"No!" The echo of his own protest rang in his ears. Sweat streamed down his flanks, soaking the ragged bedding binding his arms. Then the familiar nausea cramped his gut. The sheet gave way with a snarl of over stressed threads and Dio barely made it to the chamber pot in time.
"Ye sound like a breeding wench!" His older bother, Sarrian mocked from the doorway.
"Get out of here." Dio pushed his hair back with one hand. It was shaking so badly he nearly poked his eye out.
"Ma wants ye." Sarrian's scorn only made Dio's stomach turn over again. "Says something about needing a girl's hand with the wash."
"Sarica's still here." Dio scrubbed the tears from his eyes. Tears of both shame and anger at Sarrian's harsh words.
"She's no girl." Sarrian's heavy footsteps shook the worn floorboards. As tall as any grown man, he'd been working in the fields for the past three years, threatening at any moment to run away for the big city, as so many others have done over the years. Run away and never be heard from again. To Dio, this sounded like an excellent idea. If he never saw Sarrian again in his life it would be too soon.
"Neither am I!" If his head weren't spinning so badly, he'd have turn on his brother and given him what for. As it was, he tried and nearly landed on his face.
"Pretty little blond human." Sarrian yanked Dio's head back by his hair. "Have the hair for it." He sneered, holding Dio's head up by the far too convenient handle. "I should cut it all off."
"No," Dio managed to pull away, gathering his long, now tangled hair in his hands. "I'll be there. Just go and let me wake up."
"Finish puking your guts up is more like it." Sarrian scoffed.
"What difference does it make to you?" Dio pulled out the makeshift brush he'd cobbled together from the old boar bristles he'd scavenged from last fall's desperate struggle to slaughter and put up enough meat to last the winter, and a bit of deobar he'd found lying on the forest floor. It worked well enough, he supposed.
"Uncle Justin isn't here to protect you anymore." Sarrian's dark eyes bore into his. "Changeling." He shoved Dio back onto his butt.
Dio flushed, feeling his scalp tingle with the blood rushing to his skin.
"Yer as pretty as a girl."
"Get out!" Dio threw the brush, and missed, of course. It shattered into countless pieces against the far wall.
"I'll tell ma yer jacking off in here again, dreaming of your boyfriends." Sarrian's threat was well placed, as always. As quickly as he could, Dio braided up his calf length hair and struggled into an ancient, well patched pair of breeches and an old wool tunic. His only shirt was so filthy, now, it could have stood on its own. A cold breeze trickled through the oilcloth window, eating at the bare skin beneath the scratchy wool.
"No wonder you have to take it and can't dish it out." Sarrian shoved him backwards again. Dio stumbled and cracked his head on the wall. "You're useless." Sarrian snorted. "Won't even put out for me."
"You're my brother." Dio shook the stars from his head and tried not to throw up again.
"Uncle Justin was our mother's brother." Sarrian grabbed his face.
"That's different." Sweat streamed down his sides beneath the loose laces. Dio remembered Uncle Justin very well, and not just because he'd shown Dio what sex really was, but because he'd listened, not just talked. Now Dio wished he'd listened better to Justin's stories about the world outside the little town of Cliff's Edge, high up in the Dragonspire mountains, where Dio'd grown up.
"Oh?" Sarrian's smile turned even nastier. "Ivanovich."
"Fuck you!" Dio growled, hating the reminder of his bastardy.
"Uncle Justin could be your father."
"I hate you!"
"I don't care." Sarrian ground his hips into Dio's abused gut. His muscles locked and he gagged, again.
"Yeah, a breeding bitch, just like our whore of a mother."
"Get out of here." The woman they both called mother hissed from the doorway.
"I'm just playing, ma." Sarrian turned. His muscles flexed, rousing Dio's interest and his disgust at the same time. He crumpled to his knees.
"You have work to do."
"Yes, ma." The insolence in his voice was unmistakable.
"Sarica's missing."
Dio's head snapped up at this. More tears, this time of loss as well as shame burned his eyes. He'd sworn, over and over he'd never cry again, but each time he failed.
"Good for nothing whore." Sarrian snorted.
