In The Name of Noxon (part 6)

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At the end of the three months of fitness exercises that I was ordered to do, I was still a bit short of ideal for a presentation to the 'god'... my muscles were toned well enough, but I had still a bit too much body fat for the black bitch, mine being about 30% of my weight when "it" prefers women in the 22-25% bracket.

No, girls, sorry to say this but, apart the twins, nobody in this room has less than a 35% of fat in her body.

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A murmur ran through Granny A listeners... the twins were already rumoured to be womb-daughters of a Black Guard, with their body full of muscles and showing one superficial vein too many. This last note of Granny seemed an indirect confirmation of the rumour, which irked Granny enough that she provided to shot down the idea immediately.

- "That's because they are too young and their hormones still have to go all in their proper places, morons."

The twins, both, blushed - together, as they often did. Granny A liked this, and went on with her story.

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I was remaining the only one of our small party that& still had to climb the great terraced pyramid, and it was driving me nuts - so I asked an exemption to the 25% rule to the priestesses, who throw the dice and granted me one... for life.

Apparently, the 'god' manifested that it liked me plump.

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A round of giggles waved through the great hall, while the old woman scrolled her head, smiling at the odd taste of the 'god' before going back to the tale.

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Plump and pregnant, though I did not know that, at the time.

I was slated to climb the Ziggurat the first mid-week of Spring, some few days after the Spring equinox.

It is not the best of times, which are around the solstices - though, which of the two, depends a bit on whether one really likes or just endures "The Rites".

Summer solstice is the best for the first case, winter for the other.

Yes, they are reversed, too, depending on whether you are north or south of the equator.

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An adventurous hand fell down, as Emily's curiosity had been promptly satiated.

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When my day came, I was not alone in my first Walk.

Nobody is, ever. Over time, I came to see it as a proof of the fundamental piety of the clergy.

For the 'god', our inductions are second-tier shows.

It likes them, sure, but one way or the other, they are not what it craves, not what the contract with our species is really about.

But, for young Officiants like I was at the time, they are an incredibly stressful moment - mostly because it is when we really feel, physically I may say, that that is going to be our life for the next twenty years or so.

It is also the first time that we enter a stage with so many viewers - because in every city with a Ziggurat,  in modern times these have been surrounded by taller buildings, and many of their inhabitants watch the rites from their windows.

Fragbar is no exception to this reality - about two hundred thousand persons lives in a flat with a window facing the Ziggurat, and many do take some time off, when the Officiant of the day is their favourite, or the ledger of the girls to be consecrated contains some exotic novelty.

I was an exotic novelty, there, like a Nubian black would be in our town - Fraglbar is populated, mostly, by brown coloured women, as most cities in the temperate latitudes. True blacks and pale read-heads are a both seen as exotic, there...

The flashes from lenses, out of the towers around Fraglbar's Ziggurat, were so numerous that one could feel the whole city watching, even without thinking the 'god' and its lubricious gaze.

It is only natural& that the Priestesses, who very often are Officiants whose body does not withstand the Black Gooo any more, try their best to alleviate our stress.

Not being alone, in any such endeavour, is a powerful help and, thus, they always managed to have at least three new consecrated, when there were new girls. In turn, that made those walks specials, and attracted more viewers, but, in all, I think that it is still the better choice.

Fraglbar is a peculiar place, in that the waterway from the Officiant quarters to the Ziggurat is not some dammed, woman-controlled, land-locked canal, but a stretch of sea.

It is not open sea, of course, as the gulf is an impact crater at the and of a glacial-origin fjord, but it is sea nonetheless, and can become pretty dangerous to navigate with the rowing boats used by the ceremony.

So, depending on the weather conditions, the walks may have to be postponed, even for weeks. Nobody wants to see us drowned - nobody but the 'god', in some rites, and - luckily - not for real.

You know, the 'god' is an ass but not so bad, once you give him its carrots.

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The old woman winked, and the girls in the great family hall, all members of her very extended family - great-granddaughters and great-grandnieces and assorted great-grand-something - laughed heartily.

The old woman took a glass of water - strong as she still was, even her got dehydrated as everybody else, telling old stories of her glory days.

She wanted her great-grand-somethings to know all the possible truths about what her service was, yet to see that there was grace, and pleasure, in being there and participating to the great theatre - both to communicate her sense of worth, and to convince some of them to enter the Squared Top.

Levy notwithstanding, families that contributed volunteer members to the service still had sizeable windfalls, and her family exploited these as few could.

To be honest, she had learnt to do it, and still did it, in her role as the mater familia - so, her telling the story of how she became who she was, in order to convince descendants of her and her sisters to take the veil, was more than a bit self-serving..

She dwelt on it all of about three seconds, shrugged the thought as meaningless pseudo-ethic, and went back to her storytelling.

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I had kind of luck - in the week or so that my first walk got postponed, two girls from Fraglbar came in, from the Fraglbar Mariners cheerleading squad.

They had received The Call, and finally decided to acknowledge it. They did not need specific training, as they already were, physically, in top form.

I often suspected that all the Mariners received The Call but that, simply, most of them resisted it far better than us - after all, they stood to lose a lot, entering the Service. 

It was so, thus, that when I finally took my place in the column, the leash to my collar in the hands of Cezanne, that was to office that day, I was nowhere near the most gorgeous or the most interesting woman in our column.

In my hands, tied behind my back, was the leash to the collar of none other than Anya Leigh,  then in her last year as cheerleaders' captain, and in her hands was the leash to her team-mate, Lyta Spengler - both were soon  to be on a ship to Hapan and the Ziggurat of Ödo, where they became a fixture.

Last of the women to be consecrated, was a tiny 19 years old, Hela Pëkke, with whom I had spent some time during training.

She used to have my opposite problem - beyond muscular mass, she needed to acquire about seven pounds of fat, to be able to menstruate again and reproduce, if the 'god' so wished.

It took her a lot of will, and the constant supervision of a priestess, to overcome her alimentary disorders and get in shape for The Walk.

Back then I still didn't understand that there is really no such thing as bad publicity - only notoriety and oblivion are real.
Being in the middle of such interesting woman, felt like a protection. All those creepy spectators would be concentrating on them, not me, I thought, and this mad me at ease.

The two cheerleaders were used to be ¡ogled by a hundred thousand women, and were unmoved by this.

Helas was, mainly, just happy to be there, be alive, and be - if I may use the word - free.

Free of a obsessive mother that had starved her for years, to get her into fashion modelling...

From the little that I understand, the priest that helped her eat was the first truly maternal person that she ever met. We took place, in the middle of the last great ship, and sailed toward the pyramid, hardly visible from the small port near the Officiant's residency. Ours was the last ship - before us, a ship carried a landing party of Black Guards, that would provide security, then the ship of the priestesses that would help the rites and assist to The Walk, a ship of sister officiants - mostly there to take notice of how things go - and finally, ours, with the Officiants of the day and us novices.

Even if none of you ever joins the service, please go watching it - four boats full of women, most of them beautiful, in leather armour or one tiny veil away from being naked, that slowly and quietly sail over the Great Gulf's calm waters...

It is, indeed, as poetic as they say.

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The girls in the hall draw their breaths, as they feel that it is finally arriving what they waited for, for so long.

An ungodly gore-fest of tortures, performed over the most beautiful women in the world ,on behalf of some crazy alien entity.

Alas, it was already time for supper...