Two weeks after Chiara’s encounter with the what she had assumed to be a messenger of Hecate, she was again readying her ritual box, for another late night devotion to one of the aspects of her goddess. The week before, she had visited the pond in the woods to perform a ceremony to Artemis, who was the Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess. Once again, she had sensed and heard the presence of something large nearby.
She had first believed the presence was that of a lost or escaped horse from one of the local farms, considering the hoof prints she had found by the pond on that first night. But, her landlady, Mrs. Norris, had told her that no one locally seemed to have lost a horse, or had one run away. In light of that, Chiara dearly hoped the strange presence was a messenger of her goddess, sent to gather her offerings. It was, however, also possible that it was a wild mustang from the high plateau that overlooked the valley, even if those wild horses usually preferred to stay as far away from civilization as possible and had never been known to wander anywhere near town or any of the local farms.
As much as much as Chiara responsibly tried to find a mundane explanation for the presence, more and more it seemed the only explanation was a supernatural one. That her offerings were being blessed by the personal attention of the Triple Goddess. Looking into her ritual box, Chiara sighed. She wanted tonight’s offering to be something special, but all she had were her regular items. She needed some advice. Walking over to her computer, she reluctantly turned it on and accessed the internet.
Paranet Chat
Advice channel
<User: MidWestWitch92 logged in>
Periander: Blessed Be, MidWestWitch92. Welcome.
MidWestWitch92: Thank you, Periander. I need some advice.
Periander: That is what we are here for. How can I help?
MidWestWitch92: During my past two rituals, I’ve felt and heard a presence that might have been a messenger from Hecate, and later Artemis. Tonight I want to do a ritual for Selene and I would like it to be something special. Any suggestions?
Periander: You have already been visited by the Crone, and the Maiden. Being visited by the Mother would complete the cycle, so I can understand why you would like to offer something special. Honeycakes are a traditional offering.
MidWestWitch92: Okay, I have time to make some of those. Anything else you can suggest?
Periander: Wheat, preferably on stalk. Or any other grain.
MidWestWitch92: We have oats, would those do?
Periander: Are they on stalks?
MidWestWitch92: No, so I guess they won’t do. Any other ideas?
Periander: Fruit that is native to your area is also a good choice.
MidWestWitch92: Oh! Yes, I can get plenty of apples. Thank you.
Periander: Glad I could be of help. Was there anything else?
MidWestWitch92: No, I think I should be okay for tonight then.
Periander: One favor, MidWestWitch92, can you let me know how it goes for you tonight?
MidWestWitch92: Of course, Periander. I would be happy to, and thank you again.
Periander: Merry Meet, have a blessed evening.
<user: MidWestWitch92, logged out>
That evening found Chiara once again walking through the woods to the small pond within them. The brilliant disc of the moon was blazing silver overhead to such a degree that her flashlight almost wasn’t needed. Chiara had walked this trail so often, over the past couple of years, that she probably could have walked it blindfolded, if need be. The air around her was crisp and cool with barely a breath of a breeze. It would probably freeze tonight, but it would likely be one of the last frosts of the season.
All in all, it was a very good night for a ritual, and Chiara was looking forward to it. As she reached the pond she once again began to set up her small altar. She set up her beeswax candles first, and as she lit them, the area around her was lit with a golden glow. As Chiara stood up from lighting the candles, she noticed that the air around her had grown very still and quiet, as if the world was holding its breath. No wind moved the tree branches or stirred the bushes. The moon’s brilliant circle was visible through the gap in the trees made by the pond and its silver twin lay upon the waters beside her. The light from the moon was nearly a solid thing, and everything beyond the glow of the candles seemed to have been given silver edges by the moonlight.