"Get to work." Then she only made things worse. "Dio needs to pull himself together. I can't have you ruining our only healer. He's useless for anything else, unlike the rest of us."
Dio pushed back the stray wisp of hair that always seemed to manage to escape confinement when he had his hands full. The sun had come out at last, and between it and the fire under the laundry cauldron, he was plenty warm in only his ragged pants.
"You're certainly no healer." The woman, mounted on a mule in one of those horrible side chairs glared down at him.
"A healer has no reason to do laundry?" He pulled out one particularly bloodstained shirt. It wasn't his, unfortunately, belonging to his beloved and long gone mentor, but it did almost still fit across his shoulders, even if it did sag in front, garnering even more stains on a bad day.
"You're male." She snorted and the whey faced young woman leading the mule turned it away. Shame tightened Dio's skin to the breaking point. He shoved the old shirt back into the wash water and leaned on the heavy oak paddle. The cauldron rocked alarmingly on the tripod. He blinked at it and stopped pushing so hard. This last winter he'd seen tremendous changes in his own body, but he hadn't thought they'd been quite this extreme.
"Dio?" Melissa tugged on his braid. Anyone else would have gotten a sharp word. Dio spun around and grabbed her, ending up tossing her high in the air. The little girl was an absolute delight, no one's child and everyone's, but always with a smile.
"Whatcha need?" Dio gave her a resounding smooch on the cheek. She giggled and put her arms around his neck. Then almost didn't reach. He looked over her shoulder to see Herdsman Crofter scowling at them both. Dio stared back, even as he patted Melissa's back.
"Gotta mule to cut." Crofter flicked his chin towards the largest of the three communal barns.
"Why didn't you do it last fall?" Dio pushed the wash away from the fire and scrubbed his hands on scrap of sacking tucked into the rope holding up his pants, or well, trying too with at least minimal success. One of the many changes he'd noticed these last months was a definite tendency for anything not firmly attached to his hips to escape to his ankles, with usually awkward results, if not always.
"He was a ridgeling." Crofter snorted, as if Dio could care one copper about the various farm animals, other than as they took him away from helping people and his family, such as it was. "Couldn't do it before the balls came down."
"Oh, no, then you'd owe me more than maybe a couple pounds of oats." Dio pulled the hooked blade down from the wall and ran it over the whetstone a few times. It was plenty sharp. He'd done a round of calves earlier and a couple of the early mule foals, before the testicles returned to the body, like anyone with a brain would have done. "Where is he?"
"Its Blackie." The man pointed to the far stall. A large, massively built mule stood in the corner, unhaltered, unrestrained in any way, calmly munching on a stack of the best hay from last season. He was a fine animal, still shaggy from winter, but looking to put on a lot of weight this coming year. One long ear flicked back in Dio's direction.
Dio hated castrating animals, particularly the larger ones. "I don't have all day."
"You're no one to be giving orders." Crofter towered over him, but not by as much last fall, or in the dark at night.
"We're not alone." Dio reminded him, as quietly as he could. Crofter turned crimson, his flush of shame spreading down past his collar. "Put him in the stocks for me and pay me well, Crofter."
Crofter's eyes flicked to Melissa, standing still innocent in the doorway.
"Or everyone will know."
"Fucking bastard." He yanked the stall door open. His return flight across the barn was just as impressive, particularly with the two, u-shaped marks on his chest.
"No, I'm the one who's fucked." Dio murmured under his breath, then got his temper back in check. Making soft chirring sounds to the young mule, he slipped a soft halter on him. Blackie protested being led away from his dinner, so Dio brought an armful with him. From the looks of it, Crofter'd mounted Dio more than he'd ever mounted any equine. In fits and starts, Dio finally got the animal in the stocks and one hind leg up, the one nearest him.
"I don't think you want to watch this, sweetie." Dio waved Melissa away.
"She stays." Crofter met Dio's gaze squarely. Dio'd shamed Crofter in front of a child, now this was his revenge.
