But was it them, too, that made you run off together with him?"
Again, Gabrielle had no good answer. This was certainly not a kind of conversation she was used to having. Also... Haedde was a priestess of sorts, after all, so she surely didn't just openly mention sexual desire? Maybe the word had less explicit overtones in the Kontarian dialect than it did in Harmeni. Yeah, it probably did.
"I don't know... I think meeting Aerin just made me realise that there were people in the outside world more alike me than my own compatriots." Who found her urges natural rather than threatening, for starters.
Haedde smiled. She took a little wooden box, and with a tiny bone spoon she transferred a bit of orange powder into a small clay bowl. She then added a smidge of water from a diminutive copper pot, and with her last clean finger mixed it into a thick paste. The dye ready, she poked Gabrielle right over the heart. A true physician's approach to personal space, Gabrielle thought, trying not to flinch. Those weren't letters that Haedde was drawing on her now -- it was an abstract symbol, of circular lines and simple geometric forms.
"A tiger sigil," Haedde said. "Not very many tigers left in Kontaria. Pity -- beautiful creatures, especially in freshly fallen snow. We associate them with courage. Do you know why courage is important?" Gabrielle wasn't sure if she was expected to actually reply. Haedde placed one final stroke of paint and looked her in the eyes. "It's because it enables change. And this is our one purpose in life. All things grow." She nodded, picked up the bowls, and stood up. "Wait until the paint sets, then we go."
A short while later, Gabrielle put on her dress. It was such a small thing compared to the chaste and lavish garments she would wear in Harmen. Knee-high, short-sleeved, thin. But those were typical Kontarian summer clothes. She supposed that once she got used to it, she would no longer feel so exposed.
"Here, carry this," Haedde said, and shoved a flat clay bowl and a sealed clay flagon into her arms. Back in Harmen, Gabrielle had servants to carry things for her. Well, okay. This she could get used to as well.
Strange shaman. Strange letters. Strange clothes. Gabrielle got lost in thoughts as they walked towards the Ritual Field. It was a ceremony to welcome her in her new home, but none of this felt too homelike. The path turned among the ferns by the forest's edge, bypassing the village. Soon, the fire-dotted field appeared in front of them; and before long, they reached their gathering, and walked in among the people.
Gabrielle sought out Aerin's eyes. His knuckles were at his mouth, the flames were reflected in his pale blue eyes, and he looked dangerously close to bursting with pride. She cracked a smile, and tried not to think too much about the small crowd now looking at her. Fortunately they were all here for the festival night, and not solely for her, but until whatever this ritual involved was done she'd have to endure being the centre of their attention.
She already knew most of these people -- at least the faces. Remembering their strange Kontarian names was a whole other challenge. Most of them were Aerin's friends or family, but three present village elders in bright colourful robes and beaded necklaces lent an official air to the occasion.
Haedde exchanged a few words with the elders. In the west, beyond the hills, the pallor of the sky gave way to a vivid orange. Sunset. A liminal time. Neither day nor night. A time for change. All things grow. The shaman turned to Gabrielle, and cleared her throat.
The ritual turned out not to be alarming at all. Haedde filled the bowl with a dark, brown liquid from the flagon. It was that sour millet wine, fairly strong, that the Kontarians seemed for some reason to enjoy, and used especially copiously for ceremonial purposes. She then offered the bowl to everyone in turn. "One of us," some chanted. Someone started beating out a steady rhythm.
Aerin took his sip, trying not to laugh. So did that girl with a crooked smile -- what's her name again? Then Aerin's best friend -- who only went by his nickname, Leapfrog, for which Gabrielle was very grateful. Tassilo and Fina -- these two names she had to remember, Aerin's parents. Last of all, Haedde handed the bowl to Gabrielle.
"One of us. Bottom up, girl."
There was not much of the wine left. Gabrielle took a deep breath and poured it all into her in one go. Cheers erupted around her. This stuff wasn't as bad as when she'd first tried it, she thought. Maybe she could develop a taste for it eventually.
"This is done, then! Kontaria accepts you. Now, in the second part of the ritual, it is up to you to accept Kontaria." Damn, there was more to this? The shaman looked around the crowd. "Shall I carry out the rite, or is anyone willing to take this up?"
Aerin must have been waiting for this. As soon as Haedde spoke, he hugged Gabrielle from behind, and smiled brightly over her shoulder.
