A boy is born and his newfound parents must come to a decision.
⊰⋄⊱ 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬: mild graphic content
⊰⋄⊱ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 0.8k
⊰⋄⊱ 𝐀/𝐍: This is original character content for my OC Hiser! Also a repost, because I accidentally deleted the original post, but I did get the chance to read yalls reblogs and they mean the world to me, thank you for the support and kind words <3
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Early into the summer’s night, a babe was born frail as bobbin lace. His mother screamed as she gave birth, tearing the crux of her body for red blood to spill on the sheets; she cried for every mother before her, and every mother after. Her palms, slick with sweat, grasped to the wet nurse, to her wide-eyed husband as well.
Then, the babe wailed. Shrill and terrified of this new world, a little boy held in the arms of the nurse, remnants of his mother’s womb clinging to him as if it might take him back. Take this child away.
The nurse smiled, drying the child before her face fell.
“What is it?” the father asked, petting back his wife’s damp hair as another nurse stepped in to attend to the wounds that gave life. “Is there something wrong?”
Slowly, the nurse pulled back the blanket she had wrapped around the newborn. She tried to speak but found her tongue heavy.
The father stared at his child, his son, this firstborn. His hands shook terribly as he reached for the babe’s ears: furred and long, cow-like. They were soft, small under his father’s fingertip, weak as they fell back down.
“Castor?” his wife called. “Castor, I want to see our boy,” she began to cry, tired and enervated.
He felt the top of the babe’s head, finding little protrusions hidden beneath the thin hair and scalp.
Ajwéfi, the nurse breathed, gasping when Castor suddenly took the boy from her arms. Child of the Damned, Devil born.
“Castor? Castor, please.”
The babe fussed in the wool blanket, his round face splotchy as bruised fruit, held to his father’s chest. A paling hand reached up, nails digging into her husband’s arm as she continued to plead with him, to let her see her child.
Stilling, the wet nurse clasped a hand over her thin mouth, her stare held by Castor’s. “My God.”
Castor’s grey eyes flitted around in a panic (the color of summer storm clouds, the shine of an executioner’s blade). He pressed the babe into his wife’s arms before crossing to the fearful wet nurse.
“Not a word of this,” he spoke into her face. “Not a fucking word of this. No one is to know, do you understand?”
A sob tore from his wife, Vitka, as she looked down at her son.
The sobbing did not stop, a mother’s lament, grieving for a baby just born from where the second nurse wiped with clean cloths.
“Do you understand?” he seethed between his teeth.
The wet nurse nodded as she rested her fingers over the prayer beads around her throat, praying to her God to ask forgiveness for helping birth such a monster. She pitied the poor mother and wondered if the child would live long enough to see dawn.
She paused at the threshold of the room. “Mercy is an amenable thing, my lord,” she said, and parted. The other nurse followed soon after.
Castor returned to his aggrieved wife, and to the child bundled at her breast. He kissed her temple, shushing her cries. She smelled of blood, salt, and lilac; she trembled like a notched arrow, fat tears spilling onto her red cheeks, onto her son.
“What are we going to do?” Her voice broke on the question, the sound of glass cracking.
Castor looked at her carefully and dipped his chin. His mouth tightened, a silent exchange between a new mother and a new father.
“No,” she whimpered.
“Give him to me, Vitka.”
“No, no, please, no.” Vitka held the babe tighter, to suffocate or protect, it did not matter in that moment to her husband. “Castor, no,” she wailed once more.
Her howling filled the room, a wounded animal trying to protect her first and only young, raising her hackles and baring her teeth.
“Vitka,” he snarled. “We cannot raise this child and you know it as well as I do.”
She shook her head, letting it fall back against the bed frame as her breathing quickened. She was far too weak, feet slipping against the bedding, aching in her entire body.
Give me the child, he told her, he’s not long for this world. He is an obscenity.
“He will be named Hiser,” she gasped out from weary lungs, paying little mind to her disturbed husband. “He…his name will be Hiser, just as you wanted.”
Hiser.
The name Castor would coo at her belly, his palm against the swell of it to feel the movement from within his wife’s womb. Little Hiser, he would murmur at night, a quiet reprimand as Vitka curled over from pain and nausea.
“You’d kill your son so easily?” she asked. It was the first time he had seen her regard him with so much disdain.
⊰⋄⊱ 𝐀/𝐍: This is original character content for my OC Severa!
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A mother fixes the clasp of her daughter’s coat; she adjusts the small brocade as well. It is the midst of winter, when the horses take on thicker fur and all the wild animals on the property sleep through the harsh season. At least, that is what she has been told, because a child is supposed to learn simple things, even when it is not simple at all.
“You know your father loves you, right?”
A simple statement—
“Yes.”
—that warrants a simple answer.
Her mother, Constantine, continues to fuss over buttons and hair and mittens and muffs. Her other child, another little girl, sleeps soundly upstairs in her bed.
“And that I love you too?”
The daughter nods her head of walnut hair, the same color as Constantine’s, something that many friends and family find endearing. But it is not quite the same…it is too light, bleached by sun and lightened by childhood.
“Your father, he just…” She trails off. “Vera, he just gets upset sometimes. You know he doesn’t mean what he says.”
Severa nods her head; it is more subdued this time. She will hear this same excuse for years to come, and she will grow tired of it, she will rot with her resentment until the maggots reach marrow.
“I know,” she says.
Constantine nods her head too, as if to say ‘good, good I have soothed this issue and all is well.’ She herds Severa to the front door, leading her outside and helping the young girl into the waiting carriage that harbors her two cousins and their nanny.
“Have fun!” Constantine tells her before stepping away to let the footman shut the door.
