Story: Claiming and Claimed

This fill was inspired by a prompt from ashelterofpages and fills the "crave" square of my Valentines Day "ChocoBar" Bingo Card. This story is 552 words, and is an expansion on my earlier story "Seeking."

 

CW: This is set in a Dark Fantasy world, and contains some possession weirdness.

 

Claiming and Claimed

 

As I stoked the fire, laying it in a circle of twenty-one polished obsidian stones, I reflected on the sacred lessons I had learned.
 

 

The foundation of the Temple rests upon the Sentire Sisterhood. 

Our Sisterhood is a collection of women blessed with seven enhanced senses.

We are the only ones blessed to hear and perceive the souls of the departed. 

To protect our sanity, we must be joined by our Guide, the spirit of a sister who now resides beyond the veil.

My Guide protects my mind, and in exchange I grant her access to the mundane world through my seven enhanced senses.

The Circle is complete, Sentire to Guide, Guide to Sentire.

We are willingly led by the Temple Mother, who watches over our coven, and our village.

These principles had been my life since I was marked a Potential at twelve and moved to live within the Temple. I had been deeply devoted, until they kicked me onto the streets ten years later, Guideless, and worthless.
 

Winter howled in the air above the cellar I’d sneaked into. The Temple was the only place in the village with the resources needed to complete my ritual. The obsidian fire circle, the rich summoning oils, and the precious herbs whose smoke would reveal the portal my Guide would soon walk through.
 

I craved the completion of my bond, to be made whole again. Every day my seven senses tore at my mind, an incessant burn and itch, without the buffer of a Guide. I knew I’d succumb to madness, and the elements, if I didn’t find one soon, as had been the fate of other Potentials cast from the Temple.
 

As the fire reached a peak I poured the oils, sprinkled the herbs, and said the words.
 

“I am open, and I wish to be filled. I am a vessel to be Guided. Hear me and grant my Wish.”
 

The smoke billowed, grew redolent with the burning herbs, and with my enhanced Sight I witnessed a portal forming. Exhilaration burned through me. I would succeed!
 

Smoke spun around an opening vortex, and from within I could hear many voices, clamoring for attention, the dead seeking a way back to life. One seemed to grow louder, stronger than the others, and with a mighty rush, poured through the tear in the veil, and into my open heart.
 

Then another.

And again.
 

I screamed in agony and fell to the cellar floor. A Sentire was only meant to host one Guide, how could I possibly contain three? They strained against the confines of my body, and in a panic, I lashed out. I flailed my arms and kicked my legs in terror, and through sheer luck managed to dislodge a few obsidian stones and cut my hands through the smoke. The ritual dissolved, the portal closing before a fourth soul had cleared the rift.
 

The fire circle disrupted, the flames quickly leapt from the floor onto the stacks of stored supplies and reached for the beams ahead. In mental agony, and in fear of the spreading flames, we hoisted our body from the floor and ran.
 

My wish to find a Guide has been fulfilled. 
 

*My wish to return to life has been realized.*  
 

~The goal of reincarnation has been achieved.~ 
 

+I’m alive again!+

~~~Notes~~~

A Dark Fantasy Sentinel/Guide reinterpretation.

Delandra - was an acolyte in a Temple of the Sentire Sisterhood until she was released from service when she failed to realize her potential and attract a metaphysical Guide. This Temple's approach to culling their less mystically gifted members is seen as necessary by the Temple Mother, and as a cruel betrayal by the girls she evicts, after she raised them to believe they were Special. Delandra could not let go of her belief that she was going to be a powerful Sentire, and attempts an esoteric ritual to try and regain her former valued position.