by Will Stanton » Thu Apr 20, 2017 8:11 pm
Will had spent about a day making sure the Point was both a) intact and b) the same as it was before. Sure, the science people had assured him it had been as such, but what did science really know?
In this case, it seemed to know quite a bit. Will had never been an adept student of The Mystic Arts as Taught By A Crazy Cat Lady -- or indeed, anything close to one, for that matter -- but from everything he could see with his Muggle eyes, everything seemed to be more or less in order. Which was good! If his Morrigan was ever going to find him, this would probably be important; and not something he could easily rig up a replacement for.
That being said, there were still a few things he needed to do...
And that's why she was up in the old lantern room of the lighthouse, the very top. This is where...well, quite a lot had happened, and she associated it with important rites for that reason. From what she'd been told, this space had been used for important rites since before there was a lighthouse built, and that's something she could understand, even if she couldn't feel any mystic...juju or whathaveyou. Places were important. Procedures were important. And even if she had had to learn them by rote, learn them she had.
And that's why she was up there. Her hair, longer than usual, cascaded in a ponytail to about her mid-back. She was wearing a long green dress, floor-length, with dark red sleeves. From somewhere -- being a shifter, the "somewhere" was perhaps more obvious than others -- she had rustled up a ruby to go into a golden necklace, and on her forehead, wore a circlet with three more stones in an inverted triangle.
She had made a small fire, from some yew branches, and was tending it. She thought, at least, that she had disabled all of ASHLIE's smoke detectors and the like, but goodness knows, the robot was paranoid, and there was every chance she had missed some.
The first time she had done this, she had gone though book after book, looking up and researching things. It turns out that the idea of contacting Celtic goddesses led to quite the wide range of goofy ideas over the years, as had the advent of neopaganism, especially in the '60s. All kinds of nonsense with candles and drums and energies and dancing and chanting and circles and ale. Well, maybe the ale wasn't that bad of an idea, but the XUB was down there, and she could always walk down and grab a pint when things were all over. Plus, she could get a nice light blue drink with an umbrella instead of the ale. That's better, and any Goddess who would deny her that is no goddess of hers.
The chanting and the circles, the swords and stones and spears, all of that was well and good. If it made people feel more empowered, more power to them, as it were. Will believed, though, that it was more important to perform a ceremony based on what's in your own heart, and for Will, that had always been food. She couldn't really put her finger on why that was, but, thematically, it always seemed to fit.
Now, in the olden days, this would be a blood sacrifice. Someone would go out into the fields and go kill a boar or something, and drag it back; a proper offering. The brown paper parcel with a couple nice juicy strip steaks in it...didn't really count. But, if the Morrigan didn't come -- and she didn't, always -- then hey, free steaks! That's what we call a win-win situation.
Still, it wasn't quite enough. As she placed the steaks into the fire, she also pulled out a small silver dagger, and made a quick, sharp cut across her palm. A bit of her blood fell onto the steaks into the fire -- and it was blood this time, not one of the many comical substitutes she would use when messing with people. No melted butter or strawberry jam here; sometimes, the traditional ways were best.
The smell of cooking meat began to fill the room as Will sat, cross-legged, in front of the fire. "I come into the dark, and I call for the great queen" she said, slowly and softly.
Sometimes nothing happened. And there was no guarantee anything would work in this wrong dimension. But sometimes just sitting and contemplating helped in and of itself.
((open))