The Slave of Elisese (1)
This world is but a desert. A long-abandoned-forgotten world, where kingdoms rule in secluded plights, and bandits roam the sand-seas on horseback. Wherefrom the edges of mountains to the desolate burned woods, you could always see the emptiness of this world in full view from every direction.
Many historians have no clue why this world is like this, but for all of time, it has been a deserted wasteland. Of sand and bone, of dunes and waves, of death and monsters. It has been and will always be a world lost in its own spiraling mind.
A flowing ocean of humans and brass, where wars are fought over nothing but forgotten holy land, and kingdoms are lost over nothing but swings of swords.
In this world, the sight of death is but common courtesy, and those able to walk in its path are but a step away from their own destiny. But those who can't pass the hurdles of death fall victim to its twiddling sands.
Their minds rotting in the endless heat and skin.
Those such, are born of great sadness and desolation. Resulting in their resentment of God.
And fate.
---
I was born in Elisese. A kingdom walled off by a concave of spiked mountains and dried-up river beds. At the peak of the mountain sat the abode of the Tundre Family, the Royal Family of Elisese, with their kings and queens, and dukes and duchesses. All day every day they sat in their marbled mansions, with long pillars, walls, and arches of white. They sat on the peaks of the mountains, like Gods in their castles looking down on their dying subjects, on their dying cities.
Below the Royal Family were the long narrow streets of the slums. A city covered by thatched homes, and sandstone towers. With roads pathed in running shit water, with dogs, pigs, and cows strolling down stoned pathways. It was a land of filth, but it was also populated well, with good laws and good people. It was a good kingdom. A good kingdom...
But I still hated it there. The skies always filled with those nobles and royalty looking down on me. Every peak felt like another spit in the face. Every verticle hellscape miles tall felt like another gaping hole in my side.
That encircling hell, with no escape, with no one to save me. And as I spent my younger years watching the sky light up every morning, I felt that that was it. That that was my life. Watching this encircled kingdom, with their gazes of disgust, with their gazes of repugnance. That horrible horrible king. He was always so high up in the overhanging mountains and even though no one could see him clearly we could all still tell that he was looking down on us.
I guess you could say I wished to live up there on the mountains, watching the people below as they suffered like me. But I would have never suspected that in two years from the age of ten, I would move from my slum life to live up there on the mountains, but it wasn't in the way I thought.
---
When I turned twelve my mother sold me as a slave to a high-ranking Noble. I was then immediately shipped up to a marble mansion halfway up the mountain and was forced to live my days doing housework for them. Every day it was the same chores, the same tasks, the same cleaning, it was taxing. No sleep, no food, no time to gaze up at the stars. I was always chained up, my legs, my arms, yet I had to walk around the manor like it was nothing.
The glittering marble hallways, their reflective immaculate floors, the reflections always peering up my wrinkled maid skirt as the chains rattled behind me.
It was embarrassing.
The stares, the looks from the old men and woman in dresses, with their propped-up wigs and their eyes devilish and plump. I couldn't stop the silent sobbing at night. Having to live under the stairs. Having to come out in the shadows, sneak around. I was never allowed out whenever the master had visitors.
I was never allowed out when the family was about. I was always stuck in that hole under the stairs, like a dog in a shed, only allowed inside the house when no one was around, only allowed to move about when no one was nearby. And when someone was about. Their stares. Their greedy greedy stares would drive a hole right through my aching stomach. Like the gazes from the skies. Their eyes of disgust. Their eyes of evil.
Sometimes I would watch from the small crack in my rusted door. I would watch the lights reflecting off the marble hallway floor. I would watch the bright candle lights shining from the dining room as the family ate their meals. It was excruciating. The hunger, the pain, the stomach aches. And if I didn't perform well at cleaning, or if I spoke up from within my hobble, the master would always whip me, abuse me, punish me.
It was not a pleasant life being a slave. It wasn't a pleasant life before that either. It was always a terrible terrible miserable life. But that life all changed when he arrived. The man of golden hair, with star-lit blue eyes, and a gaze of warmth.
