Roan

Life can be a bitch, at least when you are one.

Maybe you thought that dogs always are these easygoing, happy, carefree types who take life with a "yip" and a wag of tail. Maybe you thought that they haven't got a worry in the world; that they just go with the flow. Take care! You may be terribly mistaken.

Let me tell you a story about a beautiful canid lady. She is real, alright, and she comes from the realm of Sarthald in the southern parts of Calabria. Who knows, she might still had lived there, if only so had been her destiny.

The gods had smiled upon our lady. Hers was the happy life you might know from fairy tales. Hers was the attention of many a wooing courtier. Hers were their poems, their efforts, their very hearts. Hers was a future of fun, love and laughter.

All that's hers now is a story, a memory of pain and sorrow, and her name: Roan.

He had won her at last. He was the most pawsome of the courtiers. His rich gifts had impressed her. His smooth cascades of intellectual verbiage had dazzled her. His noble heritage had of course also got its chance to present its temptations to her in a not too disadvantageous manner. In the end there had been only one, and with butterflies in her belly, she'd said "yes". She'd thought that it was the happiest day of her life.

She was right, but oh, how fate cheated her. Such happiness would never be hers again.

They had a daughter, a little bundle of a cub, cute as a kitten, but gentle as a lamb. Her wide, brown eyes promised trust and a happy life forever. Oh, how Roan loved her; she loved her more than anything else on Calabria. Why, she only had eyes for her daughter.

They say that love is the greatest power of all and that it leads to a better life, goodness and friendship eternal. Whoever "they" are, they obviously didn't know Roan's mate. In his heart, there was only room for one. With every day that passed, he saw with jealous eyes how Roan's love was spent, no longer on him, but on that worthless, wretched child. There was no limit to his resentment. When the pain grew too intense for him to bear any longer, he stalked away to soak it in the embracing comfort of distilled rye. He never told Roan about it. Though he wanted to, he couldn't. His ego simply wouldn't take it.

This could only go one way. It did.

Poison fought together with poison, side by side against reason, their common enemy. Hate and alcohol strove valiantly to conquer his mind. They promised to restore the days of the past, if only he could do this little thing first. It wasn't much, they told him. It wasn't even as if he'd have a problem with it. He was of noble blood, and could do as he pleased, and it'd certainly please him to see the...

"Blood!", reverbrated the roar from the castle walls. It was a voice cracked with madness, a cry from a broken, bleeding heart. Her husband stood in the doorway, shaking from the poision in his veins, but with knife-sharp murder in his eyes. In his hand was his finest sword, this time ready to kill. She could feel the reek of his breath from across the room. Instinctively, she stepped in front of her daughter, as to protect her from the hideous mask of insanity that had been Roan's beloved one.

She pleaded for him to come to his senses. She begged him to put the sword down. She promised that she'd do anything to set things right, if only he could tell what had gone amiss. Anything!

Her efforts were in vain. He struck out at her with his sword, half blind with rage and intoxication. When she refused to budge, even though she was bleeding from a deep gash, he aimed a brutal kick with an iron-capped boot at her head, sending her sprawling on the floor. Through a blood-red haze, she saw her daughter, run through with the sword, her beautiful brown eyes wide open with incomprehension.

Why?

Slowly, Roan arose from the corpse of, what could only be described as her ex-husband. Yes, she'd killed him. She'd leapt at him, and torn his throat wide open with her very own claws. She'd kept tearing and slashing (*) until there was no life left, and his blood had already started congealing. Panting, she stood there, feeling oddly elevated, above matters of mere life and death. She felt no regret for what she'd done. The only thing she wished undone was her weakness and inability to protect her daughter. Ice-cold claws seized her heart. Her daughter was dead, and there was no bringing her back.

As is so often the case when Fate, the treacherous deity of destinies is involved, as soon as it no longer mattered, Roan's luck returned. The first one to arrive at the scene was one of her former courtiers who still held love for her. Intelligent and quick-thinking as he was, he arranged for her escape, first from the castle, and then from the realm of Sarthald. Roan had been too stunned to protest or even thank him. Her mind was a maelstrom of what-ifs and nightmarish visions.

Thus ensued a time of poverty for our lady. Once outside Sarthald, she barely managed to survive, roaming from village to village. Sure, she had a knack for healing and finding the right herbs, and while villagers often treat a witch with respect, she'd always been driven away at the end, maybe because a curse lay on her, or just maybe because she could no longer abide the cruelties that went on in everyday life, sometimes caused by the harsh reality of farmers, and more often because of the poison eternal, the beverages of Hell.

More than once did she barely escape a mob of aggravated farmers. Fate kept her alive. For what, she did not know.

And so we find her, outside Ravarra. Her once shiny fur is tousled and dirty, her skin scarred and tormented. Her proud bearing is now the careful crouch of a creature of the forest. Even her eyes seem matte, and the sparkle of life in them is a mere flicker. No jewelry, but a bow and quiver adorn her leathered clothing and in the no longer delicate hands of hers is a heavy staff that has seen some heavy use.

She's a bitch and a mother. In both senses of both words. She's ready for her Fate. Is Fate ready for her?