Thread: Water how we love you so. {BlisteredBlood and Zaila}

The Okena temple is a shrine that was built hundreds of years ago to worship the god of water, Poseidon. The followers this temple attracted believed that water was the basis for all life and without it there was only barrenness and desolation. Generations and generations of grandmothers, mothers, and daughters were brought up within the temple walls and taught to be skilled elemental worshippers. For about 50 years, the temple's popularity dwindled and less and less followers were going to the temple to worship the life giving element. The high priestesses, in an attempt to keep their temple erect, went into the surrounding towns and convinced mothers and other relatives to give over young girls that showed promise. Neliquele was one of these girls and was the only one to prosper within the temple out of all the other girls taken from the towns. Neliquele held a special and very rare gift. It was something the high priestesses had never seen someone possess outside of old journals they'd read of battles the old priestesses waged to keep their temples in one piece. It was a gift called blood-bending. While it was a well known fact that all followers and practitioners of the temple possessed the ability to manipulate water, none of them were able to turn that into the ability to manipulate the water in someone's blood. This wasn't something she practiced, oh no, she was born with it. However, she never used it for evil or malicious means, only for defense. The village Neliquele grew up in wasn't exactly honorable or harmonious. Crimes were wrought without the area and it wasn't unheard of for people to be murdered or women being raped. Knowing she possessed this ability, Neliquele used it to protect her friends from falling to the vile hands of the seedier members of their society. Men feared her when they saw her approaching since they'd heard the stories and knew the pain she could cause. She used this to her advantage and became a sort of bodyguard to the women of the village. By the time the temple took her, when she was about fifteen, the men had been afraid of her for so long that the crime rate had dropped completely and women were being treated right. Despite living in the temple, she still made it a point to visit the village and make sure things were going well. That was three years ago. Now she's eighteen and just about to become an apprentice after having been an acolyte since she was inducted. The temple used her gift as a guarding method like the village had and she'd succeeded in keeping about twenty enemy religions and sects from ruining their temple to claim it as their own. She was a valued member of the temple and treated close to how a high priestess was treated, only she didn't have the title. She had her own quarters, complete with a bath and a king sized bed, and a private chapel which the brook ran right through so she could pray at her own whim and not at the whims declared by the rest of the temple. Unfortunately, temples aren't always seen as peaceful places within a community. There were rumors of more and more of their acolytes being picked off when they were sent on missions. The acolytes were the lowest caste within the temple, outside of servants, so they were usually given the job to protect the people within. If they continued to be picked off then their protection would be reduced down to the few officers they had and...Neliquele. This was happening too quickly and the Okena Temple hadn't expected an attack since they weren't a hostile group. It was this thinking that resulted in them not having enough protection or guarding methods handy when the government finally attacked. They laid siege on the place, attacking any stronghold they had managed to build since the shrine was erected. Screams ripped through the once peaceful halls forcing the followers to flee and merely become cannon fodder for the soldiers' powerful weapons. Bit by bit, the temple crumpled and Neliquele had done all she could to try and save it. Ten men had died by her blood bending, the blood stopped from going to their heart. They had been quick kills, but having to do it in such rapid succession weakened her greatly. Hardly able to walk, she trudged up the steps to her quarters and collapsed at the side of the bed, pulling herself against the wall to try and regain her strength. It was only a matter of time before they found her and with her power fresh out of reserves, she would be vulnerable to capture. Time floated by and after a while the screams and cries of agony throughout the temple became a droning hum, hardly causing her to jump when a new agonizing sound joined the fray. It was indiscernible how much time had gone by, but she could see that the sun outside was just starting to set. This siege had started mid-morning and their mission was almost complete. What that mission was she could only guess at since it had to be one of two things. Either they were an enemy temple coming to eradicate them, or they were sent by the government because their practice was seen as heresy and a possible plot to use their abilities to overthrow the government. A yawn passed through her lips, stretching them in preparation for the action, but pausing when she heard booted feet click onto the stone floor of her quarters. Muscles tensed within her body, fingers digging into the stone next to her so hard it was a miracle her nails didn't break clean off. Someone had found her quarters... Someone was either here to kill her or capture her and she had nothing left of her ability. It would need at least a day to regenerate. The only thing left to do was die honorably so, she lifted herself from the ground and walked around the bed, coming to a stop before the man, fingers folded at her waist, eyes directly on his. I will not degrade myself by begging you for my life. I will not kneel at your feet and cry because of this misfortune. If you wish to kill me, then do it, but I will die standing. I firmly believe that if the Goddess wills this then let it be. I am not worthy of interfering with her plans. Her jaw tightened and she stood her ground, despite her wobbly stance. It would be quite clear that the words she spoke were genuinely backed up by the reserve found in her porcelain features.