You stay and join the new faith

You stare at the supplicant statues as you think. Can you truly give up the Burning Rose? A life of faith to her? Your sisters? The mission to Gerlangen? Turn your back on them all to the worship of this strange deity some say is a demon in disguise? Who lures you to an orgy with her bestial servants for who knows what purpose?

Then you look up and into Brigette’s eyes. The deep green pools pulling you in, loving, tender. Warmth of belonging, of love suffuses you from your milk heavy stomach. Brigette brushes the rose in your hair and all thoughts of hesitation fade. You love this woman. You love her so much it hurts. You want to do anything for her, for her goddess.

You don’t realize that there are tears in your eyes until you press yourself against her immense breasts and feel them slide from your cheek to her maternal orbs. “Yes,” you cry, holding her tight, never letting her go. “Goddess, yes. I’ll stay Brigette. With you. Forever.”

You feel her return your embrace. Her warm breath tickles your hair as she presses her lips to your brow and kisses you. She presses you again to her engorged nipple and eagerly you drink her nectar. You are hers. Body. Mind. And soul.

#

The war against the demon hordes of Thoros were long and bloody, but in the end the Burning Rose triumphed and beat them back. But in the wake the land was crippled, as was the church, so many sisters lost to the depravity of the demons.

In the midst of this destruction came the new cult. Their follows wore nothing but a simple shawl, exposing their naked bodies to the world, bodies like sculpted marble, achingly beautiful, and more than willing to revel in the thrills of the flesh with new converts. They marched into towns preaching of a new goddess. One of fertility and wisdom, wine and indulgence. They quickly drew followers from the weakened Burning Rose, the emphasis on the pleasures of the flesh drawing the young and impressionable.

During the power struggle which ensued between the two faiths, dark things were whispered of this new church. The cream which was given to the faithful was said to come from the breasts of the priestesses. Was said to corrupt those who drank it, like a demon’s venom and fluids. Even blacker things were whispered of those who joined as priestess’s, and of the initiation in the groves where satyrs were said to come and mate with the hopefuls, filling them with an unclean spawn, binding them to the goddess, flesh of flesh. It is true that many of those who joined the sect quickly grew large with motherhood, and the results of these pregnancies were always physically imposing, wondrously beautiful. No one asked who the parents were in the cult. Such questions were unimportant. Only that they had been seeded with new life. But, it was observed, that only a fraction of these children were ever actually seen in public.

Even graver things were said of the heads of this new church. Few had seen them, but many were the whispered rumours. They said the women were green, the same tint that the higher priestess’s take on. That their milk seduced even the hardiest of men and women alike. That they had horns like a stag, skin like bark. They say there were two of them, both chosen specifically by their goddess. That they had, after the war, moved into the abbey where the demon menace first spilled from, and in these corrupted halls brought more under their sway. Some even said they were like trees, and had planted themselves within the abbey, winding about one another, their sap the source of the nectar which the high priestesses drank. Some even said they were brides of demons, and that the unholy beauties of their children were the result of these couplings, and were those first who had come to spread the word. That they tempted away sisters of the Burning Rose with promises of pleasure unending. That they were in fact a vanguard, weakening the kingdom of its holy warriors for a second demonic incursion.

Few things were known. But for some, that only heightened the appeal.

All however knew that one day, the king and queen had gone to this abbey to speak with the heads of the faith. But only the queen returned, strangely at peace, and filled with naught but praise for the Cult of Aellium and the services they rendered.

In time, the Burning Rose waned as the Cult grew, overshadowing the weakened church as a tree grows while a rock which seemed a boulder is realized to have only been a pebble. What this might mean only time would tell. But for the two who looked down from the highest points of the ancient abbey by the sea, its gargoyles and walls overgrown with vines and carefully tended fields of flowers, they were happy, and they were content.