Her life burned to ash behind her. Clio waded through the soft spring soil of a field, one her husband and his brothers had plowed just today. Her booted feet sinking with each step into the churned earth.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” she whispered. To herself. To the On High. To the Heavens. To anyone that might listen and make this day have not happened.

If any one of them heard her, they gave her no sign.

Clio wasn’t pious… before. This wasn’t helping her faith none.

The barn was far enough away that it would take time for the fire to spread to it. The animals inside didn’t know that. The draft horse whinnied high and loud, stomping its feet in its stall. The pigs ran around in their pit, chickens clucking like mad. How was she supposed to move them all?

***

With great difficulty. The homestead Clio had married into wasn’t far from her parent's farm. It still took her most of the night to bring all the animals back. And she lost two pigs to wolves and several chicks to them wandering off. Any other woman would have probably lost them all and her life. But not Clio.

Not the Witch Girl.

It wasn’t spells that kept her safe. She didn’t know any. Clio wasn’t a real witch, if such things were real. No, Clio was queer. Odd and wrong, to many of the good folk of her village. Because Clio was stubborn. Because she remembered another life. One whose wisdom she should have listened to more.

Arrows and woodcraft kept her safe, for Clio’s weirdness wasn’t witchery, but a friendship struck between a wild child and an old childless hunter that cared little for the opinions of villagers that rarely left their little place in the world.

Clio was a huntress. And she wanted to be a traveler, a peddler.

“Well, no. I wanted to be a knight.” A hero. Someone who mattered. That was the dream…

…of another lifetime.

The sun was still low below the horizon when Jur, the family dog, smelled her and woke them all up. His friendly yips and barks brought her a measure of relief. Her father came out of the house, wood axe in hand. Fearing the worst. Bandits, raiders. Ironmen, perhaps. Raiders were armed with shoddy iron, but weapons still, the mainstay of bandits and desperate folk everywhere. But those who took a liking to that life took up the moniker of Ironmen. Those had been the doom of many a homestead.

Her mother was trying to keep her brothers and sisters inside, blocking the door and mostly failing at it, as their heads all peered out through the door and windows.

At first, except for Jur, none of them recognized her. Clio understood. She hardly recognized herself.

***

Mira, her mom, was besides herself. It made the part of Clio that was still a child warm inside, made her wish she could relax and cry. Hug her and never let go. But her father and brothers accusing eyes pinned her to her chair like spears. While her two little sisters worried for her, almost hidden, just their heads peering from the bedroom silently. Mom had noticed them, but they ducked away anytime any of the menfolk turned to look.

They wouldn’t approve.

Mom came back with a freshly wrung out and soaked rag. It was the third time trying to clean just her face and hair. It still came away full of soot and blood.

Finally, her dear, respected father deigned to speak:

“What have you done now?”

It was that voice. That familiar tone- the one that said that she was wrong/wrong/wrong.

The same one Grutt and his shrill wife used on her every day since she’d been married into their household.

One moment, Clio was sitting, her Mom’s gentle hands wiping her face. The next, her mother was on the floor looking up at her in fear. Clio’s hand axe was buried in the table. She was on her feet, breathing harshly. One hand on her axe, the other dagger drawn.

The whole room was utterly silent, her brothers looking at her wide eyed, like they’d never seen her before. But not her father. Oh… not him. In him, the light of vindication was growing. He’d always said she was wrong. Whispered that she was his curse, his monster.

More than anything, Clio wanted to snuff it out, that light. Show him just how wrong he was.

“Grutt is a kinslayer.” she hissed, all the venom boiling inside coming out. The accusation fell heavily among them, gasps from her mother and her little sisters. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered but the storm bubbling up in her gut, bursting out of her throat.

“Your Goodman Grutt is a Hells be damned kinslayer, fool! A pox on him and that whole cursed house! All he and his wife wanted were beaten down, obedient fools!”

“You will not-“

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Clio saw red. She came over the table, battering away his hand with her axe and slammed the dagger in his teeth. The hilt of it. She wasn’t so lost as to join Grutt in sin.

Father stumbled back in shock, surprised not so much that she would attack him, but at how quick and strong she’d done it.

Clio did not seem mighty. She was thin, willowy. Tall for a woman, but only that. It hid her strength, which was whipcord and tendon. The might of a huntress, a climber, a runner.

(An athlete, a gymnast)

“Well he GOT WHAT HE WANTED!” she screamed her pain.

She’d hated her new home. Didn’t love Nat, her husband. Didn’t hate him. He was a good man, if a bit dim. Hard working and hard to rile. Considerate of her queer skills and wishes. Didn’t mind the meat, herbs and berries she brought to the household.

It was the kids she grew to love, in the few short moons she’d had with them.

“A DULL FOOL WHO COULD NOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPICE AND HERB! BETWEEN MEDICINE AND POISON! WHO… who…”

The fire ran out.

“Who… who after being beaten down for years… obeyed.”

Clio collapsed back down into her father’s chair, and for once in his life, her father listened. Bleeding from his gums, tight with pain and rage of his own, but he listened. It took his eyes keeping to the dagger she was still pointing his way, but he listened.

