DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: Dawn of Revolution
The Mother
In the years before the coalition war began...
Rimada an-Busam couldn't remember her mother's name, her face, or even what her voice sounded like, but Rimada did remember what she did every night.
"Waste of money child!" Rimada's mother's slap turned her young daughter's head to the side with a smack. The mother's breath was heavy with cheap ale from Zaddir City's local taverns. "Why do I still pay for your dinner? Why? Why do I?" Her words were starting to slur.
Rimada fought back the tears, holding her stinging cheek, praying to the ten gods her mother would show mercy and stop for the night. No such luck.
"Your father's shop is all I got left. All I got left of him," Rimada's mother babbled. She hiccuped, her eyes unfocused. "That... an' you." She pointed an accusing finger at her eight-year-old child. "You... never thank me for feedin'... you..."
Rimada still said nothing. It was the same evening, her mother stumbling back home to their slum home in the residential district's shadows, trying to keep her late husband's general shop running. Badly. The mother's grief-clouded mind couldn't keep it together, driving her deeper into despair. And that drove her to the taverns. Which dulled her senses. Which made the shop a failure -
No more time to think about it. The mother's other hand smacked across Rimada's other cheek, twice as hard. Rimada saw stars.
"M... Mama." Rimada couldn't help muttering the word. What was she asking for? Probably nothing.
The mother wasn't listening as tears welled in her eyes, sizzling away on the heat of her cheeks. Fire genasi like her and Rimada weren't known for their water affinity. "Fifya... why did you leave me?" The mother moaned, clutching her face, swaying on the spot. "Why couldn't you fight off the robbers?"
Rimada's dinner was meager that night, and her stomach still gurgled in vain as the mother collapsed on her creaky bed for the night, leaving the daughter to watch the moon rise. Rimada could hear voices in the shacks and tenements nearby - people arguing, men booming with laughter, children chattering, dogs barking. People. Families. Bonds.
Too bad Rimada lost hers.
Rimada was 13 when she learned to fight back. She only had to do it once.
"Stupid child! Curses on you!" Rimada's mother hissed when the daughter stumbled over a loose brick in the marketplace square, her wicker basket spilling ripe vegetables and fruit. Rimada's mother had moved on to punches by then, and her knuckles tried to teach the daughter another lesson on proper grocery shopping.
Rimada's lean, tough body was moving before she knew what was happening, her mind made up before she knew it. Her fists drove her mother into a tabaxi man's trinket stall, years of helpless rage bruising the mother's face and arms, a wordless cry to say what couldn't be said. Rimada heard voices cry out, and a moment later, a city guard in his steel armor and red cape was prying the daughter from her mother. The two of them would never meet again.
Rimada soon learned what "social services" meant, with adults in fancy robes and hats talking about foster families and second chances. Caliph Raqay an-Usam was a believer in second chances, Rimada was told, with his program to help kids like Rimada get back on the path to their future. What did a man in a castle like that know about slum life or why kids cry when their parents come home? But Rimada had to admit, the new family she met wasn't too bad. The human parents gave her a bedroom next to her new brother's, three meals a day, and kinder words than what the first mother had to say. Not much else, though.
"Your hair's always on fire," Rimada's new brother, Miza, said as he wrinkled his nose. He was about a year older than her, always running around with his punk friends around the marketplace because his parents were too busy to notice. "It's weird. Fire genasi are weird."
"It's my hair," Rimada bristled, running her reddish-brown fingers through her thick hair, savoring the feeling of glowing embers and warm ash. "It's part of me." Then she made a crafty smile. "You wish you had something beautiful like I do, Miza. Boring boy." She stuck out a playful tongue.
Miza shoved his new sister's shoulder and slouched off. He wasn't the worst brother. He didn't hit her. He didn't threaten her. He also didn't care about her. Was this all the family Zaddir City had? Thanks, Mr. Fancy-Pants Caliph. Your program spent all its gold on, well, this.
Rimada was 20 when she decided that finding a family meant doing it herself. The three humans she lived with just filled her belly and worked for gold coins every day for some bank. They found their destiny, and Rimada would find hers alone.
Her destiny came in red and yellow robes.
"You're a lost lamb. You need guidance, child. Love. A purpose. I can give you those things if you take my hand," the half-orc woman said, extending a greenish hand, her steely gray eyes softening for just a moment. "I can see it in you, girl. You were meant for more. Don't you hunger for it?"
"What is this?" Rimada asked. It had been just another morning in Zaddir City's residential district, not far from a popular park, when four people in red robes with yellow trim had approached her.
"The Order of the Fallen is a second chance for lost lambs like yourself," the half-orc explained. "I am Abef an-Ziwa, matron of the entire Order. My sons and daughters of the Order know me as... Mother."
Rimada warily eyed Abef's hand. "This isn't some trick, is it?"
"Trick? No, my lamb. Look." With one swift movement, Abef clapped her open hand onto Rimada's head, filling her head with... destiny. Family. Belonging. Joy. Purpose. A higher power to look after them all, to give them strength to fight all things out there, and within. All were welcome when they pledged their lives to Zariel, an angel from below to make tomorrow better.
