Thear Advent Story: Genevieve (parts 1 – 5)

[k_a_webb]

“Solstice,” Genevieve started, trying not to meet anyone’s eyes, “shortest day, longest night, on this day winter begins.” Her attempts failed because she found herself staring into her mother Delyth‘s eyes and could see the pride filling them, which did make her feel slightly better. “With the fading of autumn a new year commences. Look back on what’s been, bid the old year farewell, give thanks for what it has gifted you with.”

Genevieve always remembered the last winter solstice she had spent with her father when she heard those words. It was hard not to, even though she had been five at the time, and soon after they had left their home village. One of the priests of Herne had found out that the family, on Delyth‘s side, had connections with the Uisdro and the sect of Hecate, so they had no choice but to run for their lives. She glanced at her two older sisters, Róisín and Báirbre, who had left much more behind than Genevieve had because they were eight and nine years older than her.

Genevieve turned to face the altar. Throughout the autumn the equinox candle had been kept alight by the children of North Square and she used that to light the solstice candle, which would be kept burning until the spring equinox. Carefully, she blew out the equinox candle, before passing it to Róisín’s eldest daughter, who had been chosen to keep the remains.

“From now until the equinox the days slowly grow,” she continued, turning back to face the people surrounding her, “plan for what’s coming, take time to prepare.”

The sect of Hecate had been preparing for Thear changing for a very long time, which was why North Square even existed. Genevieve was grateful that it did exist, because she dreaded to think what might have happened to her mother, sisters or herself if it hadn’t. In the years since they had arrived other people had also run from families and priests who had found out that they were mixed blood in some way. There were Dorma, Uisdro and Tein-Igni people in North Square, as well as people who had been in the sect of Hecate, and had lived in the town, all their life.

“Hecate, first deity of Thear, first of North Square, I give thanks for your help this year, in planning for what is to come, for creating a town where all people can come to live in safety, and in writing a balanced history of Thear for all of us to learn from.”

Murmurs went around the group surrounding Genevieve as everyone gave thanks to Hecate for anything she had done for them during the year that had passed. No other winter solstice ritual in the country would mention Hecate. Then the ritual was a collective thing, so the words were chosen by the sect of Hecate as a group, which meant that the words were slightly different to those of any other winter solstice ritual that was going on around the country.

“Herne, second deity of Thear, first of the Dorma, I give thanks for your help this year.” Genevieve’s feelings about Herne had changed much in the time she had been in North Square, because she had always felt he was very overbearing when she was a child, which was what the priests of Herne were aiming for. “ Epona, fifth deity of Thear, second of the Dorma, I give thanks for your help this year. Dorma deities, thank you for the practicality of your people, for the wonderful harvest we had, and the trees that grow well outside the town.”

Genevieve allowed everyone time to say their own thanks before she continued, “Poseidon, third deity of Thear, first of the Uisdro, I give thanks for your help this year. Persephone, sixth deity of Thear, second of the Uisdro, I give thanks for your help this year. Uisdro deities, thank you for the foresight of your people, the wonderful fish was have eaten, and the water we have to drink.”

Again everyone murmured their own thanks. “Bast, fourth deity of Thear, first of the Tein-Igni, I give thanks for your help this year. Anubis, seventh deity of Thear, second of the Tein-Igni, I give thanks for your help this year. Tein-Igni deities, thank you for the knowledge of your people, the fire we have that is keeping us warm on this cold day, and the wonderful seeds your people have brought with them.”

Patiently Genevieve waited once more for everyone to say their own thanks and her eyes met those of the only other priest in North Square, a Tein-Igni priest of Loki, who smiled at her. “Loki, eight deity of Thear, who does not belong to any race and attempts to join them all, I give thanks for your help this year.” Finally came the deity who had given up her place for Persephone and those very few people knew had even risen. “Galene, once deity of the Uisdro, I give thanks for help in years previous. Artemis, ninth deity of Thear, first of the mixed races; Eir, tenth deity of Thear, second of the mixed races; and Thoth, eleventh deity of Thear, third of the mixed races, I give thanks for your help this year. Everyone in North Square connects with you as we are all mixed race and we thank you for rising in order to give us deities to call our own, who have not been used by one of the races, and giving us all a true feeling of connection.”

