Sweet as the Grape

She smirked as Sericea blurted out the obvious, the wicked gleam of her emeralds amused as she simply nodded. Absinth contemplated her next words, carefully tracing the rough edges of a memory that never quite dulled. "My mother…. was a beautiful, simple, stupid whore. She was a drunk, cruel and spiteful as they come, bitter down to her bones, and quick to lash out whenever she could, especially at her own children. There was nothing nurturing about her. Most days, she staggered through the slums, cursing the very life she’d brought into this world, blaming everyone else for her problems. She sold off my siblings one by one, trading them to whoever had the coin or use for them. Children are nothing more than merchandise in Khroma, you see. And when they were gone, she set her sights on me, her final bargaining chip. If I hadn’t been quick to run, I’d have ended up just like them, handed over to the highest bidder—which I heard would have been a brothel. Cunt still sold me without actually handing me over, last I heard.” She laughed here, thinking about the wondrous career choice her mother had attempted to broker for her. “I had no chance to be anything other than quick and suspicious, like a rat picking my way through Khroma's filth to survive. It was that, or enduring the same life as my mother. In Khroma, you learn to survive, or you don’t survive at all. There’s no mercy for the weak there. Life and death is a currency exchanged freely."

She took a breath, letting that image settle before shifting her tone. "Then there was Setekh—my father. But calling him ‘father’ doesn’t do justice to what he was." Absinth brought her gaze down to meet her daughters, as if gauging Sericea’s reaction. She never spoke of her father to her children before… but it was high time—especially since Absinth knew he was drifting about these lands.

"Absinth Artemisia Inferos"