Fion wasn't allowed in the house when her mother gave birth. She didn't mind that much, and wouldn't have minded at all if it weren't for the fact that her mother forbade her from entering before she even asked. She wouldn’t have needed an explanation either, but her mother was more than eager to give her one. Apparently Fion would taint the air and infect the newborn baby, and her mother didn’t want to raise another disappointment.

Fion was generally unpleasant to look at and often stank of a hard day's work out in the cowsheds, which was something that she was well aware of and had long since come to terms with, but having it constantly shrieked at her by her abusive mother was not a very pleasant experience. She’d come to terms with that too.

It was almost a relief when the baby came. While Fion’s mother was always unpleasant, apparently a being of pure bitch didn’t mesh well with pregnancy hormones.

The baby arrives a few weeks early, deciding that its early arrival was much more important than its mother's day at work. Fion's mother was furious when her water broke as she set out to go to work that morning. She was supposed to be meeting with a representative from the merchant's guild in the afternoon and quickly decided that she would not risk losing a favourable trade deal over a rude baby who had the audacity to ruin both her body and her business.

Bad move, baby brother or sister. It looked like there would be another disappointment in the family, though Fion doubted that her mother would ever be proud of anything other than herself.

Fion's mother was dragged back to her house two hours after she left, by her midwife and the town doctor, all while her husband watched nervously by the side. Fion's mother cursed at him while she was dragged inside, threatening to tear his throat out with her bare hands if she was late for her appointment. From inside her room, Fion scoffed at the idle threat. She would never do anything to him that would leave a visible mark.

Fion left before her mother could notice her, taking a pair of apples and shoving a piece of bread into her pockets as she left, not knowing how long she would want to stay away from the house.

It was an off day for her and she wasn't planning on showing up to work at the cowsheds if she didn't need to. She loved the work, or rather the satisfying feeling of resting her tired muscles after a long day of work, but she didn’t love it enough to spend a free day of lazing on it.

If she went to work now, she would eventually have to go back home to her own bed to sleep or simply collapse somewhere on the streets. The thought was tempting, but wasn't worth the risk of it becoming a scandal. Fion, daughter of the town's most prolific banker, sleeping on the streets. Her mother would whip her again.

Fion sighed, lamenting the fact that other than work, she really couldn't think of anywhere else she'd want to go.

She considered going down to the markets, despite knowing nothing there would interest her, but then she heard the terrifying, but ridiculously satisfying noise of her mother groaning in pain.

She hadn't intentionally meant to smile, but when she realized that her mouth was hurting from how wide her grin was, she walked around the house until she spotted an open window. It was too tall to see into, Fion's mother would never allow any interruption to her privacy, but the sweet sounds of her mother's aching cries still echoed through the house and out that window.

Fion sat down with her back against the bricks, and closed her eyes, letting her imagination take her into a world where her bitch of a mother was experiencing something far worse than labour.

How long did labour even last? Fion had her fair share of experience in delivering calves - and the internal comparison of her mother to a cow made it difficult not to giggle - but she had to assume that human biology was different. Fion had heard horror stories, though she wasn't sure where from, where some labours lasted as long as 24 hours. She wasn't sure she believed in them, but she could still dream.

Whatever the case, she just hoped that her mother's labour would be as long and as painful as possible.

From inside, as Fion strained her ears to listen, there was a sudden shriek of rage, followed by the sound of something heavy clattering to the ground. Moments later, it was followed by the sound of the front door opening and closing.

Fion might have hidden away at the sound if it weren't for the continuing groaning from the house indicating that whoever had left the house, it wasn't her mother. Peering out to the side, as far as she could without actually having to get up, she noticed her mother's husband panting as he struggled to catch his breath.

"Dad," she whispered as loud as she could. "How's it going in there?"

When he turned around slowly to look at her, she felt silly for calling him Dad, as she often did.

She didn't quite believe that he was her father. While that's what everybody told her, it just didn't add up. Even if it weren't for the fact that both her mother and her husband had brown hair while Fion had ginger hair, when he turned to look at her, she was reminded of how damn pretty he was. She had no idea how the combination of his fair skin and gentle eyes and her mother's admittedly handsome features could create such an ugly combination in her.

Even so, while she had stopped thinking of the man as her biological father sometime when she was ten, she still liked him well enough.

He was always nice to her when he was allowed to be, and even sometimes when he wasn’t. Her mother was often punishing her for something, and sometimes he risked his own wellbeing to make sure she had enough food in her to live, or that the beatings didn’t go too far enough to kill her, even if she’d never done the same for him.

