Work Text:
Worship
(Goddesses AU)
Patience. It wasn’t Weiss’ strongest virtue. A shame, according to the sacred texts and the tales the old folks kept on telling, patience was a crucial part of winning the Woodland Spirit’s graces. How could she sit still, when it was finally her turn to make the offering.
In the beginning, she chose to join the priestesses of the Woodland Spirit to spite her father. After her older sister decided to run off with some vagabond and later join the shield maidens, her father planned restlessly and sat on pins and needles to be able to marry her off to some rich man twice her age. To her father, the end justifies the means. Especially if getting to the end involved getting as much coin as possible.
‘Good luck marrying off Whitley for wealth, father.’ She thought to herself with a deep satisfaction.
She sat proudly in her seat. Over the years being a priestess grew on Weiss. It was an enjoyable and humble way of living. But she felt it more meaningful than just to sit around and be a bargain chip for her father.
She even made true friends! Well, one friend, but a dear one, who most probably would follow her to the end of the world and back. And she had to admit, she’d do the same for the girl. Who was currently squirming impatiently in her seat just like her. The girl clad in all white turned to her.
“I can’t believe we can make the sacrifice this conjunction!” Penny whispered excitedly. To that, Weiss smiled dearly.
The two of them waited so long for this day to come. All their studies, time spent with prayer and fulfilling errands in the name of the priestesses of the Woodland Spirit all boiled down to this moment. An offering well done meant safety and prosperity for the community. Even if it was an easy task, it had to be done perfectly. Place the sacrificial gift, say the prayers, and offer your devotion to the goddess. Simple enough.
The Woodland Goddess being easy on the eyes certainly helped too. Weiss always had a keen eye for art and beauty, as an honorably raised daughter of a world-famous merchant. And if the statues in the temple were anything to go by, Weiss would happily leave her life of celibacy for the Goddess.
In her weaker moments, her mind frequently wandered. Her thoughts centered on the appealing form of the goddess. Sweet face, but determined, frame built for the joys of hunt. Strong, fast and persistent. No wonder the Woodland Spirit have been their protector for millennia now. It would have been ungrateful to not worship and devote everything she is to the goddess. As a priestess, it was her sworn duty and goal in life. After all, the safety of the community depended on the priestesses’ job well done.
The pair stepped up to the altar. Penny placed the cornucopia on the masterfully carved stone platform. Most of the Woodland Spirit’s temple was modest and simple in design. Weiss always thought it treacherous that their most valuable deity had the humblest temple of all. But it wasn’t the time to dwell on this.
She raised her arms as if she wanted to embrace the world and said the words of the prayer in the old tongue. The prayer rang loud and clear, the melodic lines echoing faintly on the stone walls. Weiss continued, just as she had practiced it countless times. After arranging the offerings in a pleasing manner, Penny joined in on the prayer turned rhythmic chanting. Not long and the other priestesses and temple-goers joined in too.
***
“Do you think she’ll answer our prayers?” Penny asked while the two of them walked down the beaten path to the lake between the mountains.
“Oh, I sure hope so. She’s really hot.” Weiss let that slip out carelessly “… I meant to say…” The girl tried to explain herself.
“I know… I can’t stop staring at the statues either.” Penny admitted with a faint blush and a giggle. Their shared crush on the Woodland Goddess was a well kept secret between the two. It was often a reason for them to joke around with it. The two was certain that most other priestesses must feel the same, but would never admit it.
The pair sat comfortably on a big, sun warmed rock by the lake. A blanket of comfortable silence enveloping them. One or the other calling out or pointing to watch out for the animals that come to the lake for a drink. After a while Weiss felt her eyes getting heavy. After all, she wasn’t nervous about the ceremony going well. But she most certainly was excited about it. Excited enough to miss out on some much needed sleep the night before. She felt the heaviness creep to her whole body. The last thing she remembered was leaning into Penny, who in return, leaned slightly into her, offering support. After that point, Weiss has little to no memory but the chirping of birds and the sun warming her face.
