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Miyu had been selected through the ritual at just six years old.
She hadn’t understood the ramifications of it at the time. It almost felt like a game to her. Why wouldn’t it? She was with her friends and they were the centre of the attention, go stand over here and smile. It was great fun.
She felt the balmy sea breeze on her face from a stage that she, and a few other children, were made to stand on. It overlooked not only an audience, but the biggest and widest view of the ocean that there was. It was beautiful. The seas were rough and choppy, a glittering sapphire beneath the crystalline azure of the skies which were streaked with fluffy white clouds.
Miyu waved at her mother who was in the crowd, chewing her nails and watched as the priest took pole position behind the children. She was scolded, tapped on the shoulder for fussing so Miyu ducked down. She stood a little taller, balled her little fists.
A rite was spoken by the priestess. Chants followed back from the crowd unto her and the children. A silver pale of seawater was passed around through the crowd, it collected offerings of tears freshly shed and then, an assistant brought it to the priestess. The voices amongst the crowd came to a crescendo and then.
The water was spilled.
Miyu giggled. The water made a huge splash and out of the corners of her eyes, she could watch how the puddle formed. The stage was bright and shiny, made of white marble. The water rushed over it, spread in entropic ways and yet.
It seemed to favour one child in the line-up: Miyu.
The water lapped at the back of Miyu’s heels. She giggled again. It tickled! She looked around and noticed something peculiar. She was the only one who was touching the water and ergo, the only one chosen by the water.
“We have our future bride…”
Those words still echoed in Miyu’s ears to this day.
Upon such declaration, the crowd dispersed. Some parents cried tears of joy, others were unaffected and so dry with apathy. Her parents were neither. Particularly her mother. She sobbed, so hard, when she was invited onto the stage whilst others left it.
The sun was bright. Harsh, even. Miyu looked up and was dazzled by the sunbeams, and confused by what was going on. Though, she would come to know what was happening very intimately as her education began.
The process of this traditional rite sealed her fate. Some societies had sacrificial lambs, hers had sacrificial children.
From that fateful, sunny day, Miyu was prepared for the goddess who required her life to keep the lives of the rest of her village safe. She was made an apprentice priestess. She had to suffer through hours upon hours of scripture, she cleaned the altars and learned all that there was to learn about water.
All so that one day… Her future wife could kill her.
In exchange for safe sailing for fishing and for protection from typhoons, every few decades, a virgin was prepared for the Water Goddess.
The role, all things considered, was venerated and easy to fulfil. Miyu couldn’t complain. Everyone had to die of something, some day. For Miyu, it was just going to be sooner rather than later. And the in-between wasn’t too bad. Easier than farming or sewing, for example. She got to lay around and eat a lot of grapes, when she wasn’t being taught her psalms or hymns. She was expected to appear as a guest of honour at lots of festivals or other religious events.
All in preparation of her big day. Her wedding. Or her murder, more accurately.
Miyu was fine with that. If anything, she was fascinated by the mythology of her wife-to-be. She was just one woman in a long line of sacrifices and it was believed, the same soul was chosen every time.
Miyu found that to be a comfort, personally. She wasn’t leaving, she wasn’t going anywhere. Not really. She would persist beyond a watery grave, leaving a bloated corpse bedecked in fine silks and beautiful jewels. Sapphires, mostly, as that’s what Aqua liked.
Oh, Aqua…
Miyu grew up learning all the stories about Aqua, and her fellow gods, too. The various elements attributed to them, their role in the seasons and in creation. Their companionship and indifference to humankind.
Aqua was the Goddess of Water and she believed in the goodness of humankind. A belief that caused her to quarrel with her kin but she must have prevailed because humankind was still here despite attempts from her siblings to end them. In addition, it was thanks to her kindness that humanity found drinkable water and the properties of salt, she was associated with truth and integrity.
Miyu found it all very admirable.
She was the exact opposite. Underneath her amiable, bubbly persona as tribute. She played oracle on occasion, the ocarina too. On the outside, she was the perfect darling but she had her bad habits. She loved a little white lie and to take what wasn’t hers on occasion. Being spoiled and pampered, with her planned death looming over her head, truly did things to the soul so she found guidance in Aqua’s teachings.
In how she prioritised truth and honour, grace and fairness. Miyu could learn a lot - and she did.
Aqua was the heroine or damsel in distress in many of their stories. In all except one. The one in which she demanded a tribute for her protection. The story went as such, one rainy day, her faithful prayed for her to call off the flood and she had simply had enough.
Her kindness had reached its limit. So she asked for a sacrifice, she asked for a young woman to call her own. Her people obliged and that was the first tribute. They sent that girl to her death and when she drowned, the clouds parted and a rainbow came through the sunglitter and water.
Aqua bowed her head in gratitude and explained, godliness was not without cost and though she did the most with what she could, it is impossible to pour from an empty pitcher. Water, blood, wine, it had its differences and some would suffice. Others would not. It would depend on the time and place of the century. Hence the cycle.
As a story, it does warn against abusing kindness, for asking for too much and not giving enough. Miyu found that fair. Though, she might be biased.
Iit truly was an honour, in Miyu’s mind and in the mind of her people, to become the quarter-centennial bride of the Goddess of Water.
Miyu couldn’t wait. It was a bit morbid to look forward to one's death but Miyu couldn’t help it. It made her all giddy on the inside. All little girls dreamed of getting married, to be fair. The enormity of difference between herself and her wife-to-be thrilled her, she found Aqua so alien despite the attempts to humanise her. This wasn't human sacrifice, it was marriage. This wasn't a lie, this was all truth. There was no back and forth of deceit and reveal because the ocean was the ocean: water could be as unforgiving as it could be giving to life. That dichotomy delighted the heretic and hypocrite in Miyu as she looked forward to that special day of hers.