One final time murmurs went around the group. Genevieve looked at everyone, grateful that she hadn’t forgotten the words or done something equally stupid, and breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t help wondering what her father might be doing, whether he had handfasted again since they had left, and if she had any half siblings. They would be full Dorma, because he would have checked to make sure that his new wife’s bloodline was pure, so he didn’t get a surprise the way he had with Delyth. As she made her way over to her family she pushed all thoughts about her father out of her head.

“You did wonderfully, darling,” Delyth said, wrapping an arm around Genevieve. “I have no idea what you were so worried about.”

Genevieve smiled. “Thank you, Mother.”

“Do you want some soup?”

“Mother…”

“You didn’t have anything to eat this morning.”

They looked at each other and Genevieve knew that she wasn’t going to be able to say no. “I’m really not that hungry, but if you insist I’ll have some food.”

Sighing, Genevieve watched Delyth walked away before turning to look at her sisters. Róisín smiled at her. “You know what she’s like, Gen.”

“It’s just…” Genevieve shook her head. “I’m twenty, a priestess of Hecate, and she still treats me like a little girl sometimes.”

“She still treats me like a little girl too and I’m the mother of three children.”

“Are you glad you’re living here, Róisín?” Genevieve asked, looking at Róisín’s oldest daughter, who very much took after her Uisdro father.

Róisín ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know how to answer that question.” She breathed out and it was possible to see her breath because it was a cold day. “When Father found out that Mother was mixed blood, which was something Mother didn’t know herself, we had two options. Staying would have meant that we would have ended up dead, so I am grateful that I’m here, I’m alive, I have a wonderful husband and three beautiful children. At the same time I do wonder what my life would have been like if Father had never found out about Mother. I had a life that I loved and coming here meant I had to start again in a place that…” She looked around at some of the stone buildings. “It just wasn’t home, but now I feel like this is home. It’s not the same as our birth village, and I do miss the trees surrounding us, but that doesn’t matter any longer.”

Genevieve nodded. “Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if Father never found out about Mother. I don’t feel like I’ve ever been Dorma as such, because I’ve grown up surrounded by a mix of different races.”

“That’s not a bad thing, Gen. Father was a Dorma supremacist and he deeply believed that our race is better than the other two, so that was how both Báirbre and I grew up. Coming here gave us a chance to see that he might not be right and I was just young enough to change my opinions. Báirbre, however, seems to have taken Father’s teachings to heart.”

Genevieve looked over at her oldest sister. “Do you think she wants to go home?”

Róisín nodded. “She just can’t, because she knows Father would never accept her back. There’s nothing she can do about being mixed blood.” Genevieve could see the worry in Róisín’s eyes. “It’s possible that having her here, and other mixed bloods who have no choice but to come her if they want to stay alive, may not be good for North Square.”

“I’m not sure that there’s anything we can do to change that.” Genevieve sighed and thought about the others who seemed to pull away from the larger group to gather in their races. “Maybe we should give them a quarter and just leave them to it.” She blinked and looked at Róisín. “Why are you telling me?”

“Gen, you’re the only priestess of Hecate and North Square is the home of the sect of Hecate. That makes you the leader of our group, even if you don’t necessarily want to be, which is why people do turn to you.”

“I’m too young.”

Róisín smiled. “Age doesn’t matter. Not in this sort of situation. What matters is your position and you are our priestess of Hecate.”

“Spyro is a priest too.”

“Haven’t you noticed that people also talk to him about their problems? People trust priests and priestesses, without stopping to think that they might not be trustworthy people. Luckily both you and Spyro are, which is why you were both truly chosen by deities of Thear, instead of being like those that the races follow who are just pretending to be connected with deities.”

“I’m not entirely sure that I’m ready for people to come to me with their problems or the town’s problems.”

“Soup, Genevieve,” Delyth said from behind Genevieve, making her jump.

“Thank you, Mother,” Genevieve replied, turning to take the mug from her mother and smiling. “Do you agree with Róisín?”

As Delyth passed Genevieve the mug they looked at each other. “Róisín and I share several opinions, but I’m not sure which one you’re asking about.”

“Am I really seen as trustworthy and someone to come to with problems, because I am a priestess of Hecate?”

“Yes, darling, you are, but it isn’t just because you’re a priestess of Hecate. You listen to people and you take their opinions seriously, while also giving your own opinions.” Delyth smiled. “Sometimes I think you were born to be a priestess, because you have always been wise. When I asked you what we should do when your father found out about my heritage do you rememember what you said?”

Genevieve thought for a moment. “I don’t remember, Mother. It was a very long time ago.”