Between the candles, Chiara set up a silver plate and put on it the several small honey cakes she had made that afternoon. She also took out her athame, using it as one might a mundane knife, quartered a pair of apples and placed them on the plate by the honey cakes. After cleaning the blade respectfully, she lay it aside before she stripped, as she would perform her ritual the way she always did, skyclad, with one exception. Reaching into the box one last time, she pulled out the black velvet choker Mrs. Norris had given her and fastened it snugly around her throat. It’s silver moon emblem gleaming in the light.
She then knelt in the rough grass by the pond's edge, and holding her athame high, chanted out her ritual invocation.
Selene, white-armed mistress of the shining moon,
the silver circle crowns your ebon hair;
cloaked in darkness you cross the cold night sky,
O goddess.
To you, O Selene, I offer my greeting,
my praise, and my thanks for your many gifts
Mother Moon, come to me,
I call and ask this of thee…
Her chant was interrupted by the crackling sound of brush and twigs. Chiara stopped at the sounds and held her breath as she strained to try to see what the source of the sound might be. It had to be coming from the strange presence she had sensed before, she was sure of it. Whatever it was, it drew closer, then closer still. The brush and branches parted as a magnificent black horse stepped through the undergrowth, and suddenly stood before her. For several moments the horse did nothing but look at her, as Chiara stared up in awe at the night-black creature only a few feet away. As she knelt transfixed, the wind rose, blowing past her, blowing out the candles of her altar, and the moonlight silvered all.
The wind swept up the horse’s mane and tail. It was as cold as the depths of space, and filled those flowing banners of hair with twinkling stars that it had carried along with it. Chiara began to weep in pure joy, as the avatar of her goddess manifested the spiraling horn of a unicorn, followed by blue-black wings coming from it’s back. The winged unicorn looked down majestically at the small creature before it. Every inch of fur, feather and horn slamming the same message into Chiara’s soul, “I am not of this world. I am of the stars, and I have judged you worthy to look upon me.”
The winged unicorn stared mutely at the creature in front of her who stared back.
It was several moments before the unicorn remembered that once, this was the correct occasion on which to introduce one's self. That it had a name to introduce with. The unicorn opened its mouth. Sluggishly, it recalled why it never did so to speak anymore, and shut its mouth again. Only whinnying and braying noises would come out, nothing more.
The creature was on its knees before her, and began to make strange sounds, even as it held out its...forelimbs toward her.
Life rushed back into the unicorn's mind, bringing thoughts, concepts, and connections.
Luna. Her name was Luna. The creature before her was chanting. It was... she, by the looks of the anatomy she had bared, was... praying before her, to her? Supplicant--
Everything was coming back so quickly. Luna drew herself up to her full regal posture, as she felt life and power flow into her, energizing both mind and body. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the simple joys of dignity and thought.
Many moments later, she opened her eyes and looked down. The female biped was still there, trembling with... joy? The creature's facial features were much like a pony's, though Luna reminded herself that she couldn't be one hundred percent certain. The tears and wide smile certainly suggested joy, however.
Cautiously, Luna smiled back. Friendliness should be encouraged after all. Then, with the scraps of this world's weak magic she had held in reserve from her long near-mindlessness, she disappeared. Invisibility took too much effort; she simply cast a perception filter over herself, even as she dismissed the magical manifestation of her horn and wings. As far as the biped could now tell, there was no longer anything unusual here. Luna could not be completely sure the creature was friendly. After all, it did have a bladed weapon on the ground beside it. Some careful observation was clearly called for.
From Chiara’s point of view, the great avatar of Selene simply disappeared between one breath and the next. Slowly, she pulled her shattered thoughts back together as wind died back down to nothing. Selene had been here. She had found favor in the eyes of the Goddess and been deemed worthy of a personal visitation. There was no way anyone would believe her, if she told them about what had happened. But she knew it had, and that knowledge warmed her like no fire ever would.
“Thank you, Selene,” Chiara said out loud. “Thank you for finding me worthy, thank you for your gifts. I will leave my offerings in this place that you have blessed with your presence.” She then began to clean up, putting away her athame and the extinguished candles first. She left the honey cakes and apple slices in place but took the silver plate. It had cost too much for her to leave behind. Turning, she began to put on her boots and cloak.
