Redemptor Secret Origin

Neatherella (i)

It could not be said that any Tetrapolitan living in the Neath had an easy life, for they lived the lowest in the city, held the lowest, hardest-working positions in the businesses of the four supertowers, and were paid the least by the nine guilds. But for one young woman who lived in the Neath, life was hardest and lowest of all, and her name was Neatherella, although that was not always her name.

In the time of Treinte, before the arrival of Gorchen, the Conquering Winds, and the building of the four supertowers of Tetrapolis, Erella's father had been a rich merchant, and her mother a seamstress, and life was good, so good, and there was always laughter in their humble hut. One day, as a little girl, Erella asked, "Mother, Father, why do I look different than you?"

Her mother explained that, childless and having prayed each night all their wedded orbits to the sylvas for a child, one day at noon, while on a lunchtime stroll along the Treinte beach together, Erella's father and mother had found her as a newborn baby in a strange metal basket washed up on the shore, and they adored her at first sight and raised her and loved her as their own blood, and so that is why her skin is different from theirs, but inside, their blood is the same, for that is the power of love, and how things or people look on the outside is just the passing dream of Somnos anyway.

In the mornings Erella's mother taught her sewing and drawing and painting. In the afternoon Erella would dance and play around the tall obelisks that lined the Treinte beach, and she would read their stories and act them out with her friends. She would chase the boys, shouting in a silly voice, "'I am the Cactus Prince! Embrace me, my love!'"

But then came the Conquering Winds-and with them, General Gorchen and his black magic-and most of the peaceful natives of Treinte were killed. One of those killed was Erella's mother. Those who survived were shackled at their ankles with black bands and forced to work to build the towers. In that time of great and terrible transition, a woman, whose husband had also been killed in the Winds, came to live in Erella and her father's hut. This woman had two daughters, who would taunt and attack Erella whenever her father was not around. They would tell Erella that she was ugly and stupid and had hideous skin.

One day, Erella's father found her crying and asked, "What is it, my heart?" She told him how mean her stepsisters were, and the terrible things they said about her skin. Erella's father told her that they were lying, for in fact how beautiful she truly was, and explained that her stepsisters were in very deep pain and that some people, like the sylva story of the Bird on Fire, will spread their pain to others around them, and so, Erella must be strong, Erella must always know that her mother is watching over her, as a great and powerful sylva, and "the next time they're spitting their fire and lies at you, you just put your foot right down and know that where you stand, no matter where you are, is your own place." Erella embraced her father and kissed him, for he always knew what to say to make everything make sense, and make her remember her own strength.

The next day her father had been working on the top of the eastern supertower when a terrible accident befell him. Erella's stepmother brought Erella to see where he had fallen to his death in the black sands, and forced her to look, and said, "You see? Your father is dead. Now you will know your place."

Erella's stepmother went back to the hut and left the poor girl weeping there at her father's body's side, alone. After some sentos, in a rage, Erella ran to the Sylva Dome, which still stood, at the center of the four rising supertowers, and demanded that the shinseon bring her father back to life. The shinseon apologized, for that was impossible, and would go against the Fourth Precept of his Shinseon's Code ("Recall No Spirit, Once Departed, to Flesh nor Leaf"). However, with his black feathered cloak Ophiuchus embraced her and assured Erella that her father was with her mother, now, on the Other Side, but he was not gone. No, in fact, her father would never be gone for the invisible golden chain that stretched from father-heart to daughter-heart would always remain, and could never, ever be broken-not even by death.

Each day, for many orbits, Erella grew taller, into a young woman, while her life around her grew darker and darker as the supertowers rose higher and higher over the few and fewer remaining huts of Treinte, and the few surviving people began to call what had once been their beautiful, peaceful village "the Neath."

Meanwhile, her stepmother and stepsisters tormented Erella with greater ferocity and even less mercy than ever before. They would beat her, and make her do all the chores around the hut, and make her sweep away the spiderwebs, and make her do all the cooking, and do all the washing, and do all the cleaning, and when at the end of the long day's toil Erella would be covered in the red ash or the yellow dust that made its way, through the hearth, into their hut from the construction of the supertowers overhead, and Erella would want to clean herself, they beat her, forbade her from bathing except once a moon, and said, "We like you better covered in ash and soot. That way we can't see your disgusting skin, Neatherella."

At night, from where her stepmother made her sleep on the floor, Neatherella would pray to the sylvas for deliverance. She would clasp her hands and point her fingertips so that, visible from her hut's window, her prayers would fly between the bars of Tetrapolis' Black Gate, past the huge black spider of black crystal called Arachnor that hanged upon the huge gate, and out to the stars of the Other Side. As Neatherella would sleep, she would dream of the most beautiful dresses, and she would be a little girl drawing and sewing them with her mother, seated next to her by the warm hearth in the cold morning while her mother sang her sylva stories.

When Neatherella woke in the morning she would draw and sew these dresses from her dreams, and the dresses were highly praised by all who saw them, and the stepmother sold them away, without even asking Neatherella, and the stepmother kept all the money for herself and made Neatherella make more dresses, and also fix others' uniforms from the guilds, and plus do all the chores around the hut, besides. Alas, I am very sorry to say, Neatherella's was the lowest and hardest life of all in Tetrapolis.

Neatherella missed the orbits of her life before when everything was perfect and, more important, when she was loved. When she had her mother and her father and her home was their own and there was no Tetrapolis, no supertowers, no Black Gate, no Arachnor, no spiderwebs to always be sweeping away, no stepsisters, and no stepmother. But she assured herself that the sylvas had not forsaken her, had not forgotten about her, but, rather, that the sylvas would answer her prayers in their own sentos-from far and wide across Planet Fait, the sylvas must be rallying together a whole powerful shoal to help her. After all, the Seventh Precept of the Shinseon's Code was, "Respect All Spirits, in Their Sentos, Powers, and Designs."

Fortunately, by the grace of the sylvas, that very day, everything in Neatherella's life was about to change.