a preview of the other new campaign...
Nov. 28th, 2006 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aithneThis is a thumbnail sketch of the character I'll be running in the next solo campaign i'm doing with Storm. The place is Crete, during the Minoan period, about 1450BC.
(Minoan female dress, according to all of the art at the time, looked a lot like the painting at this link: http://www.nmia.com/~jaybird/ThomasBakerPaintings/minoan_palace_scene.html . Bare breasts and all. Breasts didn't carry quite the connotations that most other cultures gave them, it seems.)
I was lost from the first moment I saw her.
Not that I realized it at the time. I remember it was late afternoon, and I'd gone to one of the fountains to draw some water and see if any of the people I knew were there. I'd just come off duty, if I recall correctly.
In those days, Knossos was the center of my world, and at the center of Knossos is the Palace. The Palace is the center of worship for all of the facets of the goddess, from Porta the goddess of the harvest to Wazet, the goddess of serpents. I am a Guardian of Porta, and at that time I was relatively young--about twenty-five years old--and quite serious about my calling.
We lived simply, we Guardians. All of us took vows of renunciation. We were separate from the desires of the world, beyond reproach because we could not be bribed. We took neither wives nor husbands; strict chastity was the rule among us. It eased things with the Daughters of Porta, the priestesses who we were charged with protecting. They were free to take lovers--Porta is generous with her bounty--but they were not free to take them from the ranks of the Guardians.
We of Porta got along with almost everyone--the sects that followed the Mother of Fertility, and the goddesses of cities, of merchants and trading, of the sea. The only sect we did not get along with was Wazet, Mistress of Snakes, goddess of death and rebirth and healing. Wazet is the death that comes unexpectedly, and there are those in her Order who use the venom of snakes to kill. But the trouble was mostly political, and things had not come to blows for many years.
It was a time of peace, of prosperity, that I was born into. We had a great trading empire centered on our small island of Crete, and it seemed that the entire world knew the worth of our wares. And it was without any premonition of disaster that I went to the fountain that day.
I was filling my flask with water when I heard a voice behind me. "That's quite the axe, Guardian. But size doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to use it."
I turned. The owner of the voice was small and dark, with hair that was elaborately bound, and she was wearing an eye-searingly colorful skirt, a laced bodice, and bare breasts. I nodded to her. "I know how to use my axe, but you probably wouldn't like a demonstration. Her name is Kyrith, and she has very sharp edges indeed."
"Sharp edges, is it?" The woman looked amused. I saw that she was tattooed, twin snake heads on her collarbones, snake bodies twisted between her breasts and disappearing beneath her bodice. A priestess of Wazet, then. "What's your name, Guardian?"
"Theron. And yours?"
"Melitta." She smiled, and that smile nearly stopped my heart. She had a perfect mouth, red lips made for--well, never mind what her lips were made for. "I'll leave you to your business, Theron." She turned and put her pot on her shoulder, and sauntered away.
I didn't think much of it. There were some who liked to make a game of flirting with the Guardians, and I assumed that she was merely one of them. But that night, she was in my dreams, and for several nights running after that I would wake up from dreams of her, sweating.
It would pass; it always did. But this time it did not, mostly because I ran into her again. This time, we talked a bit more, walking together towards the Palace. She began to appear on a regular basis, apparently making inquiries and using the knowledge she had gained to seek me out. Always when I was alone, always away from the eyes of other Guardians.
After a while, I began to seek Melitta out as well. We talked of many things, she and I. She tried to seduce me once or twice, and I resisted. Mostly. I was fascinated by this woman, and repelled by her craft. She would shrug and say, simply, "I give release to those I cannot help. I prevent suffering, when I can. Is that so wrong?" She took exception to the vows I had taken, saying that it was wrong for men and women to hold themselves apart from the world, to make themselves into a breed apart from those they served and protected.
I was not an innocent; we were encouraged to take people to our beds before we took vows, so we would know what we were giving up. But I had never been the object of such attention for so long. And I had never been in love before. It took me completely by surprise.
She, too, was surprised. She'd started speaking to me on a lark, and because she said I was charming when I blushed. "Well, there's also the fact that you have those shoulders, and those eyes," she said, consideringly. But somewhere in our conversations she, too, had begun to love me.
It was against my vows. Her high priestess would have her quietly killed if she was found out, and the head of the Guardians would put my head on a pole and leave it there as an example. But we couldn't stop meeting, and gradually we became physically closer. We'd brush against each other, each light touch sparking like lightning. She occasionally showed me a flash of leg. I was still putting up a valiant fight against what has happening between the two of us, but I was losing badly.
One night, we'd both slipped outside the walls of Knossos to a small cave she had come across on one of her snake-hunts. We met in that cave, by the light of a single candle. The night was cold, so I offered her the shelter of my cloak. She nestled in beside me.
