-Writer 621

The following is a brief writing sample for interested parties:
Ainratsa, always Ainratsa. This was by no means the first word of my mother’s tongue that I learned, unwanted. Yet to this day it is as close to my heart as my name, just next to the last words of my mother. Oh how I remember them. “kavod,” I can still see her lying in the snow, see her Exsanguinating  in the snow, the rich crimson fluid spraying out, as  from a split winesack.   “Never forget that I love you.”  How could I forget that, she was the only one, then as now, who showed me love. I hold onto those memories as they are some of the most precious gifts I have. I hold them as closely as my learning,  as tightly to as the scriptures, as strongly as I hold her last words. ”Never forget the land in which you were born… never forget the lands that begat  your parents… I beg you… serve.” ‘serve.’ What did it mean to serve, serve as the Great teacher served, serve as the angels serve, serve a the true angel of heaven served, the only one of the companions to not break with the commandments of the Great I am in his walk with the son of the son of God. I knew then with every fiber of my being how I was to serve.

  To know me, one must first understand my name, which is Kavod, which is a commandment to honor.  At times I secretly speculate if my mother, who gave me this name gained some insight through the whispering of one of the host into her ear, or knew by parting the vale of time, just how much this name would shape me. I wonder if she held insight into the way I have formed so much of my life around this one concept. I once thought to ask her about it, but didn’t.  There are some questions only fit for the secret places barried deep inside.   Oh, ha'em, my deepest richest treasure, how lucky I was to be born of you.  Even knowing the pain it brought both of us.

  In some respects I could be counted fortunate, as my mother was none other than Rebecca Chai Chacham, who by the age of thirty was one of the most famed healers among the Yeshuites in all of Terre d'Ange. Perhaps then her story is all the more tragic, given the highth of her fall before her death; and I, even though I had no choice in the matter, played a part in it. For what respecting Yeshuite would go to a healer after learning that she had lain with an unbeliever, had birthed a child by him, and not married the man? Why none of course.  How more so would they shun her, when her enemies sent forth whispers that the man so lain with was married. I knew then as now that she could have killed me and claimed the whole event a miscarriage. She could have returned to her father with him being none the wiser. I love her all the more for not taking this road.

  Even if we both suffered for it.

  The Levites like to say that parentle sin is sometimes visited upon the child. They had plenty of evidence with me. I no doubt that my birth deformity was a double blow upon my mother, given that she was a healer, and I was born with a condition she could neither heal or treat.  I was not lovely to behold, then or now, more so now. Then it was merely because I was a crookback, for my right sholder is higher than my left and all can see this. now… well we shall not speak of that.

 The fall

  As I have said my mother was a famed healer, both among the Yeshuites and the children of the misguided. High and low she tended, among the nobles, who lavished fine gifts upon her, and the low, who revered her like a messenger of God. That was of course nigh onto three decades ago, and not as many remember the name of Chacham as they might have, as my mother’s family has all but departed these lands ten years hence. Still some remember: Aceline  &  Odeletta  Ferraut, Dacian Montchapetre,  Delrick Belfours, and many many more. Those of the common station from which I am drawn that remember my mother with fondness.  They are a balm against the scorn of my mother’s father and her kind. Still, I must also consider the tretchery of Aceline Belfours and his cousins. For it was they, hoping to gain the power that holding my mother in bondage to them would sure bring, was what led to the tragedy of which I am a part.  I shall not speak all, as the tale is lengthy, but simply state that my mother was  given to believe that she was to attend a small Soiree in her honor. At that event, she was  given strong drink, heavily fortifide, until she joined the groups at gambling, and sufficed to say, she lost. It was impossible for any other outcome to occur, the game was rigged.

  This was in truth only part of their plan, for one of the others, who lost equally as bad, was  the daughter of an Akkadian herbalist named Aabida Kabeera el’Kaazim. My mother could afford to buy off her indenture in a few months, while dearest Aabida could not begin to even think of paying off hers. Thus her father was sent for, by her own hand, and like a loving father he came.  I have seen that letter, and others related to the affair besides, and know all to well what would have happened to Aabida if he had not come. She would have been sold to a certain Tiberium, whose name shall go unmentioned, but was well known  to visit the adepts of Valerian House. Thus, he came.

  They weren’t after him, but what he knew. For he held the knowledge of the Kitzhara, that drug that fogs the mind into utter forgetfulness, that makes it partaker pliable to suggestion, and incites the drinker to passion. They slip a goodly portion of it one night into my mother’s drink, and my mother was none the wiser for its presence.  Why should she have. Her enemies had cloaked themselves in the guise of friends. Thus, on the longest night, my mother, and Jaalib Kabeera el’Kaazim met, and made love under the influence of Kitzhara.  Thus I was born.

  Under the sadow of adultery.

  My mother found out, of course,  all of it, and the carefully laid plans of her enemies came undone.  Of course, she could not marry my father, he was already married. To my grandfather she had commited a terrible sin.  One that he could not forgive her for.  I know that he didn’t believe her story, just as I know that some of his ire stims from something to do with her willingness to attend those that are not of our faith, and other reasons besides, but what all, I shall never know.  I’ve only met the man once, and I nearly didn’t survive the encounter.

  For the next eleven years, we wandered.  My mother never stayed in one place over long, and more often as not, the past would come back to hont her in some fashen or other.  Word spread of her adultery among the Yeshuite, spurred on by the same enemies that hoped to ensnare her.  The true story is held only by my grandfather, my father, and me.  Well, and those that helped plan it.  I learned much as her pupil, her last pupil, and more than merely medicin.  From the age of five she tought me, and until the age of eleven I learned. On a cold winter’s night our lessons came to an abrupt and irrevocable end.