Post by meren on Jun 8, 2006 21:00:08 GMT -5
She was born on the same set of dirty bedsheets she had been concieved upon, a squalling red child completly antinimous to her later nature. Her mother, unaware until just before he stomach began to swell that she carried a child, held her daughter gingerly, almost disdaining to touch the still fluid-covered babe.
“She's a fine set of lungs on her,” the tired midwife said by way of congradulations, packing her valerian and lesser herbs. “You can be proud.”
Thus was born Avelaine of Desquaine into the uncaring world.
She grew, as children are wont to, and learned, as children are aren’t. She learned that she was the prettiest girl in the village by sheer chance and not by direct matrial or patrial lineage. She learned as well that others coveted beauty even as they admired it; the boys were happy to smile at her and dream, but the girls disliked her immensly and pounced on her at whatever chance they got. Inevitably, the dreaded, if somewhat expected, epithet came.
“Changeling!”
“Bastard-get!”
She bore these well, with downcast eyes and solemn acceptance. In a rare moment of reasonability, she rationailzed that she couldn’t change jealousy and she couldn’t work against it. Avelaine of Desquaine calmly accepted the unchanging hate of her female peers through the eight years she lived her life in the backwater hamlet.
When the truths of life has surfaced, Avelaine came to understand that to be alone was safer than to be in a group--- one could sing and dance and make up fables, with no one to laugh or mock or turn things backwards and break their shape. Many a long, sunlit afternoon, when she was able to escape her endless chores and neverending duties, Avelaine was to be found in a tree overhanging the village wash-pond, gravely contemplating the color of the sky or the shape of her leg.
When she was seven, the serene balance she had walked, the many-sided die she had turned began to shift.
Her long hours of contemplation and fantasy were cut short by her mother, now demanding Avelaine help in the kitchen or wash the clothes, tasks previously regulated only to her mother, as the woman of the house. A small part of Avelaine told her that her mother couldn’t possibly be considering selling her into marriage this young, but the rest gave itself to the undeniable fact. On her eighth natale, Avelaine was taken to the village healer-woman, once apprenticed to the midwife who birthed her, a dedicate of Eishieth, for an examination. After an hour of prying and poking and asking obscure questions in the small, hazy room, the woman, worn before her old age, delivered the news.
“She is flawed. Her womb is infertile.”
“Flawed? She’s but eight summers old!” Her mother was furious. Who would pay for a wife unable to bear children?
“It’s uncommon enough, but I know others to suffer the same.”
And that ended the possiblility of marriage.
Avelaine became used to the idea that she was useless in the eyes of her parents--- more so, her mother. Her father worked all day, every day, in the fields allotted them by their local Chevalier. At night, he came home, ate, grunted, and slept. When one afternoon she came home to a strange, comely man in their rude hearth area, she was puzzled. When the man nodded curtly to her mother, eagerly wringing frantic hands, she knew she had been sold somehow.
“You’ve been offered the chance to become a Servant of Naamah,” her mother beamed at her, offering her daughter a kerchief and hurrying her out the door. “It’s well enough, and will keep you fed, child.”
The impassive stranger waited as she tied her hair away under the kerchief and watched her mother walk up the lond dirt footpath, understanding she had been traded, like a mule or a horse. Her parents would would buy their plot of land, and she would sell her body.
Even knowing this, she watched until she could no longer see the crude but sturdy hut she had called home.
“She's a fine set of lungs on her,” the tired midwife said by way of congradulations, packing her valerian and lesser herbs. “You can be proud.”
Thus was born Avelaine of Desquaine into the uncaring world.
She grew, as children are wont to, and learned, as children are aren’t. She learned that she was the prettiest girl in the village by sheer chance and not by direct matrial or patrial lineage. She learned as well that others coveted beauty even as they admired it; the boys were happy to smile at her and dream, but the girls disliked her immensly and pounced on her at whatever chance they got. Inevitably, the dreaded, if somewhat expected, epithet came.
“Changeling!”
“Bastard-get!”
She bore these well, with downcast eyes and solemn acceptance. In a rare moment of reasonability, she rationailzed that she couldn’t change jealousy and she couldn’t work against it. Avelaine of Desquaine calmly accepted the unchanging hate of her female peers through the eight years she lived her life in the backwater hamlet.
When the truths of life has surfaced, Avelaine came to understand that to be alone was safer than to be in a group--- one could sing and dance and make up fables, with no one to laugh or mock or turn things backwards and break their shape. Many a long, sunlit afternoon, when she was able to escape her endless chores and neverending duties, Avelaine was to be found in a tree overhanging the village wash-pond, gravely contemplating the color of the sky or the shape of her leg.
When she was seven, the serene balance she had walked, the many-sided die she had turned began to shift.
Her long hours of contemplation and fantasy were cut short by her mother, now demanding Avelaine help in the kitchen or wash the clothes, tasks previously regulated only to her mother, as the woman of the house. A small part of Avelaine told her that her mother couldn’t possibly be considering selling her into marriage this young, but the rest gave itself to the undeniable fact. On her eighth natale, Avelaine was taken to the village healer-woman, once apprenticed to the midwife who birthed her, a dedicate of Eishieth, for an examination. After an hour of prying and poking and asking obscure questions in the small, hazy room, the woman, worn before her old age, delivered the news.
“She is flawed. Her womb is infertile.”
“Flawed? She’s but eight summers old!” Her mother was furious. Who would pay for a wife unable to bear children?
“It’s uncommon enough, but I know others to suffer the same.”
And that ended the possiblility of marriage.
Avelaine became used to the idea that she was useless in the eyes of her parents--- more so, her mother. Her father worked all day, every day, in the fields allotted them by their local Chevalier. At night, he came home, ate, grunted, and slept. When one afternoon she came home to a strange, comely man in their rude hearth area, she was puzzled. When the man nodded curtly to her mother, eagerly wringing frantic hands, she knew she had been sold somehow.
“You’ve been offered the chance to become a Servant of Naamah,” her mother beamed at her, offering her daughter a kerchief and hurrying her out the door. “It’s well enough, and will keep you fed, child.”
The impassive stranger waited as she tied her hair away under the kerchief and watched her mother walk up the lond dirt footpath, understanding she had been traded, like a mule or a horse. Her parents would would buy their plot of land, and she would sell her body.
Even knowing this, she watched until she could no longer see the crude but sturdy hut she had called home.