The Cursed Mother

Prologue

Casandera hummed as she walked, the only sounds being that of the forest and her own footsteps.

The lands haven't changed much in the last hundred or so years, perhaps longer– time all blurred together at some point when you live for so long.

Her straight, indigo hair hung low past her waist, ending close to the middle of her thighs. Pale, golden eyes stand stark against dark skin. Her clothes are loose, but layered to hide the cursed marks along her flesh, black and white fabrics with small glimmering pieces of gold. She wears no shoes, instead soft cloth covering most of her foot, leaving her toes and heel bare to the ground.

Around her neck is an amulet, inlaid with sparkling amethyst. Over one shoulder is a bag, smelling of herbs and medicinal items— often leaving her smelling of lavender, and held in her other hand is a long staff, wooden with a crystal inlaid at the top.

She traces it steadily along the ground as she makes her way along the trail, gaze focused but unseeing.

A part of her curse, the Curse of Prophecy, is blindness. She's long grown used to it, however, and feels the magical aura of everything around her, the staff catching anything her other senses may have missed.

It had been difficult at the beginning, when the Curse first set in, but she had grown used to it in her long centuries of life. Had grown so used to it, in fact, that her remaining senses often rivaled that of the dragons. So used to it, that her magic reached out like extra limbs to guide her way– to allow her to 'see'.

Dragons have always been such solitary creatures, she reminisces, but they are always polite and kind to her– they respected those older than they, for the most part, and few are older than she.

Casandera is the last of her family, the rest fallen to illness or their own hand ages ago– but she remembers them little. They were always a quiet sort, prone to let their family Curse eat up any joy and love they may feel for anything. A pitiful existence, one she wants no part of–

Sparks arc through her bones, her entire body freezing as shapes take form within the darkness of her sight.

Trees. A forest, this one. A clearing, small, with large creatures snarling and snapping with bloodied teeth. They are approaching something small, squirming. A bundle in the middle of a basket, the blanket used tattered, like those used for sacrifice.

The sound of crying, from the basket. Two small hands managing to find their way free from the cloth. A sacrifice. A child, an infant. The large, shapeless predators lunge forward. The bundle screams.

She blinks back to herself.

A vision. A vision of a child being left to die.

Casandera had grown used to the bloodiness of the cultures of this land, how they morph and change to become deadlier. She had seen many times children being cast out, left to perish. She only ever found their remains.

She has never once had a vision about such things.

The child must be important, special, for her Curse to acknowledge them so.

She stretches out her magic, searching for the clearing as she shifts to walk in a new direction.

She walks for several hours, the sounds of the forest steadily growing quieter– the sign of predators nearby. Or perhaps the sign that all the wildlife had left for greener forests. Feeling the crunching, dead grass beneath her feet, she believes it's the latter.

Her outstretched magic finally finds something other than trees and foliage, instead growing to fill a small clearing with jagged rocks around it– just like her vision. In the center is something small, the presence of a young magical core.

Her staff guides her feet over the sharp stones, her steps light as she finally reaches the grass. It's soft under her feet, clearly well protected from whatever had begun killing off the rest of the surrounding plant life. She approaches the basket, where the small magic core burns so brightly under her magic. She stops, the side of her staff gently knocking the edge, and the small creature inside shifts, making noises to show it's new state of wakefulness.

Casandera tilts her head, crouching down slowly, reaching out. A small, chubby hand reaches out to grab around her finger, and she pauses.

"You are but a babe." she murmurs, trailing her hand up gently to find soft, wild hair. "Who would leave a defenseless babe?..."

The child's face scrunches beneath her cheek, a small sound of dissatisfaction forming in the tiny voice, and she keeps one hand around her staff as she lifts the bundle of blankets with the other.

"Shh," she hums, carefully situating the child against her collarbone, moving to kneel in order to tie the child against her in a sort of sling. "Don't cry, little one." once the infant is held firmly against her, bundled away from the chill of the air around them, she stands once again, keeping her free arm around the small form as a comfort. "I will keep you safe."

She turns around, and begins to walk back to her original path.

"You will live a full life...

...A C H I L L E S..."