Adrina

Eleventh day of the Moon of Morning Mists. Shrine of the Holy Mother, Realm beyond the Seventh Circle.

The sun slipped towards the horizon and the hillside was bathed in a warm glow. As day gave way to night, shadows lengthened and revealed the subtle contours of the land. Ridges stretched out like thighs and mounds poked up like breasts. It was as if an immense female presence lay below the ground, shaping the surface of the land. A true believer would recognise the place as sacred to the Holy Mother.

On that pleasant summer evening a young woman strode through the long grass. She wore a white dress and carried a woollen shawl. Her long black hair hung lazily down her back and she hummed a little tune as she made her way past fat cows suckling their young.

Her path passed between the mounds and continued to the junction of the two ridges. A dark pool nestled there below a triangle of golden bracken. The young woman reached it as the last rays of the dying sun left the sky. She knelt and gazed into the still waters before speaking.

'Holy Mother, hear my prayer.'

Her hands slipped inside her dress and clasped the clay image that hung there. Painted in bright colours, it represented a pregnant woman with huge breasts and extended buttocks. She kissed the image.