The Unknown Father

*Knock knock*

'What…? Don’t tell me it’s her… wanting to ask for my payment personally again?' Xe’Reth growls as he clicks his tongue, hearing the soft knocks on the front door.

Xe'Reth walks toward it while frowning, and as he pulls down the handle, he opens the door.

His eyes, wide to the point of popping out as he gapes with his mouth, trying to utter the name of the woman in front of himself, “M-M-Malinda? W-Why are you here?”

'Damn, damn, damn! Did she catch my attempts of trying to woo her?!' Xe’Reth screams in his mind as he gawks at the… fidgety Malinda. 'Wait, she is… nervous? Ah, I see.'

“H-Hello Xe’Reth, I followed you after you left. I was… curious to know where you live, and well,” she gazes around the dark neighborhood with blushing cheeks, but her sudden cease of blushing reveals her frame of mind. She scowls deeply as her eyes go to his. “So this… is where you live?”

'Damn you, woman, I didn’t want this life, so don’t look at me with such eyes of pity!' Xe’Reth curses his inability of gaining a better house, yet he shows a forward tilting head of shame.

“Y-Yes, I live here, my Honored Lady. As you can see, I’m but a mere young man that tries to make ends meet every month. I’m underprivileged, unfortunately, but fate has chosen this life for me, so I can just go from where I am,” Xe’Reth says in a calm but caring tone, showing a forced smile while also staring straight into her eyes with his. “Now that you see me for what I am, is it disappointing? To know that you've spent your precious time with such a person?”

“What? No, no, absolutely not! It’s just… No! You are not such a person at all! Even though we haven’t known each other for that long, I can see that you’re a very caring person. So what if you aren’t well-off? I know that you’re a man of worth, someone built for survival. Your eyes look at me with such affection, which I hadn't felt before, something that I sorely nee—…” she interrupts herself as she gets out of her daze, so she doesn't say anything embarrassing.

She turns around with a quick spin to not show her face, that face of a gaping mouth, wide eyes, and a saddened frown. She said something that she shouldn’t have said out loud. It was as if she was baring her feelings to Xe’Reth, her emotional feelings that ache inside her heart.

“Malinda?” Xe’Reth asks with blinking eyes and a side tilting head.

Never would he thought that she would come here to his house. He didn’t even notice that she was following him when he went home. Did she follow him so quietly that he didn’t sense her, hear her? His stare wander up and down as Malinda’s plate boots catch his eyes, which would’ve made a lot of noise, but it didn’t. Otherwise, he would’ve certainly heard her footsteps.

His eyes dart around but no horse in sight, so something must've happened to it. Did Malinda tie it to some place perhaps? And followed him on foot?

They stand there on either side of the opening of the door without saying anything; it feels like an eternity for Malinda since she isn’t showing her face to him, only her plated gleaming rear of stained blood.

“Aaaaahhh!! Honey!! Where are you!?!? Wher—iiihhh,” a woman shrieks out in petrifying agony that makes Xe’Reth grind his teeth in worry. His now pale face turn to pure terror. A face even he can’t mask no matter how much he tries.

Malinda spins around as she hears the wail. Surprise fills her now wider than wide eyes, “Who is that—?”

“P-Please Malinda, wait out here! I beg of you, please don’t come inside, I can’t let you see this. I’ll come back after I’ve… After I’ve gotten my mother to sleep. So please stay outside Malinda, please… I’ll be back soon,” Xe’Reth panics with such desperation as he pleads with his shuddering eyes.

He closes the door right in front of Malinda’s face, or more like slamming it shut.

“Xeee!!” the woman moans as she feels her whole body burn with extreme pain. Her shaking voice resounds. It’s such a high-pitched noise that it goes through the walls of this rundown house and out to the dark street of poverty.

He runs to the door where his mother is and grips onto the door’s handle, but he hesitates…

“Ahhhh…! Xeee…”

He opens it with haste as he hears that sorrowful and excruciating voice of hers while he cringes with a damaging grimace.

There she lies on her bed, which’s the only thing that’s new in this rundown house of his. She lies there in a miserable sprawled state. His mother has tried to get up, but with pain weakening her strength she couldn’t even move a muscle, and from her movements, her painful sufferings have become much worse.

Her snow-white skin has burnt searing flesh upon it while clad in bandages all around her naked body that hides the rest of her broken state of being.

It’s as if she’s a victim of a horrible fire.

“Xeee! It hurts… Where… where is thee…—Guuhhh!”

Xe’Reth goes up to a table that stands beside the bed. It has many different ingredients and equipment that’s lying on top of it.

