by Aeris

 

The merciless sun seared the bronzed and rugged brow of the red-haired beggar-woman as she fled old Sodom into the endless wastes beyond. In her arms, suckling upon her breast, was the infant tangled tightly within its swaddling clothes, and Kalmiya fought to shield her from Sol’s unforgiving light. The throngs of refugees around the woman, fleeing their All-Father’s divine wrath, knew not of her child’s dreadful secret, nor did they know of Kalmiya’s fruit-bearing dalliance with Archreaper Messoremel, the First Reaper, who even now led his Old Regime to topple the walls of the sinful Sister Cities beneath the Creator’s divine decree. Within her hands, while the maroon-eyed babe fed, Kalmiya could feel her daughter’s great secret attempting to free itself from its woven-cloth prison, and the rough-hewn beggar-woman could do little but press the child even tighter against her chest to hide her from the nameless masses around them.

In the cloudless oceans of blue above the crowd, angels descended upon the ancient cities to prepare them for purification, and although Kalmiya’s maroon eyes searched the skies for any sign of her divine lover, the great distance between them led the angels to look as if birds in migration. With no material ties to the cities of her forsaken youth, Kalmiya thought nothing as they were razed to the ground by holy fire, even while the miserable masses around her cried and pleaded for mercy. Some turned to look upon the searing, only to become ashen and dissolve into dust to the wretched despair of their loved ones. The beggar, however, felt nothing, and she continued into the desert wastes knowing only the primal desire to save her young daughter before the truth of the child’s lineage—and secret—was uncovered.

By nightfall, the writhing masses were no more than a roving band as many either succumbed to their earthly temptations and dissolved to salt as recompense, or ignored the commands of the Archangel Gabriel and strayed from the path they were advised to follow. A small village appeared over the dunes, but still the women, men, and children around the mother cried and sobbed in their wretchedness, decrying all was lost and lamenting the lives they left behind. They sought respite in the village, ignoring Lord Gabriel’s orders yet again to follow the sun’s descent and never rest, and soon Kalmiya was alone with her crying child. She shushed the little one, singing to her a song from her own youth and whispering to her the stories of her beautiful father’s great achievements.

When the desert chill descended upon them, the infant grew cold in her swaddling clothes, and the frost-tipped wind pierced Kalmiya’s ragged sackcloth garments—concealing all that remained of the street-woman’s humility. She took it upon herself to part with her own coverings to keep her daughter warm, and continued across the desert, never faltering, never doubting. Her naked feet were soon scoured raw, a fever beset her as the unyielding cold penetrated her bare bones, but all that mattered to the forlorn woman was to continue towards the Holy City of Jerusalem, seat of the Divine Council, and present the infant to its glorious father. Soon, a violent cough overtook the woman, and she fell to her knees as she succumbed. The child in her arms began to sob, but Kalmiya softly shushed her, lulling her to sleep with her late mother’s lullaby. Once she recovered, she rose again and continued westward. She was satisfied in her own life, had come to peace with her mistakes and decisions, and cared little for her future once the child was delivered to safety.

The night-beasts howled and circled around mother and daughter. Their hungry eyes locked upon them, but Kalmiya curled over her daughter’s body. Her world-weary eyes stared into the beasts’ own, never breaking away, and they soon fled from her, whining as if struck. Clouds rolled over the pallid moon, leaving the lowly vagabond to wander in the darkness, but Kalmiya continued ever onward. She slipped and fell; she was cut and bruised; she bled profusely from a wound on her leg as a thornbush raked across her naked flesh, and the same limb was soon broken when she missed a shallow drop and plummeted to the bitter-cold sand below. She lay there in agony, swallowing and strangling the tears that rose to her throat, and she surrendered herself to the Archreaper’s waiting embrace…until the child in her arms began to cry again. With renewed vigor, she rose and limped onward into the desert. The moon sank and rose and sank and rose again, and for three days Kalmiya stopped for neither sleep nor refreshment, going ever westward with her beloved child kept close to her breast.

She surrendered her own body’s warmth to shield the child from the cold, and she surrendered her own body’s nourishment to keep her daughter fed. The infant slept soundly while Kalmiya remained awake, and the wandering woman refused to let even her own mounting exhaustion stop her from humming soft tunes to the girl.

Then, there came the third and final night of Kalmiya’s exodus.

As the steeple of the Holy Citadel pierced the sky above a jagged desert mountain, Kalmiya’s anguished body finally relinquished itself from her control, and she collapsed to the frozen floor. The infant cried, and Kalmiya softly and weakly hummed as her strength and life bled dry. She curled around the girl’s fragile form to protect her from scavengers and the cold. “My sweet little Avias,” said the mother, for that was the infant’s name. “Soon, your beautiful father will find us, and you will be treated to a life far better than my own. From the day I emerged from my dying mother’s womb, my home was on the street. I had no father to clothe me, no wet nurse to feed me, and no sibling to comfort me. I spent many winter nights in the refuse of those more fortunate than I, and I had no private or sacred possessions of my own.

“From a young age, I sold myself for a night’s supper or medicine, and I fought like an animal for scraps. You, my lovely Avias, will be free from such trials. You will be raised by a guardian who will feed you, clothe you, and educate you. You will have shelter from the rain and snow, and you will have noble familiars. I ask but one little thing of you, my dear: that you do not forget the face of your mother. I ask that your dreams will be of the woman who brought you into this world, who gave you all the love she had left in her buffeted, world-ravaged soul, who nourished and shielded you from the same troubles that afflicted her. Know, little one, that I love you dearly, that I have always loved you, and that I will always love you.” She stroked her beloved daughter’s fire-red hair, and closed her eyes for the final time, cradling her sleeping child as only a mother could.

* * *

As Sol rose in the east, a party of Lesser Angels descended upon the valley on patrol.

They were led by none other than Lord Gatriel, a solemn, determined woman and one of Archreaper Messoremel’s closest companions. When she found the fallen mother, she ordered her subordinates to gather the body and prepare funerary honors, but when Gatriel’s lieutenant blessed the woman’s parted spirit, the child’s crying began again, and their commander immediately requested the orphan be brought to her.

The divine captain took the bundled child in her arms, and her swaddling clothes fell away to reveal, growing from her back, feathered wings as black and shining as obsidian, beautiful and rich and full. Gatriel knew the color of those feathers immediately, for they could be none other than those of the mighty Archreaper himself, and so she took it upon herself to reunite the infant with its proud and noble father. To her lieutenant, Lord Gatriel ordered, “See to it that the mother is buried among nobility; for she, who brought into this world such a beautiful child and sacrificed her own life for her daughter, should find an afterlife of tranquility and peace awaiting her in the Fields of Elysium. See to it that her name is not forgotten, that the memory of her undying love for her child lives on, and that she shall forever be known as a pure and virtuous woman.”

And so it was.

The winged infant was brought before the Divine Council and placed under the charge of Archreaper Messoremel and Archangel Vitamel, his beloved wife. There, she grew into a proud and noble warrior, known across the land as one of the Old Regime’s greatest fighters, and she was much beloved as a beautiful woman with an unbreaking spirit and a passionate loyalty for the cause of Good. Her name, once Avias, became Kalmiya, and she battled in service of her mother’s memory, which visited her nightly in her dreams.

Such ends the song of the valorous Kalmiya and her beloved daughter.