The wind howled through the shutter to match the crescendo of screams coming from the woman. The midwife looks between the mother and the shutters threatening to torn open by the tempest raging outside and shivers, nine moons had passed from when Arcelia received her blessings for safe childbirth from the seer when it had told her that fate had a tight grasp upon her daughter and an omen will come with her birth and while the midwife knew to born during a storm was a sign of a new seer to her people but this calamitous storm could only mean one thing. Bad Omen. Broken out of her thoughts as she’s finishing up she wipes at the newborns wings and cringes in fear, the child has neither the pure white wings of her people nor the pitch black wings of a seer but white wings but permanently stained a deep crimson red at the tips, she hands the creature to Arcelia with disgust and walks away. “Wait apis…” after a few more steps the midwife turns and says “Arcelia… I will get the elders in the morning,it’s bad enough she was born during this tempest  but her wings that can’t be a good sign, she will only have a hard life,” “GET OUT” Arcelia roars “my child does not need pity nor will her wings define her..” “we will see.” Apis says before leaving. Left alone tormented by flashes of lightning and the roaring of the wind, Arcelia looks down at her child and smiles.

The next morning the elders surveyed the damage wrought by the tempest that heralded the birth of Arcelia’s child and shivered at the meaning of the storm. Apis, the midwife was sent away earlier to fetch the seer after telling them about the wings of Arcelia’s daughter. To the race of gweiadur, the feather color of their wings was important and denoted the standing of the individual, dull white and grey wings denoted a commoner while lustrous white wings denoted one of noble birth. Arcelia was known for her blindly white wings that looked as though it were studded with diamonds when sunlight passed through it and as the daughter of the current seraph Meriune it symbolized the peace and prosperity of their people but when Apis told her and the other elders about the newborn’s wing color they were deeply troubled. As the elders arrived and waited outside of Meriune and Arcelia’s house they argued over the meaning of the Apis had told them until the seer finally arrived a short time later with an uneasy Apis in tow. The seer was a terrifying decrepit old woman blinded from normal sight and hunched over by the centuries of time reading the carved vertebrae of dragons for prophecies and omens, as with every one of her forerunners her black wings that sparked silver in moonlight denoted her position as seer, unlike the wing color of the nobility a child born with a seers wings was taken from their parents at birth and kept by the current seer to teach the duties of their position. As the elders and seer entered the room the elders were stunned by what they saw while seer only grinned, what they saw Arcelia holding shocked them the newborn had and extra set of wings and arms, with continued cackling the crone spoke “When the light of the star of corruption illuminates her wings she will go to war.”

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