Herbs that is prepared for crushing with the mortar and pestle which he makes drugs out of, drugs that ease her mind and body; new bandages that he has placed there for his return, clean towels and a lot more is scattered around the room.

One more bed is right beside his mother’s, for that’s where he sleeps, so he can always keep an observant eye on her. And it’s where he moves her when he cleans her bed.

“Mother, try to be still. You’ll just make your body feel further pain,” Xe’Reth says while his mother tries to raise herself, but to no avail. “It will soon be done, and you’ll get your medicine, just stay still, okay?”

“Yes… O-Okay… my… lov—Hiiii!” she says, but a stinging pain causes her to squeal out in horror once again as she clenches her teeth, fists her hands, and curls her toes as hard as she can, to try to hold in her loud cries. The continual tears that run down her cheeks make Xe’Reth’s heart waver dreadfully as he fixes the mixture.

His mother is shaking terribly as she holds herself in check, to wait for the soothing effect of the drug that he’ll bring her. He has conjured up this drug many times before, and it’s an illegal remedy that has been forbidden to be used in the kingdom, but he needs it to ease his mother’s agony.

That addictive feeling of lightheadedness, that sense of being in complete serenity; to fall asleep and not feel anything anymore. That traumatizing pain will be gone from her body.

When his mother was inflicted with this disease, he didn’t know what to do at first. He was in anguish because he couldn’t help her then, but he studied herbs and their various effects as time went on. He found the mixture to make this drug by accident when he tried it on himself with a sample of the forbidden herb, a day he will never forget.

A year had gone by when he decided to go to the City’s public library, to rummage through books of herbalism, alchemy, and of forbidden herbs that had been branded illegal for they had been used to do horrible things to its victims. Though even to this day it is utilized by those who can acquire it.

Xe’Reth goes out to the kitchen and brings back a mug that’s filled with hot water. In his other hand, he holds onto the mortar of various grind up herbs that are in a gooey state.

He sits down on the bed beside his bandaged mother. New burn marks are showing on her body. He needs to rinse it quickly and remove all of the other bloody bandages.

But first things first.

He sits there beside his mother on the comfortable bed that has blood stains on it and skin pieces that have fallen off from her fire burnt body. That black, red, yellow, and orange colored skin… He just gazes at her with an unaffected face, because he has seen this for far too long…

For too long…

This agony his mother must endure… This painful existence! Why did this happen to her! Why!

He has wondered that many times.

A couple of years ago, the Fire-Brand disease spread throughout the kingdom, killing thousands upon thousands, but most of the medication was made from the most expensive and rare herbs; the forbidden herb was one of them.

Since all of the right medicine were either illegal or pricey, people fell into their own deaths like the droplets from the sky that showers the soil.

It is a disease no one can cure but with magic, those words of healing which the royal family can use to no end, for they control the magicians and their powerful magic. A selfish way to keep the ancient words of magic from not spreading.

But there were some who were like Xe’Reth, using the illegal ways to keep their precious loved ones alive. Though the people who gave the herbs to their loved ones, still died. Because those that were infected committed suicide because the pain of that disease was too horrible for them to endure. Only the strongest minded people can undergo its painful stings.

It’s not a contagious disease, so the illness vanished within a year, but that year of not knowing what to do, that horror of seeing his mother scream in terror. He had cried, and he had begged for someone to help his mother, begged like the damned dog that he was. But no help, no one gave him their aid, for he was an outcast among its citizens of this glorious city where he lives. An ebony stained dog among regular dogs.

He was thirteen at that time of the outbreak.

His mother couldn’t work anymore since she was running and owning a clothing store, so Xe’Reth had to sell it, her boutique that she had earned from her own hard work – Xe’Reth’s childhood home. He had vowed to buy it back when she would get better, but no recovery happened… Every night and day she would cry in pain, that pain that kept her and Xe’Reth awake. Only when she fainted was the time they rested.

He hated himself more for every moment he needed to go and try to find a way to ease her suffering. He had left her in this very room where she is now, to let her cry herself to sleep as he figured out and learned everything that he had gotten to know to this present day.

As Xe’Reth didn’t have a father, only a mother, life was hard on him. He was even tricked by the one who bought his mother’s clothing store. He was outplayed by a woman who played him so effortlessly… He was naïve, such an innocent boy.

He couldn’t do anything about it, for the woman was a noble.

All he could do was watch when construction men came to the building where his mother’s store was; they razed it to the ground! Because it was a perfect place to set up a store. It was by one of the City’s outer gates where most traffic was.

His mother’s store wasn’t the finest, it was only for those who had little money to spend. That noble woman wanted to spread her own business of fashionable clothing, so she tore it to the ground and built upon the reminiscence of his mother’s hard worked time.

