Disclaimer: see first chapter
AN: This was originally one big chapter but I've been sick the second weekend in a row (Be forgiving of the grammar errors. I'm going to edit them when I'm less lightheaded. But I wanted to get this up because it's two days delinquent and I was super bugged about it.)
Anyways, read, review, share, favourite, follow (Hearts to all of you who followed or favorited this week. There were a lot and it pushed me to keep writing despite feeling like shite warmed over.
But most importantly, enjoy.
The Forgetful Fog: Part One
When the fog came the first time, they didn't know the signals of its advance. Now, after fifteen years of its periodic return, The new Mother Priestess knows exactly what to look for. She is already riding at a fast trot down from the palace when the first flash of heat lightning crashes on the horizon. She slows her horse, because it has never done her good to be hasty, and counts. One gold piece, two gold pieces, three – Another flash sears across the darkening sky.
"Don't have much time then," she curses, and urges the horse into a canter, windows on the shops and homes along the Palace Way peek open as residents lean out to see the source of the fast hoof beats. She must be a sight – ceremonial golden habit flapping wildly behind her and her horse causing a racket so close to nightfall.
"Get inside!" she yells to the people out roaming the streets. She drives the horse down to the bottom of the hill and pulls the mare into a left turn onto the High Street without looking to see if anyone has listened.
Sweat has soaked through her robes by the time she and the horse burst through the temple gate. The heavy material sticks to her as she swings out of the saddle, passing the horse off to freckled, young initiate.
"Brush and water her for me," she tells the girl "Get it done and get inside, we don't have much time."
"Was it something that happened up at the palace?" the young woman asks.
"Later," she barks, hustling up the marble steps. "Gather everyone, and get me Zinea!" She calls, voice echoing from the Atrium into the central hall of the temple.
"Mother!" the eldest of the temple's daughters – Marta – rushes in to help her. "We saw it from the courtyard, the lightning."
"Is coming every three seconds," she says, pulling off the heavy outer robe. "That's two hours or so. I need everyone in the main hall, now."
"I sent two other sisters already," Marta says, taking the robe from her and folding it. "Do you need water?"
"I'm fine," she pants. "Just because I'm your superior now, don't treat me like I'm old."
"I hardly can given my age." She tucks a nearly white strand of hair behind her ears. "And Zinea's on her way,"
"Thank you," she clasps her hands behind her to hide their shaking. She knew the fog nights would be her responsibility when she accepted the post. Even so, she'd take the summer floods in a heartbeat.
Sisters stream into the circular hall from all sides, some having left their supper. She waits until she sees all fifty heads in the crowd, including the last one, the initiate who tended to her horse, rushing in from the Atrium.
"We don't have much time," she begins. "There is a fog two hours out. And I'm afraid many will still be out on the streets when it arrives. I need our best riders." She nods to the seven women who step out of the crowd. "Saddle your horses, you're to go pick up any homeless you see out on the streets and bring them here for the night." they rush out to do so. "Our running team, you know who are." Ten of her daughters nod. Many have brought their best shoes from their rooms and are already taking off their bulky outer clothes. "Cover the main streets – we don't have time for more tonight. Get as many people as you can to shelter inside. Remind them to stuff clothes under their doors and windows. Don't play the hero." She glares especially at Irina who matches her dark stare for dark stare. "Tell people. Tell them to tell their neighbors. Shout as you go, but don't waste time. And watch the cobblestones in Riverside." Irina winces. She'd nearly been lost to the fog last time twisting an ankle down there. "And I need ten of you who aren't runners to alert our neighbors. Cover the closest three blocks in all directions and come straight back. Farah?" She nods to the youngest full sister who's small frame swims in her white robe - barely out of her teens and already dedicated to their service. "You're not on the running squad, but you are fast, yes?"
"That is right, Mother."
"Then I need you to go to the neighborhood's up by the ford." She tells the girl. "Out where they've put the flood gates, you know it?"
"Sure it's…more than 10 miles from here…Mother I'm fast but even I can't get there and back in two hours."
"I know, but you'll get there in time. Take this." She reaches behind her and unclasps the bronze clip of the green talisman. "It will protect you even in the thickest of the fog."
"The late Mother never took this off." Farah squeaks, fumbling to get the talisman around her neck.
"Bless her soul too, but I am not the old Mother," she looks around at the temple residents now staring at them and tries to keep her voice confident. "I will do some things differently." She motions for Farah to turn and checks the clasp. "Do not take it off. Do not let anyone take it off," she tells the girl.
"I'll be back by midnight." She promises and is off, unlike the other runners still in full robes. They billow out behind her like wings.
"The rest of you." She meets the eyes of each of the remaining twenty-two members of her temple. "Get the guest rooms ready – all of them – and start preparing extra food. Make sure it'll keep through the next two days."
"For what?"
She turns to look at the speaker as the majority of the sisters rush to their duties. It's the initiate who took her horse. "For the influx of guests we'll have tomorrow. Those who forget can be quite confused. We bring them all here and if they're missing their families we help them locate them.
"Does the fog really make you forget that much?" the girl asks.