The next thing I knew, my mouth was on hers and I was kissing those lips that had haunted my dreams for the past year. It was the first time we had kissed. She moaned and pulled me closer, pressing herself against me, and my hands dropped to cup the curve of her rear, finding it just as sweetly rounded as I'd imagined it would be.
The realization of what I--what we were doing came suddenly, and fear came as a cold clarion to blow away the tangle of desire that had ensnared me. Taking her shoulders in my hands and holding her away from me was the hardest thing I've ever done.
"I can't," I said. She was shivering, shaking, and her eyes were wide. "I can't break my vows."
"You just did," Melitta pointed out.
"Not entirely. Going further, I would have. I can't do it, love." I released her, and she sank back, tears in her eyes. "I can't see you anymore. This has become--"
"A torment," she finished for me. "Me, too. Theron...there isn't any way we can be together, is there?"
I thought about it, and shook my head. "We would be found out. The vows I've taken last a lifetime, and I don't think there's anywhere you can go that the Mistress of Snakes cannot see. We have to let this go, Melitta." The words were physically painful. "Before it gets us both killed. I'd rather not see you and know you're alive and safe than be with you and put you in danger."
"I know," she said, and my little dark love curled around herself, shaking with the force of her tears. "Go, Theron. Go before I'm not able to let you."
So I left the little cave, and Melitta in it. I considered, on the dark, cold walk back into Knossos, the possibility of suicide. But that is a sin unforgiveable, and in the end I did only thing I could. I asked to be assigned to ship duty, and was told there was a ship leaving on the morrow for Cyprus. The trip would take three months all told, and I hoped that time away from familiar sights and without the possibility of running into Melitta would do me good. Maybe I could shake this dangerous fascination with her.
I dreamed of her, my body ached for her, but I plunged myself back into my vows and I refused to budge. I was angry with myself for coming so close to temptation, angry at the goddess for letting me do so (though I had to admit that was unfair), even angry with Melitta for continuing a flirtation both of us knew would never work out. I did a lot of stewing, on that trip.
The captain of the ship had a bronze mirror in her quarters, which I was assigned to guard on a regular basis. Sometimes, I'd peer into it, wondering what it was about me that had caught her gaze. But I was always just me--light hair, dark eyes, muscled but not heavily built, and a face meant to blend into a crowd.
It made no difference. She was gone.
My heart, unfortunately, was not so easily convinced.
(Minoan female dress, according to all of the art at the time, looked a lot like the painting at this link: http://www.nmia.com/~jaybird/ThomasBakerPaintings/minoan_palace_scene.html . Bare breasts and all. Breasts didn't carry quite the connotations that most other cultures gave them, it seems.)
I was lost from the first moment I saw her.
Not that I realized it at the time. I remember it was late afternoon, and I'd gone to one of the fountains to draw some water and see if any of the people I knew were there. I'd just come off duty, if I recall correctly.
In those days, Knossos was the center of my world, and at the center of Knossos is the Palace. The Palace is the center of worship for all of the facets of the goddess, from Porta the goddess of the harvest to Wazet, the goddess of serpents. I am a Guardian of Porta, and at that time I was relatively young--about twenty-five years old--and quite serious about my calling.
We lived simply, we Guardians. All of us took vows of renunciation. We were separate from the desires of the world, beyond reproach because we could not be bribed. We took neither wives nor husbands; strict chastity was the rule among us. It eased things with the Daughters of Porta, the priestesses who we were charged with protecting. They were free to take lovers--Porta is generous with her bounty--but they were not free to take them from the ranks of the Guardians.
We of Porta got along with almost everyone--the sects that followed the Mother of Fertility, and the goddesses of cities, of merchants and trading, of the sea. The only sect we did not get along with was Wazet, Mistress of Snakes, goddess of death and rebirth and healing. Wazet is the death that comes unexpectedly, and there are those in her Order who use the venom of snakes to kill. But the trouble was mostly political, and things had not come to blows for many years.
It was a time of peace, of prosperity, that I was born into. We had a great trading empire centered on our small island of Crete, and it seemed that the entire world knew the worth of our wares. And it was without any premonition of disaster that I went to the fountain that day.
I was filling my flask with water when I heard a voice behind me. "That's quite the axe, Guardian. But size doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to use it."
I turned. The owner of the voice was small and dark, with hair that was elaborately bound, and she was wearing an eye-searingly colorful skirt, a laced bodice, and bare breasts. I nodded to her. "I know how to use my axe, but you probably wouldn't like a demonstration. Her name is Kyrith, and she has very sharp edges indeed."
"Sharp edges, is it?" The woman looked amused. I saw that she was tattooed, twin snake heads on her collarbones, snake bodies twisted between her breasts and disappearing beneath her bodice. A priestess of Wazet, then. "What's your name, Guardian?"
"Theron. And yours?"
"Melitta." She smiled, and that smile nearly stopped my heart. She had a perfect mouth, red lips made for--well, never mind what her lips were made for. "I'll leave you to your business, Theron." She turned and put her pot on her shoulder, and sauntered away.
