#Taryn | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hrizantemy · 20 days ago

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TARYN!

The voice echoed down the marble corridor, sharp with urgency but wrapped in laughter. Sunlight poured through the high arched windows of the Temple, casting warm gold across the polished floor, and Taryn turned toward the sound, breathless, smiling.

“I told you we were going to be late!” she gasped, her hand clutching the edge of her robe as she sprinted, bare feet slapping against the cool stone.

Beside her, Elira laughed, her braid bouncing wildly behind her. “You’re the one who said we had plenty of time!”

“I didn’t mean that much time!”

They skidded around a corner, nearly colliding with a priestess carrying a tray of crushed lavender and rosewater, who gave them a fond, exasperated sigh as they passed.

“You’ll miss morning blessings!” the priestess called after them.

Taryn just giggled harder, grabbing Elira’s hand as they tore through the final hallway, their laughter rising like a prayer itself—bright and full of life. The great chamber doors loomed ahead, etched with the sigil of the Mother. The scent of incense and sun-warmed stone filled the air, and the faint hum of chanting had already begun on the other side.

Taryn glanced at Elira, cheeks flushed, eyes shining. “Last one in has to clean the candle trays!”

Elira shrieked in mock betrayal and shoved her.

They burst through the doors, two girls tangled in joy and friendship and sunlight, unaware of the years waiting like shadows just beyond the threshold.

The great chamber swallowed them in gold and quiet reverence.

It was vast—larger than any room in the Temple, with pillars like trees rising into a ceiling painted with stars and wings and weeping eyes. The chanting paused as the girls slipped in, their robes askew, faces still flushed from running. A few priestesses turned, amused more than annoyed, and one gave a tiny shake of her head, though her lips twitched with a smile.

Taryn ducked her head sheepishly and tugged Elira into their usual place on the woven reed mats. They knelt, side by side, still catching their breath, still fighting giggles. The warmth of Elira’s shoulder pressing into hers was familiar—safe, grounding. Taryn felt like the light pouring through the windows lived inside her chest.

The High Priestess’s voice rose, smooth and low, calling them into silence.

“Blessed be the Mother, who weaves the thread of all things…”

Taryn closed her eyes, her lips moving softly with the prayer, though her mind drifted. She was thinking about the way the sun had hit the river that morning, how Elira had splashed her when they were supposed to be fetching water, how she still had droplets drying along her sleeves.

She was thinking about how the temple bells sounded from the roof, and how one day, maybe, they’d be the ones to light the sacred braziers or tend the archives in the deep halls no one was allowed into yet. She was thinking of a hundred futures, all bright and golden and full of laughter.

Beside her, Elira gently nudged her knee. Taryn opened one eye.

Elira smiled, slow and secret, and mouthed, I’m still faster than you.

Taryn grinned. She would remember this moment later, though not for the reasons she thought she would. Not because of the sunlight or the bells or even the thrill of racing through the Temple halls—

—but because this was before. Before everything.

And she had been happy.

The final notes of the morning hymn faded into silence, and the room exhaled with it—a long, quiet breath held and then released. The High Priestess stood at the front of the chamber, robed in white and gold, the veil across her brow shimmering faintly in the light. Her voice, when she spoke, was soft but carried with ease across the room.

“Taryn.”

Taryn froze, her back stiffening. Beside her, Elira gave a barely-there wince of sympathy.

The other girls began to rise, collecting their robes and whispering softly as they filed out. Taryn remained kneeling, heart thudding against her ribs. She looked up slowly.

“Yes, High Priestess?”

The woman’s gaze was unreadable—her expression neither angry nor kind. Her hands were folded neatly in front of her, fingers adorned with rings etched in old prayers. “Stay behind.”

Taryn bit her lip and gave Elira a quick glance. Elira hesitated in the doorway, mouthing, I’ll wait, before disappearing into the outer corridor.

When the last of the others were gone, the High Priestess descended the steps with measured grace, the hem of her robe whispering against the floor.

“You were late,” she said simply.

Taryn looked down, her cheeks burning. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“This is not the first time.”

“I know.”

“Do you think the Mother waits for you, child?” Her voice was still calm, still gentle—but it cut. “Do you think the world pauses for your laughter and your running feet?”

Taryn’s fingers curled in her lap. “No, High Priestess.”

“You are not just a girl anymore. You are one of hers.” A hand reached out, lightly pressing against Taryn’s crown. “To be of the Temple is to serve with discipline. With reverence. Joy has its place—but not when it makes you careless.”

