^^^this was my damn prompt <3
She swirled it around in the glass, observing as the legs fell quickly into the reserve, not clinging to the walls like mammalian excretions. It was wetter, thinner, yet the taste was very reminiscent of the milk produced by humans and animals alike. It behaved similarly too. It could be made into butters, mixed with powders, and even looked similar.
“You said an almond made this milk, Loretta?”
“Yes, Sister Phage, well, no. It’s…” Loretta stammered. She could see the pale hand of her superior grip the glass tensely, the liquid slightly more tan than her sun forsaken appendage.
Sister Phage raised the glass to her black lips and tilted it, letting a small amount into her mouth. She closed her eyes and waited for the life force to be drained from her, yet it did not come.
“Curious,” said Sister Phage. Resolute, she threw her head back and drained the remaining liquid in the glass in one go, letting out a sharp exhalation as she prepared for the darkness to take her, but it did not come.
Loretta shrieked and dashed toward her mistress, but she was waved away. The elder cleric smoothed out her habit and stood tall.
“Loretta I need you to send a missive. This changes everything.”
The members of the clergy gathered in the great ritual hall under the Tabernacle. Carved out of the raw granite of the cliff the cathedral sat on, the altar of the chamber was flanked by two fountains, one that flowed with water raised from the depths of an aquifer, pure and nurturing, and another that excreted a calcifying sludge of milk harvested from the nuns of the clergy. The two represented the poles of the gathered mass’s power: water to give life, and milk to take it, the very building blocks of necromancy.
Sister Phage stood behind the altar flanked by Loretta. The sister’s angular visage betrayed none of the anxiety that she felt, but Loretta could see it in her posture, the way she blinked way too fast, and clenched her delicate, pale hands behind the small of her back. Loretta could feel the tension radiating off of her. Years of service under the Sister had trained her in her most subtle mannerisms. She desperately wanted to take it all away, to pull it into herself and hold it for her, but she knew it would never be allowed.
“What my assistant has discovered,” belted the Sister, “is a milk that does not take. I have tested it on myself, and felt no ill effects.” Her eyes scanned the crowd as the murmured to themselves.
“Then it cannot be milk!” One of the priests from Norbir stood up and shook his emaciated fist at the Sister. “If it does not take away the force of life, it cannot be considered a milk. No teat ever discovered has produced anything but.”
The Sister cracked a wry smile, exposing her brilliantly white teeth and oily-black gums. “This milk came not from a teat, but from a plant. An almond, to be exact. Fed with water, baptized in it, the fruit of the almond tree excreted its lactescence, and thus, we are left with this.” She gestured to Loretta, and who then unveiled a tarnished silver cart beset with a great goblet of almond milk, and surrounded by even more of her experiments.
“With this milk we can make cheese! Butter! All of the dairy products we had to sacrifice our very lifeforce to taste, now without the pain of hastening our demise. We have freed ourselves from the shackles of taking!”
Sister Phage threw up her hands and rocked back her head, letting escape a great cackle that made Loretta’s heart melt with awe. She was dumbstruck by the power of this woman, and how they had just changed the world.
Those gathered on the pews suddenly grew restless, and it was not long until priests and matrons alike were erupting with calls of “Heretic! and “Blasphemer!”
One of the elder priests ran out of the ritual chamber and returned with two footmen. “Seize these witches and have them thrown into the oubliette.”
As the guards approached, Loretta toppled the goblet of almond milk, dipped it into the fetid fountain of mammalian milk, and cast it in a great arc over the guards. Their forms withered and grayed under the sapping power of the liquid. She grabbed the hand of her mistress and ran out of the chamber, down deeper into the catacombs below. She had expected her hand to be cold, but it felt so alive and warm. It was, however, every bit as frail as it had seemed.
It wasn’t until they had run long down winding, fetid corridors and past a great iron barred door and locked it behind them that she realized her transgression. “Mistress I’m sorry. I acted without thinking, I didn’t mean to grab your hand.”
“You did fine, Loretta.” She beamed at that utterance. She did fine. It was not very often that the Sister had given her praise, but she treasured each and ever moment of it.
Sister Phage brushed off a collection of cobwebs that had gathered about her skirts. She cast a brief incantation and a pale green globe of light ignited and hovered beside them. They found themselves in a great ossuary filled with the bones of the faithful long past. It appeared for the moment they were safe.
