Hell Hath No Fury - Book One

Riva, Are You There?

Theo was about 30 minutes from the nearest sign of life on land when she brought her horse to a halt. She had managed to secure one from the small stables inside the guarded walls of the manor. She had ridden it along the coast until finding a suitable spot to set up for a while. There were some greenery and rocks that hid a secret beach in between it. Theo maneuvered the horse down to the spot and tied it up. She took off her boots, then pants then pulled off her layers of shirts.

Theo let the sand crunch under her feet and the ocean's wind whip across her bare body as she walked towards the water. The waves were small and made a calming noise crashing against the beach as she entered the ocean's embrace. The water was cold, borderline freezing but the blazing sun warmed the skin above the water. She waded farther and farther into the ocean until only her head was above water. She lifted her feet off of the ground beneath her and kept herself upright in the water, slowly moving her limbs to keep her above water. She let her tense body relax as she listened to the symphony of the sea. Birds cawing above her, waves crashing below, and the rustle of far off bushes.

Theo stopped holding herself upright and let herself float. Ears beneath the water, her face barely protruding out. She closed her eyes and felt the cold from the ocean and the heat from the sun balance out. She felt serene. The ocean had always been her safety net and it always would be. It took her as she was, regardless of the acts she had committed. She allowed herself to be cleansed by the ocean, she let the blood on her hands wash off and fade away into the blue abyss, literally and metaphorically. After what felt like hours she righted herself and looked around.

Theo had managed to float a little way out but began to swim back with ease. She took the swim at a leisurely pace and eventually found her feet touching the sand again. She walked up out of the water and over to where she had set up. It was a few hundred feet away from where she had floated off to but Theo eventually found the horse and her clothes. She had no intention of clothing herself and instead walked back out towards the water, toeing along the line where the ocean waves ended and the drier sand began.

Every few feet, Theo would bend down and dig through the sand until she found a seashell or a piece of coral that she thought was pretty. She collected them until her hands were full and then walked it over to her clothes, dropped it in a pile then went back to collecting. She did this many times and by the time she was done the sun was hanging low in the sky, threatening to begin to set at any second. Theo knelt next to her pile and began to pick through the shells and corals she liked best then slowly arranged them into a shape.

She finished just as the last bits of the sun was peeking over the horizon and she sat on her haunches and admired her work. In front of her was a sigil made of shells and coral, set in a pattern she had been doing since she was a child. In the middle of the sigil was a circle, a full moon. Inside the full moon were three slightly curved and wavy lines, representing the ocean. Above it was a crescent moon facing left with a series of lines and dots in the concave area of the moon. The sigil for balance. Below the full moon was a crescent moon facing right with dots and lines in it's concave area too. It was different from the top crescent, less equal, and parallel, it was the sigil for chaos.

Theo looked back at the sunset and waited for the oranges and pink hues to fade into darkness and once it did she was able to get started. Theo placed a hand on either side of the full moon and closed her eyes.

"Riva, I call upon you for a conversation so that I may continue to work towards the tenets you have set for me," Theo began to say in Aelizan, already feeling choked up for some reason. It was words she had repeated a thousand times, the summoning of her god. She regained composure and cleared her throat, "I know it has been a while. I have not been able to find a suitable time or a place to pray please forgive me..."