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Seasons had passed since she’d last traversed these paths, the ground hard and ice-cold, like sharp stones sinking into the soft soles of her feet through her leathers. The going, thus, had been far from easy — briars and overgrowths marring her solemn pilgrimage, the twittering dissatisfaction of spirits haunting the land evident in the wind’s freezing bite on her cheeks.
It was tempting, ever so tempting. That thrice-damned village, as well as the chieftain who bore the responsibility for the lack of upkeep, lay some leagues behind her — unsuspecting. Cursing them, and any resultant offsprings, would no doubt prove a simple matter.
Such an action, as Rumi had been taught in her younger years, was also unbecoming of a seeress of her stature. She did not work her seidr for free.
She had been so small, a spritely thing in a billowing gown. The fabric had caught up around her ankles in the most frustrating fashion whenever she’d tried to run across the loam-scented grounds, fey-wild and too eager.
The colors of the world had still belonged to her, and her teacher was her entire world.
“Veleda, how can you smile so? You can’t see, you don’t know me.”
“Do not suppose I don’t know you, girl,” came the reply. “You don’t see the Lady Fuyumi as she works her wintry wiles, no? But would you ever claim not to know her?”
Under her breath, Rumi huffed, feeling the warmth of it brush back to tickle her nose. She pulled her furs tighter over her shoulders.
In truth, she was simply frustrated. It had been long since she’d bothered journeying this far west to perform the midwinter rites, her sight going more and more with each passing year. News carried, still, that this settlement had been hit particularly hard in the freeze — all cloying ice and blackened earth. Hunts bore nothing but frostbite on the fingers and hungry bellies.
Initially, Rumi had pitied the poor fools. Her goddess’s wrath was known to be a fickle thing, and one with which not to be trifled. Realizing the state of disrepair the Lady Fuyumi’s temple must currently reside in, she now cursed their idiocy, though it was far too late to return from whence she came.
She had to reach the Lady’s temple by nightfall, or the spirits would grow restless and lead her astray. It was said that the Lady was partial to the skies, and that was why her temples were kept among the highest outcrops. Rumi counted her steps, feeling along the cliff-face to guide her as she ascended, the breath between her teeth growing thin and strained.
Hopefully the chieftain, at the very least, had not forgotten to leave offerings. Already she grew hungry, and she had many ritual steps to perform before her goddess would allow her to partake, to warm her blood by the hearth to combat the chill upon the air.
Patience, the remembered voice of her veleda seemed to chide. The admonishment came to no surprise; Rumi had always been far too brash. Too quick. The winter does not descend until summer has had its due.
Even still, relief bloomed under her breast as soon as the garbled rock that worried at the tips of her fingers transitioned to smooth, even stone. Further exploration revealed the arch of the temple’s doorway, ‘neath which it was easy to slip away from the winter cold.
For all that she was a goddess of snow and ice, of all of the small deaths that defined a season, in Rumi’s meager experience Lady Fuyumi’s temples were always warm.
Inside, thankfully, she located a bountiful spread of offerings–plump fruits that were soft to the touch, aged cheeses, cured meats. Next to the offering table, there was a mote for burning, and a shelf of sweet-smelling herbs available to be lit.
With slightly shaking hands, Rumi went through the rote motions of the ritual for entry, granting her own guest-welcome in the house of her Lady, the aroma of burning herb quickly filling the enclosed space. Only then did she dare to light the hearth, to drag an old and dusty straw mat from one corner of the temple to collapse upon.
Such was her exhaustion, she forgot the hunger that had buoyed her steps, unable to even partake of the temple offerings. Rumi slept, dreamless, unaware of eyes that watched over her from the eaves.
veleda = Germanic term; witch with the gift of prophesy.
seidr = magic, or "mana."
In the end, it was not the displeased rumble of her empty stomach that woke her, nor the apparent cold creeping against the dying embers in the hearth. Instead, Rumi felt as if she were drifting through a dream, back again at her veleda’s side as the elderly woman ran rhythmic fingers through her hair.
Only half-waking, she could not help but cant her head into the sensation. Nails trailed pleasantly from her scalp, down, down ‘round the backs of her sensitive ears, out through the long length of her tresses only to then begin anew. It was a kind touch, and a calming one, which was perhaps why it took Rumi so long to remember that she ought not to be feeling it at all.
