A Sacrifice, Ours to Make
This is apart of The Great Ones, a Camp Willow plot. Read the [[[The_Great_Ones_Aren%27t_Here|introduction]]] and [[[The_Great_Ones%2C_Part_One%3A_Under_Siege|Part One]]].
Setting:
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<----> Camp Willow - Base of the Tree <---->
Before you stands the towering willow tree, that is the symbol of Camp Willow. It stands taller and has a greater circumference and diameter than most trees anywhere. Set in the trunk of the tree is a small doorway, that only small to medium sized creatures could fit, it is made this way, because it was made so that all the otters could gain entrance to it. There is a small flowerbed, with a few wood benches set around, as well as a small small otter-made pool with clear fresh water in it.
Characters:
Kolbjorn, Viking chief
Rincair, a Viking
Ayita, a captive healer
Piper, a captive resident
==
<----> A Sacrifice, Ours to Make <---->
==
The drums are rolling through the camp as night falls, calling everyone to the great tree. Boom, boom, boom. Torches are lit and faces are painted, runic designs emblazoned on nearly every available surface. Charms and curses, blessings and signs of ownership. The Vikings have claimed everything here, and will take what they have marked when they are gone. Kolbjorn walks at the head of a slow procession, his trusted lieutenants flanking him. They in turn are led by a young, slender haremaid, dressed in the furs and feathers of a shaman, her face painted with blood-red sigils. She walks at Kolbjorn's side, a place of honor, and holds a bowl, inside which rests a dead raven. On Kolbjorn's other side is Ayita, whom he has not told why she is here. Indeed, everyone, from raiders to surviving villagers-turned-slaves, has been called to the assembly.
Manning one of the great leather drums, skin stretched tight over a bowl of wood, Rincair beats out the somber call of his people, summoning one and all to the Tree. His forehead is marked with a single rune, a stemmed Y drawn in red, and the big marten has stripped down to his breeches for the ceremony, his shoulders, arms, and chest worked over with intricate red patterns. The drumsticks clasped in his mighty paws thump rhythmically against the drumhead, his eyes set on the chieftain and his retinue.
Ayita does not need to know why she is here, she merely glares at the ground. They've defiled the place, as if the genocide wasn't enough, and the healer feels sick enough as it is. She isn't going to award this farce with an open mouth stare, horror in her eyes; she leaves that for the muddy ground, blood still mingled with the moist soil. The thought threatens to bring her last meal up once again - and she dares flit her gaze back and forth, trying to locate familiar faces among the living captives.
Amongst the captives, alas, is Piper. Fighting your way out doesn't work so well when you don't know the... way. Out. She got twisted up and fighting became more of a cyclical endeavor. She was taken down, and now she stands amongst the rest. No chance to wash since the invasion, still covered in blood - mostly not hers, though she looks a bit rough. Her eyes dart around, as if also seeking familiar faces. Two in particular. Her eyes catch on Ayita's, almost pass over before snapping back to the familiar otter jill.
The procession goes slowly to the base of the tree, moving down a long line made of other Vikings, and what vermin allies they picked up/conscripted along the way. As the drumbeat being sounded by Rincair gets closer to the gathering, it is added to by stomping paws and low, murmuring voices from the crowd, a bubbling, growing sound. The haremaid at Kolbjorn's side picks up the pace to walk before him, and opens her mouth to speak, uttering a long, low intonation in the tongue of the foreigners. It is slow and halting, but gains confidence as she goes on, and more voices join her until she is leading a whole choir of Northerners who raise their paws and stamp their feet. Kolbjorn is stony-faced as always, as he leads the way to a large, wooden altar that has already been made at the base of the willow. The big hob is similarly dressed to Rincair.
With both paws occupied by the beating of the drum, Rincair can't pound himself on the chest or anything exciting like that, but the marten doesn't seem too put out, keeping the beat with steady, booming pounds of the drum. His head tosses back as he joins in the chant, voicing his assent to the procession.
Ayita can do nothing but allow herself to be lead along, her legs growing heavier with each step. She hasn't seen the Vikings this excited about something since they overthrow her home and slaughtered her neighbors - so she doubts this to be a good thing. Her gaze locks, hopefully, on Piper's, and there is a nod there - a nearly imperceptible twitch. Alive - alive is good.
Alive is very good, really, but once that acknowledgement's given her eyes scan once more, seeking amongst the captives. Both hoping to find them, and not. "... You /better've/ gotten away, you worthless little slug," the jill hisses under her breath. She's bumped from behind, encouraged along by a bump from behind from another captive, an unfamiliar otter dog.
The haremaid's long, trailing cloak drags over the ground with each step like a twisted wedding gown, and Kolbjorn is only one step behind it. Her ears mingle with the feathers in her headfur, lending her a wild, unfettered appearance much like the other Vikings. Though a woodlander she stands with the Northmen well. She steps up to the altar, still singing, and raises the bowl high along with her voice. Kolbjorn stops before the altar and turns to face the crowd, gesturing for Rincair and the lieutenants to take their places behind it, conspicuously beneath one of the larger, thicker branches. Then the chief raises his paws, and the bowl is lowered to the altar. That is the signal for silence. For now.
Ayita shifts, nervously, and the strangeness of this whole, horrifying spectacle finally draws her reluctant gaze. It only serves to further weaken her knees, and she grits her teeth. Perhaps if these Northmen had not plunged her world into absolute hell, she would be more inclined to appreciate the complexities of their foreign ways. As it is, their savage rituals are nothing but an object of crippling fear - one more macabre, twisted thing these creatures do which is deserving of the healer's hatred.
