'When I was born I was told the midwives who saw me fainted uttering curses and prayers. My mother who was barely conscious at that time took one glance and screamed to the Celestial Heavens begging to know why I was born.
For I who was born with this accursed power was an abnormality in my family. My abnormality showed in my birth as I was born with my strange form as skin.
In my own house I was treated worse than an animal; my parents didn't hold me as they did with my siblings, the servants would hide out of my sight and my siblings never acknowledged me.
I wasn't stupid. The whispers that followed me only confirmed my existence. That I shouldn't have been born.
I knew why my mother didn't kiss me or why my father didn't look at me. One look in the mirror and anyone call tell; I was an irregularity. Something that the Void spat out for even the demons didn't want me.
White hair similar to a crone, a deathly complexion and eyes that look like a bloodthirsty demon's. My appearance bought great shame to my family.
My mother hated me. A devotee of Lord Uranus she would stay days and weeks in the temple crying, pleading to know what sin she committed for me to be born. She refused to see me after the first time.
My father couldn't bear the knowledge that something so disgusting was born and raised in his household so I was locked up in an attic.
My siblings followed our parents' example and ostracized me.
…And I didn't blame them either for I would have done the same.
I was only eight years old when I met my mother for the first and last time.
It had been the first time I ever stepped outside in the sun. I still remember how warm it felt. So bright…so dazzling…
Though there were guards everywhere I was still happy I could spend some time with her. The excitement, the nervousness to finally talk to her showed in my face.
I chatted with her about everything and she would answer hesitatingly but she had been warming up to me. But it felt good. It felt good knowing maybe my mother has forgiven me for being born.
I thought I could also forgive myself.
The images haunted me to this day. I could never forgive myself.
One minute we were talking and the next minute I was being confined back in the attic with locks and chains around my body.
My body wasn't my own that day. I lost control and fell into a depravity that I can never come out from.
The surviving guards were barely alive in their mincemeat state and doctors told the human thing would be to kill them.
The whispers just became more cruel.
'You're weird.'
'Go away, hag.'
'Creepy.'
'Murderer.'
'Don't talk to her. She's cursed.'
'Devil child.'
'The bloodline is ruined…all because of you!'
'You should have died instead of Mother!'
'Die, you monster!'
'I wish you were never born!'
'...'
'...But…'
'...I never wanted to be born this way either…'
'I bleed the same blood as you.'
'I want to play under the sun too.'
'I want to be loved too.'
Following my mother's death, people of the estate started to die mysteriously. First the stable boys, then the servants, and finally the Mauve family. What was first considered an epidemic was my powers leaking out of my body. My father in drunken rage would put me on all sorts of things to punish me.
But it didn't work. My powers just kept leaking out.
Soon after the servants died, my brothers and sisters died one by one until only my oldest brother and sister were alive.
A month before my brother succeeded my father, he died in the carriage that was meant to kill me. Soon after my brother sent me to the temple to 'protect me.'
In reality, I knew it was to protect them. But it was fine. I would hide from someone like me as well. At least in the temple I wouldn't kill someone. And Lord Uranus could keep everyone safe from me. Keep me safe from me.
During all this time, there was only one thing I wished for. That I didn't have this strange appearance. That I was a normal person. That someday, someone will accept me as I am and consider me a normal human being.'
Even at the temple when Lord Uranus told me what my powers were I still wasn't seen as normal. People respected me more than the other saints but that wasn't what I wanted.
More than respect more than all the riches of the world I want to be seen as equal to another human. I wanted to be human.
Live as a human and then die as a human.
With all the seals and bindings as long as I have this ghastly appearance, I will forever be branded as what I was always told growing up.
I was a mutant.
Someone who committed matricide.
A disgrace. A calamity brought by Tartarus.
An anomaly.
'I won't ever find my place in this world. But now…' Oriane opened her eyes. '...not being considered normal is fine. Because if this accursed power of mine can save anyone, I will gladly take the words from my childhood as the greatest honor.'
The Inquisitor grabbed her hair. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"
Oriane smiled, causing him to jolt back. "...I hate cats."
A fire exploded underneath them. The Inquisitor tried to escape but his hand was glued to her hair. No matter how much he tried to wrench free he couldn't. At last, he decided to cut it off but Oraine stopped him.
"yOu Can'T dO tHat." Her voice was distorted and erratic like Baron's. The runes swallowed her whole and she stood there in the Celestial form. Her hair which now reached her ankles snapped forward and cleanly cut the Inquisitor from his snake body.
"AHAAAAAAAA!!"
"ThOugH iT mAy hUrt, iT wiLl onLy bE fOr a wHilE."
The Inquisitor growled. "You…!"
Her eyes moved to the side. "I KnOw wHaT yoU aRe tHinKinG…' WhY? wHy iS tHiS aBomiNation a SainTEsS? sOmetHinG LikE hEr iS unaTurAl' I KnOw. i knOw tHAt beTteR thAn anYonE."
She leaned forward almost a breath away and said in a soft intimate whisper. "bUt yOU sEe thAT iS eXacTly whY I Am a sAinTesS." Her hands reached for his neck and squeezed while her hair wrapped around his joints immobilizing him completely.
"Keuk!" His eyes glazed over. "...You…brat…"
"pLEaSe diE. iF yOu Die i wiLl jOin yoU riGhT aFteR." Golden cracks appeared on her chest. More hair took the place of her hands and she reached inside her chest. Pushing past the cavity slowly she pulled out a large red gem.
The light in the Inquisitor's eyes flickered. Realization struck him. "You wouldn't dare," he choked out. "You are too much of a coward!"
"oH bUt i wOulD…" Her grip tightened. "I aM nOt a pAwn AnYmorE. i mOve foRwarD uNaiDed." The gem formed cracks. Molten gold oozed out from them like a bleeding heart.
Pressing her heart to her now non existent lips she took a large bite out of it black fangs poised like a snake's. "dEatH wIlL cOme To uS veRy, VerY, vERy laTe."
The Inquisitor gasped for air. "...You will…never…win…"
She didn't reply.
Her hair grew more and more until it was one giant nest. The nest then raised itself and wrapped around them like a cocoon.
He laughed. Loud maniacal laugh.
Laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
…His laugh was the last voice she could hear before sounds of something being ripped apart rebound inside the cocoon.
She stood there softly gasping for breath, Sylvester leaning on to her side his eyes closed.
"...I am sorry Sylvester but…sometimes…the laws of fate can overwrite salvation."