(№6.2)

King Decebalus reigned fair and square over the Dacians, friendly and peaceful subjects, obeying willfully, but with a rather unpredictable, unreliable nature, which made even the daftest of them dangerous, as you never knew how their furious, reckless anger would display, how short temper were to strike from one heartbeat to another.

His reign went from the far inland, devouring the harsh and dense woods, framing the foot of the carpates, a row of towing frosty mountains, impenetrable not unlike another forest that had flourished and blossomed centuries ago, elongating ever more until the steep shores and cliffs of the Black Sea.

Their golden crops could feed all of the villages and grew, over the span of the summer months to the size of a rider leading on top of his steed, their fish were the size of human infants and they possessed a rather peculiar and curious method to thoroughly cook a sheep by throwing it dead into a hole, skin and all wools intact in order to vest flavour and a thrown torch for topper to have the meat burn for three days. Three days, because their protective god, Zalmolxis was to feast on the meat before they did, a sort of economical pseudo-sacrifice.

Their affiliations with the Turks and Romans who regularly thirsted to annex such rich lands and such fertile waters were, putting it only lightly, quite troublesome, but they always could defend, could guard their precious land, that is until Traian came upon them like plague with his endless regions, a roman emperor who diminished the streak of glory of the Dacians and would enslave them and their venerable lands for centuries, keeping the golden metal imbued in the soil safe as well, safely tended in their pockets intended for heavenly prosperity.

A couple of decades before this other catastrophe would take place, there was a marriage held in one of their coastal villages, resembling many culminated and still unlike a common wedding. It would be the unification of a poor, clever, beautiful peasant daughter with a respectable fisherman.

Superficially spoken only, since respectability in that and many more case didn't stem from the producing of friendships and allies or fraternity, but of fright and terror, as her husband was naturally gifted by a crude, brutal and blood-boiling temperament where his complexed fury would get the best of him and destroy everything faithful, everything good in him and let the confines of a beast enter his skin.

These slivers of untamed brutality and shameful toxicity could occur at any time of the day, anywhere where his comrades would be spared the view of his violent slashing and singular in the private as to not have him lose his sacred reputation.

Her marriage was entirely introduced by their parents, who deemed such merging of families worthy and allowed.

Secretively, her husband at the first glance of her rebellious golden hair and her pale strong limbs in the confined group of her household already possessively claimed her body his property, long before he discovered her genuine laugh resonated like the chiming of a bell and her grey eyes shone of unbound intelligence.

Bride nicking was a common enough practice in the ranks of these rough, uncivilised folk, so as he presented his wants and longing to her father, a peasant with a laming leg and a bad eye, how could he refuse, when that entity of a monster would slash all their throats, unstaggeringly kidnapping his daughter nevertheless and would proceed to burn down all their fields? He was old and weathered, and not strong enough to go up against such unjust tyranny. So, better to sacrifice his prettiest daughter, so they would all live to see to next dawn.

He got what he wanted, and the girl, young and still stunning, would tremble nights before in excitement, for the promise of love and marriage, for starting her new life.

Indeed, the wedding ceremony was exceedingly wonderful and incomparable beautifully held in front of the coulisse at a beach of the Black Sea, the sand as soft as pillows stuffed with goose's feathers and sea foam kissing her bare feet in the colour of nacre, playfully towing around her soles, as she tied herself to the fisherman fiercely holding his malice and mutiny back to present the illusion of control and affection, which he possessed none of, the only righteous reveal of his true intentions shown in his evil eyes, who radiated all of the contempt and the disgust he could spare in his gestures and words, who were the eyes of a demon.

After three days of tedious rituals (a lot to eat and much beverages to diminish), their wedding night would introduce the path of the perfect dream come true, until one woke up to see the nightmares assume control of reality.

