Draw Down the Moon

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Ancient rituals come with ancient rights to flesh.
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DireLilith
DireLilith
517 Followers

(((***NOTE***this story is written in 3 perspectives that don't come across well in text formatting. enjoy it as it is)))

She breathed the night, unseen as the mist began to curl about the tops of the trees, the air beneath cooling slowly as the sun set. From deep within the earth, she could feel the powers of Night and of Moon and of Man stirring. And she sighed in her slumber, rolling gently like an undulating wave. Would she be called? Would she rise tonight? At last? The night came onwards, and she continued to dream...

Cassandra licked her fingers and dipped them into the honeyed mead in the glass pitcher again, barely avoiding being swatted at by her mother's chubby hand.

"Leave that till later, child!" said the surly woman.

Cassie smiled and dashed away, running down the halls of the stately Roman mansion. She felt free tonight, suddenly free and wild.

Tonight was to be her first Moon ceremony. She'd only previously viewed them from the base of her family's henge hill, a girl watching in white robes with the other children. But now, this year, she was old enough. This would be her first true ceremony since she had become a woman and suffered the rites of passage. Her moonflow had come, and she had been told by her mother that she could wear make up if she wished, and the skirts that showed her bare sandaled feet. She could put the paint of the traveling merchants on her lips and cheeks, mark her eyes boldly with finely tipped charcoal pencils, and use blue tint on her forehead to outline the tattoo of a crescent moon done there in now-fading wode.

Cassandra had become a woman, a valued member of the secret tribe of men and women worshipping the gods of the old times. And tonight, they would all gather on the henge hill, children at the base, mature members at the top, and bring down the power of the Moon to join with the power of the Earth in a ceremony Cassandra's family had been keeping alive for centuries, for as long as family history could remember.

The setting sun was a sign of relief to him. He could feel his mount's shaking legs growing more weary with each step. But on the wind there came the scent of cooking meat. The road they were traveling on would surely bring them to an inn or tavern or some farmstead.

He hoped they would be generous. Otherwise, he'd have to kill them.

He hadn't eaten in two days. His warhorse needed watering and rest. And his own wounds, covered now with a thick scabbing of dried blood, needed washing.

The bulky form of the warrior, crouched over the heavy horse's neck, leaned forward slightly. With his un-gloved hand, he patted the side of the beast's great, heaving neck, comfortingly.

"There, now, Reordenne. You can smell it, can't you? We're almost there. Then we can rest, but only for the night."

The horse seemed to understand, and its feet moved just that much quicker as the two traveled down the road.

Just around this last bend, he thought to himself.

Then we'll surely be able to rest.

The sun had set and the earth was cooling. The mist had fallen to the bases of the thick oak trees. In her dreams, she wondered if those trees remembered her, knew her, loved or hated her. She could feel the feet walking above her head, and she purred, the noise almost audible in the oncoming darkness. They were going to call her, she knew. She could feel their thoughts, see into their hearts. She smiled to herself, her eyes still closed. But no longer did she writhe and squirm. Resting, still as a stone, she waited for them to call.

"Mama, Mama! A man is coming!"

Cassandra looked up when her third younger brother called out, her green eyes looking down the road.

He was right. A man was coming on a warhorse that looked like it had run through the fires of Hades and back before finally finding its way to the gates of her family's home.

"Cassandra! Go bid him welcome, I can't take time right now!"

"But Mama! He could be an enemy! How will I know?" "You'll know, child. Now go bid him welcome and give him the proper treatment of a guest. You know the rules. I have to finish here!"

As her mother turned back to the kitchen, fussing with the ancient cook over seasonings for the several lambs that were almost done roasting on a spit, Cassandra was torn.

She was a woman of the household now, and no longer a child. It was her duty to offer this stranger the proper hospitalities of her family's estate. But the child in her, so recently squelched, was afraid and rebelling. The man seemed so weary, and yet he loomed from on his horse, seeming taller and taller as he came closer and closer.

I am not a child, Cassie scolded herself, pulling her loose skirts up in one hand and trotting down the courtyard to the man's horse.

