A Delicate Operation

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei leads the way into the cavern, which is lit with little oil lamps and festooned with shimenawa rope hung from little hooks drilled into the walls. After Ragnar comes through - looking more comfortable than Seimei expected in his ceremonial white robe - Seimei ropes off the entrance behind him as well.

"To keep bad influences out," he explains. "Like when you sat under the waterfall earlier."

He's pretty sure that Ragnar gets the gist of what he's saying, even if the translation spell he's hammered out isn't as good as the one in Milliways. Even if it isn't, he explained everything to Ragnar (and Gyda) before they left the bar.

At the far end of the cavern is a pool fed by a natural hot spring. Between Seimei and the pool are two of Seimei's assistants, dressed in their own white robes - a Japanese macaque and a (rather anthropomorphized) tanuki. They kowtow in unison as Seimei and Ragnar enter.

The pool behind them glows faintly with an enchantment of Seimei's own devising. In the pool is Gyda's new body, floating on her back with her face just above the level of the water. She's dressed in white robes, like Ragnar and Seimei, and her hair floats in a corona around her head. It's longer than Gyda's hair in her Milliways body. There are other differences as well: her skin is paler, and any scars from childhood mishaps are gone. Still, the body is very similar to what she's used to.

Gyda herself is in a small jade jar that Seimei carries before him. He gives it to the tanuki, who holds it at the ready by the side of the pool. The macaque fetches a stool and a wand covered in paper streamers. Seimei directs Ragnar to sit on the stool and hold the wand. The macaque brings him tattoo needles and a pair of latex gloves (Seimei believes just as much in biological sanitation as he does in ritual sanitation).

"If you've changed your mind about where to put the geas tattoo, now would be the time to speak up," Seimei says. There's a bit of levity in his tone, but he isn't kidding. They're already committed to this, and the location of the tattoo to anchor the geas is really the only thing that they can change.

Comments

[bigarmy_strangepants]

So many things feel vaguely familiar -- there is a feeling about the straw ropes and folded papers that mirrors exactly the strung-up small bones and shells in the Seer's hut, or in the holy precinct of Uppsala.

Nothing here is very strange to Ragnar yet.

"No, here," he says.

The inside of his right upper arm, mirroring the dove and the lark on the left side. If Athelstan and Sinric have that place on his heart-side, then his brave young daughter deserves the same on the sword-side.

"I am ready," he says.

Not even the white robe makes him very uncomfortable; special clothes for a ceremony is something he has worn before, undyed linen that would be drenched red with the blood of sacrifice.