[attr="id","hydracol"]TEMULIN BORJIGIN

The ritual of frost is the most important ritual that the Apotheosis follows. To give to the Goddess is to invite her grace and spare them from the encroaching cold. For this reason, children will be marked from infancy to be potential sacrifices - or potential hosts. There is another purpose; to invite the Goddess to inhabit flesh. To forge their prophets from the Permafrost.[break][break]

It is an honour to be chosen for the Rite of Frost. Having one of your children marked is a status symbol in the village that makes their home in the frost-bitten mountains on the edge of the world. Despite all the glory that went with the act of self-sacrifice, the earliest memory that you recall is your mother, standing flanked by your brothers and sisters, sobbing openly as you were taken from your home.[break][break]

The High Priestess, henceforth, was your father from then onwards. It was you and three other children that were chosen. If you were devout of faith and pure of heart, then when the winter descended you would be given to the Goddess as tribute to protect the village from harm. He didn’t believe in sparring details, and he didn’t believe in pleasantries and politeness. From a child, you knew that you had been marked to die.[break][break]

And, to be honest, you were content with that in the abstract. Unlike your brothers and sisters, you didn’t learn to hunt, cook, sew, weave. You weren’t like them, so you were confined to the shrine in the Mountain, in which the altar was devoted to the Goddess. You imagined her as a horrible thing, even as you read passages that applauded her mercy and her grace. The conflict between the merciful mother who cared for her faithful and the encroaching hoarfrost, the never-ending winter to come when she returned… You can’t seem to reckon it.[break][break]

As you got older, you would go out into the village and visit homes. You treated illnesses as best as you could, performed blessings, baptisms, funerals, confessions; whatever matters of faith were required, you or your new siblings would do so. People came to see you as a thing, not a person. They never call you by your name, Temulin, instead using one of the various epithets and titles that they would use similar to how they address the High Priestess.[break][break]

Two weeks before the Winter Solstice, when your father would leave the mountains to meet with the other elders of the Faith from other villages came the day that you’d been waiting for your entire life. It would mark the end of your life; when you were to become one with the Goddess and given as sacrifice. Whilst you were dressed in layers of fine furs, beads and various woven charms wishing for anything and everything that the villagers had woven in hopes of having their wishes granted; you had to give away everything that you wore apart from those charms and a simple plain white dress. Even your shoes, feet freezing on the bare stone and snow underneath your feet.[break][break]

Without questioning or complaint, you laid down in your own grave and closed your eyes, chanting the prayer you had memorized since you were little. You kept praying, even as the snow was shoveled across your body in a thin blanket. The Goddess required you to be brave, your High Priestess required to show no fear or regret. It wouldn’t be long before you were dead.[break][break]

May I be delivered onto the grace of the Goddess / You ask to the emptiness of the sky above, dotted with stars.[break][break]

May she receive our prayers, may she protect our kin and fuel our hearths. / You ask, even though the people whose prayers you ask for have long since left to your fate.[break][break]

May she save us from the everlasting winter, her chosen children. / Even though you pray for everyone but yourself and your siblings, doomed to perish in the winter cold.[break][break]

You are the last one of your siblings still chanting, because you can only hear your voice. It is weak and frail, and you can barely feel anything anymore. Although sleep drags at you, it would not stop until you can do no more. Devotion cannot end simply due to hardship, and you cannot let your life go to waste if you can do one more thing.[break][break]

Still, you wish that you might be able to be set in the stars when you die. You wish that you might come back as a warm wind in spring. As the flowers that managed to carve out a living in the harsh conditions of the mountains. When you die, you hope that you'll be something beautiful when you come back, the Goddess’ mercy in a simple portrait of something wonderful in a bleak world.[break][break]

And yet, you hear someone else.[break][break]

Temulin Borjigin, second daughter of Sarantsatsral, why do you still beg for clemency? What good is your body, as racked with frost as it is.
[break][break]
She has no answer. There’s nothing looming above her, only the starless skies above and she stops praying. If the Goddess speaks to her, she ought to answer. [break][break]

“I… I want to live. I want to help…”[break][break]

They abandoned you here. They left you to freeze. When the summer comes, you and your fellow chosen will thaw and rot. And yet you still ask me for help?[break][break]

“Who… But you?”[break][break]

You have more than you can give to me. But you cannot stay like this, as frail and weak as you are. If I am to spare you, you cannot squander my gift to you. If I am to spare you, you must one day surpass your father. Temulin, second daughter of Sarantsatsral, my dear acolyte, my dear sweet sacrifice, you are not meant for this grave. Keep your eyes open, and watch the stars til the sun rises. If you can survive the night with me at your side, you will find the clemency that you speak.[break][break]

If you live, you will be worthy to be my prophet.[break][break]

The Rite of Frost was successful. You’re the only one that survived, and your father is proud of you. A hunter brings you back to the village, carrying you in his arms as you blindly huddle close for warmth, flanked by the imposing form of your familiar. You are no longer Temulin, second daughter of Sarantsatsral. You are now Temulin, blessed daughter of the Goddess, Saint of the Mountains. Even though you have to walk with a cane now, the frostbite having caused irreparable damage in your legs, you are worshiped for the very ground that you walk on.[break][break]

Although, you suspect that it is not you that is the object of such universal affections, but your familiar. Mh’ithrha was a messenger from the Goddess who spoke in the ancient script that only Temulin and her siblings and her father knew. She was now looked upon with the same awe and reverence that the High Priestess was. Long gone was the scared little girl who died in the frost - a real priestess took their place.[break][break]

You serve as faithfully, and draw power from the constellations as you were instructed. With the foundations of your faith secure and a messenger from the Goddess to act as your aide, your father taught you about magic and the wonders that it could bring. He told you about the heretics in the south that frowned upon their magic and their faith and that one day, she would have to go down to that nest of vipers to do her pilgrimage. [break][break]

How many times did she have to prove her faith and devotion? She cared for these people, her people in the village. The ability to help them was all that she cared about. Some far-flung land with far-flung foreigners didn’t appeal to her. At the Conclave, she was informed that Khatagin and Leonidas had already sent their chosen south. Khatagin had found a lead for the lost city.[break][break]

Borjigin could not afford to not send their chosen. Temulin was informed of people that would help her when she reached Delphi and help her find a place to stay. Whilst there, she could set up a chapel for people to visit, venerate, whatever helped her feel more at home. The Khatagin and Leonidas chosen would surely feel safe underneath her roof if they chose. [break][break]

There was another coven that she ought to join that had been allies to the Winter’s Grasp, sharing in their philosophy of freedom of magic. Although her father would not tell her more than that, she was given a name and number to contact once she reached Delphi to be inducted. Any other covens that came for her were to be rejected. Her fate lay with Hydra. If she failed, there would not be a home waiting for her.[break][break]
The Borjigins do not accept failure. Temulin would be stuck in the south til she fulfilled her pilgrimage and found the Lost City.