He hit her, at the daily, when she failed to not burn the sheep in the hole as it was custom, when she wasn't neatly fixing his nets or when she after six months still hadn't produced him an heir, which anatomically and morally was impossible, when she had spared herself for him, but perhaps he had simply not found a more logical fault in her actions this day and had to unload his anger somewhere and what other punching bag was to keep his souring, foul tempers in secrecy than the person attached to him, 'til death parted them.

Fatal, stupid man, for him thinking only with fist and not with his head, but his wife could take it.

Her bones crushing under his impacts, how he mentally would tease her body and her appearance in such sweet-spoken cadence and modulated tone, sometimes she asked herself if she was the problem of not understanding something in his honey-coated voice, because the language he used was rotten and disgustingly vicious, foul dialect known only to scum, cutting deeper than any sword could.

But the meaning was after all to sting and hurt her, deride her womanhood and demean her low status, so maybe it wasn't her wrong-doing all along.

She was taught to be gentle and kind, she had been taught to love and to only introduce harmony and content, which wouldn't be of relevant use to her in this life naturally, for every good soul would be crushed under the weight of an awful, exploitative one who mostly were put on favour by the gods, marvelled at for their recklessness and apathy towards their fellow neighbours, and went unscathed, unpunished.

She was also gifted with her hands and could smooth and change the hardest and most ruined leather to a piece of entire art, with a dull needle and some thread, since being the youngest of her siblings required her to repair their clothes and stay back with her mother to prepare the meals and anxiously await them to return from the fields.

Meanwhile passing her dull and grey days, without any spike of her heartbeat other than the certain blemishes and stains her body soon would be painted with, when her husband returned with the catch of the day, she cared for the cabin to always be situated in the most perfectest condition, to have enough food and a sufficient amount of wine at home, so when her spouse came back, slick with sweat and his hair smelling like the sea, his shirts coated with blood and grey scales, he wordlessly would sit down at their table and devour everything that came in his reach, with foods dripping down his mouth and saliva dangling from his beard and spraying in every direction, consuming his wine thirstily, as he hadn't seen a meal or beverage in years, which wasn't true, as his body was well decked in several layers of fat, spitting and spilling the treasured liquor in every direction.

He behaved just like the pigs they had prepared previously in their stables for slaughter. It was completely unappetizing, therefore she'd only sit across him, lips pressed into a pout, thumbing along the sharp line of a knife, vividly imagining the thrill she would have when plunging it in his throat, when the monster had his guard down and normally took all the place in their bed, pushing her even in his sleep, leaving the floor the only option for a sleeping site.

If one good thing was to come out of this arrangement, it would be her only wish satisfied to bear a beautiful daughter. But even this simple demand should be opted to test, as her husband - in a rare minute of inner calmness, imposed to being eaten by rage - confessed how his line of fathers, grandfathers, brothers and cousins only ever produced sons, a rather curious and peculiar anomaly of nature's rules. It seemed jinxed and like a curse, put on his bloodline to render the world a more brutal a place.

Her vexed and all disappointed expression of her feelings was though everything he had to see to ignite his old reassuring monstrous self and he proceeded to beat her up with the hard sole of his belt that night, still dripping with his meal he engulfed like a pig as per usual, taking her afterwards vilely and brutally, with bruises and stains that wouldn't fade for quite a while, tattooing and marring her to his endless violence even when he was not with her, by ripping her newly-thrifted clothes to shreds and squeezing her arms as though he wanted to rip the flesh from her bones and after burning all her artworks, made out of leather, that now would be little figurines she took pride in fabricating, melting in the flames to dust and horrible concocted creatures realised out of nightmares, crying about their loss as much as she would have cried about her child. His mad eyes reflected the orange-red flames, the glinting matching the malicious intent he purposefully wanted to interject, his mouth peeled into a smug and self-confident grin. Her stomach churned when she clutched her naked limbs and inhaled the burning leather, her tedious hours of work gone in an instant where one time her emotions had slipped through her strong armour and this was the soul-crushing result. The fumes made her dizzy and she coughed and coughed, hunched over the floor, her lungs feeling grated by a cheese grater.