“I wasn’t trying to be careless,” Taryn said, her voice barely above a whisper. “We just… lost track of time.”

The High Priestess crouched slightly, bringing herself eye-level with her. “You and Elira are very close.”

Taryn blinked, startled by the shift in tone. “Yes,” she said slowly.

“Be careful with closeness,” the High Priestess murmured. “It can be a gift. Or a tether. The Mother asks for your heart, not what’s left of it after you’ve given it away.”

Taryn didn’t know how to respond. Her lips parted, then closed.

The High Priestess rose again, her silhouette tall and glowing in the morning light. “You will stay behind tomorrow to clean the brass trays. Alone.”

Taryn nodded. “Yes, High Priestess.”

“And you will lead the sunrise prayer the day after.”

Her eyes shot up. “But—I’ve never—”

“You will.” The woman turned, her robes flaring like wings. “You must learn to stand on your own, Taryn.”

She left without waiting for a reply.

Taryn sat in silence for a long moment, the scent of incense clinging to her skin. Alone now, truly alone, she let her shoulders sag. Then—

A whisper at the door.

“Taryn?”

Elira, peeking in.

Taryn smiled, small and crooked, and stood to meet her.

“I got in trouble,” she said.

“I heard,” Elira whispered. “You always get in trouble.”

They clasped hands like it was a promise.

Neither of them knew—could know—that these quiet days would one day become sacred in their memory. That this golden hour was already beginning to fade.

As they stepped quietly into the corridor, the hush of the chamber falling behind them like a closing door, Elira squeezed Taryn’s hand.

“She’s hard on you because she knows,” Elira said, voice soft and certain.

Taryn gave her a skeptical glance. “Knows what? That I’m always late?”

Elira rolled her eyes. “That you’re going to be High Priestess one day. Obviously.”

Taryn stopped walking. “Don’t say that.”

Elira blinked. “Why not? It’s true.”

“I never asked for that,” Taryn said, her voice low and tight. “I never wanted it.”

Elira tilted her head, still holding her hand. “No,” she said quietly. “But the Mother did.”

Taryn looked away, swallowing hard. A streak of sunlight fell across the stone floor, cutting between them like a line she didn’t know how to cross.

“She doesn’t ask, Taryn. She chooses.”

Taryn let the silence stretch for a moment before whispering, “I don’t want to be chosen.”

And Elira, still young, still smiling like the world would always be kind, just shrugged and said, “That’s the thing about the Mother. She chooses anyway.”

Taryn didn’t respond at first. She looked down at their joined hands—hers ink-stained and still trembling slightly from the scolding, Elira’s warm and steady.

“Maybe she chose wrong,” Taryn murmured.

Elira’s fingers tightened. “She didn’t.”

Taryn pulled away, not unkindly, just… needing space. “You always believe in that. In her.”

Elira’s eyes didn’t waver. “So do you. Even when you say you don’t.��

Taryn turned her back, letting her gaze drift down the hallway toward the dormitories. Her voice was smaller now. “It doesn’t feel like belief. It feels like being trapped in something I didn’t choose.”

Behind her, Elira’s footsteps were soft, then silent. Then—

“You think you’re the only one she chose?” Elira asked, gently. “She calls all of us. I just think… maybe she called you a little louder.”

Taryn didn’t move.

Elira stepped beside her, bumping her shoulder lightly. “You don’t have to want it right now. Or tomorrow. But you’ll grow into it. Like light into glass.”

“I don’t want to be glass,” Taryn said. “I want to be a girl.”

Elira smiled, sad and sweet. “You are. For a little while longer.”

They stood in the sunlit hallway in silence, the weight of unseen futures curling around them like smoke. Somewhere behind them, the bells began to toll again—calling the next group to prayer, to duty, to purpose.

Taryn closed her eyes.

And whispered, “I wish she hadn’t chosen me.”

Elira didn’t argue this time.

She just reached for her hand again. And held it, as if that alone might be enough to hold back the tide. She tugged her gently down the corridor, toward the sunlit cloister where the morning warmth still lingered on the stone benches.

As they walked, Elira glanced sideways. “Is your mother visiting again today?”

Taryn’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly. “If you can even call it a visit.”

Elira’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t speak. She waited.

Taryn let out a breath. “She just asks how I’m doing. If I’m behaving. If I’m paying attention in lessons. Then she scolds me for something—how I sit, how I speak, how my robes are wrinkled. Then she leaves before I can say anything real.”

Elira was quiet for a moment. “That’s still something.”

