LOTHARIO: THE PLEASURE GOD

I returned to my room silently and quickly. The acts of the commander and my mother that I had just witnessed replayed in my mind. What they were doing didn't exactly fascinate me as much; it was more my mother's reaction that intrigued me. She had a look of pain and disgust on her face; she clearly didn't want to engage in that act, at least not with the commander. And yet, she did anyway. She had said she did it for me, but I wasn't sure why. As I contemplated everything, my head ached; it was clear my mind was too young to fully understand it. So, I stopped, and almost immediately, sleep took me.

The next couple of weeks imitated themselves in events. I would roam the decks largely undisturbed and observed the sailors as they worked. I gained practical knowledge as I watched the ship workers along with the knowledge Mouk and Aidra imparted upon me all those weeks ago.

My heart ached as I remembered them. At first, I thought it was guilt, but upon deeper introspection, I found it was Aidra's scarf I missed. I wished I hadn't thrown it away. I had since been fascinated by other things, but none of them held my interest as tightly as the scarf had.

Later, my mother would wash me; I was old enough to do it myself but did it anyway. She enjoyed doing it, and I didn't particularly mind. Then we would eat. The types of food we had were limited in variety, but my mother worked her magic and was always able to prepare a myriad of meals. I enjoyed every one of them, even more so because it was her who prepared it.

Food made with love tended to have better taste to it than any other, wouldn't you agree, dear reader? If you don't, it is perfectly fine; there was never any science to back it up anyway, but I knew in my heart that it was true.

Then my mother and I would spend a lot of time together; we would play many games, and later, she would tell me stories of legend, more myth than truth, mostly for entertainment. But I had a feeling that she did it for at least two other purposes: one, to impart wisdom and knowledge from the stories, and two, to teach me more about our homeland and its history. I always had a hunch that even though the stories were mostly made up, they were embellished accounts of real-life events and historical figures.

In a thousand years from now, if men and gods haven't destroyed themselves, my stories will be presented as myths and legends too, no doubt even more embellished than they already are. People would wonder if I truly existed or not. That is in part why I write this account, to tell people I existed.

The stories my mother told me are, save for one, unimportant to the story of my life, so I will not include them here. The one that is important, I will add in when it serves a narrative purpose. I would rather the stories remained among my people anyway, not become extra myths and legends in this vulture culture where their bards sing and parents tell their children at night. I want the stories to remain sacred to my people. Well, if one of them tells the story eventually, then so be it, but you will not hear it from me. On this, I will not compromise.

Then later, my mother would tuck me into bed, and she would sing me lullabies until I fell asleep or at least pretended to.

I never went back and spied on her and the commander ever again. My curiosity thirst was well satiated.

I believe I have failed to mention this, but I must tell you that my mother was special in all regards.

She was stunningly beautiful. That in itself isn't truly anything special; a great number of women are beautiful, especially if you consider that being beautiful is largely a subjective matter. It is a matter of who beholds it. And in this world, you'd be hard-pressed to find a woman who is ugly, subjectivity or not.

But my mother, to call her just beautiful was a great disservice to her. It is the same in the way you could call a cloth beautiful but never compare it to the beauty of the setting sun or the full moon on a clear night.

Her beauty, I would argue with a sea of proven facts, was objective and not subjective. You could not look at my mother and not immediately think she wasn't the most beautiful woman in all the worlds.

She was a black hole of attention. She would walk into a room, and everything would stop for her. Men, women—I saw the look on their faces; it was like they were entranced by a spell. She was that beautiful.

Her face was a tapestry of celestial beauty, woven from the threads of the stars themselves. Her cheekbones, high and sculpted, framed her visage like the peaks of sacred mountains, lending her an air of timeless nobility. Her eyes, a mesmerizing blend of blue and green, were like the depths of an enchanted sea, holding within them an intelligence that could unravel the mysteries of the universe. To fall within her gaze was to be ensnared in a spell, one that could disarm even the most guarded of hearts, leaving them vulnerable to her will. Her full lips, lush and inviting, curved into a wicked smile, capable of weaving ruin or rapture, a smile that could topple kingdoms or mend the broken. Her smile was a weapon, as potent as it was beautiful, able to corrupt or captivate both man and woman alike. Her neck, elegant and long, was the stem to her radiant bloom. Her form, a silhouette of grace, moved with the gentle sway of the forest trees in a breeze, her presence commanding yet comforting. In her, one beheld the essence of divinity itself—an awe-inspiring fusion of beauty and terror, as if the gods had poured their very splendor into her form. Her allure was not mere mortal charm, but the ethereal grace of the heavens in motion, a celestial dance so rare and transcendent that to witness it felt like glimpsing eternity, knowing such a vision might never touch mortal eyes again.

If this comes off a bit uneasy to you, dear reader, a child describing his mother in such a way, I must assure you it is most relevant to the story.

My mother had a level of intelligence that could rival the smartest scholars, but that alone would not be enough to account for how she accomplished all the feats she did in this foreign land; after all, she did almost make a lowly noble a king.

So later, as you read on, if you feel that her intelligence alone should not account for the success of some of her endeavors, I am telling you now that you must not think of her intelligence as something separate from her beauty. She wielded both in tandem, and by the gods, was she good at it.

Ink is a precious commodity here, as valuable or even more valuable than iron glass, and yet I have used a great deal of it to write about my mother. An argument could be made that a large part of what I have written about my mother is not necessary; I must tell you I do not care.

In most tellings of my story, my mother plays a ridiculously small role in them. I do not blame them; her impact has been largely suppressed by the powers that be. After all, she made such a fool of men and gods; it's not hard to imagine that they would want to erase her presence completely.

And so, I dedicate a fairly long sequence to write about her. It's no secret that I loved her very much, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that if she were alive, my life would have not gone the way it did.

All in all, dear reader, my mother was a beauty unrivaled. I would meet a handful of women in my lifetime that perhaps matched her beauty, but none surpassed her, at least in my opinion.

I took my time to write about my mother largely because of her importance to the story, but also because she is in scant few accounts of my life, and I want the world to remember her. She was beautiful, she was intelligent, and she was strong. Helena of the mist. Remember her.

Let us continue.