Wheeling Gull Isle wet

this got kinda weird

”Mmm,” he grunted as ahe agreed to join him, — just as Komodo had expected she would. Introductions were rendered unnecessary as the apparition stepped closer with several sweeping, ghostlike movements — rounding him and his spread of spiritual baubles, looking out upon the ocean, then to him, then to the items. She moved, and the man did not; but her strong gaze was returned a thousandfold, attempting to glean as much about this woman as he could in that moment — namely, if she was true in her intentions. There was no place for blasphemy or skepticism at his table.

She sat down. Komodo stood up.

The earthstalker reached out to grasp the willow bough in his jaws and drew it forth. It was a delicate switch, having only been cleaved from its mother tree just hours earlier, so Komodo gingerly placed his heavy paw onto its base and wrested off a small offshoot with a deft yank of how jaws. It was a small branch to begin with, and to split it apart made it considerably smaller, but it would suit their purposes all the same. The torn end of the branch, beading with wetness and sweetly scented, was placed at Aria’s dainty paws. As he laid the branch in front of her, he could not help but linger a moment too long and breath deep, letting her scent shellac his mind and loosen his muscles. Yes, even the scent of a woman was divine. ”Do as I do,” he instructed in his reticent, roughhewn tone. ”speak as I speak,” Komodo backpedaled several feet so that he was repositioned in front of the altar, his gaze unable to leave the graspingness of her own.

”and you will not get lost.”

And with that, the brutish shaman turned his attention to the task at hand — if she could keep up, she would be rewarded greatly; if she could not keep up, she risked the success of this communion — Komodo did not have time for failure, just as he did not have time for this impending maelstrom.

The angakkuq lowered his mottled, shrouded visage to the array of items, quickly finding the crystalized myrrh and hauling in breath. The headiness of the resin seeped into his consciousness and helped to extricate the man from body. He picked up his branch and he rhythmically began to move his visage in a sweeping action above the spread of holy items, stirring the air with his movements and letting his entire body rock with it. Eyelids slipped shut but his unseeing eyes still flashed and danced behind their concealment; his breath both deepened and quickened as the pulse-pulse-pulse of all the living things became deafening; grasses and sands, fish in the sea and birds in the sky, him and her, all connected by the same vibrations that threatened to rock the world off its axis. A thickset paw began to stamp against the and a rhythmic thud-thud-thud; a metronome to take the world and set its pace.

Continuing these motions in body only, Komodo broke the consumption of his mind for a moment to ensure that he had not abandoned the woman — the apparition was a part of this now; her comprehension and intensity was instrumental in his own. His eyes slipped open and he pushed forth, taking thick steps towards her — slow and viscous— with an impenetrable physiognomy that somehow managed to silently, gently speaks his words from moments before: speak as I speak.

Then, something that was not Komodo gave words to his invocation; the man’s voice came as something that was not himself.

“Crescent one of the starry skies—
Flowered one of the fertile plain—
Flowing one of the ocean sighs—
Blessed one of the gentle rain—
Hear my chant midst the standing stones—
Open me to your mystic light—
Waken me to your silver tones—
Be with me in my sacred right.”

After each line, the man paused and allowed Aria to repeat the chant to him. He continued to strike the sand with the heel of his paw, providing a beat to which the shamans conjured the spirits of the earth; everything that had ever lived; the collective consciousness of the universe that was capable of boiling oceans and felling mountains. He called upon it and awoke it to his cause. The spirits were willing to listen, but they were selfish and wanted much in the way of sacrifice in order to dispense their blessings. He appealed to them with the undulations of voice, the smokiness of his alto lingering against the crashing of the waves. The man had not noticed, but he had closed the distance between them and, feeling quite emboldened by the vibrancy of the ritual, he made to pull his body alongside hers and if she would let him, the agakkuq would brace her slight frame against his stocky build. Then he would undulate with her, guiding her more easily find the rhythm that was essential to placing the ego aside and truly feeling the choir of the earth.

Komodo continued: “Per Dominum Deum viventem, et semper, et in securitatem invenire gratiam. Da nobis orare possumus denique tempestate, ad lætándum in munera Dei misericordiam, ut humilietis eas, et vestram semper ad gloriam nostram bonum.”

He knew nothing of latin but had committed the ancient prayer to memory; his dextrous tongue easily spoke the foreign words he had learned all those years ago. This time, the shaman did not leave space for Aria to repeat and respond — the words came fast and the words came true; they could not have been stopped, even if he had tried to. Then, with suddenness, he broke his attention from the spirits and placed it wholly upon Aria. ”You must make the offering,” he stated gruffly. ”They want you to do it.” This was her chance to ask the gods for the health and healing she sought. ”The heart and the head — bury it. ” He instructed, stepping away and gesturing to the body of the hare, having lost its life for the most divine of purposes. The act of killing it was not sacred in and of itself, but the action of removing the mind and the soul of the creature and returning it to the earth [and meanwhile abstaining from the consumption of its flesh] was one of ultimate ways to appease the gods.

If she did so, and did it true, the ritual would close.