She woke to Penny violently shaking her. It had grown dim in the meantime. A storm was approaching for certain. Weiss could feel it in the air. Just as she felt Penny still shaking her.
“I’m up.” she murmured half asleep. As she turned to the other girl, she saw pure shock on Penny’s fair face. Weiss followed Penny’s gaze and she laid eyes on the most grotesque thing she had seen in all her life.
On the other side of the glacial lake, kneeled a hunched over humanoid figure, clad in a deep red robe, complete with a concealing hood. But why did it bend over to drink from the water, was beyond Weiss’ understanding. Most humans would just use their hands but this unusual creature drank like animals. The fact that it had a pair of impressive antlers on top of its head didn’t help one bit.
“Who is it? A druid of some sort?” Penny mumbled, careful not to scare the… whoever or whatever it was drinking on the opposite shore. The two watched with great intensity, but none of them could come up with any answers. They never saw anything like this creature.
The creature lazily stretched as it finished drinking and stood up on its hind legs. Weiss promptly expected to see the said legs to be bent like an animal. But to her relief, the legs were normal human legs. As it turned out, it was a normal person with interesting choices of wardrobe. It would have been a sight to see a decorated deer walking on two legs!
Weiss could feel Penny loosen that same tension, she didn’t know she held. The creature decided it had its fill and started to walk back into the forest. As for deer headed people go, this one had an entertaining spring in its step. All in all, this sinister-looking, glooming figure was fun to watch as it walked so happily into the woods.
“It must be really good water. Look how happy she is.” Penny pointed out cheerfully. As if on cue, the creature turned on her heel, glaring at the two. Strangely, her eyes seemed like they reflected the plane of water and gleamed with a faint silver glow. This ‘she’ gazed at the pair for a long moment, a moment that Weiss felt stretch into eternity. Suddenly out of nowhere the stranger raised one arm high up. No matter how hard Weiss squinted and tried, she could only make up patches of light brown and white in a big patch of red. With that the figure took on her path back to the forest.
“Weiss.” Penny turned to her “What does this mean?” she asked as she held up her closed fist, with a thumb sticking straight out.
“I have no idea, Penny.” She said as she rose from her place “But we probably should go back. The storm is approaching fast.” Weiss held her arm out for Penny.
A few minutes later the two ran up the path they came from. The fat raindrops made everything slippery, but Penny held onto her hand like a lifeline. Weiss was sure, if her hand slipped, Penny would not notice, but run faster as she was practically dragging her along the path now. Damn this girl makes good use of her long legs and perfect eyesight. By the time Weiss realized where they were running, they were already in shelter from the raging storm.
“Whew! This was refreshing!” Penny said.
For that, Weiss had a witty remark in tow. But every witty remark died in her throat as her mouth got suddenly too dry to speak.
While it wasn’t against the rules for a priestess to show themselves without their hoods in public, it was rare that anyone broke tradition. The sight of women in all white with hoods on meant one thing: priestesses for the Woodland Goddess. The look grew such an engraved symbol for the people, it was no use to change any of it.
When the sight of Penny, her dearest friend Penny, drying her hair and twisting her hooded robe to get rid of the excess water, Weiss stood, frozen in stupor, maybe her lip quivered a little. She wasn’t sure, but of one thing: the quivering wasn’t because of the cold of her own soaked clothes. By all the gods, she had no idea that the uniform was this form fitting….
“Come on, Weiss! Let’s sit by the fire. It seems so it won’t let up soon.” Penny turned towards her. Her face was presenting a healthy blush under her freckles. “We don’t want to catch a cold, do we?” She smiled and walked closer to one of the hanging pans with sparks of a small flame in it. Penny stood there for a moment, deep in thought. “Now I’m sure I saw one of the sisters lower this pan somehow…” she murmured under her breath.
