Spanish Diosa! [upd] Now

"A story?"

"Why do you disturb my winter, little flame?" she asked, her voice the rustle of dead leaves and the gurgle of a subterranean river. spanish diosa!

And deep in the Mons Sacer, she listened to the rain fall on the earth above, and she smiled, turning a skull over in her hands like a favorite marble, waiting for the next shepherd brave enough to come and listen. "A story

"You leave me scraps," she said, not unkindly. "You sing to the sun for life. You only remember me when you are desperate for what I keep: the stored water, the hidden roots, the seed that waits." "You sing to the sun for life

He returned to his village and told the story. He told it as the rains washed the land, as the acorns swelled, as the pigs grew fat. He told it until he was an old man, and then he taught his children.

Ataecina leaned forward. "The sun does as it must. The dry is my season. It is the time when things must go into the ground, rot, and be forgotten. That is my gift. Forgetting. Death."

The tunnel sloped down, down into a silence that was not empty, but full of listening. Stalactites dripped water with a sound like slow, ancient heartbeats. Finally, he emerged into a vast, domed chamber. A black stone altar stood in the center, carved with spirals and crescent moons. And there, on a throne of polished jet, sat Ataecina.