THE NEEDS OF THE ONE

"Tell me a story?"

The cobblestone floors were cold beneath them. With nothing above their heads but the stars, even the overgrown plants hiding in the shadows shivered in the breeze.

"What would you like to hear?"

The couple had built a fire before they settled into their shared sleeping bag, its zipper pulled up to their chin and their breath clouding between their faces. The fire crackled and the wood expanded with the heat, sending sparks into the crisp air.

"... Something different. Something with truth. Something with a question."

The fire cast shadows onto the crumbling walls around them. The windows of the caved in ruins long ago blown in and broken, their former lead light artworks lost forever. Not even dust left to be crushed underfoot.

"Ok..." The man replied, pausing for a moment before leaning out of the sleeping bag and reaching for his day pack. Rifling through until he pulled out an old leather-bound book, keeping it closed and settling back into their shared warmth. "This church that we are in, used to be a part of a beautiful town. It had many visitors travel through which made the people prosperous in their different trades. People would always stop and admire the town. Everyone here was always happy and they never had any trouble with storms or droughts or fires or sickness or famine. The people danced in the street and sang in the parades, sold their harvest to all that passed through. But the town had a secret."

"A secret?" The woman whispered.

"Yes. A secret that was hidden between the pages of old books. That was hidden between the rows of crops ready to harvest and between the rodent free alleyways. A secret that was hidden between the sly looks of everyone that lived in the town. A secret that they never discussed and never acknowledged, but they all heard its screams and cries, all felt its nails scrape and hang on for life."

"What was the secret?"

"The secret was hidden in the basement of this church, the crypt. You see, one winter, when the town was very young there was an invasion, a war if you will. Now, the reasoning for the war was lost, but many of the women and children died. Outraged, the people of the town looked away from the Christian God and everywhere else for a solution to this war and for justice for their fallen."

"And? What was the solution?"

"Are you going to let me finish the story and tell you, or keep asking questions?"

"Oh fine, fine, go on then."

"It was a ritual to a deity. Specifically, the Celtic god of war, money, and fertility, the god of the people, Teutates."

It was as if the town itself contracted around them with the uttering of the deity's name. The town grew silent, so much so that they were suddenly aware of how much noise was once there, how much life.

Quiet, as to not disturb the very air that surrounded them, the man resumed, pulling himself closer to the woman. "Teutates was one of three Celtic gods mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan in the 1st century AD," and with this, he held up the book that he had taken from his day pack, his fingers indenting on its worn leather binding. Letting it fall open to the marked page and skimming his fingers over the lettering. "That's where the town people found Teutates, hidden in the pages of Lucan's poems in their library. It said,

'You, Trevir, also rejoiced that battles were turned away; and you, Ligurian, with hair now cropped, though once you excelled all the long-haired land in the locks that fell in beauty over your neck; and you also who propitiate with horrid victims the ruthless Teutates.'"

Replacing the ribbon bookmark and returning his arms to the warmth between them, he turned to her, fighting to see her face in the casted light from the fire.