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

[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.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She was a little lightheaded from the sobbing and the loss of blood. She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there, how many cuts she'd made. Just to get him out. To get the pain out. Maybe if she bled enough, hurt enough, the other hurts would go away.

"I used to hunt...kill...find a mark, take him out. Hard. Bloody. Purifying. I can't...There's no one left to hurt...to kill..."

Except him in her. She could cut him out if she tried hard enough, she was sure.

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

"You're hurting wourself," he pointed out evenly, still holding her. "You're cutting yourself. Hurting you, not him. The thing your mother died to prevent from happening."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"There's too much..." She was shaking, harder, clinging to him, getting him as bloody as she was. "I have to get it out.,."

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

He wanted to take the stiletto from her hands, but wondered at the wisom of it.

"It was never there to begin with."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"Always there. Driving me. Pushing. Harder. Faster. Be ready for him..." Her thoughts lost their coherency. "Pain. And hurt. And loss. And now there's nothing to fight. Nothing to dull it. Nothing to make it go away..."

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

"I'm here," he said soothingly, finally daring to touch the weapon. "I want to help make it go away."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"You can't." But she didn't pull the knife away. "It's all inside. And I don't know..." She looked up at him, eyes still filled with tears and haunted. "I don't know what else to do to make it stop."

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

"Don't hurt yourself, for one," he reapeated. Pausing to kiss the tears from just under her eyes. "What they wanted to do to you for so long. What she died for. Don't be the one to actually succeed in the pain. Succeed despite it. Keeping helping. Keep fighting. Keep killing if that's what he takes." He pulled with gentle pressure on the knife. "Just stop cutting away at yourself."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She let him take the knife, though there was faint panic in her eyes at the loss of it, and she almost called in another reflexively.

"Who do I fight? There's no one left to kill...They're all gone..." Or near enough.

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

"Dorthea's shadow won't be gone for a long, long time," he murmered. "Fight them."

Like he did.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She didn't know where they were. How to identify them. All focus...everything she based her life around was gone. It was weakness to cling to him so. She'd never...but she did anyway, sobbing again, exhausted and scared.

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

He caught some of her thoughts. Vague endings to them, the parts she was too exhausted to hide. "The witch from the alley. The murderer. You found her. You'll find the others."

He held her tighter.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She was too tired to block much of anything, and it was a clear symbol of her trust that she hadn't thrown him out and locked the door against him. Granted she was too...something to even consciously recognize that herself.

"If they strike. If...but that...seems rare. Here. That...." People didn't kill as often. "I asked Daemon...no one needs an assassin here...." There weren't even proper Red Moon houses, not that she wanted to go back to that. She'd never cared for it. Despised most of her clients with a cold contempt. She used them as they used her.

She curled into him, cradling her arm, the pain finally starting to bite through the fog in her brain.

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

He looked down at her arm, trying to hide his distress. He knew no healing Craft. Knew few people that did other than the Coven itself. And somehow he doubted Surreal would forgive him for bringing them down on her head. All he could do was lift her up into his lap, and hold her tighter.

"Life changes," he continued talking into her hair, running one hand softly down her back. "That doesn't mean our purpose has to. You just have to stay ready, for when they do strike. Watch, listen. Keep safe those who don't even know they are being kept."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She bit back a whimper at the shift, then rested her head on his shoulder, staring a bit at her arm, finger tracing through the blood, breaking up the clotting on the older cuts, watching it run.

She nodded a little, almost absently, listening to him. She'd known that..sometime. Yesterday? The day before? When had it gotten so blurry? When had she gotten so lost?

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

That was enough of that.

He may not know the healing Craft, but Rainier wasn't about to sit with her in his arms, and actually feel her bleeding out. Securing her tightly, he lifted Surreal up, and headed for the bathroom door. Placing her in the tub, he vanished her clothes and began filling it with water. Carefully controlling the temperature.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her good arm around them, resting the other on top. She was just so tired, and it seemed easier to rest her head there than fight him on it.

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

He rinsed her off quickly, gently cleaning her arm. Tried not to look at how quickly the water turned red. After he was done he turned off the water and lifted her from the tub again, back into his arms. He dried her as best he could, not wanting to make her stand, and then took a lightweight towel and wrapped it tightly around her arm.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She did whimper then, biting it off quickly, sharply, though the pain made spots dance in front of her eyes. She'd done this herself, though she didn't really remember doing it. She should suffer through it.

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

He hated that sound, and ran a reassuring hand across her shoulder. Not sure if he was helping, or hurting. He pressed her against his chest as he carried her to the bed.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She wrapped her free arm around his neck, only letting go when he had her settled on the bed. Even then, her hand trailed down his arm, reaching for his fingers.

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

He sat on the bed next to her, quietly holding her hand while is jaw worked. It was best for Kartane that he was already dead.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to see me like this..."

She had her head turned away, studying the wall, unable to look at him. She wasn't weak. And yet he'd found her like this.