I will do as I am told, and I will grant him whatever he requires, just like any of my cousins would in my place.

But she gulped as she paused at the horse's massive head, feeling its quick hot breath against the bare nape of her neck. She looked up at the man sitting on the horse's back, and put the back of her hand over her mouth to cover a gasp.

War, death, famine, plague. All seemed to look back at her from his steely gaze.

Inwardly, he sighed. The girl was going to scream, he could tell she was fighting a genuine scream. That's all he'd need right now, to have some fool girl-child screaming her head off and causing a ruckus.

If Reordenne was startled now, the great beast might find just enough energy to lift up his front hooves and dash the girl's brains out. But likely not before all the men folk came running at her screams.

Then, he'd be obligated to slaughter the lot of them. And he just didn't feel like he had the energy.

"Please," he said as softly as possible.

But his own voice sounded strange. He hadn't done anything but shout for the last week and a half, battle cry after battle cry, command after command. He sounded hoarse and dangerous. He swallowed.

"I -- I'm to offer you our hospi -- hospitality. Sir."

Surprisingly, the girl was regaining her calm. She had wisely torn her eyes away from his and was now making a show of curtseying to him in her long skirts. As she stood up, pretending to raise her face to his, he took in her features.

Pagan, of an ancient bloodline he couldn't recognize. But the chiseled profile of the Romans, those he could easily define. As he moved his eyes over her hair, the red locks straying from the golden band around her crown, he noticed the faint crescent moon in her forehead.

So, he thought to himself, his eyes now roving over the willowy girl openly.

She was of the old kind, was she? How many of their "traditions" did she know? And what of their sense of hospitality? Did she know of the Friendship of Thighs?

Now he grinned, not realizing the leering menace of that upon his worn and scarred face, nor was he aware of what he looked like to a woman newly come into her role as hostess.

To her, he looked like Death itself come for her soul.

The night was tension, electric and cast about in shades of blue. The full moon was rising, a silver coin of great value pressed flat against a sky of darkest velvet. A sky that was deepening in depth as the minutes wore on. Speckles of flickering white made themselves known to her senses. The stars, she thought. Shake the sky and the stars could fall! But that moon that she treasured, and so dearly missed. It was eternal and would never stop rising!

In an upper chamber of the palisade-like house of her family, Cassandra carefully pried off the man's boots. The stench of his feet was atrocious, but she was accustomed to soldiers returning from battle as bruised and beaten as this man.

Well not really, she said to herself as she began to wash his feet with lukewarm water and a rag.

Usually, they were a lot less abused than this man. He had to have seen a great deal of war, and very recently. The acrid stench of blood was all over him.

Cassie moved to where he sat on a stool, standing behind him and pulling gently at his hair. He had the braids of a seasoned warrior in his matted brown locks. She carefully extracted what leaves and branches she could. Then, using a cup and a basin, she poured water over his naked back, his shoulders, his arms. She caught as much water as she could, but let the rest slip to the floor.

It was part of their tradition, their homage to strangers the family welcomed into the house. Water was precious, always to be cherished. And it was an honorable thing to have so much that they could afford the water to bathe a stranger.

The girl ran her hands over the large unstitched surface wounds, wondering if she should find a bone needle and some sinew thread and ask to sew them.

On the shoulder blade of the man's back, she found a strange tattooed mark the size of her palm.

Her fingertips ran over it gently, tracing the ancient knot-work. What was it?

Cassie tilted her head, pressing into the skin and moving the man's hair.

It was a dragon, the rearing head of a dragon.

Then, lightning quick, his hand reached back and grasped at her wrist.

Cassandra whimpered.

The touch of a woman's soft fingers against his hair and his skin had ignited in him hunger. And he couldn't wait anymore.

When the old women in the kitchen had seen him, their eyes had been quick to note the crest stitched into the arm of the leather tunic showing beneath his chain mail. And they had known him, known he knew of their old ways. And they had nodded, instructing the young girl to take him upstairs.

To treat him as a friend of the family.

