Tesserta gasped, her concerned eyes drifting to the side as they met Prae's. A torrent of whispers swept through the kneeling crowd, feelings of uncertainty and anticipation filling the room. But even her closest friend couldn't hide her trembling upturned lips.
Her father cleared his throat. "Rest assured, this will not be effective immediately. I will be personally training Tesserta until she is able to take over my duties."
Prae's heart sank. After…all I went through?
What followed after was a blur to her. All Prae could feel was the stuffy atmosphere and the scrutinizing gazes coming from all directions. She buried her head in her arms as she felt it harder and harder to breathe, water welling up in her eyes. As soon as her father's feet stepped off the center stage, she politely pushed her way through the forming crowd and retreated through an unassuming wooden side door. She took one last glance as the door closed behind her, the sight of her childhood friend being swarmed with the other priestesses and villagers alike making her regret ever looking back.
Her puffy eyes were soon relieved of their weariness at the sight of the family garden, her one sanctuary in a vibrant display of colors in the shape of fruits and vegetables. After all, it was also the final resting place of her late mother. She had specially requested for her soil to be scattered amongst the garden plots instead of nourishing the fields, a practice widely known in the Outskirts as Crop burial. Her father had even desperately fought for this last wish, personally taking over for the burial squad to do it himself. Circling around to the back, Prae knelt down in front of a certain worn, rustic wooden rocking chair decorated with flowers and lightly brushed off the sand on the seat.
"Mom, I wish you could see the garden right now. It's all thanks to your blessing that they have grown up so well." Prae stretched her arms along the wooden grain of the seat, carefully avoiding the small vase of flowers and resting her head on top. "But I, well…tell me, what should I do now?"
The wind seemingly whistled in response, a light breeze whisking away one of the dried orange flowers from the clear glass vase.
Prae sighed and glanced at the nearby flower bed of Teraraens, her mother's favorite flower in a cluster of orange petals. There was one that stubbornly refused to bloom, its bud closed tightly. Prae crouched down, cupping the bud in her hand and spoke.
"You too, huh? Let me help you out."
Energy surged through her fingertips as they became warm and tingly, covering the fruit in a wave of orange light. The bud cautiously spread its sunset-tinged wings and stood proudly next to its siblings. It was fleeting, but a faint smile crossed her face.
The door creaked open once more, this time with a familiar face emerging from the doorway.
"Figured you'd be here." Tesserta crouched down next to Prae and marveled at the surrounding greenery. "How do you manage to make this place look better every time?"
"Tess"–Prae stood up and patted her robes down–"I'm…really not in the mood for this right now."
Tesserta reached out with one hand. "H-Hey, look–"
"I'm fine."
"You are not," Tesserta said, taking a step in Prae's direction. "I know how long you've been waiting to sit in the same seat as your Mom, and I'm not about to take that away from you. Tell you what, we'll go together and talk to the Village Head about this mistake, alright?"
"He…he wouldn't make a mistake like this."
"You don't think this is strange!? He just came out and–"
"No! I'm telling you that there's nothing wrong with this, that if my Dad said so, you must be the better pick! So you can get your sorry self out of here because I saw you were absolutely overjoyed back in the Temple!!"
Tesserta stared at the ground, dumbfounded. "Prae, I–"
But she stopped short, instead taking a deep breath. "If you really think that, then at least ask your Dad the reason. If you can live with his answer, then I won't interfere anymore."
And just like that, Tesserta turned around and went back through the door.
Prae's knees sunk into the damp soil of the garden. I'm sorry, Tess...I really am. I just wish I knew what to do…
One word lingered in Prae's thoughts as she scratched her head for an answer. Why? Tesserta was not wrong. Prae had indeed been waiting for this very moment since she first helped grow the fields in the village. She finally landed on an answer.
"Well, Tess is more outgoing…maybe it's because I'm not friendly enough to everyone else."
Getting back on her feet, Prae thoroughly patted her robes down and pulled the door handle. The thin wooden barrier swung open and the bustling chatter of the villagers surrounded Prae as she hesitantly walked up to the nearest person. A young girl grinning from ear to ear whose head was being patted by an adult.