"Then so do you." As always, Dio's own balls tried to hide in his gut as he braced for the first cut. It was always the hardest. When Dio's knife cut through the first layer of skin, however, Crofter passed out, the heavy thump of his body hitting the floor almost louder than the mule's panicked scream.
"You know if Missus Crofter wants the offal?" Dio pulled out the first testicle and cut it off with a quick swipe, not wanting to prolong the poor animal's torment any longer than absolutely necessary.
"I don't think so." Melissa craned her head around so she could see better. Dio debated with himself sending her away, but she too could do a lot of the work he did, if something happened to him. And from the looks of it, she'd not have Dio's squeamishness about such things. Of course not having balls herself, it was probably no where near as horrifying to watch.
"Ok then," Dio threw it to the dogs who were always sniffing around the place. A second pull and cut, and the deed was done. He released the mule's leg and it stood, shocky and shaking, but the bleeding already slowing as it healed quickly, as all young animals do. Dio put one bloody hand on the animal's quivering shoulder. "You'll be fine, pretty one, just stand and rest for a bit. Blackie turned his head as far as it would go in the stocks and nuzzled Dio's shoulder.
He really was a fine animal, who did not deserve a man like Crofter for a master. With mules, it was always best to cut them as soon as possible, often times within hours of their birth. Easier for mule and man. Dio stroked Blackie's muzzle in return, with his cheek, which didn't smell of blood.
It was the time when night matched day, when winter was officially over and spring began. Dio looked down at the tiny, defenseless infant in his arms with a wonder not unmatched by horror.
"A little girl, stillborn." The vile witch known only as Mercy Dalya told young Tara. Parentless, husbandless, of course there was no way she could raise a child, but this was pure cruelty. The tiny babe suckled as Dio's fingers, struggling against impossible odds, despite her obvious good health.
Tara cried out, again, as she had with her birthing pains, but this time in sorrow, not the hopeful anguish of a new beginning. Dio ran, the babe still damp from her mother's body. He'd killed before, but always in mercy, when the mother had made it clearly known she couldn't care for the child. Tara had been radiant, cheerful, joyous in her desire for a child, despite the hardships she had to know would be in store for her.
Dio did not care for children, not truly, and had no desire for children of his own. He'd seen the life go out of too many unfocused blue eyes when he gave them poppy syrup to suckle on rather than their mother's milk. But, he also knew, the Mercy would not have tolerated any contradiction to her words. The child was dead, even though it still breathed and struggled to live.
He stripped off his soft, well worn shirt, now let out to accommodate his ever expanding shoulders and wrapped the child in its folds. There was an altar to the faery folk deep in the woods, but close enough he could still find it, blinded as he was by unshed tears.
The soft dusk, the time of magic and change wrapped around him. Twilight threw long shadows across the tiny clearing. The black altar, shining with the first faint reflection of Katamba's inky darkness stood alone, bare, and thankfully clean. A cleric had been by here lately, looking for devotion in one of their many quests, or so it was said.
With the last of their poppy syrup gone, and no hope for more with the Mercy in the village, there was little Dio could do but place the child on the altar. He prayed as he'd never done before.
"Please, Eylhaar, hear my crude words and give ear to the child awaiting your true mercy." He knelt at the altar, stroking the slick obsidian with one hand. "I have no gifts to bring you, other than my devotion to you and all the gods of these lands." He bowed his head, hoping the goddess of merciful death could take pity on such a one as this child, already outside the world of men, but not yet truly dead.
Instead, a great black heron stalked from the rushes at the edge of the river. Lambent gold eyes shone beneath the inky plumage, shining in the twilight. "Will you give her to me?"
"Anything," Dio's heart caught in his throat. He'd never met even a true cleric, not simply one of the teachers who taught all children their basic letters and figures, much less an avatar of a god.
"Anything?" A tall, impossibly beautiful young man stood before him, with hair as black as the great altar and eyes so deep blue they rivaled the blue moon, Xibar.
Dio opened his mouth and nothing fell out but his tongue.
"You are a very pretty young man. Your child?" He indicated the little girl with a long fingered hand, well worn from sword, drumstick and pen, from the looks of it. Dio's loins tightened in a way he'd never, ever known before in his life. This wasn't lust, this was insanity.
