#yimatulan

[imasyd]

The Tale of the Cursed Son's Blood

Time has made it muddy as to whether the title of the story is "son's blood" or "sun's blood"

On the day Roc of Widias was born, a great thunderclap like a cry of protest could be heard throughout the city. The wailing infant was placed in a basket and delivered to the church of Su without a word exchanged between the two furtive figures darting away from their package.

Roc worked for the church all of his early life, small and devout. They gave him a long scarf that wrapped around his neck many times over, and at first the young boy did not understand. He eventually learned that it was to hide the ugly symbol at the base of his neck that stung and itched late into the night, a symbol he shared with none of the churchgoers, monks or priests. In truth, they'd all heard of blessed children, infants born with markings from the great gods, possessed by divine power. This, however, was the first they'd seen of a boy blessed by Yimatulan, The God of Blood. It shook them to their core and filled them with unease. What sort of blessing would this child even possess? There were a few incidents that the head priest did not speak of. The infant had been slick with blood when he found him at the church doors. At the time, it was presumed that it had simply been from labour, but once he'd been bathed doubts arose. Roc had been a mostly pleasant young thing, without much tendency to throw fits. But when the child did, strange things happened. Blood dripped from the crib, from the tapestries, through the floorboards and even through the priest's own fingers if he tried to hold the boy down. The mess was difficult to clean, and he felt drained and almost woozy for days afterwards. It was baffling and terrifying, he didn't know what to make of it. So he stayed silent.

Years passed in this secretive peace and Roc grew into a fine boy. His body had grown strong but his face had remained soft, unmarred by hardship. Despite the simple life he led, tensions had grown high in the city among the common people, and violence grew. The head priest tried to guide the people but little helped the situation. The church was tasked with healing people who had been attacked and providing sermons and prayer at all time of day, running the priests ragged. As the only person left not overrun with duties, Roc was sent out again and again into the sometimes dangerous streets to deliver messages and pick up the much needed supplies. He performed this job with the most enthusiasm he could muster, hoping to relieve some of the burden for the others.

It was on a day of pleasant weather and birds roosting in church rafters that the priest through an exhausted haze asked that Roc bring a letter across the city. The boy accepted easily and gave his foster father a light kiss on the cheek to say goodbye. Roc sweltered in the otherwise kind weather under the weight of his old scarf. He had been used to suffering in the heat his whole life but it did not make it much less unpleasant. Unfortunately, the recipient of his delivery found themselves a ways away from the church and he walked for a long time under the merciless sun. It was high up in the sky, at its very peak, beating down on the earth so far below. Viv was at her best that day and shone in all her glory for the world to see. With great relief he reached the shelter that the priest wished to outreach his word to. From the letter he gave them Su's blessings and from his lips he gave them his own.

On his journey home, he itched at the scarf and pulled it this way and that, careful not to expose the marks he hid there. He froze when he heard the sound of shouting not too far down the winding streets. Scuffling, curses and thuds. With growing anxiety he understood that fights had broken out. He had of course known this was occurring more and more often, but he had never been present for one. He hurried along, desperate not to get caught up in something bad. He turned down one road and collided with a young woman. He began to apologize but stopped abruptly when he saw the fire in her eyes and the dripping rags balled in her fist. A tinderbox lay at her feet and cold fear spread through Roc's veins. "Someone started them, it's time now," she told him, seeming to have some point to drive home but lacking coherence. Her blazing eyes settled on his scarf and she wildly swung for it, narrowly missing plucking it from his neck as he stumbled back and away from her. "You don't need that, give it to me!" She cried, rushing towards him, oil from the rag coursing down her hand and staining her skirt. He defensively put his arms up, guarding this secret he had never been told why to keep. He did not see a second arsonist come from the back and rip the scarf away from him, dousing it in oil before sparing even a glance for its owner. He only looked up when the woman shrieked in terror. She pointed right at Roc, jaw agape, accusing finger trembling. "The god of blood has delivered his curse upon this city! This boy will doom us all!" She proclaimed. The man, moving quickly, lit the scarf on fire and threw it into a nearby doorway. His eyes had no inferno, but dim hatred. Roc put his hands around his neck, placed them over the symbol. He hid it from view, from their terrible and judging sight. An eye contained within a droplet, so horribly ominous, why had the gods given him this sick gift? Had they known whom he would be and altered the course of such a destiny or had it been random and cruel luck, just one pick among an endless list of possibilities? Suddenly his hands felt hot and wet, and he pulled them away in horror. Thin streams trickled down his forearms. Over that mark was stained a bloody handprint. The woman picked up a loose stone from the path they stood on and chucked it at him, hitting him on the cheek. The man followed suit. Soon other people on the street, some observing the same curse the woman had and some simply revelling in the violence, joined in. Roc ran away from this group of fearful and angry folk, ran for what may have been in that moment his life. Bruised and dazed, he took in the state of this chaos. The fights were spreading and people either spilled into the streets like ants from an anthill or made themselves scarce. He did not know why they rioted, he did not know anything other than a need to escape.

When he found a blissfully unoccupied corner to catch his breath, his gaze fell across the skyline of the city. Smoke. It blew up from straw and tiled roofs alike. It jumped nimbly from one to another like a thief in the night. Under the forceful glare of the summer sky, everything caught much too quickly. His throat tightened and he looked in the direction of home, his insides turning to both ice and fire all at once. The greatest of the blazes roared back there, choking the air around with such thick darkness you couldn't see the buildings anymore. The church lay behind that veil, concealed. His feet moved before his thoughts and he coursed towards those great fires. The wind was hostile and searing, exhausting his lungs and stinging his eyes. How could his good god have allowed this? This destruction and flame? It hurt, it was terrifying.

He came out of the gaping mouth of an alley and stopped dead. Stained glass glinted all across the stone street from windows bursting outwards under pressure. No one seemed to be leaving the building, he couldn't see movement inside. A body had collapsed just inside, so close to the exit yet just far enough to not have made it. Roc sunk to his knees and screamed. A few local residents were trying fruitlessly to put out some of the nearby fires and jolted to look at him, afraid and startled. He heard an anxious muttering start among the people choking on smoke and heat desperate to save their homes.  "Please!" he called to them, "have you seen anyone make it out?" he pleaded. Wide eyes shook no. They darted up and down between his neck and his face, between him and their neighbours. Afraid. They had known him, he'd lived here his whole life, but still they feared him.

He felt something like nothing ever before well up inside of him. An overwhelming whirlwind of grief, fury, indignation and anguish. He felt a tug deep in his body and blood welled up from every part of him. He stared up through the suffocating black clouds at the distant shape of the sun, red blurring his vision. All of the helpers that had looked at him with those fearful eyes crumpled like lifeless dolls. A small dot appeared in the centre of that sun. He could not understand this strong instinct that possessed him, it was like he had been overwritten. The dot seemed to spread across the visible surface of that hateful sun. Viv's colour, her gold, had been replaced. But this was not Su's brilliant red that came to substitute for her when she visited her love, this was a dark and thick red, the red of blood.

They say that on that day, from that sky came pouring a great torrent of blood. It coursed through the streets of Widias. Hundreds were found dead and drained where they had stood, for the blood flooding their city had been their own. And Roc? He had perished with them, his death the last. Of the god's blessed, he had been Yimatulan's first, but alas; the god of blood knew only to curse, no matter his intention.