"H-Hii, how's it c-crackin' Rolumi?" Prae said, doing the slight wave she had seen Allaver do a hundred times, her smile wide but stiff.
Rolumi stared at Prae for a moment, then giggled. "That's so unlike you, Prae! Are you trying to act like somebody?"
"Prae, don't be too sad…your father–the Village Head probably has his reasons. Personally, I would still pick you though." The adult with her chuckled, tears almost coming out of his eyes. "By the way, there's some dirt by your ears. Can't have our ace priestess be looking like that now, can we?"
Prae's face reddened as her ears heated up. Ugh…I want to die…how do those two even pull it off anyway? She brushed off the earthen particles, excused herself and fetched her sandals by the temple entrance.
Later that night, Prae meticulously laid out four sets of silverware and plates on the round wooden table. Walking into the room lightly dressed, her father nonchalantly wiped the sweat on his forehead with the towel draped around his neck in one hand. He briefly glanced at the table and clicked his tongue.
Without looking back, he placed his sword on the wall-mounted rack by the fireplace. "You can stop doing this now. Mom isn't coming back, and Kauvitt…well…"
"Sorry, it's just out of habit–"
"Well, learn to break that habit then." Her father pulled up a chair.
"I'll…try."
Dinner was simply one of the few family recipes she had perfected over the years, but only the sounds of the unenthusiastic clacking of utensils echoed throughout the two-story abode. The atmosphere only made it harder to say anything.
Prae fidgeted in her seat, glancing at her father. "H-Hey, Dad? Why did you pick Tess?"
What a way to start off. But if he won't say anything…
"You're not a good fit for the position," he said, wiping the corners of his mouth with a cloth.
"What do you mean, not a good fit?" Prae shot up, brushing against the table with her body. The large clay bowl in the center of the table rocked violently from the sudden force before she stopped it with her hand. "I've been training daily with my Mom in mind since I first learned Mirusol!"
Her father sighed, grabbing another helping from the bowl. "Look, if all you had to do was 'be good at Mirusol' to be a good candidate for Village Chief, I'd consider Allaver too. No, you should think about what would've happened if I hadn't urged you to kill Grantus. Would you have been able to make that choice yourself? There's a reason why I feel the need to accompany you whenever you are summoned for our holy services."
Prae's cheeks grew flushed. "That's, That's because–"
"I spoil you? Don't make me laugh." Her father snorted, setting his chair back against the brick wall. "You know how long we've been on the decline now? Food, water, medical supplies! The village's morale has been sinking faster than a man in quicksand! I can't just favor my own daughter in this situation. Not that you would understand any of this. Anyway, after you're done eating, go to bed. The Inspector from Topulenn should be arriving in the village tomorrow."
The words tore right through her heart. They weighed her down, rocks tied to her feet as she lifelessly heaved herself up the creaky wooden staircase to her room after the meal. Tired as she was, Prae found it near impossible to actually slip into a deep sleep that night. Am I really…that useless? What do I even do now?
Groaning, she rolled out of bed, nearly planting her face into the worn rug underneath. Prae gently pushed open the door with one finger and waited for any sounds. Ok, the coast is clear–wait, is that crying?
She slowed her breathing and concentrated on her surroundings again. It certainly wasn't her imagination. But who? She only knew of one other person in the house.
Prae shook her head. "Maybe somebody snuck in?"
She carefully leaned down and gripped the handle of the broom in the corner, making sure to not scrape it against the floor as she brought it with her. With long, gradual strides she made her way closer to the source of sound. It emanated from her father's room, a flickering sliver of light leaked out from the slightly ajar door.
Unable to control her curiosity, Prae peered through the crack, the resulting sight burned into her retinas. Nature's tendrils! What in the Goddess' name am I looking at?
She could not believe her eyes. Lying on the ground was the man she called her father. A whimpering, sobbing mess, much unlike the strict, powerful but fair figure at the temple podium. In only his undergarments and next to a pile of dirt shaped into a person, his hands tenderly caressed the earthly surface as if it would fall apart at any moment. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined this.
"Irysstia…oh how it's been so long," he whispered, squeezing the dirt mound towards his chest in a loving embrace. "What will we play today?"
