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Morrigan

I come from a time before there were Tyrants. Before Lords and Princes and Courtiers. A time when you were either one of the powerful or one of the dead.

I remember the steppes.

The earth under my beaded soles is dry. I touch it so seldom with my own flesh. It is odd... how do I know that it is brittle before my knee or fingers break the fine crust. Fine grains fall when I crush one of the wafers. Dun colored and duller than my horse's coat. This is not the earth I feel through the pounding beat of my mount's stride. Where is the throbing rhythm? The grains feel less smooth against my cheek, pressed to the dust and fragments. I can see the yellow grass sneaking between the cracks. If I crush its stem its life will continue, deep under the hard layers. There is life. I cannot touch it with my hands or cheek.

I rise and brush the dust from my face. How can they talk of the sun and sky as the givers of life? They are wrong. It is so easy to see that they are wrong.


The "breath of god" they say. Can't they see the earth at their feet, dead, stripped of health by the winds and baked lifeless by the sun? They moan in agony to the sky, begging the sun to be mercyful, to shine less harshly on their fields. Can they really be that stupid? Would they ever think to look below their feet for the prosperity they crave?


Stupid and wrong, asking the forces of death to grant them life.


What do I expect? Wisdom? From farmers... unlikely.

I have a memory of the isle, when I was younger than I have ever been. Of deerberries and sunshine and the dear old stones.

I crush the waxy skin of the berries between my teeth. Remorseless, I savage the handful. The first taste of the juice is so sweet my teeth ache and I laugh at the new sensation. I grin up at my aunt, glowing with the knowledge of my own cuteness. She laughs and strokes my head, fingers lingering in the dark curls at my nape as her eyes drift to somewhere far off. "When will the baby be born?" I say. That's what she was thinking of, I know it, then giggle at my imputence.


She smiles, then sighs and looks at me with warmth. "Soon" she says. I wonder what he'll look like, golden and bright like her or somehow different, like the father I'd never seen. My tummy flutters and I scratch to calm the hairs on the back of my neck.


"Will I get to play with him?" I ask.


She looks at me with dull eyes, then her grin lights her face as she crouches down to me and points across the meadow. "Look, Morganna, a baby deer."


I twirl and grasp my hands to my mouth to stifle a squeel of delight. A baby deer!

I remember the taste of my sire's blood, sweet and warm against my tongue, wild and powerful in my heart.

The dark puddle crawls across the handpainted tiles.


What a waste. "Kragar, clean that up. Store it for later, it may be useful." He approaches the body and freezes when it twitches, its fingers grasping, smearing the spreading stain.


"What? Not dead yet?" I murmur as I gesture a web of light into being.


The shrunken corpse crackles and smokes in the glare, falling to dust. As Kragar moves toward it with jar and scoop I turn aside, manicured fingertip stroking away the last trace of vitae from my lip. "There we go, all tucked in now my love."

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