Prince Gyllen Ch. 15

"I am the sister thou knowest as Snow-Caller." Silfr replied.

"May I inquire what the colour of our robes are?" He further questioned.

"They are the colour of opal webbings, o brother."

"And how dost thy Mother fare, Snow-Caller?"

"She doth dwelleth within the diamond corridors of Her lunar citadel, dreaming all which hast come to pass, entwining all which hast yet to come." At this final statement of Silfr's, the man dropped all pretense and his frown perked into a slight smile.

"So glad you could join us again for this sabbath, Sister Snow-Caller." The garrison's inflections became far more amiable, though Silfr herself remained as mirthless as ever. "But who is this companion you've brought with you?" He asked, looking past the ebon-haired one's shoulders to the other, fuller-figured female keeping her distance behind.

"Hiya, mister!" Eir jovially responded with an exaggerated wave of her hand, drawing nearer once she saw the male meant them no harm, unmindfully spoiling the tense mood that her sibling and the stranger's esoteric exchange had generated. "I'm E-"

"An acquaintance of mine." Silfr promptly interrupted Eir before the latter could fully articulate that final syllable. "I believe her to be prime for induction, though she has yet to familiarise herself with many of our edicts..."

"Ah, a new member, eh? Father Selekos will be most pleased." The watchman said, turning his attention back to the younger sister. "I imagine she has yet to be rechristened though?"

"She will be after this eve, Gods willing." Silfr replied.

"Then allow me to be amongst the first to welcome you to our assembly, child." The man looked back to Eir. "I'm called 'Staunch-Shield' among the community. I hope we get to know each other a little more intimately this night~" He affectionately patted the elder princess' shoulder with his strong, free mitt, his smirk ever widening into a toothy, covetous grin.

"Sure thing, Mr. Shield!" Eir blithely returned his smile, able to feel his fingers depressing into her skin as he kept his paw in place for a few excess seconds more before withdrawing it and resuming his post. Silfr then escorted her sister away from the sleazy Staunch-Shield and through the timbered passageway. "What a nice man~ But your name isn't Snow-Caller, Sis. Why'd you tell him that?"

"Once initiated into the Sodality as faceless spawnlings, we are granted a new epithet. Only the ecclesiastics are permitted to utilize their outside identities, while the rest remain more-or-less anonymous at our own discretions."

"Oooh, I get it now. This is like some kinda super-mega-secret club, isn't it? And you're all using codenames! I did think Staunch sounded like a funny name..." Eir started to wildly surmise. Surprisingly, she was not too terribly far off the mark. "And you're going by Snow-Caller, right? Aw, that's sooo cute~!" Eir cooed in an unintentionally condescending manner. Her twin's eyelid twitched once more.

"It is not cute..." Silfr growled through gritted teeth, her voice raised by a rare octave as her sister inadvertently struck a particular nerve. "The chill of death is omnipresent in the wake of snowfall, laying waste to crops in biting embraces of frost, solidifying the ceaseless flows of rivers and lakes and encasing their inhabitants in terrible ice menageries, avalanches, blizzards, icebergs..."

"Well, snow makes me think of building snowmen, snowdrops, drinking hot choccy all snug in my blankie, Yule...oh! And adorable li'l white bunnies and foxes prancing about in the prairies!" Eir interjected her twin's monologue. "I hope my new name's just as cute."

Silfr said nothing further until they had reached the end of the tunnel to find themselves now in a grove crammed from edge-to-edge with a horde that must have numbered by at least one hundred persons - each one uniformly arrayed in a hooded white habit and tasselled vizard - and lit by braziers positioned around the perimeter combined with the platinum radiance of a full moon streaking through a significant breach in the perennial awning. Eir stood stupefied with amazement at the largest conglomeration of people she had ever seen outside of a town carnival squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder in this limited space, the indiscernible, deafening chatter between almost all who were present saturating the sound waves. Fashion sense notwithstanding, the attendees were certainly a diverse lot to behold, ranging from tall to stubby, thin to burly, bearded to bald-faced, slightly younger than the sisters to appearing a little more matured, and - even underneath the disguises - it was apparent not all of them were quite so human either from the unusual skin tones, animalistic muzzles or diminutive statures a handful displayed. There did appear to be a disparity with the amount of females among the crowd, however, with approximately only one woman to about every five males by Eir's rough guesstimation from what she could gleam.