“That’s true. I was… well, scared and not thinking straight. Staying at home seemed like the only thing I could do, because I wanted to talk to your father and tell him that I had no idea my family was mixed heritage. You walked up to me, a bag packed with clothes for all four of us, and told me that the only real option I had was to leave while I still had a chance, with all of you. Your father wasn’t going to listen to my explanations because it didn’t matter. When Róisín and Báirbre got home from their training we left and I had no idea where to go, so you brought us all to North Square.”

Nodding, Genevieve thought back to that time, her memory more blurry than she would like and remembered how she had know about North Square. “Hecate told me about North Square when I visited her that night, because she knew Father had been researching your heritage. She didn’t tell me why.”

“Your father was getting ready for the time when your sisters handfasted, because it wouldn’t be long until their sixteenth birthdays, and usually a Dorma handfasting happened sometime between a girl’s sixteenth and eighteenth birthdays.” Delyth sighed. “I don’t know how he found out about my family, because it wasn’t something even I knew, but he did.”

“Do you think it happened to other people?”

“It’s possible, Gen, but there’s no way for us to know whether it did or not, and I don’t want you feeling guilty for things that you can’t change.”

Genevieve sighed. “I can’t help wondering what is happening, but at the same time I really don’t want to know. There is so much happening, so many groups of people who believe that their points of view and their beliefs are the correct one, that I know it’s going to change Thear, change all the races, and nothing will ever be the same again.”

“Things are always going to change,” Róisín said, curling an arm around her eldest daughter, who was still clinging onto the bit of candle she had been given during the ritual. “It’s a part of life, but I understand why you feel the way you do. Everything that is happening feels wrong, like it isn’t Thearan, as though all the races failed to fulfil their expectations when they arrive here. Instead it’s as though each of the races is following a path that they’ve taken before.” Róisín sighed. “I’m grateful we have a safe piece of Thear, that we can make truly Thearan, and hopefully stop making the same mistakes our ancestors made.”

“I hope for the same thing,” Delyth said. “Now that I know I’m not Dorma I can almost understand why I was always so different to your father, but I don’t know if it’s because of my heritage or the way I was brought up.” She smiled. “My father, who I wish you could have met, was a wonderful man and he brought me up to see the best in all three of the races, in all of the deities, because he saw the best in them.”

“What happened to him?” Genevieve asked, because it wasn’t often that Delyth talked about her family.

“I don’t know. He just disappeared, not long after I married your father.” Delyth sighed. “After Mother died, and my youngest sister, Father changed. It wasn’t always noticeable, especially when he was with my siblings, but I knew that something was wrong, and I tried to get him to talk to me. He always said he didn’t want to burden me with his problems. I wish he had of done, because then I might have been able to help him.” She shook her head. “Up until your father found out about my bloodline I always thought that Father had taken his own life, because he couldn’t live without Mother, but now I wonder if there was some other reason he left.”

“What about your siblings?”

“My sister died in childbirth, the same way Mother did, not long after you were born. I always thought she’d been fine because she was six years younger than me. My brother left the village not long after Father disappeared and I haven’t seen him since. I’m hoping he might end up here at some point, if he’s still alive and someone hasn’t found out about his bloodline.”

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

“Gen, I have three beautiful daughters, three beautiful grandchildren, and I think it’s much more important that I count my blessings than look back at the past with regret. I can’t change it.”

“Do you ever wish that Father hadn’t found out about your bloodline?”

“Sometimes, Gen, I do, because I did love your father and we had a good relationship. I may not have been in love with him, but we were happy, we had beautiful daughters, and I miss him, sometimes. Having friends is so very different to having a partner.” Delyth shrugged. “I do often wonder if I ever really knew him at all. It seemed impossible that he would ever choose my bloodline over the relationship we shared, but in the end he did and I’m…” She shook her head. “I regret that he made the choices he did, because we could all have lived here together, but it was his choice to make.”

“Why don’t you find someone else?” Róisín asked, and Genevieve could hear the shared loss in her voice.

“I have thought about it, Róisín, but I still feel, even after fifteen years, life I would be betraying your father.”

“Father may have rehandfasted.”

“That’s true, but he probably has very different feelings about this whole thing. He probably feels very angry, even now, that I never told him about my bloodline, although I never had any idea that I had a mixed heritage or that it would even matter to him as much as it did. Moving on is probably the only thing he could do to make himself feel better.” Delyth smiled. “I can imagine the priest of Herne picking him out a beautiful woman with a perfect bloodline as far as they know.”

