This isn't actually a um... real Alicorne story. It was an assignment for a class. We were doing cluster brainstorming, or something like that, to get story ideas, and this is what popped out. The thought that started it all, since I needed to wash clothes that day, was the word, "laundry." Don't ask. But, yeah, just so you know, this never actually happened in any real storyline.
The Way of the Aztecs
Tears and rain mixed on Alethea's face as she scrubbed her red-stained shirt in the dark, black waters of the East River. The crimson persisted its intrusion on the white material. She let out a shuddering breath and brought her hand up to wipe her plastered hair away from her eyes, leaving a streak of red across her cool, pale cheek. She dunked the shirt into the freezing water again and scrubbed it with red, raw hands. They had been such elegant hands. Now they were covered in blood, shaking from fear and the elements, and cracking with the cold. Still, the red stayed, would not leave. "If only I had some soap, some lye," she thought, then her frantic mind wandered again, "The Aztecs never needed lye. The blood from their sacrifices dripped down, down from the temples to the river and mixed with the water, swriling into a natural sort of liquid lye. They say those rivers were the best places to clean. But the blood is not helping now. It stays forever. It never comes out. Not with all the scrubbing in the world. It stays."
She dropped the shirt and brought her shaking hands to her face, sobbing as she rocked her body. The blood would not come out.
'Pater noster, qui es in caelis.' She quieted and took deep gasping gulps of air as the familiar words began to run through her mind, 'sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum.' The stain, what about the stain? 'Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra, Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie.' If only I had that magic water. 'Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.' But no, the blood cleaned away the stains . . . 'Et nos inducas in tentationem;' The blood of the sacrificed cleansed the stains . . . 'Sed libera nos a malo' It cleans away our sins . . 'In nomene Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.'
She trembled and let the tears fall quietly. "Oh, Father, forgive me."
