The Village of Lire
To write I used a talk to text program that isn't always accurate. If you like my work, please consider helping me edit so I can publish. Thank you AC for editing.
He had tethered his own daughter to his cross, saying goodbye as she remained unconscious, mercifully...
She might have seen her father underneath the dark hood.
There had been the ritualistic feast, the entire village gathering and imbibing the ancient blend of herbs and wine.
Except for the elders..
They made the selection after the great joining.
Lire lay on the coast of Scotland, above the Shetland Isles, discovered and yet still strange and apart, subsisting in a pastoral and unchanging Celtic past.
Each year the harvest came.
Each year the elders made their dismal selection.
Condemning one of their most comely daughters to the god.
It had been this way for centuries, a secret known only to the hundreds of this tribe, but the truth of the selection remained known only to those tortured men of the tribe.
Men like Dorran, who year after year watched as their overly fertile wives produced girl after girl, knowing that one day Lire could claim their child.
It was long after the feast.
As one for the last time, the bonfire had consumed them, the drums hypnotic, the drunken and dazed orgy spilling out until every one succumbed to the building lust.
Woolen garments were discarded as the women took turns with the vastly outnumbered younger men and each other, abandoning any sense of decency in a deliberate exclamation of lust and longing.
