BEHOLD THE AWFUL SACRIFICE WE HAVE MADE UNTO OUR GODS:
A Dagger And A Daughter's Tears:
All our hopes lay within your heart, my child. Nothing now remains of our shattered world. Our salvation flows through your blood. You alone can rescue us from our own ill-favoured gods, who demand your life in payment. Without the rain, our crops continue to shrivel and to burn; without the fields, our livestock will weaken and will perish; and without you, our sacred child, many wrathful punishments will be visited upon us, from those who dwell beyond the stars.
Long ago, our holy temples once pleased our heavenly masters, but amidst their rage and discontent, and within the wars they wage amongst themselves, we are forgotten by their blessings, and are so set vengefully upon by their wrathful stokes against the foe. We are a proud, beleaguered people, who have built a sparkling empire out of the simple gift of maize. Yet our strength is failing, within this changing world; wherein the gods fail to heed our desperate cries.
Invaders have come to pillage, rape and plunder, as the weather itself has become our enemy; and you, my gentle one, are all the stands between the survival and the destruction of us all. Your strength must deliver us from this wretched storm of pain and torment. Your sacrifice shall turn away the blades of our foreign captors. Your sacrifice shall rejuvenate the lands, causing the livestock to grow strong, and our gods shall rally behind us, once again, contented by our obedience and by our conviction.
You are my eldest child, my own beloved daughter, which is why I approach this day with loathing. Here then, upon the altar where you lie, garbed in your finest ceremonial attire, I must either send you through pain and blood and fire, towards he whom you must wed, or else knowingly allow the glorious empire of our ancestors to collapse and wither in decay; for you, fruit of my own flesh, sacred child of our salvation, are to be the loving bride, unto a wrathful god.
Therefore, know with what love I send you unto the deathless realm beyond; possessing, as you must, the whole love of our great nation, as all its peoples steadfastly pray together, that he migh find you pleasing in his sight, and be swayed by your gentle countenance, that you might then persuade him of all that he must do to protect us once again, and deliver us from these, our vast unending sorrows.
My tears cannot help but flow, as I clutch within my hand the very dagger which you yourself have chosen. My heart is broken, as the lands; empty, as the storehouses; and afflicted, as those dying and distempered beasts of burden which now fall and turn to dust, blowing swiftly through the burning winds yet ravaging this land.
Let this now be our last embrace, heart of my heart, soul of my soul, my most valued and most precious child; that I may hold you here within my arms, as you depart, unto the life beyond.
All our hopes lay within your heart, my child. Nothing now remains of our shattered world. Our salvation flows through your blood. You alone can rescue us from our own ill-favoured gods, who demand your life in payment. Without the rain, our crops continue to shrivel and to burn; without the fields, our livestock will weaken and will perish; and without you, our sacred child, many wrathful punishments will be visited upon us, from those who dwell beyond the stars.
Long ago, our holy temples once pleased our heavenly masters, but amidst their rage and discontent, and within the wars they wage amongst themselves, we are forgotten by their blessings, and are so set vengefully upon by their wrathful stokes against the foe. We are a proud, beleaguered people, who have built a sparkling empire out of the simple gift of maize. Yet our strength is failing, within this changing world; wherein the gods fail to heed our desperate cries.
Invaders have come to pillage, rape and plunder, as the weather itself has become our enemy; and you, my gentle one, are all the stands between the survival and the destruction of us all. Your strength must deliver us from this wretched storm of pain and torment. Your sacrifice shall turn away the blades of our foreign captors. Your sacrifice shall rejuvenate the lands, causing the livestock to grow strong, and our gods shall rally behind us, once again, contented by our obedience and by our conviction.
You are my eldest child, my own beloved daughter, which is why I approach this day with loathing. Here then, upon the altar where you lie, garbed in your finest ceremonial attire, I must either send you through pain and blood and fire, towards he whom you must wed, or else knowingly allow the glorious empire of our ancestors to collapse and wither in decay; for you, fruit of my own flesh, sacred child of our salvation, are to be the loving bride, unto a wrathful god.
Therefore, know with what love I send you unto the deathless realm beyond; possessing, as you must, the whole love of our great nation, as all its peoples steadfastly pray together, that he migh find you pleasing in his sight, and be swayed by your gentle countenance, that you might then persuade him of all that he must do to protect us once again, and deliver us from these, our vast unending sorrows.
My tears cannot help but flow, as I clutch within my hand the very dagger which you yourself have chosen. My heart is broken, as the lands; empty, as the storehouses; and afflicted, as those dying and distempered beasts of burden which now fall and turn to dust, blowing swiftly through the burning winds yet ravaging this land.
Let this now be our last embrace, heart of my heart, soul of my soul, my most valued and most precious child; that I may hold you here within my arms, as you depart, unto the life beyond.
posted by Valhenstrogg | Tuesday, September 10, 2002
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