generations ...

[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click here to be taken back to 1 January 2025, and then look for chapters to appear weekly between Tu-W-Th]

  It was easy to see Alexander as the self-serving, narcissist villain that he was when Kael encountered him.  But he hadn't been born that way.  In a classic nurture vs nature argument, Alexander's evil ways might have been changed if he'd been allowed to grow up under his mother's care, and if he'd never known his father.

  It wasn't by chance that Dakra was found in the forest around his estate.  She was after all, his great- grandmother.  One of her sons had raped and impregnated a human girl.  That child, Alexander's grandfather, was left to die in the forest by the girl's parents after he was born.  Dakra found him and raised him as her own child, later encouraging him to rape and impregnate another young girl, who gave birth to Alexander's father.  Each generation looking more and more human but still carrying the genetic code and temperament of a gnoll.

  Alexander's father had been raised as an only child by one of the wealthiest families in the area who hid his paternal lineage.  His mother had died in childbirth because of his size, and her parents were so devastated by her death that they clung to the baby as the last heir to their fortune and the last bit of their daughter that they had left.  They raised him as their own, never telling him of his mother or how he was conceived.

  When he was still a young man, he followed the "generational curse" of his paternal lineage and raped a young woman, resulting in her pregnancy with Alexander.  Upon learning that she was going to have his child, Alexander's father paid her parents a great deal of money to "sell" her to him and save her family's honor.  She would live at the estate until after she gave birth so that he could ensure the lineage of the child.  After the baby was born, she was free to leave if she wanted but the child would stay with him.  If she agreed to stay for the first three years of the child's life, she would be compensated for her time that she helped to raise him, but then she would have to leave.  She would not be allowed to ever visit or even see him from a distance after he turned three.

  Reluctantly, his mother had agreed after learning that her parents had sold her to him and realizing that she had nowhere else to go.

Image Source: Pixabay.com

  The first three years of Alexander's life were filled with love and laughter.  His mother doted on him every minute of the day, even sleeping with him wrapped in her protective embrace.  She taught him about all of the woodland creatures, all the trees and flowers, and the songs of the birds.  She showed him how to dissect owl pellets and identify the tiny bones within.  She showed him where the storks would nest on top of houses, and how to catch tadpoles to watch them turn into frogs. ...

  ... Those years were just faded memories that Alexander sometimes dreamt about.  His father had imprinted different memories once his fully human mother had vanished from his life.  Dark things that came out when the sun went down.  Kinks in his psyche that his father both beat in and tried to beat out of him.  There was no more crying for his mother when fresh tears would spring to his eyes after waking from a dream.  Now his heart was only faithful to one person.

  Himself.

This week's Words for Wednesday can be found here.

friday ...

Monday

Friday

  It was a busy day of driving two hours round trip for a 5-minute doctor's appointment.  But the good news was that he didn't feel I needed a biopsy done of the area in my nose that is still healing after more than two months from a staph infection.  It had actually gone down to the cartlidge in my nose.  He said he did see skin regrowing and that doing a biopsy would be a setback in that progress.

  To not make the trip entirely wasted, I went to a department store, Kohl's, that I hadn't shopped at since I lived in Florida 13 years ago and walked around looking for good clearance deals.  The only thing I found was a hoodie sweatshirt for Charlie to wear this fall when we are sitting on the front porch in the mornings.  But I walked a mile, which is what I've been striving for since I started my physical therapy.

   My knee looks worse today, with much more bruising than it did before I had the stitches removed Tuesday.  I watched two videos on YouTube last night to see how the surgery is actually done and feel like I understand the pain a little better than I did last week.  One of the videos was animated, and the other was of an actual live patient surgery.   The animated video showed how they inject water between the joint behind the kneecap to make space for the surgical camera and tools.  But the live surgery looked like a kid playing a video game the way he operated the equipment inside the knee.  While I understand now why it hurts as bad as it does, I'm more concerned now with how recovery will go after a full replacement of the right knee.  

  Across the road from where I sit on my front porch having my morning coffee is a rather large honeysuckle vine growing on several old trees.  When the wind blows just right, I get that scent of honeysuckles, with a few of the wild roses still blooming.

  The weather has been chilly the last few mornings, and very windy with some rain and severe thunderstorms during the day.  I don't think it got above the high 60s today.  But we've been blessed to have missed the tornados the central states and Kentucky have been hit with.

  These are the roots of a tree that fell a few years ago, just up the alley from me.  It looks like an old Green Man ... or perhaps The Mother of All Mandrakes.  Either way, I love it and will have to take some seasonal photos of it going forward.

  Wishing you a safe and memorable weekend ... Hugs, Ci 💚

once upon a time ...

