The Demoness Moira sits at the window of the small stone cottage, icy gaze piercing the darkness outside. Her lightly scaled hand keeps returning to the small tear-shaped sapphire at her throat, nervously fidgeting with the slender silver chain. A commanding presence surrounds the female demon, and she runs a delicatly clawed finger along the window sill, thoughts racing… The cottage she had visited so many times before… Her place of refuge… was now her prison…
From a distance, her appearence is that of a woman, although very pale, with a regal air about her. Upon closer inspection you would notice the faint icy scales spread upon her hands and face, and her eyes seem somehow electrified with intensity. High upon her brow, two bony protrusions sit, hidden amongst the sapphire-tinged raven locks. They look almost like the makings of horns.
The tiny cry of a child startles Moira out of her thoughts. Moira, the human lover. Moira, the mother of a halfblood. A bitter sneer taints her porcelain features. “My little Misery… Can’t you keep her quiet, Brian?”
She turns to face a small fireplace opposite her, where a darkly handsome human male cradles a small child in his arms. He looks up, a scowl on his face. “I wish you wouldn’t call her that, Moira. Quinn is a perfectly beautiful child…”
“…and the reason I got banished, Brian, if you haven’t forgotten. ” Moira turns her back on the father and child. An unsteady hand pushes the raven locks out of her face. Brian senses the deep rage his lover is barely holding back. “Keep her out of my sight. I will have nothing to do with something that causes so much trouble.”
With a sigh, the dark man runs a calloused finger lightly over the infants’ cheek. “She is your mummy, Quinn and we must obey her rules.” The child’s bright blue eyes blink up at her father, a happy giggle escaping her tiny mouth. “But you do have her eyes, little one…” He chuckles quietly to himself.
Her features softened, gaze regretful, Moira again looks out the window. The small village in the midst of the forest is silent so late at night, and no light save that of their own fireplace pierces the shadows. In her mind the demoness rationalizes what she had done, and pushes the blame to the child she had just given birth to.
Taunting the human males had always been just a sport for her. She could usually disguise the fact she was a demon from most of them until after she had had her way with them, and that was a good thing. The humans in this region of Athania were extremely superstitious. Most of them suspected the seven planes of hell existed, but they knew nothing about the doorways inbetween the worlds. All of them were content to live in their comfortable, boxed in worlds, whispering old wives tales and ghost stories... all except one.
Moira had found the stone cutter Brian on one of her many journies into Athania. His work was beautiful, even ethereal... He more than suspected the existence of other worlds and other intelligent species in the world they lived in. Brian had been on a search to prove demons and angels, vampires and elves, faeries and dragons were real. The years had been good to his firm, athletic body, and his eyes were pools of liquid bronze. Instantly she targeted him as her next 'victim'. But this one had seen through her disguise. Somehow he knew her for what she was the moment he laid eyes on her... And he was as attracted to her as she had been to him.
Never before had one male been so fierce a lover, nor had one kept her attention for more than one night... More and more often Moira the Demoness would slip out of her icy fortress in the second plane of hell, where the weak or insolent were thrown to the hell-wolves as sacrifices. Night after night, she returned to this intriguing male... until the fatal night she found she was with child.
Shuddering, Moira closes her eyes and thinks, not for the first time, If it wasn't for HER... Almost to herself, she whispers “They will come for me, you know… Eventually the council will come. When they do I want you and Misery to leave. Leave and don’t look back.” Her words firm toward the end, knowing what bearing a human male's child means... exile and eventual death.
“Moira…”
She turns on him, eyes crackling with blue fire, the sapphire around her neck taking on the same unearthly glow. “Promise me, Brian. Promise me you will keep my only kin safe at all costs.”
Slowly he stands to his full height, towering over the demoness, still cradling Misery Quinn in his arms. A low growl escapes his trembling lips, his deepset eyes hard. “She is my child too, Moira, and I will let no harm come to her.”
Satisfied with his answer, Moira turns back to her watch at the window. Watching for those who would come to destroy her and the family she could never love.
A bright eyed child skips through a small, poor village… Four year old Misery Quinn clutches a bouquet of wild flowers in one tiny, pudgy hand. She bursts through the door of a small stone cottage near a stream.
“Mummy! Look what I’ve picked you!”
A very pale, sickly Moira turns to her child, eyes dull, her words void of emotion. Four years of hatred and worry had taken their toll on the Demoness.
