suitable mates for the two daughters. Another reason people joined the church, and quite possibly the more realistic of the two, was the hope that by following the same Goddess as the Herbaht, they might somehow make themselves immune to the hunters.
The two daughters took on the mantels of Matriarch , the elder sister calling herself the Greater Matriarch and the younger sister taking on the title of the Lesser Matriarch. In contrast, it was the younger of the two who, with her ‘altered’ husband, seemed to have done the most to advance the belief in the Goddess.
The other main source of belief in the Goddess was obviously from the Herbaht. All of them could claim a lineage back to one or the other of the two Matriarchs, although since it had been nearly a thousand years since the Matriarchs first came to the planet and the life expectancy of the average Herbaht, barring accidents, was little more than forty years, most non-believers, including those that existed among the Herbaht, doubted that the Matriarchs were still the same as the originals.
The Herbaht actually ha d no official name for their religion; they just believed. There were no regular meetings among the faithful, nor was there an official holy book or any relics of their faith; they simply believed.
There were two types of disguise that the Herbaht would wear, depending on what they were planning to do that day. The most popular involved little more than the blending of colors with the Herbaht’s own skin tones in order to hide the stripes. The more complex involved creating an actual mask, which was a lot more complicated and still needed to be blended in to match the Herbaht wearing it, but it had the advantage that supposedly not even the most alert human, not even a member of the Elite Guard, would recognize a Herbaht wearing such a disguise.
Myajes Conjah was wearing the latter type of disguise , and yet, walking through the center of London as he was, surrounded almost constantly on all sides by those he thought of as herd, he was nervous. Few members of his race would come to a place like this unless they really had to. And as he walked the streets, trying not to look too suspicious, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he could have achieved his goal in a part of the city that wasn’t so crowded.
As well as his disguise, he was dressed in casual clothing : tight gray jeans which did little to hide his tail bulge and a loose black synthetic leather jacket which helped a little more. He wore a pair of black casual shoes and carried a plastic shopping bag, which contained a few things he had purchased whilst shopping. Under his jacket, hidden carefully in a specially-made pocket, was a small laser pistol, though on this sort of excursion the last thing he expected was to have to use it. At least he hoped he wouldn’t; surrounded as he was by so many of the herd, the use of the weapon would most likely also spell the end of him.
Myajes really wasn’t keen on the city. There were too many humans. The smell was too rich with their sweaty bodies and too crowded so that he felt jostled constantly as he tried to walk along the streets. He always did his best to ignore the attitudes of the herd here ; as much as he might like to assert himself, it would be only too easy to slip up and give himself away.
According to the real religion and not the human version of it, the closer your relationship to one of the Matriarchs, then the more divinity you had. Myajes was the son of the daughter of one of the sons of the Lesser Matriarch and Patriarch . Not that he really felt all that much more divine, but being so close to the spiritual leaders of the race did perhaps allow him to be better informed as to the actual history of the Herbaht religion—secrets that only those among the highest ranking would know, though, of course, it was still wrapped in a religious coating and liberally sprinkled with hyperbole.
Thanks to his relationship to
The two daughters took on the mantels of Matriarch , the elder sister calling herself the Greater Matriarch and the younger sister taking on the title of the Lesser Matriarch. In contrast, it was the younger of the two who, with her ‘altered’ husband, seemed to have done the most to advance the belief in the Goddess.
The other main source of belief in the Goddess was obviously from the Herbaht. All of them could claim a lineage back to one or the other of the two Matriarchs, although since it had been nearly a thousand years since the Matriarchs first came to the planet and the life expectancy of the average Herbaht, barring accidents, was little more than forty years, most non-believers, including those that existed among the Herbaht, doubted that the Matriarchs were still the same as the originals.
The Herbaht actually ha d no official name for their religion; they just believed. There were no regular meetings among the faithful, nor was there an official holy book or any relics of their faith; they simply believed.
There were two types of disguise that the Herbaht would wear, depending on what they were planning to do that day. The most popular involved little more than the blending of colors with the Herbaht’s own skin tones in order to hide the stripes. The more complex involved creating an actual mask, which was a lot more complicated and still needed to be blended in to match the Herbaht wearing it, but it had the advantage that supposedly not even the most alert human, not even a member of the Elite Guard, would recognize a Herbaht wearing such a disguise.
Myajes Conjah was wearing the latter type of disguise , and yet, walking through the center of London as he was, surrounded almost constantly on all sides by those he thought of as herd, he was nervous. Few members of his race would come to a place like this unless they really had to. And as he walked the streets, trying not to look too suspicious, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he could have achieved his goal in a part of the city that wasn’t so crowded.
As well as his disguise, he was dressed in casual clothing : tight gray jeans which did little to hide his tail bulge and a loose black synthetic leather jacket which helped a little more. He wore a pair of black casual shoes and carried a plastic shopping bag, which contained a few things he had purchased whilst shopping. Under his jacket, hidden carefully in a specially-made pocket, was a small laser pistol, though on this sort of excursion the last thing he expected was to have to use it. At least he hoped he wouldn’t; surrounded as he was by so many of the herd, the use of the weapon would most likely also spell the end of him.
Myajes really wasn’t keen on the city. There were too many humans. The smell was too rich with their sweaty bodies and too crowded so that he felt jostled constantly as he tried to walk along the streets. He always did his best to ignore the attitudes of the herd here ; as much as he might like to assert himself, it would be only too easy to slip up and give himself away.
According to the real religion and not the human version of it, the closer your relationship to one of the Matriarchs, then the more divinity you had. Myajes was the son of the daughter of one of the sons of the Lesser Matriarch and Patriarch . Not that he really felt all that much more divine, but being so close to the spiritual leaders of the race did perhaps allow him to be better informed as to the actual history of the Herbaht religion—secrets that only those among the highest ranking would know, though, of course, it was still wrapped in a religious coating and liberally sprinkled with hyperbole.
Thanks to his relationship to
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