01/15/21 Milky

 I’ll always remember my first encounter with the Divine. 

We met in the Meadows, the highest point of our lands. A place where the forest was wild and the air felt alive. It was the favored place of the Divine, where the Seers traveled from across the land to communicate with their deities. 

The Festival of Harvests was always a big gathering. Farmers, miners, tinkers, and every other average soul came together, looking for a taste of the wildness and freedom the Seers had to offer. Everyone came to eat and dance, eager to throw off the back breaking work and heartache of everyday life. 

My chest thumped with the beat of the drums. The heat of the towering fire brushed my skin, battling with the crisp night air. People pressed together in a wild dance, their bodies bare and powerful

against the flickering orange of the flames. This dance had lasted hours already, and most bodies were slicked with sweat. 

The drums stopped. The dancers stilled. A woman began making her way through the crowd. She was beautiful, with dark hair hanging to her hips, thick and untamed. She wore a slip of a dress down to her ankles, made of a sheer fabric that left nothing of her soft curves to the imagination. A silver circlet lay over her brow, a deep amber jewel pressed to the center. The mark of a Seer, the zealots who spent their days in communion with the Divine. She was who we had been waiting for. 

The Seer stopped in front of the fire and settled on her knees. She raised her arms to the sky and slowly, sensually, began swaying back and forth. The drums began to beat again, matching her rhythm. A low hum rippled through the air and settled under my skin. Slowly, everyone joined in. An eerie song, an invitation to the Divine to bestow their presence on us. 

Suddenly, the woman’s body went rigid. A shudder shook through her, and she threw herself down, pressing her forehead to the earth. The humming grew to a fevered cry. A ripple went through the crowd, and the air turned thick. 

The song ended. The drums stopped. 

The seer rose slowly to her feet and turned to face the crowd. Her eyes had turned a milky shade of white, emitting a soft glow that pierced me with awe and terror. 

A Divine had accepted our invitation to play.