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The Winter had been wild and northern storms many, but the Spring had come early and the crops had thrived. The wheat stood high and bristling in the fields, and the Summer fruits hung sweet on tree and vine. A season well worth giving thanks for, thought all inhabitants of the Isle. Huge bonfires had been stacked ready to be burned late into the night. When the last sheaf of grain had been cut, it would be thrown onto a fire to ensure that the Goddess Ceres would give her favour for the next season. A Fair had been set up on the Green beside the main settlement, and now many bustled about in unfamiliar roles - Priestess as Jongleur, Healer as Fortune Teller, Priests on stalls of freshly-baked sweet breads. The feeling was buoyant, as was fitting for such a festival. There were no classes that day for the babes or Novices, so giggling children gambolled about the Green like Spring-born lambs. Even Cybele, who had only a half-moon ago felt trapped in her own personal Winter despite the fair weather, now felt merry and glad. Her dark-edged Consort had taken her for the first time in tenderness, in the heart of the Isle's deepest wood. When the sun had shone on them in that early dawn of these long days, he had returned a little to his former state of sullen mystery, but it still filled her with joy to have seen and felt his warmth. It gave her a knowledge that he was at least capable of such a feeling after these nine moons of a bleak passion that bordered on hatred. In fact, since that night, he had treated her with far less cruelty than before, and had even supported her endeavours to clear the name of her lover Cabirius. Cybele may have been Chosen by Ceres, but what good had her leadership done? She had been unable to save Cabirius from imprisonment for a crime she was sure he did not commit. And the Priests of the Isle drew ever further from her and the Goddess toward the new God who had no name. Although she had been given all comforts that anyone could ask for, she lately felt that her role was becoming nominal, the Goddess's representative in ceremonies only. She felt sometimes like the island was slipping under her feet like a frozen lake. In her daily politics, she sorely missed the counsel of Cabirius. He knew well the feelings of the throng, when the Priests would follow her, and when they would rebel. Attis had so little respect for the sensitivities of others that he had no ability to judge a situation at all. In counsel, he was of no use to her. Better just to keep him to her bed. A thought had come to her that day with harsh clarity, as with those sent to her directly from the Goddess. On this night, it would have been nine moons since she had first coupled with Attis on the altar of the Temple. If she had conceived then, she would now be giving birth. She wondered what the significance of this observation had been. She had long been expecting to conceive, as he had lain his seed in her with far less ceremony a hundred times since then. Perhaps at fifteen, he was still too young to be fertile. The villagers had finished the main part of the harvest some days before, when unseasonable clouds had threatened to spill. The crops were safely now in storage for the coming year. Only one field remained uncut, that closest to the Green. When the sky finally darkened beyond twilight on that Cerealia feast, it was to this field that all of the Priests and Priestesses came. Some of the villagers also followed, but many stayed revelling at the Fair. There had been a time long ago, Cybele was sure, that all on the Isle would have attended this most holy of all the Goddess's rites. But then that would have been long before any of these people were born. In a living memory, there had been no Chosen One, only a random Initiate or Priestess to act as Goddess in the blessing of the crop. Cybele and Attis, as Goddess and her Consort, were the central figures in the rites. Unlike most of the Isle's rituals, this ceremony was not conducted in the Temple, but outside in the field. There was much chanting as the sky slowly darkened to an inky blue-black and each full Priestess took a sickle into the field. Starting at the outside and working their way toward the centre in an ever-decreasing spiral, the Priestesses ceremoniously cut the wheat with their scythes. Priests followed along behind with torches held high aloft. Behind them walked Cybele and Attis, bedecked in their most glorious finery. Cybele wore her beautiful robe made from the red sail which had carried Attis to the Isle, and Attis wore a black gown with a large swinging cloak. Cybele had ritually cut her Consort's finger with her own small sickle, and he now dripped his blood onto the Goddess's earth behind the gathered crops in an ancient blessing. When the centre of the field was reached, one last jutting stand of grain was left intact, a hand's width around. They all now waited, chanting hymns to the Goddess, until the