As she cowered now before him, as he forced her to her knees before him, her slender wrist bones feeling as light and hollow as those of a bird's, he realized something very new and significant.

The girl did not know what was expected of her. She did not know what "friendship" meant in the days of the old ways, when families could not afford dowries and had to be careful to introduce new blood to their own bloodlines. She did not know of the Friendship of Thighs.

Outside, the others of the family and household were winding their way up the distant hillside, the flickering candles the only sign in the growing darkness of their travels. They wouldn't light great bonfires like they surely did once upon a time. It wouldn't do to have the Emperor's soldiers find them worshipping their pagan gods, doing their pagan dances.

He could hear them chanting, and he brought the girl with him as he went to the slitted window.

"Do you know what ceremony they are going to do, girl? Do you know their dance well?" he whispered, pushing her infront of him.

With his mouth hot on her neck, he brushed her hair away. He could feel her trembling beneath his hands as he held her from behind by the shoulders.

"Yes-s," she stammered.

"Good. Because you will not be with them tonight."

He turned her to him, and his mouth on hers was hungry, starved. As her small hands fluttered like doves against his chest, he eased himself onto the bed, pulling her with him.

At first, she fought him. His fault, really, for forgetting himself and thinking only of his own needs. But as he moved with her, as he taught her the oldest dance of all, she rose to greet him and soon, she learned moves of her own.

Undulating. Rising. Pressing up into the earth and stone. Moving through the grainfields and grasses. Upwards, seeking the sky and the night. Upwards, she rose like an angel, wings outspread. She could hear them chanting, hear them calling her. Calling to her. Calling for her. They wanted her blessing. At last, she turned her orb-like eyes upwards, to the sky. And there she found the moon. Lovely diamond colored Moon, silver coin Moon. Eternal Moon. She flew upward, to greet the moon, free at last.

Her body ached, but for good or bad, she did not know. Again and again, he entered her. He turned her this way and that, and Cassandra was nothing but a puppet to the man, a bending branch beneath the storm of his desire. He made her writhe on the sheets, on the soft mattress. He made her cry out, and she would have called his name, had she known it.

As his fingers danced in places she had only ever dreamed of being touched, she gasped and moaned. And when his mouth followed those fingers, Cassandra felt all the world shake.

Tonight the world was thinly veiled. It was a night of magick and mystery, prophesied at the beginning of each year when it was decided what ceremonies would be held when.

Outside the house, far and away on the hill, she could hear her mother, her father, her cousins and aunts and uncles. She could hear their voices, trying to draw down that full and portentous moon.

But in here, the magick was of a different kind. It was made of two bodies, two hearts, two souls. And as he made the world disappear and turned her dreams and fantasies into reality, the stranger made her dance for him.

It took some time before he felt he was finally satiated. The girl's body was unused, and he felt a great sense of pride that he had been granted the right to teach her all she would need to know. For awhile, he had forgotten what it was like to hold virgin flesh in his hands. But the touch and smell of her had reminded him. And soon enough, she was as wanting as he. They found that they had the same fires within them as all men and women had had for all of time.

Now she lay comforted in his arms, her slender white body curled against his own aching flesh. She was exhausted, and so was he.

But just as he was about to doze off, the scent of her on his lips and in his nose, he heard a sound.

It was a scream. Then there was another.

And then, he heard a sound he had heard before.

Rising up infront of the moon, she knew how she looked to the small ones below. A curling shadow of blackness, the epitome of their magick at last visible to them as a dark silhouette against her friend, the moon. But when she came to them, when she answered their call, they did not greet her with open arms and honorable kisses. She raced after them, flying through the air with the speed of a great hunting falcon. Her wings were spread, and she glided down on them, scooping up one after another of her dedicated followers. With each breath, she released a bugling cry, rising up a moment to greet the moon with a silvery kiss before returning to the dance.

"Gods, what was that!" No longer bound by exhaustion, Cassandra was throwing her robes and skirts on as she ran to the door of the room. Behind her, the man stood at the window. At the first scream, he had moved so fast Cassie had barely seen him as more than a dark and quick shadow. Now he stood in the blue-silver glow of the moonlight, frozen.

