Talori Plot 503: A Divine Rescue

(TW - ritualized self-harm)

Reincarnation was a staple that even the most dispassionate Talorian could indulge a cursory belief in. For her, it was an indisputable truth: the Great River of Time carried each perished soul onward to a new vessel. Death was a transition, an impermanent state of being.

Except when it wasn’t.

Souls who died in terrible agony carried that burden with them. Afflicted with anguish, they tarried within the current until invariably they were caught in the stagnant Shallows. There they stayed, hopelessly lost in limbo. Some never escaped, but Bethel would.

The ritual she used was ancient, and to her knowledge it reached back to the first days of a land-dwelling Aquore. She had performed it many times across many lives, but never with such fervor as to complete it each and every night.

A circle of seasalt. A basin of rainwater. Blood freely given. She had no access to salt, and the waterskin would have to do for the rain. That was fine, she reasoned. It was the blood that was important. Blood was the Wave Mother’s greatest gift and a mortal’s most significant sacrifice. It was holy by virtue of its very existence.

Food was delivered in a simple ceramic bowl each night. Eve washed it meticulously, blessed it, and set the newly divine vessel in the center of the room. She filled it with water from the skin, and bit into the sore flesh of her legs. At first she had used a shank, meticulously whittled down from a shard of bedpost, but Serene had seen the cuts and confiscated it, finding the blade beneath a loose floor stone. Relegated to a bed without a frame, Eve had settled for the use of her teeth.

River. Peace. Mother. Return. Salvation. Bethel. With her teke she smeared red words clockwise around the bowl’s perimeter, using the old runes that most Aquorians had forgotten. They were purer, created by Cascade herself and able to reach beyond the veneer of mortality and touch the beyond.

“Wave Mother.” Her voice shook as she dripped blood into the basin. She didn’t know if it was emotion or weakness. “I give what is most sacred, that which brings motion to my bones and breath to my lungs, so that You might hear my plea, and recover those who have drifted far from Your great design.”

The ritual could not be closed until the water was given back to the sea. Eve thrust the bowl into Serene’s possession each morning, and though clearly frustrated, she always promised to see it through. Eve didn’t know if she told the truth, but she chose to believe.

For now it was done. Eve set the bowl on the windowsill to await the morning. Her eyes drifted to the bed. Her legs tried to go weak at the prospect of rest. She was exhausted, had been for weeks, but nonetheless sleep didn’t come easy.

The door clicked. It was an off-schedule intrusion, and she was just frightened enough to feel adrenaline seep cumbersomely into her bones. The last time someone had come knocking without a routine, Bethel had died. Heart hammering, she turned to regard the faces looking back - and realized, after a significant beat, that she knew them.

“Oh.” She breathed. Her eyes stung. It was hard to see.

Nimhue let go of the knife as soon as it hit the mark, watching in certain horror as the her oponents wing fell down limply. She wished she could rub clean her teke to wash away the horrible feeling of sinking something in another equine’s flesh. What done was done however and trembling she made her way past her victim and towards wherever Moree and Luna had disappeared to, following Thalassa’s sensible suggestion. She couldn’t really fight anyway.

She couldn’t look back, but she could hear the yells after her, trying to throw of their faith and break their hope of finding their divine. She wouldn’t let such things fool her. "Don’t listen to them,” she said as they hurried forward. And so the pursuit started.

They ran what seemed for hours, may have been hours, before they reached a dead end. Nimhue could hear a call demanding them to stop, their opponent rounding the corner. She could barily stand anymore, legs having gotten more excercise than ever before. It was only with Thalassa's help that she had managed to make it this far. Now, they needed to go now. A small sound, perhaps a sob escaped her as her companions threw open that last door and they piled inside, Nimhue’s legs buckling as she rested against a wall. No more, she could go no more.

