Write about your father

[birthrightgreen]

My father? He had no right to such a name. She denied it, and I never called him so. But all right, sugar. If that's what you want. Let's talk about the man who sired me.

Women rule in Terreille, and the whole concept of Protocol has been perverted. It used to be a balance. District Queens served Province Queens who served Territory Queens--the strongest and the best, chosen by the dark Jeweled Blood of the Territory. Males served the Queen their heart led them to. The Blood looked after the landen, and the land flourished and it was good. Caste, social standing and Jewel rank worked together, a triumvirate of power and position that kept our people always in a dance of power and protocol and in balance. The strong protected the weak.

Or so I have been told. It is not so, now. Males, even privileged ones, are no more than slaves. Frightened, weak males strip any weaker female of all her power and frightened females ring strong males before they can become a threat. A strong Queen could challenge and change this, but males bed them too young and they rise from their Virgin Night broken and useless. No threat to the SaDiablo reign.

Kartane SaDiablo. Only son of Dorothea SaDiablo, Red-Jeweled High Priestess of the Black Widow Coven and ruler of Hayll. Most of Terreille has fallen into Hayll's shadow, into Dorothea's shadow. She perverts everything she touches, and her son is no exception. Weak-willed, cowardly bastard, he took his ire out on the weak, the helpless. Darkness forbid that a Queen could rise, strong enough to challenge Dorothea's rule. Any such she saw broken, and her son soon became one of her favorite instruments.

He was a pretty boy, I've heard tell. A broken man when I finally saw him, caught in the web that Jaenelle wove around Briarwood, but a pretty boy. His mother thought so as well. He was naught more than a child when she took him to her bed to pleasure her. They say that sort of thing can break a man. He couldn't stop her, so he took it out on those weaker. Servant girls speared so viciously they had to send him away because the other men complained they couldn't use the girls. He hated whores. The gossip in the houses was that he could only rise to the occasion if he caused pain, and only the lower houses allowed the games he wanted to play. He was banned from houses before he found ways to just dominate the young girls without marking the goods. But houses had rules, and he didn't have absolute power.

So he took to playing his mother's game. Find a witch, young, still a girl. Spear her, hard and vicious. Break her web of power and drive her beyond herself. He'd keep them sometimes. Make them play his game until he seeded them. Sometimes they aborted spontaneously. Sometimes he gave them a brew to drink. When the child was gone, he tossed them out to go back to their families or a Red Moon House or the gutter.

My mother escaped his depraved games. She'd worn the Green when he broke her past herself. She couldn't use more than basic Craft when he was done the first night. She escaped and she whored for her keep so Kartane couldn't find her and destroy the child she gave birth to. His child.

Me.

His mother's pawn found her while I was at school. Slit her throat. I ran, so they wouldn't find me.

And then I trained. I killed. Planned men's deaths carefully and cruelly and sent them to it.

Dress rehearsal, sugar. For the right place. The right time. For my meeting with my father.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

Your mother was a strong woman, and right to hide you.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

Yes, she was.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

And it was right you saw him done.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

We. We saw him done. She and I.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

Even more right.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

He arrived at her door quickly enough more most. To perhaps anyone else. But he was displeased with the time. Putting that away, he entered the townhouse, and began following the bared waves of hurt.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She was sitting in the middle of the bedroom floor, fingers curled around her stiletto. Blood on the blade, on her dress, and still fairly freely flowing from the slice up her forearm.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

He didn't touch her. Not yet. Something like waking someone to quickly from a dream. Instead his hands fisted so tightly at his sides, Rainier could feel his own blood fighting against the grip, needing to flow.

"Surreal?"

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She'd felt him come in. Her house, after all. She didn't look up.

"Go away. I don't want to hurt you."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

He sat down in front of her, still respectful of her space.

"If you do, you do."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She stared at him, not really seeing him and took the knife to her skin again.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

"What are you trying to do." he asked quietly.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"I want him out."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

He still did not touch her. Not yet.

"He's not in there Surreal."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"He is. His blood. Her blood. Dorothea's..." Disgust in her face, shaking hand as another line of blood welled up.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

"It's never just the blood," he offered, one thumb touching her arm, gently swiping at the red there. "It is never just Blood. It is also what is done with it."

"He's not in there."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"He raped her. She was twelve. Maybe thirteen.. He took her, and he made her do things.... He had her killed when I was twelve. He hunted....for over three hundred years he hunted...and he hurt more in the meantime. Kept hurting little girls. And she...she let me live because she thought I was finally going to give her what she wanted. Wanted my children. Daemon's...."

She stared at his thumb, the blood, shaking a little.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

"And that is their crimes, not yours. Their blood, not yours. You grew up in the shadow of your mother's strength but the strength you have now, is still yours."

Gently he wiped at more bood, still repeating the words.

"He's not in there."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"Is she? Everyone keeps saying, she's in me, still, though she went into the Darkness. But she's not really gone, so long as I'm here, because she was my mother and in me. But if she's in me, then so is he. He's in there, too..."

She cut at her arm, viciously, barely missing his fingers, flinching at the pain.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

His whole hand tightened over her forearm, attempting to staunch the flow of blood.

"She's there because you choose. Blood will choose, Surreal, remember? Who we let in, who we serve. Wo we will be. Your mother choose to hide you. To deny paternity and to protect you from them. You chose her live in her strength. You chose to protect others. No, he's not in there."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She snarled a little, trying to pull her arm back.

"He killed her. And now she's gone forever and I don't know where she is...I don't know....she's gone..." Tears running down her face, and she was trembling from emotion and loss of blood.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

He wrapped her into his arms, doing his best to stop the shaking.

"Her choice though," she said into her hair. "This time it was her choice. Her way to help."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She resisted at first, struggling a little bit, before collapsing against him, sobbing.

"I miss her. We were just...and she...." The rest of the words were lost in his shirt.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

He held her. Rocked her. Held her more.