“Don’t you ever feel jealous?”

“What about?”

“That he feels free to move on because he sees you as the betrayed and that he got to keep everything when we had to run for our lives.”

“Róisín, if anything I feel sorry for him, because he felt that a bloodline was more important than the time we spent together as a handfasted couple. I handfasted him when I was seventeen because I thought he was different to the other Dorma men I had met, who were all obsessed with bloodlines.” Delyth sighed. “I remember during that time several girls, and their families, went missing. We always knew why, but there never seemed to be anything we could do to stop it.”

“Who’s we?” Genevieve asked.

“There was a small group of us, three girls, including me, and four boys, who couldn’t understand the obsession with having pure Dorma blood. We had all been brought up to appreciate the differences between the three races, which I think now is a sign that we had a mixed heritage. At the time we were fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, so it was always obvious that whoever it was had been chosen by one of the Dorma boys, their bloodline had been researched, and it had been found out that there was a mixed heritage. One day they would be walking round the village, doing their usual jobs, and the next their entire family would be gone, with no warning at all.” She sighed. “Even if we did have some warning I can’t imagine what we would have done because none of us knew of anywhere safe.”

“What do you think happened to them?” Róisín asked, her voice quiet.

“The same thing that would have happened to us, darling, if Gen hadn’t known about North Square.”

“Why didn’t you get found out earlier?”

“I honestly don’t know. The only thing I can think is that it was because Mother moved to our village to handfast Father. Up until then I don’t know where she lived.”

“There are family trees in my house,” Genevieve said, “so, if you wanted, we could look at where your mother came from.”

“It would be fascinating. I didn’t know much about Father’s family either, but I know he had spent his whole life in our village. Maybe tomorrow would be good, if you can bring them over to my house.”

“Of course I can, Mother. They’re there for the whole village to look at. I could make you a copy if you wanted.”

“I hate to say this, Gen, but you have awful handwriting.” Róisín smiled at her. “You should leave that to someone else.”

Genevieve smiled back. “Maybe you’re right.” She shrugged. “There’s a lot of books in my house that I can’t read because they seem to be in a totally different language, even some of the family trees begin in those languages, so I’m hoping that someone will be able to translate them.”

“I’m sure someone will, darling,” Delyth replied. “We all know that it won’t be long until someone makes a move, and that will be when North Square will really come into use.”

Sighing, Genevieve thought about the reason the town had been built. No one could read the history books, but the story had been passed down the generations from those first residents, who had all then been a part of the sect of Hecate. Hecate had known that something would happen and had told her priests and priestesses, so they had built North Square in order to be a sanctuary. Up until the day that someone had burnt every history book the three races owned people had known about the town and had moved there is they needed to. When the books were lost, North Square was lost. Only the true priests and priestess even knew it existed.

It was strange to think of herself as a true priestess. Genevieve remembered, vaguely, the priest and the priestess from the village, and they had always seemed as though they truly were connected with their deities. When she found out that they weren’t, and that most of the other priests and priestesses had no connection to their deities either, she had always felt a little dirty. There was no way anyone could know that she truly was a priestess of Hecate, so Genevieve tried her hardest to prove to everyone that she was. From what Róisín had said it seemed like it was working.

“I wish it didn’t have to,” Róisín said thoughtfully. “North Square is a wonderful place, but I would love for it to be a part of Thear rather than set apart from it.” She sighed. “This should be Thear, but instead it’s one town, and Thear itself is probably going to be pulled apart by the different groups.”

“Unfortunately that’s not going to happen,” Delyth said, “because people are never satisfied with what they have. We have a home filled with a mix of races that should work together in order to get the best from everyone, but instead each race perceives themselves as better than the others.” She shrugged. “At some point, hopefully, they’ll realise the races need to work together otherwise everything will fall apart.”

“Or it will fall apart and we’ll be left to tidy up the mess,” Genevieve muttered.

“What do you think’s more likely?” Róisín asked.

Genevieve and Delyth looked at each other. “We’ll be left tidying up the mess,” they said at the same time.

Róisín glanced down at her daughter. “I’m grateful that my children are safe here,” she said. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to bring children into a village like ours must be now.”