And that day had finally arrived.
Miyu had looked forward to it her entire life after that ritual.
The moon the night before had been a brilliant silver in its fullness. The ocean glowed with green algae and plankton. They had a feast to celebrate. Everyone sang and prayed and believed they could look forward to another few years of safety from the troubles the ocean could bring.
Miyu’s sacrifice was honoured with gold and silver. She was festooned with flowers such as blue-bells and forget-me-not, she was adorned with sapphires and gifted a tiara. She was wrapped tightly in the softest cloth which could have fallen right off her were it not for the macrame belt that they tied around her waist. A train followed her and a veil looked ahead for her.
Her parents kissed her goodbye, they were sobbing. Sobbing so loud and Miyu could only laugh, only smile. This was the happiest day of her life but it was their saddest. Neither could see eye to eye on it as Miyu was held onto, held back by the love of her parents like anchors but time was of the essence.
Her wife-to-be had waited long enough and so had Miyu.
Now the biggest mystery of Miyu’s life could be solved. No, not what happened after death. She had that one figured out. She was put on this mortal coil to marry Aqua and she was sure she had been here before to do so and she would be back to do it again.
No, what Miyu perceived as the biggest mystery of her life was what Aqua looked like.
She had her assumptions. She had grown up in a shrine dedicated to Aqua and her visage was incorporated into the stained glass and paintings that lined the hall but no one had ever seen her for sure. She differed between depictions, they all looked slightly different but Miyu was certain. Aqua would be more beautiful, more unearthly than any physical medium created by humankind could be. That’s what she looked forward to the most as she was brought out from within the shrine the morning of.
The weather outside was dreadful but people came to see Miyu off. Rain lashed the village ruthlessly. Clouds covered the sky for as far as the eye could see, coloured miserably in grey and indigo. Thunder clapped, lightning flashed. The noise was an ever present ordinance that didn’t ease up. A wind blew through that was cold and cutting.
Miyu loved it. She could think of no better send-off as she was escorted from the shrine to the sacrificial altar on the cliff above the sea. The priestess whose ritual had selected her all those years ago began up ahead, under an umbrella and singing. People followed her with drums that boomed when played. Her parents stayed behind. They couldn’t bring themselves to say goodbye to their little girl at the beginning of her demise.
Miyu sang the loudest, she got the wettest, too. She was soaked to the bone, her dress was muddied by the end of it as she stood up that platform once again. Her heart trilled and she looked into the face of the storm. It was beautiful. A typhoon brewed far ahead, off of the coast and over the middle of the horizon.
The Goddess of Water was so cruel, for the love and kindness that she preached. She could drown them in the blink of an eye if she so chose - and today, she did. All to welcome the bride her ceremony demanded.
This was as far as the people of her village went. The marble platform separated them. The wooden arch, decorated with flowers days prior in the lead-up to the biblical event, was battered in the rain and wind. She walked through it, underneath it, and didn’t care. If anything, it excited her.
Miyu breathed deep. The smell of salt was scathing. Fish rotted down below. She loved it. She grinned. She kept walking. She felt the grass underfoot, it was soggy. Sand had become a slurry. It didn’t slow her down, nor did it warn her as Miyu got closer and closer to the brink of the cliff.
“Here comes the bride…” she sang to herself.
Her hair whipped about. Her face was cut by razors in the wind. Her clothing stuck to her and was heavy. She had to squint by now but she could see it. How waves rolled ferociously against the cliff. The white stone face eroded in real time with how rain slashed against it. The beach minimal, swallowed up by the swollen ocean that threatened floods.
Miyu had played there once upon a time. Drawn funny faces in the sand, collected seashells and constructed castles. That was… before she had been promised to Aqua as a future bride. It was, in all honesty, the last happy memory she had with her parents but even then.
The water called for her. The colourful fish that schooled, the long grasses that swished in the waves. The waves that rushed towards her only to flee just as scared as she was by how cold to the touch each other were.
And something else, too. A flick of a tentacle, a maw, and an eye. Her parents pulled her away but she tried to reach for it. She wondered what it was. She was told it was an octopus but it didn’t look like any octopus that she had ever seen.
Miyu took a breath. Her last breath. She took a step forward. Her last step.
She was relaxed the whole way down. She felt embraced by it. The cold, the wind, the water. All of it. Her shoulders were sloped. She held onto her bouquet. Her necklaces and bangles jangled.
Miyu entered the water.
Splash. It was easy. As easy as breathing. Bubbles gurgled in front of her mouth as her whole body was accepted into the frigid depths of the sea off the cliff.
The water not only embraced her, it kissed her.
It was choppy and freezing cold. The rain didn’t penetrate its meniscus but it still hit hard nonetheless. The entrance was a shock to all of Miyu’s system. It wasn’t pretty. Bones broke. She was battered by the very jewellery she had been gifted. She all but felt her brain bounce around her skull. It was difficult, a battle, just to open her eyes but it was worth it to Miyu as she saw her.
Aqua.
Miyu knew it wasn’t an octopus that day. She knew that Aqua wasn’t some waifish woman with wavy blonde hair and ample bosom.
Aqua was unknowable. A force of primordial nature. A glowing eye. Swirling tentacles that wrapped around Miyu’s limbs. Drew her in tight, to her face and rubbed against her.
A kiss.
Miyu kissed back. Desperately. She had so much love in her heart for her goddess and she hoped Aqua knew. Of course she knew. Aqua had chosen her for a reason, even before that spell of seawater had even been cast from a silver pail.
“I love you…” Miyu mumbled as she drowned in Aqua’s arms and in her love.