Power. All of it.
Rimada's initiation rite took place later that afternoon, and the Order's red and yellow robes were a nice fit, too. "Welcome, daughter," Abef told her, clapping her hands together. "We have much use for you..."
Rimada learned over time that all families were similar after all. Abef an-Ziwa used the rod as much a the carrot to lead her lambs in Zariel's servitude, drunk on her power. Rimada's own mother had grown weak with intoxication. Abef grew stronger on it.
"That's the trade-off of joinin' a cult like this," one of Rimada's brothers, a bruised gnome fellow around her age, admitted in their shared bunk room under the old temple of Yazani. He sighed. "I needed this, Rimada. Back when Abef found me. Zariel makes us strong. And it goes straight to Abef's head." He jabbed his own head with a finger, looking up at his cult sister with eyes of resignation. "Sometimes I wonder if Zariel's blessings were worth it. I'm not my own man anymore."
Rimada glanced up at the ceiling, knowing that Abef's office was up there, where that half-orc crone was poring over the pages to get stronger and smarter while her sons and daughters did her bidding or else faced that familiar rod. "We can fix that," Rimada said casually.
The lost lambs fixed it when they had Abef cornered later that week. The cult mother was cowering in the corner of her office, hands raised to shield her face. Zariel's infernal blessings meant nothing now.
"You promised us a family!" the gnome barked. He raised his stolen staff, one he'd swiped from Abef's collection, preparing to strike. "We don't need your abuse! It's all lies!"
"Ungrateful son!" Abef hissed. "Put that down before -"
The gnome brought it down on his cult mother's head. Then Rimada took her turn, and passed the staff to the next lost lamb seeking retribution. And the next, and the next, until little remained of the cult mother.
The gnome used a spare rag to wipe blood from the staff. "We need someone new to lead us," he said with eerie calm. "We need officers who can make this a real family. Rimada... maybe you?" He pointed at her with the staff.
Rimada felt a smile spreading across her face.
The Order of the Fallen had once collected lost lambs to slowly consume them as the foolish sheep they were. Now it was a place where all belonged, with Zariel to bless their loyalty with wisdom and infernal power. It was something new. Something Rimada had always longed for, to fill the hole in her heart that three mothers never did.
Rimada was 32 when she learned that she had been looking for a mother in the wrong place. That mother wasn't out there - she was in there. In Rimada's heart. That painful, empty space was room for the fourth mother. Of course! It was so simple!
Rimada was 40 when she became the Order of the Fallen's great mother, and she could sleep comfortably every night knowing that the great mother was something she gave, not received. It wasn't about her! It was about the lambs! Zaddir City had a thousand young Rimadas out there. It had an adult one to fix that.
"You're a lost lamb," Rimada said one afternoon to the teenage ruffians eyeing her warily in a back alley. She extended a hand. "You need guidance, children. Love. A purpose. I can give you those things if you take my hand."
One of the teens, a tiefling girl with short, upright horns and long messy hair, clutched her dragonborn friend tightly as though afraid he'd vanish. "We don't need you, lady," the tiefling retorted. "Zatal and I don't want your help. We can make it on our own!"
Her stomach growled. Zatal's did, too.
"Lesu, she might be right," the dragonborn boy, Zatal, admitted. "We ate the last of our bread last night. My last copper coins are gone. We'll end up rotting in a gutter at this rate."
"No!" the tiefling girl, Lesu, cried as she held on to Zatal tighter, all while giving Rimada a nasty look. "We can always steal the bruised leftover fruit from a vendor. Or catch a rat! They've got meat!"
Rimada had never resorted to eating rats. She didn't want this tiefling lamb to do it, either. She gestured again with her hand.
"The Order of the Fallen?" Zatal repeated when Rimada explained more. "A devil cult? You're serious, lady?"
"I am serious about every lost soul in Zaddir City," Rimada assured him with a warm smile. Her voice was cool. "I can give you meals, a family, something to fight for. You and Lesu won't spend another day going without. Someone has to believe in you. So I'll do it."
Lesu the punk tiefling scoffed. "You think you're my mom, miss Rimada?"
"I don't know your mother."
"She got killed when she didn't give a gangster her coin purse."
"I am sorry." Rimada bowed her head. "I humbly approach you the way my last two mothers did: with grace and an open heart. A mother's role is not to be a tyrant or a queen, but a pillar for all her children. In my warm embrace, you will know happiness. I am here for you."
Lesu and Zatal looked at each other and had a full conversation with their eyes. Rimada could guess the words, but all she needed was what Lesu said next.
"Hmph. Okay, you win, lady. Mom," Lesu admitted. She let go of Zatal and tossed her hair, her glittery eyes still burning with juvenile defiance. "I don't wanna catch a rat. I don't wanna sleep on a rag. Think you can do better? Show us, if we're really your kids now."
Rimada kept her hand extended until Lesu took it. "Welcome to the Order, my lambs."
Oh, what a proud mother she was! Rimada hoped these radiant, ravenous feelings weren't showing on her face as she led Lesu and Zatal onward. She would just feel so silly!