Alone

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 ...