hestia forrester . d7 . cb

My hair was stained the color of blood. My mother tells me it was a symbol from the gods, that the animals that had been sacrificed on my birthing bed marked me. An omen of good or bad they couldn’t quite decide. But as most would, they refused to believe they had brought a curse into the family, denying to themselves that the halo of red could mean nothing other than the fact that I was special.

An omen of good faith from the gods.

But what if it wasn’t? What if it was a mark to expose me for who I was? Expose me for not being what they needed me to be.

Maybe it was the violence that shrouded my birth, or that I could still taste the blood on my lips as I took my first cry, but I was different.

So when I was 8 my mother put a knife in my hand and chanting her fingers dipped in blood, I froze, tears pooling at the corner of my eyes. Carefully she drew symbols on the alter that she tied it too, her chanting coming to an end as her eyes meet mine and she demanded that I slit its throat.

“M-m- Mum, I can’t.”

“You must.”

“I can’t.”

“Hestia. Now.”

Hands shaking, I drew the knife across its throat, praying to a new god that they could forgive me.