An Idea I've been Toying With...
I'm not sure where this idea came from, but it's been stuck in my mind, and I'm trying to spin it out. We'll see how that goes, but for now, here is a tiny piece of the story.
“But fantasy, sister, is far easier than our reality."
It had been true enough, the day he said it, even as my young mind rejected it, thinking myself tormented for the sake of my art. I was walking proof of his statement; the reality of my life too harsh, leading my young mind to make up glorious details of suffering in its absence.
I grew up easily; I held sway in a powerful House with a good name. My sisters grew to beauty, legacy of my fair mother’s own looks. I do not remember my mother, but the paintings in the great halls tell me the tale of her beauty; age touched her well, adding character and depth to her beauty, giving just as much as it took.
My father was pretty in face, a son of a long line of hearty breeder stock; he is still in high demand, even as his features wither. Although untraditional, my mother named me for him, twisting the sound of his name to make it sufficiently feminine and unrecognizable. Albeit an emotional woman, my mother was clever in her passions, and did not name me too directly for a man; the connection to a father figure would have been obscene.
But I hold his name, not in contempt, but with a loving disapproval. It would have been typical of my mother to name her third born after a breeder that she had fallen in love with, like sometime from a Bard’s tale.
And like a Bard’s tale, my mother’s story also ended in tragedy.
I was raised with my sisters with an education befitting our stations. My older brothers I scarce remember, for they were shipped off as soon as they were old enough to make the Choice. I know three of the youngest chose to follow in their father’s footsteps; it was an honorable following, and could bring them as much wealth and acclaim as any man could hold.
My elder brothers left for the Guard long before I was born; both were the tithe my mother gave to the Temples. Also an honorable position.
But the youngest, the boy three years my younger, had been presented with his Choice thrice now, and had yet to decide.
“Will you burden my household forever, dearest?”
I held an unwarranted affection for my mother’s son; he was a burden on my house, and seemed loathe to remove himself as such. But he was kind, clever, and beautiful, displaying all the charm and diffidence that most breeders lacked. “You would make such pretty children, Theran.”
“Aye, perhaps I would. Perhaps I wouldn’t.”
He was not meant for the guard; a sexless life dedicated to the Temples would kill him, almost as surely as his first encounter with the Unclean would. He knew himself, I think, that the Temple was not his future. And yet, he continued to refuse to choose the life of a breeder.
Men in our society had no other choices.
But he held out, and I, just as silly and emotional as my mother, let him.
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