646 - He Showed Me the Face

Sorry for the short post, social obligations.  More later today i.e. Tuesday because I posted one minute late.

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I blinked and found myself holding aloft my left hand, bare of glass.  What had happened? It must be in the hands of the dekina... yes.  There it was, in her hands. I blinked and blinked again trying to orient myself after what felt like a hard and killing run.

My lungs burned as if I had run that hard, the taste of blood on the back of my tongue. I was on the eighth step of Dimae’s Ten and as I turned and stepped into the last figure I felt the urge... to whine.  I did as I finished and genuflected.  How had I done Her Ten without seeing, without being there?

I turned toward Aras, my glass-free hand coming across my body to pull the glass sword out of the mass on my left as if I drew it out of my fist. It felt as if I were filled with light, filled with energy.  Where had this gift come from?  The Goddess.  The Huntress.  The Hunted and never killed.  The White Hart and her Eternal Pack. She Who Gores. She upheld me and buoyed me up. The Ever Flowing... River.

I flowed across the Temple floor realizing that the tiles between Aras and Dimae were in faint outline of the Arkan river. How had I not realized this before?  It was as faint as the markings on the fessas etchings. And why the river?

I stepped up to Aras and raised my sword in salute to him and froze.  I couldn’t catch my breath.  I couldn’t bear this.  I couldn’t do this. My heart would freeze in the wind off the Yeoli mountains crack into pieces, and fall in bloody rags upon the floor.  Aras rose, showing me not the His own face, but the face of my first true war teacher.

Second Amitzas.