Birds of Perdition

[PillowChalk]

Since I developed a craving for a particular dessert those nine months I've carried you in my belly. Mikan Daifuku, a kind of Shengese confection where a thin layer of mochi is wrapped around the sphere of an orange made of sweet white bean paste. When I was younger, your grandmother used to make it for your uncle and I in the early summer; often we traded each other for parts as he were more partial to the filling when I preferred the flesh. Unfortunately, as you would soon discover yourself, Vdalion is not a hospitable climate for a fruit meant to grow in tropical weather and so I often traveled southward to the bottom of the mountains where the fruit grew abundant. I helped myself to making several fruit baskets, and during these trips I conceptualized what you would look like compared to the fruit.

Would you have red, rosy cheeks like the speckle-seeded strawberries? Or beady eyes like the plump grapes I picked from the vines? If I were not careful enough, would your skin bruise as easily as a banana's? I was often teased by your father for stuffing my cheeks full like a chipmunk's when eating from my basket of forages. All preconceived notions of me being an elegant and fragile tea maiden of Dal'Thala had be awash when it came to you. 

I ate rather slovenly because I wanted you to develop a versatile palette. From the elegant, light dishes of Dal'Thala to the heavier meals found in Aphros; peculiarly enough, these variations extended out even to how they made pizzas. May the Huntress down the small cult of few who actually enjoy pineapple on Aphrosian-styled pizza. They be a witch.

...

You were there to keep me company during that horrible mistake of resigning from the retainership of House Caewynn. I feared that the sharp eye of Queen Aurona might see you protruding from beneath the obi of my kimono. In retrospect, I wish she had. Perhaps your life would have been a lot more different if she--no, if your foolish mother-- had persisted on staying rather than chasing after an indecisive man. Did you hear your mother during her most embarrassing moment of being rejected? I wound my arms around you and sobbed the following night in the scarcely decorated apartment I got a day after my resignation.

Don't follow in your mother's footsteps and let someone validate your worth with honeyed words and poetry. Things like that are for the doves.

I lied to your Aunt Xenara that I had been alright. Her blindness had been a blessing for me in as she did not notice I was pregnant with you. Another selfish thing I have done that I deeply regret; she would have taught you far better than I, the art of tea ceremonies and the mystery of the leaf. A medic far skilled than I, she might have noticed that I was also sick.

Finding myself in a coughing fit just a couple of months before your birth, I used my hand to cover my mouth and discovered that the phlegm had been black. Black with a consistency like tar. My mind had reeled back like a video cassette to the memory of a younger me. When I had gone by Chizuru before assuming the name of Tsukino.

You likely do not remember this, but I often enjoyed interacting with you while you were nestled in my warmth. Singing to you, conversing about idle things, and even revisiting old memories. It was during this that I had confided to you about the massacre that happened during my village in Sheng called Sinuipo. Where a ritual that called for the sacrifice of your uncle Chiaki and one of the elder gentlemen to usher another decade of prosperity for our home. What had seemed like a success had proven a catastrophic failure as the following night, the barrier between our realm and the spirits had thinned to the point where evil spirits ravaged Sinuipo; those who did not die by the fel-demons were driven mad by black smog that covered the ground and turned on each other. 

I watched your grandmother's head get crushed in a demon's mouth like a crystal candy. Your grandfather had ordered me to hide away under the crawlspace of the house while he ran into the fray to find the mayor. He never returned. I held my breath for as long as I could waiting for your grandfather, but my lungs were so small that I inevitably inhaled some in the exertion of running away. Sitri, your adoptive grandmother and a faeborne had found me and nursed me back to health with aid of a shaman to purge the effects from my circuits.

But never did they predict it would come back. Not like this.

