AN: Okay! Ninth story in 'A Goddess Three'! Huzzah! Well, huzzah for me who has actually stuck with this long enough to write all that I have, and huzzah to the few people who read it! *grin* Anyway, another one of those "can't be apart of the previous story and is kind of odd to be one on its own". But I made it on it's own anyhow! Yeah, Fin goes with the Gerudo for healing and Rauru…well, something major happens with Rauru…you'll just have to read! Oh, and review, yes, lots of reviews…
The Half Moon
Four months, eleven days
Chapter One: The Path of A Gerudo Maiden
On the eve of the waxing moon dark robed figures departed from their chambers and glided outside into the brilliant silvery moonlight. With them was led a small figure dressed in a heavy shadowed cloak with the white of a virgin warrior peeking out from underneath. Her image was hidden in the swirl of the others around her as they made their processional way up the side of the canyon to the Fire Hollow at the top where it became flat. No one spoke and the white clad figure shivered underneath her dark mantle as the moon showed gleaming above.
When they reached the expansion of the summit her eyes were blinded by the brilliance of the flames and she flinched, looking away from them to save her sight. It was a ritual of healing for the soul, what the Gerudo have never bothered naming since for each person who sought it the ritual was different and left them changed in different ways. The women joined the others that were already present by silently spreading themselves around the fire forming a tight ring. The young woman gulped hard and could feel her heart beat in her ears as the fire crackled and burned with intensity much larger than its size. One of the dark robed figures stepped out from the rest and opened a bag of incense that hung from her waist, grabbing a handful and casting it out over the flames. The sweet and heavy scent of Foxglove and Lavender wafted up the girl's nose and made her more dizzy than she had already come to be.
The fire guttered and swarmed with a life of its own and cast its golden light onto the faces of the sisterhood, hidden almost completely beneath the dark covers of their robes. A wind blew across the ground as the woman who cast the herbs turned to face her, as if she commanded the wind with the simple movement of her gestures. The hood fell from her head and the fiery hair blazed brighter in the light. The lone girl's core tightened underneath the woman's gaze but she stood erect and stone faced like she had been trained to do. Goddesses give me strength not to falter! Her spirit cried.
Tiamra's voice was lower than usual, a deep commanding tone that sent a shiver up and down the young woman's spine as she called her name, Rae Lawen. The Gerudo leader stepped forward and gestured her head to the two women standing behind Rae Lawen and Rae Lawen felt the heavy cloak being lifted from around her body. The relief from the weight and extra heat was welcoming, but she could not help but feel more vulnerable without its cover to hide her. The virgin whites she had been dressed in were much cooler in the open air and she could feel the desert winter wind caress against her skin.
"Rae Lawen," Tiamra boomed, pulling all of her mastery around herself to heighten the glory and power of the ceremony. "You have come to seek to erase the wrongs that man has done to you, do you not?" Rae Lawen stiffened and felt bared naked before them all.
"I have," her voice was weak when she found it, but grew stronger while she remembered the words she had been instructed to say. "I've come to seek peace with what was taken from me."
"And what was taken from you?" Tiamra replied in observance.
"My maidenhood," the young woman echoed with a pang of her own sorrow, "and my self-worth."
Tiamra's face had now taken on the appearance of an emotionless vessel, which the unseen power used to flow into.
"But you wear the virgin whites of the Gerudo, only the maidens are clothed in them. If you are not a virgin then why have you been given these?" Rae Lawen gulped hard and blinked back the strain of the fire on her eyes.
"I don't know," she answered, apprehensive for her declaration was the only thing she had been trained to say.
"You wear the virgin whites because no man who forces himself on a woman has the power to take anything from her!" Tiamra's voice resonated off of something far in the distance and whether it was real or Rae Lawen was just dazzled by Tiamra's power. Thunder seemed to echo off in the distance as well.
Tiamra turned and lifted her arms before the fire and the other Gerudo women gathered there and breathed in the energy of the flames themselves. Her dark mantel rose and fell with her breath and the cool wind rustled through her shorn red hair. Truly there is a power riding on the wind tonight! Tiamra thought to herself as she breathed deeply in rhythm. She opened her eyes to the stars above and the great, silvery orb that was the moon. The woman, whom to Tiamra seemed no more that a girl, stood before her silently, her small stature enveloped in the white robes and her brown hair streaked with natural sunlight unbound and untamed around her shoulders. She was not the young woman who had come to join them in the months before. Her body was hardened muscle now from her training and fit compactly onto her short and solid frame. Though she did not have the overpowering height, as most Gerudo were known for, or the gliding slenderness of the Hylian maids, there was an unmistakable elegance and grace in her movements. Men are unable to see the beauty in every woman Tiamra snorted.
Tiamra went back and stood close to Rae Lawen, in reality not the tallest of the Gerudo either but wrapped in the commanding power of the Goddesses she seemed to tower over everyone. "Just as the Great Goddesses that are our Mothers, we need no man to command the ways of our lives!" At this the other women made their first sounds and let out a whoop of agreement. "We are all born of the woman's womb, and to violate the place of our birth is to commit an unforgivable sin against the Gods! We are all daughters of the Goddesses and answer to no man!" Tiamra continued with an empowering pace. "Rae Lawen, the man who caused pain to you took nothing from you because you offered him nothing! A man can only take from our bodies what we offer for it is with us, the women, who hold the gift of life! Do you understand this truth?" Rae Lawen willed back the shudders that struck her core at every word. But the words did hold a ring of truth that, like the fire, began to kindle warmth within her.
