Blade Maidens: Shorts – Common Ground – 2

“Marten,

The records are here, I’m telling you.

Well, they’re not here. Which is the same thing.

Mara’s worshippers don’t keep the most precise written histories, so much of their worship is through oral performance and song after all, but after combing through these ratty tomes and scouring the archives I’ve finally found proof. That Mara wasn’t always the Tide-Queen.

I don’t know her name, or title, or form from those days before she was the goddess we know. I know, don’t start. But I’ve found no less than seven records dating back from before the Empire’s fall. All of them are clearly detailing worship of Mara, some of these rituals are even used today, but wherever her name should be there is nothing. Not a hole, or a blacked out splotch of ink, but nothing. Even on the most stained pages I found there was simply a clean absence. It’s as if whatever name was there had been removed.

Think of the implications! For all we know this affected everything! Memory, statues, records. Something happened with our Lady of the Sea in our distant past and I aim to find out what.

Jara.”

• A letter found in a water-tight pouch among the shipwreck of Gyvenia’s Grace, a transport ship.