Chapter 7: Birthright

Chapter Seven: Birthright (Edited)

Fire crackled and coals shifted in the sandstone hearth.  The light wore thin even as the aroma of woodsmoke and seafood intensified as the evening wore on. On the table were two plates with numerous empty shells and one very dismembered and utterly delicious remains of a red lobster. The lingering scent of roasted shellfish, rice, and the very limited spices we had left filled the air as fire filled the room with a dancing light along the periphery.

Part of me almost felt decadent. We had not saved one mussel or lobster for tomorrow, or later. Every last scrap we’d gathered today had been eaten. Even Mom had eaten a little more than usual. If anything, Mom had egged me on to eat more. 

“Feeling full, Gwen?” Mom asked.

I nodded sleepily, my belly enjoyably stretched.  “Stuffed,” I murmured. I felt sluggish, my body reluctant to move from my spot. My eyes began to drift closed.  A nap sounded lovely about now.

“No space for dessert?” A bag’s rustling echoed throughout the room.

My eyes snapped open.

Mom was holding a candy wrapper that had my tail ramrod straight and eyes fixated on an image of chocolates bathed in a minty green wave. Proudly printed on it were the words, ‘Magister Monty’s Mint Drops’.

I’d had candy twice in this life. Both were taken over what felt like a year ago.

“I was saving this for a special occasion, but if you don’t want any…” Mom trailed off.

I stood up, and felt myself instinctually wiggling as I judged optimal pouncing positions. Mom laughed and opened the package, taking a handful for herself before handing me the rest.

I won’t deny, I may have made rabid velociraptor noises in the ensuing minute as I devoured the sweet treats. I didn’t even like chocolates in my previous life all that much, but something about my life here made them taste so much better than I could ever recall.

A delicious, if sadly ephemeral eternity later, the candy was gone, and Mom was patting my cheeks with a cloth. This time, I really did feel sleep calling me, but Mom’s gentle voice pulled me back.

“No, Gwen, not yet.” Mom flicked my ears. I opened my eyes to see Mom’s eyes glinting in the fire’s light.  I huffed. I wasn’t tired. “Come, sit with me by the fire.” Mom said.

“Do you know why we ate so freely tonight, sweetie?” Mom asked as I sat before her.

I shook my head. “You said we were going to do something special, but hadn’t said what was special about today,” I told her. If some accusation was in my words, then I could hardly be blameless. She’d told me that in the morning hours ago and I hadn’t forgotten.

Mom looked pained. “Indeed I did. Today is a special day. Today marks the fifth anniversary of your birth,” she said.

Wait, it was my birthday? But, we’d never even celebrated it before, how did she—

“We shouldn’t… well, being here… it’s not ideal, I don’t have the tools, I don’t have the resources, I don’t have the support I should, the family we should. It’s just us out here, Gwennie,” Mom said, her tones low as she her firsts tight. “I’ve held off on this rite. I’ve…I’ve wronged you, Gwen, and I don’t think you even know how,” Mom explained, telling me so much and nothing at all at once.  “When…if — no, when you are older,” she said, hissing in emphasis, “You… you’ll have reason to hate me, I think.”

I was confused. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I wasn’t dumb, I knew our situation wasn’t right, but this just raised far more questions than I had answers.

How could she have even wronged me? She held me, gave me love, cared for me, and more when I was helpless, taught me my first words in this world, and gave me a start that, if it wasn’t ideal, then it was more than acceptable.

It didn’t take much further deliberation before I stepped up to her and hugged her waist. She briefly stiffened, before hugging me back.

She ran her hand through my hair. “I held off, far longer than I should,” Mom explained, telling me nothing I understood. “But, I can see now, I was waiting for things to change, for help to arrive, but it’s just us two, now. I’ve wasted too much time. It is time you were recognized,” she said. 

She pulled a dagger from a sheath on her belt. I stiffened at the sight and felt the slightest race of worry pulse through me.

Unlike the ones she used for hunting and foraging, this one remained pristine, like she’d just gotten it out of the factory, or had just polished it.   She pointed to the hearth. “This will take a bit. Wait here,” she ordered.

I blinked but hesitantly followed her instructions. It wasn’t a place I normally sat unless I was really cold as was too close to the fire to be comfortable, surging past warmth and into hot territory just short of searing. But I trusted Mom.

Nonetheless, I felt my body beginning to sweat to the crackle of flames that seemed more intense than before.

Mom rummaged on a nearby work table before coming to sit before me with a bowl full of liquid. I immediately noticed something off.

“Mom,” I said, hair standing on end. Her hand had a rough cloth wrapped around it, already stained with blood.

“It’s fine, Gwen,” Mom said. “It’s part of the ritual, and I can take it.” Her words felt airy, almost dual toned beneath a deeper sound that reminded me of a growl heard only by people who walk dim lit roads in the dead of night. “Tonight, I will give you my family’s crest.”

Her words sent a chill down my back. Her words… her words weren’t normal. They felt dense. My eyes shot around the room. Even the shadows seemed deeper than I remembered while the flame burned brighter.

I felt my ears folding, but she didn’t comfort me. She just mixed the bowl full of something viscous. I held my tail. She paused, if only a second, but resumed mixing the bowl.

She dipped her fingers into the bowl, finger tips coming away red. She brought them to my face. I flinched, closing my eyes.

“Look, Gwen, open your eyes,” Mom said.  I opened my eyes to see Mom’s face close to mine, so close I could feel her warmth. “I will always care for you, my little miracle,” she said. “Give me your hand.”

It was a command and a plea. Outside, the wind wailed, kept only barely muffled by thick sandstone walls that I now felt were keeping something out. The fire moved closer. I raised my hand.

My mother began to paint. As her brush moved, a strange energy filled the air and made all my hair from my paws to the back of my neck stand on end.

