27.6 – Initiation

There is a great deal to be said about those who serve. In some languages, Egyptian and especially ancient Sidhe in particular, to be a ruler or a teacher, means that you are a servant, if not a slave. It is the same word in any of those instances. What people do not realize is how much Power service truly has. There are those who wield Power and those whom are attracted to it. There are those who study it and there are those who seek to master it.

He was before her now, bound, blindfolded, naked and kneeling. Three lengths of red cord, one of nine feet, two of four and a half feet. She watched his breathing in that warm, sparsely furnished room that was her domain, The rise and fall of his chest, the posture that he held, all indicated that he had and still did trust her implicitly. There were many, she mused, who would have given anything to see the Comte de Rochefort in such a compromising position. If not for how vulnerable it made him, surely that this, a secret was a most definitely heathen and heretical one, which in either case, could have been used to destroy him. Over the years, there would have been many who would have liked to have done precisely that.

“Thou hast come before this throne as a suppliant and you have assumed the position of the suppliant,” her voice held no malice, no haughtiness nor intent to destroy him, ” As such, you must be willing to suffer as a means of sacrifice. Are you ready to present thyself as the sacrifice?”

“I am.” His voice rumbled from deep within his chest. There was no hesitation in him. It was one of the things she profoundly loved about him.

Uncoiled in her hand was the Ritual scourge, hand braided and consecrated to the Art for which she herself was an Initiate. With the chiming of the bells came the first three strokes, then seven, then nine and at last twenty-one. Each lash was not so much ungentle as it carried the sting of the Unseelie. The last one she let fly with greater force against his back and with a vigor that would serve to remind him that a reprimand at her hands or the hands of the Gods was not so far away should he ever decide to stray too far. He received each, except the last with little more than a sharp intake of breath.

“Now among us, thou hast been given a new name,” she spoke it aloud, letting the sound of it be caressed by her voice, her arm holding the scourge fell to her side. “What is your name?” she demanded flicking him once again with the whip.

He gave it. The sound of it croaking out of him.

Again she demanded it with a lash. Again he gave it without faltering. When she was satisfied and tired of promptping him, she set aside the flail. With demanding fingers, she raised his chin. Without removing the blindfold, she looked down at him imperiously. “Swear it to me,” she said, “Swear upon your mother’s own womb and your very own birth, by your honour and by your life that I now hold within my hands. Swear that you shall never betray to anyone at any time ever within your life the secrets of our Art and our Mysteries that I shall reveal to thee, except to one of our own who has been properly prepared and passed through the fires of Initiation. This I do demand; that you must swear by this life and by all lives past and in the hopes of those to come – swear by your own Immortality that I have granted to you, by your measure and by your oaths you seal your own destruction should you ever break them.”

He agreed. He swore and she knew that he meant it. While there was life within him, the life that she had restored, he would never break those oaths. She knelt beside him, laying her hands on both sides of his face, cupping his jawline, now ragged with stubble in her palms. “I Will all my Power into you,” she said. Reaching behind him, she began to untie his bonds. Each knot was loosed and then freed to her touch. When she was finished at last, she unblindfolded him. She brought him to stand upon unsteady legs. Turning to the low table that served as an altar, she took up the bas oil and began the consecrations. First to touch him by the oil and then by a kiss. She began at the line above his pubis, then to his right breast, his left hip, then the right again up to his left breast and then down once more above that most intimate part of him. She repeated it with wine and once more with her lips.

When she had finished she kissed him at last upon the lips, staring into his one eye. They stood on nearly equal footing now. Reluctantly she broke her gaze and turned again to the altar. Each item she handed to him. “I now give you those things which we have used from the beginning. These tools bind we who are Fae to those who are human and those bonds are shared in common, an alliance that in spite of the ravages of time, exists as it always has.”

She raised the sword that had been lying in wait, patiently on the altar. It was one that had been cast within a fire deep within the earth, wrought by Fae hands. The metal nearly sung with the power that had been imbued within it. “I give to you your Sword of Art,” she handed it to him and immediately, Sebastien took it up and recast the Circle. When he had done, he replaced it on the altar so that his lady wife, his High Priestess and Queen could hand him the next item. She handed him the black handled knife, called the Athame by Witches. This one was unique in that it did not have the usual symbols upon it’s handle but instead was inscribed with Fae sigils of protection and power. He drew it from it’s sheath and again, he recast the Circle and resheathed the knife, laying it back upon the altar.

Faelyn then handed him the white handled knife, which he used to inscribe symbols upon the one unlit white candle upon the altar. Next came the wand which was shown to all four cardinal points, and to the Unseen Guardians that held their domains there. He was given the pentacle, to which he did the same as the wand and at last laid it aside. He then was given the censer for incense, and then he was handed the carefully folded cords that had bound him just minutes before. At last there was but one tool left to give.

Faelyn retrieved the very scourge that she had used upon him with graceful hand that now neither punished nor comforted. “The ninth consecrated tool you receive shall be the scourge, ” she held it up between them. “Because you and I are in this place and from henceforth considered bound, we teach that you must give as you are given. Where I gave you three, you must give me nine. Where I gave you seven, you must give me twenty-one. Where I gave you nine, you must give me twenty-seven,” she let him take the scourge from her, “and where I gave you twenty-one, you must therefore give me sixty-three.”

Rochefort lay aside the whip upon the altar. As per her instructions, he knew very well what to do and he had been an apt pupil. He took up the cords that she had bound him with and cable-bound her in the same fashion. Without hesitation she knelt before the altar, before him, feeling herself sway with what was to come. She would not be blindfolded. She would see within the shadows on the wall the arch of his shadow before each blow struck. She knew quite well that he would not spare her flesh. Each lash would be with thrice the strength that she had given to him before. It mattered little that she was his wife. There were protocols to this business that he had asked of her. He would see them accomplished.

The first blow struck between her shoulder blades, the finely braided leather raising rivulets of pain upon her flesh. The first nine lashes were but a wake-up call for her senses. Her eyes stung with unshed tears, she could feel the welts rise upon her flesh where the leather licked along her spine and hips. The pain was both excruciating and exquisite and completely worthy of him. He continued on just as he had instructed. Each blow pushing her further and further toward that place to where the sight would come. This method had always been employed, not for some twisted sadistic or masochistic or even sensual depravity. The scourge had been a part of Initiation for both postulant and Initiator from the beginning because it accomplished its ends. Pain was a part of Life and would always be a part of this.

Fae flesh had been flayed open and bleeding. She did not know how soon it was after the twenty one strokes that she began to lose hold on her conscious self but floated closer to that otherwhere. By the time she felt his hands unbinding her and holding her up, she was barely able to whisper out the last.

“Here ye Mighty Ones, the Guardians of the East, South, West and North. Hear ye the Tuatha du Danan and the Old Ones of the Fortunate Island, that this one, now known to you is duly Initiated into your Mysteries as both Magus and High Priest,” her lips curled into a smile as he steadied her body within his strong arms, “Amour parfait et confiance parfaite, mon amour.”

OOC: Special thanks to the mun of all_forme for the kind use of her muse. This was something he had asked of her over Yuletide this past year. Bless her for this idea and so very many others!