Holding Eir tightly by the wrist, Silfr guided her sister through the mob in search of a free space. Only when elbows were absent-mindedly knocking into her plush body and her toes were occasionally trod on by accident had it occurred to Eir that the masks they wore prevented anybody from recognising either her or Silfr and their statuses as members of the royal family. Here, they were treated no more and no less equally amongst what were likely commoners, with nobody making any particular effort to part a path for the pair while they sifted past, as what crowds would have otherwise on the streets of Malmhule whenever a princess came in their opposing way. Eir briefly mused on this new experience just as her twin found them a relatively free spot on the middle-left side of the rabble, though her attention just as quickly drifted towards a set of standing stones hewn from golden-brown granite off to her side, each one carved with a plethora of cryptic runes and pictographs which Eir could not interpret, but there was one particular image repeated throughout the bas-reliefs which latently triggered a precipitous mixture of primordial apprehension and odd familiarity semi-forgotten on the fringes of a prehistoric portion within her grey matter from a mere glance. The closest the hieroglyph in question could be described was that of a singular ovate mass with an incalculable amount of triple-jointed appendages chaotically protruding from both above and below the shape at all manners of angles, frequently accompanied by a lattice of no logical construct, a perfect circle suspended above it and a small group of infinitesimal figures that bore resemblance to some of the dominant races of Midgard seemingly celebrating the advent of this abomination, humanoids included.

The copper-haired princess' troubled thoughts were then interrupted by the abrupt fall of a cadaverous stillness in the air. She looked all around her to see each masked face - Silfr's included - unanimously fixing their gaze in a single direction. Following suit, Eir now faced a mound rising from the earth about four feet above everybody's heads. Upon this hillock, a long, time-worn, craggy table was propped precisely afore a pair of tall, dead trees of even further remote antiquity with a giant, rectanglish cobweb bridging the span between their bare branches above. Eir would have hated to come across the creepy-crawly which spun that monstrosity. On either side of the altar stood two stoic, young men, who could have been no older than eighteen years of age, as though in waiting for the arrival of someone to serve.

Then Eir saw it.

It crawled up upon the knoll and poised itself behind the alter on four pairs of long, rapier-like legs supporting an enormous, bulbous abdomen of a rich purple pigmentation, which further sprouted a lithe human-like torso -- complete with two arms and a head - from its front end. This uppermost half possessed an epidermis of pale cyan, with curved ungues of vibrant scarlet growing forth from the end of each fingertip, and was outfitted in what amounted to little more than a broad, bejewelled collar around its neck, a pair of leather bracers on its wrists and a midnight blue sash adorned with unfamiliar, golden calligraphy attached around its approximated hips that draped with a thin, pointed loincloth which nearly dragged against the floor. Its face was youthful but narrow with prominent cheekbones, no visible nose and two almond-shaped eyes surrounded by a further six smaller optics, all of which were glinting voids of solid black. White locks flourished from its crown to its shoulders partially hiding a selenite tiara banding its cranium, suggesting femininity when combined with the overall structure of its features, however its body - the anthropoid portion at least -- was definitively masculine. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Eir was looking at a male arachne.

The arachne are a race of spider-folk who rank amongst the most ancient civilisations in the known world alongside the likes of the dwarves, dragons and djinn, though they have come to be dreaded as something akin to harbingers of evil by many of the other races due to their unsettling anatomy piled on the inherent disdain of arachnids prevalent in so many cultures. While arachne are not inherently wicked, the stereotype is perpetuated by the majority of the handful who journey beyond their native lands tending to turn to lives of crime and villainy, usually as a direct result of the xenophobia they face at the hands of adventitious species. Even in the melting pot that was the Monster District, arachne sightings are elusive at best from this discriminatory fear, virtually never shewing themselves in public without the application of a glamour. This was the first time Eir had ever personally lain eyes upon an arachne in the flesh, though she had been warned plenty of their (largely embellished) reputation growing up from her overzealous father. Whether this particular specimen belonged to the more despicable variety of its kin, however, remained for the princess to fully determine.

"Gee, Sis, who's that? Looks important..." Eir whispered into Silfr's ear in regards to the lordly mien the spider-person was exuding.

