They boy rested on his knees in the snow, dirt and blood adulterating the pure whiteness of the precipitation as it collected on the ground. The young man's chest grew and sunk with each breath that he struggled to suck into his lungs, head down, his face obscured by the long, blonde hair that hung down, caked and clumped together with dried blood. To the left of the boy stood a hooded woman, her dark black cloak trimmed with golden embroidery, loosely hanging over her body, her face clearly visible under her hood, with long, almost white blonde hair and icy blue eyes, as she held the end of a rope strung over a tree, leading back to a noose tied around the boy's neck. In front of both was another man in the same black and gold hood, an elderly bearded man. He spoke loudly to the gathered crowd. 

"This man has been found guilty of desecrating the Shrine of Laima in this village. He has incurred the wrath of the Mother of Heaven upon us all." 

The crowd roared angrily, their clothes glittering, the colors gone pale from the collection of the snow upon them. They were dressed in simple garments, long shirts over pants, the women wearing long, thick skirts over their pants, and all with hooded, woolen cloaks over their clothing. 

The older man spoke once again, "Laima demands a sacrifice to restore the sanctity of her sacred space." As he spoke he instructed the woman with a simple point in her direction. The young woman responded by feeding the rope into some kind of turning machine and began to turn the handle, as the rope rose up over the tree, dragging the young man by the neck off the ground and suspending him. He tried to resist, twisting and writhing as he rose up, though it was clear there was no escape for him. The sounds of his choking could be heard as the older man and the young woman began to sing chants in praise of the goddess Laima, before the young man went limp, hanging by his neck from the maple tree. 

With that the crowd cheered, as the young woman fetched a cow, and slaughtered it as well, sprinkling its blood over the site, over herself and the older man, and then turning to splatter the blood over the crowd. 

What started as an execution quickly turned into a feast, as the participants of the sacrifice were invited to eat of the slaughtered cow, as parts of it were burned in a fire as tribute to the gods Laima and Perkunas. 

The young woman called out during the merriment, "All praise Perkunas, the most merciful God, who gave us all of this!" And so the crowd roared in excitement of the figure. To the unknown, they may just be praising a god, but it was far more than that. 

In the new capital, the King Mindaugas I, looked out over the dark, gloomy landscape of the Baltic. Most of the year, the Baltic was in freezing cold, with snow falling all but 3 months of the year. Only the hardiest of plant life could grow here. Much like only the hardiest of men could thrive here. Mindaugas remembered how his father had unified the tribes of the Baltic under the Lithuanian banner, and set them out to conquer and take new land for Lithuanians to live in. It was only befiting of a god king to do so, and now Perkunas had chosen to reside in him after his father's death. Mindaugas would be sure not to disappoint.