From behind the perception filter, Luna examined the biped near her. The creature was small compared to her current body, but appeared well-formed and healthy. If nothing else, the creature looked like an undersized minotaur, with odd legs and a distinct lack of fur over most of its body. The fact that the creature had put away its weapon bode well, and Luna could definitely feel magic from the creature. It wasn’t strong, but it was steady, unlike that of the inconstant moon of this world, which had ebbed to the point where Luna had lost her sentience.
What was most telling was that the creature had left the food behind. It had been a long time since Luna had eaten a proper meal and the smell of honey, oats and apples tickled her nose and caused a rumble in her belly. The creature had not made a single hostile move, so Luna decided to take a chance and dropped the perception filter.
Chiara was just settling her cloak around her shoulders when she heard a gentle, wet crunch from behind her. Turning around, she once again saw the beautiful black horse behind her. The horse no longer had the wings or horn Chiara had seen before, and it was daintily crunching one of the apple slices she had left behind. The horse raised its head and Chiara gasped in surprise at how close she was, and their eyes met. Chiara unconsciously sank to her knees in awe at the kind intelligence she saw in those dark eyes. The horse leaned forward, and took a deep snuffling inhalation of Chiara’s hair, breathing in her scent. Thinking quickly, Chiara stretched out an arm to grab the remaining apple slices, and offered them up to the horse on her flattened palms.
The horse nimbly used its lips and gathered up another of the slices munching away on it, obviously relishing the out of season fruit. Moving slowly, Chiara gathered up her things, placing the few remaining apple slices and honey cakes into her pack. She motioned to the horse. “Come home with me and I can feed you properly,” she said. “C’mon...please?”
Luna looked up as the creature spoke to her. Considering the rather generous anatomy the creature had been showing before, Luna assumed the creature was also female. It’s minimal clothing seemed to indicate either low social or economic status. As well, both its manner of offering the food to Luna and the moon symbol on the creature’s neck, indicated that the being was likely a worshiper of either herself or the moon. It would explain the power coming into Luna from the creature. Freely offered worship and devotion could be potent sources of power.
The creature again made the beckoning motion. After a moment's thought, Luna decided to allow the not-minotaur to lead her. It did exhibit a number of civilized behaviors, and it was probably heading back to civilization. It would be good to have hot food again, and especially to have safety--the encounter with the great cat beast had been entirely too close of a thing.
The creature talked excitedly the whole way. Its speech patterns seemed similar to those of Equestrians, and Luna listened for linguistic similarities while trying not to appear too interested. She might not be able to speak the language of the intelligent ponies--minotaurs-- of this world, but it would be good to be able to at least understand them. They walked together for some time, first leaving the woods, then passing a small cottage. Eventually, the juvenile minotaur crested a small ridge; following her, Luna could see a cluster of large buildings ahead.
Most of the buildings were clearly farm structures similar to those on...somepony, she couldn’t quite remember, farm. Luna could hear the sounds of sleeping cows coming from one of the buildings. She had to assume that they must also be dumb brutes on this world, just like equines were. For now, Luna decided it would be best to adopt the persona of one of the equines who she now looked like. She would try to stay near her supplicant, and take in the offered power from her not-minotaur worshipper.
Mrs. Norris grumbled at the sound of a knock on the door, and nearly yelled back before realizing how late it was. Sighing, she pulled herself out of her comfortable chair where she had fallen asleep reading, and trudged over to the door.
"Evening--" she started. Then she sighed, at the young woman in front of her door, cloak gaping to reveal far too much flesh. "Chiara, I know you don’t like clothes, but I am fairly sure I asked you to be dressed the next time you came down." She was about to shut the door, she wasn’t good company when she was tired, when she realized just how late it actually was.
"Chiara, what are--" Mrs. Norris blinked, shook her head, and averted her eyes from Chiara’s bouncing breasts. "Fine. Say what you need, just please stop bouncing like that."
