From the eyes of another

[Alice Pov]

Life was never kind to me

From the moment i was born, my path in life was set… and it was a painful one

I was born in a small village off the coast to a woman, whose name I never learned as she died shortly after my birth.

Not naturally, she was burned at the stake

You see my mother committed a sin of lust and love, she in her ignorance broke an unofficial law within the community, Crossbreeding. She fell for an elf and in her passionate stupidity chose to willingly give birth to his child, knowing that its first breath would cause her last, once the wetnurse caught sight of its ears

My ears

As she was burning alive, the villagers were left with a new problem, the child. Killing a child was considered a taboo, even for them who had just burnt a woman they knew from childhood to ash. So they decided to let it live, under watch and keep, raising it, me, as a slave to the village, forcing them to live, breath and fight for the village

My childhood consisted of beatings, neglect, labor and little food. It is a miracle on its own that I lived to the age of 16.

The birthday that drastically changed my life, upon turning 16 I was a full fledged woman and sadly was nearly abused as such. On the same day I became a woman, the village chief, my own grandfather snuck into my room, attempting to have his way with me as I slept.

And by the time i awoke, he was standing over me, his eyes reflecting the deeds he was preparing to and his hands gripping my wrists tightly, holding me bound

And that was when is screamed

I screamed so loud and hard thar his ears spurted blood and his eyes popped like two moons colliding, his old and broken body was thrown away from me, slamming against the wall so hard his corpse was imbedded in it

At the time i had no idea but i have since learned, that on their sixteenth birthday is when an elf's mana awakens, once the body and mind has matured enough, it comes out of the body all at once, like a tidal wave, amplifying whatever action the owner is doing

Were Hiding at the time, it would have made me invisible, were i falling, it would have made me fly and when i was screaming it released a sonic boom that shattered the bones of the man who had attempted to have his way with me

That night, while the villagers were busy panicking over the immense beastly scream and the death of their chief, I escaped. Taking what meager belongings and food i could find and ran into the night

Only to be captured by slavers!

Thrown into a caged wagon and scared, I spent days afraid, unable to get any information from the other captives, who despite their equally sorry circumstances looked at me with nothing but fear and disgust from the moment their eyes saw my ears. I was only lucky enough that thankfully, due to my own previous malnourished condition and refusal to speak, the two slavers were unaware of my gender and left me be

However, one day I saw a strange creature. Captured in its sleep and locked in a cage by the same captors as myself it scared the other slaves with its very presesnce, its cage sitting at the back of the wagon.

And once night came and it had to be fed, I was volunteered by the other prisoners to be its feeder. Taking a piece of meat and stepping gingerly towards the cage, i pulled away the tarp and began to reach my hand towards the bars, hoping to place the meat inside the bars without losing a hand

But instead of snairling or pouncing the creature simply stared at me, its white eyes practically glowing against its black body and surroundings

"please don't bite me" i whispered towards it, half a joke and half pleading.

However the last thing i expected from the beast was for it to simply sit there, open its mouth and speak!

"It's okay," the beast said in a calming voice. Clearly trying to stop me from freaking out

"You can understand me!?" i whisper screamed

That was how i met him

The creature had no name, his life story was far shorter than mine, we spent the days together, sometimes plotting escape and calculating our location and others simply speaking about ourselves

It was amazing to finally have a friend!

I came to calling him Bitesy, after he saved me from one of the slavers in the night, the man,

Harry, had learned of my actual gender, likely through hearing my voice during my many talks with Bitsey and had tried to drag me out of the cage i shared with Bitsey in order to take me as i slept

I wish he ripped out that pig's throat

Sadly however, Bitesy's heroic actions had consequences as we spent the next few days eating live rats we caught scuttling around and drinking the dirty rain water that leaked through the roof of the caged wagon

However we kept hope once we heard of the transfer! Thanks to a bit of rudimentary mana on my behalf and the poisonous components in Bitesy's saliva due to him constantly eating rotten meat, the wound from harry's severed finger became infected, badly

By the time we had reached the slaver town and we were being resold i could see the sweat on his brow as his body began entering a feverish state, one i could recognise due to my own experiences with ill health

It was going to kill him

Not that it mattered, as Bitesy and I were sold to another, Female, slaver with a far more lavish wagon and slept as we were carried away

To the western sea market