"That, my tender duckling, is the extolled Father Selekos, high-cleric of our humble North Snjórlandic chapter."

"Oooh~" Eir simpered, easily impressed by the fanciful denomination. "You know...he's kinda cute! For an arachne, I mean. Doncha think so too, Silf~? Shame it's wasted on those gross spider legs though..." The brunette added. Silfr said nothing in response.

"Sisters and brothers! Scions of adulated Lniythp! Under the watchful witness of Her satellite eye, we are hereby gathered on this night of nights to make our praise and gratitude known to the Great Cosmic Dowager, so that we may be eternally escorted towards prosperity and paradise in Her supreme wisdom and benevolence." Father Selekos at once began preaching in a stentorian voice and with ostentatious gesticulations so that the passionate conviction of his words was made apparent to even the devotees tucked all the way in the very rear rows, yellow fangs visibly lining the roof and floor of his violet mouth as he spoke. His speech touched upon vast metaphysical concepts of fate, dreams and rebirth, all of which Eir was having difficulty following but found his grandiloquent theatrics to be captivating nevertheless, and listened attentively all the way till his closing line: "Now, sisters and brothers, join me as we partake the Elixir of Unlocked Insight as so adulated Lniythp may perceive our intoned psalms of exaltation in the name of Her honour and glory."

From the cardinal directions, the rhythmic beating of drums could then be heard beginning to play, each one being performed to an independent tempo from the others, resulting in a rather disorientating assortment of surrounding sounds. Selekos began to warble alongside the thumping dissonance in a staccato language utterly unearthly to the auburn princess, consisting of many piping syllables too Daedalian for her mundanely human vocal chords to feasibly duplicate. That fact did not prevent the crowd from joining in with the strains, however none were able to quite replicate the spider-priest's vocalisations to the exact modulation, though Silfr did come remarkably close. Eir, of course, was completely unfamiliar with the alien lyrics, but she quickly noted how each verse seemed to conclude with the same sonorous chant which I am only able to approximately transcribe in a terrestrial alphabet as "Wřþah, wřþah! Wřþah, wřþah!", so she at least contributed her saccharine vocals for those sections, along with the clapping which supplemented them, despite not knowing the connotation behind this bizarre, repeated phrase in the least.

Partway through the spirited invocation and out of the corner of her hazel eye, Eir espied a massive pewter chalice circulating among the throng, watching it rapidly pass between several pairs of hands down the line she was a part of until it had arrived in her younger sibling's hold. Silfr held the reflective cup by two heavy handles welded on either side of its expansive bowl, heaving it up towards her lips and imbibing a very slight sip of its contents before passing it along unto her sister. Eir nearly dropped the container entirely when it was rashly dumped into her fingers, taken aback by just how weighty it was for a mere cup, though soon managed to lift it closer to her face with some exertion.

"Gee, Sis, what's this?" Eir asked when she saw the peculiar substance held within: a liquid clearer than that of purest water to the point of near invisibility, yet with an overpoweringly sweet stench reminiscent of a non-specific candied fruit.

"You need only but intake a single dram to comprehend." Silfr responded, her speech now slightly slurred as some blush dashed across the bridge of her defined nose.

Confused, Eir nonetheless brought the cup's rim to her mouth, feeling the trace accumulation of saliva of where several other people's -- her sibling included - lips had touched upon her own, and intook the paltriest sip of its translucent brew. In the instant the fluid touched her tongue, she could feel it fiercely scald her tastebuds to the point where she fleetingly suspected she had been duped into ingesting poison. After a bout of violent hacking, the searing pain quickly subsided and Eir found a sudden sense of ecstatic delirium overwhelm her system, heightening her gaiety to higher levels than it had been at before. Simultaneously, she quickly started perceiving lights of fluorescent purples, reds, yellows and a few colours she could not identify where there had been none previous, she could eavesdrop on sub rosa whisperings between undetectable atoms constituting the very air even over the boisterous chorus and found an aromatic fragrance emanating from a medley of nocturnal mushrooms interspersed about the demi-island mingle in the atmosphere before wafting about her nostrils.