---
One day when hiding under the stairs in my small hobble, filled with my ragged blankets and boxed pillows, I was listening closely as the family talked of a visitor coming to the manor. They talked of a man of mystery who led a powerful mercenary group called the Shorebringers. At first, I had no idea who this man was, and all I could hear were the murmurs and rumors from the children of the house, but soon as the day continued his image slowly formed in my head.
"I heard he's killed a thousand men!" attested the young son of the household.
His sister replied back while leaning upon the staircase, "I heard he's the most handsome man in the land. With golden hair like the sun."
The brother looked up at his sister with eyes of competition, "well, I heard he's destroyed kingdoms with just eight men."
"Well, I heard he's a prince from across the sea!"
"Well, I heard he's... I heard he has a Sword of Feun!" screamed out the younger boy as his mother walked up with a soulful pout.
She said, "well both of you have heard enough. You best act on your best behavior when he arrives. This dinner is of great importance to your father."
"Yes, mother," they replied back in unison as they scuttled up the stairs and to their rooms.
Who could this man be? He has hair like the sun? He's killed a thousand men?! With a sword of Feun? What's a sword of Feun?
As I contemplated this new visitor's existence, the day quickly turned to night, and my stomach started to hurl in the hunger and pains of not eating enough food.
I don't recall the time to the tee, but it all started late at night when I heard footsteps echo down the manor. Two men walking through the hallways accompanied by our butler in tow. As they walked all I could hear were the sounds of their armors rattling, cloths flapping, and their swords clinging.
Then they walked past me, the kitchen to their right, and my master up ahead of them. And as their feet slowly stomped across the smooth floor, with the silent light flickering back and forth from the kitchen, for some reason, for some god-forsaken reason, an urge flung across my stomach.
I don't know why but it was at this moment that God's unfaithful luck struck me in the stomach. I hadn't eaten all day, except for the simplest of bread in the morning, so when they walked past me, almost like it was fate, my stomach ached out in hunger.
Its loud echo funned out from the staircase like a lion. Then just before my stomach's growl came to a sudden end the footsteps on the other side of my rusted door stopped.
My hunger quickly turned to fear as I slowly grabbed my raged belly. I heard the rattle of armor from right outside. Then the lock on my door unhinging. Then it opening. Then the face of a man.
The face of a... His face...
Blue eyes starlit and mesmerizing, a chin line like a doll, with long blonde hair, and thin eyebrows. He reached into my cubby as I slowly pushed back, but then the warmth took in as he touched me on the shoulder. And for some reason, when I felt his gloved hand and silver armor against my skin, instead of feeling the cold metal, I felt a warm sensation, like I was safe, like I was home... Home...
"Are you ok?" he asked softly with a look of pity in his eyes.
I nodded back. He smiled. Then just as he pulled his hand away I looked past him to his companion. A tall man in a shadowed black cloak, with a sword of black, lined in gold. Underneath his robes were a veil of dark armor, compared to the glittering silvery-white armor of the man in front of me.
They were like dark and light, night and day. Two sides to the same coin. A shadow in the light of the one smiling back at me.
But just as I was about to speak out the sounds of my master's slippers squeaked across the clean marble floor. He quickly dashed across the hallway while screaming at the top of his lungs.
"I'm so-so sorry! Don't worry about him! He's just a failure! A slave! He doesn't know how to speak properly. A peasant simpleton who only knows how to clean!"
As my master approached I slowly started to see a change in the blonde man's face as he stared straight at me. One silver-plated knee on the floor, his hand extended out. He started to change his bright sorrowful look to a face of pure anger. His eyebrows turning down as his thin lips puckered up in a disgusting way. His eyes turn fierce as my master lunged forward grabbing my door and slamming it back at me.
Slam!
The blonde man stood up as my master apologized ruthlessly. Then like nothing had happened, he switched his face from anger to happy, like he had put up a veil of impassiveness.
"It is ok. We do not mind a slave or two. Right, Tusk?"
The blonde man turned to his friend in black. He nodded back silently.
"See, all that is well is well. Now may we continue with the dinner?"
They proceeded to the dinner table like he wasn't pissed off in the slightest. Then afterward, once my master had seated his two strange guests, he got back up and rushed over to my small cubby hole. Once there he swung the door open and quietly and forcefully threatened my face with spit and anger.