The red haired girl moved around the temple with practiced ease. She let out a victorious little grunt when she figured out how to lower the pan and she fed the fire to a decent flame. Weiss stepped closer to the fire too. With the heat gone under her collar, she started to feel the cold through her soggy coat. The two shared the heat of the flames in comfortable silence as always. None of them were a stranger to temple duty. Even if the regular schedule of guard duties were always cleared for the night of the conjunction.
“You hear that?” Weiss looked around expectantly. There was, in fact, a faint rustling sound of items and… footsteps?
“Probably just some animal. You know the harmless creatures of the forest are allowed to eat from the altar.” Penny said, rubbing her palms together and not paying much mind to Weiss’ concerns. “Besides, we are all instructed to not wander deep into the temple during the night.”
“Well, I’m going to check it out. No harmless critter of the forest has footsteps that sound like a human’s.” Weiss braced herself.
“Signal if you need help, okay?” Penny called after her. The white haired girl nodded in response. “So small, yet so feisty.” Penny giggled to herself and added another chunk of wood to the fire. She was in the middle to add another when Weiss’ angry screaming made her jump so hard, she nearly kicked the embers out of the pan.
“How dare you!? Go away you hobo! Shoo! SHOO!” at that Penny sprinted on full speed deeper into the temple.
The sight that greeted poor Penny surpassed the wildest tales she’d ever heard. There was a hunched someone in one of the darker corners, holding the flap of their cloak as a makeshift basket, full of goods from the ceremony before and there was Weiss, cornering that poor person with one of the curtain poles, where Weiss could get such a thing, was a mystery.
“Take your mannerless, dirty hobo body elsewhere! How dare you defile the sacred altar of our greatest deity!? Explain yourself!” Weiss seemed like she was ready to pop a vein.
The figure mumbled something incoherent, since their mouth was full of food and they had the courage to shove even more food into their face. That move alone served as oil to the fire.
“Leave now, or I swear to the goddess, will stab you!” Weiss yelled, and for the record she looked determined enough, to actually do good on her word.
“You cornered them, Weiss. At least let them leave.” Penny stepped in as a moderator. The slight diversion was enough for the person to dash to the altar. And gods were they fast? One moment in the corner, the other, sweeping even more goods into their improvised basket. Making work hastily, looking back and forth between the food and their attacker. Trinkets dangling wildly on their antler.
“You are the girl from the lake!” Penny exclaimed. “Weiss, leave her be. She’s hungry.”
Weiss lunged at them with a war cry worthy of a shield maiden and prepared to strike. The person, still chewing violently, reflective eyes the size of a saucer, decided to pick the easiest way out.
“The creatures of the forest are welcome to eat here, not some dirty hobos!” The shorter girl kept her weapon pointed at the intruder.
“But she’s hungry!” Penny moved to hold back the other girl. For that the girl with antlers nodded ferociously. “See? She’s hungry!”
“And she stole from the altar of the Woodland Spirit!” Weiss glared daggers at the cloaked figure as she tousled with Penny to take in a hit that would at least help her feel better about letting some dirty hobo defile the temple under their watch.
Just at a careless moment, a piece of sweet pastry slipped from the grip of the thief. That was enough for Weiss. She bonked the poor girl on the head, right between that ridiculous antler headband-thing, with all her might. The distinctive sound of the bonk on the head echoed off of the temple walls for a good while.
Fortunately that helped the girl swallow in an instant. It was one thing to snitch a bagel or two from the altar. Since the Woodland Spirit was always generous to others, but to swipe all of it into a dirty rug and even have the audacity to shove most of it into one’s face was outright blasphemous.
The girl, with her mouth now free to express her state of turmoil, let free flow for her feelings. Through words. Words that both girls recognized as the old tongue.
