Birth of Sivs (blood warning) [YA]

Rarely has anyone gotten the opportunity to pick his or her birthplace, talents, parents, or name – and such cases generally involve a djinn or voodoo or some deity’s whim, none of which tend to end well. So, the worlds end up with horrible rulers who would have made great mechanics. Or creatures designed with the sole purpose of tending to the dead, but longing only to dwell among the living. Or genius twins capable of drastically altering worlds, if only they could stomach working together.

Then there are other, more destructive, cases – like an artistic and innocent child possessed with incredible skills... for drawing blood.

A certain family of relatively mundane atmosphere, had a five-year-old son and a pregnant mother. A full month before the new babe’s expected arrival, the mother cried out that she’d seen a strange red apparition at the window and her water immediately broke. The father did what he could to make her comfortable, then quickly ran out to ask for a communications stone. As soon as he opened the outer door, something small and red flew in past him, so fast that it left a shallow slice on his cheek. He hollered for a neighbor’s help in getting communication to a doctor about his wife, then rushed back inside after it.

The father had shut and locked the door to his wife’s room in order to keep out their firstborn, Adis. Adis remained by the bedroom when the father returned, calling out if Mommy was okay. However, a second entity had joined the small boy, flitting around just above his head in an agitated manner. The father recognized the creature to be a nymn – an embodiment of some element of nature, taking a three-inch humanesque form, with incredibly large eyes, long bony appendages, and thin bug-like wings. This one glowed a deep crimson, streaking trails of light back and forth from one corner of the door to the next. The presence of nymnali during birth marked good fortune and a blessing from Mikal, which filled the father with both excitement and relief – it would mean no harm. Such creatures were extensions of Nature herself. He entered the room to console his wife, unperturbed when the luminous creature darted inside as well.

A nurse arrived to help the mother through her pains, while the father moved to the social room and tended to their son. Five hours later, a copper-skinned babe emerged, and would be named Sivs – a common but astute name. The nymn never stayed more than a few feet away from the little newborn, following the nurse as she cleaned him up and placed him in his mother’s arms. She congratulated her for having birthed a baby marked by Mikal the Eternal Child. Surely, Sivs had been set apart for greatness.

But the mother found that the child she had birthed, and the nymn that lingered near him, both made her uneasy. That uneasiness grew whenever she tried to bond with the newborn. No matter her techniques, or coaching from the nurse, or tricks she had learned from weaning her first son, the mother could not feed him. On the rare occasion that he accepted her breast, she claimed he meant to harm her. More than once, his mother confided in her husband that she feared the child, and dreamt of him growing teeth and biting her to death.

Following their doctor’s recommendation, the parents put her milk into a bottle and fed the infant that way until the child could ingest soft foods.

Soon enough, Sivs did grow teeth, and began to bite. Every toy or book they placed near him was quickly stuffed into his mouth and gnawed on. Gripped by fear, his mother would leave the boy and his nymn locked in a room with a scatter of wooden block toys – all of which soon retained bite marks – and a large cushion to sleep on. Taking pity on their teething son, the father would bring him food, sit with him and tell him stories, try to play blocks with him. Sivs never seemed to take any real note of his gestures, however. He never looked when his name was called, he didn’t move around the room attempting to crawl or walk, he didn’t indicate a desire for anything out of his reach… He simply sat wherever his father placed him, and gnawed on whatever happened to be nearby.

Unless Adis came to visit.

Adis had a way with his younger brother. It helped that his guileless mind did not balk at “oddities” like having an ever-present nymn companion, and that his disposition – much like his father’s – was one of kindness before opposition. Adis would sit on the floor with his brother and hand him a block. Sivs would reciprocate by picking up a block and handing it to Adis. Grinning, Adis would stack the blocks. Following suit, Sivs would grab a block and add it to the stack. Adis connected with the nymn, as well, breaking up his snacks and holding them out for her. He quickly learned that she preferred sweets, so he would bring various fruits with him on his visits. When their mother heard that her husband brought Adis in to visit their second child, she flared into hysterics: “I don’t want that… that THING… near my son!” she cried.

Concerned for his wife, their father spoke with doctors about her condition. They assured him that, while it was a bit extreme in her case, women were already prone to “fits of emotion” even without the involvement of pregnancy. Following pregnancy, a woman’s emotional state may remain woefully unbalanced for a time. He should simply do what he can to keep her calm, and as the child grows past his biting phase, she’ll come to realize that his teething was perfectly normal and she had nothing to fear from him in the first place. Besides – they added – the child was marked. A Mikal’s Child will leave home within their first ten years or so anyway, and their house would return to normalcy.

The father followed their advice, although he negotiated an agreement with his wife to continue letting Adis see his brother once a week. He had mentioned that the nymn had grown fond of Adis, and they should try not to anger such a powerful and sacred creature. It pained him that only fear had moved her to agree. Aside from Sivs being slower to react or learn than Adis had been, their father felt nothing particularly wrong with the boy, and certainly no reason to fear him.

He became complacent.

Comfortable.

And one day, he dropped his guard entirely.

Sivs, now nearly two years old, didn’t bite things as often as he used to, and never bit anything when his bother came by. On this particular occasion, the seven-year-old Adis had brought a little yellow ball with him to roll back and forth between himself and his younger brother. If it rolled too far away, Sivs would just wait patiently staring at nothing in particular until Adis got up to fetch it, so Adis took care in his precision. The simplistic exchange of merely rolling a ball may not be classified as particularly entertaining, but the boys enjoyed it well enough while Adis excitedly rambled about random things he had done or seen that week. Their father watched with a smile for a bit, yawned, then decided they would be fine for a few minutes while he went out and grabbed another plate of chopped fruits for them. He set about cutting some cheese to go along with it when suddenly…

A heart-stopping HOWL of pain rang out from the boys’ room, followed by confused wailing cries.

