The red moon watched the woman race through the woods. The darkness reached for her all around, clawing to immerse her into its void. The trees and its branches played their own part in slowing her down, directing her every which way, till she didn’t know which way she had come and which way she’d need to go.
But left or right, irrelevant, she only wished to get away, to flee from her captors, who were so much more daunting than a bloody moon and the raven sky.
The child wailed, her screams making crows take flight and hunters’ game to scraper. But her mother couldn’t waste a second, risking their lives, to coo her calm. Instead she pressed on only faster. Though her feet ached, and her insides twisted in the wake of the very recent delivery of her child, she couldn’t give into the pain.
The wood ended suddenly at the edge of a cliff that dropped at least a hundred feet into the dark sea and a garden of jagged rocks that would pierce flesh cleanly through. The woman caught her breath and froze. She surveyed the scene, considering her options of escape which were as good as none.
She shook her baby slightly, hushing her with sweet lies. Dismay hovered like ghosts, edging her into surrender. But the beautiful face of her beloved child forced her to keep moving.
The woman eased the bracelet off her wrist, took one last look at the plain silver band engraved with her name and cast it into the deep. She risked a few paces back then lurched forward.
Her feet divorced the earth and she descended into the perilous body of water. Her back arched as a new pair of bones and flesh broke from her back and grew to wings. Her feet skimmed the cold water and then she soared. The rush of air seemed to eat away at her skin, as it gradually slipped away and a new, harder covering clothed her flesh in its place.
Up, up and above, they went, beyond the layer of clouds, her child tucked into her arms no more tears running down her face.
The woman no longer looked like herself, or what she had made herself look like, she was now truly herself. But that was the very reason she fled, why they wanted her child. But a mother’s love outshines all love, in its grace, in its strength and perseverance, in its tolerance and compassion. No one loves like she who bears life. Which was why she decided, her child would be safer without her mother in her life.
The blood moon had disappeared beyond the horizon, but the darkness still reigned. The child slept peacefully in her mother’s arms, not a peep nor squirm came from her, though they were far above the inhabitable elevation of the normal newborn child or anyone for that matter. Their kind could withstand temperatures worse, for fire ran like blood through their veins and came and went with every breath.
She finally landed in the country side, where acres and acres of land had been cultivated for wheat. She chose a cottage home out of the many littered across the land that seemed fairly deserted. The fields hadn’t been tended to for a while and wild grass grew in place of wheat.
She was exhausted and wished to rest. To lay her head on anything whether it was a bale of hay or the ground. She had travelled far enough, they wouldn’t find her, at least not for a few of days. That was more than enough time to find a home for her child.
But just as her eyelids fell close they snapped awake at the sight of light. She rose to her feet, her senses alert, when she saw the human-looking man and woman who held each other close as they held up a lamp and exited the cottage doors. They gawked in wonder at the mother or who they saw as a mighty creature.
With a flap of her wings she rose into the air when the man said, “oh no, it’s alright. We won’t hurt you!”
She wavered.
The woman approached her, reaching out. "You must have been searching for someplace to rest. You can rest here. No one will know you were ever here.”
The mother lowered back to the earth and adjusted her baby in her arms.
The human woman gasped at the sight of the child nestled in the arms of the creature. The man rushed forward, gasping just as the woman had.
“Is this your child?” The man asked, eyes wide and filled with wonder.
She nodded. And inched the child closer to the woman.
The human woman’s eyes expanded as she looked from the child to its mother. “You want me to take her?”
She nodded.
The woman took the child, mystified by her appearance. Tucked into a knitted crimson scarf, the child slept, her small new breaths heating the woman’s face. Scales lined the child’s cheeks, her skin a rich brown, tufts of dark curls escaping from beneath the scarf. The child was healthy and beautiful.
Perhaps the mother didn’t want her baby to be sleeping out in the fields with her, the woman agreed, she didn’t want any child out here at night either.
Her mother rested her head against the earth and allowed sleep to come finally.
The man and woman retreated with her child into the warmth and comfort of their cottage. The mother saw something in their eyes as they stared at her daughter, and that was why she left by the break of dawn. She saw adoration and that was enough to put her at ease, to convince her that they’d love and care for her child just as much as she would. Because unlike them the rest of the kingdom would only ever see her child as a monster.
Edit: this was the last published chapter of Scales and Swords, before I decided it would make a great prologue. 😅 u may proceed to the first chapter ⬇️
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Scales and Swords ✓
Fantasy*completed* Born with scales and the ability to breathe fire, Mo spent all her life being bullied and ridiculed. For in the Kingdom of Kreatier her kind are not welcome: Half-breeds or as they are better known, Vuruks. But when she loses her family...