Taryn shook her head. “No. It’s not. Not really.”

They reached the edge of the cloister, where sunlight spilled like honey across the pale stone. Taryn sat heavily on the bench, her shoulders hunched, her hair catching the light in a thousand soft strands.

“She always looks at me like I’m disappointing her,” Taryn said, voice low. “Like she’s waiting for me to be someone else.”

Elira sat beside her, drawing her knees up and resting her chin on them. “Maybe she’s just afraid.”

Taryn glanced at her. “Of what?”

“That you’ll become someone she doesn’t understand.” Elira looked down, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. “Or someone greater than her.”

Taryn let the silence settle again, heavier this time.

Then, “She always says the Mother chose me. That I belong to the Temple now. Not to her.”

“And what do you think?” Elira asked softly.

The breeze drifted in through the carved stone lattice, stirring the soft fabric of their robes, rustling the leaves of the fig trees beyond the cloister walls. Somewhere deeper in the Temple, bells chimed the hour, their music slow and mournful.

Taryn stared at her hands in her lap. “I think she gave me to the Temple just so she wouldn’t have to deal with me.”

Elira shifted beside her, silent.

“She talks about duty, about legacy. About how her family has always served. How the bloodline’s strong, as if I’m supposed to carry something I never asked to hold.” Her voice thickened slightly. “But when she looks at me, it’s not pride. It’s… disappointment. Or fear. I don’t know which is worse.”

Elira said nothing at first. Then, quietly: “My mother never even wrote back after I came here.”

Taryn looked up, surprised. Elira never talked about her family.

“She brought me when I was seven. Said it was an honor.” Elira laughed without humor. “Said I had a sensitive spirit, whatever that means. Then left and never came back. I don’t think she even remembered which Temple I was sent to.”

Taryn’s expression softened, and she reached out, brushing Elira’s sleeve. “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want you to.”

They sat in silence again, but it felt different now—like a wound slowly being acknowledged between them, not hidden.

Elira leaned back, tilting her head to the sky, her braid trailing along the bench. “Maybe the Mother takes girls like us on purpose. The ones no one else wants to carry.”

The moment hung between them—fragile, golden, and solemn.

Taryn closed her eyes, just for a breath, her cheek against Elira’s hair. The weight in her chest hadn’t vanished, but Elira’s presence softened it, made it bearable. Here, in this quiet corner of the Temple, where sunlight pooled and the world felt distant, Taryn almost believed she could be something more than what was expected of her. Something real.

But the stillness didn’t last.

Elira stirred, lifting her head, mischief already blooming behind her solemn expression. “You know,” she said slowly, voice lightening like dawn chasing away a storm, “I did hear they’re baking honeyflat bread in the kitchens today.”

Taryn glanced sideways. “Did you?”

“Mmhmm. And if we’re fast enough…”

Taryn grinned. “We can snatch the warm ones before the apprentices get them.”

Elira was already on her feet. “Exactly.”

Taryn stood, laughing now, the tension cracking off her like old stone. “You realize if we’re caught, I’ll get another lecture.”

“I’ll say I dragged you. I’ll even cry a little.”

“You are a terrible influence.”

“I’m the best influence.”

And they were running again, robes flying behind them, sandals slipping on the polished floors as their laughter rang down the hall. They tore through quiet passageways, past startled priestesses and prayer rooms, ignoring the calls of warning and the flurry of whispers in their wake.

Taryn’s braid came loose, dark strands whipping behind her, and she didn’t care. Not about her robes, or her mother, or the weight of the future pressing on her shoulders.

And even the Mother, watching from her altar, might have smiled.

She became High Priestess a year after that day.

A year after sunlight in the cloister. A year after honeyflat bread stolen from the kitchens and laughter echoing down sacred halls. A year after Elira’s hand in hers, warm and steady, swearing she would always choose her.

A year after Elira’s death.

It had been swift. Sudden. A fever that no healing spell could touch, no priestess could ease. One day, Elira had laughed beside her in the candlelit dormitory; the next, she was writhing in her sleep, burning up, whispering prayers that made no sense.

And then—gone.

Taryn had knelt beside her body for hours, her hands pressed over Elira’s heart as if she could call it back into being. She had begged the Mother, had screamed her name in the sacred tongue, had offered herself instead.

No one had answered.

The next week, the veil was placed in her hands. The golden rings. The woven mantle.

She was sixteen.

The youngest High Priestess in two centuries.