Was he even breathing? "Come on! We have to go see!"

Cassandra picked up his sword belt, dragging it heavily with her as she ran down the stairs to the main floor of the house.

If he was too stunned to help, then at least she could use his weapons. Maybe they were under attack from the Romans after all. Maybe one of their neighbors had finally given them away for a purse of gold coins. If she ever found out who, Cassie swore she would find them in the dark woods some day and slice their throats before they ever knew they were about to die.

Dressed at last, Cassie ran out into the lush back yard gardens, heading for the henge hill.

Where had she gone?

The man turned from the door and looked back into the sky.

There! There she was! The great Dragon!

And the girl he had only just now made a woman was on her way to greet the Dragon -- with HIS swords!

He ran after her, pulling on his breeches and forgetting to bother with his boots.

By the time he got outside, it would be too late to save the idiot girl. But at least he could get his sword back.

What was this? A small one, running up the hill? She could see so much in this heart, see so much in this one's destiny. She could smell the life blood of this, the last of the clan of followers. After her, there would be no more of them. She had come as they had called. Of course they had not known what they were doing, who they were calling. And the moon had deserved and even earned their worship and prayers. But oh, today, on this day, she had finally been able to answer the chanting that she had ever ached to answer but been forbidden to respond to for century upon century. This night, during this hour, she was allowed to feed, but only if they called her. And they had. And she had fed. And she had danced in the sky and proudly displayed to her friend, the moon, all of her ancient glory. Now this last one was coming to her, standing still now in the face of her, frozen rigid with fear at the sight of her. Useless sword, useless flesh. But, what was this destiny...

She looked into the swirling eyes of the dragon as it hovered before her at the top of the hill. All about her lay the blood and gore of her family, her kin, everyone she had ever loved or even known in all her life. Their entrails and scattered limbs littered the grass like the bodies of snakes shedding their skins en masse, or like worms on a dewy night before a rainstorm. No one moved. Cassandra was afraid to breath.

And the dragon was looking at her, curling upon itself with its long serpentine body, hovering in the air like a dragonfly. Its great wings were beating and Cassandra could feel them stealing the air between her and the dragon. Stealing the air from her very lungs.

She opened her mouth to scream.

Before the girl could scream, he was there. Slowly, his eyes not on the great Dragon but on the girl's hands, he pulled the blade free, easing it out of her fingers. Eyes down, he moved to back away, down the hillside.

He wasn't a part of this. He was in no danger from the great Dragon, she would know he was marked. But he wanted no part in the honor this family had given him. This was no place for a mere warrior like him.

"Do not move, Man" she whispered to him. She knew he heard her, for he froze. In the soft light of the moon, she felt so full and satiated. Did she have time for one last meal? One last delicious gulp of flesh before the moon reached the zenith of the hour and she had to return to her imprisonment? She would go back with the songs they had sung to her echoing in her dreams, their screams comfort on the long nights that were coming. So many nights would come before someone would sing for her again. She looked at the tender girl smelling of fresh bedding, and deep within her magickal soul, she sighed. "She is yours," she whispered at last, and her breath washed over the wee ones like it was a fog. They would sleep tonight, and then tomorrow they would wander. And they would forget. She had to make sure they would forget. If they remembered, then no one would return in the following centuries to sing her back to the feast.

It felt like days had passed. But where was she?

Cassandra held a hand to her head, but it was too heavy. She dropped it to her thigh, and leaned her cheek into the armored back of the man riding the horse infront of her.

Where were they going?

Her other hand was in his lap, and he was clutching her fingers, too tightly, she felt. Too close to him. She didn't know him well enough to be riding like this with him, wherever they were going.

Or did she? She felt she knew him. Didn't she know him? Something about him excited her. But she was also very afraid.

Behind him, the girl stirred for a moment. But she returned to her quieted trancelike state. He liked it better than her pathetic whimpering. He'd gotten tired of that after the first day.

Or had it been the second day?

He couldn't remember. And he wasn't sure it mattered.

DireLilith
DireLilith
517 Followers
12