“What is your problem, even?” The girl rubbed the sore spot between her antlers with great care. “I appreciate you guarding my food so fiercely, but for all mother’s sake! Let. Me. Eat.” She applied steady pressure on the top of her head now. With her obscuring hood out of the way, her face way free for all to see.
Penny and Weiss stared with jaws hanging loose, Weiss’ weapon made curtain pole landed with a loud clink on the cold stone floor. This girl was the splitting image of the goddess. Despite the antlers, of course but she was the same as the statues, down to the last detail. The set of her jaw, the arch of her nose, even the shape of her eyes was the same.
“I can’t believe it… You leave food out, and you won’t let me eat it now?” She turned disapprovingly to the other two. Still rubbing on her sore head and shuffling the dark brown locks “I’ve even loosened my belt! Look!” The girl, with the antlers and the considerable bulge growing on her head claimed.
Following the not quite order, the two looked and the said belt truly was loosened.
“Now imagine how I’d look if I ran out of my own house, stealing my own food and my pants around my ankles.” The goddess said. She tried really hard to stay upset, but the mental image of herself running bare assed, with an armful of food proved too much to resist. “You would have to include that part in the prayers when telling my story.” She barked with laughter, a few teardrops of joy appearing in her mirroring silver eyes. She looked expectantly on the priestesses, only to see them still captured by a baffled state.
“I always thought you were taller. And what’s with the antlers?” Was all Weiss could muster. Her voice was weak, filled with disbelief. Not concerning if what she saw was the truth. But if she was the one who got bonked on the head.
“Way to complement the goddess, Weiss.” Penny snorted a short laugh. She tried and failed to suppress.
"Yeah, sadly we don't count the antlers in. I’m still waiting on my growing spurt. That’s why I need all this food." The goddess rubbed gently on her antlers. Surprisingly, they still had velvet on them, among a horde of braided trinkets, colorful woven strings, shiny little amulets and even jewelry made from bird feathers. The girl glanced up at the stone carved in her likeness.
“They are difficult to carve, if you ask me. Gran watched your artists try to carve them on the first statues. She said they always broke it off one way or the other. So Gran told them to let it slip.”
The girl in red settled down on one of the closest benches and continued her feast for one.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Come and join me!” she patted the surface next to herself “Pick something to eat and I’ll tell you the real tale of the Woodland Spirit.”
“But the food is for….” Weiss started slowly, unsure of how to proceed. She looked to Penny and she had to acknowledge that the red haired girl was already taking her pick. Weiss looked on in disbelief as Penny picked one of her all time favorite snacks, a selection of fruits and nuts, and made herself comfortable on the bench opposite of their guest. Was she really their guest and not the other way around if they were in the Woodland Spirit’s temple? This was something she surely had to think about later.
“Nonsense! It’s a stupid thing to let good food go to waste. Especially if it’s offered with good will.” The goddess smiled sweetly at her. Somehow she didn’t seem only one bit furious about the bonking incident. “Go on! And you better hurry, while you still have the chance to pick. Why bother even? Dawn is still a good while away, and there’s not a sign of the storm letting up.”
Reluctantly, but Weiss stepped up to the platform and took the first edible item she got her hands on, then moved to sit next to Penny. Who already started to eat her fill. Despite all her uneasiness, Weiss felt her stomach crumble at the thought of food.
“Good! Now let’s eat to honor the big day!” the dark haired girl raised her half eaten pastry above her head “To the birthday girl!” she said cheerily and finished the baked goods in one swift bite. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’ll tell you all about it,.” she smiled.” But first. You must promise me the next time there will be floor pillows. I’ve seen the temples of the other gods… Why am I the only one who has none?”
When the goddess understood that she’ll get no other answer than the uncomfortable looks, she didn’t push, but made sure that her request for pillows would be fulfilled. She shuffled around on the stone bench, trying to get comfortable.
“So now.” she started with one last futile effort to stop the hard surface breaking her butt. ”I am your current protector spirit from the Woodlands. And you can call me Ruby Rose.”