I didn't think much of it. There were some who liked to make a game of flirting with the Guardians, and I assumed that she was merely one of them. But that night, she was in my dreams, and for several nights running after that I would wake up from dreams of her, sweating.
It would pass; it always did. But this time it did not, mostly because I ran into her again. This time, we talked a bit more, walking together towards the Palace. She began to appear on a regular basis, apparently making inquiries and using the knowledge she had gained to seek me out. Always when I was alone, always away from the eyes of other Guardians.
After a while, I began to seek Melitta out as well. We talked of many things, she and I. She tried to seduce me once or twice, and I resisted. Mostly. I was fascinated by this woman, and repelled by her craft. She would shrug and say, simply, "I give release to those I cannot help. I prevent suffering, when I can. Is that so wrong?" She took exception to the vows I had taken, saying that it was wrong for men and women to hold themselves apart from the world, to make themselves into a breed apart from those they served and protected.
I was not an innocent; we were encouraged to take people to our beds before we took vows, so we would know what we were giving up. But I had never been the object of such attention for so long. And I had never been in love before. It took me completely by surprise.
She, too, was surprised. She'd started speaking to me on a lark, and because she said I was charming when I blushed. "Well, there's also the fact that you have those shoulders, and those eyes," she said, consideringly. But somewhere in our conversations she, too, had begun to love me.
It was against my vows. Her high priestess would have her quietly killed if she was found out, and the head of the Guardians would put my head on a pole and leave it there as an example. But we couldn't stop meeting, and gradually we became physically closer. We'd brush against each other, each light touch sparking like lightning. She occasionally showed me a flash of leg. I was still putting up a valiant fight against what has happening between the two of us, but I was losing badly.
One night, we'd both slipped outside the walls of Knossos to a small cave she had come across on one of her snake-hunts. We met in that cave, by the light of a single candle. The night was cold, so I offered her the shelter of my cloak. She nestled in beside me.
The next thing I knew, my mouth was on hers and I was kissing those lips that had haunted my dreams for the past year. It was the first time we had kissed. She moaned and pulled me closer, pressing herself against me, and my hands dropped to cup the curve of her rear, finding it just as sweetly rounded as I'd imagined it would be.
The realization of what I--what we were doing came suddenly, and fear came as a cold clarion to blow away the tangle of desire that had ensnared me. Taking her shoulders in my hands and holding her away from me was the hardest thing I've ever done.
"I can't," I said. She was shivering, shaking, and her eyes were wide. "I can't break my vows."
"You just did," Melitta pointed out.
"Not entirely. Going further, I would have. I can't do it, love." I released her, and she sank back, tears in her eyes. "I can't see you anymore. This has become--"
"A torment," she finished for me. "Me, too. Theron...there isn't any way we can be together, is there?"
I thought about it, and shook my head. "We would be found out. The vows I've taken last a lifetime, and I don't think there's anywhere you can go that the Mistress of Snakes cannot see. We have to let this go, Melitta." The words were physically painful. "Before it gets us both killed. I'd rather not see you and know you're alive and safe than be with you and put you in danger."
"I know," she said, and my little dark love curled around herself, shaking with the force of her tears. "Go, Theron. Go before I'm not able to let you."
So I left the little cave, and Melitta in it. I considered, on the dark, cold walk back into Knossos, the possibility of suicide. But that is a sin unforgiveable, and in the end I did only thing I could. I asked to be assigned to ship duty, and was told there was a ship leaving on the morrow for Cyprus. The trip would take three months all told, and I hoped that time away from familiar sights and without the possibility of running into Melitta would do me good. Maybe I could shake this dangerous fascination with her.
I dreamed of her, my body ached for her, but I plunged myself back into my vows and I refused to budge. I was angry with myself for coming so close to temptation, angry at the goddess for letting me do so (though I had to admit that was unfair), even angry with Melitta for continuing a flirtation both of us knew would never work out. I did a lot of stewing, on that trip.
The captain of the ship had a bronze mirror in her quarters, which I was assigned to guard on a regular basis. Sometimes, I'd peer into it, wondering what it was about me that had caught her gaze. But I was always just me--light hair, dark eyes, muscled but not heavily built, and a face meant to blend into a crowd.
It made no difference. She was gone.
My heart, unfortunately, was not so easily convinced.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-29 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-29 11:05 pm (UTC)So the art of the time appears to tell us. We don't actually know a whole lot about the Minoans, so there's a ot of extrapolation from frescoes and such. The frescoes are very specific and very consistent about the way both women and men dressed, though.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-29 11:27 pm (UTC)I have for some time wanted to make a Minoan goddess costume based on the figurine with the snakes in her hands and the owl on her head (and, yes, bare breasts). I may actually make it this year and wear it for next year's Oregon Country Fair, where female toplessness is common and legal, and I'll have a one-year-old.