Dark Mother
The Hemez Falls incident was the final straw. A simple operation, something that in previous years was nothing to the Daughters, yet it had all gone so terribly wrong. Six followers were dead, all their guns and gear were gone. All the resources put into the operation were lost, and all the potential resources gained by the operation were lost, and all at a time when the Daughters had nothing extra to spare. The disaster made it mortally clear to Hecate just how much her influence had waned.
Caesar's power, meanwhile, was growing with each conquered tribe. Nearly the entire southwest wasteland was under the banner of the bull, more than eighty tribes. Some had fallen to him willingly, some had to be coerced. Those that resisted were culled, and stricken from recorded memory. It was exactly what Hecate had done roughly fifteen years earlier but louder and more poorly managed.
While the so-called Son of Mars claimed the wasteland as his own, Hecate had already conquered the tribes of the four corners. She had accomplished it through intimidation and proselytizing rather than violence and brutality. She converted all the tribes to worship of her (and eliminated those that refused) long before the Legion brought the sword to them. Caesar was not uniting the wasteland, because it had already been united in worship. He was stealing the goddess' influence. All the territory that Caesar had come to control was territory he had unknowingly taken from her. Although she still had plenty of followers among those subjugated by the bull, they were forced to worship in secret and were no longer subject to her direct commands. Save the work of Maenad infiltrators the whole of Caesar's nascent empire was out of her control.
Not that it mattered. The setbacks posed by the Legion's growing power meant little to Hecate's master plan. She was already finished with most if not all of the tribes now serving Caesar. She had bled them dry. Although Caesar might have taken control of the present from her, she had stolen the future of the wasteland long ago. The only problem she hadn't foreseen was just how long it would take for that future to develop. The eldest warriors of her genetically superior army were only fifteen years old and there weren't many of them. Even though the Legion had started to use child soldiers she placed a higher value on the lives in service to her, and so she had to wait.
She was at an impasse. She couldn't re-take the wasteland until her soldiers matured, but she couldn't do nothing. Her Daughters were restless. They were sick of rationing. Ouroboros' resources were stretched thin by the influx of Harpies without tribes to command. Julia's Operation Remus had helped stall the malaise, but aside from keeping up to date on Legion records the project was over. Even the drugs and alcohol imbibed as ritual were on short supply. For once, the goddess didn't have answers, and she didn't know what to do. It was as though she was once again young and lost in the wasteland. She needed guidance, and there was only one place she could turn.
It was the first time she stepped foot outside Ouroboros since its founding. She did it in secret, using the escape tunnel she'd built into her chambers in the temple. Julia met her on the other side, seven-hundred feet outside of town, the sky nearly faded away to stars.
Julia was not excited. She had offered to make the journey on the goddess' behalf, but Hecate refused to tell her the destination or what they expected to find there. Unknown to Julia (although she certainly suspected it), even Hecate herself did not exactly know where they were going.
The lack of details meant Julia couldn't prepare properly for the journey. She didn't even know how long they'd be gone, so she was forced to stock up on as much food and water as she could carry, to the detriment of everything else. It was the best she could do, given the circumstances. Although she was anxious about marching blindly into the wasteland without a destination, she was ready for it.
The same could not be said of Hecate. She knew the southwest wasteland very well, but only in abstract, as lines of coordinates and census data and surveyor reports. Her great eye saw all, but divorced from her sibyls and printouts and computers in the temple, she was left with only her two very human eyes, which had not seen the wasteland in more than a decade. In the temple she was the Goddess, an all-powerful being who commanded the earth and the sky and knew everything, but out in the world she was just a woman. She was blind, groping in the darkness, trying to find her way back to a place she hadn't been to since before she founded her temple purely through intuition.
They traveled at night under the cover of darkness, starting out during the new moon. Hecate would meditate and stare into the wasteland, scanning the horizon as though she were trying to ask it a question. Eventually she'd point to wherever she wanted to go next, usually a visible but distant landmark, a sight she half-remembered. It was in her best interest to be specific, since as long as Julia had an immediate goal to reach she was too distracted to wonder about where they were really headed. They took long, difficult routes, avoiding all other life in the wasteland. The journey was slow going. In the temple Hecate seemed spry and youthful, but out climbing rocks in the badlands she was clumsy and slow. Julia had to carry her weight most of the time.
On top of that, Julia couldn't scout very far ahead because she didn't know where they were going. They had more than few close calls because she didn't accurately predict where Hecate would take them next. Each time they barely avoided a Legion scouting party or radlion on the prowl Hecate chastised Julia and complained about her 'lack of foresight.' Hecate complained often as they traveled. When she wasn't complaining she would talk fondly about the wasteland before Caesar and his Legion.
"We used to have all we need," she'd say as her daughter helped her up the side of an embankment. The straps of Julia's backpack bit into her shoulders as she hoisted the goddess up. "Everyone had their place and we all worked together. Everyone had something to contribute and no one had too much."
They traveled for two and a half weeks, meandering in a roughly north-eastern direction, Hecate deciding where they would head next based on nothing more than intuition and half-forgotten memories. Julia was starting to catch on. She pressed Hecate about their destination more and more, hoping for some clues, something that she could use to help them get there, to help her scout, something- anything- that would prove that they weren't just marching out into the wastes to die, but Hecate only gave her cryptic answers that told her nothing.
"A place I have been before. Someplace very full of life, but very empty also," Hecate would say, before continuing to complain about the Legion or Julia or how things used to be better.