The Mother looks at her carefully. "You're from the country aren't you?"
"Yes, Mother," she grins. "King's home province, got the best grapes in the whole of Elysium, we do."
Deep in her heart, an old ache makes itself known.
"I picked the same grapes as a child…it was a much different time. How old are you?"
"17."
"You were too young then, for the first fog. It doesn't affect children nearly as much." She rubs her temples. "And it hasn't returned to the country provinces as it has here…in the city we've seen it come five times."
"Five."
"In fifteen years, yes. It infiltrates everything, make no mistake. A breath of it is enough to forget some specifics. People forget where they've left their coin purses or their stockings. The specific events that it is designed to banish from people's thoughts are also wiped out…but if you're caught out in the fog and you get more of it in your system, then you can forget much more."
"The first time it struck," Zinea says as she walks up to them, scroll under her arm, "two children brought their parents to us. The couple had forgotten their own names."
"Did they ever remember them?" the girl asks.
"The father did." The Mother says, "not the mother. It's rare to get any memories that are lost back at all."
"Oh." the girl shifts from foot to foot. "How can I help?"
"Go out to the pump in the yard and fill as many jugs of water as you can. We'll need plenty of it for the number of people who'll need our hospitality tonight." She watches the girl as she nods and runs off towards the kitchen. "Imagine she's never known the fog at all."
"Seeing a bit of yourself in her A-Mother" Zinea shakes her head. "I shall never get used to calling you that."
"No more than I'll get used to hearing it." She smiles widely at Zinea. "You brought a map."
"I did," Zinea unravels it, "We can mark down neighborhoods as we clear them."
"For all the good it does," she sighs. "If only we had the guardian to help."
~paxlunae~
By 21:00, the forgetful fog is rolling down from the mountains into Elysium, the heat lightning the only light penetrating the cloud covered sky.
Though three stories beneath the ground, it's presence goes un noticed. The soft light from her Guardian birthmark lights up the tunnel as Terra picks her way over loose stones that have fallen into the packed earthen floor over the long years.
The stairs had lead her down into a crypt, she realizes as her hands trace the barely legible carving on one of the large wall stones: HRM Selene II
She frowns, retracing the letters. She's never heard of this queen.
She traces each name with her fingers as she winds her way through the curving tunnel of the catacombs: Selene III, Selenius, Selenio, Cassia Selene, Septimus Selen, Selenia Selen. On and on it goes down two more stories to the unfinished fifth level as the name of that early queen continues in the family.
Some have busts of what they looked like in front of their resting places. It's so strange. They look so different from Terrio, she thinks, absently tracing the rounded stone jaw line of Julio Selen.
~paxlunae~
The Priestesses and their priest counterparts in the western part of Elysium have long since cleared out by the time the fog bank settles down in the river and slips down stream into the heart of Elysiums's shipping docks in Riverside. It curls up out of the river and over the docks. Up by the flood gates, it spreads itself thin to catch as many of the poor neighborhood's houses as possible. From there it progresses, covering everything and everyone in it's path.
~paxlunae~
She cannot be down here, he thinks as he wrenches the trap door open and rushes down the manor. She will ruin everything.
~paxlunae~
"No one out that I can see, Mother." Farah says as she accepts a cup of water. "Then again it's very thick. I couldn't see my own feet in some places."
"Thank you very much Farah." She smiles warmly. "Take a break."
"Are you sure?" she frowns. And The Mother sighs.
"We've done all we can for now."
"When will it be gone?" one of their new guests pipes up from his cot they've set up on the main hall.
"By morning." She assures him.
"Mother!" the initiate runs up to her. "Zinea needs you in her study.
"Thank you." She leaves the guests in the capable hands of Marta and ten others and ducks out of the main hall down through the Priestesses dormitories. The second door from the end is where Zinea keeps her office.
Zinea sits with her sleeves pushed up squinting over another map scroll – this one charmed to show the advance of the fog. "Come take a look," she frowns.
The mother leans over the desk and adjusts her glasses to make sense of it's tiny lines. "What is it?"
"It's spreading up to the Palace." Zinea says, and the Mother curses. In all fifteen years, not since that first time has it ever been permitted up on Palace grounds.
"Please Ra, let her be inside." She mutters, watching the purple ink on the map completely cover the small palace icon.
~paxlunae~
She finds the guardians on the fifth floor. Right in the center on pedestals. Serenity Selen, and Serenity Tana – the first two Guardians from earth.
She kneels down to brush the dust off the mosaics on their pedestals and freezes.
Serenity Tana's eyes, green as lush summer forests, gaze back at her. Her black hair beautifully done in a complicated braid.
It is Serenity Selen that has the amber eyes and blond hair. In face…both of the figures behind her on the mosaic – a king and queen – were blond and amber eyed.
"Selen." She whispers. "I don't look like guardian, I look like these…kings and queens."
An image flares up brightly in her mind. It's of Julio Selen's bust, with the rounded jaw so unlike King Terrio's angular one.
He has her nose.
Just as she is standing up to investigate further, Terra screams. Someone has a hand on her shoulder. "Get off me!"
~À Suivre~