With the shrine in Torchline under repair, her explorations in that region ceased for a time, journeying back towards home with Evelyn. It’d been long enough since they’d last sojourned towards their goddess, Brightened and heightened.
And the girl had plans. So many notions spiraling through her head all at once: vengeance, strength, defiance, worlds breaking apart, wreckage, demolition, annihilation – but no actual means or concrete methods to achieve it. Too weak, too fresh, too new.
With a smile towards her sister, the youth knelt down before the altar, eyes closed, hands extending in their offerings; the beautiful blossoms from high in the canopies, a corresponding ability of her twins’ (and Mabel couldn’t be jealous; the envy not quite there yet), from where they’d floated and reached and snagged.
A whisper followed, flickered through. [say]“Our great Goddess, how can we best serve you?”[/say]
She followed. Her new abilities were something she celebrated with her sister, and something she gladly used at any given opportunity. Evelyn was not an overt show-off, and would never use her ability in such a way as to provoke jealousy in her sibling - no, instead she shared it with her, and so was thrilled at the idea of testing it to see if she could help them both climb to the top of the canopy and pluck flowers they had not ever seen blossom beneath.
It felt appropriate to leave a sort of flowery thank-you note to their wondrous one.
Approaching the shrine with surreptitious glances about (the Torchline shrine had been ruined, who was to say the one in their homeland was safe from such acts as well?) the blond knelt beside her sister. She was unable to resist a small trick that she had been working on, sending a subtle, almost imperceptible shift in the gravity surrounding herself and her sibling, hoping to instil a sensation of upliftedness; she smiled in return to the matching blue gaze that flickered her way.
[say]"Goddess,"[/say] she echoed softly, letting her sister take the lead.
Wind whistles melodiously through the temple, rustling the flowers and the girls' hair. It is charged with bright arcs of electricity, and as it caresses them the twins feel replenished, their fluid levels restored.
Nothing else happens.
Movement and motion through the temple halls pulled and exalted, and she lifted her head to watch the petals rustle, to wait and witness something glorious. Her body felt renewed, replenished, revitalized, and the breath she took to prepare herself wasn’t necessary, but steeled and forged nonetheless. A designation, she thought, ready for the inevitable, for the resolve, for the ideas to conform and curl again them.
Then nothing.
It ceased altogether – the arcs of sparks, the intertwining of hair.
Her brows furrowed together, features rendered suitably disappointed. [say]“Oh,”[/say] was spoken a bit dimly, shocked, surprised. Perhaps she’d thought they’d be granted something: wisdom, sagacity, a trail to traverse. This was mere kindness, and then naught at all. [say]“Maybe we decide for ourselves then,”[/say] she whispered to Evelyn, rising from her kneel. Maybe that was the only answer.
It was uplifting, hope rising in her chest as the wind went through, though she barely felt its touch she was aware of its presence nonetheless, blond waves lifting. And then the sparks, the lights, the arcs of electricity branching out towards them - it was their Goddess' touch, she knew. The Voice was ever-present, embracing them, welcoming them…
And then, after they felt replenished, after their hopes were lifted and expectations almost met…
Nothing.
Disappointment was evident in the frown that creased her brow, but she didn't let it evolve into anything further. [say]"Oh,"[/say] she echoed with a nod, a glance to her sister. Rising also, she heard the whisper meant for her and received it with a bright smile - ever the optimist, she would happily tilt any experience to be a positive on in the name of their Goddess.
[say]"Maybe she knows that which we want to do, and thinks us already capable?"[/say] They were the Occidendum sisters, after all. The world was now theirs to take.
Maybe –
Maybe they were entirely capable.
Maybe they were destined for something.
Maybe they just had to find it.
She nodded in response, the first etchings of a smile wrapping around her mouth. [say]“And we just have to find it.”[/say] Discover it. Dig in with both hands and wrap their fingers, their fists, in the glory of the beginning, in the rapture of the reverie.
Refreshed and replenished, there wasn’t any more they could truly do here. [say]“Let’s go then.”[/say] A beckoning, a calling, a rapture on the eaves; they’d muddle their way through and become what the Brightened goddess had sanctioned for them.
[FIN]
|
