Gibbi of UnderCity from my Novel, “Mentor”

Gibbi

Her full name Gibbil’ananat means ‘left by the gods’, as Gibbi was found as a newborn along with her dead “Lost One” mother. It was  a miracle the child was alive, for there are many things in the shadows of the Under City that would relish the taste of such a morsel, and had many times in the history of the people. It was thought that the mother died form wounds received protecting her babe. The miracle child was still strapped to the mother’s breast and able to keep itself alive on it’s mother’s milk for days. The proof of this was the amount the child had defecated by the time she was found. The people often teased her about her origins in the tribe by calling her Nissi, which is short for a’lini’sanis. Which means born from the shit of the gods.

This Gibbi took with humour and equanimity like most things. But it was felt that she was marked somehow, and that the reason for this would show itself someday. And “Nissi” became even more apt when she began to play with muds and ichor from the beasts of UnderCity to make pictures on the stone walls around them. Strange pictures and sometimes portraits of the people. But by then she had been Gibbi for so long that no one insisted she change her name.

After she turned eight she was brought before the Seer, who  blessed her arts. And though the Seer said naught, she kept her eye on the girl and learned much from her picture making.