Chapter 199: 200 (!!): Fortunate moon

Fresh stands out on the balcony and stares out over the city. It’s time.

All four of them know it and so, all four of them stand there in silence, staring out over the world which stretches on before themselves, nigh-boundlessly. The houses which dot the mountain are all open and their doors ajar, the light escaping their windows paints the rock with a yellow-hue. It is as if the entire mountain were glowing with more than just the radiating moonlight that washes over the world, nearly drowning it with its overpowering presence.

Many voices ring out over the mountain, many confused cries and calls as people run around in a dazed half-panic. But Fresh and her friends just stand there, looking out at the swarm of worried people running around beneath them. All of them have seen what they have seen and now, every pair of eyes on the mountain stares up to look at the same thing. Every soul, every individual, no matter what their experiences or predilections have led them to be, now gazes up towards the too-bright night-sky, at the looming face that stares down over them all.

The witch’s moon has come to shine once again. The clouds in the sky cover the full-moon in such an impossibly unnatural way, giving it the appearance of a crooked, long-nosed face, jutting out of a crescent moon. The only difference is that this time, the moonglow light is soft and yellow, rather than the disgusting, rust-toned orange-red that it was before.

“You think we could have gotten something more subtle?” asks Jubilee. “How about a letter? Or maybe just a vision telling you to go?” they state, shaking their head. “Fucking primordial entities, always making such a show of shit.”

“It’s certainly an unsettling sign. The church will be on high-alert,” says Basil.

“Fuck em,” says Jubilee. “I hope every single person there doesn’t sleep for the next week.”

“They have their faith,” says Shamrock, standing behind them. “We have ours.”

The midnight wind blows over the balcony, through her tousling hair and over her fingers that are clenched onto the railing, as Fresh feels a tinge of sadness come over her. It truly is time to go. This home of theirs, the west, the people here, the fairies, the magistrate, the ice-dungeon, the rowdy adventurer’s guild and all of the questions and hopes and wants she had left for this place are now invalidated and struck through. They simply weren’t meant to be.

She takes in a deep breath, letting go of the railing. Everything is prepared. The beds are made and ready, the boy has already been given a key and the papers signed over to his name. They had left food and some materials and Fresh had gone out of her way, together with Basil, to make each of the members of the orphan-party some useful equipment for them to get started with. Plus a tiny food-fund she had given the magistrate, for them to survive the first weeks with. As for the fairies, most of them have already left the mountain or were going to in short order.

She turns around, sparing one last glance out over the city that she had come to care for, despite the few sad moments that had happened here.

“Let’s go home, guys,” she says to her friends, grabbing her bag and heading downstairs, hearing three sets of boots behind her. Her hands run along the railing of the staircase as she heads down it one last time. Shamrock moves past them, further downstairs, getting the anqa together with Basil, as Jubilee and Fresh take a few bottles of coughee with them from the heated cabinet and make their way outside to the cart.

Fresh’s hand lets go of the door as she steps out of it for the last time, her physical presence leaving the house. It was a good home for them, she hopes it will be just as kind to those who come after they have left.

“You’re taking this surprisingly well,” notes Jubilee, unlatching the small covered cart from the post that it was chained to, outside of the door. “I figured you’d start crying or something.”

Fresh crosses her arms, looking around the tunnel and down at the river that runs outside of the door. “Maybe later,” she says. “Can we cry together, Jubilee?” she asks.

“I’m not going to cry about some stupid house,” says Jubilee, rolling their eyes.

“I am,” says Fresh, rubbing her face before it starts becoming wet.

Jubilee sighs. “Sure, whatever. Do what you need to do.”

“You’re the best, Jubilee,” says Fresh. Shamrock and Basil return with an annoyed looking anqa. Fresh hides behind the cart, looking at the creature, warily. It shoots her a gaze that is much the same as her own, but then, feeling Basil’s hand stroking its head, it walks towards the front of the cart, as it had been trained to do.

“Good boy!” praises Basil, securing the bird to the front of the cart. “I’ll handle the cart,” says the priestess, climbing up to the small seat at the front of it. Basil is, in all honesty, the only one of them who even knows how to drive a cart or control an anqa, so it’s obvious that she’d be the one to do it. But Fresh is still glad that she said it herself too.