“Isn’t that wonderful. Go… put them somewhere.”
Undaunted, the toddler pulls a vase from the table, filling it with water and arranging the flowers in it for her mother. “Look, Mummy! Aren’t they beautiful?”
Moira turns back to the fireplace, staring into the flames longingly. Her home... The Icy Planes of Hell... How she longed to go back to the comfort and presence of other demons. Moira's gaunt face twists into a dark scowl.
“Where is your father, Misery?”
Little Quinn sits beside her mother's chair, blinking up at her with intense sapphire eyes. “He is out in the village, I think… I heard Lady Danise needed her fence mended...” The words are cut short as she looks up to her mother.
The necklace around the demoness’s throat flashes brightly… Moiras back arches and she spasmodically claws at the arms of her chair.
Quinn jumps to her feet, eyes wide in terror. A strangled, breathy whisper passes over her lips. “Mummy!?”
The cords in Moiras neck stand out as she strains to move her head to see her child… gurgling noises begin in the back of her throat…
Then it stops.
Moira slumps down in her chair, gasping for air, eyes glowing an unholy blue. She hisses to her child.
“They’re coming!”
Sobbing, the child wraps her arms around her mother's neck. “Who’s coming, Mummy? Who is it?”
Growling, Moira pushes Quinn off her and tugs weakly at the slender silver chain around her neck. She pulls it off and places it in the childs tiny grasp.
“Take this and run, child. Run and find your father and tell him they’ve come for me.”
Tears roll down Miserys round cheeks. “But Mummy…”
The demoness wipes the tears roughly from her halfling child’s cheek and whispers in her ear, “Wherever you go, Misery, whatever you do, you will be great. You are not like your little human friends, child. Keep that necklace, and you will know how special you really are.” Quinn's mother spits out the word 'human', as if blaming all her problems on them.
“Mummy…” The child tries to hug her mother again but Moira stands.
“Go now child! Run, run to your father! Run and do not look back!” She shoves her child toward the door of the cottage with a strength that belies her emaciated figure.
The shadows in the room begin to swirl and brighten until the room is filled with icy blue smoke… Quinn stops at the door and looks back into the room, sobs wracking her tiny body… The demoness draws herself up to her full height, a calm acceptance and almost an eagerness on her features. She had been awaiting and expecting this moment for four full years.
“Go child.”
Awful, shadowed shapes begin flickering in and out of the pale blue smoke… Hellish figures, the things nightmares are made of, reach their clawed fingers tauntingly toward Moira and then pull back, teasing her. She stands calmly amidst the smoke from the second plains of hell, eyes burning with hatred mixed with hope.
“Go, my little Misery.”
Clutching her mothers necklace, Quinn turns and bolts for the Lady Danise’s farm, her mothers pained screams chasing her through the village.
Fire.
Misery stares at her burning house, clutching her mother's necklace in her hands… Her father, Brian is behind her, a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“Little Quinn… We must go.”
She nods, not understanding why they have to leave the place she knows as home. Ever since her mother had died, a week prior, things had been… different. The villagers had stopped asking her father to help with chores… Lady Danise wouldn’t let Sairah out to play with her… They whispered when she passed, unpleasant things about her and her mother… “Demon-child” was heard often in their frightened, scornful whispers.
This frustrated Misery. Her four year old mind could not comprehend why her mother dying changed everything… Little did she know it was the way Moira died that frightened the peasant village, not the death itself.
They had heard the screams and the feral growls and howling emitting from the home. They had seen the unnatural heavy blue smoke flowing out of the windows and doors. And they had seen Moira’s body when the smoke suddenly dissipated. Her eyes, wide and drained of color. Her body, stiff and cold. A terrible, pleased smile on her face. And, oddly enough, what seemed to be animal bite and claw marks on her face and abdomen, possibly that of a wolf… The superstitions and the fears mounted until, at last, the men of the tiny village appeared at their home, demanding they leave. When Brian refused, they lit the home on fire.
In a whispered, quivering voice Quinn asks, “Daddy, why did they do it?”
A deep, weary sigh escapes her fathers lips as he watches her watch the flames. “I don’t know, my little one. People are oft times frightened about what they do not understand. Don’t worry, Quinn, we will find a new place and start over.”
Brian picks up his daughter, turning her head from the house that is no longer home.