Adis!

The father left everything on the counter and sprinted to the boys’ room, calling out Adis’ name as he ran. He burst through the door, adrenaline preparing him to be the protector, the provider, the medic, the shield… Whatever it was his son needed!

… But he was absolutely not prepared for what he saw.

Adis lay on his back wailing and holding his right hand. Blood entirely covered it, leaving only the upper halves of his four fingers exposed… Four? Four. His little finger was missing. In its place came only pools of blood that slid down his arm and dripped onto his chest and face as he gripped his hand above himself and screamed. The father’s immediate reaction was to sweep up a nearby baby-blanket and rush to his son’s side. He tried to extend assuring words to the young boy, quickly and carefully manipulating the blanket into a temporary tourniquet. But Adis’ eyes barely registered his father’s presence, darting repeatedly from his wounded hand to something beyond his feet. Compelled, the father shot a glance in that direction, figuring he would catch the cause of his son’s wound somewhere, but that it also would not require too much of his immediate attention. He’d just lay his sights on it long enough to let his brain continue registering it in the background while he focused more on stopping Adis’ bleeding.

But what he noticed gave him pause, and caused him to look again.

There, sitting calmly only a pace from Adis’ feet, sat Sivs... with a severed finger in his mouth.

Time slowed to a near halt as the father took in the small toddler’s expression. It was...euphoric. Never had he witnessed such an expression on a child – as though under the spell of some pleasurable drug. The boy’s eyes radiated a sense of fulfillment as they stared at the bleeding, screaming, terrified mess before him, unable to look away as though he were gazing at the loveliest vision from heaven.

A soft squeeze of air left the toddler’s throat. Then repeated. And again.

The child’s first laughter.

Sivs had never laughed before… but he loved it! Growing increasingly giddy at this new discovery, the toddler soon broke out into fits of giggles. The more he heard his own joy, the more amused he became, adding clapping to his adorable little squeals. Everything around him tinted itself in true glee! Nothing in his toddling little span of life had ever been so delightful as this!

As time returned to its proper speed, the father felt himself immersed in an increasing terrorso tangible it filled his pores and numbed his bones. Rapidly approaching footsteps and the call of his wife snapped his brain into impulse: Protect his family from the monster before him.

Swiftly, he wedged his arms beneath his wounded son, hoisting him up, and ran with him out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. His wife, who had awoken from a midday nap by the commotion and whose robe hung loosely on her shoulders, screamed when she noticed the blood-soaked blanket around her son’s hand, and her husband’s paled complexion. She demanded to know what happened, but the father merely commanded her to lock the door, that they would tend to Adis first, and call for a healer. Once the bleeding stopped, he would tell her everything.

She followed his instructions, and joined him to tend to their child.

Adis blacked out for a while during the healer’s visit, but as the sun ducked behind the mountains, the boy regained his wits. The right side of his right hand would remain in a small crystal encasement until morning while regeneration runes set about closing the wound left by his brother. It still hurt, but held more of a dull tingling in it rather than the excruciating pain from earlier, and having the blood washed off of him helped to clear his mind. His parents and the still-present physician asked him exactly how the events happened.

Shakily, the young boy recounted:

He had been talking to Sivs, and rolling the ball with him, when their father left to get more snacks. Adis informed the toddler that he’d gotten a splinter in his pinky earlier when trying to climb a tree, and hadn’t fully gotten it out, but didn’t want to tell Dad about it because he didn’t like the pinchie tools Dad used. At this, his toddler brother stopped rolling the ball, tilted his head, and spoke for the first time to Adis’ knowledge.

“Can I see?”

Startled and thrilled that his little brother chose to talk with him, and feeling more than a little proud at being the only person in the family that Sivs ever responded to in the first place, Adis held out his hand to show him the mark. Sivs grabbed his hand gently, turning it to the side so the light would catch better on the splinter.

“See? Right there,” said Adis, pointing.

Sivs’ eyes caught hold of the prick where the tiniest piece of wood had lodged itself. Slowly, Adis became aware of his brother’s grip tightening, and the look in his eyes changing to something… hungry – like an intense anticipation. Then suddenly the world came at Adis in split frames: Sivs’ opening his mouth… Closing his mouth… Tearing away his prize…

Pain. Blood. Realization. Terror. Screams.

As his brain put the pieces together, his sense of self-preservation compelled him to kick Sivs right in the stomach and put distance between himself and his brother. He fell backward, caught sight of the amount of blood on his hand, heard his father’s call, and completely lost all ability to process anything further. Father would know what to do. He could focus instead on trying to will his blood back into his body.

After hearing Adis’ story, the physician – an old friend of the father’s – pulled the father aside and suggested that perhaps this nymn was some other spirit disguised as a bearer of blessing who had, instead, cursed their second-born. If so, they may need to put the child down, as a mercy to both their family and the child himself – since tasting human blood has been known to corrupt souls. It may be the only way to give the child a chance at a better, non-cursed, existence in another life.

Images of the toddler’s euphoric expression and the recollection of Adis’ screams still fresh in his mind, the father hesitated only slightly before taking in a long breath… and consenting.

The two left the mother with her child as they approached the toddler’s room, knives in hand, agreeing to align each others’ stories should questions arise. They unlocked the door, collected themselves, then opened it…

… and found no one.

Both toddler and nymn were gone.

It would only be many years later that the father would learn the exact whereabouts of their second-born son, when overhearing a gossiping guard about the king’s newly-hired assassin: A blood-crazed thirteen-year-old kid with black eyes and copper skin, named Sivs.

Of course, Sivs was a common name, the father reminded himself.

He decided to bury the thought, focus on his wife, son, and two little daughters, and put their second-born out of his mind.