Invoking Materna: Prayer of Protection (Open, Mod Wanted)

[J'lyara]

Early Winter, Kalendryas, Just as the War in Sheria is Ending, Era XV PF


The Lady J'lyara Jones had been loathed to see her husband depart Diana without her. It was the first time they'd been separated since he'd found her in Chelseanna and she was slightly anxious despite the fact that she was surrounded by her husband's household of servants who had accompanied them in the move out of Imperia, stopping in Arakmat and then Diana for the new Archprelate's ordination and now finally making their way back home to Taralon.

The caravan progressed slowly, the staff having been given expressed orders by Palacrisis not to jostle his newly pregnant wife about but to make the ride as comfortable for her as possible. Traveling by sorcerer with her husband had definitely been out of the question in her condition, thus the reason the Lady found herself traveling through the war-torn Sherian countryside without her beloved.

She'd heard tale of the war, of course, and knew of the dire need for her husband to hurry back in order to get the Arakmatan troops who had volunteered to come to Sheria's aid into their proper fighting positions. Peering out of the small window in the covered coach she was riding in to protect her from the elements, she feared her husband's hard work in getting the Arakmat fighters to Sheria had all been for naught. It seemed they were much too late returning home to assist.

The further into the province they progressed, the more her heart sank, tears in her horrified eyes and fear in her heart for what the citizens had been and were continuing to suffer. The war had certainly taken it's toll on her home. And it was her home, very much so. Though she'd only learned of the Phondran blood running through her veins late in life, she was keenly aware of her kinship to the ruined land they were traveling across. Land her ancestors had fought for in the name of the Empire and now...it seemed there was a type of heavy devastation that brought about a great need.

It was this need that weighed heavily on the new follower of the Mother of Telath. She was feeling...or sensing that she must stop, there was something she had to do and at this time, it was only she who could do it. Having been raised in a religious home as a child in Prime, she'd been taught like most about praying to Materna. She'd said her grace dutifully before every cubotri as a child. But right now it was her adopted mother, Nemal Vine's words about protection that were drifting through her mind. It was no coincidence of course.

The flame-haired advocate turned project director was being purposefully led to a course of action for the words of the Prayer of Protection she'd learned so young were ringing in her mind loud and clear, as if she'd said the words each brightening since a wee babe. But she knew it was a serious prayer, not one she should ever think to speak lightly, invoking the aid of Materna. She'd been warned never to try and use it for her own benefit.

But was this for her own benefit because it was her home or did the greater good for the populace of Sheria far outweigh any advantage she might gain herself? She hesitated for only a moment longer before insisting that the coach be stopped.

“I say...do stop the coach! And let me out...here...let me out here I say!” J'lyara made it more than perfectly clear that she'd not be going any further until she'd completed what she needed to do.

With assistance from a dutiful servant, small feet stepped out of the couch and she was met with a chilling cold, the onset of Winter having taking a firm grip on the province. Shrugging deeper into the heavy, green, velvet cloak she was wearing, one that had been purchased for her by her dear friend Nell du'Galle, she pulled the hood tight about her neck and walk a few feet away from the coach, her feet crunching on ashes and charred earth.

Removing a fitted glove from her right hand, she bent down and picked up some of the dirt, allowing it to fall away through her fingers, frowning, beneath her eyes moist and her face wrought with emotion. She thought of the farmers in this area who wouldn't be able to tend their lands and the carpenters who would have no trees to cut wood from and how just those two groups not being able to do their jobs would affect the entirety of the province and even out into the rest of the Empire for trade with Sheria would most assuredly be hampered, affecting the Empire at large.

Carmelya was with her, she could feel her presence and so she stood straighter, more confident...determined. Speaking quietly, she gazed up into the heavens, where smoke had not too long ago filled the sky, “I hear you Mother. I know that you see the devastation and destruction here. It is an affront against you and it affects so many of your children. Thank you, that I should remember now to seek the All Mother's help.”

J'lyara believed that it was Carmelya who had placed the words of the Prayer of Protection into her mind so clearly such that she invoke the powers of Materna. Solemnly, she lowered herself to her knees, not caring about the char and dirt that now sullied her clothing. Feeling maternal as she never had before, eyes closed and face uplifted, she called on her love for her unborn child, on Carmelya's love for the very earth she was kneeling on, on Materna's love for all that there was and she spoke aloud the very serious Prayer of Protection to Materna.

“We fly to your open arms, O Mother Materna. In our moment of need, deliver us from danger, for you alone are the Provider, the Comforter, and the Protector. May your love become a shield to bear the brunt of doom. All hail.”

