2025 Star Festival Prompt
In Tribute (12) : In the days leading up to the Star Festival, small stone shrines began to appear randomly throughout Destiny City–on rooftops, in alleyways, hidden down long forest paths. They’re small, altar-like platforms with a little bowl in the center and a single glowing stone inside. There’s something peaceful, refreshing, about the shrine, even if no one seems to know who is setting them. However, if the stone is removed, the glow vanishes–along with your sense of peace. This was not your offering to take. Immediately, you feel something breathing on the back of your neck but there’s nothing to be seen. Returning the stone returns the area to an uneasy stillness, but if you attempt to leave without returning the stone, a mounting pressure and anxiety will grow within you. You never make it far from the shrine before some unseen force overtakes you. It feels like a great force collides into your back, and unconsciousness is quick to follow. When you awaken, the shrine is gone. All that remains is pain and fear. If you are tempted to leave an offering of your own, however small, you will find yourself feeling as though you have received the protection of something greater than you can understand. This strange blanket of security will last for the remainder of the day. A shrine never stays in the same place for long but no one ever sees who is setting them up or taking them down.
Tress was walking out of her favorite coffee shop one day and turning the corner when she noticed something odd in the alleyway beside it. There was something glowing in the shadows of the alley, so the curious woman went to investigate, her grip tight on her coffee. It was still too hot to drink and she wasn’t about to let something or someone startle her into dropping it before she even got a chance to take a sip.
When she walked up to the glowing thing, she discovered it was a small platform with a stone structure that seemed very much to be something like a shrine. At least to Tress. She was not particularly religious, especially not religions that involved shrines and thus did not know much about them. Still, she’d read about similar structures and ancient altars of the past before, so she had an inkling about what it might have been used for. Someone must have put it up fairly recently, however, because she had passed by that alley often before and had never once prior seen the shrine there. But why had they set it up next to a dumpster? Couldn’t that have been considered blasphemous in some religions?
What was even odder was the single glowing stone in the little bowl at the center of the shrine altar. It gave Tress a sense of peace and being refreshed just being near it or maybe even just looking at it. Ever inquisitive, she reached out with her free hand not holding onto her coffee to pick up the stone in order to examine it. Immediately, the stone’s glow vanished and the sense of peace she had felt before did along with it. She very nearly dropped her coffee after all when something breathed on the back of her neck, but she didn’t dare turn around. Not before she returned the stone back to its resting place in the bowl, at least.
There was still an uneasy stillness in the air, but the stone gradually began to glow again and Tress’ sense of peace was somewhat restored. All except the part of her that wondered what the heck had just happened and what was going on with the shrine. She wanted to experiment a little and found herself using her once-again-free-hand to rifle through her bag to see what she had with her. There was a Crimson Star Charm that the coffee shop had given her as a promotional item with her coffee for Destiny City’s Star Festival. There were a few coins, as well, some receipts, her wallet, her make-up, her phone, and a couple of oranges she had brought along from home for breakfast.
Taking an orange, Tress hesitated a moment before trying to set it in the bowl next to the glowing stone. The orange was a bit too big to fit well, crowding out the stone, so she removed it and placed it at the base of the shrine instead.
Was…was that all she had to do? Was she supposed to…what, pray or something? To whom, the guardian of the shine? The shrine-maker? Both? Was she supposed to thank them for the peace and refreshing feeling that was bestowed upon her by the glowing stone?
Unsure quite what she was doing but willing to give it a try, Tress set her coffee down at the edge of the altar, clapped her hands together, and bowed her head as she had seen people from other cultures and religions do. Then she silently, mentally thanked whatever unknown being for the miracle the had seemed to work on the stone and, through the stone, on her.
Hopefully she didn’t look too utterly ridiculous to anyone who might have been passing by the alley, bowing and perhaps praying to a shrine set up near a dumpster.
flowykid
