"The first words I remember hearing were laced with venom.
Mutant. Half-Blood. A vile cross-breed. To those people I was seen as nothing more than a mistake. I was an irremovable stain on an otherwise perfect family. I never saw my father's face, and the only gratitude I can muster is for my mother, who chose to live with an embodiment of shame instead of casting it into the rocky tides. Even then, said gratitude can only go so far, considering what I've grown into.
The land I was spat into didn't take kindly to those with my "taint", as they called it. Half-race offspring were viewed as a blight on a puritan coexistence between Elf and Human. Ironic, considering the inheritors of the plains were three bastards, one of which was allegedly the end-product of inbreeding. Families either abandoned their blood, sent them to labour camps or gave them mercy at the icy hands of the seas and the jagged rocks that jut out from the cliffs, stained with blood and decorated with rags and small bones of lives that never lived.
My home, my respite from the outside, was taken from me the day I reached adulthood. The bastards in their manors, twisting the words of a time-maddened man for their own twisted gains, brought a law into effect that sought out the death or penitence for half-elven existence. As guards led me away in chains I grieved over the lifeless body of my mother. My life had been ruined.
At the courthouse I was given a choice to make; live as a tool of undesirable labours, or be cast out into the kin-haunted waters to succumb to the cold bitterness of the seas and what lurked beneath.
Foolishly, I chose to live.
That very same day I was given a tool I never dreamt of possessing. A sword, its tipped dulled and blade chipped by its previous owner - A length of tortured steel that I would only be taught to swing down upon necks of those seen as impure in the eyes of tyrants. I found friendship in our unwilling union.
I was shocked to find that Albrecht, the man responsible for my future, graced me with the kindness that I was deprived of as an adolescent. His words, his presence, his 'sincerity' gave me comfort despite the bed of jagged stone I lay upon at night. His lack of care towards my blood-bound fate warmed my heart and cracked a smile into my petrified visage, and I soon found seeds of trust growing, blooming into something more hopeful.
I was childish to believe his kindness was genuine.
Like a grinning idiot I took his word as gospel. To me he was a beacon of kindness and understanding, someone I could confide in after a life of concealment and repression. Someone I could love. To him I was another soul he was paid to break, an object of carnal desires, someone that would be replaced once his work was done. As our time together neared its end I rested my head upon his chest at night with a smile of true peace, blissfully oblivious of the wicked smirks of accomplishment that stretched across his lips as I slept, his calloused hands stroking my back.
One morning I awoke to the sounds of murmured chattering and the icy bite of metal around my ankles. Guards hoisted me up onto my feet and gave my wrists the same cold iron treatment whilst I stared into the eyes of who I thought was my lover, begging him for an explanation. There was no guilt in his eyes, only pride for his misdeeds. I wailed in agony. My life had been ruined again.
As I was escorted to the stockade, my body bare and soaked with a manic sweat, I prayed for death with my eyes shut tight as a vice.
When I opened them, however, it wasn't my neck on the block, it was someone else's. Another half-elven girl of my age.
My shackles were removed and a sword was handed to me as a crowd of jeering puritans watched me through frenzied eyes. They chanted for blood. They screamed at me to do what I was kept alive to do. My only purpose in a sadist's realm. My tears ran dry and my heart raced, and as I raised the tortured steel above my head I felt the phantom touch of my mentor's calloused hands over mine. My volatile hatred for that man gave me the strength to fulfil my reluctant duty, and in the blink of an eye I had killed my own kin. I watched her body slump to one side whilst her head was held into the air for all to see, an expression of pale terror cast across her slender face before her jaw fell slack and eyes drooped shut in a silent cadence.
I lost track of how many times I had to do such a deed, or how many times I was dragged to the claret-stained block every morning, only to be led back to my cell in chains every night, the rain washing the blood off of my body. To stay sane I dreamt of bestowing the same blows upon Albrecht, over and over and over again until his carcass was reminiscent of scraps in a butcher's waste-basket.
