The Darkness Within

38 - How the Witches Celebrate

The serious air to High Priestess Valeria faded as soon as Ciara agreed to allow the witches to train her in their ways. A wide, happy, smile formed on the female's face revealing sharp teeth in a non-threatening manner.

"Your training will begin tomorrow," Valeria said and Lucienne sipped the last of her tea from her cup. "I will show you where your group may stay tonight, but before you retire we shall celebrate!"

The female stood up, as did those who traveled with Lucienne and Ciara. Lucienne helped Ciara put her blindfold and fur-jacket back on and then followed the witch out of the building. Ciara mounted Tala once more as soon as she was able to, and Lucienne let her gaze drift from her mate- who she knew was safe atop the wolf- to the much louder commotion of witches that filled the village's streets.

As they walked behind the High Priestess, Lucienne noticed the vibrance and diversity that the witches had. She knew the story of why the first Goddess had created witches in the first place, to give women whose surroundings oppressed them or labeled them evil a fighting chance at independence, but to see the sheer diversity within the witches' population was shocking. People of all skin colors, hair colors, heights, and shapes walked around cohesively. They bowed to the Goddesses, wide smiles on their faces as they saw Ciara among them.

What Lucienne found most curious now that she saw so many of them gathered together, was the vibrance of every witch's eyes. She had noticed it with Arytha- the witch has unusually bright hazel eyes- but didn't realize it was a characteristic of witches as a species. High Priestess Valeria had green eyes that practically glowed like lightbulbs, and Lucienne concluded that the brightness- or in some cases deep, flickering, shadows- of a witch's eyes was indicative of how much power they held. The more they walked down the street, the more interesting and beautiful colors she noticed in various witches' eyes. Some had blue eyes that seemed to swirl and glow like the brightest water, others had brown eyes that seemed to glow with an inner honey color, black eyes seemed to flicker with shadows not unlike Ciara's shadows, dark green eyes held the shadows of the forest, a few even had outright yellow or purple eyes. The diversity was strange and unusual and managed to captivate Lucienne's attention for quite some time.

Her attention was only diverted when she began to look at the buildings themselves. They were strange in the way that every building, despite how the side walls of the buildings touched, was completely different. The style and material were different, the height for every building was different; the accents, placement of the windows, entrances, and exits, were all unique. The buildings also were likely built by magic seeing as the front of virtually every building was made from one single piece of stone or whatever material was used.

Finally, Valeria stopped before a black and white stone building. It was pretty and reflected the starlight from the false-sky above them. The door was wooden but had a silver handle and plain knocker.

"I apologize, Goddesses, but we do not have adequate housing for the two of you." The witch said, her head lowering in respect. "Many of us genuinely believed you would never reincarnate, Dark One, and we do not permit anyone besides our kind and our mates here, and as such have minimal housing for extra guests. Therefore, I hope this residence will suffice, Light One, for we do not have residences for the Goddesses built. Dark One, part of our training requires that you sleep in the barracks with the others who are being trained, but I hope this will satisfy you for tonight."

"It is fine, High Priestess. There are rooms for my companions?" Ciara asked, her head turned towards the witch likely to hear her better.

"Indeed, the building has many rooms for your companions to sleep in," Valeria said, stepping forward to open the door. "I see many of you have bags, if you wish and have them with you, you may change into ceremonial garb for the coming celebration."