Full Moon started its rise into the sky. As it became wholly visible over the horizon, the Goddess and her Consort bent to kneel beside those last heads of grain. As she cut each head separately with her sickle, Cybele passed it to Attis to be smeared with his blood then pulled together into a small sheaf. As the last head was cut, all present let out ecstatic cries to the blessed Ceres, Goddess of the crop. A Priest held forward to Attis his torch. Attis poured some of the oil from the torch onto the head of the sheaf, the lit it and handed both sheaf and torch back to the Priest. The Priests and Priestesses then formed a large circle around them at some distance, and walked in a ring chanting words of holiness and praise to Ceres. Cybele then lay on her back on the hard new stubble and Attis climbed over her, shrouding both their bodies under his cloak. He pulled up their gowns and entered her. He wore not the hood and wooden antlers of the King Stag such as in the Temple ceremonies, and as Cybele looked up at him, she felt strangely like this was some merging of their public ritual coupling and their own private passion. He looked both God and Man. Their actual coupling was hidden by the cloak, but without the antlers and other trappings of ceremony, she felt somehow exposed. This feeling was added to by the fact that he now kissed her - something he rarely did in their own private couplings and certainly would not do in ceremonial ones. 'Take my seed, Mother of my Mother,' he said to her between kisses. If it were a ritual chant, she had heard it not before, although it aroused within her some deep familiarity. Perhaps the Goddess had whispered it to her in a dream. He gently withdrew his phallus from her. He was leaking seed, but had not yet fully spilt. His control in that regard was, as always, as sure as other men's control of their limbs. She felt him slip his gashed finger inside her opening. 'Take my blood, Mother of my Mother.' He rubbed the finger gently in and out of her beneath the cloak. 'With blood and seed, bless the earth beneath.' He guided his erection back into her and supported himself on his elbow with his body crushed close against hers. He slipped the bloody finger into her mouth and she tasted both the warm sweetness of her own juices and the sharp salt of his still-trickling wound. He whispered into her ear with no tone of ceremony, 'I wish you to peak also.' 'But this is ritual, not my private bed! This is not for our personal pleasure, but for the Goddess, and well you know it,' she whispered back to him angrily. 'It is important for me that it is more than just ritual for you this night,' he whispered. 'Just nip my finger when you are ready for me to spill, and none shall know you take your own pleasure too.' She answered him not, but as he rubbed into her, she knew that she wanted her passion to peak despite all the ceremony. She slipped her own hand down to pull his hard member up against her tender swelling as he slid in and out of her. As waves of heat pulsed and surged through her body, she bit hard onto his finger, and within a heartbeat he too peaked. As he slowed and softened, he pushed hard up against her to keep his phallus inside her for as long as possible. He slid his arms around her and squeezed her in a warm embrace. He did not move until his erection had completely gone, and his shrivelled member had slithered unwillingly from her. He kissed her on the lips, then pulled down their gowns before climbing up off her. He reached down to take her hand and pulled her to her feet. They were followed to the Green, where a huge table was laid with a bountiful feast. There were honey-cakes and sweetmeats, breads, pastries, and simmering pots of stewed vegetables and soups. There were men made of dough, a vestige of ancient times when a real man would have been sacrificed to the Goddess at this festival. Every person on the Isle took turn to fill their bowl from the great table, then sat on the soft grass to eat. Cybele and Attis's duties for the evening were now done, and they managed to slip away from the festivities. Too much wine and mead was being consumed, and both Temple and layfolk were becoming a little too loud. Nobody noticed their absence from the wild celebration. Attis held Cybele's hand and led her away from the settlement. She was stunned by his affection. What manner of spirit had possessed his body this time? 'Where do we go?' she asked. 'Everywhere,' he said joyously. 'All over the whole Isle? Not by first light, that is for certain.' He stopped and looked at her with bright eager eyes. 'Then where?' She laughed, and bid him to cover his eyes. She then spun him around and around. They both laughed, easily as children. Finally, she called, 'Stop when you will!' and released her hold of him. He continued to turn groggily, then stopped and pointed straight ahead. 'Then, that is the way we shall go !' she crowed, and they set off.
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