[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click here to be taken back to 1 January 2025, and then look for chapters to appear weekly between Tu-W-Th]

Gnoll Witherling
Image Source YouTube

  Like so many origin stories, there are often three versions of where someone came from.  The truth, the rumors, and the gray areas between the lines.  The rumors were that gnolls evolved from a humanoid people on a distant planet and resembled something between a hyena and a man.  Carnivorous, cruel, even cannibalistic and carrion-eaters at times, they were known for their savage, warrior ways, their unnatural height, and lean muscular frame.  When they died, their bones were sometimes gathered and reanimated through rituals, adding a little truth to the rumors about them being warriors that could not be killed.  

  Over the centuries, Gnolls evolved into two sub-races:  Flinds, who were short and stout, but much stronger than their taller cousins; and half-gnolls born of one human parent and a gnoll parent.  There were even those who believed that some of the gnoll bloodlines were mixed with demonic bloodlines.

  Gnoll tribes vary depending on the environment they live in, with the largest, strongest and fiercest in the tribe becoming leaders.  They are most often the females, who are difficult to distinguish from the males.

👹👹👹

  Alexander had been sitting in his garden contemplating his next money-making scheme when he'd heard a noise in the trees.  Getting up to investigate, he had discovered an injured gnoll.  Repulsed by the appearance and smell of the gnoll, he nearly left it for dead.  However, when it moved, he realized that it was a pregnant female, and apart from her injuries, was also most likely in labor.

  Instantly, the cash register in his mind began to ring as he thought about what he could charge for tickets to see the freak and her child.  Fools would be more likely to pay to see a live freak, than a dead body of one that could be dismissed as being fake.  Without hesitating further, he picked her up and gently carried her to a small guest house on the property that would be out of view of his staff and servants.

  He tended to her injuries as best he could, and had been overjoyed when she delivered a single, healthy child.  A basic form of pictures and drawing between the two of them was established to communicate, and Alexander began to learn some of the gnoll language.  He learned her name was Dakra, and that she had chosen the name of Rahak for her son.   She referred to Alexander as Helaur, which he believed was because she couldn't say Alexander, but he later realized it was a word for healer because he had saved her from death.

  As she became stronger, Alexander also realized that she had developed feelings for him.  Not wanting to encourage her, he often made excuses of having chores to do in town when she tried to become intimate with him.  He would have left the continent completely if he thought she would still be there when he returned but was too worried that someone else would find her and he would lose the side-show attraction that he was banking on.

  After several months, with her child maturing at four times the rate human babies do, Dakra was healed enough to return to her tribe but was unwilling to leave Alexander.   Realizing that she expected him to leave his home and join her, Alexander made it clear that they could not have a life together in the forest because of their physical differences.  But when she began to draw him pictures of the spoils of war that she could bring him, in exchange for providing her tribe with shelter and food, Alexander's greed became stronger than his revulsion at the thought of having sex with her.

  It was Rahak's two-year birthday, yet he stood as tall and muscular as an adult male 20 years older than him.  Alexander was tired of the one-sided affair with Dakra, and the dangerous plight he now found himself in.  He had grown fond of Rahak, but trying to juggle life as a clueless human uncle to a man-boy who could rip him apart in an instant, and the sex-toy of a vicious, insatiable, warrior matriarch was becoming more than his mind could handle.  Alexander wondered if getting Rahak a dog to play with was a suitable birthday gift for gnoll, but in the end decided upon a spear he had picked up on an African safari decades before.

  With Dakra's tribe now taking up residence in and around Alexander's estate, and the gnolls bringing him treasures to sell to the highest bidder, his greed continued to grow.  Believing that the greatest gain would be in exposing the existence of the gnolls to the world, he expressed one evening to one of the chiefs under Dakra that he was frustrated that they were not bringing him enough to continue their agreement.   His hope was that they would tire of his demands and leave, but a part of him knew that ending this relationship with Dakra and the gnolls would likely mean his death unless he could convince them to bring something more valuable to him than putting the gnolls in a carnival freak show.

  When the chief indicated that there was something else that they could bring to him, the gift of a wood elf, that might be a better money-maker than a repulsive gnoll, Alexander started making plans for the kidnapping and auction of Kael before he ever laid eyes on him.

Words for Wednesday ~ read the prompts and stories here

sunday selections ...

Upper Peninsula, Michigan.

A robin chose to build a nest by the front door of the house in Ewen.  We didn't use that door at all, so she stayed undisturbed, but it gave me a "bird's eye" view to the growth of her babies.

Jack in the Pulpit. 
I may look into finding some of the corms to plant in the boggier areas of my backyard at the base of the mountain.  It is toxic to humans and dogs, so I will need to fence the area off if I get a puppy at some point in the future.  Rabbits and deer avoid it, but birds can eat the red berries that it will produce after flowering.

Pink Lady Slipper Orchid and Yellow Trout Lily.
I already have some of the lilies in the backyard that are growing in the boggy area (not many tho) and would love to be able to get some of the Pink Ladies to grow there as well.
Gardening goals!

This was a robin that had gotten trapped in a roll of chicken wire the mom decided to nest in.  I heard his cries and got him freed without any harm before setting him in a tree where mom could find and feed.

Wishing you wonderful memories of happy discoveries ... Hugs, Ci💚