The owl shrieked at my birth – an evil sign. The night crow cried aboding luckless time; dogs howled, and hideous tempest shook down trees; the raven rook'd her on the chimney’s top, and chattering pies in dismal discord sung. My mother felt more than a mother's pain, and, yet brought forth less than a mother's hope, to wit, an indigested and deformed lump, not like the fruit of such a goodly tree. The midwife wonder'd and the women cried 'O Prokeles bless us he is born with teeth!' And so I was; which plainly signified that I came to bite the world. That many a thousand, which mistrust no parcel of their fear, and many an old man's sigh and many a widow's, and many an orphan's water-standing eye – men for their sons, wives for their husbands, and orphans for their parents timeless death shall rue the hour that ever Dethias wast born. That I should snarl and bite and play the dog. Yet this word 'love,' which graybeards call divine, be resident in men, not like one another, but most in me; I am myself alone.
I had a tender, yet sheltered upbringing. Suckling of the desperate focused love only a mother, holding nothing else sacred in this world, could give. Learning to love and play like anyone, yet never allowed to play outside in the light. I would sneak to the river district at night to swim, with only the clouds and wind to partake in my games, it is by my revered banks littered with the discarded belongings of Corlace that I found the simple beauty in all things.
After the long drought of the Wheels, rats infested the lower portion of the city. I never liked their encroachment on what I considered 'my' river. So, when peddlers began selling rat meat for lack of bread; meat that the street kids collected during the day, I jumped or rather sneaked at the opportunity. I found I was a natural exterminator. I became the premier ratter; hiding in shadows, hunting with desperate focus during the hours that no other dared, learning the pain of the knife edge as well as its precision. I had to sell the carcasses to the city's underbelly at half the price other ratters got. I hated those people. They were greedy, conniving, blunt, and the worst kinds of cruel.
One particularly nasty elf, Locutious, showed me how to use poison to catch more rats, quicker. It was too late before I realized his deception... the poisons I made to kill the rats seeped into the meat, and poisoned the wretched people. Many got sick from my mistake... some died. I tried to steal back everything I had sold, but was beaten down by one particularly brutal peddler, Haamock, and his thugs. That day I promised myself I would never hurt innocent people, but rather try and protect them.
The drought ended when prince Thay was born, and the city rejoiced. Yet I was forced to look for new employ. I tried disguising myself as one of the merchants so that I could sell wares I'd collected from the river banks, but none dared approach me for trinkets. The few clients I did receive, requested other goods - I didn't display. They asked for darker things; forbidden poisons, shadowed information, or to pilfer some object of desire. The pay was ample, but I tried only to accept contracts that would hurt those crooked, duplicitous, evil dregs -- of which there were plenty. Try as I may, I could not resist the satisfaction from hearing news of my deeds reverberate back, that a misfortune had befallen some unscrupulous fuck, and I knew my streets were safer.
I had saved up a small fortune, until... a few years back my mother fell ill. I leveraged, scrounged and begged to provide her the best treatment, but nothing could dissuade the reaper. She died the same day as the King. I spread her ashes into the river. I sold all her furnishings. And with what meager sum I could piece together, I purchased these daggers I will use -- to carve out my place in this world.
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