Rights
Once, a woman ran quickly. Her children were strapped to her, the ground thick with snow, and so her gait was slow. This was unfortunate, as she was being chased. And only to be expected. For the woman had some skill with healing magics. This is all to the good when you are healing people of broken limbs and aching heads; and all to ill when the healer offers care for a village's young women, who are better thought as means to ends than ends to be wrapped up in robust health. All is far more ill when such a healer begins to speak her mind. Not long before a village decides that she must leave.
The woman fled through the trees, her feet numb from leaking boots. Whispered words among women had given her a head start. But it was not enough.
The arrows surprised her.
She and her children were being hunted like deer. But she had direction, one last hope.
She saw the cottage, the swirling smoke, blur before her eyes as she put on a burst of speed and banged on the door.
A gnarled old woman opened the door.
'Oh, this should do nicely,' the old woman croaked as the mother and her children fell through her doorway. 'Child!' the old woman yelled before the mother could say anything, or the children do more than stare.
A young woman bounded in the room.
'We have her,' croaked the crone. 'The mother is here.'
'Oh, good,' the young woman said with a curious carnal smile as she helped the mother and her children up from the ground. 'Shall we show them what we can do?'
A curtain flew back from a window by the door. The mother panicked, for the men who had chased her could see her, and they advanced.
But the crone flicked her fingers, and they fell back like tiny insects.
The maiden placed her hands face down and set the snowy ground on fire. The men did not burn, but for a moment they thought they might.
The mother understood then. She knew her place and she felt the power. The crone looked at her calmly, the maiden encouragingly. And the mother, she... spoke. And her words were heard far beyond the cottage door.
'You listen, you hunters, you chasers of innocents, you brutal beasts who would harm children, know that I could kill you. I could cut you closely with knives, and often. I could make all whom you love have lives too hard to bear. I could break you into pieces, slowly and over eons...' the mother paused. 'But I will not. I will let you go home to your wives and your sons. To your daughters.' She tossed her hands. 'Be gone,' she said. And they were.
'You could have killed them. You could have tortured them slowly,' said the maiden.
'You could have made them forget themselves,' said the crone.
'Ah, but that's why I'm here, isn't it? I am the mother? And so, I had to let them learn,' said the mother.
The crone, the maiden, and the mother each flexed their power then. It would take all the restraint in the world not to burn that world to the ground. Restraint they had. They were women, after all. They'd try and set the world to rights instead.