?????? (Priestess of the Moon)

??????

(Priestess of the Moon)

How many years had she walked these dark tunnels? What year was it when she entered these ever-changing tunnels? How long did it take her to discover the passageways had a will of their own? She couldn't remember any of these things anymore. She had succeeded in the difficult mission that brought her to The Sacred Glade. Her sleeping Goddess was safe and, from what she could tell, perfectly healthy.

The running theory was that whatever force kept her Goddess asleep was the force that kept her locked here. When they arrived at the Glade, some power claimed them both and refused to relinquish control. She believed the mysterious magic to be evil in her early years alone. Now she understood that wasn't the case. For however long she had been stuck within this sanctuary, it always provided for her needs. Even when she was homesick, the Glade would guide her to a mountain vista miles above the ground.

These moments were rare but spectacular. Tonight the Glade had blessed her with such a moment. High above the world, she couldn't help but feel so small, so insignificant. Here she was at the top of the world.

To her west, the Vermilion Wasteland, endless dunes of soft red sand. Vermilion Wasteland, Vermilion Sea, Vermilion Cartel, all they needed was a Vermilion Puppy. She missed puppies. Being as her homeland was constantly at war with the Cartel, she couldn't have possibly spent time there, right? She couldn't remember anymore. All she could remember were the repetitive, silly names. Just say red and be done with it. Boring old cronies were debating redundant points in some nondescript old building. She couldn't remember why she knew that would happen. She just did.

To the east, an infinite sea of swaying canopies of the Obsidian Wail. She had spent more time than she enjoyed within the Wail. It just came along with her job as a priestess. The Prophets of her youth told her the crimson leaves were due to the sins of the evil souls within the Wail. What would they say if she explained to them her view? Are these silver streams swirling through a sea of obsidian a trick of the moon? The souls of the innocent? She couldn't tell. She only knew the silver waves made as the trees swayed together comforted her.

However, no sea of silver could comfort her more than her view to the north, her blessed Atlantis. She couldn't make out the docks from her view atop the heavens, where she would watch the workers toll away. Nor the ridged tunnels she would run and play in as a child. She would play with the girl, the girl with the bronze skin. Did the angry girl have a silly name? She couldn't remember.

She could remember that a castle was somewhere within the crystalline caverns of Atlantis. A wondrous palace not unlike her current home within the Sacred Glade. Perhaps walking its narrow passageways as a child is why she feels so comfortable within the mountains. Sure, there was less moonlight shimmering ice and more dim nauseating darkness in these tunnels, but she had gotten used to being alone in the dark.

How long had she walked in the dark now? She couldn't remember. All she remembered was she had come here with someone. A beautiful woman that had always been asleep. Always? That couldn't be right. She didn't have the physical capacity to drag anyone through these tunnels. Had she come here before? Did the sleeping woman have a name? She couldn't remember.

It did infuriate her immensely. She could remember silly little names given to ridiculous little places. She could remember Atlantis, the Undercroft, The Obsidian Wail, the Vermilion, everything. If only she could remember even one silly little name of a person. How could she have forgotten the name of the angry bronze-skinned girl? Or the name of the pale silver-haired woman that would comfort her, the woman with her hair. How was it that for however long she had been trapped within these tunnels, she couldn't remember the name of the Goddess she watched over?

When did she first hear the voice? At first, she was sure it was the lonely madness seeping into her very identity. She never could decipher if the whispers were an authentic second party or evidence of her psyche fracturing. Though as the years had passed on, she had learned so much from the mysterious voice. She couldn't have known the knowledge of eons ago before she entered the Sacred Glade, right? How could she possibly remember?

Long ago, someone taught her the teachings of the Or-Ne-Dra, another silly name. She had known a few beings claiming they were Dragons, a title given to super-powerful individuals. The silver-haired lady, and her sleeping companion, were two examples of such beings. Could her ever-decreasing sanity be creating these extraordinary tales of massive winged creatures? Maybe she was just crazy this whole time.

"It's time." The calm voice called to her from the dark. She would sit on this vista forever if she could. While gazing out upon her section of the world, she could remember silly names. In those tunnels, within the Glade, memories blurred, and time was funny. Had she first entered her prison a year ago? A decade ago? A millennia ago? She couldn't remember.

There was little point in debating whatever force had been calling to her. She had attempted that plenty of times before. No matter how fast she ran or how much she called out. Did she call out for the bronze girl? None of it mattered. She would always end up back at the temple or her mountain vista. Patting the snow off her white skirt, she rose from her seat in the soft blanket of powder. Like so many times before, she would close her eyes and breach the threshold of a pitch-black tunnel.

Traversing everlasting darkness required the faith that tomorrow she would find the dawn. When did she start closing her eyes in the dark? All she knew was that she would forever be lost if she fought against the tunnels. Sometimes it took faith that you were walking the correct path, even as you floundered in the darkness. Why was she so fascinated with the dawn? She couldn't remember.

"Eww!" Some fucking reward for faith. What did she step into the river? Was she dumped right under the waterfall? Her hair was already getting thick and heavy from the descending downpour. She opened her eyes slowly, peering through once silver hair, now stained crimson. Tall black trees of obsidian stretched out as far as she could see. Her eyes widened as she fell to her knees. Murky red swamp water enveloped her passed her narrow hips. Water was now streaming down her cheeks. Tears? The rain? She couldn't believe her fortune as she pulled large fluffs of moss and debris towards her to embrace. She knew this place, and she knew its silly name. Was this a dream?

"Return the seed to the Mother, FREE US!" Startled, she twisted her body so quickly she thought her spine might snap. Scrambling to return to her feet, she trips over her now-weighted crimson skirt, smashing her face into the solid mountain wall. It didn't matter how hard she beat her fist against the stone. The tunnels of darkness she had traveled for so long were gone. The Glade had ejected her from its grasp as fast as it had claimed her. Why?

