X: She: Dasha

When the worship of the earth mother Rhy fell to the waste side all that was left of her lofty name were small groves where the juniper trees pushed the sky and uchuva berries littered the grounds. Many of her litanies became nursery rhymes while forms of her many titles became names of the young girls in S'rn. Ana'sren, little sapling. N'ila'han, spring faun. Mara, mother of sparrows.

Though her priestess forgot her worship they didn't forget their oath to her. The dashas kept the groves immaculate, keeping their pledges of virginity sealing their bodies. Yet the dashas were not cloistered nuns. Many took the rite of kyshan becoming the celibate wives of soldiers. A man pledged to war was not allowed to start a family in many cities, including S'rn. His duty to death had to be completed before his duty to life was to begin. In that bridge stood the dasha. When he returned from fields of ruptured entrails and rust blood rivers she stood at the gate of the grove to offer her Dan, solider husband, solace. All acts of valor against the oncoming darkness were done in the dasha's name.

And Zahra, dasha to her dan Jhlem, could only wonder at this moment what was milling in his mind.

Jhlem always noticed Zahra. She was his dasha. Her walking into the grove at an early age loving the shade under the juniper tree. Her left hand pierced with needles made of sea shells giving her hand small measured movements found attractive in S'rn. Fingers stopping thoughts in amber. He swore she smelled the baku's last breath upon his face. He poured out the whole story soaking her hair. She so clearly saw his seven wounds scintillating on ethereal horizons.

"They made you a duppy Jhlem."

He knew that Zahra didn't know who 'they' were. Neither did he. The answer was in the West.