Under silken black sky, woven with bright diamonds, the young slave girl screamed out a curse to all the Gods in the Heavens. She had never known such pain. It tore through her body as lightning tore across a stormy night. This was all the fault of that damned stable hand. He was the one who had taken her virtuousity and had left her alone, and in this state.

With one final scream, the girl pushed the child forth into the world. Neither tears nor sound came from the tiny, pale infant. She stared at the messy little thing laying so still on the dirt floor, and felt a brief flicker of relief... perhaps she would be free of the burden she had feared. Then his dark eyes opened, turned to her, and burned a hole right through her soul.

Without a sound, she lifted the foul thing to her white mother's bosom and gave it suck. As it fed, color returned to its ashen cheeks, and slowly her teenage face began to age ever so slightly and her waxen hair spin to grey. The slave girl never spoke again, but she did appear to dote ever so much on this child she had bore... though he was but a lad of 6 when she passed from old age.