[Seven Widows]

Rubinia Thrusher
Cleric of Talona

Rubinia's tale began as many a tale in East Bezantur begins: born a bastard between a prostitute and an unknown father, and doomed to come of age into a similar calling herself.  After she had so come of age, Jerill's House took her in as a 'common girl' for a time and trained her to serve in that trade, never quite seeing fit to give Rubinia her own room and a working name to go with her budding reputation.

While many in this eldest profession cast their lots with the goddess Sharess in representing the unbridled hedonism, sexuality and pleasure-seeking which come with the Dancing Lady's lot, fate would guide Rubinia down a less lofty path, and towards a bleaker deity.

But though she often went unrecognized and unlauded, her humble status belied a beauty and an eloquence that was uncommon for a lowborn 'common whore'.  So she continued to ply her trade with any who had the coin, be they man or woman, youthful or elderly, lowborn or highborn, comely or unsightly, charming or gruff, kind or abusive.  And she continued to treat every one of them as if she were their truest and most passionate lover, the better to ensure their return to her...them and their ready coin.

With meeting and lying down with so many disparate people, she would not be long in joining with another visitor: disease, the sort of disease known to beset those who share their flesh and the humours of their bodies with little regard for the quality and purity of those with whom they lie.  And the first of those most intimate scourges arrived one morn, announcing its arrival with searing stings in Rubinia's nethers through which her bladder emptied and the walls of the brothel's privy echoing her tortured shrieks and screams.

But coin is the lifeblood of Bezantur and of any other prosperous port town, and Rubinia had her own dues and debts to pay.  So she continued with her prostitution, heedlessly spreading that untreated and barely tolerated pestilence in the way that back-alley harlots and people of easy virtue know best.

And so, before too long, one of the local temples noticed, a temple as contentious and mired in controversy as the goddess whom they serve.

The Temple of Talona sent their acolytes to the Lane of White Roses, where they came upon Rubinia as she plied her profession.  She was beautiful, well-spoken, graceful and socially magnetic, they said in their words of praise, so she would make an excellent speaker for their temple.  With a dram of her faith vested in the Mother of Plagues, she could even ascend to become a priestess of their venomous church.  In return for her service and her fealty, they promised, Talona could ease Rubinia of the burning in her loins and the fever in her veins.  What the Plague-Crone had afflicted, the Plague-Crone could just as easily withdraw.

Grown weary of the scourges which assailed her body from within, she was swift to agree to the Talontars' terms and just as swift to quit the Lane of White Roses, intent on serving this potent new purpose as a servant to the celestial as fervently as she could.

Though Rubinia's servitude to Talona's church is amicable enough, disagreements have arisen.

The Temple of Talona is a house ridden with rats, insects, puddles of brackish water, layers of grunge and piles of rotting meat, plants and Talona-knows-what, as plagues and pestilences grow, fester and spread more swiftly in conditions of filth, spoilage and decay.  But Rubinia does not see that as any excuse for poor housekeeping; the temple is a sacred place, and sacred places should be kept elegant, clean, tidy and free from distracting reeks, stenches and scurrying vermin, the better for the faithful to focus their pious thoughts and their prayers on the Plague-Mother alone.

And thus, Rubinia has been known to gather brooms, mops, soaps, pails and brushes where she can find them, insistent on cleaning the temple regardless of what criticism and scorn she invites from her superiors in the church.   Most of the brothels on the Lane of White Roses are clean, attractive and well-kept, she argues, yet contagion courses through them all the same; it is all just a question of which vector those diseases take.

Their goddess is not bound nor limited by such concerns; even the cleanest and most sterile sanctuary in all of Abeir-Toril can become a plague pit if Talona so wills it.  And so Rubinia's efforts at tidiness stubbornly persist.   

Such are Rubinia's past and her present.  But what of her future?

Repentance and abandonment of her faith are unlikely; Talona raised her above her sordid and hopeless origins, and Rubinia will not forget this.  A life-debt is owed, and that debt must be paid, no matter the obstacles which would deter her from that path.  As for those who would take cruel liberties with hapless prostitutes — and did so unto Rubinia herself more than a few times — she would dare them to try threatening and preying on her now, now that she has the backing of a mighty goddess and any number of divine inflictions, curses, lethal poisons and ruinous pestilences to serve as her weapons.

No, Rubinia shall continue down this chosen path and she will continue to exalt in her own beauty and charisma, scorning the ritual scars and tattoos which are common among Talona's clergy.  Perhaps she will keep her course steady and her work subtle, reining in her church's excesses as well as she can and bringing more faithful to Talona through attraction, not through coercion.

Or perhaps the temptation to dive wholly into depravity for the sake of greater divine power will prove overwhelming for her, and thus the avenue to becoming a horrifying plague rat will be laid bare for her descent.

The future is written in water.  And whether that water bears life or waterborne afflictions depends much on the unpredictable tides of Chaos itself.

So shall Rubinia Thrusher be, walking in Talona's shadow and wavering on uncertainties until the hour is right.