Mara - The Lady Grief (Completed)

21 Sadistic Males

2651 B.C.E., City of Tmari-on-the-Euphrates

Early Fall, Month of Ululu, One Year and Six Months after Mara's Rebirth

Mara

The tiny, bedraggled creature wakes up when we land back at the temple. He flinches from the sun ... the child can't open his eyes in the light.

"To the pool," I tell Thelios. He sprints through the doors and puts me down.

Inside the halls temple, the child is able to open his eyes in a squint. They are the darkest brown, staring out at me in fear and suspicion from underneath a rat's nest of hair so filthy that I wonder if it is as red as mine. I'm almost positive that this is a child, but he, or she, must only weigh about the same as two wet, fat gargoyles. Now that my heart is calming slightly, I can take the time to examine him more. He's nothing but skin and bones covered in dirt and filth and blood. Under the coat of filth, I think I can see bruises.

"I need your help, Sprite," Thelios murmurs. "What do we do?"

"I'll take him into the pool," I tell him.

"Female," the tiny thing whispers to me, "I's a female."

"Her," I reply faintly in agreement.

"She needs to eat, Mara," Thelios' voice holds an undercurrent of panic in it. His hands are holding her delicately and I understand his fear. Her bones are fragile. If she was in that basement for her whole life, how much exercise did she get? She must be so weak.

"She needs healing, first," I whisper to him as if the child can't hear me. I'm not convinced it's a female. I'm not sure of anything other than Thelios and I have rescued a starving, filthy child in dire need of help. We brought her here, which means that, in the eyes of the Fourth House, we stole her.

I push past him, sharply indicating that he needs to follow me.

When we walk through the portico into Death's temple the child starts to weep.

"Don't wanna be dead," she whimpers.

I stop and turn to look at them. Thelios looks desperate as he struggles to hold onto the squirming child without hurting it.

"You will not die, poppet," Thelios says. There is an undercurrent of panic in his voice that I have never heard before.

A tiny, grubby fist flails, flying out toward his cheek. He doesn't flinch when it strikes him, but when the child screeches in a foul curse he winces in sympathy.

"Not want! ... Not to be dead! Not want to be mama!"

Nateos, what did this child see in that basement?

Thelios grabs that hand in his fists, gently capturing the limb. It keeps struggling, making noises that sound eerily similar to rats fighting over scrapes on the streets.

I feel my own uncertainty ratchet upward. What are we thinking? The Second House, of the Mother, runs all of the city's orphanages. They are the ones who know how to care for a child. I am Death's daughter. What do I know of life, especially that of a young child? A baby?

"Mara?" Thelios looks up at me. Grey eyes swim with concern and pleading. Another harsh stream of nearly incoherent words from the mouth of the urchin has his face paling.

"Enough," I say it with enough sternness in my tone that the child stops struggling and stares at me in wary contemplation.

"Nateos is the god of Rebirth, not just Death. Into the pool, to bathe and heal."