and we don’t need saving

We’re hell raising

As a new mother, Ygritte felt like she needed to do more. Train more so that she could protect her children from the harm of the world that they hardly knew. So, the new mother had made sure that her children were all tucked in and began to make the trip out of the Brook and into the Grove where she knew that she'd be able to find the things she would need to perform a ritual to bless her children. They were not even a month old yet but she wanted them to be blessed.

The scents started to change from the familiar grounds of the brook to the jungle and floral of the grove. Her nostrils flared as she followed the trail and began to pick up herbs that would help her bless the brook as well as restock her own stash. But then she came to a small clearing, she knew this by the sudden air against her pelt and the new scents it brought over and Ygritte would stop and breathe in the fresh air. It would be here that she stopped and began to hum gently, meditating to keep her inner peace, gently swaying with the breeze

+5 meditate or pray on your own or with someone (1/2)

@Yasmin

code by corvus / image by kim

Yasmin felt like she might be sick. She had learned a lot after the raid, after the Lorien Plains’ success. About the displacement of the Brook’s previous ruler, her pride’s efforts to sculpt its new image into something more tolerable.

About her best friend living there this entire time.

Guilt churned in her gut. She hadn’t been there on the front lines, invading Elysian’s home, but she’d contributed in her own way. A quick, sacrificial ritual in a stream on the plains, petitioning the mighty God of Storms, Zenebe, to aid her pride as they charged off into battle. And it had worked!

She owed him an apology. Perhaps more at this point, though she hadn’t an idea what more could possibly entail. Mina couldn’t turn back time, reverse what she’d done, play her part differently. It was all too late now. She only hoped there was some means of repairing any damage there…or at least the damage that would be there once he knew.

Yasmin swallowed nervously as she slipped beneath the trees, into the forest that hid this pride of Vermeda from outsiders. She wasn’t sure how far into the forest she needed to travel, but there was something resolute and solemn to her heavy steps, a weight that appeared settled over the top of her dark, slender frame. She dreaded everything about this.

So it made sense that when she heard something through the woods—a soft, melodic hum—she gave pause and sidetracked to investigate. Only after a short trip did the trees begin to thin, the sunlight to cut through, and Yasmin found herself at the edge of a lovely little green meadow.

It wasn’t unoccupied—there, within its crisp green grasses, stood a tiny blue-gray lioness, humming and swaying and completely detached from the world around her. Such a sight shouldn’t have stirred anything more than amusement for most…but Yasmin recognized something about her. The way she moved, the way she sang her simple little tune…it reminded her very much of when her aunt would commune with her patron deity, Eisha.

The sick feeling in her stomach stilled, went cold with—anticipation? Hope? Desperation? She crept forward as quietly as she could, stepping into the meadow’s outer edges as she watched the stranger sway and sing, and she spoke before she stopped. “You sing for someone,” Yasmin called out, her strained voice betraying how much she wished to have finally found someone who believed in more than the material world around them, “who?”

@Ygritte

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser

and we don’t need saving

We’re hell raising

She hummed her heart's desire and swayed with the slight breeze that brushed against her blue-grey pelt. She was content with her humming and so deep in thought that Ygritte hadn't realized that someone else had come into the clearing until the breeze brought her nose a new scent and a voice hit her ear drums that caused Ygritte to blink open her foggy jewels and listen with a tilt of her head. Ears twisting, flickering on top of her head as Ygritte listened to every noise that was brought to her blind attention.

The word singing was something she hadn't thought that she had been doing. But in fact it had been exactly what she was doing and a small soft chuckle escaped her throat and a smile graced her features. I guess I was singing. She would muse, I was meditating to Maua before I asked for her to bless my newborn children. She would explain to the newcomer.

@Yasmin

+5 Meditate or pray on your own or with someone 2/2

code by corvus / image by kim

To her relief—she hadn’t considered how her actions might be sneaking up on someone and inadvertently scaring them—the singing stranger didn’t appear startled overmuch by Yasmin’s approach. The girl studied the older lioness intently as she turned her way, attentive to her audience but also seemingly distracted. Or so Mina thought—she’d never met a fully blind lioness before.

But she had been singing, and she acknowledged it with a chuckle. Yasmin inched closer, hoping the smile was an invitation, the generous response an opening for discussion. At least until the stranger gave an even stranger name. Maua?

The yearling stopped, frowned. She hadn’t the slightest clue who Maua was, whether it might have been another name for one of her deities or some other false god as some seemed so determined to make real. “Maua?” Her confusion colored the word, the name, settled in the furrows of her frown. “Who is Maua?” If this lady knew, then she hoped she would explain; this was still the closest she’d come to finding another with any spirituality at all.

@Ygritte

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser

and we don’t need saving

We’re hell raising

Ygritte would never know that @Yasmin was unaware that she was blind and so with that thought, Ygritte kept her foggy jewels pointed in front of her but her head tilted towards the sound and scent of the other. She could smell the Plains on her pelt with the breeze that would find its way through the gaps of tree branches that surrounded them. But she was curious when Maua was questioned and Ygritte let out a small chuckle, soft and sweet before Ygritte would begin to explain to the other about Maua.

