Tickling the Divine
by Kid Indy
From atop the temple's hill Rachel could see the last of Tyre's defenses fall. The hordes of Babylon had been camped outside the city for two months now, and their ram had finally compromised the gate. Soldiers streamed in on foot and in chariots, cutting down the city's exhausted army like so many shafts of grain. The high priestess of Asherah ordered the priestesses and acolytes to enter the temple, and she shut the massive cedar door behind them. Whatever happened, she said, Asherah must still be served. If no priestesses served the goddess of the harvest, there would be no food for the people.
Among the acolytes was Rachel, a slender beauty twenty harvests old, who wore thick raven locks that moved when she laughed as if on their own will. She was set to be initiated as a priestess the coming year, ending her last year as a temple acolyte, a life of performing clean-up duties and minor roles in the fertility rituals. She was to be the central initiate in that year's festival, becoming the king's own for a night(just as Asherah belonged to the storm-god, Baal) and truly entering the order of priestesses. But now the invasion was calling everything into doubt. Rachel wondered whether the Eastern invaders would even leave a city for the goddess to help.
The chaos raged on outside, and the next morning a heavy hand pounded on the temple's main gate, demanding entrance. The high priestess's face revealed fear as she tried to calm the others down. She turned and tried to maintain dignity as she approached the last thing between the priestesses and the invaders. She opened the door. There waited Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of Babylon, the most feared king in the world. The ruler stood out among his guards as a born leader, a conqueror of kings. His face was like iron, and his eyes blazed with strength. Flanked by gigantic soldiers with menacing swords, he took two strides past the high priestess before turning to face her.
"Behold, and bow before the chosen of Marduk."
The matronly priestess flinched but did not kneel. "The lord of Tyre is Baal, not this Marduk. Asherah is his, and his she shall remain." Rachel recognized the first lines of the city's yearly harvest ceremony.
The emperor seemed impressed but did not back down. "I knew that you would say something of the sort. Such will be your doom. Marduk is Lord of the Clouds, and now he is the god of this city." Still staring into the high priestess's face, he spoke to his men, grunting at them in a tongue that Rachel could not understand. His eyes began to scan the room. They fell on Rachel, taken in by her eyes that shone even through her fear. He raised an arm and pointed. "Let's try you first." He again began to bark orders in the strange language to his men, and they grabbed Rachel by the arms, placing manacles on her wrists. Rachel protested, her will breaking her fear of the swords, but the Babylonians towered over her, and they moved her as they willed. He barked another order, and they forced her into a sitting position on the ground and began taking off her shoes. Their huge hands held her ankles as Nebuchadnezzar squatted down in front of her. Rachel suddenly felt the king's fingernails wiggling rapidly against her helpless soles, and she let out a scream of surprise. She tried to struggle free, but the soldiers' strong arms held her fast.
Rachel and the other acolytes sometimes tickled one another while playing in the fields outside the city, but that was nothing like what the emperor was doing to her. She could not bat these cruel fingers away, and they moved with a fury that the acolytes would never inflict on one another. Her mind tried to stay on the seriousness of the moment, but her body was quickly yielding to a girlish, squealing laughter. As she tried to squirm away, she found her struggles turning into the moan of suppressed laughter. And the fingers would not stop.
Without any choice she started to giggle quietly. The emperor, at this sign, moved from her soles to the balls of her feet, then down to the heel, lightly scratching and continuing the maddening tickling. Her laugh grew just a bit louder, and the mighty king leered at her helplessness. He said a few more words, and the guards released her and backed away. As she tried to rise, the king sprung on her, digging his fingers into her sides and making her thrash in wild laughter. His hands moved down, one grabbing her left knee and the other her right hip. He kept tormenting her until she could not even open her eyes, and suddenly he stopped. He said some more strange words to the guards, and they grabbed hold of her.
The strong soldiers led her to a horse-pulled cart that waited outside the temple. As the cart pulled away, she looked back to see her acolyte sisters and the full priestesses marched in a line toward the east side of the city.
When she arrived at the ******, the guards took her off the cart, and she looked around to see the statue of Baal destroyed, broken into shards in front of the ****** steps. She turned her eyes away from the fallen god, and the guards took her inside. They placed her in a room overlooking the city and locked the door from the outside. Looking out the window, Rachel's only consolation was that she could see the prison into which the Babylonians led the other priestesses. Defeated and without other options, she lay on the bed and waited.
Rachel waited in the locked room for several days. The Babylonian soldiers took good care of her and never threatened or hurt her, but as the days passed she became more and more apprehensive. She looked out her window often only to see the higher priestesses of Asherah, one by one, being taken away from the prison and towards the barracks. She did not know what was to become of them. The guards did not seem to know much, and she could barely make out their strange language as they conversed. Only a priest of Marduk, who came by to check on her regularly, would speak the language of Tyre to her, and he was not offering any information. When she would ask about the other priestesses, he would only answer, "You are still priestess of Asherah, dear, and you always will be. Do not think of escape out the window or into the underworld. Then the last priestess will leave the city, and Asherah's favor will depart." When he said this Rachel knew that she could never escape; even if she dodged the soldiers, the heavens themselves would not let her go free.
More days passed. One day the Babylonian priest came in with some guards, and they grabbed Rachel and tied her hand and foot without delay. Two of the soldiers picked her up and followed the priest over to her bed. Although she tried to fight, the arms of the warriors were like iron, and they efficiently tied her wrists together to the head of the bed and her ankles together to the foot. She demanded release, but they did not respond. At the order of the priest, they left the room.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"You, Rachel, are the last priestess of Asherah of Tyre. And today you're going to lead her to her new master, Marduk."
Rachel's eyes widened. Such would be to deny the mighty Baal. "No! The lord of Tyre is Baal, and--"
"Baal has been defeated, foolish girl! The hosts of Tyre are no more. But I do not worry. Stubborn priestesses soon feel the touch of Marduk." He pulled from behind his back a small satchel and promptly opened it. Out of the leather sack came a folding tool looking like two series of four iron loops connected with an iron rod. Setting this down on the bed between her feet, he reached in again and produced three feathers. "These three are the Breath of Marduk, Rachel. They bring lightness to the feet and laughter to the face. Would you like to see?" The priest began to take the shoes off of Rachel's struggling feet. Her soles and the undersides of her long toes were a beautiful flushed pink, and the duties of temple life had left relatively little callus on the rest of her feet. The line from her ankle around her heel to her instep was a graceful curve, and the priest could not wait to begin the Breath of Marduk.
Rachel's cries of protest could be heard in the hallway, but only a few of the soldiers could understand her words as the priest placed the eight loops around the first four toes on each foot. "You see, Rachel, when I pull this toe," pulling on the smallest toe on her right foot and spreading the other nine out, "or on this toe," as he pulled the same one on the left, "the Breath of Marduk can come to you. Now do you see the greatness of Marduk? Will Asherah come to his side?"
"NO! The Lord of Tyre is Baal! Asherah is--" Her creed was cut short as the priest began moving the blades of the feathers, their shafts between his fingers, between the toes of her right foot. Her mouth clamped shut, and a forced moan came out as the feathers worked their magic on the soft skin between her toes. Soon she was begging, "No, no," and the priest smiled victoriously as he continued.
"Do not beg of me, fair Rachel. It is Marduk who wants the love of Asherah, but your stubbornness turns him away. He will breathe on you until Asherah is his." Rachel could only barely hear this over her own, now desperate, laughter. Her heart of hearts wanted to stay faithful to Baal and keep the order of Asherah away from this Babylonian god, but the feathers were awful. She begged for mercy between outbursts of laughter, but the priest would not relent. The feathers only became swifter and the tickling more horrible as she begged more and more. Her face and neck now matched the shade of her feet, and she was beginning to sweat. After continuing for several horrible minutes, the priest stopped on her left foot.
"Please, messenger of Marduk, show mercy and let Asherah remain faithful." Rachel's voice was shaky, and she sounded not unlike the begging of a little girl.
"Marduk does not grant his love leave to stay with her defeated master. And I will not let you get away with such an easy out. Now the breath of Marduk must blow the other way!" With this, Rachel's right toes began to suffer the same fate. Rachel began to squeal, but once again the laughter overcame her, and now tears joined the sweat on her face. Having the king tickle her without being able to cover up was agonizing; having this priest tickle her very sensitive toes without even being able to curl them up was torture. Before long she was crying out again, hoping only to make the feathers stop.
"Please! Take these feathers from me! I'll do anything!"
"It is not you whom Marduk wants, Rachel. Will Asherah come to Marduk?" All the while the feathers continued to work their fury on Rachel's toes, bringing giggles and squeals and laughter.
"Yes! Yes! Asherah will come!" The feathers ceased, and the priest took the loops from her toes.
"Good. Now you can feel the touch of Marduk!"
"WHAT?" With eager speed, the priest had jumped onto the bed and began to pinch and prod Rachel's sides and ribs with his fingers, tickling the breath from her. She wailed and tried to protest, but words would not even come out between the lung-straining howls of laughter. She bucked and tried to escape, but the wicked fingers kept tormenting her. Before long they had reached up underneath her arms, and her head thrashed about, throwing her beautiful hair this way and that as she laughed Asherah into the realm of Marduk. With just as much suddenness, the priest jumped down from the bed and began tickling her feet with his quick fingers. She squealed and protested, but her laughs would not stop. When he had tickled her almost to hoarseness, he stepped away and barked orders to the men outside the door. They came in, untied Rachel, and began to lead her towards the ******'s roof.
Rachel, still disoriented from the terrible tickling, found herself bound by her wrists and ankles to a gold-covered chair. Her shoes were still not on, and two ****** maids were grooming her hair. Without warning the large men around her chair put poles into loops under the armrests and began to carry her and the chair onto the roof sedan-style.
Rachel looked out in front of the ****** to see hundreds of people gathered. In front of her Nebuchadnezzar lifted a wooden stick above his head and brought it down across the back of the bloodied King of Tyre. Rachel was horrified, and she knew that this beating in front of the people was taking place to let them know that the Babylonians were their new lords. Then, with the king defeated, Tyre would belong to Babylon. Suddenly she heard the priest of Marduk's voice calling out to the crowd.
"The King has been defeated, and Baal has abandoned him. Marduk has laid claim to the skies of Tyre. But Asherah is still with us. Will she come to love her new master Marduk?" Rachel could tell that he was playing to the crowd. She realized that this was her chance: if she called out the creed of Baal, the people would know that he was still the mightiest god. She quickly hid her scheming face as the men began to carry her out to the roof. Nebuchadnezzar approached her, frightening in his royal splendor.
"Will Asherah, Queen of Birth and Harvest, be the eternal love of Marduk of the High Mountain?" Nebuchadnezzar, miming divine courtesy, had dropped to one knee. Rachel saw her chance.
"No! Never! Baal is the Lord of Tyre, and Asherah is his!" Rachel shouted, and some cheers erupted from the crowd. But soon the cheers quieted, and to her horror Rachel heard the priest speak again, still in the calm stately voice of a ritual narrator.
"Though now she mourns her Baal and despises Marduk, the goodness of Marduk soon overcomes the fair goddess, and the laughter of Asherah will rain down and bless the land! Such will it be every spring, that the winter and Asherah's protest will turn into her laughter and the blessing of the fields!" He finished the sentence with flair, and other parts of the crowd began to cheer. Nebuchadnezzar leered hungrily at Rachel, and her defenseless feet recoiled, knowing what was coming.
"No! Please! I've alredy been tickled so much!"
"Then you should not have rebelled!" With this the emperor grabbed one foot and began to scramble his fingers over its sole wildly. Battle-hardened fingertips stroked and thrilled soft foot-flesh, and Rachel's head rocked back as she fought the urge to laugh. She would prove that Marduk had no power to... she had to... The crowd grew silent, waiting to see whether their beloved harvest-goddess would give them blessings under Marduk's rule. Rachel's resistance held fast, but the tickling kept coming, and soon...
A cheer burst forth as the ticklish Rachel let loose a ticklish giggle. The king kept the torture going, and soon the symbolic blessings were falling like rain. Loud enough that Rachel could hear, but not loud enough for the crowd below, Nebuchadnezzar said, "And think, Rachel, This will happen every year until you train new priestesses! I like you. I think I won't allow any new acolytes to be initiated for TEN YEARS!" Rachel, though her sensitive foot was writhing and her body was reeling from the tickling, did manage to take some joy in this; at least it would only be once a year. Her laughter echoed through the now-fully-Babylonian city.
EPILOGUE--Ten years later
The day of the Marduk festival had come and gone, and the city of Tyre was once again quiet, except in one quarter. Ahavel, twenty-harvest daughter of a potter, found herself arrested by the city's Babylonian guard and hauled to the temple of Asherah-Isshah-Marduk. Her family voiced their disapproval, but the captain ignored them, hauling her to the house of Asherah. Locked in a dark room, she waited for any sign of what she had been imprisoned for.
After not too long, the door opened, and the High Priestess Rachel stood at the door with two large guards and three acolytes. The guards held swords, but strange, feather-tipped tools were in the priestess's and the acolytes' hands. The high priestess spoke, and fear entered the girl. "Greetings, Ahavel. Today you feel the breath of Marduk."
* * * * * * * *
I posted this story a while back, but I had a poll attached, so there weren't many hits. Tell me what you think, alright?
by Kid Indy
From atop the temple's hill Rachel could see the last of Tyre's defenses fall. The hordes of Babylon had been camped outside the city for two months now, and their ram had finally compromised the gate. Soldiers streamed in on foot and in chariots, cutting down the city's exhausted army like so many shafts of grain. The high priestess of Asherah ordered the priestesses and acolytes to enter the temple, and she shut the massive cedar door behind them. Whatever happened, she said, Asherah must still be served. If no priestesses served the goddess of the harvest, there would be no food for the people.
Among the acolytes was Rachel, a slender beauty twenty harvests old, who wore thick raven locks that moved when she laughed as if on their own will. She was set to be initiated as a priestess the coming year, ending her last year as a temple acolyte, a life of performing clean-up duties and minor roles in the fertility rituals. She was to be the central initiate in that year's festival, becoming the king's own for a night(just as Asherah belonged to the storm-god, Baal) and truly entering the order of priestesses. But now the invasion was calling everything into doubt. Rachel wondered whether the Eastern invaders would even leave a city for the goddess to help.
The chaos raged on outside, and the next morning a heavy hand pounded on the temple's main gate, demanding entrance. The high priestess's face revealed fear as she tried to calm the others down. She turned and tried to maintain dignity as she approached the last thing between the priestesses and the invaders. She opened the door. There waited Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of Babylon, the most feared king in the world. The ruler stood out among his guards as a born leader, a conqueror of kings. His face was like iron, and his eyes blazed with strength. Flanked by gigantic soldiers with menacing swords, he took two strides past the high priestess before turning to face her.
"Behold, and bow before the chosen of Marduk."
The matronly priestess flinched but did not kneel. "The lord of Tyre is Baal, not this Marduk. Asherah is his, and his she shall remain." Rachel recognized the first lines of the city's yearly harvest ceremony.
The emperor seemed impressed but did not back down. "I knew that you would say something of the sort. Such will be your doom. Marduk is Lord of the Clouds, and now he is the god of this city." Still staring into the high priestess's face, he spoke to his men, grunting at them in a tongue that Rachel could not understand. His eyes began to scan the room. They fell on Rachel, taken in by her eyes that shone even through her fear. He raised an arm and pointed. "Let's try you first." He again began to bark orders in the strange language to his men, and they grabbed Rachel by the arms, placing manacles on her wrists. Rachel protested, her will breaking her fear of the swords, but the Babylonians towered over her, and they moved her as they willed. He barked another order, and they forced her into a sitting position on the ground and began taking off her shoes. Their huge hands held her ankles as Nebuchadnezzar squatted down in front of her. Rachel suddenly felt the king's fingernails wiggling rapidly against her helpless soles, and she let out a scream of surprise. She tried to struggle free, but the soldiers' strong arms held her fast.
Rachel and the other acolytes sometimes tickled one another while playing in the fields outside the city, but that was nothing like what the emperor was doing to her. She could not bat these cruel fingers away, and they moved with a fury that the acolytes would never inflict on one another. Her mind tried to stay on the seriousness of the moment, but her body was quickly yielding to a girlish, squealing laughter. As she tried to squirm away, she found her struggles turning into the moan of suppressed laughter. And the fingers would not stop.
Without any choice she started to giggle quietly. The emperor, at this sign, moved from her soles to the balls of her feet, then down to the heel, lightly scratching and continuing the maddening tickling. Her laugh grew just a bit louder, and the mighty king leered at her helplessness. He said a few more words, and the guards released her and backed away. As she tried to rise, the king sprung on her, digging his fingers into her sides and making her thrash in wild laughter. His hands moved down, one grabbing her left knee and the other her right hip. He kept tormenting her until she could not even open her eyes, and suddenly he stopped. He said some more strange words to the guards, and they grabbed hold of her.
The strong soldiers led her to a horse-pulled cart that waited outside the temple. As the cart pulled away, she looked back to see her acolyte sisters and the full priestesses marched in a line toward the east side of the city.
When she arrived at the ******, the guards took her off the cart, and she looked around to see the statue of Baal destroyed, broken into shards in front of the ****** steps. She turned her eyes away from the fallen god, and the guards took her inside. They placed her in a room overlooking the city and locked the door from the outside. Looking out the window, Rachel's only consolation was that she could see the prison into which the Babylonians led the other priestesses. Defeated and without other options, she lay on the bed and waited.
Rachel waited in the locked room for several days. The Babylonian soldiers took good care of her and never threatened or hurt her, but as the days passed she became more and more apprehensive. She looked out her window often only to see the higher priestesses of Asherah, one by one, being taken away from the prison and towards the barracks. She did not know what was to become of them. The guards did not seem to know much, and she could barely make out their strange language as they conversed. Only a priest of Marduk, who came by to check on her regularly, would speak the language of Tyre to her, and he was not offering any information. When she would ask about the other priestesses, he would only answer, "You are still priestess of Asherah, dear, and you always will be. Do not think of escape out the window or into the underworld. Then the last priestess will leave the city, and Asherah's favor will depart." When he said this Rachel knew that she could never escape; even if she dodged the soldiers, the heavens themselves would not let her go free.
More days passed. One day the Babylonian priest came in with some guards, and they grabbed Rachel and tied her hand and foot without delay. Two of the soldiers picked her up and followed the priest over to her bed. Although she tried to fight, the arms of the warriors were like iron, and they efficiently tied her wrists together to the head of the bed and her ankles together to the foot. She demanded release, but they did not respond. At the order of the priest, they left the room.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"You, Rachel, are the last priestess of Asherah of Tyre. And today you're going to lead her to her new master, Marduk."
Rachel's eyes widened. Such would be to deny the mighty Baal. "No! The lord of Tyre is Baal, and--"
"Baal has been defeated, foolish girl! The hosts of Tyre are no more. But I do not worry. Stubborn priestesses soon feel the touch of Marduk." He pulled from behind his back a small satchel and promptly opened it. Out of the leather sack came a folding tool looking like two series of four iron loops connected with an iron rod. Setting this down on the bed between her feet, he reached in again and produced three feathers. "These three are the Breath of Marduk, Rachel. They bring lightness to the feet and laughter to the face. Would you like to see?" The priest began to take the shoes off of Rachel's struggling feet. Her soles and the undersides of her long toes were a beautiful flushed pink, and the duties of temple life had left relatively little callus on the rest of her feet. The line from her ankle around her heel to her instep was a graceful curve, and the priest could not wait to begin the Breath of Marduk.
Rachel's cries of protest could be heard in the hallway, but only a few of the soldiers could understand her words as the priest placed the eight loops around the first four toes on each foot. "You see, Rachel, when I pull this toe," pulling on the smallest toe on her right foot and spreading the other nine out, "or on this toe," as he pulled the same one on the left, "the Breath of Marduk can come to you. Now do you see the greatness of Marduk? Will Asherah come to his side?"
"NO! The Lord of Tyre is Baal! Asherah is--" Her creed was cut short as the priest began moving the blades of the feathers, their shafts between his fingers, between the toes of her right foot. Her mouth clamped shut, and a forced moan came out as the feathers worked their magic on the soft skin between her toes. Soon she was begging, "No, no," and the priest smiled victoriously as he continued.
"Do not beg of me, fair Rachel. It is Marduk who wants the love of Asherah, but your stubbornness turns him away. He will breathe on you until Asherah is his." Rachel could only barely hear this over her own, now desperate, laughter. Her heart of hearts wanted to stay faithful to Baal and keep the order of Asherah away from this Babylonian god, but the feathers were awful. She begged for mercy between outbursts of laughter, but the priest would not relent. The feathers only became swifter and the tickling more horrible as she begged more and more. Her face and neck now matched the shade of her feet, and she was beginning to sweat. After continuing for several horrible minutes, the priest stopped on her left foot.
"Please, messenger of Marduk, show mercy and let Asherah remain faithful." Rachel's voice was shaky, and she sounded not unlike the begging of a little girl.
"Marduk does not grant his love leave to stay with her defeated master. And I will not let you get away with such an easy out. Now the breath of Marduk must blow the other way!" With this, Rachel's right toes began to suffer the same fate. Rachel began to squeal, but once again the laughter overcame her, and now tears joined the sweat on her face. Having the king tickle her without being able to cover up was agonizing; having this priest tickle her very sensitive toes without even being able to curl them up was torture. Before long she was crying out again, hoping only to make the feathers stop.
"Please! Take these feathers from me! I'll do anything!"
"It is not you whom Marduk wants, Rachel. Will Asherah come to Marduk?" All the while the feathers continued to work their fury on Rachel's toes, bringing giggles and squeals and laughter.
"Yes! Yes! Asherah will come!" The feathers ceased, and the priest took the loops from her toes.
"Good. Now you can feel the touch of Marduk!"
"WHAT?" With eager speed, the priest had jumped onto the bed and began to pinch and prod Rachel's sides and ribs with his fingers, tickling the breath from her. She wailed and tried to protest, but words would not even come out between the lung-straining howls of laughter. She bucked and tried to escape, but the wicked fingers kept tormenting her. Before long they had reached up underneath her arms, and her head thrashed about, throwing her beautiful hair this way and that as she laughed Asherah into the realm of Marduk. With just as much suddenness, the priest jumped down from the bed and began tickling her feet with his quick fingers. She squealed and protested, but her laughs would not stop. When he had tickled her almost to hoarseness, he stepped away and barked orders to the men outside the door. They came in, untied Rachel, and began to lead her towards the ******'s roof.
