Vyctorya's Childhood (8yrs before the last two stories)

[Canukistani]

You opened your eyes.  Bright light and ice stabbed at you from all angles. Pain and cold.  You cried out in shock, a ragged shriek that hurt you as badly as everything else had.  People swirled around you, some screaming and fleeing, others moving close.  Huge hands wrapped you in something warm and soft.  Your memories end there.

 

The next day there is Mother.  She holds you to her breast and you drink her warm milk and blood, nourishing yourself until she slumps into her divan nearly unconscious.  You lick the milk and blood from your lips, feeling the warmth course through your body spreading outwards from your belly.  The barbs on your tongue making a rasping sound against your needle teeth as you savour the coppery flavour of the milk.  Mother stares at you through half closed eyes and you feel warm and safe.  You let your head sink to her unmutilated breast and begin suckling again.  You slip into a world with only warmth in your belly, warmth on your back, and warm sunlight shining on the side of your face.

 

You opened your eyes and you see a woman wreathed in bright light.  She smiles at you and you are handed to her.  She holds you for only the briefest moment, her powerful aura touching blinding you as she places her hand on your forehead.  Then you are handed to a man with something bitter on his breath.  He looks at you for a second, and then hands you to another man, who takes you from the tall room with the light and clouds and into a dark tunnel where he hands you to a woman.  The woman takes you to a dark room with only a tiny slit of light that comes through the window.  You are lonely, and hungry, and you cry yourself to sleep wondering where Mother is. Why isn't she answering you?

 

You wake up, and an old woman brings you a glass of warm milk.  You drink it greedily, but it has no blood in it and tastes...flat.  Unsatisfying.  You drink the milk and hold out the glass for more.  She says something to you meant to be encouraging and holds out her gnarled and spotted hand.  You slip your hand into the papery palm and allow yourself to be led from the room.  She leads you into a room filled with people all doing tasks.  There is a woman who is sitting beside a furry creature with twisted horns and eyes with slitted pupils.  She is poring milk from her hands into a bucket. The older woman leads you towards her when a smell grabs your attention. You slip your hand out of the old woman's and run to the large wooden table as she cries out behind you.  You don't even bother to look back as the smell of blood fills your nostrils.  You scramble up the heavy wooden table and se the raw meat that a man is hacking into pieces with a strange square knife.  You grab a slab of the meat and begin chewing it, tearing large chunks free and greedily gulping them down.  The meat fills your belly and you sigh contentedly letting the last dribbles of blood slide down your throat while the old woman weeps cradling her ruined hand to her breast. You watch her for a few moments, then slip from the large table.  The man with the odd knife is backing away from you, and several of the others are as well.  You approach the old woman and hold out your small hand to her, the light from the windows catches the edges of your bright red scales making them glint.  Hesitantly she shows you her torn and bloody hand.  You lower your lips to her hand and kiss her bleeding palm, she smiles down at you, then her smile drops from her face as you begin to suck her blood from her palm, drinking her hot and salty essence.  You sink needle sharp talons into her wrist as she tries to wrench her hand away, your small arms locking her hand in place.  She screams and struggles against you and the rest of the tall people begin to rush around.  Something strikes your head and you begin to cry in shock and pain, then the world fades away.

 

You are held in strong arms.  You smell leather and oil, metal and wood. And salt.  A man dressed in hard leather clothes is holding you to his chest and you are wrapped in a blue blanket.  You are dizzy and your head hurts and the ground is made of wooden slats that seem to waver in your sight. Sleepily you bite the man's neck and open his flesh, drinking the blood that flows from his wound. 

"Now now," he says in a deep voice pulling you from him.  "There's to be no more of that from you little miss.  Do you hear me?"

His dark blue eyes stare at you and you slip back into sleep, sagging against his hard muscled chest.