Once awareness returned, she shot upright and taut like a bowstring. Her voice rang clear. “Who dares to touch me? This is a sacred place.”
For a moment there was only the howling winter wind, striking up against the outer walls of the temple. And then —
A girlish giggle, though the sound itself bore little resemblance to that of a child. Something within it set the heart racing. “Aren’t we lovely? To pray so familiarly before the altar, and then take me for a stranger.”
This woman, she spoke of the Lady — no, she spoke of herself.
“You — ” Rumi began to protest what was surely blasphemy, but she had scarcely uttered the first syllable when she felt the firm press of a finger against her lips. It emitted an unnatural chill.
“You require proof,” the voice came once again. “Ah, don’t you always? Curious little things. Come by the hearth, close; I will show you, therefore you might believe my claims. But know that it is not usually within my nature to bend so.”
Had she her wits about her, Rumi might have resisted. She might have pulled herself from the touch that guided her, clasping around the braces bound across her forearms to heft her weight with ease. Instead, her mind stuttered, awash with possibilities.
Could it really be the Lady, deigning to take corporeal form after years of naught but silence in answer to hushed, hopeful prayers? If it were so, could Rumi risk refusing her?
Could she risk trusting an imposter?
“I can hear you fret, ástin mín. Still your thoughts, and no harm shall come to you.”
The woman spoke in such a soothing tone, Rumi soon found herself willingly following the other toward the central hearth, smoldering in its pit. Her feet shuffled across the packed earthen floors, slow as the sound of her own heartbeat in her chest.
Heat bloomed across her skin without warning, and Rumi instinctively shied away from embers that she knew had climbed to roaring flame, perhaps not entirely of their own volition. The grip upon her braces held fast, steady and grounding until she calmed.
“My Lady,” Rumi said, softer than she intended. It was nearly sweltering with the fires of the hearth so close at hand, but she had half-accepted her companion’s identity already. “Surely you do not mean to — ”
“Ah, yet how else?”
“The heat — ”
“How else? ” the Lady interrupted, and it was with more force in her voice than Rumi had heard before. “Have the fey pulled a film o’er your mind, to forget what you know so easily? Do you believe that my father’s fires could ever harm me?”
There was little Rumi could say to that.
“Prepare yourself,” the Lady said, and such was all the warning Rumi received before her companion stepped away, pulling her ever-closer into open flame. There was a swift, popping sound — the cadence of coals crackling underfoot.
One more step, and then —
And then. Rumi half-winced before she stepped, so sure of her own burning. She gasped as the soft arch of her foot met with coal, and then did so once more as the searing pain she’d anticipated failed to arise. Instead, it was as if she were merely treading across the smoothed stones of a riverbed, and the flames flickering around her legs brushed against her skin as softly as summer reeds.
It felt… exhilarating. Like power thrumming through her veins.
Something of her wonderment must have shown in her expression, for her companion’s trilling laughter abruptly filled the air, rising high above even the hearthfire. The goddess, for she could only be such, gave Rumi’s forearms a light squeeze before speaking.
“Remember this, ástin mín. See it, now — how you shall not come to harm if I do not will it, and even my cardinal opposite sways to my will. There is naught under the heavens that can outmatch the storm’s cry, or outlast winter’s stillness.”
“My Lady…” Her throat had dried, the words misshapen upon her lips.
Again, Lady Fuyumi laughed.
“Come, now, we will have plenty of time to hear each other. I would learn more from you, ástin mín. But soot gathers upon your garb, and hunger gnaws.”
Indeed, Rumi’s stomach chose precisely that moment to make its displeasure known. She felt a heat rise in her face that had nothing to do with the surrounding flames. But the Lady spoke once more, fingers tugging at her own, and this too was forgotten.
“Let us feast upon what these wayward worshippers have gathered.”
It was not until much later, when Rumi was licking the stick of their shared meal from her skin that she thought to ask. “My Lady?”
The Lady hummed, sonorous, the wild cat that had made off with her prey. She was listening.