I never intended to keep you away from your father, but during the war between the mountains and ... everyone else when necromancy was openly practiced there, I had trouble finding the right time to meet with him. We exchanged letters before in the past-- or rather your father ghosted me-- but I knew the gravity of the situation would be the most potent if I showed in person. So I did with a cloak, an invisible potion, and by the luck of my Goddess I caught him while he was returning home from a meeting with his counsel.

He was as stoically handsome as I remembered, but I smoldered such feelings before they caught flame. Arguably another error of mine, but I had planned in mine to return to Sheng and consult with Sitri about finding a shaman that specialized in the ailment I had. Something I also refrained from doing. Maybe had I been more honest, he might have known someone to treat me. But biases against Vdalion had lingered, especially when their Emperor had held me captive. Twice.

Were you cold during those final months of my secret stay there, my beloved? I tried my best to stick to the fireplace and bundled up ... but your mother is as attuned to the cold as a fish is to swimming through land. This annoyance on top of the pain of childbirth had been worth it when I first held you in my arms.

Such a heavy infant you were; I supposed that's from the giant blood running through your veins courtesy of your father. As I predicted with strawberry cheeks and large eyes like grapes. I was initially worried at first when you didn't make a peep. You just looked out into space with those wide eyes and an expression of 'Where am I?' You reassured by latching your chubby fingers around one of my own. Everything was going to be alright, I thought with a weak smile. In these fleeting moments of happiness, even I can be blissfully ignorant of my mortality.

My mind flitted through many a Shengese names, but would it really have been fair to you if you got picked on for having such a strange name? You needed something befitting the mountains you have been borne in, and so I quickly exchanged names back and forth between a midwife for suggestions. One in particular stood out to me like a stalk in a bed of flowers.

Estrid. She told me it meant fair and beautiful goddess. How fitting considering your cherubic chubby features made Nemea's willowy wiles pale in comparison. I hoped you grew up to honor that name.

For the first few years, I kept in correspondence with Sitri on finding a suitable shaman to treat my sickness. Your father would visit occasionally between running an empire and diplomatic affairs-- but I was happiest when I had you all to myself. I managed to bribe some of the merchants into smuggling Shengese clothing to dress you in. I recalled once that you tried to dress yourself and ended up toddling to me with your yukata on backwards! Such a silly girl. Much to my dismay, and perhaps your development, I may have overexposed you too much to the eastern language. You developed a peculiar way of speaking Brittonian after I began teaching you, and I feared it might have become a habit that carried over in your later years. Regardless, I doted on you all the same and was prudent in teaching you the craft of making tea along with the ceremonies; it was bittersweet going through the motions again, and I might have been rusty ... 

During one of these ceremonies, was when I fell into another horrendous coughing fit. So horrible that I momentarily convulsed on the floor. My lungs felt like they were filling up with cotton wettened with alcohol, and even as a servant tried to help me to my feet, I couldn't breathe until a medic with wind magic arrived to resuscitate me. 

I knew I could not put it away from much longer. I had to go to Sheng myself.

"Mo'm, whe're go'ing?"

"Mommy is very ... homesick, you see. She has to go back home to speak with grandma about something."

"Etri co'me too?"

"No, Estrid. You have to stay here and look over your father while I'm away. He needs you here. Far more than you realize."

"Guweh... wan't co'me too! Mee't gran'ma!"

"Not this trip, dear. I promise to come back for you when I'm over this homesickness. Please take care of your father in my place. You're a big girl, are you not? My big girl."

". . .snff."

"That won't work on me this time, Estrid. No tears. Look-"

I offered my iron folding fan Breeze Dancer and my unfinished tea recipe to her as tributes to her tantrums. She did not take to the latter much, but the ornately decorated war fan with an illustration of sakura trees and scattered petals distracted her. Thankfully, the edges of the war fan had dulled over the years from neglect. I was never a fighter.

"Hold onto these for me while I'm away, okay Estrid?" I had fell into my native language with the young girl.

"... okay! You better not take long, Mom! Father and I will be waiting!"

...

Forgive me for failing you, Estrid.