I don’t know how long she painted. She seemed focused upon it in a way I had trouble understanding. Everytime I thought she’d just covered my hand she worked on it more, adding patterns within patterns. I felt like I could only see the surface of what she had painted: an enclosed circle with a spiral sigil inside I didn’t recognize from any of our grammar lessons. It almost looked like an emerging, skeletal hand.

At times I felt almost like interrupting, asking what she was doing, but always hesitated in the end. The air felt too stiff, and interrupting felt… wrong, somehow.

Slowly, she moved up my arm, tracing a path only she knew. I glanced and felt a surge of excitement. Her eyes were glowing. They weren’t orbs of emerald fire, but they were like an everwatchful gleam from a distant star.

She finished tracing my bare arm, went over my shoulder, and came to my face. Then, with almost shockingly easy movements compared to the strenuous focused detail of her other lines, painted two lines across first one cheek, then the other.

I felt something shift, like a lock moving into place. My skin tingled with a faint burning sensation. All of the markings receded, taking with them the burning sensation, barring the one on my hand and I think those on my face.

For the first time in a long while, Mom spoke. I didn’t know the words. I don’t think Mom knew, either.  They felt familiar, but rougher, almost archaic to what we spoke. Yet, they were intelligible.

“To the first queen of the hunt, I stand before you as the last of my line. I, Eliza of House Mor, engrave my crest upon my daughter, Gweneth, and welcome her into my House with all honors.  Let her be recognized in the Halls of our ancestors forever more.”

Mom looked so happy. She gently stroked my cheek. I leaned into her touch even as my body felt odd, yet the warmth of her hand was so reassuring I couldn’t bring myself to worry about what was going on.

She collapsed.

I screamed.

~~~

Days later…

Mom still wasn’t awake.

I did what I could to make her comfortable. She was too heavy for me to drag back to her bed, so  instead I brought our bedding to her. I did manage to somewhat roll her away from the fire, but that was the best I could manage.

I put a gray pillow under her head, and a thin blanket over her body. I brushed her hair out of her face so it wouldn’t bother her in her sleep, and tried to tuck in the blanket around her as best I could. I then sat nearby, arms over my knees, gaze trained on Mom in the dying light of the fire and waited.

I waited a long time.

Waiting wasn’t easy. In my old life, I’d never had patience, even if I did master the art of lazing around while putting off work.

In this life, when I wasn’t sleeping, my body wanted to move. I just felt so energetic sometimes that I wanted to sprint from place to place, run around, jump, play, do something, anything, to burn off some of that endless wellspring of energy.

It was so bizarre to feel this much motivation to move around and feel jittery if I didn’t, yet I stayed nearby, gaze locked onto my mom’s face.

Fear gnawed at me. I pictured it like a worm.

Except, it wasn’t one of those cute little earthworms. Instead, it was like the parasites I remember seeing pictures of in my previous life, long, squirmy, and lined with teeth. It squirmed inside me, wiggling, shifting through my belly to my chest, keeping me unsettled even as I remain trained on Mom. At some point, the worm became two.Sometimes they would bite at my belly  in surges of anxiety, like it was sampling me in short bursts of cold waves spreading throughout my body.

Imagining it helped. It let me visualize things, and visualization always helped.  It was easy enough to identify why. This was the first time in my life I truly felt alone.

I couldn’t wake Mom up.

She was the first person I’d seen in my new life. She was there to stroke my hair, to hold me when I was cold, to play tag with me, to show me the basics of a language any linguist back on Earth would murder to sample, and far, far more. She was the towering pillar in my life, a beacon of stability even when I was too small to move on my own.

Now she was unconscious and wouldn’t wake up.

At some point I tended to the fire. Mom usually handled it, but we had some logs ready so I tossed them in and stoked the flames. I eventually had to go relieve myself, but I was back as fast as I could. I felt a brief ray of excitement when I came back, thinking Mom had surely woken up in the five minutes I was gone, but that didn’t happen. She hadn’t even shifted. I could barely tell she was breathing.

I sat back down and waited.

I stared at my hand. More specifically, the new thing on my right hand.

It looked like an artist's surrealist impression of a flower trapped inside a golden circle if I squinted. I compared it to the one on Mom’s hand, and saw they were very similar, if different. Hers had many more petals than mine did. What even were they? Mom had said a crest, so it was likely related to our family, but I couldn’t say much beyond that. Mom was horribly reluctant to talk about other people even though there had to be more. It wasn’t like she’d just woken up here on this island. We had to come from somewhere.

I could’ve sworn there’d been more markings, but everything seemed to have faded back to just the markings on my hand.  I looked back at Mom. She didn’t look peaceful or content. She was almost perfectly still.

My breath quickened before I made myself slow down.

I didn’t want to be alone.

The realization wasn’t anything new. I don’t think anyone wanted to be alone, in this life or my old one. Yet, there was a sharp difference, even going beyond situations.

 In my old world, I craved company on occasion but could be fine for long periods of time alone, even needing some time to myself more often than not. Here, I might have additional perspective and knowledge compared to someone my age, but I still had the body of a little girl. Just a few hours with Mom out of action left me nervous, stressed and jittery. I wanted to hug her and to have her run her hand through my hair. She was the only person on this entire island. She was the only person I’d seen since Mr. Muscles.

She was the only family I had.

I felt my breath catch.  I tried to hold back an emotional breakdown, and failed. I should have been better.

I wasn’t.

I cried until I couldn’t, and eventually fell asleep.

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Chapter Seven: Author’s Note

This chapter is, ironically, where I think Eliza fully came into being as her own character for me. I had her backstory down, a lot of world building and such, but I think this is where I finally got completely in tune with her as a character, and it ended up being a lot more emotional than I expected.

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