"Everyone was cared for. We all looked out for each other. No one was left wanting," Julia had heard the same diatribe or something similar at least once a night since they left Ouroboros. Once, Hecate wouldn't stop talking about how wonderful life with the tribe was while an alpha deathclaw stood sharpening his claws a mere hundred feet away. As it turned out the goddess had very little survival instinct, which didn't surprise Julia too much, given how sheltered she'd been within her temple and before then among the Twisted Hairs. If anything, Julia was surprised Hecate had somehow successfully made the same journey without her before.
"Your grandfather always knew best," Hecate said. Julia was thankful for her mask, which concealed her involuntary eye-roll and sneer. The goddess brought up Harpy frequently as they made their way through the wastes. That got under Julia's skin more than anything else, but thankfully the stress of keeping Hecate alive distracted her too much to let her dwell on it. All she could do was grind her teeth and press onward.
"The elders and your grandfather, they earned their place, through hard work and sacrifice. The system," Julia pulled the goddess, enraptured by her own words, up a cliff-face, "Was perfect, entirely self-contained. The fittest survived to lead the next generation into the future. They were tested, but they persevered and were only stronger for it."
The dawn was coming. Julia hurried the goddess along, trying to make it up the cliff-face before the sun's light exposed them for all the wasteland to see. They were deep in enemy territory, near where Julia had seen her brother in the Manti-La's hunting grounds. She was tired and stressed. She wanted to find a safe place to camp and sleep. Hecate continued to prattle on unaware.
"Take your grandfather, for instance. He led a hard life. He saw his only son torn apart by enemies of the tribe. When he was a boy, he lost three brothers. It was hard, but it made him strong. Made him smart. Taught him how to lead the tribe to victory. We prospered under his leadership. You prospered under his tutelage."
Julia ground her teeth. She scouted over the crest of the cliff, then pushed the goddess up. She felt itchy and sweaty and she had a headache. Once they were safe she made a small fire. They ate jerky and boiled some wasteland nettles as the sun came up.
"One day, I'll make it the way it once was. Your grandfather's legacy will continue, and the Twisted Hairs shall thrive again," Hecate finished over the fire.
Julia massaged her temples. She waited for the goddess to continue, but Hecate was finally silent, chewing her nettles thoughtfully. She stared at the woman across the fire.
"Dark Mother," she said. Hecate paused. It was the first time anyone had called her by that name in more than a decade. Even Julia had never addressed her that way since she became the goddess Hecate. Hecate guessed it was because Julia wanted the past to be forgotten, and she respected that. She never referred to her second-in-command as 'Arama', the diminutive non-name that she assumed Julia was eager to leave behind.
She waited calmly for her daughter to continue. They stared into each other's eyes through the fire, big brown Twisted Hair eyes searching each other. Julia struggled to find the words she wanted to say. She opened her mouth, but stopped just short of speaking.
"I betrayed the Twisted Hairs," she said suddenly. She was silent again, only the crackling of the fire could be heard in the crisp morning air.
"I sold your... our people out to the Legion," she clarified. She could see the fire reflected in Hecate's eyes, as Hecate could see it reflected in hers. As she talked her voice grew steadier and more confident.
"When I was sixteen, I collaborated with Vulpes Inculta to undermine and enslave the tribe. I acted within the village to sow chaos and cripple our defenses so Vulpes and his men could capture the entire tribe without resistance. I murdered elder Harpy when he was vulnerable and alone, and I left our people to be enslaved."
The morning air was still cold from the night before. Neither woman could feel the warmth from the fresh sun. The fire crackled. Julia's gaze never left the goddess' eyes. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, but was only seconds. Hecate's anger boiled to the surface and overcame the shock of her daughter's confession.
"What?" she said.
"I killed the Twisted Hairs," Julia answered much too fast, clearly proud of her betrayal.
"What," Hecate said again, not actually asking. She rose to her feet, and Julia did the same, only much faster.
"What!?" Hecate said again. She never felt so angry in her entire life.
"I killed the Twisted Hairs!" Julia shrieked gleefully. She fled from the campfire, down the side of the mesa, "I killed the Twisted Hairs, I ruined them!"
Hecate chased her as she danced away, "You act like it was paradise, like everything was fucking perfect," she screamed, her words echoing, not caring who or what heard them, "Well it wasn't! It wasn't it wasn't it wasn't!"
Hecate was too angry to respond, too engrossed in catching Julia. Julia could feel tears welling in the corner of her eyes.
"They treated you like dirt! They treated us like dirt! You know what the others called you? Mother-of-Many! Because to them, you were a whore, you were garbage!" she started throwing rocks at Hecate, who clumsily tried to follow her along the cliff-face. She struck the goddess hard in the upper thigh, but Hecate didn't even feel it. She was consumed with anger, so much anger she couldn't even think. She didn't know what she would do when she caught Julia, but she knew she had to. Maybe she'd kill her. She stumbled shakily through the rocks that Julia had so nimbly navigated.
"They treated you like garbage! You wear those fucking braids," Julia cried, "You have those fucking dreads and, and, and you don't even realize that, that, that they're, they're f... fucking shackles!" she threw another rock that missed and pleaded with the goddess.
"You know nothing, you-" the goddess managed to hiss before she was cut short.
One second Hecate stood in front of Julia, brimming with rage and wild like a deathclaw, and the next second she was gone. The ground slipped out from under her. She didn't even have time to react.
Neither did Julia. She stood in shock on the side of the cliff, the wind whistling around her, suddenly more alone than she'd ever been in her life.