All five of Eir's senses (and then some) had seemingly been enhanced by this acidic concoction as the entire universe now felt as though it was undulating about her in a kaleidoscopic collage of uncanny imagery and weird music. Once the cup had been relieved from her person by the gentleman standing to her left without acknowledgement, the brunette immediately began to intrinsically gambol to the softened percussion with a primitive dance dating from a pre-Promethean era when men still resided in caves. She frolicked alongside the others who had also quaffed the crystalline wine, spinning and twirling around the ring with no recognisable pattern or goal, losing herself and sight of her sister amongst the flock of prancing, incognito bodies, but feeling far too euphoric in the moment to have any true care for the issue. Eir even found the previously unknowable and unpronounceable melody suddenly whistle forth from her throat as naturally as though it had always been familiar to her since her slumbers within the womb.

The frenzied Bacchanalia lasted for what felt to be a short aeon before coming to an eventual close -- much to the princess' disappointment - just as the orison had too begun quieting down. Eir's rapture dwindled dramatically, and she questioned what exactly it was she underwent for the first time since sampling that mystery drink as the landscape returned to its mundane state, looking positively sepia in contrast to the polychromatic spectacle she had just been subjected to, but there still persisted a certain drunken joy about her copper-haired head - gauged by the inebriated smile plastered across her countenance - in a pleasant midway state between lucidness and reverie. The dynamic dance and potion's aftereffects combined to leave her lightly panting, mildly perspiring and feeling very, very warm in certain places, chiefly around her groin and bosom, however Eir was currently more concerned over how she had long since become separated from Silfr in the sea of white robes during the revelry now that she was out of her stupor. She no longer had anyone immediately familiar to seek counsel from and now truly felt like an outsider amongst these faceless strangers, the number of taller men who had claustrophobically crowded in on her personal bubble on all sides she found to be especially unnerving...

For the time being, however, she veered her focus back to Father Selekos' resumed sermon to distract her mind from the apprehensive notions developing within. She listened attentively as he switched subjects touching upon the ideas of ley lines and pneumas, although failed to retain many of the details due to her concentration being frequently diverted by the back of someone's hand periodically brushing against her bum by alleged accident, or the random nudging of a stranger's biceps into her boobs. At one point, she even felt one boy's set of digits creep up and down her arm, which she found to be especially irksome. In truth, she could only recollect the closing statement of his second oration in the coming days, and that was primarily via association of what it was immediately followed by...

"O adulated Lniythp, Mistress of the Loom of Intervention, Conjurer of the Histories, observe us now and hear our pleas! Your daughters and sons! As we pass unto you the silvery quintessence of mortalkind from which you mould the Filaments of Destiny to deliver us from our preordained existences by your sagacious will." The spider-man mellifluously expounded directly prior to - without a scintilla of warning - Eir finding the robes she wore being swiftly lifted inside-out and up over her head by a dozen eager, practised hands beginning from the bottommost trimming of the clothing before being discarded clean from her person to the side just as promptly. Eir now stood in naught else but a visor and her shoes, too stunned from the bewildering sequence that had just transpired so quickly to make any manual motions in covering her immodest opulence from the multitude of the male glares zeroing in on either the rondure of her plump behind sustained by a steady diet of sweets, the perky nipples tipping her coveted globes, or the puffy labia that nestled her nectarine spongecake and framed by creamy thighs. It took until the auburn princess was forced onto the grass upon her knees by the pressure of those same hands now impelling down on her bare shoulders that her hampered mentality finally processed the current circumstances.

"Oh, gosh! Everyone can see my no-nos now! What do I do...!?" Were the first conscious thoughts since being denuded to race through the brunette's head. She observed, unmoving, as the five surrounding males who had put her into this predicament began to shed their own garbs (sans masks, of course). Soon enough, the princess was then staring down five separate manhoods at differing stages of erection everywhere she turned, each featuring a distinct combination of characteristics ranging from long or short, broad or lean, hirsute or shaven, and even one instance of circumcision (a practice uncommonly seen in the Western Continent). Though each member appeared inviting in its own unique way, Eir felt far too daunted by this precipitous chain of unanticipated developments to make any advances and began internally panicking over the disorientating situation. "Um, Sis...? S-Sis!?" Eir desperately cried out for her younger sibling to come to her aid, not knowing if she was within earshot to even hear her entreaties at all, her cheerful smile superseded by an expression of sheer consternation borne from the agitation of not knowing what this scenario's outcome could possibly be...