Maua is the deity that created Amaryllis for us all. Ygritte had yet to see Maua but she always believed that the deity was here, watching and keeping those safe from harms way. She had kept Ygritte safe this far so the medic's faith had not faltered.

code by corvus / image by kim

She wasn’t sure what to make of the laugh, if it had been because the lioness thought Yasmin’s ignorance amusing or something else, but it didn’t stop the lady from answering again, offering a small explanation for who this Maua was. A creator, a life-giver, a caretaker: at least that was Mina’s conclusion from what she’d heard. It lined up very much with what she thought of Eisha, the God of the Earth, but never would she have called Them by another name.

A false god then. Her nose wrinkled slightly at the revelation, dissatisfied but uncertain why she expected anything else. These lions here on this island, their deities were all very different and—by her critical and biased opinion—very wrong.

“I know no Maua,” Yasmin answered, daring to be a little candid. Her tone took on a lofty quality. “I know Eisha. A great tortoise that holds our world on Their back. They care a great deal for us, and try to provide everything we need.” Did Maua do that, or had their interest fallen off with the creation of the island? How did their story go? Yasmin was curious, but didn’t feel like asking directly. Instead, she sighed, a touch of her disappointment creeping into her voice, “But no one here seems to have heard of Them.”

@Ygritte

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser

and we don’t need saving

We’re hell raising

Ygritte would never see the confusion. But @Yasmin's words echoed in her ear drums as she began to explain that she did not have a Maua but instead a deity called Eisha. A giant tortoise that carried the world on their back and provided for all that lived on it. Though it sounded similar to Maua, there were some things that her Deity did not do that the other seemed to do. Maua didn't create the Earth, just Amaryllis. Well, you would be correct. I have never heard of them but I am interested to learn about them. I am a Cleric and wish to know about all of the different beliefs out there. And she was. Her's was different from Cerberus' and now from Yasmin's.

code by corvus / image by kim

It didn’t surprise Yasmin in the least to hear the strange blue-gray lioness admit to knowing nothing of Eisha. It seemed everyone in this part of the world—honestly, everyone beyond the savannah where she grew up—hadn’t been taught the same as she had, of the deities found in the natural world that governed the way it all behaved. Salana within the sun, Zenebe within the storms, Itri within the moon… They were all so important to her; how was it no one else recognized this too?

But I am interested to learn about them.

For a moment, Mina wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Only one other individual had been curious enough to ask after her deities, and even then Ely’s interest had mostly been out of desperation. This…this was an actual adult wanting to learn from her.

Slowly, she felt her chest constrict, excitement building within her while she did her best to keep it at bay. Best not get ahead of herself; maybe she still hadn’t understood things right. “You do?” Yasmin asked softly, tentatively, her uncertainty and skepticism visible in her eyes and seeping into her voice as well. “I know of quite a few.” She wanted so much to begin speaking of them all, to tell someone—anyone—everything she knew. She hoped this lioness wasn’t toying with her.

@Ygritte

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser

and we don’t need saving

We’re hell raising

Ygritte wouldn't be able to see the shock and surprise that came across the other's face. Nor would she have ever known it if tone hadn't given some kind of hint to it. Ears twisted as Ygritte would give off a soft chuckle before answering her. Of course. Do many not want to learn about other's belief's? She was curious. Ygritte knew that there wasn't many that knew about Maua that were not native to Amaryllis and those who lived here long enough to learn about Maua knew but there were many that had their own belief's. Own gods. Those were the ones that Ygritte didn't generally try to persuade to change their mines. Like @Yasmin here.

code by corvus / image by kim

The lioness laughed again, and yet it didn’t come across derisively. It was gentle, patient, kind at its very core. This was all new to Yasmin; even her sparse interactions with the adults back in her pride had been mostly formal and a bit stilted. She didn’t get that same impression from this lady—this cleric, as she called herself—and it made the half-maned girl want to speak all the more.

“No,” Yasmin answered quickly, taking those last few steps at a more hurried pace before she seated herself down amid the grass and flowers beside the stranger, “most often I am looked at oddly. No one asks, and if they do it is with judgment.” She couldn't quite keep the sourness from her tone as she said it, or the way her lavender-marked nose almost imperceptibly wrinkled with the telling. Most of them, she had determined, were not worth her time because of it.

Except now. Now she had found someone who actually wished to know about her deities, and she was eager to explain. “But I can tell you.” There was hope in her voice as she looked brightly at the lioness, noting then at a closer distance the unseeing way she looked in her direction, the cloudiness of her eyes. Like Ely!

“First, I suppose, is Salana,” Yasmin explained cautiously, glancing into the break of the trees overhead that allowed the meadow to prosper, “a great golden owl that is the sun. You cannot look upon Her without Her brightness burning your eyes.” Mina paused briefly; was this what happened to this lioness to cause her blindness? “But you can feel Her gaze whenever She is watching. Like now, it is warm here, yes?” Actually, it had been much gentler here as opposed to the bright and burning savannah where she grew up; Salana must have been in much better spirits these days.

“There is also Itri,” she added after another pause, “the moon. He is a dark leopard whose spots are the stars, and whose eye is the moon. He is much kinder. I owe him my life.” She said the words with conviction, gratitude, fully believing that Itri watched over her and was solely responsible for her being alive while the rest of her family had perished. Had He put her here to meet this cleric too?

@Ygritte

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser