J.T. Firefly - Dante Caoimhin
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If my ears were pointy, I wouldn't be scrubbing this floor.
The thought came to me in a loop, just like everything else in Dambrath. Wake up. Clean up. Dress up. Mess up. Beat up. Repeat.
If my stupid mother had only let a Crinti have his way with her instead of my stupid father, I wouldn't be serving this imbecile his wine.
Pray for mercy. Receive suffering. Pray for suffering. Receive suffering. Obey the priestesses. Curl under the lash. Prayers. Lashings. Prayers. Repeat.
If I weren't so pretty they might have made me a soldier.
Dambrath was hot. You baked in the sun, and baked in the shade. When the season of storms came, you boiled in the humidity. The heat was like the rest of the country, constant, unchanging, never ending. Almost nobody new came to Dambrath. The Crinti were isolationists. The only people who got to see outsiders were the soldiers tasked with killing any who tried to violate the borders. Lucky soldiers.
If I lived in the slums, I could watch the torches flicker.
The Crinti didn't use torches for light, they preferred cantrips. Heatless cantrips. In Dambrath you resorted to burning torches for light only if you were poor. I was poor, but my masters were Crinti…I didn't get to stare at the torchlight as I had while a child. When I was fourteen they caught me changing their cantrips to look more like real flames, and less like cold unearthly light. They sent me to the priestesses and I didn't use magic again for a full year.
If I were a boy, I could just catch the eye of the Crinti and be on easy street.
The Crinti were matriarchal, just like their full-drow cousins. My own brother was a concubine to one, and man was he ever spoiled. He got to eat cheese and grapes. I hated him so much. The priestesses say that's a natural reaction. Anybody who hasn't suffered for what they've got is contemptible. I've suffered, but I haven't got much to show for it. At least I don't hate myself. That's why the Crinti worship the Mistress of Pain so ardently - they're our rulers, so they have to suffer for all their privileges.
If I were a Crinti, I wouldn't be scrubbing this floor.
See how even the thoughts repeat in Dambrath? The Crinti want you to envy them, a breed apart from the teeming masses. The priestesses want you to envy those worse off than you, because their suffering is purer.
If I were a priestess, I wouldn't be fetching this point-eared half-breed her nightcap.
Somehow, I didn't envy the Crinti though. Or the wretches in the gutters. Or the priestesses. Somewhere along the line, my looping thoughts went off the rails Dambrath had carefully laid out for me. In sleep, she sang to me of cinder and ash. In dreams, she came to me wreathed in flame. Her voice rang out to me, and said my name for the first time. Not what the Crinti had called me.
I want to run my hands through their cinders. I want to dance among the ashes.
When I finally let the magic out it was such a relief. I didn't realize how much holding it in was hurting me. Making me crazy. The priestesses had made a mistake trying to beat it out of me. Or maybe they were doing exactly what She told them to, because honestly…the results were pretty spectacular.
She lit a fire inside me that I can't extinguish. Her eyes are watching me, those eyes that burn. I can't escape from her, but through her I escaped Dambrath. If I had been Crinti, I'd never have left. In the end, I was free, and they were trapped in their finery. The ones I didn't burn, at least.
I need to go somewhere cold. The fire burns hottest in the bitter chill.
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reviewed, xp awarded