“That shrew told her to find some greens for the stew or it would be her hide. I wasn’t there. I was hunting. Reliana had to obey the Mistress of the house. She was so afraid of her. She searched and she tried. And when she failed, she went into our rooms and searched there.”

It was quiet, so quiet now. Quiet enough to hear her mom choke.

“I was out late. Didn’t know. No one told us anything. Evening stew. Everything was fine.”

She looked up and met her father’s eyes. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at her Mom and horror was dawning in his eyes.

“Started with upset stomachs, in the night. Then vomiting. It was bad, for the adults…” Clio didn’t, couldn’t continue. The way her voice trailed, choked off… she didn’t need to.

“Grutt blamed me for everything. Just like you and this village taught him too. Not his wife minding the brew, not the woman that stole, me.” Clio flung the accusation in her father’s face. He grew red with anger, but it couldn’t hide the still clinging pallor. It was a disaster and Clio could see it. See the question rumbling around in his head: “How do I keep my family out of this?”

She was not included in that worry. And somehow, that made it easier. Simpler.

For all his failings, her father was a hard working and mostly filial man. He’d do what he must.

“Just not for me.”

“Nat… my husband may not have been the brightest soul, but he knew right from wrong. The Mistress holds hearth and home. She cooked, she served. I hadn’t even been there.”

Clio wiped away snot. Cleared her nose. It was choked.

“Grutt wanted me hanged. Nat wasn’t going to stand for that. They fought. Grutt didn’t like that. Someone standing up to him. He walked away and came back with an axe.”

She was looking at the floor. Remembering the way her heart had thundered in her chest. Like a herd of horses at gallop on the road.

“Nat bought me time. Time to get out.” The story was ending and with it, so was her strength. She was tired. Clio was worn out. After a full day on the trail… it was too much.

“I didn’t run. Just went for my bow. Snuck back. They’d started the fire by then. Killed Reliana and Berm to shut them up. They were going to blame it all on me… on the Witch, the curse.” She spat.

“I wasn’t going to stand for that.”

Clio didn’t elaborate further. She didn’t need to. With darkness all around, them fire blind and her a huntress… the rest was simple.

“Lords have mercy.” her Mom prayed to the On High. She regained her feet and bustled to her daughters, hugging them fiercely. Clio’s brothers looked to her with horror and wariness in their eyes. This could be the ruin of them all.

She knew that. Understood it. The village would never forget or forgive this.

Her father stood up, wiping blood from his teeth.

She didn’t let him. Clio would leave on her own. Her choice. It was what she’d wanted before he’d insisted on marrying her off. As was his right and responsibility. Father didn’t want to be tarnished with a runaway.

He got what he wanted.

Even with her bones dragging away at her, Clio stood. Went to the door. As she passed him, told him: “I know. I can’t stay.”

Something in his eyes, the accusations, the horror and wrath… something in that storm… unwound. His fisted hands relaxed, the tense shoulders collapsed.

“I… I never wanted any of this.” he whispered back… his voice utterly defeated. He was not kind to her. Not a good dad. No idea how to deal with a wild child with all kinds of notions not befitting her station.

He was who he was.

Clio’s father had failed her. But at least, he’d tried. In his own, fumbling way.

Having seen a family that was true poison, Clio could begrudgingly admit that. Father never beat them without a good reason. Never broke any bones, no matter how wrathful. He didn’t drink, or gamble.

He wasn’t perfect, but who was?

“I just…” Clio began, unsure what to say, how to say it. “I felt…”

Her eyes went back to her mother, and only now, did her other parent realize. Mom’s eyes filled with tears, one arm starting towards her before clutching back the daughters left to her. Because she’d lost this one. Still, she muffled her wails. Swallowed her hurt to shield her children.

Hugged her with her eyes… if such a thing could be. “I love you.” they screamed to Clio. The view blurred and the words came out:

“I needed them… you… to know. It wasn’t me. I didn’t start it. It wasn’t me.” At the end, her voice was small. Frail. Pitiful. Clio hated it. Hated that she couldn’t see. She wiped her tears away and felt father move. Tensed but her hands were in the wrong place to defend herself.

A single large hand dropped on her shoulder. Heavy as stone.

“No.” Father told her. His voice as enduring as the fields. “You didn’t start it. You finished it. Done what you can to make it right. Damn us all, Clio, but well done.”

It was all he seemed to have in him, as father gathered his sons, her brothers. They went out to deal with the pigs and chicks. The horse she’d brought.

Clio kept the mule. A peddler needed something to peddle.

She was only sixteen… and already a killer.

Clio didn’t make it far. A few miles out, to her old foraging grounds and the tree house of her girlhood. There she collapsed into troubled dreams.

***

She woke to a high, full moon.

The girl had always felt an affinity for it. A light in the dark, for tracking, trapping.

The woman looked up and her world changed. Helpless, bitter laughter spilling from her lips. For in looking at the moon, Clio saw more than moonlight:

-Attribute points?

-Skill points?

-Proficiencies?

...

As if it was all some kind of… game. Her whole life… it was absurd and not funny at all. Clio may have gone mad… for a bit.

Clio Kalvere her character sheet named her. Kalvere was the plant. The poison she left in her traps, when she hunted for skins. The one that ruined her life.

The leaves were poisonous. The root medicine. They hurt the unwary and helped those that knew how to deal with them.

Just like her.