Along sauntered a scandal clad in piety, a habit framed her face in black. The black clung to her like a secret she kept like a slave. All in a vain attempt to contain the flames that raged beneath. Crimson locks, braided like a cat-o-nine tails, slipped free from their confines and whipped across her generous bosom. She paused; her hand swept away the red and tightened her habit until it sunk blanched lines across her plush cheeks.

Her eyes glowed with an uncomfortable red warmth, like coals that promised a burn upon any hand that dared draw near. And so spurned by that smoldering stare, the eyes driven ever downward like a goodly compass spinning madly bewitched by some lodestone underfoot. Behold, those twin beauties looming high upon her chest.

Every little breath cast a ripple across their heft. And she, stands unflinchingly self-assured like some stately portrait designed for those very same stares. In her whole bearing there is a contradiction crafted with care; purity worn like a costume, mischief worn like perfume, and depravity vaunted as some virtue.


/////////ONCE UPON A TIME\\\\\\\\\\


Not so long ago, in the deep north, where it is so cold that just 'very cold' is considered quite warm, a farmer, fast asleep, snuggling up against his wife for warmth. And in this bed, the farmer, shivering, reached out for his wife, but instead of a head, he found a foot. All because his missus was rubbing noses with the dog, but they didn't own a dog.

Unbeknownst to him, she whittled the night away, as the hellhound's willing victim. Its beastly sin sowed deep within her hours prior. For now, she cuddled with the creature, nose against nose. Her lips wet with its slobber.

"Don't be daft, old woman!" Out peeped a low, grating rumble, which surely struck the fear of the gods into the creature scampering out into the dark with a shrill yelp scritching and scratching across brick and mortar.

"It might work!" The old hag cried out, her voice shrill and unsteady. "The mother of beasts said so!"

"Mother of perversion, more like it. Canoodling with some fleabag. Them nun's stuffing your head with ideas. Look, we're old! And ye've got nothing between those legs, but dust and cobwebs. First thing this morning, we'll beg Lathander for a proper blessing." He grumbled.

"Lathander?!"

"Yes. You know, a /proper/ god?"

She grumbled.

"If yer so desperate for company, get a widow woman up from the village. Now come up this end, I'm proper frozen."

But the farmer's wife didn't want no widow for company! She wanted a baby. And she wanted this child for what seemed a lifetime until she couldn't bear to watch the lambs born, or the calves come, or the eggs hatch. It hurt her so.

"I want a child. I don't care if it were a strange thing made of marzipan or porridge. I want a baby to wrap in a bundle to snoodle!"

Now to say you wouldn't care when you want something is a dangerous thing. Worse yet, embracing the blessing of one God, while shunning the other? The gods don't like playing favorites.

Sometimes people are born lucky. You imagine that if they open their hands, there'd be a little piece of sunshine. A personal piece. It lights them up. Cats sit on their laps. Its luck, it's a gift, it's a blessing, and therefore cannot be undone. . . but sometimes. . .

...Sometimes people are born wrong. You sense it before they speak like a brisk draft, as if something warm has slipped out of the room and left only shivers behind. If they open their hands, you imagine a little shard of night like broken glass rolling in their palms, cold as iron, heavy as regret. A personal piece. It draws the eye like a calamity in motion. Dogs growl low in their chests when these souls pass by. It isn't choice, or flaw, or sin. It's a curse, a fate, the turning of some unseen wheel and once set upon them, it cannot be persuaded, bartered, or loved away.

A boy was born. (Yes. A boy.) But he was all wrong.