"I see not." The young man's throaty chuckle only drove Dio's madness hotter. "You are mine, Diomid."
Dio bowed his head to the ground, the moss soft as silk beneath his cheek.
"This child can not be yours, not with the gift you present Me." The rumble of great drums beat in Dio's ears and on the wind from the man's voice. "I will take your gift and leave the child."
With a force of will Dio'd never dreamed himself capable, he straightened. His clothes had vanished, what little there'd been of him, and he was bare.
"I am Idon, dark shadow of the fae." His blue eyes blazed in the deepening twilight. "How dare you defy Me?"
Now Dio recognized him, and shook all over.
"She is Yours, great Heron, a child of Midsummer and get of Your loins."
Idon threw back his head and laughed, the moonlight spilling over his throat and caressing his perfect skin, now as bare as Dio's.
A tall, slender figure arose from the shadows. With eyes like the night sky, and skin as white as new milk, Eylhaar slipped the babe from the shabby cloth swaddling her. The goddess loosened the ties of her shirt and gave the child suck on one long breast. Immediately the babe went slack, at peace, dead.
A shiver went up Dio's spine, to join the unholy lust coursing through his veins. The combination both scared him witless and aroused him even more. Idon brought Dio to his feet with one burning hot hand. "I accept." His gaze held Dio trapped, bottomless and timeless.
Mercy Dalya stepped out from the shadows. "I've been looking for you."
Still drunk with pleasure from Idon's unholy touch, Dio didn't flinch away from her gaze this time.
"Our little mule is long overdue for his trim." She slapped the gelding knife against her off hand.
"You can't harm me." Dio wasn't bluffing, he hoped.
"I can." Herdsman Crofter stepped out from his front stoop.
"As can I." His own mother held out her hand for the knife.
"You're sworn to Hodierna." Dio backed himself against the building, where he'd spent countless hours, both courting death and scorning her kisses. Tonight, with Eylhaar's actual visage still burned in his brain, he knew how sweet her kisses could be.
"And you're a mule long past gelding."
"I am a man." Dio felt the dampness of Idon's spending still wetting his thighs, and burning like the sweetest vodka in his blood.
"No man can heal." Mercy Dalya's scornful glance burned his skin.
"No man can geld a mule without a thought for his own life." Herdsman Crofter glanced down at Dio's crotch, obviously imagining the deed already done.
"A man would give me grandchildren." His own mother lunged for him, knife bright in the light of the black moon.
Dio ran, barefoot and shirtless. The path beneath his feet could have been covered in the finest woolen rugs for all the mind he paid it. He ran until the air burned his throat and his heart pounded in his ears. He ran until the stitch in his side meant he could run no more.
At last he had to slow. The black moon had nearly set and Xibar with it. Only Yavash still rode in the sky, a tiny sliver, as red as the bloody footprints he left behind. But while he slowed, he never stopped, but to drink at a clear stream alongside the path.
Another heron, this time much smaller gazed back at him, gazing calmly through the rushes. Dawn was fast approaching. Weak with both hunger and exhaustion, Dio took strength from the sight of Idon's creature, although no avatar, and continued on.
At last he reached the great city he'd only heard of in fairy tales and trader's yarns. The huge gates stood open and people, fantastic, strong, beautiful people, both men and women passed freely in and out, bent on great tasks and taking no notice of one bloody footed young man amid so much finery.
No sooner had he set foot on the paving stones, had a guard approached him and silently led him through the thronging adventurers. Dio hardly had time or energy to gape at their strength and grace before he found himself seated in a familiar looking kitchen, plied with hot soup and given fancier clothes and things he'd ever thought possible for someone such as himself to own.
Although when he looked at the blade he'd been given, he knew he could never strike another living thing in anger, or even defense. What was he to do here? There had to be a way for him to survive. There had to be. Idon's touch still burned on his skin, but when he asked about devoting his life to the gods, he was told he'd have to kill, as well as heal.