It was a pain she had yet to experience in her life, a hurting in all her flesh on an emotional, physical level, she begged to their god she may crawl out of her skin and slide into a hole to be never seen again, to be never touched again.

The next morning, as her husband gruffly left the bed, dressing up and throwing her stretched-out form on the floor filthy looks as he was leaving for work, the air feeling sultry and foggy still long after his departure, the walls blackened by the heavy clouds of smoke from the leather and the bad taste burned in her throat, the only real evidence to the abominable aftermath taken place devastatingly. She couldn't breathe in here. Tears streamed down her cheeks, as she stormed out of their pretty little cabin now not much different from the slaughter houses across the village. Ironically, a dry home gifted to them in an area with the most crucial rains, protected by horrible winds thanks to the forest right next. The location was also guaranteeing an easy foot walk to the beach where the fishermen would early gather and laugh when the morning sky was still grey and the air reeked of night. They'd drink wine and have breakfast, before being exposed to the sun all day, on primal boats catching fish for their families.

The other women, being left like an abhorrent toy in town, were not quite as approaching and happy to converse at long lengths, for their husbands wouldn't favour any useless exchange of intelligence amidst women. Of course, they did not eavesdrop on doors to monitor them constantly, but they had their young boys making sure the women were supposed to do what they had to, working as spies. At least they had company in their children, she had nothing still with all of her batch of new leather made this month diminished in seconds.

Her long golden hair, rimmed with a few white strands fluttered in the morning breeze, tinted with the taste of sea salt and seaweed, as she stood at the edge of the wood, embracing her thin and fragile body with a basic wool coat, shivering unseen in nerve-wrecking solicitude.

She missed the dusty, thick smell of the air back in the middle of the country, where the landscape and weather wouldn't be dependent on the sea how a dog was yearning for a bone to pick, but the most appalling thought of hers was picturing herself dipped into the water, when she couldn't swim and had no intention in being advised in this skill any time soon.

Ironically, they called it here the Black Sea, perhaps honouring the colour of the souls of these men all day conducting a boat in the easy waves to proudly return and show off the "hard work" and their flesh and blood they had put in catching the fish, bragging what skillful and capable men they were. It was so petty and pathetic.

She knew that these fish here were so stupid and fat, that they either would already jump by themselves into the nets of the men or would be too unfit to save themselves.

One mere look at the rough and rocky cliff sites gave her headaches of sorts, comparable with how a javelin would tether through your brow, brains and bits of skin flashing around your head like a twisted halo.

And human contact, oh, the duplicity of it, how miraculous it would be to have a physical appreciation, distinctive of the forced and convinced hugs and kisses she was getting from her aggressor or being used as a vessel, all intended as punishment for her infatuated sins. And her aching voice box, who missed arguing and discussing as much as she would miss walking when her use of legs would have been denied. How much she would have wished to escape this claustrophobic box of horror shared with her parents and half a dozen children, now feeling feeble pulses along her palm where little hands bonded before.

It was narcissistic, she knew very well, but she quite loved the sound of her voice and felt how the lack and the ban to not speak unless approached bothered her, quite enraging her in fact. But her rage couldn't keep up with her abusive spouse and the inferno of fits he regularly burst into.

She was a voiceless object, that could be hit, probed, kicked, yelled at, held responsible, raped and beaten.

Her naked feet the only inch of skin unblemished from the torture of last night carried her unnoticed through the lengthy walk of the forest, at least somewhat resembling those of her youth and childhood, the leaves crackling and rustling, the trees cackling in her misery. Feeling the cooling and ticklish sensation of fern brushing against her wounded calves was heaven, pure and simple pleasure and absolutely freeing like a hot bath found only at the foot of sleeping volcanoes, near the place she was born at.

It was everything she had ever wished for, to be betrothed with someone and be bound forever, but at the same time nothing she ever wanted and forever did seem like a long time.