When the baron finally succumbed to his mania, a blood-fuelled frenzy broke out among the land's populace and spilled out into the streets, puritan and half-elf blood staining the stone paths. As I curled up in my cell, naked and afraid, I prayed to the Gods for a swift, merciful fate. My cell was one of the last to be opened by a band of liberated kin, and as I was let loose of my chains and handed some clothes I wept. Scornful glares met my broken stares, and even though my kin had grown to loathe me, they proposed an offer to me that I frankly couldn't refuse, regardless of if it would lead to a knife in my back later down the line.
We were to escape and find refuge in the lands of Fel'Adas.
The decision I had to make was trivial, to say the least, especially after being informed of one of my kin's written communications between him and an Orcish stable-hand, whom offered to give us lodgings in exchange for assistance at his father's farm. Without hesitation, or much preparation, we fled from the husk of our former home, tip-toeing over trampled and bleeding bodies until we reached the woods.
Throughout our journey I didn't dare speak to my kin, only responding when spoken to lest I sparked frothing vengeance in their begrudged hearts. They found use in me in the form of cutting timber for campfires and butchering wildlife for food. My strikes weren't exact, having only been enacted on beings with humanoid anatomy, but they got the job done.
Opinions of me only worsened after a mere week of travelling together. I was labelled a traitor among my kin, and threatened several times with abandonment for not answering questions I considered to be quite childish and unnecessary. The threats themselves were meaningless to me, for Albrecht's loathsome denial of peace still rang true in my mind like the bells that tolled solemnly for the dear-departed. Things finally boiled over when I was accused of poisoning one of our companions with rotten meat, and a heated exchange quickly resulted in a dagger making a home for itself betwixt my lower ribs. My retaliation resulted in two less travelling companions.
After that, all but one fled, the man who had freed me from my shackles. The expression that smeared across his scarred face still ushers an ache in my throat.
We stood there, silent amidst the cawing of crows and withered snaps of dying flames until our breaths steadied and eyes met. We both knew we were to travel alone from that point on.
My voice wavered and cracked as I broke our shared reprieve, falling to my knees as pleas for forgiveness left my trembling lips. I only had to glance up to see what his answer was as he stepped into the formless embrace of night, and ran a dagger across his throat. Guilt held me down with the strength of the divines.
Even the silent companionship I found in my blade died that night. I was alone.
Again.
There was no sanctuary in those sprawling woods as daylight broke through cracks in the sprawling green canopy above me, not even the arrival of spring lifted my spirits while I roamed through a nigh-endless myriad of nature's truest embodiment. I never found peace in my solitude, only melancholy. That day I questioned why I continued my aimless travels. That day I considered ending it all.
Night approached, and as I lay upon a bed of dirt and leaves I whispered one last prayer - a prayer for guidance, for safe passage, for freedom. The dagger that had once been thrust into my side was in my hand, its blade braced against my neck and ready to drain me of the little life I had left. I closed my eyes and thought of the last time I felt happiness.
I thought of Albrecht.
Albrecht, the
monster. Albrecht, the liar. Albrecht, the coward.
I realised that he would find peace in my anguish. He would find pleasure in my pain. He would find glee in my death.
I had to deny him of his joy, like he had denied mine.
Spitefully, I chose to live.
The Gods must have heard my prayers, for the moment I made that choice, a clearing revealed a dirt path that sliced through the forest, a signpost leading to where I would find a home -
Elbion.
It wasn't long before a merchant and her carriage found me shambling along the road in the early hours of the morning, clutching my sword to my chest and dragging my heels behind me. At first she mistook me for a bandit, but the look in my bloodshot eyes and tear-stained cheeks swiftly told her otherwise. She helped me into her carriage before I fell unconscious. Hours later, I awoke to the aroma of freshly-brewed tea and the assorted prodding and poking of an inquisitive half-elven girl. Her mother, the merchant, asked what had happened to me. I pondered for a moment to try and shorten my ordeals as much as possible, lest I frightened her or the little one.
"Man things," I answered haggardly. "A bad breakup."
Her lips cracked into a small smile. Mine followed suit. It wasn't long before our paths diverged and I was left to my own machinations, and a new land ready to chew me up and spit me out once more."