Actually, the only folk who could truly heal were what were called empaths, those sworn to never harm. And after a great deal of thought, Diomid Ivanovich Sergei set aside, for all time, the choice to harm and chose the path of the healer, and a new life, as Diomid Vanyevich.
"Ye sound like a breeding wench!" His older bother, Sarrian mocked from the doorway.
"Get out of here." Dio pushed his hair back with one hand. It was shaking so badly he nearly poked his eye out.
"Ma wants ye." Sarrian's scorn only made Dio's stomach turn over again. "Says something about needing a girl's hand with the wash."
"Sarica's still here." Dio scrubbed the tears from his eyes. Tears of both shame and anger at Sarrian's harsh words.
"She's no girl." Sarrian's heavy footsteps shook the worn floorboards. As tall as any grown man, he'd been working in the fields for the past three years, threatening at any moment to run away for the big city, as so many others have done over the years. Run away and never be heard from again. To Dio, this sounded like an excellent idea. If he never saw Sarrian again in his life it would be too soon.
"Neither am I!" If his head weren't spinning so badly, he'd have turn on his brother and given him what for. As it was, he tried and nearly landed on his face.
"Pretty little blond human." Sarrian yanked Dio's head back by his hair. "Have the hair for it." He sneered, holding Dio's head up by the far too convenient handle. "I should cut it all off."
"No," Dio managed to pull away, gathering his long, now tangled hair in his hands. "I'll be there. Just go and let me wake up."
"Finish puking your guts up is more like it." Sarrian scoffed.
"What difference does it make to you?" Dio pulled out the makeshift brush he'd cobbled together from the old boar bristles he'd scavenged from last fall's desperate struggle to slaughter and put up enough meat to last the winter, and a bit of deobar he'd found lying on the forest floor. It worked well enough, he supposed.
"Uncle Justin isn't here to protect you anymore." Sarrian's dark eyes bore into his. "Changeling." He shoved Dio back onto his butt.
Dio flushed, feeling his scalp tingle with the blood rushing to his skin.
"Yer as pretty as a girl."
"Get out!" Dio threw the brush, and missed, of course. It shattered into countless pieces against the far wall.
"I'll tell ma yer jacking off in here again, dreaming of your boyfriends." Sarrian's threat was well placed, as always. As quickly as he could, Dio braided up his calf length hair and struggled into an ancient, well patched pair of breeches and an old wool tunic. His only shirt was so filthy, now, it could have stood on its own. A cold breeze trickled through the oilcloth window, eating at the bare skin beneath the scratchy wool.
"No wonder you have to take it and can't dish it out." Sarrian shoved him backwards again. Dio stumbled and cracked his head on the wall. "You're useless." Sarrian snorted. "Won't even put out for me."
"You're my brother." Dio shook the stars from his head and tried not to throw up again.
"Uncle Justin was our mother's brother." Sarrian grabbed his face.
"That's different." Sweat streamed down his sides beneath the loose laces. Dio remembered Uncle Justin very well, and not just because he'd shown Dio what sex really was, but because he'd listened, not just talked. Now Dio wished he'd listened better to Justin's stories about the world outside the little town of Cliff's Edge, high up in the Dragonspire mountains, where Dio'd grown up.
"Oh?" Sarrian's smile turned even nastier. "Ivanovich."
"Fuck you!" Dio growled, hating the reminder of his bastardy.
"Uncle Justin could be your father."
"I hate you!"
"I don't care." Sarrian ground his hips into Dio's abused gut. His muscles locked and he gagged, again.
"Yeah, a breeding bitch, just like our whore of a mother."
"Get out of here." The woman they both called mother hissed from the doorway.
"I'm just playing, ma." Sarrian turned. His muscles flexed, rousing Dio's interest and his disgust at the same time. He crumpled to his knees.
"You have work to do."
"Yes, ma." The insolence in his voice was unmistakable.
"Sarica's missing."
Dio's head snapped up at this. More tears, this time of loss as well as shame burned his eyes. He'd sworn, over and over he'd never cry again, but each time he failed.
"Good for nothing whore." Sarrian snorted.
"Get to work." Then she only made things worse. "Dio needs to pull himself together. I can't have you ruining our only healer. He's useless for anything else, unlike the rest of us."