She might have felt guilty about it, but the fact was that Fion simply trusted her mother’s restraint more than he did.

"Oh, Fion," he said, in that quiet wispy way that he always spoke.

When there didn't seem to be any hint that he would continue talking, Fion repeated her question, just in case he hadn't heard. "How's it going in there?"

"Oh, not so great," and Fion swore she saw the ghost of a smile appearing on his lips before being smoothed back down. "Dona says your mother's going to be in labour for a long while. Maybe ten hours."

There went her hope of a full day of pain. "Did she mention if it was going to be painful?" Fion asked. As if to answer her, a grunt of frustration, effort, and pain sounded out from inside the house.

Her possible father glanced at her, up at the window, and back down to her. "Young lady," he said, lowering his voice as if her mother could possibly hear his quiet words. "Are you enjoying your mother's suffering?"

Fion gave her possible father and mutual victim a crooked smile and patted the grass beside her. “Want an apple?” she asked, holding one out.

He didn't move towards her, sighing instead. "Just don't let your mother catch you," he said, before turning around and marching away to do whatever he would be doing with his ten or so hours of freedom.

Fion shrugged to herself, not being surprised by the passive reaction. She idly wondered if the kid being born would be his, or from the sperm of some other poor victim to her mother's vicious tyranny. She doubted he cared. The more nights she spent away from the house, the more nights she spent away from the house. A prize in and of itself.

As her mother cried out once more, Fion closed her eyes again and let the blissful song wash over her. She decided there and then that if her new sibling was causing their mother so much pain, there was no way that she would ever not love them.

A new voice joined in with the sound of her mother's pain, and Fion recognized it as the voice of the town doctor, Dona. The calm, if impersonal, tone of voice made her easy to distinguish, even if Fion couldn't quite make out what she was saying.

Hopefully something about holding on, or something about how she was doing great. Pointless encouragements which her mother would absolutely loathe.

Her mother's cries of pain grew louder, drowning out the sound of Dona's voice.

Fion couldn't stop herself from giggling as the tyrant screamed louder and louder.

Until suddenly, it stopped.

The lack of sound, the silence, was so sudden that Fion's immediate reaction was to question whether she had spontaneously gone deaf. That thought was quickly dismissed by the sound of birds chirping in the air, but the sudden absence of any sound within the house left a chill running down her spine.

She waited a few seconds, but the sounds from within the house never started again.

Had her mother passed out? Dona? The midwife?

Fion stood up, curiosity driving her to find out what had happened, despite how wrong everything felt about the whole situation.

Pressing her ear directly to the brick, she heard nothing and felt stupid immediately after. There was no reason for her to think that she could listen through the wall. Instead, she looked up towards the open window and toyed with the idea of jumping and pulling herself up to get a view into the house.

Though she was still growing, the initial start of her puberty had come with many growth spurts that left her a head taller than both her mother and her father. Even so, she still didn't know if she would be athletic enough to jump that high.

She tried anyways and found that she could tap the windowsill with the edge of her fingers but couldn't find enough purchase to try and pull herself up.

With no other possible ways of figuring out what was going on inside the house, Fion sighed and debated the idea of simply leaving and letting her curiosity fester until she decided to come home until she finally heard something.

Without the ability to strain her ears, Fion found herself inexplicably straining her eyes and face instead.

Was that crying?

Fion's heart leaped in an automatic assumption that somehow, the evil bitch of a mother had somehow broken down, but the weakness in the crying made her think otherwise. Rather than an adult's cry, it was a familiar one to her, not in sound but in emotion. A baby's cry, filled with confusion and desperation for comfort.

Why wasn't anybody doing anything? Why wasn't anybody saying anything? While Fion could imagine her mother staying stoic in the face of her newborn child, there should have been some reaction from the other two woman who were in there with her.

Dona would have said something. The midwife, who Fion admittedly didn't know at all, at least seemed to have a kindly look about her.

As the baby continued to cry, Fion wondered if she could just leave and pretend like she hadn't heard anything, that she could just believe that when she came back, everything would just be normal, but something about the silence still unnerved her.

"I swear," Fion huffed. "This is your first impression you're making on me, my dear sibling. If you get me in trouble, I will get my revenge."

Fion shuffled towards the front of the house, took a deep breath, and gently pushed the door opening.

The door slid open with a barely audible creak, though even that small sound seemed to echo down the dark rooms of her home. Despite the fact that it was still before noon, the height and size of the windows made light sparse and shadows thick.

