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_/]

He smiled at her touch, a subtle one to let her know it pleased him. Then he went back to wrapping her arm. As tight as possible, before it would hurt her.

"You're welcome."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She winced just a touch at the tightness, but knew it was necessary.

"You've done this before?"

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

"Mmmmm?" He finished wrapping her arm, securing the end of the bandage. "Yes."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"For whom?" She watched him, curious.

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

"My father occasionally," he offered. Hr had only used a Healer when absolutely nessecery. "Myself."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She smiled a bit. "Tell me about your father?"

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

"He was a fighter too," he offered, running one hand softly over her arm. "Bruises."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"A price for the endeavor, I suppose," she said with a rueful smile. "Were you close?"

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

"We were close," he said simply, pulling her back into his lap. "I was close with both my parents."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She snuggled down in his lap and rewarded him with a soft kiss of thanks for the bandage.

"Are they still in Dharo?" She rested her head on his shoulder, pressing another kiss to his neck. The whole topic made her a bit edgy. The daughter of the Harpy Queen and Dorothea SaDiablo, who happened to be known openly to have been a whore, and a very accomplished one, was not exactly the sort of girl most aristo families wanted in their son's lives. Then she blushed at the thought that she might be at all interested in being in his life on a level his mother might object to.

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

"They're still there," he nodded. Pushing and loving and running from each other, as always. "We see each other faily often."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She smiled a little. "That's good. You should see them, if you're close. Are they...together?"

In her world, at least, couples often weren't so many years later, but she'd noted things seemed different in Kaeleer, at least between those of the shorter lived races.

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

Rainier laughed at that, and smiled. "They are as much together as they have ever been. And ever will be."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She frowned a little at that. "What do you mean?"

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

"I mean that they are very different." He smiled thinking of his parents. "With very different expectations out of life. And they are very good at pushing each other, poking and prodding." It dawned on Rainier just how much he had learned at a very early age about such things. "And that sometimes they appreciate it. And sometimes they do not."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She made a face at him, thoughts echoing his. "You learned well," she teased.

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

He laughed again, into her hair.

"I was just thinking the same thing."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"How long have they been poking and prodding at each other?" She teased her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck.

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

"For over fifty years now," he offered, knowing it would seem nothing to her. "At least the best of it."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She smiled at that, impressed even though the years were few for her. Her fingers stroked his hand, his arm.

"Are they wed, or is he her Consort?"

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

"They are married." Why he was smiling he could not even say. But he was. "It adds so many layers to the pushing, and the snarling."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She nodded. "I would imagine it would..." Still playing idly with his hand, she was quiet, thinking.

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

"They were kind enough to leave very little up to my imagination."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She shot him an inquiring look.

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

"I just mean that they didn't hide their pushing and snarling from childish ears."