Rumi, too, had grown content. Perhaps too much so. She found the edge of her long tunic, lifting the fabric to better wipe her meal from her fingers. “Why have you punished the peoples of this region? I have not sojourned here for the rites in some time.”
“What a question,” the Lady replied. There was something like an edge to her tone, barely discernible, but it made Rumi’s stomach clench in knots, abrupt like a chill breaking over flesh. She would not have been surprised had she been struck down that very instant. Did she not know better than to show such impudence?
What mere mortal put the wills and whims of the gods to the test?
To her surprise, however, the Lady did no such thing. Instead, there was a soft sigh, close enough to brush by Rumi’s cheek in a mockery of a caress.
“It is simple, ástin mín. As you may have noticed, it is not my offerings that have run dry. To disrespect my family is to disrespect me.”
Rumi felt her brow furrow. Her question had only been half-answered, and the remnants of her meal had yet to be cleansed, no matter how vigorously she cleaned. Despite this, let it not be said she would make the same mistake twice. “Of course, my Lady.”
“You are yet unsure,” that sonorous voice came again, and Rumi felt a light touch encircle her wrist. A damp cloth, freshly warmed from the hearth, was taken to her fingertips one-by-one. “But it is not so uncommon to forget. I speak of Touya, my dear brother.”
Touya. The name alone was nearly enough to cause Rumi to flinch, had she any lesser constitution. A violent trickster god, or so he was known — she was unsurprised to learn that the village had neglected his temple.
“They did not invite his wrath?! I have not seen — ”
“Cremation?” the Lady filled in, strangely solemn. She’d moved on to Rumi’s other hand, performing the duties of a servant of her own accord, and the seeress was loath to stop her. The touch was… gentle. “My brother follows his whims, and whether his worship is kept is beneath his notice. Even still, I would not idle and watch as his altars fall to ruin.”
Once Rumi’s hands were clean of their meal, the cloth and the Lady’s touch both fell away. The seeress almost reached out to reclaim that touch, only just remembering her place. There was a new hunger brimming beneath her skin, a craven want that she scarcely understood.
It was…
“Ah,” the Lady began, brightness returning. “Let us speak of other matters.”
And speak they did, well into the early hours, as Rumi recalled. Lady Fuyumi had many questions — Rumi’s upbringing, her kin, how she came to lead her life and why she chose to spend it in devotion. She had never had one who asked after her so thoroughly, and soon found her tongue loosened, bundled warm and secure by the fires of the hearth.
Then, there were the coming days.
Each morn’, Rumi awoke with the expectation of loneliness, a pang in her chest even as she understood that a goddess had greater paths to walk, larger destinies to follow than sheltering atop such a desolate mountainside. It was a simple truth she voiced each time she braved the winter winds to feel the sun rise over the planes of her skin, the Lady’s voice would unerringly return her call, cloying yet welcome.
Have you flown yet, my Lady?
Not as of yet. It is my desire to stay one night more.
It was beautiful. It was disastrous. For Rumi had grown to recognize the strangeness in her chest, the burning of her blood that ran rampant whenever the Lady was near, and it was not a dream she wished, or dared, to allow herself to ponder. Only under the blanketing cover of night did she bloom, growing bold enough to return the graces that the Lady so fervently bestowed upon her.
A touch here, a skip and a twisting. They laughed, and they danced, and Rumi died each morning to slowly thaw ‘neath wintery fingertips.
It was a sunrise like any other, when the Lady’s answer changed.
“Fly I must, ástin mín, to the north.”
“Yes, my Lady.”
Never did Rumi feel the need to close her eyes, not before that moment. Before, it did not seem to make a difference — whether she closed herself to the world or not, as all she could make of it was darkness. Now, she felt the chill of the ice that had gathered upon her lashes dust against her cheekbones, delicate like a kiss.
Then, a change in the atmosphere, sharp and crackling with centuries-old power. A presence next to her, for all it did not radiate heat. Rumi was not afraid.
A breath.
“Come with me, dearest.”
A kiss, for true — and a different sort of dance. Her eyes were yet closed, but she was lit all afire. “M-my Lady… I — ”
The wind carried her answer, her voice, to those who needed most to hear. And seasons hence, as the seers would divine, the Lady no longer walked alone.
ástin mín = my darling, or sometimes - my love.