Yriel/Uriel/Euryale

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I remember the men with their yellow beards splashing through the water. They had hacked a way clear through the trees which had grown up along the banks and now they waded, knee deep, in the murky green riverfoam.

This place had been abandoned for years, but now they came again. And this time they came to stay

The river has changed its course since then, and the trees are all gone. Now the burh...no...not a burh now. A town. That is what they call it. Now there is a town made up of stone and concrete. I remember She Who Taught speaking of the civitates of the East, which buried the groves of Andraste. They were all burnt. Maybe this place will burn too, one day, although it seems impossible now.

The grey and the stone is almost everywhere now.

I remember that grey hued face and the way his skin seemed to crack when he smiled.

"I do not bow to false gods" he had said, and I had smiled. He recoiled a little at that, for my teeth were needle sharp. I filed them down in those days. It made an impact.

"There are no false gods," I said. "But call them what you will. Are you strong enough not to break beneath their weight when you stand before them?"

"I do not bow," he said, and his voice was like cracking granite.

The new Prince is hard like concrete. He is new like concrete, wrapped up in silks and brocades. Smart? Perhaps. Strong? I do not know. He Who Sleeps was strong, but moreso, he had fortitude. He had the strength to withstand, and to withstand that which sears the mind and spirit, as well as the flesh.

The gods make a meal out of fortitude. They devour it, and with that fortitude taken, their hunger is abated for a while. So it has always been. He Who Sleeps understood this, in the old days, when I still intervened directly.

Do they understand now?

I remember She Who Taught, who's hair was filled with snakes. I remember the soft lilt that never left her voice. She should not have sounded soft, but she was Greek. Greek is a gentler tongue that the tongue of my people.

She came to this land with the tin traders. Do they even exist now? She spoke of the sacred groves in the eastern lands, where the Iceni ran races to the glory of the goddess, and the women who were offered up to Andraste to appease her appetites. She spoke of Belatu-Cadros of the north, the bright god of death.

I did not know them. My people cut down their worshippers before I was even born.

I said this to She Who Taught and she laughed.

"You will know them," she said and smiled, a terrible smile. "Gods do not die as easily as men."

I remembered that my people had killed their worshippers. I did not look at the face of She Who Taught for a moment. When I did look up, my face was still.

"I hope I will know them," I said. "And I hope that I will make penance for the worship that has been taken away from them. For all time."

I do not know if she was even listening to me by then. I was a child and my words were like dust in the wind.

There are words around me again. Children babbling, secure in their own importance. The young are always important. It is the great certainty of youth. The children that Leviticus sends to me are respectful, others less so. I find that a lack of respect still riles me; I am Yriel, I am the Mother of the Crone, Eldest hægtesse, She Who Knows, She Who Remembers. And this is worth...what?

Perhaps I should strut around as my little sister does, coated in blood and slaughter. Fear is, after all, a great weapon. Yet I am not she. Hers is the way of passion, of blood, of the beautiful insight of the fire in the belly and the rush in our veins. Mine has never been that way. She fights, stepping forward to the tomorrows that may be. I am, a part of this world, and yet apart. I do not need their fear.

Well, not today, anyway.

I remember the forest.

The forests are gone now. Yet I remain.

I remember.

And that is all...