There once was a most beautiful being. She wandered throughout the eras searching for her next meal. Every so limited was her time to feed. She began to hunger and starve. So she came up with a plan. She would trick the foolish mortals into summoning her into their world. She would seduce them so they could provide her with children. Children that she could use to anchor her to their world. No longer would she only have tiny windows to feed.

But the foolish mortals never could provide her with the children she desired. One gave her a son strong as a giant and tough as stone, but he held the magical aptitude and was as dumb as your average rock. Useless to her. He drowned a prized slave. Another gave her a daughter. Beautiful, smart, and so magically gifted even an archmage would envy her. But her body was weak and prone to illness. Despite the pampering and push by her mother to fix her condition, she died of a fever saying she would never sacrifice others. Those two were the best of her children....

Then Asa was born. His father a mercenary from Elbion of some renown. His human mother a mage from the college that worked as a healer. They were perfect. She made the two think they had fallen in love with each other. First she slept with the man to get his seed and then she personally placed that seed in the woman. All the while she appeared to them as the other. They married happily. The human mother died shortly after the birth. A difficult birth of another's spawn. A worthy sacrifice for the perfect child.

Asa was raised by his widowed father. He never knew the woman who gave birth to him, whom he called mom. Plenty of stories were past onto him and he grew to love her as he did his father. His childhood was uneventful despite mysterious things happening around him. Whispers from the shadows. A woman(?) claiming to be his mother in his dreams. Never seeming to get sick.

The common boredom changed when Asa realized he could wield magic. He decided to follow in his mom's footsteps by applying for the college of Elbion and become a healer. His father was concerned, but gave his permission. It was tough but he made it in. He was overjoyed. His father was overjoyed. The whispers were overjoyed. He left home to attend and find his destiny.

His days at the college were harsh. Studying tomes and scrolls was easy. His mind was sharp and his memory good. Be it history or theory he did well. His troubles came with the practical classes. He had always thought magic was hard for others, but his classes taught him otherwise. It took everything he had to keep up with the average students in the use of magic let alone the talented. This lead to constant taunts, teasing, and harassment daily. Only in alchemy did he shame his fellows.

This continued until he barely graduated. A proud day for him and his dad. But it brought about a new problem. The college did not want him as a healer. They would only accept him if he became one of their alchemists. A severe disappointment overcame Asa. He knew everything the healers knew. He just struggled to using healing magics. Surely that was no reason to deny him? But it was and so he compromised by becoming an alchemist.

Years past. Asa was still mistreated for his limitations with magic, even by his fellow alchemists. He found himself spending more and more time alone in the library and his work space. It was during one of his visits he stumbled upon tomes buried deep in the library. They discussed rituals and dark magics. Rituals, while in a limited capacity, were spoken of in classes. Dark magic was not. This got his attention so he dove into the subjects. He did not know why they captivated his interest so much.

Asa learned much from these tomes. Mainly he learned of his aptitude with rituals and blood magic. He had to practice them in secret, even if they were not strictly banned. He improved quickly. He improved so quickly that he decided to attempt a summoning ritual. It took him time to gather the needed materials, but he eventually was able to perform it on a particularly stormy night. The weather would prevent curious eyes.

He did not expect what he summoned. He thought would bring forth a creature or a spirit. What he got was that woman from his dreams. At first he believed he failed. He thought he had become delusional from the exotic materials used and how taxing the magic was. But he was not. She was real and the moment she spoke a shiver went down his spine. The woman was the source of those whispers he had heard his whole life. She knew everything about him and she told him her story. He learned she was his mother, his true mother.

Asa struggled to believe, but he could not deny. It made too much sense. It made things make too much sense. He had to believe her. And just as he came to believe her she offered him a deal: form a pact with her and he would never be alone again. He took the deal. He offered his right eye and signed it in his blood. The pact was made. She finally got what she wanted and he finally had a mother.

People were concerned for Asa's missing eye. He blamed an experiment gone wrong for it. Shortly after his recovery, he announced he would be going out on a lengthy research trip for new alchemical ingredients. The college approved it, so he prepared by having his father teach him how to defend himself. When his training was done, the father and son embraced each other for what would prove to be the final time.

Decades of travel followed. Asa did his research, but mostly he began to apply his knowledge as a healer. This annoyed his mother, who assumed the form of corvids to act as a mage's familiar, but he was going to honor his mom as had always been his goal. Instead of the healer she was he became a physician that used tools and alchemy to treat his patients. He also realized he could turn his inability to become sick to treat plague victims without fear.

By the time Asa returned home to Elbion, not aging a day since he left, his father had past away. He inherited his old home and his research earned him a better position as an alchemist at the college. It took some effort, but he also got himself accepted as a healer specialized in plagues.

Asa comes and goes from the college for decades at a time on research trips and to treat plague outbreaks. It is the endless cycle he finds himself in for all the centuries of his life.