Veii was a lovely city, made of gold; every inch of marble and limestone was a votive offering to the gods.
Nothing in all the lands compared to Veii. The only reason it isn’t taller than it is is because they say that the gods came down to the founder, and told him that if he made it any larger, the city would break through their floor.
Sadly, Naiad didn’t live in Veii; she lived in Sicea. A Dirty town on the outskirts of Veii, forgotten by all but the god who protected it, Samael. And they kept his attention and protection with whatever little money and sacrifices they had.
The tradition was ingrained in everybody’s mind. It started with games and musical competitions. The winner of the competitions had the honour of playing during the procession up to the Temple of the 12 wings. There, Samael would come out in his anthropomorphic form and take the money, votive offerings, and sacrifice, dictate how long it would protect their village (depending on the quality of the sacrifice) and then "turn day to night".
The time for the sacrifice was approaching, the last ‘visit’ to the Temple had been particularly bad, all the town had to spare was 4 pigs and a couple of chickens. This did not satisfy the dark god for long, and he stated they had only til the end of the next harvest season to come to him with better.
Everyone had worked as hard as possible, several had gone hungry in attempts to save the village. One of these souls was Naiad’s father. The loss made her turn to other methods, praying to other gods, asking Veii for aid, trying to find wild animals they could bring. She had convinced the town they all needed to pray as hard as possible to the goddesses of the harvest and fertility, but without votives for them, and without prior attention from other gods, their prayers were left unheard and unanswered. Instead, a plague wiped out the last of their sheep, their pigs got out in the middle of the night and were found by wolves before men, and the hens were saved for the children’s stomachs.
The games were completed by malnourished farmers, as the town had no room for athletes. The musical competition was won by Naiad who hadn’t even an instrument and wasn’t competent in any form of song to be considered ‘good’, she simply was the only one who still had the heart to sing.
“Protector and lord Samael will understand if we explain it to him,” she told the children, “he is a kind god and reasonable. He protects us for a reason, even when others won’t.” She couldn’t tell whether the children believed her or not but they went back to playing with the sticks and hay which was all they knew for ‘toys’. The adults overhearing knew better, whether Naiad did or not too was still unclear even to herself.
Naiad was always considered naive and not the brightest of the lot, thankfully she was considerably attractive and cheerful: taller than the other girls her age but never grew out of her baby fat, her round face complimented her eyes and the smile she always wore. Her short hair was always tied in two ribbons which swayed in the wind as if they were a part of her. Due to her size though several of the towns people distrusted her; “That’s where our food went”, “no wonder we’re all hungry, it went to that girl’s height”, “maybe we should eat her”. There weren’t enough people in Sicea for their prejudices to stay hidden from Naiad and she had learnt to keep her mouth closed the hard way, several times.
She led the town’s people up the mountain where the Temple was built, humming and singing old hymns and whatever tune wandered into her mind as they walked; it didn’t matter too much, no one was really listening to her anyway – they were all stuck in their own conversations and own worries about what would happen when they made it up. The view from the town up to the Temple and the surrounding buildings was deceiving, making a 3 hour walk look as if it was just in reach if you stretched your arms out enough. Children and the elderly didn’t go up the hike, instead they stayed at the bottom by the altar of ash and prayed to Samael, they say it is how he knows the procession has started.
The altar at the top of the mountain was significantly larger, blood of the sacrificial victims bound the ash of their bodies. When this came into sight, a flicker of excitement interrupted her panicked thoughts. She, as well as increasingly fewer and fewer of the townspeople, truly did love their god, admire and trust him. She remembered being of age to go see the god for the first time and the feeling she felt when seeing him was like nothing she had ever experienced before; she thought it might be love, but then realised that it wasn’t like the crushes she had on the boys and girls in the town, it was deeper, and stronger.
Now that feeling nagged at her in the back of her mind, in the forefront was what the town leader was going to say to negotiate Samael’s protection for the next coming year or until they could at least give him something of worth. Her, the town leader -- Stolos -- and his son -- Ioloas, who was one of the only people who had shown Naiad no ill will -- proceeded up to the Temple entrance.
As they stepped closer the ground seemed to soften, despite there not having been any rain for the last week or so, which wasn't rare for the season. What was rare was the state of the trees around the temple: generations-old willows with sunken parts of the wood, deep cracks in them, an extensive amount of lost branches at the base and the leaves which littered the ground instead of crowning the trees.
Naiad heard a crack and looked down to her own feet, a twig broken under her shoe which sunk into the ground. Then another crack, which at first she couldn't place as she, nor Stolos or Ioloas, had moved an inch. Another crack, then a looming shadow which darkened her path, and then her, and before she could register what was happening. Her body moved back instinctively. The moment felt like a flash she didnt even realsise what was happening before she dull pain shot through her back from stumbling over and infront of her was that old willow. The goliath of a tree crashed to the ground and hit it with a sickening thud that shouldn't have been possible with the softness of the ground.
Adrenaline ran through her making every sound blur apart from the crash which looped in her head and the feeling of the tree hitting the ground which seemed to echo through her moments after the fall. She could hear Stolos and Ioloas talking to eachother, their words incoherent as Naiad's eyes focused on the figure appearing out of the Temple.
