William James' Pen dots T's and crosses I's

 

The Minnow's Queen of Night

Green fire burnt in braziers at the base of each of the sight-line pillars just outside the circle marking the poles. They mapped the coming and the going of the enchanted wind that swept down form the stars to paint the sky. The wizard of the Minnows chanted rhythmic melodies as he added purple spades to a caldron bubbling and bowling on the sun throne.

Three eons ago, the Ladybird king chiseled into stone tablets the last time this phenomenon happened. It was in the age of the Frog. She dawned equal distance between the north and the south poles followed by twelve spades of the Night Queen. Now the Grasshopper is dawning as her Aces take to flight. In the south, the Frog looked on smiling while hovering over the Pole before she started to reverse course to rise again. Next time, if there is another age, the Minnow king will return.

This is a sacred event. The Night Queen upon her death twelve thousand years ago promised to come again and she has. Her green gown blankets the clouds in a glorious flourish that the whole world can see. The star gods have sent their cleansing fire down and much of the world has already been purified. And soon new life will appear where none was before.

Already the dancers of the Queen were ten-thirteenths of the way through the ritual. It is a beautiful treat that the average Minnow rarely ever sees. The knowledge is passed down to priestess and priest through the generations in the cavernous bowels under the temple. They learn in cave so removed from the swamp that no star shine has ever touched. The dancers hopped, bent, and stooped as the Minnows clapped, hooted, and hollered in appreciation of their intricate contortions.

According to the Ladybird king, this event lasted thirteen risings of the sun. The Wizzard reads the final stanza on the tablet:

“He grinds you to whiteness
He sets you free from your husks
He thrashes you to make you naked
He assigns you to his sacred fire.”

The tenth day was dawning. Smoke obscures the face of the sun. Green flares shimmer into streamers of orange in the sky. The hills in the east glowed red. “It wouldn’t be long now,” the Minnow wizard whispered in to the wind, “before I get to see the wonder of the Ladybird king…”

Prompts drawn almost randomly:

1) Ace of Spades, Queen of Spades, 13 / 31

2) “And instead of a nice dish of minnows, they had a roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce, which frogs consider a beautiful treat; but I think it must have been nasty,” (The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher ).

3) “He thrashes to make you naked. He grinds you to whiteness. He gifts you to free you from your husks. And he assigns you to his sacred fire,”(The Prophet by Kahil Gibran).