Nightmare
(Written by Ardil)
Each night, she prays to the Goddess.
Long ago, in a life dimly remembered, she was a little girl, and she ran in the streets with the other little girls and boys, and sat through lessons that she mostly learnt faster than they were taught, and she went with her family to praise the Goddess each week's-end. Sometimes the bright Goddess would come when She was praised, and sometimes She would not, for as all knew, She had so very many beloved subjects to watch over that not even a Goddess could be everywhere at once. And even so, She always, always heard.
Then the nightmares came. She does not remember them now, whatever strange darkness woke her screaming or cowering or, once, scrambling to flee from the room or the house or the town. They are gone from her, for the Goddess is kind, and generous, and loving. It was She who saved her, when all else had failed, when the outdoor child had grown pale and wan and kept cloistered-close in her house for her parents' fear that any little thing she saw might give her nightmares, and yet still the shadows came until she would do anything at all not to go to sleep, until even the pain and the strangeness were better than sleep, and her family cried out to the Goddess and begged Her for aid.
And the Goddess came. She remembers that day strangely, half vivid, half fog. She was so scared, but she does not know why. She remembers the golden light that lay upon everything, dripping slowly from edges and corners as if the light itself wept with her, and she remembers – she does not remember the figure that stood there, though her mind now fills it in, one she has seen since thousands of times. She remembers trembling, wishing to flee; remembers her father's voice begging Her pardon, that his daughter was just timid before One so grand. And she supposes she was; what else could it have been?
Her mind sketches in the figure of the Goddess that she does not remember as She laid a hand upon the head of a child who flinched away, soft and gentle on her aching head like a feather blanket as heavy as a whole town, a pressure gathering around her, enveloping and blanketing her, her head and her eyes so heavy that she could not even think to be afraid.
They said, afterwards, that She, their great and wondrous Goddess, knelt in the square holding a little girl who for the first time in months slept like a baby, and the whole town rejoiced to see it, and eventually She decreed that the child would become one of Her own priesthood, would be taken and raised in the great temple in Her honour that was the heart and soul of the land, so that she would never face nightmares again.
Each night, she prays to the Goddess, and each night, the Goddess answers. It is a comforting thing, one worn to routine: Radiant Goddess, Guardian and Protector, bless my sleep and keep me from the dreams. Each night comes the gentle warmth about her. She does not remember, now, what it is to dream. Something like living another life, but not living it, and it does not make sense once you awaken, she understands. It seems a strange and confusing thing, and she thinks she is probably better off without it.
She thinks, sometimes, that whatever part of imagination would be bound up in her dreams if she had them has instead been freed in her life. She has always been clever, and has learnt quickly, to the praise of the priesthood and once, so sweetly, even Her praise. She is curious, and inventive, and she does not like to pass idle time so that even when she is doing the menial chores of the Temple her mind is busy, constructing flights of fancy or picturing faraway places. Sometimes she imagines who else she might have been: a warrior, or a scholar, or a warrior-scholar, or even – so daring – an explorer who makes safe new lands that perhaps one day the Goddess in Her benevolence and love might extend the great walls into them and bring new sights to Her people.
Of course, she is none of these things. She is a junior priestess, with some rudimentary skill at arms and some rudimentary skill with spells and a fair talent for music, which has been trained upon the holiest of instruments: the harp, for that is the one that the Goddess loves best. A fair talent too, she was told once, for making a nuisance of herself, but she has learnt to keep to the ways of the priesthood that she might better please their beloved Goddess, Who has saved her from the strange hauntings of her youth and still protects her now.
She thinks, sometimes, that perhaps she should curb these fancies. She does not speak of them to anyone else, lest it seem foolish, and lately her solitary imaginings have turned to wondering at what is and has been, and she would not ever dare to be ungrateful, undeserving of Her love when She has given her so much.
Yet she wonders, all the same, in the quiet tidy corners of her mind: blessed are the people, yes, who have so great a Goddess to protect them; blessed are the people defended by She and Her Chosen, by Her great walls and Her gentle hand, fighting back evil and settling disputes and ordering the little things of life for the people whom She loves so much. Blessed are the people – but whence comes the evil?
For she has read the ancient histories and the legends, bound in ancient tomes: the tales of how the Goddess and the first of Her Chosen together battled a great and terrible evil, and destroyed it, and so the Goddess set great walls about Her lands that it might never happen again, and no evil should penetrate, and no person wander through tragic incaution into danger.
Yet still they come, the evils, the monsters that flock to the great walls and inevitably find their way within. Still they come, so that even a priestess whose life is dedicated to worship and service of Her is taught as a matter of course the ways of blade and bow. Still they come, though evil was defeated, and so – whence do they come?
She does not think that she should ask these things. The Goddess must surely know the answer, for She is beyond compare in all ways, and She dearly loves Her people. Perhaps even now She and Her Chosen are preparing to once again take the fight to the evil beyond their walls… perhaps.
She remembers when the last Chosen died, and the Temple was plunged into a period of mourning. She was still a child then, and so she was still a child when the Goddess Chose anew, and Her new Chosen was brought to them, and gifted the Sacred Sword, and acclaimed before the entire city in a ceremony the like of which she had never seen. She has spoken to him a few times, in passing, bowing her head in respect for the great honour bestowed upon him, the responsibility he bears. He is a good man, she thinks, and he fights indeed in their defence, but over the years that have passed… no, she does not really think his days have changed as they surely should if he were going to set out upon so great a task.
So, at last, she determines that she has only one choice before her: to ask the question that coils wormlike at the back of her mind. Not of the Goddess, no, of course not – never of Her, to ask Her might imply doubt, and who could truly doubt Her greatness and Her love for Her people, she could never be so ungrateful after all that She has done – but perhaps… perhaps she can ask the Holy One. The Holy One is temperamental, and capricious, but she is usually kind, and though she knows a great many things her inscrutable statue's face has always kept its secrets. Perhaps she will understand a junior priestess' follies and forgive them, and perhaps she has the knowledge that will enlighten her and prove all faint and baseless fears false.
That night, she will pray to the Goddess, and the Goddess will answer. It is a comforting thing, one worn to routine.
Perhaps the routine will be enough.
This is effectively a one-shot. I don't intend to continue it – I have far too many things on my plate already, and there are so many other fics I already want to be writing but have to finish Reforged before I can. So, if you have some burning thoughts about how it might continue, or about the surrounding setting, I'm afraid you're unlikely to see any expansion from me. Instead, by all means go ahead and write them, and drop a review / PM to let me know!