Chiara managed to still herself, but her exuberance still showed in her tone. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Norris. This just couldn't wait! To keep a long story short, I found this wild horse while I was conducting my ritual out in the woods, and he seemed to take on the aspect of Selene! Can I please, ask you for some space in the horse barn and some feed for him?"
Mrs. Norris flipped her porch light on and looked out over Chiara's shoulder. Sure enough, a perfectly ordinary black horse stood there, patiently waiting at the foot of the steps just behind Chiara. Her mind was far, far too tired to deal with this right now.
"Hmph, fine. Boarding is usually three hundred plus feed and vet," she decided, cudgeling her mind into gear. "I’ll charge you only a hundred if you promise to help out with most of the care.”
"Of course, Mrs. Norris!” agreed Chiara enthusiastically. “Thank you so much for this. I'm not really sure what’s involved with horses but like everything else, I’m willing to learn.”
“Get that horse to the barn and use the double stall. You’ve no idea where that horse has been,” said Mrs Norris waving Chiara away. “First lesson, new animals need to be quarantined. You get the animal put away and see me in the morning. I have got to get some sleep.”
With that, Edith Norris closed her door and padded off to bed. She had a feeling she was going to be needing her rest soon.
Luna had watched the exchange between the two with interest. “Obviously, my supplicant is a filly of the older one in the house,” Luna thought. “She must have been asking her dam permission to lodge me here.” Her supplicant began to lead her toward the barn like structure. Luna kept pace as they walked to the large structure, impressed when the filly in front of her moved their hand over a small lever, and the interior of the structure became bathed in light.
“Well, these pon...minotaurs, definitely seem to have a reasonable civilization,” thought Luna, taking a moment to look around. She could see a series of stalls with wooden walls and gates, three of which were occupied by equines like those she had encountered up on the high plateau. They all seemed to be sleeping, even through the lights suddenly coming on. A sudden thumping noise caught Luna’s attention and she could see her worshipper dumping out the remaining apple chunks from their pack into a bin in one of the unoccupied stalls.
Hunger pushed Luna forward past her follower, and she dipped her head into the bin to begin crunching up another apple slice. As she began munching on the second chunk, Luna heard a clank, and turning to look saw that the stall door had been closed behind her. Chewing on the apple she took a few steps over to the door. The door only came up to her chest and she was easily able to extend her neck out over the door and look back into the barn. Looking down she could see the simple latch holding the stall door closed. A regular equine here would have been locked in with such a simple closure. For her it would be the work of a moment to release herself Even as she thought on this, Luna could see her supplicant quickly scooping up a bucket and filling it with water.
“Hang on, hang on,” chanted Chiara, as she scrambled about. First, she got water into the trough built into the stall. The horse seemed to take no notice of the water. Instead, the horse seemed to be watching Chiara intently as she bustled about. “Oh, of course,” said Chiara, with some heat. “You already had water at the pond, you need food.” Usually, she would use a hand truck to haul over a full bale of hay for one of the horses, but she was in too much of a rush. Instead, Chiara grabbed a bale with her bare hands and half-carried, half-dragged it into the hay bunker for the stall.
Gasping from the effort, Chiara looked on in satisfaction as the avatar of Selene began jerking mouthfuls of hay out of the bunker and chewing with gusto. The way a cow or a horse will when they are really hungry. Satisfied that she had seen to the physical needs of the horse avatar of her Goddess, Chiara leaned against the wall, and slowly brought her breathing under control.
“It has been a very strange and blessed night,” said Chiara, to no one in particular. “If no one minds, I think I’ll just have a sleep over here.” It had been a long, emotion filled night and Chiara was absolutely exhausted. She was simply too tired to make the trek back up to her cottage. After a last check on the horse, who seemed to be doing quite well, she grabbed up a pair of rough horse blankets, found herself a soft area in the hay storage and after turning out the lights, went to sleep.