"Don't you dare do that again! You hear me you scum! Did you not hear that these are important guests! You are going to get a beating for this! You are going to be in so much pain that you are going to wish that you were dead! You hear me! You hear me!" his quiet screaming turned into a gasping breath as his chubby face flapped back and forth.
Spit flying and words passing, he grabbed my hair and uncomfortably reached in to smack me across the face.
Smack!
"Don't you dare! You peasant scum! I should have never taken you in. Your mother was just a whore. A peasant whore who I took in out of pity. But when you were born... Oh... You are... " He couldn't muster up the courage to reveal the truth, "you have no respect! No manors! Nothing! You were born a worthless trash on this empty forgotten planet!"
I fell back as he slammed the door once again on my face. Then he proceeded back to the dinner party. I slowly felt my life draining from my eyes as the thought of being whipped swung across my brain. The thoughts of the pain, the feelings, the pain again. Then the words of my master echoed in my head. My mother... My mother... I wonder where she is right now? I wonder... I don't want to be whipped! I'm scared! Mother... But after every horrible thought, another would appear in my hollow brain. The face of that man. His kind gaze and words. And as his face overpowered the hate and bigotry, I slowly fell asleep to the warmth he gave me.
---
Crash!
Late in the night, after the dinner party was over, I awoke again to the sound of crashing plates in the kitchen. Rustling and smacking. I looked through the hole in my hobble to see nothing but a slight mountain of shadows and light. Then the sudden worry hit as I realized what might have happened in the kitchen. That crashing earlier must have been the maid. She must have dropped a plate. I felt so bad for her, and then I realized that I too was going to be punished. I was going to be punished. Punished... The haze of sleep and hunger made me nauseous as those thoughts plundered my sleepy tired head once again. But before I could even go so far as to uncover anymore truths-
Crash!
I heard more plates crashing in the dining room and then I heard the silent and muffled screams of two children, then the sound of begging, then slicing, then a thump. Like a heavy sack of potatoes had crashed across the marble floor.
What could be happening? What was that sound? Screaming? A sword? It can't be?!
I slowly slid over to my square door and placed my hand on it. But as I pressed on its wooden frame, something felt odd. It was loosened as if someone had slightly unhinged the lock and kept it hanging off the side of the door.
Who could have...? Then he came up in my head again. The blonde man of sun and sky. He unlocked this? But why? My master will know... He will know... He will punish me... But... But... For some reason I felt fine, I felt calm. His gaze, his hand, his face felt like I could live and die a thousand times before I ever feel sorrow or sadness. So with nothing left to lose, I pushed open the door and stepped out into the marble hallway. The dark faces of the paintings all around me. Their stares as my short thirteen-year-old body barely could keep up with their overhanging height. Then with a fearful step, I leaned over to the kitchen doorway. It's dark nighttime light shined through the windows and down the hallway like normal, except this time something was different, something was off.
As I looked across the reflective marble floor, instead of seeing the shadows of the family talking and eating, I instead saw the shadows of death. A man standing above four humps, a silent streak of red flowing out from the doorway of the kitchen, as a long curved sword stained in the shadows of blood swayed in his palm. I then quietly turned my head past the long white door frame to see the full picture.
It was the man from earlier. The one behind my savor. He stood with a black hooded cloak on his shadowed face, and a long black katana streaked in gold and red. Below him were the bodies of my master, his wife, and his two kids. Then I stepped forward. My confused face as the man in the robes turned to me, his eyes glowing a deep dark red in the darkness. Then the candlelight flickering as the window behind him blew a long cold gust into the blood-stained room.
Zap!
A short burst of electricity protruded from his sword as he disappeared into the night.
---
Five years later and I reflect on that day as the moment my life changed. As the moment I was freed from Elisese and was no longer a slave to the Royal Family. But even now that city still haunts my memories. A time when I was trapped, with nowhere to go, stuck between mountains and dried-up riverbeds. I still to this day feel trapped and alone when I reflect on that past, but at the same time, I urge for that day's warmth again.
My name is Hoefen Tij. I have short curly red hair, dark brown eyes, and a goal. A goal to find the man who changed my life.