A final boom on Rincair's drum throbs through the air as the massive creature gathers his axe, tucking it into his belt and moving into position with the others of the most ferocious fighters, his eyes fixed on the chieftain and seer, totally ignoring Ayita's presence with them.
"We have fought. And fought well," Kolbjorn says, his voice rolling over the crowd. "As have our enemies, at the last. We have found strength, and Storm Father has blessed our paws with strong shields to break, and strong enemies to conquer. His wind blew us to these shores. Hrimfaxi guided us with light. And Thunaraz lent us strength to burn and conquer. Now we give thanks, as our gods gave generously to us... so too will we give to them." A rope is brought forward, given to Rincair. "We will bless this place with their touch. Where once pagans and godless emptiness reigned, we will touch this place forevermore with the mark of /our people!/ /Our strength!/ The weak, the godless, the ones not /worthy/ of this green land! They will know we have taken it, broken it, and made it ours!" The doe at the altar raises a torch, and blows gently, sending the flames to the feathers of the raven, where it starts to burn in the bowl as the rope is prepared. Kolbjorn points into the crowd. "Let all know that nothing is bought without payment! And the ones who live here - they have taken and taken, and now it is time for /their/ payment." A hooded otter is dragged out of the crowd, stumbling and unfocused.
With the rope in his paws, Rincair's fingers work swiftly, smoothly, fashioning a noose with the skill of a practiced sailor. As the otter is brought forward, the noose is finished, and a rough paw grabs the captive by the shoulder, forcing them onto the ground to have its braided length draped carefully about his neck. The hood is pulled off before the marten cinches the noose down, growling low to the poor soul about to receive this special honor. "Face your death with courage," he rumbles softly, pulling the otter up and pushing them forward to the base of the tree, where a lazy toss sends one end of the rope over a low-hanging limb.
Now it really starts to sink in - is this a /sacrifice/?! Horrified, Ayita is unable to keep quiet any longer, and her voice escapes her as the otter is dragged forth. "/NO/!" She shrieks. She doesn't know who it is, only that they are her kin, her neighbor. Another needless death in a war they didn't ask for. Her breathing ragged, the ottermaid turns wild eyes on Kolbjorn. "No, enough! I-I'll change th'bandages, I promise, please jus' no /more/!" Her position, dragged along at the front of this freakshow, only rattles her further and as Rincair slings the rope over the beasts neck, the panic sets in. "Please, please..." She begs, still looking between the doomed otter and the martens who are sentencing him. Her panic, though, is the only evident: the beast himself lolls, listlessly, his eyes gazing unfocused up at the great Willow Tree, his fear dulled in the haze.
As the spectacle plays out before the captives and the odd assemblage, Piper's small ears dip back, watching as the otter is noosed, and the pulling out thrown over the broad limb. She sinks back a step, palm falling over her mouth as her eyes dart then to Ayita's outburst. She bares her teeth in a quiet growl, frustration raising hackles in her fur.
Kolbjorn turns to Ayita, raising an eyebrow. "This? Why do you fear? He proved weak in life. So his death will bless this land." He looks back to the doe at the altar, his gaze softening to something slightly less barbaric as he raises his paw. The seeming priestess kneels, spreading the fire with her torch, letting it rise to consume not just the raven in the bowl, but the altar itself. "He will hang in the wind, so Storm Father takes his spirit whole. And another will offer the stuff of life itself, to water the roots of the Tree that raises the world." The doe at the altar now draws a dagger and extends her free paw, and two guards in the crowd react to some unseen signal. The thumping of drums and chanting of voices begins again as Piper is, for no reason the otters can see, chosen from the crowd, seized by heartless paws and dragged forward. "Blood," says Kolbjorn, "and life. Both of these we need."
At the base of the tree, the otter, whose head lolls from side to side in a completely unsatisfactory way, has angered Rincair. The lack of a staunch spirit in the sacrifice is upsetting, and he gives the riverdog a few backhanded swipes across the face to liven him up a little before his rough paws wrap around the rope again. Strong arms pull down hard on the end of the rope, the primitive pulley slowly hoisting the unfortunate beast into the air, kicking and gasping.
No discernible reason that Piper can think of, either. When suddenly she's seized, the young jill starts to thrash and kick, coming alive with growls and snaps until she's cuffed about the head hard enough to daze her. She is thus dragged forward, sun-bleached head hanging, and then shaking fitfully side to side as she tries to clear it. All the while a low 'rrrr' vibrates in her chest, a futile threat.
The doe - and the knife - waits patiently as the fire rises along with the body. Piper is wrestled into place next to the burning altar, close enough to feel the heat singe her fur and lick at her face, and that's before her arm is extended out. The doe's touch is more gentle than the guards, but no less brutal as she calmly swipes the knife's edge under Piper's arm to draw a small stream of blood, letting it drop and sizzle on the burning wood. "Nu aska risa og blessun rigna nithur!" Kolbjorn calls out, the chanting and stamping reaching a fever pitch as the flames rise higher and higher, grasping for the still kicking body hanging above the altar. "Forn sithur er sattur! This land is ours! He pumps his fist into the air, as the cry goes up to the smoke, and the sky beyond. Ours. Ours. Ours.
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