Prompt of the Week

Today’s prompt of the week is:

A Strange New Life

My response:

Living in the village meant that I must work amongst them. It was a stark contrast from my life in the temple, where I spent most of my time in the pursuit of knowledge. I spent the mornings farming in the fields with the other villagers, who worked with me but did not say much to me. The old woman who ran in the village took me in because she had once known Evelyn. I spent my afternoons mending clothes with her. Dinners were usually held among the entire town in the temple three times a week; once a week I helped with the cooking and serving of this food, though cooking was not my greatest strength.

Despite the work that I did and the fact that I always sat at Edith’s-the old woman’s-table, I was friends only with the priests and priestesses and a couple of the other elders. There was a man named Vindictus who was very tall and said to be a half giant, and he was now growing old and had a silver braid hanging down from the back of his head. He had been a great hunter and warrior in his youth and was still fairly skilled; the servers at the temple were gossipers and said that his mother, a giant, had left him on the doorstep of his father as soon as he had been old enough to stop nursing. And there was a woman, a fully human woman but a powerful witch, named Aerith. She had lived in this village all of her life and was now very old. Most of these people had been in the village for only a couple of decades; plague came often but so did new arrivals.

I was not spoken to by most of the other villagers. I learned mostly about their village either from Aerith or Vindictus, who both had a talent for storytelling and a nature to tell many of them. Whatever else I picked up was usually gossip among the temple servers.

I hoped the people of the village would warm up to me sometime soon, quickly; but they did not. I adjusted fairly quickly to a life on society’s fringes, having always been kind of an outcast at the temple, neither priest nor trainee nor servant. I also had one day entirely to myself because of this, the one day when I did not work at all-for we worked five and a half days to keep the village running-when I read the books we had, limited though they were, and practiced my weapons. I also had time to practice before dinner at Edith’s, for she insisted on cooking the meals there.

Sometimes in the early evening I would see a man stare at me. He looked similar to Vindictus with sharp features, though he certainly did not seem giant; he wore his hair in a long ponytail which was still black. I did not know his name; I was not going to ask. I would wait for him to speak to me.

I did not take the time to contemplate the slight loneliness, this slight longing, for a true friend, perhaps a lover, which slowly grew in my heart. Such things were not to be considered; if I gave them thought they would only take form and grow bigger in my heart. I put them out of my head and worked my days away.

I did not think of the city; there was no going back. It was not my home without Evelyn.

Perhaps I would never have a true home without Evelyn.
——-
Please post the first 75 words of or a link to your response

Prompt of the Week: Illness

Today’s Prompt is: Illness

My response:

The halls of the Great Temple of Memories were never so quiet as on the day High Priestess Evelyn died. The songs of worship were not sung on that day, seventh day of the seventh month. The priests prayed in silence. The doors of the great temple were not opened that day. The air in the temple hung heavy over the heads of healthy priests.

A young girl carried an iron kettle in one hand and a clay mug in the other. She wore black today instead of the colour of her Goddess. Today was not an ordinary day. Today was a day of mourning. She walked quietly in padded slippers down the huge halls. It was said this place was built by giants. She could believe that if she looked up and thought about how far away the ceiling was.

At the very end of this hall there was a green door. On the door in elegant black lettering were the words ‘High Priestess’. The girl did not need to knock; the door opened of its own accord to let her through.

The room that she walked into was fairly large. The walls were light green contrasted against dark mahogany furniture. There was an elegant desk in one corner with a red arm chair sitting next to it, a wardrobe in another corner, and in the centre of the room there was a huge four poster bed. On either side of the bed were a little tea table and a little chair. The windows behind the bed were closed and the curtains drawn over them.

In the bed there was a woman, a very old woman with braided silver hair and unseeing blue eyes. She smiled as the girl put the kettle down and then the cup.

“It is nice to see you still care,” the woman said.
“We all still care,” the girl said.
“Perhaps. But no amount of caring can save me.”
“Do not speak that way, Mistress Evelyn,” the girl said, pouring the tea into the cup. “I have brought you tea.”
“I am going to die, child. I have lived a good life. It is fine.” The woman took the tea and sipped at it. “Ah, rose tea; my favourite. Thank you.”
“You do not have to die today-”
“If I do not die today, I shall live only to die tomorrow.” The woman put her tea down.
“You can live yet.”
“No; I have summoned you here so that I might have a friend by my side when I die. Do not try to stop me; if I wanted more life, I would seek a healer.”
“Mistress…” the girl took the old woman’s hand.
“Listen to me,” the old woman said, looking at her, “when I am gone, follow the river to its widest point. Choose carefully which of its paths to follow, and along that path you shall find your queen.”
“Evelyn-”
“Do not question. Just go.”
Evelyn’s eyes closed and her chest sank. The girl buried her head in the dead woman’s shoulder and sobbed ever so quietly.