And as they crowned her beneath the Temple dome, as the incense curled around her and the bells tolled for the choosing, all she could hear was Elira’s voice in her memory—

“You don’t have to want it right now. Or tomorrow. But you’ll grow into it. Like light into glass.”

Taryn didn’t feel like light.

She felt like broken glass.

But still—she knelt, she rose, she spoke the rites.

And when she looked up into the faces of the other priestesses, of the girls kneeling where she once knelt, she realized the Mother had not given her time to choose.

She had simply made her ready.

The memory faded like smoke as Taryn drew in a slow, steadying breath.

She stood now in the quiet sanctum, a woman kneeling before her—middle-aged, nervous, eyes red-rimmed from nights of worry. A thin gold thread was braided into the woman’s hair, a sign of recent illness. Her hands trembled as they clasped the offering bowl.

Taryn held hers out in return—still, sure, the mantle of her station heavy on her shoulders. Her voice was clear as she began the prayer.

“Mother of breath, of bone, of beating heart—

We call you to the vessel of this woman.

Strengthen what is weary.

Restore what falters.

Mend what aches in silence.”

She traced a spiral over the woman’s crown with two fingers, then laid a hand against her chest, right over the heart.

“Let her sleep without fear.

Let her rise without pain.

Let her live, not merely survive.”

The woman’s breathing hitched, and tears spilled down her cheeks. Taryn did not flinch. She had long since learned to bear other people’s grief, to cradle it without drowning in it.

“May the Mother’s light enter you and remain,” she finished softly. “May she find what no spell can.”

She stepped back. The woman’s head bowed low in thanks. A younger priestess stepped forward to help her to her feet and guide her out, speaking quiet words of comfort as they left the chamber.

Taryn remained.

Her fingers curled in her robes, the silence pressing in again—close and familiar.

Elira would’ve known what to say afterward. Would’ve made a joke, or slipped a honeyflat from her sleeve, or bumped her shoulder and whispered, You didn’t sound terrifying that time. Something to make it bearable. To remind her she was still a girl beneath the veil and gold and titles.

But there was no one waiting when the door closed.

Taryn lingered in the silence, the folds of her robes pooling around her feet like water. Her fingers hovered over the final offering bowl, the flame inside it soft and flickering, casting long shadows along the smooth marble floor.

Then—slowly, as if something unseen had called her—she turned.

Back toward the altar.

The great figure of the Mother loomed before her, carved from pale stone veined with gold, her eyes closed, her hands outstretched in benediction. Flowers rested at her feet—some fresh, some dried, all offered in hope. Candles burned low around the base, their wax spilling like tears.

Taryn stared up at her.

This was the place she had prayed as a child. This was where she had knelt the morning after Elira died, salt-stained and broken. Where she had stood in silence on the day of her veiling, the incense thick in her lungs. Where she had said a thousand prayers and heard none answered.

And yet… she still came.

She always came.

Taryn took a step closer. The sunlight through the high lattice windows caught in the edges of her veil, setting it aglow. Her eyes burned—but she did not cry.

“I don’t know if you ever listen,” she said aloud. “I don’t know if you ever did.”

The altar did not answer. The Mother’s face remained serene. Unmoving.

Taryn’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But she believed in you. Elira. Even when I couldn’t.”

Her throat tightened. She reached out—just once—and laid her fingers gently against the stone hand of the statue. Cool. Solid.

“You took her,” she said. “And left me to carry this.”

A breath. A pause.

Then: “I hope you remember that.”

She turned away, her veil catching on the edge of the offering bowl before falling back into place. Her steps were quiet as she crossed the chamber, but they did not waver.

And behind her, the candles on the altar flickered again—though there was no wind.

Sometimes, in the long hours before dawn when the Temple was still and the world held its breath, Taryn wondered why.

Why the Mother had taken Elira—not the sick, not the cruel, not the ones who wasted the life they were given, but Elira, who had been full of light and laughter and mercy.

Why her hand had fallen on the one person who had made all of this—the rites, the prayers, the unbearable weight of being chosen—bearable.

But then Taryn would remember.

This was the same Mother who had taken her, too.

Not in death—but in silence. In claiming. In veiling her future before she was old enough to shape it for herself. The same Mother who had watched as a quiet, hollow-eyed woman placed her daughter at the Temple gates and whispered that she was a gift, when it had always felt like abandonment.

The same Mother who had never once answered when Taryn begged to be sent back.

The same one who had let Elira burn.

So she stopped asking why.

Not because she understood.

But because she already knew:

The Mother did not explain. She did not console.

She simply took.

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