784 - Gestating On a Prayer
No one said anything as Lex stalked out of the cathedral, a half-dozen pairs of eyes watching him go as they pursed their lips and bit their tongues.
It was only when the door closed behind him that they broke their silence, speaking up before the echo of its latching had faded.
“Drafty, you have to tell him!”
“Tell him? We have to get her out of here! He just admitted he doesn’t know what he’s doing and is making this up as he goes along! Why aren’t we running for the exit?!”
“I hate to say it, but I think Shadow might be right. I’d never put my life in the hooves – or claws – of someone who said, ‘I’ve only got a vague guess about what the problem is, so I’m just gonna try and pray it away,’ so why would we let him do that for Woodheart and Drafty?”
“Because, while I can understand being afraid for Woodheart, I’ve got maybe a day left before Paska’s curse kills me...and my foal.”
“Exactly! Master’s plan will save everyone! I don’t understand why you all keep doubting him! If he says that he can formally call down the Night Mare’s power to fix things, then he’s going to do exactly that!”
“Yeah, because the Night Mare has always been one of the warmer and fuzzier goddesses. You can tell by all the black decor, the fact that this building is shaped like a huge claw, and the way she’s glaring down from that canopy over the altar.”
“Mysty, it sounded like you knew what his ‘ceremonial involution’ was. Is there any chance it will work the way he’s making it sound?”
“It’s called a ‘ceremonial invocation,’” explained Mystaria, grimacing as everyone looked to her for answers. “And...I don’t know. I mean, I learned about them as part of my religious history studies when I was being brought up in the Athenaeum Arcane back in Viljatown, but I’ve never actually seen one! I don’t know anyone who has! It’s like I told Lex, ponies stopped using those centuries, maybe millennia, before the Empire was founded!”
“Okay, look, let’s all take a breath,” chimed in Spinner. “We can’t run away from this. Leaving aside that the only two ways out of here are down into monster-filled caverns or jumping into a rushing river of ice water, I doubt that Solvakna here would let us go anyway.”
“I wouldn’t,” huffed the wolf, giving Spinner a glare. “And don’t call me that.”
“And even if we got by her, and somehow kept Lex from tracking us down – not to mention Sissel, Grisela, and Paska, who’re probably waiting for us to leave here – Drafty’s right,” continued the filidh without missing a beat. “She’s getting worse, and something needs to be done.”
The mare in question opened her mouth, only to snap it shut again as she fought down another coughing fit, clearing her throat so violently that it made her entire body shudder. “Mystaria,” she croaked once she’d regained control of herself. “You said you studied...whatever it is Lex wants to try. Is it something that will hurt our baby if he uses it on me? Does he need to, I don’t know, make adjustments or something to account for my being pregnant?”
Glancing nervously back the way Lex had left, Mystaria took a moment to calm her nerves before answering. “It’s like Lex said before. A ceremonial invocation is how ponies – how everyone, really – called on the power of their gods before thought-based spellcasting was invented. All he’s going to be doing is asking for the Night Mare to do something; what happens to you, and Woodheart, and your baby, are up to her.”
“You’re sure?”
“No, I’m not sure! I’m not sure about any of this!”
Sitting down, she brought one hoof up to rub Luminace’s holy symbol before continuing. “Most of what I know about what Lex is proposing is speculative, based on oral traditions and fragments of old records, but it’s said that originally there was no formal way of beseeching a god for aid. Ponies would cry out for the higher powers to intervene, and a god might send anything from a subtle omen to one of their divine servitors to personally intervening. Or they might do nothing at all. It was all fiat on the part of the god in question.”
That earned a frown from Drafty. “But don’t gods need worship to survive? Why would anyone revere gods that were so capricious?”
“Tradition, probably,” sighed Akna. “You’d be surprised how strong certain practices become when they’re part of your culture.”
“That’s true,” nodded Mystaria. “And remember, it wasn’t like the gods never did anything for the mortals who honored them.” She gave Drafty a sympathetic look. “You’re living proof that you don’t need spells or ceremonies for a god to take notice of you.”
Although her voice had been kind, Thermal Draft winced anyway, lying back on the altar with a low groan.
“But eventually, things changed,” continued Mystaria. “For whatever reason, practices developed of putting on larger and more ostentatious displays of calling on the gods. Instead of bedside prayers or quiet pleas, large gatherings were put together where ponies would chant liturgies in unison. Things of value would be sacrificed. Practices that their god found pleasing would be performed en masse. Something which had once been touched by divine power would be brought out and venerated. Anything to make the service larger and grander and louder.”
