First Born Dead

It should have been a joyful occasion.

The day a new life enters this world.

When a woman becomes a mother.

When a man becomes a father.

Today should have been one of celebration.

But alas, it is a day of mourning.

The overwhelming delight conveyed in my newborn son was annihilated as swift as his life was terminated.

My son.

You were only minutes old when you met your cruel end.

So fresh from the womb that your cord had yet to be severed.

I will never see you grow up.

Never see you walk or run.

Talk or laugh.

Would you have been a warrior?

Perhaps a healer?

You could have brought so much good into this world.

You could have brought so much love into my life.

You had so much to learn.

So much to do.

An eternity of experience was at your beckoning.

But now, your life is forfeit.

You were stolen from me in the most malicious way.

Your death was evil at its purest form by the hands of your own mother.

Your mother.

The woman who I was once bewildered by.

The one who I so desired to take as a wife.

Elysia.

How could she do this to you?

How is any woman capable of murdering the life that grew inside of her?

Your death was cruel and should not have been, my son.

You did nothing wrong, but I need to know – why did you die?

Why, Elysia?

Why did you kill our child?

When I appeared before you at Mount Titus, I wept tears of joy as I saw you cradling our newborn son.

I knew he was mine the moment I looked upon his sapphire-coloured eyes.

I looked at you and smiled, yet you resisted the euphoria of childbirth.

You just stared at me with an emptiness in your eyes.

You placed our child gently on the cold floor of my temple, removed your hidden knife and…

… You monster.

I cannot bring myself to say the things you did to him.

What you did was not the act of a mother.

What you did were things only a Tenebite is capable of.

That is why I sent you to the Realm of Darkness.

You belong with your own kind.

You deserve the suffering that shall fall upon you.

A justifiable sentence for a mother who dared to kill her own child.

I will never understand why you did such a vile thing to my son.

You said this was my fault.

My fault?

Was it not you who asked me to leave you alone?

Did you not wish to be left alone on Sarcadia so you could continue your work?

I heard your pleas the day you said you were tortured by your own people.

I heard you beg for me to come to you, yet I recall no mention of your pregnancy.

This is your revenge?

You punished our son… MY son, because you felt it necessary?

You could have spent an eternity with me in the Realm of Light.

Perhaps my son would still be alive.

The Caelestials encourage me to look to the future.

They tell me to ignore the death of one child and take pleasure in knowing I can have more.

But I shan’t forget you, my son.

Though you only existed for minutes you shall live on in my heart forever.

A father should tell his newborn: “Welcome”.

Yet today I am to tell you: “Goodbye”.

— “The Atriarch Monologues: First Born Dead”, Bruce Boward, 214 AO