Jubilee climbs onto the cart, shuffling past some boxes and letting out an annoyed grunt as Shamrock steps on to, squishing them against the inner wooden lip, behind where Basil is sitting. “Watch out, fat-ass!”

“No, you,” replies Shamrock, sitting down. Jubilee glares at him, shaking their head. There is just enough room for the two of them to sit next to each other. Shamrock does have to hunch over forward and lower his head though, so that he doesn’t rip through the canvas that covers the top of the cart. Fresh closes the door to the house behind them, letting her hand rest on the wood for a while. Everything is in place. She’s done everything that she possibly could have done. The fairies, the kids, the crystal that she has re-hidden beneath the loose brick in the bath.

Everything is in place, now she can only hope that somehow, all of these things manage to survive the world long enough to reach their full potential.

“Well?” asks Jubilee, clapping their hands. “Chop, chop! Time is money, goo-brain.”

Fresh pulls on the door, jiggling it once to make sure that it’s really shut and she climbs up onto the cart, deciding that maybe now is the time to start crying after all. Thankfully, since she’s sitting across from them, Jubilee isn’t far away and she can lean over forward and hide her face in their chest.

There is a loud whipping of leather against leather, as Basil swings the reins against themselves. The cart starts moving, the anqa pulls it at a steady pace, entirely indifferent to any of the weight loaded onto it. They are brutally strong creatures when it comes to pulling things behind themselves, having been bred over generations for specifically this task. Though, there are other kinds too, that Basil had told her about, that the military uses. They had a special breeding bloodline for anqas that were particularly strong as mounts for armored riders.

The small cart, just big enough for the four of them to sit together in, squished in with some boxes, rattles on slowly down the mountain path and out of the tunnel, as Basil winds them through the city and along the river. Fresh wants to looks around to spare one last glimpse at all of the things that have become such an intricate part of her daily life, at all of the still-closed vendors and stalls and the ornate gate of the tunnel and the breath-taking view from the side of the mountain, at the people wandering around them, all staring curiously at the moon and making small-talk. But she doesn’t manage to lift her face, not because of Jubilee’s hand which is rubbing the top of her head, but because she’s busy getting it all out now, before it can become a problem later.

After a few minutes, they reach the central entrance plaza, passing by the city-hall. She imagines the magistrate is furiously at work, gazing through his telescope. The door to the adventurer’s guild is open and the noises of the party inside can be heard, even out here. Apparently most of them are indifferent to the odd moon and then, not a couple minutes after that, they exit out through the gate and head through the forest.

“Say goodbye, everyone,” says Basil to them, turning around to look over her shoulder. Shamrock and Jubilee turn their heads to look at the gate as they leave, but neither of them say anything. Fresh just cries louder.

Lights dart around them in an excited fashion. The buzzing of wings coming to her ears. “Hey! Hey!” calls an excited voice.

“Fuck off,” says Jubilee to Tarja the fairy.

“Where are you going?” asks the fairy excitedly, flying into the cart together with a few others.

“We’re leaving,” says Jubilee, softly jabbing a finger into her chest. The fairy giggles, apparently not realizing that this was supposed to be an offensive gesture. “We’re sick of the mountain. It sucks here,” they lie.

“Us too!” says Tarja. “The mother’s moon is a sign! We’re heading east, I really want to go somewhere warm!” she explains. The fairy lifts her ring-necklace into the air. “Thank you for the necklaces!” she says. Fresh opens her eyes, staring at the fairy. This is the first ‘thank you’ that they’ve gotten for their efforts.

“The fucking what?” asks Jubilee.

“Where are you going?” asks another fairy. Shamrock and Jubilee exchange a look, together with Basil who also spares a glance back at the situation. Fresh doesn’t think that her friends would hurt the fairies, but she also doesn’t like that nervousness in their eyes. That fear. It can lead to irrational, uncharacteristic behavior.

“East,” says Fresh. Jubilee pinches her. She sits upright, grabbing Jubilee’s pinchy hand and just holding it. “We’re heading east,” she repeats, rubbing her eyes dry.

