The Pearl Fox

Pearls and the Fox

Arasine studied the contents of the round room, again, with the contained candles and flickering sparkle beacons of the salt lamps. Each candle holder was crafted from pewter, bronze, brass, iron and ivory. The animals were icons made from clay, cluttered on shelves and in wall niches. Earlier the hall had been dusted, swept and scented then washed, by novices. She noticed there were the missing elephants, the blue fish made of sapphire was gone, the metal hedgehog, candle holders and tiny figures of tin.

"The thief," Arasine said "who took our gods must be visited by them." All was, otherwise, clean and tidy. "The missing would've been found but may return here to the rightful place."

"Unless it all cursed him!" Spoke a man in the doorway. Arasine spun round and saw her mentor, the high priest and father of the Blue Path. He was draped furs and red robes with a golden embroidery along the hem. He was in his forties, and he had long greying dark hair, an untamed thick beard and dull blue eyes. Arasine's eyes were an aqua blue shade, like rain drops and morning dew on the grass.

"Ebrasio! How long have you been standing there?" she asked. He entered the room of the shrine and gently touched her long wavy dark hair. He looked at her full plump curves of her breasts hidden under the white dress, which he longed to see bare. Arasine felt his greedy eyes on her, and she turned around, feeling naked. Ebrasio made her feel uncomfortable, sometimes angry. "We were talking about the thief, who stole from one of our shrines," she told him in an attempt to distance herself from him by talking business. Instead, he moved towards her and put both hands on her shoulders, then Arasine quickly moved away. It was just like him to behave lecherously. She left him standing in the shrine, and was glad, even for a short while, to be away from him. Her mentor Ebrasio had replaced another called Omar. seven years ago now, when Omar had died. Ebriaso had this skill for making candles, wax statuettes, statues and also he never stopped trying to bed her. She wondered how many priestesses had succumbed to his persistence. She kicked some dirt, feeling frustrated and annoyed. She thought to herself again about the authorities of the Blue Path faith allowing such a vile man into the proesthood. 

She ran now along a spindle thin path to the Grass House, an abbey of the priesthood belonging to the Blue Path faith. Situated in the Purple Forest and close to the Bell Road, it was a series of rounded dwellings made of green stone, slates and oak beams. Many of them had pointed roofs. As she rushed into the main door and the postern gate,  she felt the eyes of the Blue Path priests and priestesses on her. Some of the members of the Blue Path were warrior monks, in heavy plated silvery armour and white tunics of with vibrant diamond embroidered patterns in colours blue, gold, red and green. They wore gilded sugarloaf shaped helmets with blue plumes. Although fornication between priests and priestesses was forbidden, the order didn't outright impose a strict ban.

Arasine bathed in the pool for priestesses many times, and sometimes during rituals, in her flowing gowns, she and the prietsesses danced before the moonlight. Sometimes she ate aphrodisiac fruits, and borrowed a soothing wooden toy. Once a year, she would dine with a handsome man of the faith and enjoy an evening of listening to his stories and laughing at his jokes. Then afterwards, she would eat papaya fruit to flush out his seed and cleanse herself of impurites. Of all that, she made regular prayers to the animal divinities, the creators of humankind. On certain times of the year, she fasted, sit alone in a dark room for a day, on holy days, then feast on bread, corn, sweets and fruit on celebrations four times every year. The Spring and Autumn equinoxes, and the solstices of Winter and Summer. She was a devoted Blue Priestess, pure as milk, fair as sea foam and light at the stars on a clear night.

One of the warrior monks went up to her and lifted his visor. "Priestess Arasine. The Zirch wants to see you," he told her in his gruff tone. "Come with me."