[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/250123/ceff40c83d09ef3426159af4e7909d75.png[/img][/center][hr][i]Seluna Temple[/i][hr]
Initially, Ramona offered Katherine no response, no confirmation that she had even heard her at all. From behind her dark mourning veil, her eyes remained, dimmed by yet still piercing in their cerulean shine despite the fabric, fixed in the direction of Elara. Her mouth remained small, restrained to a neutral expression even as her rigid stance suggested anything but a lack of sentiment. And yet, Elara looked back, offering not a suggestion by her looks that she was any more supposed to be here than Ramona herself was. Elara seemed pensive, more pensive than Ramona herself had meant to muster the look of. And yet, it held behind it some shadow, some flicker of disapproval—but not directed at all where Ramona expected it to be. For Elara offered not a scowl, not any sort of expression that suggested Ramona leave or avert her gaze, but a little nod. Ramona returned a tight-lipped smile to Elara, at once offering a silent thanks and reciprocating the sentiment.

Suddenly, an owl swept in, and like a fearful little creature, Ramona flinched sharply, pulling her cloak ever-tighter around herself as she did, as if the bird were creating a frightening draft. As she again moved to relax herself, Ramona cast a silent, tired gaze at the owl and its owner with a slight tilt of her head. A quiet, strained sigh escaped her nose as she tried to convince herself that the animal would not ultimately disturb the calm of the temple.

When the priestess offered her welcome, Ramona offered a small bow and murmured, [color=#007BA7]“So be it,”[/color] before continuing on her way after Elara. While Elara took the first alcove, Ramona stopped and knelt by the pool. Carefully, she removed her right glove, keeping her hand, already regrowing its webbing bit by bit as it was, close to her body so as to keep it hidden. She dipped two fingers in the frigid water as she lifted her veil with her other hand, bending closer towards the water as she did so. Bringing the wetted fingers to her face, she traced an arc along her forehead, from one eyebrow to the other, from right to left. Then, rewetting her fingers, along her chin, she traced a matching arc from left to right.

She flipped her veil back so it stayed out of her face as she turned to claim the next alcove down from Elara. As Ramona approached the alcove, she removed her other glove, and tucked both gloves into her pouch. At last, she knelt there, and produced from her pouch the three candles that she had packed. In a motion so natural she had no need to look, she set them in a row from largest to smallest, with the largest at the back. Each sat firmly attached to a little metal basin, where she would collect the wax and make new candles from the used wax. Taking the largest candle in hand, she rose again, bringing to the nearest candle in the temple to light it.

Ramona brought the candle back to its place in the row at the alcove, and bent forward as she knelt, until her forehead came to rest before the candles. There, she let herself sit in silence for a moment, before lifting her head again. She gazed into the flame, completely still, completely silent, until at last, from deep within her, she began to softly [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSOuvG4gvmQ]hum[/url]. Though it was not loud or forceful enough to echo, it was audible all the same, for how she had to force it out past her resistant vocal chords. 

As she completed the song, she redoubled as she moved to light the second candle from the first, beginning to sing softly. Her voice, as it always did, crackled as though she had been crying just before, as though tears had been shed and she was singing through them, even though she was not yet, not today, in any such way. As Ramona slowly sung, she rocked back and forth on her knees, nodding her head forward and holding her hands to her chest.

[color=#007BA7][i]“Youthful years, oh sweet youthful years,
You stay alive, here, within my spirit
When I’m thinking of those days,
I feel sad and desolate,
Oh, how soon we’ll all have been forgotten…

That little house, which I remember,
The place where I was born, and was raised
And I see it, my cradle there,
It sits in that same corner,
It seems like a dream so long abandoned…

And my mother, oh, how I have loved her
So too am I mourning now my father
Whenever we clasp our hands
Be we though in distant lands
I am still reminded of their warmth”[/i][/color]

Ramona lit the last, smallest candle off of the middle candle as she continued to sing. Still rocking, she reached into her pouch and produced the bread and cheese, and began to break it into pieces. First, she split the bread and cheese into halves, then quarters. She placed a quarter on either side of the largest candle, then broke a third off of each of the remaining two quarters of bread and cheese. She set the thirds on either side of the smallest candle, and the remaining pieces, larger than the smallest ones, but smaller than the largest ones, on either side of the medium candle.

[color=#007BA7][i]“I remember, little bird, my sweet, now,
I could still kiss your rosy cheeks, now
Your eyes were so full of life
With you, my heart felt no strife
How I’d hoped you’d be forever mine.

Youthful years, when my heart was blooming
Still from my aching hands, you’re fleeing
Now how sorrowful old years,
Mournful, cruel, terrible years,
Sit perched upon your beautiful remains

Youthful years, where have you been hidden?
Family, in life we’ve been unbidden
From this hollow world we’ve fled
Unto the land of the dead
Seluna, guide me when it’s my turn.”[/i][/color]

As Ramona finished breaking the bread and cheese, she brought her hands back to her chest, and returned to humming. She rocked vigorously, forcefully, and rhythmically, until concluding her tune. Finally, she scooted back, and bent forward into a deep bow, touching her forehead to the floor.

[color=#007BA7]“Holy Seluna, fair Goddess of the night,”[/color] she chanted in a monotone prayer, [color=#007BA7]“Guide me and watch over me and keep me, as I walk in thy light and in the darkness, and grant that I might find and know thee better, in this life and in the next, and that those who come before and who come after alike follow in thy preserving, gentle light. I pray that in this phase and phases to come, that in thy blesséd light, the sacred mysteries of the world might be made plain towards me, that they should not inspire fear or weakness, that I should find within me the strength and the purpose to continue in my labour under thy light, and that within thy peaceful gaze, thou might see me on towards unity with those whom I have seen themselves wane. In this, and in thee, and in thy guiding light, I pray.

[i][b]So be it[/b]”[/i][/color]