locked to veilofpetals

[learnandshift]

[The so-called Temple is actually more of a castle, close up, and the priests and priestesses have certainly tried to make it feel more like a home, so far. If the chosen Bride had any fear of being strapped to an altar and sacrificed immediately on arrival, the attendants hope the hospitality will soothe it.

When she first arrived, she was seen to a luxurious private bedroom and allowed to rest, then given a tour of her new home (all but one foreboding room behind a white door at the highest point of the highest tower.) Then came a sumptuous wedding feast of every delicacy imaginable, and some perhaps even unheard of. The Lord was strangely not in attendance.

"He'll see you later tonight," said the high priest, a portly man with kind eyes. "He wants you to enjoy yourself in the meantime."

After dinner it was off to the baths, where the Bride was soaked and scrubbed in hot mineral springwater and fragrant oils, then dressed in nothing but a white silk robe tied at the waist. There is little doubt what is to happen now, as the high priestess walks the Bride up to that white door in the high tower.

"Only do not shun him," said the priestess. "He will not hurt you. But do not refuse."

With that discomforting little message, they open the doors and usher the Bride inside what appears to be a featureless room, gray stone. At the far end is a flat stone altar, and behind it a throne.

In the throne sits nothing but a cloud of shadow, immense and as featureless as the room except for pinpricks of light, glowing orange eyes.]

Comments

[veilofpetals]

[Nero's no virgin, and no fearful child. She knows what she's being prepared for with every step in the process - and while she's grateful for the food and the bath, she'd rather it all just be over with. Spectacle needs no justification beyond itself, but formalities - those grate on Nero, make her chafe.

Spectacle has substance. Ritual is empty. And even with the food being delicious and the water soothing her skin, she can't help but feel like everyone involved is going through the motions, herself included. She still doesn't know what her husband will look like, or what he'll even be doing to her. She's heard the whispers - that he might not even be human, but some manner of beast. A minotaur, a cyclops. Or something far darker, far more abstract than that. The kind of thing you'd only find in the deepest parts of the ocean.

She's not afraid, though - even as she steps into the room, even as the door shuts behind her, she isn't afraid.

... She does take a step back at those pinpricks of light, though. She can't imagine what sort of creature looks at a human like that. She wonders what it's - he's - thinking. If he can even think.]

... Are you going to sit there, my dearest? Come, embrace your wife - and dismiss these priestesses. [She's putting on a bold face, but she's still squinting into the darkness, trying to make out some sort of distinct face. Human beings like to empathize, after all. She's read enough poetry to know that. They assign human feelings, emotions, to animals. Even inanimate objects, sometimes. So she wants to find some kind of human emotion in her...

Husband.]