Fion made no sounds as she skulked forwards, knowing to keep her steps light in a few certain spots on the floor where the floorboards tended to creak more easily.

As she skulked closer to her mother's room, she felt her tongue dry up for some reason, and felt the air itself stagnate as she crept forwards.

But at this point, through the open door, only slightly ajar, the sounds of her younger sibling's crying were insistent and needy.

"Dear?" she whispered, trying to emulate her possible father's voice as much as possible. While she didn't enjoy pinning the blame on him, there was nobody else that she could pretend to be. "Is everything alright?"

Only the baby responded.

Fion gulped, and made the final few steps toward the door in a quick flurry of steps, still trying to keep quiet but no longer prioritising it so heavily over speed.

Pushing her eye to the crack of the door, she slowly pushed it open.

Her first thought was that somehow, her mother, Dona, and the midwife had all collapsed mid-birth, perhaps out of exhaustion. Perhaps her mother finally had all of the repressed anger explode out of her in one quick moment, and her body simply couldn't take it. But why would the doctor and midwife be sleeping?

Before she could ask herself any more questions, a small object drew her attention. A small crying object.

It was only when she was at the center of the room, an arm's length away from her small baby sibling, that she realized what she was doing. Fion found herself stepping forward before she could even confirm that her mother was sleeping. If she was caught disobeying orders, Fion knew that there would be hell to pay.

But there was no reaction, despite how her mother's open eyes stared blankly at her, registering nothing.

"Mother?" Fion asked.

No response.

"Doctor?" she asked. Dona hated it when people didn't refer to her by her proper title.

No response.

"Ma'am?" Fion had no recollection of the midwife's name. It was possible that they'd never been formally introduced.

The baby responded by crying weakly, drawing Fion's attention down to its place between her mother's legs.

Her first thought was that her new sibling, her new sister, was damn ugly. Like a shrivelled grape of a regular human being. Despite that, Fion found herself leaning forwards to pick it up.

"Hello there." She paused as she tried to remember what her mother had decided the name would be. Kori if it was a boy. Kara if it was a girl? That sounded about right.

"Hello Kara," she said, as she held the newborn close to her chest.

Her baby sister mewled and balled her fists in what looked like tired anger.

Fion looked up again, at the dead empty eyes of her mother. Surprisingly, she didn't feel any joy in the sight. She always imagined this moment would make her feel much happier than she was. Perhaps it was because the doctor and the midwife were also dead, and she had no grudges against them. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she still had no idea why they were dead.

"We should get out of here," she whispered to her baby sister as she hugged her close. She tried to walk away, but a slight tug drew her attention downwards, to the fleshy umbilical cord that still attached her sister to her dead mother.

Fion suddenly grew aware of the fact that she shouldn’t be so calm. Finding three women dead in her home was not something that should have affected her so little, and the realization pushed a growing sense of panic within her. Somehow, she was self-aware enough to realize that within seconds she would be a shaking mess, as soon as her shock ran out and the reality of the situation came crashing down on her.

"Scissors, scissors," she mumbled to herself as she looked around the room. Her movements were getting more erratic, but she was still calm enough to spot a small table that had been cleared away for the few items that would be used throughout the labour, including a large pair of metal scissors.

With hands that only shook slightly, she placed the scissors against her sister's umbilical cord, taking a moment to ready herself.

Her sister cried out, singing a song of confused pain that intermingled with the sound of searing flesh. Fion had heard it a few times before, when the cattle were branded, but her eyes widened when she realized the source of the sound.

Her sister's umbilical cord simply melted away at the very touch of the scissors.

Fion was sure that if the slow realization of standing among three dead wasn't currently numbing her mind with fear, that she would have dropped the baby there and ran out of the house screaming.

That, of course, would be the most sensible thing to do. Everyone knew that metal objects were good luck for theirs strange properties against umbras and demons alike.

But the fear in her heart forced her arms into paralysis, keeping a secure hold on her baby sister while letting the metal scissors fall out of her hands and clatter onto the wooden floor below.

"You're a demon?" Fion wasn't sure whether she asked the question out loud or if she merely thought it, but her sister offered no answer either way, letting out another tired cry.

At that moment, with her possible command of her own voice returning, Fion knew that if she wanted, she could drop her demon sister and run out of the house, as far as she could and never look back.

But as she looked down again, ready to throw the little bundle of flesh down on the hard floor, her baby sister opened her eyes.

Solid black orbs of obsidian.