"I understand, but," she paused, "I need help, the break in my soul feels so large." And despite how she had learned to suppress the feelings, she knew she could not do so forever. Tiamra nodded to one of the women who came forward with a silver cup filled with a mulberry colored liquid and handed it to Tiamra. Tiamra opened a second smaller pouch and sprinkled the contents over the surface of the solution. She tipped the glass and poured a small sum into her cupped palm and cast it over the fire with a crackling hiss. With a look of satisfaction the cup was handed to Rae Lawen and she was bade to drink.
"Before you do so, do you know what you are asking of yourself?" Tiamra asked her as the cup rested in Rae Lawen's steady hands. She nodded silently and lifted the chalice to her lips. Too not is to hide forever a voice chanted in the back of her mind. The liquid was warm and sweetened with honey but with an overpowering bitter aftertaste that made Rae Lawen's tongue protest. She recognized the faint taste of dalucody, a sleeping herb, and sensed her eyelids becoming heavy in trance. As she collapsed two women caught her and held her up drifting in between the dream world and waking, but never fully in one or the other. Tiamra leaned over her and calmly spoke commands to the others and Rae Lawen could only stare blankly into the flames of the fire. As she stared she did not know how many minutes passed, or perhaps it was hours, but the flames started to dance into images she could see.
Her heart was pounding feverishly in her breast but the pounding sensation of it was far away from where Rae Lawen thought she was. The flames seemed to dance all around her now and she could feel its glowing warmth, but it did not burn her. Before her eyes she saw the image of Joshuan years before, when he was but a young boy not old enough to touch the lowest branch of their favorite climbing tree. He was laughing and holding his arms above his head reaching for her and she bent down and pulled him into the tree. She laughed but was not sure whether she had done so in her vision or out loud. The form blurred and with it a great pang of sorrow for the loss of times gone by, when everything had not yet changed.
The vision shifted and she stood with Link on the ledge of the cliff overlooking Hyrule Field for the first time. The sun rose quickly over the horizon and blurred her vision again as another reflection sharpened and she saw him, his black greasy figure slumped over her and Rae Lawen's breath caught in her throat and every muscle tightened in her body with panic. Tiamra and the other women added their strength to hers and watched with a cool professionalism as Rae Lawen hunched in shudders before the fire, lost in her waking dream.
She could not get him off of her and the smell of him that Rae Lawen could never forget was choking her. It was real; she was there again! How could she relieve the pain if she was not allowed to forget it? She was scared and alone, all alone again. She struggled with the image trying to change it, trying to make him go away. The strong scent of feces and urine was pounded upon her again, bringing tears to her eyes. The heat from the fire was getting warmer before she realized it and soon it felt as though it was searing her skin. It is the fire again, what do my visions mean, always of fire? The fire was blazing brighter and even Tiamra and the others could see it and stood with trepidation as the flames grew higher and higher.
What is happening to you, my sister? Tiamra's soul cried out as Rae Lawen uttered her first audible screams. These practices had been done over centuries, and not only of Gerudo, but any woman who had been wronged and sought help, but never had Tiamra ever heard of something so divine taking place. As Rae Lawen's tears stained her cheeks and she hugged her arms in misery the flames grew higher and higher and her waking dream carried her deeper and deeper into herself. Her family was there, watching her and she waited for the fire that would spring forth from her like before to envelop them all, but it never came. The man who had taken her was before her now, his dirty face grinning foolishly at her. She felt a terrible surge of hate rush through her and as she looked down at her hand someone placed a knife in it. She looked up and saw the face of the Goddess Din and She was smiling at her reassuringly.
"You know thy destiny, My child," She said and Rae Lawen understood what she was to do. With the knife in hand she could feel the power surging through her and she thrust it into the man's gut. He fell to one knee with a look of terror on his face and for a moment Rae Lawen saw her reflection in his eyes and it was indeed terrifying to behold. It was her own face, but the face of the Goddess Din was present as well, at times seeming to occupy the same image. The eyes were sharp and turbulent and blazed with the travail of power. The man slumped and tumbled over, his eyes now loosing their spark of life and he disappeared in the next instant in a fiery blaze. Rae Lawen's breath eased now and her spirit felt lighter and she could sense the illuminating glow of triumph flowing through her as if she were no more than branches on a tree. Her entire being lifted and the vision shifted once more.
She was with her mother, at home sitting in front of the fire with her head cradled in her mother's lap like when she was a little girl. Rae Lawen felt contentment like she had not felt in a long time, but when she looked up and saw the face of her mother she was dressed in the garments of Din. The scene shifted again this time to a dazzling white plane and there stood Zelda, the Princess of Hyrule, and Link, the Hero of Time before her, but both in their shadows stood the Great Goddesses Nayru and Farore, who also bore the face of her mother. Rae Lawen had no need to turn and see for she could feel the presence of Din behind her.
"What does this mean?" She whispered and to that it was Nayru who replied.
"It is thy destiny, My child," Her voice was light and pure and Her blue robes were extravagantly decorated with embroidery with the symbol of the Triforce resting in a small pattern on Her breast. Rae Lawen's mind tried to grasp for a hold on anything it could.
"The funeral pyre! I saw my face in the funeral pyre that night! Is that to be my destiny?" her voice trembled. Farore stepped out from behind the lifeless image of Link, Her face solemn and noble.
"What thou hast seen is what shall be, all things will come full circle," Her voice was strong and dauntless, like all things that were associated with Her name. Din stepped out from behind Rae Lawen, still with the face of her mother and smiled and placed a hand on the young woman's heart and then one on Her own. She was powerful; Rae Lawen could feel that staggering power flowing into her and around her, taking her breath away. Din was a vision of red sweeping before her eyes, Her face both capable of the most forbidding snarl and the most compassionate smile.
"My blessing is thy soul, thy blood is to My essence," Din kissed her brow and finally Rae Lawen was released from her vision.