Shadow’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “And that worked? I mean, it actually produced reliable results, instead of the ‘hope they listen this time’ kind you said had been the norm up until then?”
“It worked,” replied Mystaria earnestly. “Or at least, everything I’m aware of says that it worked. How could it not? It’s one thing to offer a god a quick prayer when you’re trying to outrun an enemy, or heal a sick relative, or even just win a dice game. It’s quite another to have a whole town come together and spend hours praising their god’s name, performing rites to honor them, and completing observances that are supposed to please them.”
“A god who ignores their followers is a god who’ll soon have no followers, in other words,” quipped Spinner, giving her lute an absentminded strum. “I guess that makes sense.”
“That’s part of it,” admitted Mystaria. “But it wasn’t just about appeasing their faithful. A big show of their god’s power was also a way to bring in new worshipers as well. If travelers saw a ceremony that produced a bountiful harvest, they’d carry word of it through their travels. If enemies saw a group of priests bring down a sturdy wall, they might not only surrender, but convert as well.”
“Because everyone wants to sign on with a team that looks like they’re winning,” muttered Shadow.
“Says the mare who joined a group called Fail Forward,” teased Valor.
Sitting back on her haunches, Akna gave a huff. “So, why did ponies stop performing these big, elaborate ceremonies if they worked so well?”
“Because, as you said, they were big and elaborate,” answered Mystaria with a shrug. “Sorcerers – people with an innate connection to arcane, rather than divine, magic – were starting to appear, and wizards began to figure out how to copy their powers through experimentation and rote learning. That led to the rise of thaumaturgy; thought-based spellcasting, and so the faithful began to ask their gods for something comparable, since it turned out that getting a large group of people who already shared your faith together to put on a huge display, with hours of recitations and collections of religious paraphernalia and exacting displays of devotion, wasn’t exactly easy. And even when they could do all that, those ceremonies were easy to disrupt.”
From her place atop the altar, Drafty winced. “And that caused a backlash?”
Mystaria raised a brow. “A backlash?”
Frowning at the confusion in the other mare’s voice, Thermal Draft gave a hesitant nod. “Yeah. Like, if something interrupts the ceremony, then all of the power that’s been gathered goes out of control, causing some sort of dangerous reaction. Lex talked about that sometimes with the rituals he’d perform.”
Her brow furrowing, Mystaria shook her head. “That...no, I’m not sure what Lex was referring to, but ceremonial invocations don’t work like that. They’re about faith, not power. The entire point of them is to send a request to your god; if something interrupts the ceremony, then it’s the equivalent of spilling a bottle of ink on a scroll. It garbles the message, but it doesn’t actually cause anything unusual to happen.”
Letting out a breath, she let go of her holy symbol. “Besides, most disruptions weren’t usually something interfering with the ceremony anyway. They were things like someone swapping out an actual relic for a fake one ahead of time, or the lead priest having committed some sin that they hadn’t atoned for, or someone inadvertently defiling the consecrated territory where the rite was being performed.”
“You mean like how you kept conjuring lights inside the Shrine?” snorted Akna.
Valor, Spinner, and Shadow went rigid at that, but Mystaria clucked her tongue. “I’ll admit that was impious of us, but there’s a difference between breaking a tenet and committing an act of desecration.”
“Will the Night Mare see it that way?” murmured Drafty worriedly.
“...I suppose we should tell Lex what we did before he begins the ceremony, just to be safe.”
“So, just to be absolutely clear, nothing happens if one of these ceremonial invocation things goes wrong?” asked Shadow, her voice suspicious.
“Unless some major act of blasphemy has been committed by the one performing the ceremony, then either the god simply doesn’t respond to the entreaty, or they send a messenger to say why they’re not responding,” answered Mystaria.
Behind her mask, Shadow’s suspicious look didn’t falter. “And if they have done something blasphemous?”
“That doesn’t matter,” growled Akna. “The Night Mare holds my master high in her esteem. She won’t refuse his request.”
“Yeah, well, your account of how things went in Darkest Night might have been rather light on details, but it didn’t exactly sound like she rolled out the red carpet for him when he arrived,” shot back Shadow, before turning to look at the rest of her friends.
“Look, I’ll admit that I don’t have any better ideas, but I’m not a fan of risking three lives on a plan that has this many unknowns in it. Even if Lex is the Night Mare’s new favorite, Drafty here is apparently one of Kara’s faithful, and Woodheart belongs to a pagan faith; you’re telling me that being asked to help the two of them won’t tick her off?”
