Work Text:
(Alright, for a bit of context, Corona has a plethora of definitions, but the two I chose for this prompt were “a rarefied gaseous envelope of the sun and other star. The sun’s corona is normally visible only during a total solar eclipse, when it is seen as an irregularly shaped pearly glow surrounding the darkened disk of the moon” as well as “a circular chandelier in a church”. The definitions were taken from the base Google page, which supposedly gets its info from Oxford languages. I was also inspired by the Aztec’s relationship with the sun and ring symbolism for the image of the churches. Enjoy!)
There was screaming in the church.
There was silence in the church.
There was a corpse on the alter.
They say The Watcher needs the blood.
Without the life drained away from some intelligent soul The Watcher would go hungry.
And if The Watcher went hungry, well…
Very bad things would follow.
What sort of bad things?
Well, if The Watcher starved it would go mad.
Destroying everything in an attempt to fill His caving belly.
Even The Watcher’s greatest servants, even His most devoted followers would perish and be consumed.
So they feed Him.
But what if it isn’t enough?
What if the hunger receded and the cold of The Void encroached?
What would happen if The Watcher died?
Or died as much as a god could.
Blasphemy to think of.
Yet a question often thought.
Death for everyone.
Death for everything.
Everything smothered by The Void, the freezing darkness.
The Watcher with his flaming eye, watches over us as the Sun.
In death the eye winks closed, and all would freeze and none could burn.
It’s happened before.
The moon slipped over, that treacherous flower, leaving only a struggling, fiery ring.
Always rings.
The priests slaughtered a whole quarter's worth of people.
The streets were covered in crimson and pink.
And The Watcher returned, back from the brink.
It has happened before.
It might happen again.
The Watcher is fire, He is the all consuming flame.
He is the sun that beats down, and the heat that scorches.
He cuts and He takes and He eat and eats and He is never full.
But He culls the diseased as well. He strikes down the unworthy with blood and flames.
And as the sun burns skin so does it fill bellies.
Wheat will not grow without sun.
Cattle would not be born.
Bread would not rise, tides would not sink.
And the cold would freeze up all.
The sun is necessary.
The world would smother without The Watcher.
So he is fed as he feeds.
Churches of The Watcher were different from other religious places.
They are no quiet shrines in the woods, with patrons offering fruits and flowers in dark-stained wooden bowls.
There are no calm rooftops for the faithful to gather dressed with shawls and murmuring hymns when the moon is dim and the stars are bright.
There are no small cloches in the wall of a boat, for sailors to clutch their carven necklaces of gulls and pray for clear skies at a painting of creatures of the deep.
Churches of The Watcher are not quiet.
Churches of The Watcher are not calm.
And Churches of The Watcher are certainly not small.
The Watcher craves blood above all else.
Blood is life force, taken to fuel His greatness.
But He craves other things too.
The strongest wine, the brightest gold, the youngest women and the prettiest men.
The finest cut gems as well.
So his churches are rich and large.
Pretty, beautiful things.
Favoured marriages have ceremonies held under The Watcher.
He would watch to keep the couple accountable for their vows, strike down any oath breaker.
A good thing in an uncertain time.
The couple would drink strong wine from a shared cup.
The Watcher’s cup, inscribed with his eye.
Then the couple split skin and shared blood and gave some to The Watcher.
More blood for more blessings.
Some even pass out, trying for all they can.
And with the youngest women and prettiest men and above all the richest families,
He marries them with rings.
Rings of gold and circle gems.
All the blessings for the ones with rings.
The grandest Church of The Watcher was not a church at all, but a Temple.
The Temple of The One-Eyed One, they call it.
It has a magnificently wrought door, made of iron twisted in the shape of spiked flames.
The walls are covered in art, symbolic paintings of crowns and wolves and rings.
Always rings.
The pillars are gilded, brushed with a thick layer of gold lacquer, twineing up to the sky.
Rumors say they added blood into the golden paint too.
More blood for more blessings after all.
The pillars support a dome, a grand feat of architecture.
The building stands, tall and strong and proud, constructed up on a hill above the city.
One could see the temple for miles around.
The apple of the city’s eye.
A gen in the continent’s crown.
A beautiful, world changing technique designed by one of the realm’s greatest minds.
The priests plucked out his eyes and added him to the very first service.
Hanging from the dome’s highest point was a beautiful chandelier.
A massive things of crystal and diamond, little circular gems that flashed and caught the light of the torches.
Each one a winking eye.
The chandelier shape was a circular one obviously.
Circles mean rings after all.
And it is always rings and fire and blood.
So much fire.
So many rings.
So much blood.
And as I look up from the alter,
With my wedding ring on my hand and my blood flowing onto the floor,
I see the chandelier, that beautiful corona,
Dancing with torchfire flames.
I wonder if my blood is beautiful too.
Because everything in the Temple is beautiful.
Even my blood.
Even my red covered ring.
Always, the ring.