Fion gulped at the sight, knowing now that it would be impossible to run away from those beautiful eyes.

For the first time in her life, Fion realized that she could love a family member.

"Hello, Kara," she whispered.

---

When Fion's possible father came back that night, he did so to a strange scene. Fion sat outside the front door, staring idly at the now-sleeping baby in her arms and ignoring the house behind her and the fact that it contained three dead women.

If it were any other person, Fion might have hidden the fact that she thought her demon sister was responsible for the death of their mother, but she imagined that her possible father would be the one adult that would rejoice at the death of their mutual tormenter.

Fion was right, but was surprised to find that her baby demon sister wasn’t actually a demon.

Fion had always thought that Soulblades were a myth, like knights, wizards, and the alchemists that ran around slaying dragons in the occasional tales that the old storyteller sometimes told to a crowd of children in the market. But no, apparently they were very real. And very important.

A majority of the people in town were scared by the idea. Apparently Fion was the only one who thought that Soulblades weren't real, but what surprised her even more than their existence was the fact that the stories about them were true too.

Soulblades, unlike the kindly wizards and noble knights of lore, were considered to be dangerous, even if they technically were protectors of humanity. The many stories of burning cities, earthquakes, and cloudless lightning storms that they created all seemed like cautionary tales, perfect for scaring children into being good. Apparently they weren't so much tales as they were abject truth.

Fion didn't know exactly what Kara did to kill her mother and the two other women in the room, but whatever it was, it thankfully didn't reach her sitting just outside of the house.

Fion took it upon herself to become the unofficial guardian of Kara. At fifteen, she was old enough to mother her own children, and she had been secretly saving up her earnings at the farm to run away from her mother one day, not that she ended up needing it.

Apparently, Kara being a Soulblade was a big deal. The Astrantan Crown would pay a hefty sum to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all Soulblades, or so the townspeople said, even if they backed away from Kara as if she were an explosive powder keg in the middle of a bonfire. Even the wetnurse that Fion had hired cried and winced every time she came over to feed Kara.

But she did as she was told, and was paid heavily for it, out of the pocket of the mayor himself. The closest thing to a representative of the Crown that the town had.

It was very hectic, and Fion found herself being dragged along to a lot of meetings and presentations that she didn't quite understand. Though they weren't exactly dragging her around. They needed Kara, and Fion refused to be apart from her, so they let her tag along as Kara's Guardian.

It took five days for Fion to return back to her home, and was surprised to find that the house where two innocent women had died, was such a relief to see.

Fion pushed the door open, with Kara bundled to her chest in a cloth wrap, and saw her possible father.

She didn't recognize him at first. The look on his face was foreign to her. His eyes crinkled in a way that she didn't know was possible and his white teeth gleamed with the reflection of the dim oil lamp that sat in front of him.

"Fion!" he said, once he noticed her, which was about half a minute after she entered the house. He seemed cheery, which immediately made her more confused. "You're back! And with the Soulblade, too!"

Fion nodded warily as he got up. He walked forward and held out his arms, reaching out for her.

"No thanks," she said, assuming he was offering to hold Kara for her. A few people had, but aside from the wetnurse, Fion hadn't handed her sister to anyone yet, and she didn't plan to hand her to this strange creature that had inhabited her possible father's body.

"Oh, no?" he asked, his smile disappearing for a second, just barely long enough for Fion to realize that she had never seen him smile before. When it came back, it looked somewhat sad, though she supposed it was still much happier than she'd ever seen him look. "I suppose it is a little presumptuous of me. I don't think I've ever actually hugged you before, at least not since you were able to talk."

He was asking for a hug? Again, who was this man?

"Oh well," he said, lowering his arms before she could decide whether she wanted to accept his offer or not. "That will all change soon."

"Huh?"

The utter confusion in her voice caused her possible father to reply with his own equally confused look, but it was quickly replaced with a look of understanding.

"Oh, Fion. You see. Your mother, blessed be her soul." Fion had no idea how he said that with a straight face. "She left us a gift when she departed to the world beyond. Well, aside from her departure itself."

It was when the man giggled, that she realized something. There was a dull smell of liquor in the house. Not too strong, but she had never seen him drinking before. It was possible that he was weak to the spirits.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

He smiled and pointed at her sister, still cradled in her arms. She wasn't asleep, but she was quiet, her big black eyes looking up at her. She assumed.

"She left us a Soulblade. We’ll be rich."

"Kara."

"Hmm?"

"Her name's Kara."

"Oh. That's a nice name."

Fion frowned.