Dio pushed back the stray wisp of hair that always seemed to manage to escape confinement when he had his hands full. The sun had come out at last, and between it and the fire under the laundry cauldron, he was plenty warm in only his ragged pants.
"You're certainly no healer." The woman, mounted on a mule in one of those horrible side chairs glared down at him.
"A healer has no reason to do laundry?" He pulled out one particularly bloodstained shirt. It wasn't his, unfortunately, belonging to his beloved and long gone mentor, but it did almost still fit across his shoulders, even if it did sag in front, garnering even more stains on a bad day.
"You're male." She snorted and the whey faced young woman leading the mule turned it away. Shame tightened Dio's skin to the breaking point. He shoved the old shirt back into the wash water and leaned on the heavy oak paddle. The cauldron rocked alarmingly on the tripod. He blinked at it and stopped pushing so hard. This last winter he'd seen tremendous changes in his own body, but he hadn't thought they'd been quite this extreme.
"Dio?" Melissa tugged on his braid. Anyone else would have gotten a sharp word. Dio spun around and grabbed her, ending up tossing her high in the air. The little girl was an absolute delight, no one's child and everyone's, but always with a smile.
"Whatcha need?" Dio gave her a resounding smooch on the cheek. She giggled and put her arms around his neck. Then almost didn't reach. He looked over her shoulder to see Herdsman Crofter scowling at them both. Dio stared back, even as he patted Melissa's back.
"Gotta mule to cut." Crofter flicked his chin towards the largest of the three communal barns.
"Why didn't you do it last fall?" Dio pushed the wash away from the fire and scrubbed his hands on scrap of sacking tucked into the rope holding up his pants, or well, trying too with at least minimal success. One of the many changes he'd noticed these last months was a definite tendency for anything not firmly attached to his hips to escape to his ankles, with usually awkward results, if not always.
"He was a ridgeling." Crofter snorted, as if Dio could care one copper about the various farm animals, other than as they took him away from helping people and his family, such as it was. "Couldn't do it before the balls came down."
"Oh, no, then you'd owe me more than maybe a couple pounds of oats." Dio pulled the hooked blade down from the wall and ran it over the whetstone a few times. It was plenty sharp. He'd done a round of calves earlier and a couple of the early mule foals, before the testicles returned to the body, like anyone with a brain would have done. "Where is he?"
"Its Blackie." The man pointed to the far stall. A large, massively built mule stood in the corner, unhaltered, unrestrained in any way, calmly munching on a stack of the best hay from last season. He was a fine animal, still shaggy from winter, but looking to put on a lot of weight this coming year. One long ear flicked back in Dio's direction.
Dio hated castrating animals, particularly the larger ones. "I don't have all day."
"You're no one to be giving orders." Crofter towered over him, but not by as much last fall, or in the dark at night.
"We're not alone." Dio reminded him, as quietly as he could. Crofter turned crimson, his flush of shame spreading down past his collar. "Put him in the stocks for me and pay me well, Crofter."
Crofter's eyes flicked to Melissa, standing still innocent in the doorway.
"Or everyone will know."
"Fucking bastard." He yanked the stall door open. His return flight across the barn was just as impressive, particularly with the two, u-shaped marks on his chest.
"No, I'm the one who's fucked." Dio murmured under his breath, then got his temper back in check. Making soft chirring sounds to the young mule, he slipped a soft halter on him. Blackie protested being led away from his dinner, so Dio brought an armful with him. From the looks of it, Crofter'd mounted Dio more than he'd ever mounted any equine. In fits and starts, Dio finally got the animal in the stocks and one hind leg up, the one nearest him.
"I don't think you want to watch this, sweetie." Dio waved Melissa away.
"She stays." Crofter met Dio's gaze squarely. Dio'd shamed Crofter in front of a child, now this was his revenge.
"Then so do you." As always, Dio's own balls tried to hide in his gut as he braced for the first cut. It was always the hardest. When Dio's knife cut through the first layer of skin, however, Crofter passed out, the heavy thump of his body hitting the floor almost louder than the mule's panicked scream.
