#WritingWonders 4.27 — She Has a Birthday in Autumn [Antagonist POV]
I have no birth anniversary because I was raised in a culture were women were chattel. My twin brother Harvest Days did, and when he got old enough I insisted he celebrate it with a raisin-nut loaf, the only sweet he'd eat without, "Not food!" I raised him after mother died, and I adored him. He was a very talented thaumaturge, so very much more so than I, probably because he was quite #autistic. I had to learn to read and write to teach him from books he had no patience for. When I worked to make his audition for a job with foreign thaus successful, too many people discovered I had a unique talent myself. When my mother had named me Rainy Days because I was born on a rainy autumn day in the high desert, maybe she had foreseen something.
But...
I was a woman.
That did not forestall men from coveting my talent. When I refused to marry the most ambitious, and my father backed me up, he ruined me to make me a slave. The foreigner thaus desperately needed me, but saving me didn't free me.
They had greedy masters.
The battles over what I could do eventually led me to destroy the civilization that so badly mistreated me because I was a woman, that mistreated my brother because they thought he was less than a man, and murdered my father because him being a hostage didn't control me. Later, I ensured the nation that freed me only to use me, fell.
Over time, I lost wars and founded nations. Things like calendars and histories were forgotten and created multiple times.
I do like to celebrate other people's birth anniversaries, however! If you invite me, know that I prefer glazed fruit tarts with caramel custard on a ginger-cinnamon crust. Raisin-nut loaf will make me cry.
[author retains copyright]
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