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 wrapped her arms around him, kissing him back, sliding one leg up his.

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

He explored her mouth with care, finding more of her, some of himself, and a lingering taste of cream.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

There was somthing lazily gentle about it all and she settled into the kiss, further into the bed, welcoming his weight above her.

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

"I'm growing rather fond of this bed," he observed, a hand tracing the curve of her hip.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"It's a good bed," she said with a smile, fingers sliding down his back.

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

He smirked.

For all her protests about treating the house as her own, she was doing a fine job of it.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She nipped at his lower lip. "What's the smirk for?"

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

"You like it here," he drawled, mouth close to her ear.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"I never said I didn't like it here, sugar," she drawled back, nibbling along his jaw.

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

"And you are treating like your own."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She narrowed her eyes at him, catching the drift of his thoughts. "Well, I figured out how to make a bedroom mine a while ago..."

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

"Not a bedroom." He teased at the corner of her mouth. "This bedroom."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"It was a guest room...it didn't seem to be intruding to make it mine..." She turned her head to tease back with the tip of her tongue.

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

"Yes," he replied from the direction of her shoulder. "But I do not see another guest staying in here anytime in the near future."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"No..." She ran a hand down his spine, nipped at his ear. "It's mine, now."

If she meant more than the bedroom, he'd have to guess.

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

"Pocessive wench."

The accusation was warm. Proud.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She smiled and nipped his ear.

"You have no idea..."

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

Forget bedroom eyes.

His said -- show me.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She gave him an amused smile and thought that he'd see possessive the first time some bitch looked at him wrong. But for now, she wound her fingers in his hair, holding him close and kissed him with all the possessiveness she could muster.

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

She could muster quite a bit.

Rainier practicaly growled his pleasure.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She smiled briefly against his lips, then rolled him, settling on top.

*Mine...*

Her fingers, stroking over him, made it clear that she was not talking about the bedroom.

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

He laughed outloud, then kissed her deeply again.

*I'm not arguing.*

For once.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She felt a little thrill at that, tinged with a bit of fear, too. This hadn't gone so well last time, and until now she'd been able to say this was just a bit of fun. But the sheer fury she felt at the thought of someone else...

She pulled back a bit to look at him, eyes a touch troubled, nervous. None of the fearlessness she faced battle with.

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

*But now I am concerned.*

He had caught the look in her eyes. Lifting both of his hands, he cradled her face in them for a moment before moving to push her hair back gently.

*What is wrong?*

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She gave him a slightly self-deprecating smile. "I've...only done this once, sugar. It didn't go well."