After willing Materna to hear her prayer, pleading inwardly, she turned her attentions once again to Carmelya. The brilliance of her connection to the goddess of fertility, the embodiment of hope, was just as magnificent as she'd felt in the desert. Fresh tears in her eyes, she sought to commune with the goddess.

“Without your help, Mother of all that lives and breathes, I fear that many more will die and this land that was once flourishing with life will never be the same. I beg of you to intervene, our Mother, who brings comfort and gives life, who sheds the light of hope in the darkest of places and in our hearts. I beg of you to help me lift up your name, that all may see how glorious your love is for your children and set this wrong to right. May the Blessed Holy Mother Materna still further harm to these lands and her people and may you, Great Mother of Telath, replace the seeds of life.”

[Eyvind Redbeard]

The smoke of the fires still covered part of the Winter sky, fires that had consumed forests as old as Telath, forests as old as Humanity and the Mother Herself. It had been a aweful crime, even if the ArchPrelate had said it was for the greater good. The orders, the words, the thoughts had come from him. He was now, the Scourge of Sheria. The man who would be forever cursed as the one who ordered the massive numbers of both Imperial Legions and Provincial Army to scorch half a province in order to halt the Orcish advance on civilized lands. It had been a foolish order but the only option reason and logic had given him. Against what he and his men had seen on the field victory seemed as impossible and although he dared not to admit it openly, he had dispaired. While his face had remained stoic and with a piercing gaze his heart and his soul had twisted with a deeper sense of defeat and...fear. It wasn't fear for him, for his life and his belongings, it had been fear for the men under his command, for the inhabitants of this abandoned corner of the Empire. But it had still been fear, a feeling he should never show nor feel for he was what he was, an Aslanite, a follower of the Mother's son, if not to mention a follower of the Mother herself. Now...now he was nothing but a sinner.

Where the Mother had spent Eons to create he had spent seconds to speak his words of destruction. The land was covered with ash until the horizon and when the wind blew it seemed as if it gained life, each howl in the distance reminding him of the trees literally killed during the scorching, the scars in Sheria would never heal and all because of him. It wasn't safe to approach a water well because of the poison his men had thrown within, it wasn't safe to use melted snow to try and drink some water for it would come as salty as the ocean's water for the fields had been salted so nothing would ever grow on them. And again the forests...of them only the broken and burnt bones remained. Whoever walked inside their now dead passes would see burnt animals where once had been singing birds and touching a tree would be like stabbing a knife on a hand instead of being like feeling Telath, the Mother.

He had to pay, he would pay. That was why he had left his men behind, his weapons behind, his clothes behind and with his bare feet walked into the wasteland. The border between life and death was visible like a black dot in a snowy plain. The wasteland came from the distant Hiems to the walls of the many forts build by the Imperial Army from the cold mountain passes of Draelmar Hold to the gentle shores of Notus. In one side green hills and trees, in the other...death and desolation and beyond that...Orcs.

His naked body knelt in the middle of the ashes. A white dot in a black plain, with a flame atop his head. His melon sized hands touched the ashes and a shiver run down his spine as Eyvind "Redbeard" Avornmagor Björnsson, the Scourge of Sheria leant forward, touching with his forehead in the ashy ground. He curled his massive body and closed his eyes in a silent prayer for forgiveness and guidance, he was alone.

Candlemarks passed and slowly his hands closed around the ashes and even slowlier they approached his open mouth. With a tremendous effort his lips and his tongue touched the cursed remains of his cursed words and with an inhuman pain he swallowed the product of his dispair, of his fear.

"Mother Oh Mother accept this gift I give you for I've sinned beyond what my mortality allows of Bringer of Life. Take my body and use it to bring life to this ruin I created so I can clean my name and rest. Materna!"

Another handful of ashes followed the prayer and then another and yet another. Until his mouth was a black pit resembling Aeternia and his tongue felt nothing but pain. His tears run down his face like the poisoned rivers ran in the Great Sea's direction and his eyes couldn't open, the salty tears forming a crest and locking them preventing the Brightening's light of the Twin Suns to gently touch them, this was his penitence for his cursed action.

And there he lay near a road in the middle of the Sherian Wasteland before a caravan passed by and lady resembling the incarnation of Materna prayed to the Mother as well. In his mind the Vagaran could see the woman clearly, soft skin and irradiating life, aside of that everything were details, details his eyes didn't see and his mind didn't care for his soul didn't feel. From what his ears told him the horses and the wagons and the people and above all, the light in the dark he could feel, the creature that created such aura of warmth, was too far for him to be easily seen and he wouldn't dare to interrupt such sacred prayers with his fealty voice, filled with the ashes of his doing.

He layed there in the dark ashes, a white spot with flaming hair.