She thought she loved him sometimes, but perhaps that was only the story-spinning capacity of her mind to love the marriage they possibly could have developed and if this was really love, it was quite uncomfortable most of the time.

Everything and nothing, how they seem to overlap and exist in coexistence when being complete opposites.

She found she disliked the taste of salt on her lips.

For every time she licked them, it gave her the impression she had already cried, even if she had yet not, but a constant promise that soon there would be reason for her to shed tears of desperation, concocted with the knowledge there was nothing to be done about her despair.

The cliffs displayed in front of her, in all their rocky and intricate beauty, with blue moss being overgrown tender cushions at the periphery of land to sea, soft and slimy under her naked feet, as she looked down the cliff site, watching how smug rocks sat at the bottom staring right back at her. They barely could contain their grim anticipation to see her tumbling down in her death, being embraced in total and finite by waves and water.

She wiggled her toes and reveled in the image of her uncovered body, floating mid-air, tugs of wind pulling at her hair and the huge blots and smudges her body would cause when being torn in a thousand pieces.

Animated in such dark thoughts of her, the fine kind of power rushing through her body like lightning bolts that were thrown out of the sky, she found herself lightly humming and more and more delving and dreaming, and as the urges more and more turned unbearable, she burst out into cocky song.

Her consonants were harder, more accentuated than how it would be maintained here, where lofty, airy vowels ruled the linguistic field and it wasn't a help to integrate herself with the traditions and rites practised by the sea people, when already her tongue broached plane for disagreements.

She would have much preferred to turn to her husband to satisfy this inquiry, why that was with the consonants and vowels, but he probably would hit her again and growl how the time she had used up to think of something so irredeemable stupid she could have been better handled to prepare dinner or clean the cabin.

She sang and sung, mostly binding irrelevant words to phrases, but just had her speak until her throat was hoarse and her need was stilled. Was that already considered a sea shanty? Neither did she know or care enough.

As she was staring onto the surface of the blue waters, reflecting the plush and dim colours that would conclude with dawn, timidly, carefully, much differentiating from the mighty and proud colours of dusk, always so vibrant and intense, a finale and dedication splendidly celebrating another day passed. She much wondered if that was to contrast life and death; A birth was full of hope, full of shy promises and uncertain bargains, while the last second of life was explosive, an inferno of fight and screaming, and despair and pain, beautifully captured all by the clouds and game of light.

She also incorporated once, or twice, or thrice in her composed incantation how much she wished to have a daughter, with eyes as blue as the sea on the morrow and hair in hues of golden sun just like her. Although it was selfish and egoistic to condemn her own flesh and blood to a fate she could barely endure, to have her tied off just to another witless, vile man her husband harassing and destroying her body and her mind, for such are very closely interwoven, she couldn't help herself but hope. And if even he turned in marriage he'd turn out to be gentle and kind, her father would destroy her long before she could ever tie the knot astray, just like he destroyed everything he came into close contact with. 

What she didn't anticipate was, that not only humans could comprehend her words and even acted upon them, as something or rather still someone heard her and decided for someone who gave him such a beautiful tune, she would have her beautiful daughter she always longed for, ensuring how no mortal men was to ever be betrothed with her, or they all would fall under his beam of strife.

Robbed of his eternal sleep, the sea god, found in the cliffs, the sea weed, the salt and the ocean breeze listened to her self-confidence and the unbearable love for someone who didn't even exist yet. He chose to intervene.

While singing, she eyed the cliffs and edged closely, half-jokingly deciding to jump in her death at the climax of the highest note, to have it more dramatically, the last thing she'd lay her gaze on would be the handsome sky projecting tales in colour and puffy bows only she could read.

Yet she looked and surveyed the cliffs, her heart slipped to her feet. She had suffered greatly in her relatively mediocre long life, but shouldn't she try to find her salvation with warm blood in her veins and a working heart rather than in another world she knew nothing about?

