Belief
The Sotana overflowed with knickknacks but it was still the best place to get a warm spruce tip tea. A worn sign hung over the shelves of trinkets, hung right where it had to be read by everyone passing through. Everyday. Everytime. "Leave a bauble, take a bauble, and the gods can't squabble."
Many patrons still followed the practice but it was a just ritual like all the others, keeping the day pleasant and busy so the hard and cold could be tolerated.
A young girl stretched to reach a high shelf. The triple spiral trinket in her hand not able to reach its destination.
"You must be from District 3. Were you trying to share your triskele with the Five Fold?"
The young girl nodded. The interconnected circles of her bauble were made of thin willow branches. She had wrapped them so tight.
"You have a practiced hand. This is a fine representation of our interconnectedness. You protect us all. I will put it on the shelf for the Five Fold."
The young girl smiled and ran on with her day. She didn't mind the rote compliment and default prayer line. Speaking of lines, the line for tea passed the sign. Cups and coins were exchanged and my day could continue on too. The steamed poured off the tea in the cold, brisk air on the walk back to the church. Mmm, the tea was good too.
The world faded away for a moment until Greta ran into me, "Natalia, Hurry!" She pulled my cassock's sleeve so hard that tea splashed on the ground, "Look at the sky!"
Above us orange and purple clouds moved across the sky. They spiraled together forming tendrils of silver. The tendrils reached down toward the city but hit something invisible just above the roofline. Thunder shuddered through the city as each tendril hit. "Come on Natalia!"
In the courtyard of the church all of us assembled like we did everyday, usually under a blue sky, with the sun reaching above the horizon. Where we had practiced a ritual to calm the Iron Sky.
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