That noble woman showed no compassion towards the boy who sat there crying as he saw his mother’s life’s work being reduced to rubble. His mind had thought that people could be kind and fair, but oh he was wrong.

All he got from that noble woman was one golden crown—hundred lesser crowns. She had just seen the crying boy as she enjoyed the scenery of the rubble in front of her. She imagined how it would be built, and how it would look after it was finished, but her precious fantasy was interrupted by the boy who sat there weeping beside her.

She had ordered her guards to throw away that child who dared to intrude on her imagination. Xe’Reth was carried away by one of the guards and then tossed to the ground. The people just stood by, watching, and didn’t do anything. They only said mean remarks as the boy lied there on the dirt, bleeding from a gash on his left brow.

Under his thirteen years of life, he had lived with eyes upon him, looking at him with disgusting expressions, for he’s indeed the darkling, but his mother had kept him away from such eyes since she was very overprotective of him since she knew how people regard those who’re stained by the darkness. He wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without her because instances could’ve happened to him if he met with the wrong people.

Xe'Reth had been homeschooled by his mother. He read countless books that she had brought home in rapid succession, books of education; history, language, and many other subjects.

Those memories were the only happy times he had had. Now... it is only memories of hatred that he builds up, one after the other.

Before she was a mother and a store owner, she was a warrior of the Ebon Wall, a melee soldier of greatness. But she was tired of that kind of excruciating life of war, so she had taken her well-earned crowns that she had collected over the years by being a soldier, to journey further into the kingdom to seek something else in the unknown.

She explored through the vastness of this nation that's surrounded by the righteous mountains that protect the country as a circle dome, reaching the Divine Sky. She had met many people in her travels. Both men and women but none of them really got her to feel at home. No man or woman could sway her to stay in one place, for she was a hard-headed maiden that only did things she wanted.

She had gone through dangerous times when she adventured in the forbidden areas where animals waited for their prey and monsters that were so terrifyingly grotesque that she had to retreat before death took her.

Because of her outstanding beauty, many wanted her, many saw her in lustful eyes, for she was an entity of exquisiteness with her snow-white skin, her light brown hair and eye color. Her alluring oval facial feature, her perfect juicy lips, and her gentle but yet veteran eyes that can make any man or woman swoon over her, or fall to their knees in fear.

She was a gorgeous woman in her youthful years.

But that one time when she journeyed into the most dangerous forest there is... Changed her life forever.

That one time, she had been followed by men who had seen her travel through a village, to go into the Fal’kralin Forest. A forest of miracles where adventures go to seek their glory if they don’t want it by the Ebon Wall. To bring back the bounty of rare monsters and rare animals that can be sold to various buyers, because the skins, scales, and the bodies of those creatures were in high demand.

As she had journeyed in the dense forest where danger was, she had felt the following eyes throughout her traveling, and she was right. She dashed with full awareness to her surroundings to escape her pursuers, but they too kept up with her quickness, however, with her swift legs she managed to shake them off… for a while.

She ran deep into the dangerous forest while she looked around nervously. She ran so deep that she didn’t even know where she was. Thick towering trees were all around her. Bushes of different barriers and vegetables riddled all around her as she stood there on the green ground feeling the air current that seeped through the foliage.

She had thought that she shook them off, but her followers still managed to catch her sitting there on a log, breathing heavily.

Her eyes went wide when she saw the men of different sizes and different ugly faces.

Chill had run down her snow-white-covered spine as she saw their lustful eyes that stared at her. She dashed away again at her fastest speed that she could muster, but the men kept on following her, for they had a skilled tracker.

…...

…

She stood on a cliff's precipice overlooking the vast wilderness that was beyond counting. The thousands of kilometers of woodlands, the different birds that soared above the trees, and the heavy breathing men who were looking at her with eyes burning, smiles of lust, and tongues that moistened their mouths in a disgusting drooling way.

She had thought: Was this her end? Is she going to be violated by such monsters?

No!

She’d fight to her last breath before that would ever happen! She wouldn’t let herself be a slab of meat for their enjoyment! If they want her! They can get her dead cold body to feast upon!

Her weapons that were resting on her waist; her two gleaming silver swords revealed themselves which had been slumbering inside her two scabbards. The men too drew their weapons of different variety… Bows, swords, shields, axes, and their armors weren’t anything noteworthy, only leather in a brown color.

There were ten of them and only her who was alone on the cliff face.

All they could say to her were nonsense of lust. That she should just give in and be their toy, their whore that they can play with to no end. But her face just hardened to a fierce expression of survival which she had had for countless times down by the Ebon Wall’s middle-gate.

