The Blessed

Day One

She was a feral thing.

Sharpened by the dull wits of drunken parents, long past buried in the mud. Hewed by the pointed tips of boots and fists with rings. Patched together by stolen thread unraveled from a noblewoman’s dirt-splattered hem, dredging the stones and piss-sodden grime of her village’s alleyways.

An alleyway she now lay, legs tucked tight against the boots of the bully boys.

“Dirty slut!”

“Handless cunt!”

A kick to her side and another to her shin. Fin cried out, but more for the ale than anything.

Again, here she was—unloved, unwanted, and if they had it their way—forgotten. At least until they were drunk enough that her refusing their advances caused them to turn toward violence. She being the only villager they could beat without consequence.

She took their beatings, with nowhere else to go and no family to lean on. Like her ma, she cradled the leftover ale like a lover. Like her pa, it was with one hand as the other was lost to the lawman’s hatchet.

The barkeep surely heard the men kicking her arse and belly as she cradled her ale. First thing she had to drink in two days too. She would let them beat her bloody so long as the ale didn’t spill. Fin would have even taken them to the alley for a different reason if she hadn't been too sore from the last john.

Whether she gave them what they wanted, the boys had it in their mind that should they kick her enough, she’d travel away from the village. And take with her the dark pall of ill luck and bad fortune. Her comeuppance for being born.

They tired soon enough and left Fin to her wallowing and pain.

She choked down the rest of her drink while laying sideways, not bothering to sit up yet, and watched the rats scurry in the alleyway. The ale dribbled down the side of her cheek and chin and trailed into her hair.

Fin sat up gingerly, taking care of her smarting bum and what she expected was a broken rib, the ale sitting heavy in her inflamed belly. Fin sighed, thinking it would have been nice for them to drop a coin or two as payment for the beating. The bastards.

It took some time, but she managed to right herself, staggering to her feet and still—out of habit—reaching with both her hands to steady herself against the wall. Although healed, her wrist sent bolts of lightning up her forearm as it scraped the stone. By the gods, she missed her left hand.

Fin could curse the gods, her parents, the townsfolk. Hells, she should curse the wise woman most of all for crying out on her day of birth that an omen as ill as she must be drowned, so her mother said. And as her mother liked to say, she favored the old gods (more fool she) so no drowning took place and ill-fated daughters should be grateful to their gracious mothers.

But there was no use in cursing. This was her lot and like a good little pup, kicked and starved, she rolled over and begged for more.

As she shuffled her way to the town’s square for another day of begging, nagging dark whispers tickled her thoughts...but Fin had been surviving too long to let dark thoughts stop her from setting up at her usual corner in the square. She placed her empty ale tankard in front of her and dusted off her skirts, for all the good it did.

She knelt then, shaking from exertion and pain, and placed her forehead on the cobblestones, her right hand held up in supplication to the Beggar God. Her handless left tucked below her belly, hiding the sight from do-gooders not willing to place their charity with thieves.

A good portion of the townsfolk knew her, but she didn’t want to be blatant about it. Although not as large as the capital, her village sat just outside the wintering palace and housed a good many folks; seasonal travelers and pilgrims were a sizable chunk of their winter population. It made it easy at least to earn some coin from the pilgrims if the townsfolk had less charity for her that day.

Fin was tired. She was so tired, but hunger and survival came first. She’d rest with a few coppers in her cup and bread in her belly. But by the gods, she didn’t want to pray. Even resentful, the words came anyways, as much from her concussed head as hope that maybe today, today would be the day the gods turned her luck.

The prayer spilling from her lips was for those to bestow their blessing on the needy, because Fin wanted, more than anything—even more than her left hand—to be able to be the one to give. Damn it all, she was tired of receiving and wouldn’t it be something—wouldn’t it just—that the outcast thief, beggar, and sometimes whore was a more charitable slattern than those offering their tithes to the temple? Their ten percent wouldn’t scratch her gifts!

And if thou art weak, I will be thee iron. If thou hungers, I will give unto thee bread or flesh. If thee thirsts, I shall quench it with thine own blood. For though thou art beggart, thee art of thine own soul.

Fin said the words aloud, softly—again and again—and saw herself as the Beggar God, gifting alms to the needy. When she begged in the square, she typically did so silently. Today, somewhat dizzy from the ale and the beating, she spoke to the villagers that passed by as if she would give them her very own flesh and blood to lift them up.

Never her family, not once her friends, but watching them from afar as she did, she loved and hated them all the same. And if given the chance, she would raise them up from the piss and shit and spit they laid at her feet. To be better than them perhaps, or to give to others in a way they had never given to her. Spite and bitterness, but generosity too, and perhaps a desire to feel appreciated.

With her forehead to the ground, she heard coins clinking in her tankard as they were tossed.

Someone was listening. Even if it wasn’t the Beggar God.

A shame there was no god for surviving. She might have placed her faith in him.

It wouldn’t have done her any good anyways, but she didn’t know that yet.