"You know if Missus Crofter wants the offal?" Dio pulled out the first testicle and cut it off with a quick swipe, not wanting to prolong the poor animal's torment any longer than absolutely necessary.
"I don't think so." Melissa craned her head around so she could see better. Dio debated with himself sending her away, but she too could do a lot of the work he did, if something happened to him. And from the looks of it, she'd not have Dio's squeamishness about such things. Of course not having balls herself, it was probably no where near as horrifying to watch.
"Ok then," Dio threw it to the dogs who were always sniffing around the place. A second pull and cut, and the deed was done. He released the mule's leg and it stood, shocky and shaking, but the bleeding already slowing as it healed quickly, as all young animals do. Dio put one bloody hand on the animal's quivering shoulder. "You'll be fine, pretty one, just stand and rest for a bit. Blackie turned his head as far as it would go in the stocks and nuzzled Dio's shoulder.
He really was a fine animal, who did not deserve a man like Crofter for a master. With mules, it was always best to cut them as soon as possible, often times within hours of their birth. Easier for mule and man. Dio stroked Blackie's muzzle in return, with his cheek, which didn't smell of blood.
It was the time when night matched day, when winter was officially over and spring began. Dio looked down at the tiny, defenseless infant in his arms with a wonder not unmatched by horror.
"A little girl, stillborn." The vile witch known only as Mercy Dalya told young Tara. Parentless, husbandless, of course there was no way she could raise a child, but this was pure cruelty. The tiny babe suckled as Dio's fingers, struggling against impossible odds, despite her obvious good health.
Tara cried out, again, as she had with her birthing pains, but this time in sorrow, not the hopeful anguish of a new beginning. Dio ran, the babe still damp from her mother's body. He'd killed before, but always in mercy, when the mother had made it clearly known she couldn't care for the child. Tara had been radiant, cheerful, joyous in her desire for a child, despite the hardships she had to know would be in store for her.
Dio did not care for children, not truly, and had no desire for children of his own. He'd seen the life go out of too many unfocused blue eyes when he gave them poppy syrup to suckle on rather than their mother's milk. But, he also knew, the Mercy would not have tolerated any contradiction to her words. The child was dead, even though it still breathed and struggled to live.
He stripped off his soft, well worn shirt, now let out to accommodate his ever expanding shoulders and wrapped the child in its folds. There was an altar to the faery folk deep in the woods, but close enough he could still find it, blinded as he was by unshed tears.
The soft dusk, the time of magic and change wrapped around him. Twilight threw long shadows across the tiny clearing. The black altar, shining with the first faint reflection of Katamba's inky darkness stood alone, bare, and thankfully clean. A cleric had been by here lately, looking for devotion in one of their many quests, or so it was said.
With the last of their poppy syrup gone, and no hope for more with the Mercy in the village, there was little Dio could do but place the child on the altar. He prayed as he'd never done before.
"Please, Eylhaar, hear my crude words and give ear to the child awaiting your true mercy." He knelt at the altar, stroking the slick obsidian with one hand. "I have no gifts to bring you, other than my devotion to you and all the gods of these lands." He bowed his head, hoping the goddess of merciful death could take pity on such a one as this child, already outside the world of men, but not yet truly dead.
Instead, a great black heron stalked from the rushes at the edge of the river. Lambent gold eyes shone beneath the inky plumage, shining in the twilight. "Will you give her to me?"
"Anything," Dio's heart caught in his throat. He'd never met even a true cleric, not simply one of the teachers who taught all children their basic letters and figures, much less an avatar of a god.
"Anything?" A tall, impossibly beautiful young man stood before him, with hair as black as the great altar and eyes so deep blue they rivaled the blue moon, Xibar.
Dio opened his mouth and nothing fell out but his tongue.
"You are a very pretty young man. Your child?" He indicated the little girl with a long fingered hand, well worn from sword, drumstick and pen, from the looks of it. Dio's loins tightened in a way he'd never, ever known before in his life. This wasn't lust, this was insanity.
"I see not." The young man's throaty chuckle only drove Dio's madness hotter. "You are mine, Diomid."