She had been a warrior that had fought in the clashing armies by the Ebon Wall! The blood that she had spilled, the bodies that she had cut asunder, and the breaking of bones that she had heard being crushed by the huge boulders which were flung down from the Ebon Wall. The multi-shooting ballista that was stationed by the gates, those projectiles that pierced the enemies’ bodies with new giant-blood-seeping holes.

How could they even match her?!

She dashed forward with a shrieking war-cry which made the men stunned. They raised their weapons and yelled out to each other that they shouldn’t hurt her body too much. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to live long enough for everyone to play with her.

She came sprinting with the wind, a wind of survival, and before any of the men could react, she did a screeching double-slash that sliced into one of the men’s throats; blood spewed out in quantity.

She spun her whole body and with the momentum she slashed towards another man’s throat, not giving them any pause to recover, but her sword was blocked by one of the men, which made her dash away from them, so she wouldn’t be jumped upon.

The men pursued her as they saw her attempt to run away; they yelled with faces of maddened rage for she had just killed one of their comrades.

A swoosh came from behind her, so she tilted to the side as she pressed her feet into the ground, pushing her semi-crouched legs to have her tilting body dodge an arrow that was shot at her.

She flew to the side.

A barrage of arrows ensued upon her since three of the men stood there looking at her with mad frowning expressions as they quickly nocked and shot arrows at her, though she dodged them all with slight ease as she did her erratic movements.

The other men who had only close-quarter weapons howled as they followed her. As they pursued her, she circled around the area, so the chasing men were still behind her, but the archers were now in front of her.

Arrows swooshed by her as the men yelled furiously at their archers to stop firing, to run away instead, for she was baring her weapons towards them with terrifying speed. The three archers then scattered in different directions, to escape her, but she went towards one of them… the one who seemed to be the best archer in the group, because his arrows had almost grazed her.

He was also the one who had tracked her.

The ground shot up earth from her very running speed; her goal was right in front of her. The archer turned around as he felt her baleful gaze upon him, but as he turned, an edge of a sword slashed into his face, making it split into two halves; blood made a scythe splatter as her sword did a quick horizontal swipe to get the blood off of her weapon.

She heartlessly thought ‘eight left’ when she cleaved that man’s head in two. She kept on running towards another archer, but she didn’t expect that the other people were so close to her.

As she detected the heavy footsteps behind her, she hastily turned around, but her eyes went wide; she raised her weapons to form a cross, to block a two-handed sword that came swinging with alarming speed.

With a huge impacted *Klink* their weapons connected!

Her body flung away from the sheer pressure from that man’s swinging two-hander. But what the man didn’t expect was, she was sent over the cliff’s precipice… She fell and disappeared down the cliff as she screamed out in surprise with a reflexive shout, dropping her silver swords in the process.

*Splash*

......

...

…A sound… A surge of something…

It was as if she’s drifting away into the beyond… She had lost consciousness, but in her deep unconscious mind, she heard a flow…

Water…?

Before when she had stood by the cliff, she saw the mighty forest of emerald and the cliff that was fifty meters high… So how can she still be alive?

What she didn’t see was a stream down below the cliff, a huge river which coursed beside the bottom floor of the cliff, seeming endless. She floated there on the surface on her back as she glided with the moving water, slowly…

How long had it been since she was sent over the precipice by that man’s mighty swing?

She continued to float on the river. Luckily she wasn’t wearing any plate armor on her. Only easy to move leather armor… thin armor, not enough for the water to seep in and drag her down to the bottom surface.

After some time, she came to a stop on a rocky shore; small stones that were like sand on a strand.

As she laid there for hours without waking up, footsteps began to echo in the far distance. The footsteps just came closer and closer, but the footsteps didn’t sound like steps, more like some kind of creature that skipped from place to place on the ground.

But no creature, no human, no animal, no monster, nothing that she knew stood loomingly above her, looking at her with such piercing blackened eyes of hatred. Pure black eyes; irises, pupils, and the sclera was of the darkest of black, an ebony color.

The creature saw blood running down her one arm which was broken and had a protruding bone sticking out of it.

The woman beneath the creature was indeed dying, slowly.

Its Ebon eyes glistened as it looked upon her with not eyes of hatred anymore, but with eyes filled with regret.

……

…

She had awoken hours later... her stomach was showing a slight swelled up bulge.

She felt new life inside herself, both figuratively and literally because all of her wounds were healed. Her broken-bone-protruding arm was fully restored while all of her other wounds were as good as new. Nothing to indicate that she had suffered any damage... Other than her leather armor which was damaged to the point of her showing to much skin.

She felt new life in her, but her mind was in complete and utter turmoil upon seeing her own belly.

The bulge on her stomach could only mean one thing... She was pregnant.

………

……

…

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