SHORT STORIES: The Priestess and the Sun

R was never one for ritualistic human sacrifice. The rank smell of blood and rotting flesh made breathing revolting. Last full moon she had stumbled during the high priestess’s shrieking prayer and had nearly lost her sacred animal mask. Well, the filthy cow’s head, that she wore as a mask, as all the other priestesses also wore, out of respect for the moon.

R preferred to lay with gentle partners in the shade of trees in full bloom, feeling the wind in agreement with her body as sacred rivers of life flowed through her. Sometimes she walked through flowery, dewy meadows, chatting with her sisters as the sun rose high above the mountains, bestowing upon them his warm and fertile rays. But not now. Now there must be suffering for the sun.

Q shrieked again – R was broken out of her reverie – she thought she could hear Q’s vocal chords lacerating as she increased the volume louder still, the harsh sound muffled by the ram’s head she wore on her own shoulders.

The sacrifice lay in the center of the semi circle of priestesses, Q in the middle as she lifted her ‘mask’ and ritualistically spat on the flesh that was to be consumed, in adoration for the fertility that the sun had provided.

R sensed his shaking fear and powerful arousal behind the reserved determination of his pose, spread eagled on the scorched earth, lying in wait for the honor of death. R couldn’t see much through her mask. The rotting, reeking, uneven crevices had been gouged with love and care for this very event, as with the rest of the brain and spinal fluid, so that there was space enough for her head. Mites crawled through the fur and dropped down onto her shoulders. The weight of bone and fur, matted with blood, would make the sacred party unsteady and nauseous. They had to breathe as best they could and carry on, however, or the sun would not bestow his fertility upon the fields and the beings within them, if the ceremony was not followed to the letter, so to speak.

Despite the significance of these monthly sacrifices, R was grateful for her inability to see clearly through her eye holes. As she stood in her nauseating, muffled darkness, she anticipated the screams that she knew would soon haunt her for months.

The scene before them was becoming more fraught, and, R admitted regretfully to herself, shamefully enthralling. Q was kneeling down onto the young, spread eagled sacrifice. She raised the roughly hewn bone dagger, wrought from the very same ram that she herself wore, and bought it down hard into his neck. Horrible gurgling groans spilled from the sacrifice, but were covered quickly by the carnal moaning from the high priestess, as she writhed and girated, now stabbing the man repeatedly in the stomach.

Blood spurted violently out in all directions, spattering the priestesses and covering Q, who rubbed it in to her skin as she continued to rip through his. The agonising terrified screeching burst from the young man tied to the ground.

The priestesses bowed in unison at the painful sound, in ritualistic, theatrical awe of his bravery and for the honor of his death. Impressively they managed to keep their ‘masks’ in place the while, which will have taken hours of practice and self deprivation.

R always thought Q enjoyed this part a little too much.

The tradition of sacrificial fornication was a new addition to the ritual and her pleasure, while certainly representational of fertility, was unpleasantly enthusiastic. R kept her thoughts to herself, however, as a gory, less honorable death awaited anyone who criticised Q, or indeed bruised her fragile and erratic pride.

Stone challices were pressed to the flowing and swollen wounds as the priestesses rushed forward, eager to drink the blood of the young and fertile. Each of the sacred women, including R, threw off their animal heads and took a deep breath of welcome clean air, their wet, rotting stench now mixed with the iron of fresh blood.

The priestesses drank slowly, savouring the magic of the sun. R closed her eyes hard and drank quickly, the blood dribbling from the corners of her mouth and congealing behind her ears. This was her least favorite part.

The powerful flesh of the sun was now torn from the sickeningly still sacrifice, with carnal
precision, from his rapidly cooling bones.

Q stood slowly, her naked, blood soaked body dripping onto the deceased. The core of delicate masculine fertility was the last to be sawn off the body, now unrecognisable. The steaming genitalia were placed ritualistically into the dish. Q threw her head back in hysterical abandon as she picked up the dripping, sacrificial scrotum and chewed through the tender flesh and sinew, screaming as blood and lumps of flesh cascaded from her mouth. She could feel raw, animalistic fertility stream and rush through her veins.

She certainly put on a show this one.

Sacrifices had become a regular spectacle of the full moon, that even other tribes had started to frequent. For all of Q’s faults she was a shrewd leader. The moral of the tribe had been low and these growing monthly gatherings had become quite the social phenomenon. R herself had met lots of nice smelling young men, and the tribe as a whole was growing in size and prosperity.

The crowd around the scene, orgiastic as the sight of death, were now winding down and
starting to speak amongst themselves.

‘She performs with much grace’ whispered one from a nearby tribe, his inner monologue lost, transfixed in strange adoration. ‘If that is her vigour when the subject is dead, imagine her with one more lively’

‘Tread lightly’ said another beside him, having overheard, ‘she only rides whom she is about to kill…’

The love-struck’s face fell and paled in revolted shock, as he was unable to stop the tide of vivid empathy that now flooded his thoughts. His sensitivity was incongruous after the scene they had all just witnessed.

‘She’s insane!’ he exclaimed faintly.

‘Who isn’t’ chuckled R, as she sought out and retrieved her wreaking cow’s head from the
ground nearby. She passed him her chalice of now rapidly congealing blood, and headed over to the riverside. Now that the ceremony was finally over, she was permitted to rinse the pieces of brain and fur out of her hair, wash her mouth out as best she could, and head home

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