The Fallen Destiny

Prologue: More of a Pilot and less of a Canon

Hi all! Friday here. Before you read the chapter, thanks for coming. A quick word.  I'm reuploading this to update names so that people aren't extremely confused. Just a little bit confused.

-Friday

It was the day of Ire, the god to whom everyone owed the harvest. In the short cobbled walls above the sound of the wind, gold streamers rippled and glimmered. Desert flowers bloomed on every corner. The air swept over the dunes with a sweet smell that mixed with dust and struck the nose. Villagers laid sandstone paths with green stalks of wheat in reverence of Ire's blessing. At the edge of a corridor, by a veil of shade, mirrors hung on the walls. Ire's light lanced onto many symbols of the celestial, symbols drawn in black soil upon the red stone wall. This was the mothers' calendar.

Atop a hill in the village, in broad noon-time daylight, a woman travailed. Not a cloud in the sky to shield her from Ire's mid-day fire. The place is the Sky's Cradle.

The garden on the hill was full of life. Green leaves and grass fanned out to soak up the sun near the ground, but no foliage obscured the sky above. The woman lay in a pool of cool water in the center of it, with a full view of the horizon to either side. A few attendants and a midwife assisted her with her labor. In the pool, her dress's fabric floated up to the surface, deep brown and red, to show her humility.

"You're doing well." one attendant said, stroking her hand. "Only a little bit further."

The woman screamed again, and into the wind shouted, "Ire! shekk! Aaaarrrrgh!" She pushed. An attendant stood ready to catch the baby.

She gasped, out of breath.

"Yes!" One of the attendants cried. "Well done Veridia!" Cloth wrapped around their hands, they hoisted the child out of the water.

"It's a girl!" the attendant exclaimed. The child's mother lay, gasping.

"A girl..." Veridia, the mother, said, "At center noon. Praise Ire's sun. Hurry with her!"

The attendant smacked the child, and the child took their first breath. A cry erupted from her, a garbled, adorable wail that traveled up to Ire, praise be. Her face wrinkled up and messy. The attendant cut her birth cord and tied it off, humming as she did. During these few seconds, when the child's face was not in the sun, shaded by the attendant, Veridia glared.

"Get her in the light!" she commanded. The attendant finished and turned the child to the sun again.

"Yes'm!" The attendant held the child up, careful to make sure that her face did not have a single shadow. Her job was the most important. There was not a single cloud in the sky, and it was a holiday. The stars themselves would honor Ire tonight. This was going to be a blessed child, indeed. Being born on the day of Ire itself, it seemed clear. She was the child of Ire foretold by the sages. It was no wonder Lady Veridia was anxious to protect her.

She walked over to a marble cradle on a pedestal and laid the child down on it. Here she would have full exposure to the light. The child cried, feeling the warm chiseled marble on her skin, and Veridia tensed up at the sound.

She looked to the responsible attendant, "My daughter..." she groaned, "My child... Comfort her! Ow!" she sat up in the water, shifting her sore body.

Another attendant in the water with her put a sopping wet hand on her shoulder. "It's alright, m'lady," they said. "Worry about your afterbirth for now."

"You're sure that her blessing will be complete? I don't want a single ashen mistake!" She eyed the woman who had held her child at first. "And I don't want anyone else to hold her until we are sure... we are sure that she has seen the Celestial."