 

People come into your field of view.  Nausea wracks you and you weakly vomit pale yellow fluid into a bucket that smells of urine and feces.  Sleep, if you can call it that, pounces on you again and again, robbing you of any real sense of time, or space.  The world whirls around you, the bed swings back and forth beneath you, and water is forced between your lips again and again.  You crave meat, but the thought of eating makes your stomach knot and clench, bringing more yellow liquid out of your mouth.  Oblivion is a welcome escape from the horror of your life, and you greedily embrace it whenever you can.

 

"Your name is Victoria," the large muscular man tells you as he leads your by the hand through the streets.  Your hooves clatter on the cobblestones as you hurry to keep up with his long strides.  "Remember that.  It's important."  You nod, your scales rasping against each other.  You have only been off of the ship for a few minutes and already your senses are returning to you.  The twist of pain in your belly is gone leaving you with a powerful ache.

"My hungry," you say, your voice high in your own ears.  "We eat soon?" "

It's 'I'm hungry,' not 'My hungry.'  Learn well, because how you speak will influence how others view you."

His strong hand leads you down the twisting cobblestone lane.  Power seethes under your feet and makes your new scales itch.  You shed your skin while you were sleeping, the itch was bad but took your mind off of your suffering briefly.  Now, your glossy red scales glitter in the early afternoon light.  People are staring at you at every corner and turn in the road, and you sink further into your hooded cloak. The smell of man sweat clinging to the inside of the hood, as repellant as it had been at first, seems welcome to you now as you shelter your face in the woolen folds.

You are led to a wooden building, thick smelly black goo is spread over the wood making the whole place stink, but the man takes you inside. 

"Beer and milk, and two plates." 

You sit on a wooden chair that squeaks when your weight is placed on the seat, and soon a mug of milk is dropped before you by a woman with sores on her mouth.  She glances dully at you, more interested in the coins on the table than peering under your hood into the shadows that conceal your face.

"Drink your milk," the man tells you in a low voice. 

You do, wrinkling your nose at the sour stink.

"What kind is this?" you ask, sloshing a little to the table top as you show him the liquid.

"Cow maybe or goat.  Drink it all, you'll need your strength." Your mouth waters as the smell of blood reaches you.  A wooden plate is dropped on the table before you.  On it, a slab of bloody meat sits beside some white muck and some vegetables.  Greedily you stuff the half raw meat into your mouth, your teeth shearing off hunks that you swallow eagerly. The milk tastes better with the blood, and you empty the contents down your throat in a rush.

The man eats his while watching you.  "Eat it all," he says when you push the vegetables and white pulp away.  Reluctantly you spoon some of the mash into your mouth, swallowing the sticky mass.  He nods after you swallow some of the green things and turns his attention to his own plate.

Once his plate is clean, he looks up at you, nods and climbs to his feet. You slip your scaled hand into his leather clad one, and he leads you back into the whirling maelstrom of the street outside. Many twists and turns later and you are amazed at the sheer weight of people that swirl around you on all sides.  Your head swivels on your neck as you try to drink in all of the sights at once.  Your nose is assaulted with hundreds of scents from dung to perfume, sweat from humans mingles with sweat from beasts and spice from cooking stalls competes with the sharp scent of wine.  Glittering objects sparkle in the fading light of day as hawkers extol their virtues.  Pendants, rings, medallions and jewels glitter and gleam.  Healing, love, luck, wealth and power are all for sale here.

The man's wooden sword smacks you in the face as he turns suddenly.  Your hooves slip on the slick cobblestones and you stumble away from him, your hand slipping from his grasp.  A moment of panic flares up within you as people squeeze between you and the man, shoving you further away from him. You realize that you can't even call out to him because you don't even know his name.  You are shoved into an alley, out of the crush of people.  Something hits you in the head and you feel rough hands searching through your clothes as you sink to your knees.  Your little belt pouch is ripped from your belt and a second blow sends you tumbling forward into a pile of refuse.  You see a man in shabby clothes with dirt on his face and hands run away with your purse as your vision dims.

 

Victoria, your name is Victoria