Today’s snippet, titled “Only The Gods Can Say”, is a background piece I wrote about my new character, Temerith Noor.
      Be forewarned, there may be mature themes and naughty language below.

– – – – – – – – – – –
      Even as it gestated in her womb, Calica Noor knew this child was different.
      She felt such release as she bore down one last time, a throaty, feral sound clawing its way from her throat. And then the growl rose to a shriek; agony a thousand times worse than anything she had experienced before shredding along every nerve. The wail went on and on and then, though it felt like her very soul had been ripped from her body, it died.
      “A girl,” the mid-wife said, helping the slippery infant emerge into the world. “At last, my friend, you have your daug-”
      After six sons, Calica and her husband, Nedren, had prayed fervently for a girl. The mid-wife’s sudden silence was a knife to heart. Exhausted and terrified, she gripped the bar hanging down from the ceiling with both hands. Struggling to right herself, Calica sought Heloise’s eyes. Her voice was a croak, each syllable a struggle.
      “What? What is wrong? Is she living?”
      Heloise turned her back to the birthing bed.
      “Tell me! Tell me what’s wrong!”
      “My love? Calica!” Nedren’s anxiety was palpable through the thin door. His fists thudded against the wood. “Heloise, speak to me! What has happened?”
      There was only silence.
      The mid-wife had delivered half-a-thousand babies in her many years. A great many were stillborn or died soon after birth. A few were malformed or appeared to be twins, flesh entwined. But none – not a single one in all the hundreds she had attended – was quite like this.
      The infant was fair – nearly colorless. Not the blue-tinged complexion of one starved for air on the way down the birth canal, but almost silver in her absolute paleness. Stranger still, her eyes were not clouded as a newborn’s were, but sharp as glass and an unusual orange-gold hue. The downy tuft of hair on her head was thicker than most, but not especially queer on its own. Still, the way it came to a point in the center of her forehead and then tailed down the back of her neck and along her spine until it was barely a whisper was not normal.
      The worst was the inhuman nub that protruded from the base of her spine. It wriggled as she kicked her legs and shook her tiny fists.
      Her face had gone slightly rosy with rage. Conflicted, Heloise hesitated. It would be best to take the awful little beast out into the fields and give it to the Gods; to have a priest cleanse the house and pray over Calica’s next pregnancy; to bite her tongue and speak to no one about what she had seen.
      “Heloise! Speak to me, Heloise! Damn you, woman, speak now!”
      “Stifle, Ned!” She shook her head. The little thing was trying desperately to suck in a breath, grunting and snuffling and struggling. She was a fighter. For good or ill, Heloise could not bring herself to be so ruthless. Flipping the child upside down, Heloise thumped her feet twice and then used her index finger to clear mucus from her mouth.
      The child squalled, long and loud, and Heloise crossed to the door, unbarring it.
      “Come in, Ned. Sit with your wife.It is time for you to meet your daughter.”
      Calica was pale from loss of blood and Nedren could not care less for the child, his concern for his wife was so great. He cradled her in his arms, glancing to the door where six curious boys peeked around the corner.
      “Is she all right, Heloise? Will she be all right?”
      The mid-wife gave a shrug and he could see that she was busily washing the child with a sponge from the basin. Heloise chose an obsidian blade from her selection of tools and murmured a prayer as she cut the umbilical cord and tied it off with dyed string.
      “Calica will be fine, she suffered in the delivery, but there appeared to be only normal bleeding.” Heloise turned, gently wrapping the babe in the same felted blanket her six brothers had been named in. “The baby… that only the Gods can say.”
* * *
      Temerith Noor was tormented by six elder brothers and mercilessly shunned by all the other children of the village. It never seemed fair to her; that she should suffer just because great-great-grandfather Gerra had let his wife, a reknowned beauty, be fucked by a demon in exchange for wealth untold. The money ran out before the ink was dry and legend had it that great-great-grandmother Tamia had never quite been the same.
      It wasn’t her fault that she had weird pale skin and golden owl-like eyes. The razor-sharp fangs which had grown in after she lost her baby teeth – those were not her idea. For years, she had endured lacerated tongue and bloody lips. And she sure as Hell had not asked for the weird prehensile tail that had started as thumb-sized bony growth and sprouted into a four foot long whip when she hit puberty.
      Eventually, at a pace much slower than her siblings and the other children, Temerith matured into an adult. Her mind was quick and her body agile; she never developed much in the way of charm, but her womanly curves and the seductive twist of her ruby-red lips seemed to serve her just fine. The wariness she learned from a childhood dodging punches and sticks helped her grow into an able fighter; formal training would come later, as her wanderlust took her from a small village in the southern wastes to the largest metropolises in the land.
      Years passed, her reputation grew, and her fascination with magic items was insatiable. When her valet, Abigail, served her an invitation on a silvered platter one night as they sailed upon calm seas in the Violet Widow, Temerith knew she had no choice but to go. Life was short (even when it was long), danger was tantalizing, and at the moment, her cash was somewhat… limited.
      “Set a course for Korvosa, Captain Riggs. We’re going to the Breaching Festival this year.”

NOTE: Image is “Sailing Boat 1” by Ambrozio from SXC.hu