Alessia's Shrine Quests

"Mmmmn! What is it now…", Alessia groaned, as she found herself in complete darkness, "Didn't I go… to bed? OH NO…. no. no. no…"

She had a bad feeling now… a really bad feeling… one she knew all too well by now!

Quiet whispers started to fill the void surrounding her… distorted iterations of the prayer to fortune, made at the ritual of her 'coming of age ceremony'. The verses repeating… overlapping… distorted and ominous… blurring into a dreadful cacophony of dark whispers and mumbles!

"NO… please… I don't want this… never wanted this… I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS!", The doe shouted into the void… before it happened again! Red blood seemed to seep out of the . . . nothingness! 

It all turned from a deep black to a dark red… and then it gripped her again! The same pain that had seized her very being back then…but worse! Skulls began to form out of the blood, much like the one her soul seemed to have been sold to back then, burying their fangs deep in her flesh, intensifying that rending pain only more!

This dream was sadly almost a common occurrence to her by now... and as per usual, unlike it did back then, the pain didn't vanish after a second... no! Instead, it lingered… swelled even! The female groaned and growled in her sleep… until suddenly…

"HUH… that's new…", She mumbled confusedly to herself, looking around the now dark red-tinted void… the pain was suddenly gone… it never had suddenly just vanished?!

"Oh… no… that definitely is new!", Alessia mumbled to herself, as the void had turned as red as blood now… and new voices joined the void's whispers.

Disapproving… to her ears somewhat… narcissistic sounding even…?

"What… what are you talking about…", The female mumbled confusedly, trotting through the bloody void aimlessly by that point.

"Unsightly…", The whispers suddenly became clearer, "SO UNSIGHTLY!"

"NO!", She protested this time around, remembering the conversation, the void mimicked now, as she looked down at her gray hoof. Her left hoof… in the color it should be! The same color as her beloved brother's… until it suddenly turned into blood! The dark gray fur covering it all turned into thick, viscous blood!

"It's unbecoming of a saintess… looking like it is corrupted already. Do something about it… get rid of it!", Were the words of her handler back then, before he sent Alessia off to her . . . 'hairdresser', so to speak… this time around though…

"WHAT IS THIS?!", The doe shouted out startled, as the blood slowly started to devour her limb… slowly covering more and more of her body in the thick, red liquid.

Shouting in fear… she only realized seconds later: "NO! IT CAN'T BE!"

The gray ring of fur around her right thigh had turned into blood too, devouring her body from that side too!

"NO… nononono… NO!", She shouted out as more and more of her body was being devoured by blood... the pain returning, as her body proceeded to turn further. Her body grew in size… her mind soon fading… until a bestial howl broke forth from her snout!

"NO!", The doe shouted out, as she jumped to her feet, finally awake from her nightmare.

"No… no no no no no NO! I won't have it!", Alessia declared decidedly, as she jumped out of her bed, to her feet and after quickly washing herself, leafing the building of the Saintess' Embrace.

"Mornin Al-", Kober was greeting the doe somewhat surprised, as she just stormed past him and out the orphanage, mumbling somewhat of a mantra of 'no… won't have it… can't have it… NUH-UH… won't have it' to herself, the big ram thus mumbling to himself, "OH NO… one of those days, huh… poor Alessia…"

Some of the youngest witnessing her patron leaving, soon curiously asked the big ram what was up with her, the male explaining with a pained sigh: "No worries, she… is just having a bad day? Kind of a reoccurring nightmare she can't quite shake… but our lady is strong, so . . . not to worry, I promise~"

The big guy reassuring them, had the little ones somewhat soothed… what he didn't know though: they sure weren't done with this topic just yet!

"OH? Hey little ones… what are you up to today?", Rory asked, as the younglings were intercepting him, just as he was about to head out for his work practice for the day.

The piglet triplets and Sophie and Amelia, who had witnessed Miss Alessia this morning, had gathered the rest of the younger ones, even Kyle… and were now consulting with the first that had come to mind: the orphanage's oldest.

All of them giving a bit of a rundown of what they witnessed, the bull mused for a second, before explaining: "You know… a while back Kob told me a bit more… about that. It is a nightmare of her past, something about… corruption or something?"

"But Miss Aly would never become one of the bad guys?", The piggies asked confusedly, the older ones agreeing decidedly… caught in thought for a second, the orphanage's oldest soon flashed his juniors a knowing grin. 