“They’ll find us soon,” said the Sister. The ghastly light of the spell bounced off the yellowed bones of the fallen, and cast a sharp shadow onto the Sister’s pensive face. “That did not go as I expected.”
Loretta paced around the chamber. “I think we’re blocked in, mistress.” The only escape seemed to be the door from which they entered, and a small air vent that was centered in the ceiling, high above them, and far out of reach. She had to admit that she had often imagined herself trapped in a room alone with the Sister, but never thought it would be under this particular level of duress. They had spent long nights in various labs together, her helping Sister Phage with her experiments, but there was always an agenda, always a direction. Now, they were simply stuck.
She reached in her pocket, and pulled out a small vial of the almond milk. “Mistress!” She held up the small flute of fluid, its beige cream sloshing around and coating the inside of the glass. “Perhaps, we can make use of this?”
Slowly the Sister turned to regard her assistant. Her first look was scornful, but it quickly settled into something Loretta could only discern as pride mixed with pity. “If only it could, my loyal companion. Perhaps if it were still water it could be used to give life to these long forgotten bones, and I might summon an army to strike down our enemies, or if it were true milk I could cast it upon them, and bring some of them to hell with us.” The Sister stepped closer to Loretta and regarded the vial. “This is only useful from a culinary perspective, I’m afraid.”
Suddenly, her usual stoic demeanor lit up, and the Sister stepped in close and fast to Loretta. “You sweet, smart girl.” She wrapped her hands around her assistant’s so they both grasped the vial.
The novice blushed, the pale hint of pink in her cheeks showing through her lab rat complexion. The moment froze in time. It was so beautiful, to be here surrounded by the dead, her hand being grasped so tightly by the woman she adored and fawned over.
Taking the vial from Loretta’s hand, making sure to gently brush over her fingers as she did so, Sister Phage set to work. As a necromancer of some power, she had enough energy to raise some of the dead in the chamber as mindless thralls, but with the promise of such a delightful thing as butter that would not send them back to their restful sleep, she could coax the spirits themselves back to their bodies from beyond.
She bid her ghostlight to fly around the chamber, igniting the long lost stubs of candles placed around the room. This tomb had been long forgotten, but these spirits would once again be honored with her discovery. As she stood in the middle of ossuary she began to furiously shake the vial, churning it into almond butter as she spoke forth her incantations in a deep, guttural, profane language. Scraping sounds rang out of the bones of so many long lost ancestors of the clergy began to seek out their others and reknit.
Slowly feet, legs, torsos, and whole skeletons began to form out of the collective mortal remains. The vial had now begun to float in front of the Sister as a sickening glow emanated from it, shadows swirled inside, and lighting lashed out to strike the hearts of each fully formed corpse, their flesh having been knitted onto its ossified rigging by the spell.
The spell reached a crescendo as the last bit of light burst forth from the vial, and the corpses inhaled their first breaths in centuries. Sister Phage plucked the small offering of almond butter from the air, and held it in her palm, outstretched in offering to her army.
“Try it. It’s delicious,” she said with a wry smile, as the groaning horrors descended upon the sacrifice, each one desperate to have their first sensation of taste after unnumbered years of oblivion. When each one had a drop of the world-shattering concoction, they turned to her, hungry.
“That’s all there is my darlings, but there is more upstairs. Go forth and you may feast on all that you find, almond milk and flesh alike.”
On her queue, Loretta flung open the iron door to the room and the ravenous horde burst forth into the tunnels of the catacombs. It was not long until the screams started. She turned and gazed in awe at her mistress, who poured with sweat and panted from exhaustion.
“Sister, is there anything I can do for you? You seem on the verge of collapse.”
“I’m just hungry, my dearest Loretta.” Sister Phage weakly paced over to her assistant. She stared, unblinking, at Loretta as she moved closer, her driven locomotion forcing her back against the rock of the cavern. When Loretta could move no farther, the Sister pressed herself up against her. She slowly raised her hand to Loretta’s chin, and gripped it, forcing her to look her in the eyes. “For this,” she said, as she pressed her black lips against hers, the passion of their kiss only amplified by the screams of the dying clergy all around them.
In that one passionate moment, a line had been crossed between them, and as they stepped hand in hand over the bodies of their former fellows, they vowed together to bring the glory of nut milks to the land. It had changed them, and it would change the world. Their message would be carried to all of the corners of the earth, held aloft by rotten flesh, and bolstered by their love.