Shab has lumbered along for nearly three days not even stopping at the babbling streams nor accepting any of the boiled chrysanthemum wrapped in pig crackle the pilgrims offer as they walk beside behind and ahead of him.
He is migrating like a lower beast. This is the season and the moment to simply magnetize toward his lord, the Begging Rajah.
Shab sometimes believes that Ilyn is the Begging Rajah even though Shab's saddle has not been filled for many seasons, and even though Ilyn always rides instead behind him in the square wheeled wooden cart. Ilyn's bed of marigolds is only dust at the bottom of the empty cart now, but Shab still bears his yoke patiently, knowing that our surface is tilting once again toward the miracle.
Soon Ilyn will be spotted wandering out of a canyon or lying as if dead by the side of a road wearing nothing but his scars and the markings of marigold paste the pilgrims have stopped to anoint him with before moving back toward the hill caves to smoke the vine and say shiv throughout the night.
Ilyn and Shab would pay their official visit through each town in turn to thank them for their faith and offerings and help to celebrate the cycle of destruction.
It seemed like everyone has rings on their toes and as they gather the dusty floors glistened with tin, cadmium, and peridot. Some of the villages have diving competitions to honor Ilyn's sacred moment of glory at Mthyuh's Diving Board. Some of the boys even set their hair afire before jumping just as Ilyn's long red mane turns to actual flame as he plumets toward the boiling pit of lava.
The fields orchards even varmints will go dormant until Mthyuh is paid back for her bounty so that she does not send her Mouths to prosecute their debt.
Still, as Ilyn prepares to dive, it is customary to shout eat me first! Missy has taken to circling this ceremony coasting on the foul volcanic gases and listening for the cries to strengthen in fervor and therefore in terror.
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