"Yes… she sure wouldn't… but you just gave me a great idea… we just need to once more ask your big sis Lilly for a bit of help~", He declared conspiratorially, like that, flashing the gang a confident grin, "Let's go… time's a wasting~"

Getting ready for the cleansing routine she had cooked up years back, when this kind of nightmare first occurred, the female for first was heading to the small, natural spring she knew of, just outside town. Back then the dream wasn't as bad as this either so . . . Alessia was even more driven to work through everything purification she could only come up with.

Getting a big water tube with some of the fresh spring water, the doe thus headed out to the small waterfall she also went to for training sometimes. It was more on the smaller side, which wasn't too harsh, but sure did the trick for your good ol 'meditating under a crushing waterfall' routine.

Sitting under it meditating for a while… the doe sure felt the pressure crushing down on her shoulders, but at the same time, the constant flow of cool water was somewhat soothing, while the audible noises of the water rumbling helped even more. The constant thundering noises of the water drowning out all the noises of the outside world helped blind out… well, the outside world just nicely~

Staying like this for a whole while as such, Alessia only stopped as her shoulders felt numb from the constant water pressure… which coincidentally was pretty much the same time she felt all nice and at ease with the world around her anyway.

Sighing in relief like that, Alessia mumbled to herself: "PHEW! That feels better!"

More calm and focused she got the water bag and put it in a nice spot in the sunlight.

"Here we go…", She mumbled like that, channeling some of her magic into it till it had a subtle glow to it. The glow vanished soon, as the doe had no clue of enchanting magic so far after all . . . but Alessia sure felt like it should do for the 'cleansing it' idea for it? Didn't some say the most important thing in any kind of magic or such, was to believe in it to work, or something to that avail?

"Sure works fine for me~", The doe still declared to herself, with a happy flick of her tail, getting to her next fetch quest: cedar branches.

Taking a few minutes till she found branches fit for what she had in mind… she sighed subtly. "WELP… here we go?"

Splashing some of her 'purification water' over the branches, the doe took another deep breath… before beating it over her back! This bit was inspired by an… ancient tradition of whipping yourself, to purify yourself, or rather clear yourself from sins… or punish yourself for them? WELL...! She just cared for the 'purifying' part of the idea, but… the saintess also hadn't actual whipping in mind anyway.

Just hitting herself hard enough to feel it, she bats the branch over her right forequarter about at her chest area, then the left side, before doing the same with her hindquarters around the area of her belly… more towards her back though.

Repeating this cycle until she felt a somewhat constant, subtle burning sensation on her skin, like that… the doe threw the branch away as far as she could, as soon as she was done, declaring decidedly: "AND we done with that!"

Sighing decidedly she shook out her fur like that, before huffing in relief, before heading out to the last bit of her little tour of solo cleansing rituals. This part the doe somewhat liked the best even, as the gathering trip required always worked wonders for a little RnR from her little routine.

Working her way through the forest, she collected every possible incense that related to cleansing in any way, her research had brought up way back when.

Some cedar, from the branches she had already collected… some sage, mugwort, sweetgrass, lavender, and rosemary… a bit of frankincense and myrrh resin… and some juniper branches and pine needles to top her little fetch quest off.

Done with that, came the really nice part about it~

"Walky done…", Aly mumbled to herself like that, satisfied with her haul and all done spreading it out in the sun to dry, "NOW nappy time~"

Allowing herself that bit of luxury, she enjoyed her little sunshine nap… waking back up one or another hour later, checking through her collection with a big stretch, groaning relishingly.

"W E L L . . . that looks about alright~", The female assessed contently like that, before proceeding to set up her little 'ritual circle'.

Specifically for days like these, she had gotten herself a bunch of small incense burners, the doe went and set up in a small clearing she liked, which worked perfectly for her little ritual. Setting them up in a little circle, Alessia lit all the burners, each one of them with another incense, having the smoke of all of them waver around herself, in her own version of a 'smothering' ritual.

Just focusing on the smells of the incense and quiet noises of the forest, the female sat there meditating, as long as they held out… and then a little more. It was roughly a few minutes after all her incense had burned up, that she sighed contently declaring: "WELL… that's better?"

Stretching a bit she thus headed out to her last and final trip: a 'nice little cup of tea' with an old friend from her school time, who was really good with stuff like this. She was the definition of a genius with anything herbal tea~

Arriving back at the Saintess' Embrace, at about dinner time . . . the said Saintess ended up kinda stumped.

"Where… is dinner?", Alessia as such ended up at the first thing that came to mind.

"To be honest . . . NO CLUE!", Kober admitted, looking over the table littered with gifts, "All I know is that they just declared to delay dinner today, out of nowhere?"

