This is a "Tasting," a short-short story inspired by a tea I made at my tea company. This particular one is for the "Cambion's Lament," a spicy blueberry herbal. I suggest ordering a little bag of this tea to drink while reading the story, and that has nothing to do with me owning the tea business at all.

Some call me Kannoran. Others, Dral’gathach. Others still, Bassant.

I don’t belong here.

That statement sticks with me wherever I go. No matter my place of rest, I don’t belong. I never have. I never will. I’ve come to terms with this.

Mostly.

No, I really haven’t.

See, I’m a cambion. My mother was a poor woman from a farm outside Gotahst Gorge. She’d spent her entire life with her abusive wife. She married to get out of an abusive family. She begged for a child to give her some satisfaction out of life, and my “father” gave it to her.

My airquotes father was named Aroxath. He was an Incubus. Depending on the day, anyway. Sometimes, he/she was a succubus. Incubi/Succubi don’t have definite genders, they just roll with whatever they’re feeling that day, or whatever’s useful in the moment. I know him somewhat, and he prefers the male side of things, but is no stranger to going female when the opportunity presents itself.

He came to her one night, after a particularly abusive row with my mother’s wife, and gave her a deal: he’d murder her wife, take her soul, if she promised her firstborn. It was no-brainer for her. She never loved her, she was mostly straight. From what she told me, it was hard to see women as attractive any more after her wife. Took her a long time.

But that’s beside the point.

She gave in, he murdered her wife, stole her soul, shoved it in for safe keeping, then “took” my mother. She was appreciative, he couldn’t help himself, I guess one thing led to another, as it always seems to with Incubi/Succubi, and they wound up in bed.

She didn’t suspect that he fed off sexual energy and would syphon her soul with an orgasm.

He didn’t expect her to have the constitution to stand up to his energies.

He also didn’t expect her womb to take demonic seed.

I was born a year later. Long pregnancy. Demon seed, I guess? The local church took her in, protected her after the grisly murder of her wife. When she gave birth to something with blood red skin, fangs, and horns, the town rioted. She got out under the wing of a priest who hid her in a wagon leaving town.

Turns out, he was a demon priest. He worshipped… who knows? Some random dude or chick. But he protected her and her “Precious Spawn.” We travelled constantly, from place to place. She was too old to marry off, too scarred from abuse to take gentleman suitors, and… well, her child was a demon.

When I turned sixteen, my father returned to take me. He was taken aback when he finally met me; didn’t quite connect the dots ‘til he looked me in the eye. Took me anyway, but he wasn’t sure.

I spent a few… months, I guess? Months in hell before I was shunned. He was laughed at for spawning with a human, I was weak for my human blood. They tried to murder me on more than one occasion.

He left me in a lake on the other side of the world from where I was born.

Since then, I’ve travelled. Some welcome me in, for a time. They say cambions shapeshift to get what they want; get it from their demonic parents. Only partially true. I can turn my skin to standard shades, disguise my horns. I can’t change my eyes or teeth, so I tend to look down and avoid smiling.

Demons won’t take me because I’m too weak. Humans won’t take me because I’m a horrific abomination. I have no home, no place to live my life, no friends to claim me. I can fletch, so I hock arrows where I go. That’s the best I can do.

I’ve given up on demons. I’m just tired of the death threats/attempts. Humans sometimes take me in, but inevitably my demonic roots just… get the better of me. The fire comes back, they see me for who I am, they run, they scream, they riot.

I will never escape who I am. I am who I always have been. One day, that will be enough. Until then, let’s hope this next town doesn’t ask too many questions.