The nanny is the first to greet her, doe-eyed and sweet as she pats the space next to her in the coach, then her cousins bombard her.
“What took you so long!”
“We missed you!”
“Mama said you should come visit more often because you never do!”
Their nanny, Aenna, clasps her hands. “Children! Calm down, please. Let your cousin settle before you start shouting things.”
The eldest cousin, Cinis, begins to pout. Her blonde hair has been braided and curled, falling past her lovely cape, fitting for a princess of Osve Dorei. However, her younger brother Anlis bounces his knees excitedly, playing with his short fingers.
“I had trouble finding my boots, sorry,” says Severa, smiling bashfully.
Cinis lets her pout fall as she tugs on Severa’s coat. “Is this new? It’s so pretty; I want one just like it.”
The children laugh and titter for the remainder of the ride, speaking too loud and making many expressions. They exaggerate stories, giggle with their bellies, point out of the window when they see a buck trot past deeper in the woods, and wave to the calvary guards that amble behind them.
Severa wonders briefly why the buck is not sleeping through this winter, so she asks Aenna, who perks up when all the children turn their attention to her.
“Oh! Well, the animals still need to eat to survive the winter.”
So, things are not so simple, she thinks. Not then, and certainly not when this memory will slip from her fingers and melt like the white snow.
In four years, when Severa turns twelve, she will come to hate Cinis. They will scratch each other like animals and bare their teeth. She will grow to hate Anlis too, for the way he follows in his sister’s footsteps, like how his sister followed in their mother’s. And she will hate their third and final child, another son, when he gets older.
In five years, she will find her first purpose in life; she will be reminded that she is only sixth in line for the throne. But she will still smile and speak kindly, she will learn the art of people and sciences.
She will not starve when winter comes, neither will she sleep.
⊰⋄⊱ 𝐀/𝐍: This is original character content for my OCs Severa and Hiser!
For more information, stories, and illustrations
Two friends loiter on the outskirts of the gathering, one a precious stones merchant and the other a refined sculptor. They sip dark wine from their cups and curl around each other like that of minks.
“How unsettling,” the merchant comments idly. “I’ve never seen the ajwéfi before. I had thought those court mongers were liars, talking about a man with bull ears and horns walking these halls.”
The sculptor laughs behind his hand, a few of the merchant’s glittering gifts on his fingers and wrists.
“Thought they’d gone mad,” says the merchant.
“Who’s to say they haven’t already?”
Now, the merchant laughs, hearty and softened by the wine. She dips her chin to drink again, shaking her head.
“He seems to be following the queen’s niece,” hums the sculptor, sharp eyes trailing faraway movements. “I wonder why?”
“I hear they’re good friends.”
“I’m sure they are. If the niece was consorting with the beast, Her Majesty would make it known that they are only good friends, lest she tarnish the family reputation.” The sculptor waves his hand aimlessly, rings clicking against one another.
“No, no,” the merchant interrupts, “I think I overheard someone mention before that the ajwéfi acts as a liegeman of sorts.”
“He certainly doesn’t dress like a liegeman, too fine of clothing. But—” the sculptor leans closer, pressing his lips together in thought “—if you want to discuss unsettling, you’re looking in the wrong direction.”
The music suddenly picks up in a staccato and the merchant tilts her head toward her companion to better hear him. “Then whom should I be calling unsettling?”
“The girl; the niece. You should pay more attention to the ones who don’t demand it.”
“Her hair is poppy red,” the merchant says, a flat expression gracing her face. “What of that does not demand attention?”
“Bah!” the sculptor exclaims. “That is not my point.”
A passerby steps too close trying to avoid the other attendees. The merchant pauses and then says, “Then make your point.”
“Watch the way she interacts with different people: she mirrors them, matches them. Every time it’s a different approach, a different intensity or emotion on her face. Strange girl.”
“Well,” the merchant remarks, “everyone enjoys looking at a reflection of themselves. Especially in someone with close ties to the monarchs. She is much more accessible than that of the princess or princes.”
“Fine, but—”
The merchant places her hand on the sculptor’s shoulder. “Oh my,” she says, an almost delighted tone to her voice. “The ajwéfi has a bull’s tail too.”
here to say im so in love with severa’s twin beauty marks 😍
They’re actually painted on! (Typically using red paint to match her hair, but sometimes she’ll use small gems for more important events)
Some of the other court members joke that they’re her ‘false eyes’ like how animals will use false eyes to create a sense that they’re always watching their environments (e.g. this can be seen in the backs of tiger ears, peacock feathers, reptile patterns, etc.). Or, that they’re reminiscent of ‘diversion eyes,’ like how orcas have that giant white spot by their actual eyes to trick other competing species to attack the false eyes rather than the actual eyes
I feel like the little evil face emoticon is implying that I should answer with a dirty answer but I’ll give you an actual answer
Hiser likes anything heavy with meat and vegetables—soups, roasts, dense bread and butter to go with it. Helps keep him fuller for longer + protein to keep up with the demands he puts on his body (he also has more of a sweet tooth, too)
Severa (I’m assuming you mean Severa but correct me if I’m wrong) enjoys lighter meals but eats more often throughout the day because she has luxury to do so. Likes to snack on fruits, little tea cakes, soups, eggs, and vegetables + meats that have been cooked in sauce
finally fixed up the original drawings + more oc introductions and a couple of reposts just to have this all in one place!
hiser’s sister is yet to be named (that sketch may be subject to change too), and don’t mind me reusing a name yet again—I’ve gotten very attached to it
there’s little tiny bits of lore in these pictures too but I hope to expand on them with actual writing later