"Okay… so what is this… did I miss somebody's birthday?"

"NUH-UH!", Leo was the first to utter decidedly, Rory explaining with an amused chuckle: "W e l l . . . the little ones caught you fleeing early this morning, s o . . . they asked their big bro for advice and after… enlightening them as much as I could, we all decided to set up this~"

"Those are ours!", The youngest declared proudly, pointing out the collection of pictures, all showing Miss Aly one way or another.

Some showed her with the creator of the drawing, some with all of the kids and caretakers together in one drawing… with one of them even depicting her with a halo and angel wings.

"AW… that's interesting, whose is that?", Alessia asked curiously, inspecting the angel drawing… Kyle immediately going 'wasn't me' defensively… before just as immediately realizing his error… repeating his 'wasn't me' statement right away!

"You're cute.", The female declared amusedly, chuckling softly, before adding curiously, pointing at the accumulation of envelopes among the collection of gifts, "So… what are those? Written complaints?"

"Those are ours!", The four nine to thirteen-year-olds corrected her patron decidedly, "They are reminders of how much you mean to all of us… and that you'll never end up evil!"

"End up . . . what?", The Saintess asked confusedly, reading through the four neatly written letters, commenting in the end, "WOW! You even made it a poem Archie?"

The horsey blushed subtly at that, hiding his face behind his red mane, as he averted his gaze. The little one being the youngest of the four... being honest with herself, this made his letter almost the proudest achievement among the four. Not like the other three were any less deep and heartfelt... all four of them were just perfect in her maybe a little biased eyes.

"And… wow… where you got this? It looks expensive?", The female asked curiously, looking over the second to last item in the assortment: a nicely crafted amulet, looking like some kind of protective charm.

"THAT would be our handywork~", The ringleader AKA Rory declared proudly, "Olivia & Oliver, Harris, Frey aand me did some research on amulets like this, magical ones as much as charms and such, Ella then designed it and Lilly made it, off course~"

"WOW! Now that sure is some dedication and teamwork there… just for little old me?"

"Well… of course it was? You saved our lives, after all!", Oliver declared decidedly, Olivia ending their assessment, "And you do your everything to make them even better still… anything less would be unthinkable!"

Her jaws wide agape for a second, Alessia shook her head subtly, to get her mind focused again, as she had realized: "S O . . . that only leaves… Noah? You . . . got me leaves?"

The female couldn't quite keep from blurting out the last part… and despite Noah ending up a little startled, he did seem to catch himself, as he responded: "GOT YOU L- I mean… I guess so? But I did some research too~ those are medicinal herbs good for stress and the like? You use them to make a medicinal bath… and I… thought it could maybe help you relax?"

"AW… Noah sweety… it's as perfect as all others~ Think it might even be just what I need to finish off this day of rituals!", Alessia praised her little admirer, as he did seem a little… bashful, towards the end there.

Spending the rest of the evening looking over all the kids' gifts again, followed by preparing dinner together, after big praise and thanks to all of her beloved kids… Kober just had to comment: "Well… lucky me! Ain't got no reason now to exempt any of you from chores for tomorrow morning like this~"

Earning some disapproving booing of the kids like that, the ram instead suggested, with an amused chuckle, that he'd treat all of them for breakfast at the town's bakery and then they could go back to their usual routine by lunchtime.

This plan earned clear approval from all sides… except maybe from Miss Saintess, as the buff male whispered to her, as she was about to settle in for the night: "You owe me a breakfast invitation after me taking out all of the rugrats!"

Harris, who by now was about the same size as the Saintess' Embrace strongman, having caught those words though, immediately took this chance, to teasingly declare with somewhat of a defiant, playful nudge: "Hey… I heard that old man!"

"Better get ya lazy bum to bed, if you don't want me to show you how youthful I still am, big guy!", Kober responded teasingly, shooing the kids off to their rooms, as Alessia too was heading off… to the bathroom, putting those herbs, Noah had so diligently researched and gathered for her, to good use.

Only a few minutes into her 'conclusion of her evening', Alessia sighed very much relaxed and happy, mumbling to myself: "However could I have thought like that?!"

The corruption, her patrons had unbeknownst to her, forced upon her way back then… it sure might have increased the possibility of her turning into . . . a monster like the Pyre… but she sure wouldn't give in to it that easily!

She wanted nothing more than to give those sweet kids a bright future… heck: let everybody only physically possible have their best, brightest, and happiest future possible! This was the path she had chosen for her life… her destiny and she surely would, nightmares be damned, not let any kind of outside corruption keep her from fulfilling that goal!