splinter

Aniuqi had been “Sycamore” to her father ever since she had been old enough to escape her nurses and gallop about outside–usually directly to the practice yards–or tread on his heels when he passed through the stables and be knocked about, gently, by his sleek, massive hounds. Ostensibly it was because she would grow up tall and graceful, gracious and lofty. In fact, it was because her skin burnt in patchy red and white blotches and peeled off in chunks, which she had diligently, as a child, collected.