vance chapel (heresies) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-06-01 00:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !narrative, tamar makaria |
lo and beholden
Who: Tamar Makaria
What: An evening spent alone, yet not.
Where: Tamar's chambers, Mages' Guild.
When: Friday evening.
Rating: PG-13; blood
Status: Complete!
The city laughed, and danced, and put money up to bid at auction, and Tamar Makaria watched her cauldron come to a boil. Truth be told, the sort of pomp and circumstance of which her guild-sister Domina was so fond was hardly Tamar's cup of tea. It wasn't that she necessarily found such things frivolous; back home in the Jagd she had once been something of a social butterfly, even, a charming and pretty young girl with a spring in her step and a world of possibilities opening before her like a jungleflower. That had been Before. Once called to the faith, she had felt no need for games, for carousing. Magic filled her, every corner and crevice of her body alive and singing with praise for the gods -- the true gods, the Espers, the ones who rebelled, the ones who fought to try to save all mankind. Praise for Shemhazai, who came to man and told him sweet secrets. Told him all that he was missing. Tamar knew those secrets well. Fire, and sex, and longing, and the afterlife, and all the things the gods kept hidden clutched to their breasts. Man lived in ignorance before Shemhazai came. It was Tamar's duty to ensure man was never left ignorant again. The brew in the cauldron (Am I a proper woods-witch now, Grandmother?) was a sickly green color, not the rich green of the leaves on the trees she'd played in as a child but a sallow green, a tragic green, the green of cholera and slow decay. A pinch of lamia scale and the potion shifted. Yellow, now, a jaundiced tint. You had to know pain to see truth. That was the rule. That was how it worked. Tamar raised her hand above the bubbling pot. She knew the knife like it was her own body, and the slice across her palm was honest and true and quick. Blood sluiced down into the bowl, staining the mixture scarlet. She watched, cauterizing her own wound with a whispered fire spell, as the color in the cauldron settled to an ephemeral, eager pink. Perfect. The ladle was hot once she dipped it into the pot, but she did not mind the scald of the metal. She closed her eyes. As she brought the fluid to her lips, tart and rich and still-boiling, a hiss of pleasure escaped from her throat. Her eyes opened to a new world; one glimmering with secrets. She would show this world to others. She would show it to them soon. |