Ysthyrcia, daughter of Herastine, daughter of Phryggia, daughter of
Stheno, one and all daughters of Thalos, hatched from an egg in the manner
of most of her kind: Ysthyrcia hatched alone. Though fertile lamia can
produce as many as thirteen offspring per brood, the cruel and avaricious
race of man was a plague on Serin, smashing their eggs, selling their eggs,
defiling these sacred fertility nests on sight. Centuries ago the pit
mothers began dividing litters to increase each hatchling's chance at
survival. And so it was that Ysthyrcia emerged from her shell, alone, in a
musty cave near the ruins of a once great city.
Though she would not reach maturity for another year at least, Ysthyrcia
delighted in her newly hatched form. She flexed her tail and observed her
rattle thump artfully against the ground. She examined the whorls of black
diamonds decorating her scales and thought herself beautiful. She thought
herself beautiful but knew herself hungry.
Her forked tongue sampled the air. She could trace her mother's scent this
way, though it spoke of weeks gone from the den. It spoke of other things
too: that her mother last fled this lair in fear, the dank aroma of her kind
threaded with nausea, pursuit. A half-shed naga tail confirmed Ysthyrcia's
suspicions.
Ysthyrcia slithered from the den of her birth in search of food. Though she
knew not yet for what she hungered, her strong body guided her forward. She
wound down a trail toward a larger highway and spied massive city gates a
mile or so in the distance; they were no less imposing for their apparent
disrepair. Ysthyrcia's breath caught in her throat.
A small group of other travelers approached the dilapidated gates, but they
did not give her this pause. Rather, the lines of wooden crosses on each
side of the highway drew her attention and stilled her slithering tail.
Each held aloft a limp frame, a corpse, crucified there perhaps as warning
to incoming travelers, perhaps as sport.
Ysthycia stopped at the first cross. A winged creature sagged under the
burden of its own weight, putrescence bloating its gut, its brownish-gray
feathers dropping in each subtle breeze. The next, a man with black skin
and pointed ears, the remainder of his individuation lost to decay. And the
next ...
One like her: a lamia, a word she would later learn. Perhaps she had not
been dead as long, for Ysthyrcia could still scent her with her tongue. Her
sister's beautiful tail, scaled in jades and emeralds, variegated greens to
make one's heart light, hung limp like a terrible fish.
And the next. Another lamia. The next. On and on, a row of her sisters
displayed together in some macabre family reunion. She stopped at the last
cross bearing her kind and hissed, the sibilant warning echoed by the
twitching rattle capping her tail. Her mother ... The scent as clear as it
had been in the cave. Unlike many of the other victims suspended along the
highway, this corpse had been mutilated, the eyes removed, her entrails
unspooling like a kite string in the wind. Ysthyrcia's mother had suffered
to the last.
Ysthyrcia did not know who had erected these crosses, slain these beasts,
killed her sisters, defiled her mother. She did not even yet know a name
for herself. She only knew that men were a plague on the face of this land.
But there were worse things in Serin than men. Ysthyrcia approached the
group of travelers. She couldn't help but smile.
It was finally time to eat.
True
Phryggia, daughter of Stheno, daughter of Ssybil, daughter of Gitysh,
daughters of Thalos all, was tired. She could rest now ... True. Ever
since she had wept on the altar of the god of tricks and begged him to take
her cursed sight, she could at least rest from the visions that dogged her
waking hours. She must scrape out her own eyes with a dagger, true, but
they always grew back, always grew back, bringing with them the return of
her Oracle sight. One did not entreat the god of tricks and expect an easy
answer.
Even so, she knelt again in supplication at his altar. The babe she laid
there began wailing anew, the cry echoing a momentary pang of regret in her
breast. Sacrificing children did not bring her much joy, even human
children (they had not yet tasted lamia blood but must atone for the sins of
their fathers), but the god would have his due. He always did, in the way
of men and gods.
Phryggia made this pilgrimage every year, and every year she brought a new
child to fulfill the terms of her pact; every year, she waited for a sign
from on high that her debt had finally been absolved, that she could discard
her sacrificial knife. And every year, she found only silence punctuated
sharply by a baby's cries.
Phryggia lowered her knife toward the child, tracing the once-vibrant runes
on the dagger's hilt now softened by worrying fingers and the inexorable
passage of time. She felt the Oracle sight burn and bubble in her chest as
it always did before it overcame her, perhaps gifting visions of a child's
life that would never be, one that in moments she would snuff out to appease
her deceitful god. Her voice intoned loudly, surprising even herself in this
moment of cursed reverie, "SHE COMES. SHE COMES. BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, SHE
COMES. BASILISK OF ASH AND BONE, SHE COMES. TO REVENGE HER SISTERS OR
DESTROY US ALL, SHE COMES." Phryggia collapsed on the altar.
***
She awoke sometime later next to the sniffling babe and heard the sounds of
men at the temple door attempting to dismantle her hasty barricade. They
would find her soon, and no amount of sacrifice seemed to put off humans
once they had scented lamia blood. She began to sing one of the dirge-like
lullabies of her kind to quiet the child's mewling; the eerie music filled
the temple, and even the men paused to listen.
She thought of her daughters Herastine and Ysthme as she sang, all that
survived of her final brood. True, she didn't have much time to complete the
ritual. She brought the knife hastily toward the child but could not
stomach this last beseeching.
Instead, she turned the ceremonial dagger toward her own breast. As she felt
its tip cold against her flesh, she thought to herself, 'She comes.' ... true ...
just a little further now, 'Blood of my blood,' Was she bleeding? True ...
One more push ... 'To destroy us all,' True, true, true.
The knife slipped from Phryggia's fingers. She could rest now ...
Description (commended):
Above the waist, this creature personifies the human standard of beauty:
she wears the face of a milk-fed maiden replete with button nose, plush,
slightly parted lips, and eyes so large and frosty blue that one might as
well go ice fishing. She wears this face, but does it belong to her? For
it is at dark odds with the rest of her appearance, dominated so by an
undulating tail that supports her winsome frame. Beginning at her abdomen
in overlapping scales of ebony, obsidian, and raven's-feather black, the
tail spans several feet and tapers towards its end into a bone-white rattle
the size of a human fist. The scales scintillate in intricate geometric
patterns and appear serrated on her flanks, though they smooth where they
meet pink flesh at her middle. The effect would be pleasing in tandem with
her lustrous black hair were it not also for her smile, a wicked twist of
the mouth that fails to warm her eyes. It does occasionally part, though,
to reveal two pointed fangs and a forked tongue darting outward to taste the
air.