Bio Eirinn

It was a glorious day in Markad, the sun shining bright and warm overhead. Out in the bay, a flock of gulls yelled rudely as they swooped down in vain attempts to steal fish from the many skiffs floating on the calm water. A few families were down on the beach taking advantage of the weather.

Amongst the tall beach grasses my mother, heavy with child, walked hand in hand with my father. They strolled towards the beach, leaving me behind to do the chores. As a girl, especially a half-blood, I was considered no better than a slave and it would be unheard of to take me along for a day of fun. My father hoped that the child soon to be born would be a boy – an heir for my father’s farm and budding fishery. Confident and happy, he promised me that when his son was born, he would buy his right as a full citizen as well as mine.

Excited to become free and able to go to a proper Cinera school, I was the happiest a girl could be in her current situation. I smiled as I did my chores, I sang as I cleaned the stables. I danced with the broom as I swept the floor. I was only eight years old but I knew what I was – the other children made sure of that – and what I was to become.

The day finally came when my beautiful Altene mother told me to run for the midwife. I flew as fast as I could down the road to fetch the elderly woman, but she was slow and arthritic. And by the time we returned to my house it was too late. The child, my new little brother, was dead; the umbilical chord was around his neck. Heartbroken and angry, my father blamed my mother’s Altene blood for his heir’s death. He stormed out and we didn’t see him for a fortnight. I helped my mother get through her grief alone and watched worriedly as she got thinner and thinner.

Finally, my father returned. With tears in his eyes, he scooped my frail mother into his muscular embrace and promised that everything would be alright, that they would try again until they had their son. I watched the exchange quietly from the doorway as my dreams of being a citizen bloomed stronger than ever.

A year later my mother was once again with child. My father renewed his promise to me to buy my citizenship and showered my mother with gifts and love. My responsibilities increased as she was confined to her bed, but as before, I happily complied. Six months into her pregnancy she lost the child, a girl. She and I were devastated, but all my father could say was "at least it wasn’t my boy." Six long years passed before my mother became pregnant again. During that time, my mother taught me Altene traditions and culture in secret, as well as how to wield a stave. She was worried what would become of me if she never bore the son my father continually reminded her he needed. I was a willing student and caught on quickly, much more so than with the knives I was supposed to be learning. I was sixteen when my mother delivered my little sister, Lillya. So angry was my father that once she as weaned, he sold her, as was his right.

On my eighteenth birthday, my mother gifted me her Altene double mace, a beautifully superior weapon and worked of art. As my most treasured of my few possessions, I carried it with me everywhere, even though only my mother knew I could use it as well as any grand master. I was just the silly half-blood with a stupid stick. None of this bothered me, however, as my dream of being bought freedom was transforming into a plan to run away to my mother’s homeland.

Fate, however, seemed to have other plans. After two more miscarriages, my father had had enough. One evening as storm clouds rolled in and thunder crashed down, he grabbed my mother and pulled her down towards the beach. Hearing her screams, I looked outside and caught sight of them in a flash of lightning. Grabbing her double mace, I made for the beach. Another bolt of lightning lit up the sky, but I had lost sight of them in the torrent of rain. Stopping, I strained to hear them over the sound of the threatening storm and my own pounding heart. Suddenly, I heard my father yelling and I bolted towards the sound.

Finally, I located them. My worst fear realized, my father had dragged my mother out into the surf and was holding her under. Too overcome with fear, I stood at the edge of the water, unable to move or say anything. My father released my mother’s still body and turned toward the beach, a serene expression on his face. He did not see me.

Devastated by grief and filled by a blind, animalistic rage, I pulled the double mace from my baldric. Running towards my father, I swept his feet out from under him and followed through with a swift strike to his head. Dropping the weapon, I ran into the ocean screaming out for my mother. Another lightning strike lit up the turbulent water enough that I could locate her. Grabbing her lifeless form, I pulled her from the water, but there was nothing I could do. She was gone. They found me there in the morning, clutching my mother and kneeling beside my father, whose skull has been smashed in by my one, grief-filled strike.

A year later, on my twentieth birthday according to Cineran tradition, I was recognized as a full Cineran and officially awarded my father’s possessions. Disgusted and fed up, I sold everything I could and took off to Altene with only my mother’s double mace and a simple sack to hold some armor, clothes, and coin.

Upon my arrival in Altene, I tried to make a living as a mercenary, but though I could wield a stave as well as my peers, I didn’t have the other skills required to succeed. Seeing a vellum in the bank advertising Iridine and its offer of citizenship to successful constable recruits, I once again packed my sack and my precious double mace and headed towards Iridine and my destiny!