The time has come. Rain wipes her sweaty palms off on her skirt, unsure if it was caused by nerves or the heat of the day.
She looks to Niedre.
Niedre who has been her teacher.
Niedre who had been a voice of comfort and reason when she felt like her life was uprooted.
Niedre stands by observing, twirling a pendant in her hand, her face serious, giving the respect due to the ceremony and to the fallen before them. She gives Rain a curt nod, encouraging her to proceed… and a small smile.
Rain steps up to a body, laid out on the ground on their back before her, their head to the North, their palms facing the sky. Connected directly to the earth, open to Solar and Lunara.
She gently pulls 4 stones from her bag, attempting to keep them from clinking together noisily. And she walks slowly around the body, placing one stone at their left, one at the foot, one at their right, and finally one at their head.
This isn’t someone Rain knew. This is just one of many in the blur of faces lost to this war. Rain does her best to hold back a scowl. Would someone cry for them? Miss them? Surely. She hopes their death meant something. That hers some day might too.
She takes a deep breath and refocuses. This ritual is what she has control over. This is the one kindness she can offer to the people she has no words for – reclaiming their mana to the stream. They would be with their loved ones again soon.
Rain next takes a small bottle of blue fynch oil from her pouch, and anoints the stones, calling upon the gods as she does.
“I ask to be a vessel…” the first stone
“That my body may act as a bridge…” the second stone.
“That the mana of this body may flow through me…” the third stone.
“And return to the stream.” The fourth.
Rain takes a careful seat alongside the body and touches her hand to theirs, still a little surprised at the coldness of it, but she doesn’t let on about it.
She focuses on the lingering glimmer of mana in their body. Mentally pulling at the thread of light, gently, until it starts to give. And then she begins to tenderly spool the energy alongside her own.
Rain takes a deep exhale and lets it out, settling herself into a comfortable position. She digs her fingers into the earth at her sides, and faces the sky, feeling the warmth of the sun heat up her mask and the exposed skin around it. And then she slips into meditation.
Rain feels the taken parcel of mana wind out from her body slowly as she offers it back to the stream – a gift gladly absorbed.
Once fully gone from her body, Rain lowers her head and opens her eyes beneath her mask.
“It is done. I commend this life and return the mana that it held back to the stream that it may find new form and purpose as the gods see fit.”
She rises, looking to Niedre once again.
Once it is done, they leave the deceased with their loved ones, allowing the family to prepare their last goodbyes in peace. The pyre is already built, now comes the final sendoff. Lanterns in the night.
As they leave in the quiet and distinguished way that Reclament should, Niedre resists the urge to grin and smiles meekly. She nudges Rain lightly, shoulder to shoulder. “Well done. I believe you’re ready.”
Rain looses the breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
Niedre sees a mirror in Rain’s reaction, the one she herself hoped to have one day when her own mentor, Aeronwen, decided she was ready. But that day is gone. And this one is in front of her. She reaches in her satchel and removes her book carefully, almost reverently. They find a spot where they’ll remain undisturbed, and Rain copies down the ritual she just performed into her own. The code, the ceremony, now hers too.
“Where should I go?”
Niedre clicks her tongue then pauses for a while, giving it heavy thought.
“I owe much to Shattered Spear… and Hammerfall has put out a call for aid. We could travel together. Surely some of your compatriots of the Broken Blade will be present. And I’m sure that they could use their Reclament,” Niedre says with a wink.
And Reclament Rain can’t help but smile.