#Also no relation to my Hibrides it's just a moderately common name

[serpentface]

Part of a painting depicting the historical Odonii priestess Odebinae Hibrides inciting aging men into battle during the siege of Odkoto (the city Godsmouth).

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The most famous account of this siege is the poem "One Hundred Nights Of Dogs", which was an accumulation and rewriting of the (predominantly oral) accounts of the survivors into the format of epic poetry, first put into writing over three decades after the fact. The exact events it depicts are tenuously accurate at best, but it captures the emotional dimensions of the siege and has profoundly shaped cultural memories in the many years since.

This particular episode of the poem takes place towards the end of the siege, when Finn forces breached the outer of two city walls and began a partial sacking. The survivors in the inner walls at this point were almost all starving, and in varying stages of despair after months of hardship and acute trauma. Most of the city's youths would have been engaged at this time, and the poem describes Odebinae approaching a pack of older men at the edge of noncombatant age and inciting them to the front lines.

This is depicted as such:

She threw her glittering, blood-hungry spear to the ground. With one hand, she scratched deep wounds into her breast, and with the other hand, she pounded hard at her bared chest, and with a terrible voice, she roared, “Look upon me now, you cowards, look upon me and be ashamed. You have given up, this much is clear. You hide here and wail for your misery like little girls. You sit and weep, waiting for your rape while your mother-land is defiled around you. You await your deaths on your backs, already wailing! Already mourning! Your character is that of the dogs that skulk among you, eating the corpses of your brothers and your sons and skittering back into shadow when chased, whimpering for their troubles. You are little better, you cravens, you dog-faced men. Enough of this! Look at me now! I am your mothers, your wives, your sisters, your daughters, and look how I bleed while you hide behind your walls!”

Her behavior will have obvious and profound significance for the poem's listeners. The act of a woman exposing breasts and beating at the chest is a specific form of supplication, a performance that is read as exposing weakness in a deeply earnest and persuasive capacity. This is unique as a gesture of supplication, it both places the performer beneath the observer while retaining some control of the dynamic; it is confrontational (unlike a bow or other related gestures) and intends to compel them into action. Breasts themselves are politicized body parts in this culture, having very strong associations with motherly nurturing and/or feminine vulnerability. This targeted form of exposure may at least subconsciously remind the man of his mother, or a wife or daughters who are meant to be under his protection. This is further emphasized with the act of wounding herself and making this association verbally explicit- she positions herself as the impending desecrated body of the women in their lives, a catastrophe they are spinelessly accepting rather than taking up the defense and at least dying honorably in the process.

Whether the historical Odebinae Hibrides actually Did This or Said Any Of That is anyone's guess. There's a fair chance Something along these lines happened, as this form of motivational breast exposure is common practice for Odonii on battlefields, though the story itself is obviously dramatized and HEAVILY moralized.

At least in the confines of the poem, this high-caliber shaming proved to be rousing, and dozens of former noncombatants joined into the defense along with Odebinae. They were blessed by the priestess and described as having been invigorated with a God-given strength, their bodies feeling decades younger as they entered the fray. Odebinae is cited as having put on a full battlefield performance, exposing herself to danger to pace the ramparts while shrieking war cries and biting her spear, acting as a spiritual protector for her men and casting the evil eye on her foes below (this is probably one of the most realistic aspects of this poem, some other accounts say she killed dozens of men and might have turned into an actual lion at some point). She was eventually cut down by arrows, and it's said that when her body fell from the wall, twenty men climbed down after to protect her from desecration.

The siege (both historically and in the poem) ended shortly after, with the Finns being repelled by the arrival of warriors from Ephennos and Wardin (who proceeded to Effectively capture the city themselves without additional bloodshed, as a matter of a negotiated 'alliance' that was functionally more of a land-grab. But that's neither here nor there). Odebinae was declared a saint in the aftermath, along with ten other priestesses and two warriors who died notably heroic deaths.

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Notes on the drawing:

-Aside from the expense of blue pigments, the use of all-white garb here rather than the standard Odonii blue is an acknowledgment of her sainthood and a suggestion of divinity, and the color is reminiscent of the garb worn by the Odomache in public appearances.

-When the shedding of blood is significant in Wardi art, it will be shown with great clarity and excess, often appearing to gush from even minor wounds. This is visual shorthand for the significance of blood as living spirit and an indicator for what is specifically being accomplished in the act. A depiction of the minimal bloodletting performed in everyday prayer may show the blood arcing directly into flame, the wounds of a sacrificed animal may spray onto earth or crops or into the sky. Here it sprays both towards the spear and the city's earth at her feet.

-The short hair on the men in this image communicates them being in states of grief (both figuratively and probably literally), as it's customary to cut the hair at the topknot (or halfway through the braids for women) to initiate the mourning period. Other depictions of short haired adult men are typically non-Wardi and/or foreigners with these customs (which will usually be made obvious by other elements of ethnic coding) or sex workers (also contextually obvious in most cases).

-Wardi art doesn't consistently depict signs of advanced age with great specificity, though colored images will usually at least show graying hair. The complete youthfulness of the men (probably around the age 55-60) here illustrates the story's claim that they experienced a sense of divinely imbued vigor, making it external for visual symbolic clarity.

-The man in front is performing a spiritually deferential gesture (the squat isn't part of it, that's just a common resting posture), and his positioning doubles as a suggestion that he is about to take up the spear. The hand contact between the men in back (perhaps unintentionally humorously) suggests that they were in the midst of heated conversation before being interrupted by a priestess aggressively bleeding at them.