Dio bowed his head to the ground, the moss soft as silk beneath his cheek.
"This child can not be yours, not with the gift you present Me." The rumble of great drums beat in Dio's ears and on the wind from the man's voice. "I will take your gift and leave the child."
With a force of will Dio'd never dreamed himself capable, he straightened. His clothes had vanished, what little there'd been of him, and he was bare.
"I am Idon, dark shadow of the fae." His blue eyes blazed in the deepening twilight. "How dare you defy Me?"
Now Dio recognized him, and shook all over.
"She is Yours, great Heron, a child of Midsummer and get of Your loins."
Idon threw back his head and laughed, the moonlight spilling over his throat and caressing his perfect skin, now as bare as Dio's.
A tall, slender figure arose from the shadows. With eyes like the night sky, and skin as white as new milk, Eylhaar slipped the babe from the shabby cloth swaddling her. The goddess loosened the ties of her shirt and gave the child suck on one long breast. Immediately the babe went slack, at peace, dead.
A shiver went up Dio's spine, to join the unholy lust coursing through his veins. The combination both scared him witless and aroused him even more. Idon brought Dio to his feet with one burning hot hand. "I accept." His gaze held Dio trapped, bottomless and timeless.
Mercy Dalya stepped out from the shadows. "I've been looking for you."
Still drunk with pleasure from Idon's unholy touch, Dio didn't flinch away from her gaze this time.
"Our little mule is long overdue for his trim." She slapped the gelding knife against her off hand.
"You can't harm me." Dio wasn't bluffing, he hoped.
"I can." Herdsman Crofter stepped out from his front stoop.
"As can I." His own mother held out her hand for the knife.
"You're sworn to Hodierna." Dio backed himself against the building, where he'd spent countless hours, both courting death and scorning her kisses. Tonight, with Eylhaar's actual visage still burned in his brain, he knew how sweet her kisses could be.
"And you're a mule long past gelding."
"I am a man." Dio felt the dampness of Idon's spending still wetting his thighs, and burning like the sweetest vodka in his blood.
"No man can heal." Mercy Dalya's scornful glance burned his skin.
"No man can geld a mule without a thought for his own life." Herdsman Crofter glanced down at Dio's crotch, obviously imagining the deed already done.
"A man would give me grandchildren." His own mother lunged for him, knife bright in the light of the black moon.
Dio ran, barefoot and shirtless. The path beneath his feet could have been covered in the finest woolen rugs for all the mind he paid it. He ran until the air burned his throat and his heart pounded in his ears. He ran until the stitch in his side meant he could run no more.
At last he had to slow. The black moon had nearly set and Xibar with it. Only Yavash still rode in the sky, a tiny sliver, as red as the bloody footprints he left behind. But while he slowed, he never stopped, but to drink at a clear stream alongside the path.
Another heron, this time much smaller gazed back at him, gazing calmly through the rushes. Dawn was fast approaching. Weak with both hunger and exhaustion, Dio took strength from the sight of Idon's creature, although no avatar, and continued on.
At last he reached the great city he'd only heard of in fairy tales and trader's yarns. The huge gates stood open and people, fantastic, strong, beautiful people, both men and women passed freely in and out, bent on great tasks and taking no notice of one bloody footed young man amid so much finery.
No sooner had he set foot on the paving stones, had a guard approached him and silently led him through the thronging adventurers. Dio hardly had time or energy to gape at their strength and grace before he found himself seated in a familiar looking kitchen, plied with hot soup and given fancier clothes and things he'd ever thought possible for someone such as himself to own.
Although when he looked at the blade he'd been given, he knew he could never strike another living thing in anger, or even defense. What was he to do here? There had to be a way for him to survive. There had to be. Idon's touch still burned on his skin, but when he asked about devoting his life to the gods, he was told he'd have to kill, as well as heal.
Actually, the only folk who could truly heal were what were called empaths, those sworn to never harm. And after a great deal of thought, Diomid Ivanovich Sergei set aside, for all time, the choice to harm and chose the path of the healer, and a new life, as Diomid Vanyevich.