Prae gagged and pressed a fist against her lips. But mom's…resting in the garden! Unless–
Thoughts poured into her mind all at once. The garden, the effect mom leaving them had on him, the crime he committed…she didn't know where to even begin.
Her father ran his nose across the soil-puppet like a hound, sniffing deeply and taking in the earthen scent, his body arching backwards in a display of ecstasy. He hovered his hand over the soil-puppet's, and interlocked his fingers, leaning in for a kiss–
"Wrong…wrongwrongwrongwrong!" He glared at the puppet's wiry hand and measured it with his index finger and thumb. "Too skinny…where is the rest of you…"
Her father crawled over to the corner of the room where a large clay urn stood. "Decoration. To spruce up the room and fill the void where your mom used to be," he had said, the day after the burial. She had previously questioned what the reddish-brown streaks that covered the floor were, but he had insisted that it was because he didn't know where to put it in the room. With bits of soil clinging to the rim. Prae stared in horror as he gleefully scooped up the last bits of soil and added it to the puppet, moulding it into a set of fuller, thicker fingers.
It was only a moment, but Prae felt that she shouldn't continue watching. No, it was that she couldn't bear to watch any longer. She barely just made it back to her own room when another wave of nausea hit her. Her dinner was forcibly regurgitated out in a sloppy mess on the wooden floor of her washbasin. Panting, Prae wobbled over to the bed and pulled the covers over her head, wishing the next day would come sooner.
The next morning, Prae groaned at the sight of the food chunks in the washbasin, hastily throwing on a cloak and fetching a bucket of water from the oasis in the middle of the village. A near endless supply of fresh water in the desert, the oasis was treated as a blessing from Mother Nature herself. Stripping down to her bare skin in the cramped wooden stall behind the house, Prae doused herself with lukewarm water. The liquid splashed over her closed eyelids as images of her father and the mound of dirt flashed through her mind. I must have looked like such an idiot every time we paid our respects to mom!
It wasn't even the fact that her father had gone against the laws of their village in his own interests. Nor was it that he might have possibly gone mad. It was much more complicated than that.
Prae's nostrils flared, remembering the exact words he had said to the pregnant mother in the mining village the other night. She hated, or rather, loathed the fact that her father had gone and done the very thing he had forbidden their client to do.
"What an absolute hypocrite!" Hot air escaped through her clenched teeth as she rammed a fist into the wooden wall. "You lecture me all day and then go and do this!?"
A low-pitched, hollow-sounding horn for visitors sounded in the distance, where the gates were located. It was likely the Inspector, no doubt. They would come every so often to take headcount of all the current Decaying and give wristbands to the ones who didn't have them yet. It was a royal pain, but Prae knew it still had to be taken seriously. She would line up with the rest of the villagers and every nook and cranny of her body would be examined in uncomfortably great detail.
She carefully patted her hair dry with a towel wrapped around her chest and reached down for her clothes. Damp. Heavy. And certainly not intended.
"Ugh, they must've been too close by when I washed myself earlier…talk about unlucky."
She let out an exasperated sigh and clutched both ends of her waterlogged clothes, wringing them out with a single twisting motion. Water gushed out between the folds of cloth and collided with her feet. As did a reddened speckle of dirt.
"Huh…?"
Prae blinked slowly, staring intensely at the foreign substance on her feet. A cold chill ran down her spine. It was eerily similar to the bits and pieces of dirt strewn about the room where she met Grantus. She gulped as her heart raced, her pulse almost ringing in her own ears.
The girl laughed in shallow, shaky bursts. "T-this is just some of that same dirt when I went for that job, right? It just got caught in the folds of my robe is all…"
A twinge of pain stung the left side of her head, almost as if responding to her thoughts. Prae gradually brought her hand to her left ear, cupping it as she felt vines of warm liquid snaking down the length of her index finger. It couldn't be.
The girl darted up the staircase in a flash. Straight to the full length bedroom mirror.
In her reflection, the upper tip of her left ear was missing. Gone. A mixture of blood and soil traced the contours of the cartilage, pieces still falling to the floor.
Prae staggered backwards, clasping her bloodied, trembling hands over her mouth. But the Decay was supposed to target those at the end of their lifespan!
"No no no nononono…"