“It wasn’t easy making the decision to have children when I was young,” Delyth replied. “A few of my friends made the choice not to, because they couldn’t bear the guilt they feel. Some couldn’t have children, which made them… angry, maybe, and slightly upset, with the women who chose not to have children, because they didn’t have a choice to make. Others died in childbirth, and those children, if they survived, were brought up by family members.” She looked at Genevieve. “I was lucky, especially when I had you, Gen, because during any one of those births something could have gone wrong.”

“What would have happened to us if it had?” Genevieve asked.

“If your father couldn’t have coped with you then he would probably have asked his brother to take you on. When my sister died I would have been happy to take on her child, but the child didn’t survive.”

“I never much like Uncle.”

Delyth smiled. “Neither did I. I think he was the impetus behind your father researching my family tree. I have no idea how he managed to find out what he did.”

“There’s no reason to believe that Father did actually find out anything about your family. It would be easy enough for Uncle to lie to him about your mother or father because they weren’t there to say otherwise.”

Nodding, Róisín sighed. “I can imagine Uncle doing just that. He never did like you very much, Mother, and when his wife died it’s easy to see him wanting Father to be just as unhappy as he was.”

“Do you really think Father would have been unhappy to lose us?” Genevieve asked, wishing that he was and he did still miss them so much that he had chosen not to remarry.

“I think he would have been,” Delyth replied, “but I don’t why. It’s possible that he was sorry to lose us because he loved us no matter what my heritage was.” She shook her head. “On the other hand he could have been sorry because marrying someone with a mixed heritage like mine would have affected his standing in the village and with the priest of Herne.”

“Even though it was an accident.”

“It meant that your paternal grandfather didn’t do his research properly, which would have affected the whole family’s standing. Your uncle might have lost his position on the council, your father would have lost some business, and there would have been people who made the choice not to take your cousin on as an apprentice.”

“How do you know that, Mother?” Róisín asked.

“It happened once in the village, when I was much younger. The woman was found to have a Tein-Igni ancestor and she disappeared, with her children, when I was about eight or nine. Even when we left her husband still had a lower standing with everyone in the village. His son had real problems finding someone who would give him an apprenticeship, so in the end they both left the village. I have no idea where they ended up, or if moving actually had any effect at all because the priests of Herne did talk to each other regularly. Even after they’d left his nephew and niece had trouble, because they were damaged by association. It’s horrible, but that’s simply the way things are in a Dorma village.”

“Why did you never leave?”

“I didn’t have anywhere to go, Róisín, and leaving your father wasn’t something I ever wanted to do. All Dorma villages are very much alike.” Delyth sighed. “There was a man who travelled to our village when I was nineteen and three days later his priest of Herne arrived. Soon after the man left because everyone knew that he’d married an Uisdro woman, had three children, and lived in a mixed heritage town for most of his life.”

“There are mixed heritage towns?”

“When I was younger there was a few, but I don’t know if they still exist, and they were always well hidden. A story was passed through the Dorma about a High Priest who had once destroyed three mixed heritage towns that he had stumbled across who was executed for his crimes. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I wouldn’t put it past a High Priest of Herne.”

“What are the High Priests and Priestesses really like?” Genevieve asked.

“The High Priests and Priestesses I heard stories about were always those without a connection to their deities, so I have no idea what a true High Priest or Priestess is really like, but when I was young the Highs always appeared to be a figurehead. I visited the Residence once and the High Priest of Herne I met was eighteen, had just come out of training, and was chosen by the High Priest who had come before him because they were cousins.” Delyth sighed. “He didn’t seem to be doing much at all, because I don’t think he was meant to be doing anything. It was just habit to have a High Priest or Priestess and they didn’t really mean anything.”

“Aisling is the High Priestess of Persephone.”

“Aisling was chosen by Persephone herself, not by a sibling, cousin or friend. She is a true priestess and that means more than anything. When she arrives people will look up to her, no matter how old she is or whether she has just come out of the training temple, because she is connected to Persephone.”

Genevieve nodded. “I feel sorry for her.”

Delyth reached out and squeezed Genevieve’s hand. “I feel sorry for all the true priests and priestesses who are out there, because they’re all in danger. I am looking forward to the day when they’re finally safe here.”

“What can I do to help her?”

“To start with I think we should put together a list of things we’re going to need. North Square does have space for us to make almost everything we need, but a lot of people will arrive in a sort space of time, so we need her to bring furniture, clothes, and other items that people will need in the short term.”

Originally posted at dreamwidth.org as kajones_writing.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.