She was a second too worried about the door and how it needed to be closed to keep those flock members out, that she didn’t notice Eve or the set-up of the room. But then she saw and she cried earnestly, tears of relief and happiness to see their divine alive. If only now she was well. Their divine looked worse for wear, legs covered with wounds, both new and fresh. First she thought it had been the flock to mutilate Eve like that, but then she saw the bowl, the symbols written in blood and she nodded her head in understanding. This ritual was for the fallen princess, Eve had of course been right in using it. She was a little suprised there were so many wounds, but perhaps their divine had been taking care of many souls.

Her eyes slid back to the door and she was reminded that they weren’t done yet. That it wasn’t yet safe. “We need to go, but the hall is blocked,” she said weakly, voice thick with worry and fear. How where they going to get past those remaining flock members? She could barely stand.


Post 6 | 420 words

She was stardust.

Eternities passed in moments as she was scattered across space. Barely conscious of anything beyond her own bright bit of sentience, Alya struggled to remember what it meant to be herself, what it meant to exist.

Then through the darkness, came a child’s cry.


And Alya began to remember. In the darkness, she listened, with a dread and hope for each one. The pain of them struck her and yet they drew her onward. As more and more of her people called to her, pleaded with her, even cursed her name, she grew stronger. She pieced herself together, cementing her resolve with their need, with their love for her and her love for them. As fiercely as she had fought against the two traitors, she battled even more ferociously to return to them.

She would not abandon them.

For so long, her heart had been turned to the past, a vicious sentinel against the mistakes of yesterday. It had blinded her. Her wings scream with pain as she spreads them, the cuts levied against so many of her children borne upon them. In penance, she opens herself to their pain, to their terror as they fell, wingless, to the waves. It permeates her; the acid fear of mortality eating at her raw heart.

It erodes away to a cold, contained rage, dense as a black hole and as ravenous.


She screams into the sky and the Wave Mother is there, as immense and eternal as herself. The goddess of the winds wants to rage in hurricanes at her blood, at this newly perceived betrayal. The sight of her sister, one of her dearest, stops her.

There is agony in the goddess’s eyes. Cascade opens her mind to her and Alya sees the depth of the sorrow and rage that wells in the ocean’s heart, that has collected for centuries. Alya has found this hurt newborn but the Wave Mother has borne the deaths of her children, borne their pain, and wept for each and every one. Cascade cradles their souls and keeps them safe after their senseless slaughter.


She demands and Cascade answers, guiding her as the current does a vessel. Alya was to be a weapon wielded by her sister, both of vengeance and of learning, as two goddesses sought to reshape a nation.


Her voice echoes in the Divine’s mind. She feels the cut of the knife through each of the memories she pores through, watching remembrances of the sacrifices as if viewing evidence.


The voice, Alya’s voice, passes sentence for all to hear. Eve’s fins begin to crumple, the delicate veil of it desiccating and crumbling off to dust. Feathers and bones force themselves from the Divine’s shoulders as Alya drags wings from beneath her skin.

 Thalassa shook her head, not knowing how to deal with the news she'd recieved. The emperor's daughter and the Defender, both dead? It was almost too much... How many more deaths had she been ignorant of because of her time in the wilds? 

Turning to look at Eve once more, she watched in horror as the Divine's beautiful fins shriveled up and fell off her delicate form, as if they were leaves on a tree with no water. As terrifying as it was though, it didn't end there. Slowly, aggressively, a pair of feathery wings sprouted from the mare's shoulders, refusing to be held back. What was happening?

And then she heard it. The unfamiliar voice speaking angrily as the Divine's new wings settled into place. It reminded the cleric of Cascade in some ways and yet... it didn't feel like the sea goddess at all..

RISE ABOVE YOUR SUPERSTITIONS.

The command shook the mare, leaving Thalassa in utter shock and awe. Not knowing what else to do, she just stood there for a moment, un-moving as she processed through what had just transpired, and attempting to keep herself together for Eve's sake. If she was feeling this shaken up about it all, she could only imagine how her Divine felt.

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Word Count: 209