“Can we go with you?!” asks Tarja, flying not to Fresh or to Basil or to Shamrock, but to Jubilee. She clenches her hands together and the others fly up behind her, doing the same. “Pleeease~?” she begs, her eyes wide and her posture mimicking a pose that Fresh realizes is one that she herself has often taken. The fairies are truly cunning, little creatures, they had studied Jubilee and learned their weakness. “We’ll be good!”

Jubilee sighs, leaning back against the cart and lifting their free hand. “All in favor?”

Shamrock lifts his hand. Basil, looking at everyone does the same and then Fresh does too.

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“You can ride,” says Jubilee. “But you’re responsible for getting your own food. If you fall behind, you get left behind,” they explain.

“Thank you, your majesty!” says Tarja, she turns around, whistling. Another dozen fairies come out of the forest, all of them carrying a connected set of three fairy houses with them, suspended in a self-made net.

Jubilee’s eye twitches. “You little shits…”

The fairies unload the three houses, nesting them into the back corner of the cart, before most of them vanish inside of it together.

Fresh can’t help but laugh, feeling a little better as she looks at her friends who all stare her way. Perhaps they were assuming that she had something to do with this.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” says Tarja, flying back to Jubilee with a flower. “Here you are!”

Jubilee sighs, taking it, before shooing the fairy away. Their eyes glare back up to Fresh. “What did you do, goo-brain?”

“Nothing!” she denies, waving her hands. But she can’t help but smile at this, in her eyes fortunate, turn of events nonetheless. As the cart makes its way out of the forest and over the bridge to head down the mountain-path, she can’t help but notice how light the world seems to feel tonight, even under the light of the odd moon.

Razmatazz

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TRIVIA - Departure

Departure, the act of leaving a place, is sort of an odd one in terms of mythology. There are certainly dozens and dozens of well known myths about a god/pantheon leaving a place, most often because of their untimely deaths. But there is little mythology about the act of departure itself.

Some of the few mythological departures that we know of stem from Anatolia, modern-day Turkey. I am not including the ‘deaths’ of gods under the category of departure. Though, some common god-death examples could be found in the Titan mythology from the Greeks or in Ragnarök in Norse mythology. No, we’re just talking about packing your bags and leaving ‘departure’.

There are some other examples of this to be found in Abrahamic mythology, for example in the concept of ‘ascension’ (Entering Heaven alive) but I’m steering clear of that for today’s lecture. Instead, I want to head towards Anatolia, as we said before. You might remember the region from a previous trivia, Anatolia, which is now modern day Turkey, took on many different characteristics of mythology, laying in a very prominent region of human foot-travel, there are huge swathes of mythology from all around it that have condensed here, making it a prime spot, historically speaking, for ‘human lore’.

In roughly 1700-1800 BC, lived two groups of people known as the Hattians and the Hittites. These two folk shared a common mythology in many ways, one of which is the story of Hannahanna and Telipinu. In Hittite mythology, interestingly enough, the simple vanishing of a god is a common theme.

Telipinu was a god of the Hittite-people, he is held to be an agriculture god and son of the solar-goddess Arinniti. Every nine years, come autumn, a festival would be held in which exactly one-thousand sheep were sacrificed.

One day, according to the lore, Telipinu simply leaves and to summarize, things go wrong.

Quote -

Mist seized the windows. Smoke seized the house. On the hearth the logs were stifled. On the altars the gods were stifled. In the fold the sheep were stifled. In the corral the cows were stifled. The sheep refused her lamb. The cow refused her calf. Telipinu went off and took away grain, the fertility of the herds, growth, plenty, and satiety into the wilderness, to the meadow and the moor... Humans and gods perish from hunger.

Beckman, Gary. "The Tongue is a Bridge: Communication between Humans and Gods in Hittite Anatolia", in Archív Orientální, Vol. 67, 1999.

End quote.

In order to stop this from continuing, Ḫannaḫanna, the maternal mother-goddess, sends a bee to find him. It does so, but that’s a whole story for another time.

Interestingly enough, Ḫannaḫanna herself departs as well in a separate myth with eerily similar consequences, that is until her unrelenting anger is banished to a spooky underworld place that is quite literally called the ‘Dark Earth’

I wouldn’t worry about it though. =)

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