Dancing the Divine Madness.
Jul. 10th, 2006 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changelingFlash fiction challenge, #4 of 150.
Dancing the Divine Madness
She was the first. She left her father’s house, left her loom and left her veil, and climbed the rocky outcrop that led to the wooded hills above the town. Her father returned home and found her missing. It was assumed that the gods had taken her, and they were part right.
The next was a matron, a mother of kings and statesmen, who had forgotten the sweat spicy smell of dance, whose feet had grown soft and forgotten the rhythms of the thyrsus and cypress. She left her rooms, followed by her maids and followed by her sisters.
Soon they were all leaving; wives, daughters, sisters, aunts. The blind seer limped up, thick knotted staff drumming on the rocks. Fennel stalks were cut, and the sounds of foot-percussion and cries of ‘Evoe!’ echoed through the hills.
That was the beginning.
Dancing the Divine Madness
She was the first. She left her father’s house, left her loom and left her veil, and climbed the rocky outcrop that led to the wooded hills above the town. Her father returned home and found her missing. It was assumed that the gods had taken her, and they were part right.
The next was a matron, a mother of kings and statesmen, who had forgotten the sweat spicy smell of dance, whose feet had grown soft and forgotten the rhythms of the thyrsus and cypress. She left her rooms, followed by her maids and followed by her sisters.
Soon they were all leaving; wives, daughters, sisters, aunts. The blind seer limped up, thick knotted staff drumming on the rocks. Fennel stalks were cut, and the sounds of foot-percussion and cries of ‘Evoe!’ echoed through the hills.
That was the beginning.