“I’m not one of Kara’s faithful,” murmured Drafty under her breath. “She made that very clear.”
“I honestly don’t know if any of that makes a difference or not,” admitted Mystaria. “My best guess is that Lex will perform the ceremonial invocation, and the Night Mare or one of her servants-”
“Wait, what?” Akna sat up straighter, an alarmed look crossing her face. “You’re saying that the goddess might have someone else answer Master’s request?”
“I doubt it, since the more notable of a religious figure someone is, the more likely they are to warrant a personal response,” explained Mystaria. “But there’s no way to know for sure.”
“...” Akna sank back down, a worried expression on her face.
“But as I was saying before, Drafty, I don’t know what effect any of this will have on your foal. The best I can tell you is that, even if Lex doesn’t think to ask, I doubt the Night Mare won’t know that you’re pregnant. I’m not a midwife, and even if I was I can’t imagine how the sort of transfer he’s going to ask for will affect your pregnancy-”
“Especially since his life-force-o-vision didn’t pick it up,” muttered Spinner.
“-but if the goddess doesn’t want it to hurt your baby, then it won’t,” concluded Mystaria. “Curse or no curse. I think.”
For a long moment, Drafty didn’t say anything in reply. Then she gave soft laugh, taking shallow breaths to avoid wheezing. “You know, this is a lot like how Lex and I first met. I know I told you the story before, but I was dying after having been bitten by a ghoul in what was left of my hometown. I’d been sick for days, getting weaker and weaker, and finally I’d passed out...and that’s when Lex came and saved me.”
Sighing, she managed a wan smile as she looked up at the stylized image of the Night Mare. “I woke up to the sight of him, and even if he wasn’t some storybook prince of a hero, he was still my hero. I’ve loved him ever since that day, even though I’ve only been a burden to him, and now...” She reached down, putting a hoof on her lower abdomen. “Now I have the chance to give him something special in return for all that he’s given me.”
“Drafty...”
But the pegasus-disguised-doppelganger didn’t reply to Mystaria, instead keeping her eyes on the image of Lex’s goddess above her. “So please, Night Mare, if you can hear me...”
Taking a shuddering breath, wondering if Kara would be mad at her later, Drafty finished her prayer. “Please, for Lex’s sake, I beg you...protect our baby.”
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Drafty made her choice hopefully it's a good or neutral one.
11464929 Well, she didn't really have many other options, with Paska's curse continuing to eat away at her life force. For her baby's sake, let's hope that Lex has earned the Night Mare's consideration when he asks her to help Drafty out.
Given what kinds of alterations to physcal and metnal states so far, its going to be very intresting to see what the Night Mare decides to do relative to various beings requirements and wants.
11465170 Well, the ideal solution is that she does exactly what Lex is asking for, and causes no inadvertent harm to Drafty's baby in the process, so that when Lex (hopefully) undoes Paska's curse and restores Drafty, her pregnancy is unaffected. But as for whether or not that's actually the case, well...we'll see.
Thermal Draft may have stated that she's not of Kara's faith, formally at least but she is connected to Kara so it might become an issue between the goddesses. Then again, it's just one individual but I suppose it could still be seen as a slap to the face in Kara's eyes.
Regardless, I'm now curious to see if the Night Mare will answer one of her champion's call or if she'll send someone else in her stead, possibly someone Lex hasn't see for a while or someone he has never met before. Both can carry either positive or negative results. Here's hoping it's for the former.
As for the Night Mare doing something to keep Lex and Drafty's foal safe, hard to say given the tenets of her religion though putting Thermal Draft and by extension, Lex into debt with her would be beneficial to her cause in the long run.
11465270 With Kara unwilling to step into the Night Mare's territory, and so not being inside Drafty's head, it's entirely possible that Drafty's praying to another goddess will be a moot point. Also, her formally stating that she isn't of Kara's faith strikes me as the sort of sticking point that a Lawful Evil deity might latch onto, with regard to questions of potentially messing with someone else's worshiper. You have to wonder if Drafty suspected something like that, and that's why she said it out loud while sitting on the Night Mare's altar; she might have made several bad decisions so far, but I'd wager she's learned a few things also.
As for the results of the ceremonial invocation Lex is planning on carrying out, well...it's hard to see it not working, though the exact results aren't going to be up to him. It's somewhat notable that this is a genuine act of faith on his part, suggesting that he really has found religion where the Night Mare is concerned. In that regard, his trip to Darkest Night was instructive in more ways than one. Let's just hope his newfound belief in his goddess comes through here, since more is riding on this than he knows.