#buttheyressomelike

[jackmanning]

wrath of the black-ribboned priest

A blue haired bespectacled young man festooned in red ribbons was floundering in a grave yard at night. “My name is Gregory Novak,” he said to the thin wisps of grey clouds as they stuttered across the star-scuffed skies. The clouds didn’t reply as they were busy gathering precipitation and so Gregory stylishly turned back to his task and continued digging. There was a slight breeze which lifted the ribbons draped darkly over his shoulders and they gently tickled his neck. He was pleased by this sensation. “Things are good,” he said.

The gravestone stood looming before him and he couldn’t help but every so often glance at it during breaks between digs. How long ago was such a message chipped into it? 6 years? More? Gregory obviously had no way of knowing, being a mere Red-Ribbon, nor was he going to ask Peter MacMoore because, heh, by the Saviour he didn’t want to draw Peter MacMoore’s attention to himself no-sir, no sir thank you very much Bob that’ll be six euro.

“That’s Father Peter MacMoore to you, Greggy-boy,” Father Peter MacMoore said to him from, well - Gregory couldn’t quite see just where he was, but his heart quickened at the rasping voice, more fearful than ever as it echoed across this desolate dark graveyard.

“Where are you, Father?” Gregory’s eyes darted to and fro, his heart beating like mad as he imagined those sinister black ribbons and felt them close. That damn nerve in his thigh was twitching again as his own ribbons swayed comically with his bodily swerves. “And - and how in the Saviour’s name did you hear my thoughts?”

The breeze whirred amidst the headstones and was cold against his face as adrenaline brought starkly into view his surroundings; moonlight shimmered winkingly down upon the stretching rows of gravestones, each crowned by gaunt statues and creepily twisting vines, each engraved with some Turn-Ribbon’s name. 

Father Peter MacMoore rose quick and ominous from behind the gravestone, black ribbons billowing tempestuously in the strengthening wind. Gregory shrieked and dropped his shovel, instantly cursing himself at expressing such fear. Twigs crunched and grass crackled under the Priest’s boots as he approached, his large figure the star around which his black ribbons orbited. The Priest’s blue eyes were frightfully clear and full of pity.

“You’re a goddamn fool, Greggy-boy,” he chuckled sadly as his ribbons licked blackly at the wind. All at once Gregory sensed there to be within the Old Priest a turmoil - nay - a conflict of such immense proportions that he actually feared his Master - what he might do. He’d never seen Black-Ribbon so besot by passion.

Well, at least not since the Scandinavian Incident, the consequences of which still to this day discomfiting Gregory and his fellow Red-Ribbons.

"How dare you bring up that crisis in my presence!” Black-Ribbon roared and the very earth seemed to shiver at his words - birds fluttered and clouds shirked away as they anticipated another zealous exclamation. Gregory dropped to his knees, so overtaken by the knowledge that, yes, the rumours Sam Cantwell used to whisper to him under the safety of darkness were true - Black-Ribbon could read minds, could and did indeed hear, monitor, and scrutinise every last thought, feeling, impression a Red-Ribbon dare have. 

“And to answer your pathetic question, Greggy-boy,” the Old Priest spittingly continued, the first drops of rain falling upon his hairless head, “Yes - 6 years ago. The 27th of February in 2011, to the date,” Black-Ribbon never took his viciously impassioned eyes from Gregory’s, watching his reaction with a sickening nefarious enjoyment.

“A Sunday,” Gregory practically sobbed. Images of his past life, those years BR, before his second Birth-Day in 2003, then the Day of Ribboning. That joyous moment when he and Sam Cantwell had been draped in red ribbons by a smiling Priest who had seemed so mighty and benevolent.

“And look at me now,” Black-Ribbon interjected. Birds cried overhead as if in calamitous response. “And look at Sam now,” the Old Priest smiled with eyes corrupted by a certain - what was it - sorrow? 

But yes, where was Sam now? When he and several other Red-Ribbons’ ribbons all turned blue on that foggy Scandinavian morning there had been chaos. Many of the Turn-Ribbons had been executed within minutes - Sam had been one of the lucky few to escape. Oh fuck.

“Lucky?” Black-Ribbon smiled, but his eyes were no longer gazing at Gregory’s, they wear watching the shifting pigment of his ribbons. 

With a horrified gasp Gregory looked at his ribbons as they turned to a gentle, then a deeper purple, then blue, just like so. He was no longer a Red-Ribbon. He was a Turn-Ribbon, and he knew what that meant.

The Old Priest chortled. “Your grave is a few clicks east, Greggy-boy,” he glanced at his fairly nice watch, “Sam should be just about finished digging.”

The taste of salty tears on Gregory’s lips was sickening - he felt nauseous as the world whirled around him. 

“Come on, Gregory! Get a hold of yourself!” The Black-Ribboned Priest protested. 

The use of his actual name brought Gregory’s frantic mind to a halt, and for a second he gazed at Father Peter MacMoore questioningly. “I participated in every last ritual - every single one, I meant every word of devotion to the Ribbon Order that I uttered. Why - why,” Gregory asked with rising delirium , “Why are they turning blue, Father?” 

“For I bid them to,” the Black Priest uttered, voice thickened by hysteria. “As I did the rest. Now; come.”