Loosely scattered notes [1]

The world is blessed by the vigilant protection of the two gods. The church knows them by many names, though in most scripture and hymns they are referred to simply as, “Moon and Maiden”.

Marianne was familiar with them both; siblings they were, and though they were opposed in many ways, they were the halves of a single, whole deity. This god had been split in half long ago, and resulting from this death was the formation of the Moon and its sign in the sky, as well as the Maiden and her mark upon the earth.

Alaine, the Lady of Starlight who governed Marianne’s city’s cathedral, had tutored her time and time again upon the nature of the twin gods, and their love which they shared for the world. Marianne had asked once why they permitted demons and monsters to kill the people whom they loved, and Alaine had ordered her stripped and sunk into a bath of ice water for fifteen minutes. That was her duty: to properly educate Marianne, that she may someday supersede her place in the church.

As Alaine said, the Moon and the Maiden were siblings. “Not,” she emphasised, “Sisters, nor brother and sister.”

Marianne had almost questioned this, though envisioned the frozen waters that would follow the query and kept silent. Fortunately, an answer came regardless of if she asked her questions or not.

“The Moon in the sky, our god whom we in this church serve, is a celestial being, and not to be shackled by the shame of worldly life. The Silver Moon,” Alaine clasped her hands as she spoke the name, and Marianne did as well, “Grants us light in the darkness, and hope where one might find only shadows. If you are ever in a place of smothering darkness, you simply must cast your gaze upwards, and bask in the light of the Moon.”

Marianne knew well the Moon. The Moon, also called the God of Silver, the God of Light, and the God of Love. That which she knew not was the Maiden, and Alaine rectified this over the months in her own, rigorous way.

“The Maiden is the part of that ancient deity which was cut away from the Moon. That which the Moon is, she is not.”

Marianne did not dare even ask anymore why the Maiden was known to be a woman, but the Moon was not. The Silver Moon and the Maiden of Steel, the two figures who even still gazed upon her from their perches within the stained glass of the cathedral, were as enigmatic as they were omnipresent.

“The Maiden of Steel… our Lady of Justice, our Goddess of War and Combat. Do you understand? Who serves the Maiden? The hunters?”

“The Bloodhunters don’t serve the gods, they simply follow the ideals of the faith as a guideline. They venerate the Maiden in a pure and simple form: the Lady of Black Steel who slaughters monsters and demons by the millions at the very corners of the world.” Marianne’s answer, while unorthodox, had brought a miniscule smile to Alaine’s face on account of its assertive tone.

“Good. The hunters are not like us, Marianne. They do godly work, but they do not know the Way. They do not watch the Moon, and they do not carry the Light in their veins like I do, and you shall someday.” The words made Marianne shiver, and she could practically feel the cold steel of the ritual blade carving into the flesh upon her back already.

“The Maiden… in her own way… loves us too. Instead of love and protection, the Maiden blesses us with strength and the will to fight in the name of that love from the Moon.” Alaine spoke solemnly. “The Silver Moon is our shield, and the Maiden of Steel is our sword.”

The woman barely had time to react, lifting her sword and swinging it as she spun on her heel to cut down the deformed wretch which had leapt upon her in a moment of weakness. The thing’s two halves dropped to the sand in a pool of blood and inky viscera, staining her ebony armour an even darker shade of black. The hood and cloak she wore billowed wildly in the wind as she flourished her sword, which in a flash of bright white light extended into a polearm which she wielded with equal dexterity. Spying in the distance a larger beast which had failed to sneak towards her, she held the glaive aloft and charged, kicking up the sand behind her before crouching and leaping high into the air, the cloak on her back splaying out to reveal wings of black, dagger-like feathers which she used to drift forwards and higher up into the air. Aiming her weapon and then plunging forwards rapidly, she impaled the multi-headed creature upon her weapon, lifting it upwards and spinning it before flinging it away, the corpse tumbling through the sands and rolling away behind a distant dune.

The woman’s black metal wings retracted, dissipating and becoming one with her person once again. Her cloak whipping in the winds at the edge of the world, she huffed quietly, twirling her weapon to clean it of the vile blood of the demon before it vanished in a flash of light in her grip. Lifting a hand concealed within her black armour, she pushed her hood back, revealing to the dark sky her pallid white features, her bright white eyes, and her long black hair which blew in the desert wind like a streak of ink against the dark paper of the sky above her. Gazing upwards, she watched the round, full moon in the distance as it hung above the far away peaks which separated this land from the world of civilization.

With a sense of dread and longing in her chest, the woman wondered if there was still any hope.