Hala and the Daughter of the Horse God

TITLE: Hala and the Daughter of the Horse God

AUTHOR: WotanAnubis

RATING: NC-17

NOTE: Just another little quickie.

* * * * *

There was a small cave near where the plains met the mountains. To the Nahali tribe it was known as the Sacred Cave and they made sure only they would ever know about it. Even though the plains had no real borders and its tribes wandered it freely, nevertheless, the Nahali had made it clear that this place was their territory and all the other tribes of the plains had best stay away. And because the Nahali had the strongest and fastest stallions of anyone, the other tribes obeyed and stayed away.

The other tribes often wondered why the Nahali were so concerned with the edge of the plains and often speculated that it had something to do with the stallions that gave them their dominance. And they were right. Long ago, before the stonebirds had come down the mountains and gods still walked the land, a young woman named Nahal had entered the Sacred Cave in order to seek shelter from a fierce storm. There she had met the Horse God and when she'd emerged the following day she'd brought the first stallions that would give her tribe its power with her.

And so, once a year, the Nahali went to the small cave near where the plains met the mountains and there left one young tribeswoman to enter the Sacred Cave alone, never to return. It was, they felt, a small price to pay to ensure that when their prize stallions mated with the inferior mares of the other tribes their offspring would be of the same strong breed the Horse God had granted them so long ago.

This year it was Hala who had to enter the Sacred Cave. She didn't particularly mind. Old Zera had cast the bones and the bones had told that she was the one who had to enter and so she'd entered. The thought of escaping whatever lay waiting for her in the Sacred Cave had never once crossed her mind. After all, if she'd fled into the mountains she would no longer be Nahali, and if she were no longer Nahali then what would be the point of living? Besides, just because no-one other than Nahal had ever come out of the Sacred Cave again was no reason at all to think she was going to die in there.

Hala walked slowly through the darkness, the stone cold to her bare feet. At first she'd been frightened by the absent horizon or the lack of a sky above, but now she was mostly annoyed by the darkness all around. Almost all around her. There was a faint light ahead and Hala slowly walked towards it simply because she couldn't think of anything else to do. Whatever would happen to her in the Sacred Cave would happen to her no matter what and she would prefer it happened in the light rather than the darkness.

After walking down a slope for what felt like forever in this darkness, Hala finally turned a very gradual corner and found the source of the faint light. It was a circle of thick, white candles sitting around a small, clear pool. The young tribeswoman stared at them for a while, un