Chapter II: Nepenthean Eve
One sennight did the woodland age
since Serenity’s sorrow incited;
since Faith, the Dryads’ trusted sage,
her sister to Esbat invited.
And Serenity waited night after night
as the full Moon’s eve had near’d,
and gathered her hopes upon the rite
as she readied to meet her wyrd.
Copyright © 2002-2017 by Dustin Jon Scott
[Last Update: Decemberrd, 2017]
¶XIX. The night of the next full moon, Serenity and Charity stowed away together into a dark corner of the Emerald Forest, and there Charity began to work her seid.
¶XX. Under the light of Diana they sat, and Charity gathered herbs that Serenity didn’t recognize, and with her staff she mixed them into the mud, singing in the ancient Faenaril tongue.
¶XXI. She sang her rune as only a Shaman could, the words flowing from her on wafts of moonlit air. And her heart came forth into the words themselves as her breath quavered, singing words that it seemed were meant by their very construction to be sung as her soul outstretched, and trilled the song softly aloft her lips.
¶XXII. And with her stave she stirred the unction, ever her voice upborne as she did, begaling it; and when she finished stirring she removed her staff from the mud and placed it down beside her.
¶XXIII. She gathered up the mud then, and began anointing Serenity’s body with the salve she had crafted, beginning first with the breast nearest Serenity’s saddened heart.
¶XXIV. As the two stood, Charity completed her rune and slathered her sister completely with the ointment, and then smiled. Charity then bade Serenity not wash herself until the last of it had dried and fallen from her skin.
¶XXV. And thus the work of Charity was wrought.