"Stop talking, please! Someone Help!" An unfamiliar voice called out in the distance. It had been so long since she had heard another person's voice. The cry in the breeze was masculine but young. "Goddess, please, no.." A terrified voice that she couldn't help but walk towards silently. Which Goddess was he calling? She couldn't remember, but the call pulled her towards the sincere cry for salvation.

Somehow she wasn't shocked by the scene she had come across. A radiant calm had overwhelmed her since hearing the boy's voice. She felt the extreme sadness and regret of the child clutching desperately to a body. A sculpted bronze body of someone that had lived a hard life. What demon had caught up to these poor souls? Better yet, why were two children alone in this horrible place with the silly name?

"Is she important to you?" What was she saying? What was she doing? Kneeling before the sobbing child, she felt a radiant warmth. The same heat that kept her warm whenever she gazed upon the world. The child had not noticed her approach. She couldn't understand what he mumbled as he feebly attempted to shove her away. She could make out the visage of the sister now. Why did the girl look so familiar? Why was this bronze face the same face from her dreams?

"Stop! What are you?!?" What was she? A question that was also beginning to run through her head. Somehow the ceaseless rain of the Undercroft (silly name) had vanished. Now the crimson was burning from her hair and clothes, and so was it from the trees around her. Radiant streams of silver swirled around her as the traditional scarlet glow of the Obsidian Wail (silly name) was changing. Replaced with the very silver light that comforted her as she gazed upon the obsidian canopies.

She couldn't remember ever doing anything like this. Somehow, just as she would in the tunnels, she gave in to the forces pulling her. Unlike the tunnels, her eyes were now open to the majesty of this place many believed damned. She couldn't help but gag and jolt her head back as the swirling silver collided. Streams of thick silver fluid were violently invading her nose and throat. She couldn't help but scream out as every nerve in her body pulsed with an intense heat foreign to her. As the heat began to condense in her back, she couldn't remember hunching forward and grabbing the bronze girl.

Her body convulsed as a chorus of wet pops drowned out the shrill screams of the boy child. All she could feel was an orgasmic release of pressure as the heat exploded from her back in tendrils of wispy silver light. There was no more pain as more silver tendrils erupted from her trapezius muscle. Nor pain for the bronze girl as the tendrils began to curl into every puncture wound.

What she imagined had to be painful was the reactivation of trillions of nerves running through the girl's body. In a cry to rival any banshee, the girl's body convulsed back to life. Fire-lased brown eyes bulge in terror as dozens of gaping holes painfully stitch themselves together. A mouth full of blood-stained teeth cries in agony as internal organs pulse to life. She couldn't imagine all the pain this poor girl was experiencing. How could she? She couldn't remember any soul being forced back into a host body after the Wail had claimed it. Is that what she did? That feels like something she would remember.

She was still lost in her trance when she rose to her feet. Her eyes were the color of the moon. Pale silver vapors were emitting from the tear ducts of her eyes. The silver tendrils upon her back were swaying behind her, giving the illusion of wings swaying in the moonlight. The indescribable warmth she felt swelling within her. Had she felt this before? Why couldn't she remember?

The girl was vomiting a weird brown fluid she recognized. Why did she remember this? She now realized the bronze face, removed from bruising, was familiar. It was slightly different, but she remembered this face. She was relieved as the girl stared up at her, confused but breathing. She was relieved when the girl's companion lunged forward, grasping the girl so tightly she might pop like she would disappear back into the Wail if he had let her go even slightly.

"Alcmene?!" She knew this name, and it wasn't silly. She wasn't relieved to hear the quivering tone of the boy call to his companion by name. All she felt was a pulsing cascade of needles puncturing her brain. Why did she remember this name?

"Atius?" Another name she knew, another cascade of bulging agony against her skull. Finally, she closed her eyes to relieve the pressure. She never wanted to look away from the majestic scenery of the Undercroft bathed in silver.

In an instant, the silver scenery shattered. Gone was the glow of silver that gave her warmth and comfort. Gone were her silver eyes and the tendrils that had formed from her back. Violent crimson raindrops were now drenching her hair crimson again. As she opened her eyes slowly to the murky scene, she couldn't help but smile at the two confused souls staring up at her.

"Who are you?" Atius asked, carefully helping his sister Alcmene to her feet. She understood them now, and she understood their familiar faces.

"Myrilandel, Daughter of Coral, Princess of Atlantis, Priestess of the Or-Ne-Dra, First disciple of the Goddess Lilith," Myrilandel stated in an explosion of silly names that lifted the veil that had clouded her thoughts for so long. "Guardian of the Sacred Glade" What? A new silly name! "The Living Voice of Gaia," whose ridiculous name was this? Who was Gaia? What was she saying?

"Impossible! Prove it!" Alcmene, the girl with the face of her glorious dawn, demanded, pushing her brother behind her as she stepped forward. How could Myri possibly prove something like ownership of a name?

"Where is Aurora?" Myri asked her companions calmly as the two children staring at her seemed to shrink six inches from some invisible weight. Myri understood this ultimately, Aurora was a significant name, nothing silly about it.

"Myrilandel died with Lilith. Our mother was sure! You can't be her!" Atius spoke up this time. Was she dead? That might explain quite a few things, but she didn't believe so. No, she was most definitely alive, she thinks.

"Myri!" Did she pass the test to prove her name? "Where is your mother? Where is Aurora?" Again Myri pleads for the location of her dawn. How long had she spent within the Sacred Glade? Even now, she couldn't remember. It didn't matter anymore! For whatever reason, she once again stood within the Undercroft. Now that Myri was free, a dragon's might would devour any foolish soul with a silly name that sought to keep her from Aurora!