Rachel, still disoriented from the terrible tickling, found herself bound by her wrists and ankles to a gold-covered chair. Her shoes were still not on, and two ****** maids were grooming her hair. Without warning the large men around her chair put poles into loops under the armrests and began to carry her and the chair onto the roof sedan-style.
Rachel looked out in front of the ****** to see hundreds of people gathered. In front of her Nebuchadnezzar lifted a wooden stick above his head and brought it down across the back of the bloodied King of Tyre. Rachel was horrified, and she knew that this beating in front of the people was taking place to let them know that the Babylonians were their new lords. Then, with the king defeated, Tyre would belong to Babylon. Suddenly she heard the priest of Marduk's voice calling out to the crowd.
"The King has been defeated, and Baal has abandoned him. Marduk has laid claim to the skies of Tyre. But Asherah is still with us. Will she come to love her new master Marduk?" Rachel could tell that he was playing to the crowd. She realized that this was her chance: if she called out the creed of Baal, the people would know that he was still the mightiest god. She quickly hid her scheming face as the men began to carry her out to the roof. Nebuchadnezzar approached her, frightening in his royal splendor.
"Will Asherah, Queen of Birth and Harvest, be the eternal love of Marduk of the High Mountain?" Nebuchadnezzar, miming divine courtesy, had dropped to one knee. Rachel saw her chance.
"No! Never! Baal is the Lord of Tyre, and Asherah is his!" Rachel shouted, and some cheers erupted from the crowd. But soon the cheers quieted, and to her horror Rachel heard the priest speak again, still in the calm stately voice of a ritual narrator.
"Though now she mourns her Baal and despises Marduk, the goodness of Marduk soon overcomes the fair goddess, and the laughter of Asherah will rain down and bless the land! Such will it be every spring, that the winter and Asherah's protest will turn into her laughter and the blessing of the fields!" He finished the sentence with flair, and other parts of the crowd began to cheer. Nebuchadnezzar leered hungrily at Rachel, and her defenseless feet recoiled, knowing what was coming.
"No! Please! I've alredy been tickled so much!"
"Then you should not have rebelled!" With this the emperor grabbed one foot and began to scramble his fingers over its sole wildly. Battle-hardened fingertips stroked and thrilled soft foot-flesh, and Rachel's head rocked back as she fought the urge to laugh. She would prove that Marduk had no power to... she had to... The crowd grew silent, waiting to see whether their beloved harvest-goddess would give them blessings under Marduk's rule. Rachel's resistance held fast, but the tickling kept coming, and soon...
A cheer burst forth as the ticklish Rachel let loose a ticklish giggle. The king kept the torture going, and soon the symbolic blessings were falling like rain. Loud enough that Rachel could hear, but not loud enough for the crowd below, Nebuchadnezzar said, "And think, Rachel, This will happen every year until you train new priestesses! I like you. I think I won't allow any new acolytes to be initiated for TEN YEARS!" Rachel, though her sensitive foot was writhing and her body was reeling from the tickling, did manage to take some joy in this; at least it would only be once a year. Her laughter echoed through the now-fully-Babylonian city.
EPILOGUE--Ten years later
The day of the Marduk festival had come and gone, and the city of Tyre was once again quiet, except in one quarter. Ahavel, twenty-harvest daughter of a potter, found herself arrested by the city's Babylonian guard and hauled to the temple of Asherah-Isshah-Marduk. Her family voiced their disapproval, but the captain ignored them, hauling her to the house of Asherah. Locked in a dark room, she waited for any sign of what she had been imprisoned for.
After not too long, the door opened, and the High Priestess Rachel stood at the door with two large guards and three acolytes. The guards held swords, but strange, feather-tipped tools were in the priestess's and the acolytes' hands. The high priestess spoke, and fear entered the girl. "Greetings, Ahavel. Today you feel the breath of Marduk."
* * * * * * * *
I posted this story a while back, but I had a poll attached, so there weren't many hits. Tell me what you think, alright?