Of course, without the heavenly assistance she unknowingly possessed, it could have been very real that she would have greeted the upper world good-bye and almost everything would have never happened, but how could he allow her to destroy the way of things he just pulled the switches to change entirely?

His creation, his utter shed of humanity?

I guess the gods are good for something after all.

The sea god whose existence she never foresaw also decided generously to confer her a stray of slim esprit, of hope, for the future.

Her lower abdomen contracted for the smallest moment and she almost collapsed in shock, tumbling down as a mistake, slipping on rocks steeped in wet moss, as her hands at own volition pressed against her bruised skin, almost feeling how life in this second had begun to germinate, inches from her fingertips, in eager forbearing.

A small smile crept to her face, as she turned around and had her heels pressed into the soft moss.

She was pregnant. It was inner intuition, a knowledge, better than a claim that told her she was not mistaken.

Her bell-chiming laugh passed her lips unthoughtful for the longest time, as she danced and twirled around, the sea happily drizzling pearls of water and birds twittering in her status of pure contentedness. Although it was impossible to assume clearly before birth she knew it would be a daughter. She just knew.

Maybe the winds had turned, perhaps her luck had strived for the other side of the sea and her chances would increase for the benefit of her.

And her concerns were resolved for a brief period of time; Her husband, finally not returning with a foul mood at home, almost seemed delighted when she one month later had the suspicions of hers confirmed and he twirled her around and mischievously indulged in talking about the future of their child.

Of course, he'd always refer to their child as a boy which increasingly bothered her more and more, yet since she couldn't quite prove it herself she thought to not better pick a meaningless quarrel, which would only result in her suffering tremendously.

He didn't even hit her to not endanger the health of their child, that is until one important night, when he returned and found his wife limping around and only bitterly smiling, plagued by terrible pains.

Apparently, she had tried to construct a beautiful cradle for the baby, with everything it might need, yet by careless accident injured her leg with a knife. Her husband listened to her story impassively, fists clenched and she knew it a beat too late. She had made a mistake, she had been too comfortable, she should have said it was a cooking accident, she should have not confined in the man she didn't trust, offered the temper of a bull in the nesting period, only at any given time.

That night, he broke her fingers on both her hands, grinning maliciously and claiming, if she was so bad at handcraft and was to compromise or even interfere with the child's health, he as a respectable husband and man had to prohibit this stupid and useless activities for good, hammering and breaking, rearranging her bones in shapes they should have never formed painfully, destroying her abilities of art forever, so she might never accomplish anything creatively for the rest of her life, all the leather she collected for nothing, her restless dreams rendered now unfulfillable and her soul silenced for good.

Her hatred burned the last shreds, the last flicker of love she had for him as she examined her chubby, crooked fingers she was barely able to move nowadays or even conduct feeling. She hated him and would kill him, if she could now, hated herself now almost more to act so slowly, to not invest in a future catastrophic.

He enslaved and destroyed everything she had loved, everything she took pride in and delectation.

She knew one day he would totally snap and kill her either in cold desire for her annoyance or by accident; It wouldn't matter much anyway, as she was like a goose, like a sow prepared for slaughter: She wasn't allowed to go out of the house to the cliffs, she wasn't allowed to go anywhere, anymore promenade forbidden even at his side, only to stay inside, growing fatter and duller, with her belly that would swell everyday more, destroying her body in ways not even he could, with his son growing every day a bit more, taking everyday a piece of her further away, nothing that she did bringing her joy.

Perhaps they ought to take turns to lash out on her, when he was born.

There was no hope, no light, no sun, nothing at all, it was as if she was already dead.

Every passion, he had eradicated and burned down to the brim until she was a grey, characterless specimen, with a fat stomach creating his heir and bent fingers she couldn't move and would have been better snipped off. She had nothing. 

Only ravening, loathing, everlasting hatred that consumed her beyond any cure, beyond redemption. Hatred, that kept her alive.