Two Eyes Cenote it’s not a paid vacation

backdated *handwavey gestures* some PP to set scene, all tagged welcome. <3

it took some work to prepare for @Eset’s ritual. qiao marveled how the mind held onto patterns: though it seemed eons since she last bound a sister to the coven, she still remembered each step with pristine clarity. 

@Stormchaser was to fetch the owl pellets, the dried timothy grass, the fermented chicory tea. @Riot prepared the bedding; downy pelts of fawn, a bundle of straw, and pads of furskins close to the stone slab where the ritual took place. 

to eset, qiao motioned to the stone bank where each of their effects were carefully deposited. she did not doubt eset’s resolve, but the first custom of their long seance was a question: are you sure you wish to do this?

All of this was for her. The hebsut would have felt honored, if she perceived beyond the pain of absence in that moment. She drifts in quietly, looking around. The work of Qiao and time had begun its healing on her body.

But she felt herself moldering, the vacant eyes seeing nothing in particular. The hemet’s voice unfurls, passing through her ears in delayed dissonance.

She wishes to crumple there on the floor. Instead she finds herself nodding.

“Yes.” Eset wanted to be taken away from the reality where she'd had them.

some pp to move along, lmk if not ok <3

know that today you die - the things that make you you die also. qiao continued, flicking her gaze past eset towards the many bundles at their feet. she noticed, of course, the way eset seemed barely present - shell-shocked maybe by the cacophony of events that ran like river torrent and dumped her here, at qiao's door.

no use fighting the river.

but you will be reborn; your self rebound in the strength of the coven. a psychologist would call this the death of ego and the superimposing of id. to be something augmented, something better. but qiao was no psychologist. she only remembered her own birthing day, and those of many others.

some did not make it. the mortality rate careened into the double digits, if qiao was counting. but she wasn't counting, because those who did not make it did not matter. they were never cut from strong enough textile to become part of the coven; their fibers were weak, and this ritual the culling ceremony to cut their thinning blood loose.

there was one girl, akembwe. headstrong. defiant. like so many girls born to this world, her story before qiao was sad - and she turned to the coven to fulfill hopes of vengeance. qiao saw promise in that hateful fire, but the ceremony turned. akembwe went mad; cannibalized herself and then drove a spear straight through her chest. from that misfortune a life lesson was born: too much salt spoiled the broth.

it was good then that eset's camp erred strongly into melancholy.

eat this. @Stormchaser had come to stand besides them, holding a singular owl pellet packed on a bed of dried reeds. its contents were stewed with the rich scent of mold and ferment -- and something else far more potent.

she waited for eset to consume the fermented pellet before continuing. when you wake, you must remember what you dream. and you must tell me. qiao motioned riot back, and stormchaser slipped behind them to prepare the bed of straw near eset's feet.

then, he came to flank qiao -- his eyes filled with a dark knowing. stand here. she instructed to the would-be-mother, motioning eset stand between the two of them where the dark tongue of the river passed by their ankles. she flashed the mourning dove a smile she believed might be reassuring. 

for a beat, there was nothing but the soft gurgle of the water between them. then, with a vicious strength that utterly belied her age, qiao and her familiar seized eset's head -- holding her underwater until desperate thrashing stilled to eerie calm.