“What story?” the girl asked, her eyes wide with eagerness for a new story. All the children looked like that when a tale was promised – even I had.
“The story, Lynn!”
That was the girl’s name – Lynn. She was the daughter of one of the Bee Sisters.
“Tell, Lia! Tell me, please!”
“How do you not know?” Lia said, echoing my very thoughts. How come this girl didn’t know? The whole tribe was brimming with it, everyone knew it. As if the mother’s whispered my past like a lullaby to their sleeping babies. Tears came to my eyes; my sorry, condemning past.
“Very well...” the older girl began, lowering her voice. “It was on the day of a big battle – everything was ready; the Warriors were mounted, the Queen dressed and the day bright. They rode onto the plains, talking and laughing in their splendour, working the horses to a wild frenzy. And then they met the enemies, throwing themselves into war without a second’s hesitation. And yet there was time enough for the King of the Men to shout a warning. ‘Your people shall be damned! You will wish that you never struck war with us!’ Our people laughed, and forgot all in the heat of battle.
“They fought well, bringing down the Men in heaps, and yet something was wrong when the final enemy was downed. The Queen was gone.”
Lynn gasped, her face pale with shock. I probably looked no better, with arms clutched around my sides, skin as white as un-dyed cotton and tears streaked across my face. Why? Why had they continued, when the warning had been so clear...? They could have been saved so much fear, so much hatred. But Lia had barely begun, and she was fired up with the thrill of story-telling.
“Yes, our Queen had disappeared along with her horse, and no matter how long the Warriors searched amongst the dead – she was nowhere to be found. The Priestesses wept with fear, Warriors stood with faces grave, and ravens fell upon the plain, wings seeming to bring death itself; casting poisonous black shadows upon everyone. For days they stayed and looked, but, in the end, they returned. Children needed mothers, horses needed bathing, and tents needed inhabitants. Yet no hearts came back from that fateful day.”
I was numb; with the cold, with the fear and with guilt. Lynn was gulping, as if she might cry any minute. Lia was frowning callously, as if she loathed this story as much as I did. But of course – that was impossible.
“It was months that they waited, begging the gods to show mercy and send them back their Queen. Clouds gathered over the land, like crumpled sheets of wool, barring all light. It was a time of darkness. Impossible, unconquerable darkness where only pain survived.
“But then!” she said, making Lynn jump. “On a cold, windy night, the First Priestess woke to the sound of a galloping horse and of laboured breathing. She was said to have leapt out of bed and into the blackness, nearly fainting at the sight which awaited her there – standing amongst the tents. The Queen! She had returned, to save her people!”
“Yay!” cried Lynn, her grin wide. But she sat back down when she saw Lia’s earth-shattering glare into the middle-distance.
“But the Queen was not alone. She carried a strange child – an unwelcome child, within her. The Men had captured and imprisoned her for many, many weeks. They violated her as only human Men can do, and claimed her honour without so much as a pause. She held a bad-child in her stomach, one that would only cast venom upon our tribe.
“Priestess dreamed that night, of the King’s warning, and of a black wolf.”
Lynn gasped; a sharp inhalation of breath, as painful to me as a knife through the heart. A Black Wolf – the mount that bore Death on its broad shoulders.
“That was when they knew that the child was a sign from the gods. In return for our Queen, we would be cursed with Death itself; and yet you cannot kill Death. And that is what the Princess is – Death, her mother’s shame, and Man’s evil.”
“Wow” Lynn said, her voice trembling. Lia smiled, obviously happy with herself for providing yet another opponent for me in this battle called life.
“Quite a story, is it not?”
It is. I thought to myself, unsteady on my feet. Nothing terrified me more than that story. No, perhaps most of the story I could deal with – everything until the very end. ‘You cannot kill Death’ Lia had said. So I wondered, if that King had not shouted that warning, and if the Priestess had not had that dream – I would not have been seen as Death.
Would they have killed me then? If I had not been protected by my cruel name.
Perhaps. Old Mage had said when I had asked her that. Perhaps...
Well there you go; my magic!
I would like to ask you one vital question; do you think the story telling was okay? I needed to fit some information in and this was the way I came up with, since they love to tell stories. But do you think it worked? 
Anyway, that's it from me. ~Ash~
