Priestess

Shalia tilted her head to the sky as it turned into a downpour, letting droplets hit her closed eyelids and drip onto her parted lips. Too long without being in a familiar rainstorm. She could suddenly hear Fang calling out to her, the pull to turn her back and run to the comfort of home once more. Return to the Aghul village where life was predictable and she understood everything. Yet, even that felt limiting, caging to her ability. If only it were frozen in time, unaffected by the world of men and devils outside. Then she wouldn't need to ascend higher and higher with power. She could rest. Live.

Her heart beat faster as more rain fell over her body and the celebratory crowd faded away. A burst of joy in her chest. It was all coming together. Not cleanly--it had its hiccups, but everything did. This was for the better. All of it.
The blood in her veins felt like rushing water from elevated rivers and streams--icy and forging ahead. She could taste the mountain sky and feel Noraura’s whispers over her skin like she was standing atop a peak during a storm of snow and thunder. It was almost vision-like…and then reality seeped back in and she opened her eyes, lowering her chin slowly.

The look in them had taken on something new. Still the darkness lingering from the attack, but this was primal. Sharp. It had teeth bared and claws out.
Shalia gazed at the Prophetess intently and her attention flickered to the Ascendant shortly after. She grinned. Then, the witch turned and moved back through the slowly dispersing crowd.

The moon’s silvery crescent told her it was time. Time to take charge.

She swiftly made way to where she was staying and met one of her guards at the door, dismissing the extra appointed security for the evening. Said for them to celebrate the new Seer.
She eyed his weaponry before entering only to remove her robe. Shalia, dressing into her leathery Odonine attire, tucked the dagger into her waistband and tied her hair back. The Naelmo skull pauldron was buckled on. She pressed an kiss onto her fingertips and laid it upon the white fur coat she had to abandon in the heat.

The woman silently eyed herself in the mirror as if saying many unspoken words of reassurance. Urging herself to be more than just talk and a pretty face. Show everyone who she was beyond a few titles and a traitor’s origin. Make them never forget her.

She demanded to her guard that she need his spear, to which he surrendered it without hesitation but his eyes wanted to pry. She spoke to him flatly, but the spark in her gaze was intimidating. She stroked his cheek with a long nail, holding the spear firmly in her other hand.

“I will be out until dawn, perhaps. Do not come looking for me. If anyone wishes to see me, tell them I am not taking visitors. The ice and shadows are on my side this night. Fear not…you still have your knife.” She ended playfully.

But before she left him, she added one last demand after examining the armor he wore over his stomach region. It was a crude-looking assortment of bones bound together with leather and hide strips. Not pretty, but effective. She wasn't exactly the most protected in her garb, and it did not look too heavy for her frame to become sluggish.

"This plate of yours," Shalia said extending a finger out toward it, "...I want that too."

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The Obelisk of Fate was not difficult to find; it stood towering just beyond the harbor and grand oasis. Everyone was too drunk and impassioned to pay her much mind as she moved quickly through less populated streets. If she had been in a different headspace this night, she would have been more in awe over the structure and the imagery depicted on it. Priorities had a different hold. Shalia could only dwell on what she was about to do, but hadn't yet considered the scale of fallout. Usually she overthought to the extent of cosidering all possibilities and it put her in a rather shitty, anxious mood, but not this time.

There she stood in front of the giant with the spear flat in her palms, eyes fixed entirely on it. She had not done much as far as practice throughout this trip because the threat of a fight was hardly a concern for most of it. That, and she was exhausted and heat-sick on the way here.

Two times she had been attacked in this desert now. A major problem. A problem she would solve with blood on her hands and moon as a witness. She and the Brotherhood ready to hunt.

But Shalia stared down at the weapon with a faint look of sentimentality under all her deathly motive. The recollection of everything she had learned from her father's old spearwork, years with the Wardens, and her training with Koshnem had brought her combat to this point. Not her strongest asset, but an asset nonetheless.
This would be her own trial in many ways to see if she was as prepared enough by blade and magik as she dearly hoped. Likewise a test of faith and willpower.

Shalia seated herself in the sand and formed her circle of calming, awaiting Amalu with the spear in her lap. She was endlessly curious how this would begin…maybe that was a ritual on its own.

As the ice circled around her, illuminated against the sand, tension and stress within her body eased. She repeated words of encouragement silently.

Go on, then. Give them a taste of what is to come. Bring winter's wrath to the desert, feel what it's like. You have rested and prepared for this eve. The blood in your body boils coldly, your fingertips twitch with anticipation and revenge. Show them the force of this 'demon' and her pawn. Know justice. Know your enemy. Know your friend.

She looked up to the obelisk and a phrase in thick, ancient Odon slipped from her lips. She had not been taught this. It was hardly a known language to even the mountain folk. Only the oldest of which knew bits and pieces.
She knew this from the moment she and the goddess touched. Melded together into one body. Perhaps hearing Islana speak in her own old tongue stirred something in Shalia.

The symbols stretching across her shoulders glowed icy-white with each whispering, progressing word. Words of prayer. Words of a priestess.

"Mountain light, frigid darkness. I am your child of snow and night. Hallowed god, magnificent mother, from chaos you were born, into chaos I am thrown. By blood and winter's breath…we prevail."