Year 593, ELLESMERE
I stare at my father as he sits upon his well-kept horse like a majestic yet terrifying king straight out of Master Thomas’s fairytale books. His eyes are on my mother who shouts profanities at him and his name but I wish they were on me. Even if disgust and annoyance would be in his eyes as they looked at me as they had looked at my mother. I just want him to see me.
“Well, woman, I have heard your cries and as a good lord I have listened to you,” he says, eyes still on my mother. He reaches for the pockets of his fancy doublet and takes out some coins which he throws at my mother and me. “Here is compensation for the trouble you have gone through carrying my weakest seed.”
Before my mother can speak again, the crowd of onlookers which surrounds us begin to fight for the coins thrown at us. My mother pushes, slaps, and kicks at the people trying to take what belongs to her and me, her curse of a child. My mother cries as she struggles between choosing money that could help us for the time being and fighting with my lord father to give me what I was due, illegitimate daughter or not.
My lord father laughs at the sight of poor people fighting with the mother of his illegitimate child who got a few coins as compensation for having carried a child she never wanted. He then carries on with his parade, catching up with his knights and the other important people of Ellesmere. I look between him and my mother. The two most selfish people I have ever known. One haughty and rich and the other crazy and poor. It is hard to believe such two people came together and made me. It is harder to believe that my father rejected me after I only learned of him today.
There is a pain in my chest and my mind tells me to run after my father and get him to look at me so the pain may go away. I push through the crowd and separate from my mother. I run in front of my father’s horse causing him to almost fall off as he stops himself from trampling over me.
He looks at me and the pain in my heart stops for a while. “Get out of the way, you filthy pest!” he demands.
I look at him confused. Does he not know that I am his daughter? Did he quickly forget me as soon as his eyes moved away from my mother?
“I am Morana. Your daughter,” I say stuttering as I tell my father who I am. At six and a half years old the strange man who is my father seems scarier to be around than Randal, my mother’s boss.
My father’s one brow raises in confusion. I look at his dark purple eyes, eyes that I share with him. They seem annoyed but at least they look at me. “Your mother gave you a terrible name. Your name means death,” he says.
I look down for a while. Though young I was emotionally smarter than anyone my age. I understood what Death meant and that it was a terrible thing.
“I shall give you a better name. A name to compensate you for the many years I shall forget you ever existed,” my father says riding slowly around me. “Starnari. The death of a thousand stars. That shall be your name.”
My father’s horse then picks up it’s pace and he leaves me forever with just a new name and no promise of fatherly love. Tears prickle my eyes and I do a stupid thing. I cry as I chase after him. As I run the ground beneath me cracks and opens, making me fall.
“Love me please,” those are the last words I say before being consumed by darkness.
