-It continues....-
I waited but Jaiiaan` never came. It was unlike him to not come check on us since he knew with so many young children I did have my hands quite full. I had begun to wonder if Balzariae or his assassin had killed him as well. I can not recall if it was minutes or days but I soon began to wander. I was cold and hungry and had to find a safe place to go. I could not bear being around the place we had once all lived together, it was far to painful for me to keep there without risking the loss of my sanity.
Sadly with how beaten down and drained I was it was not long before I was captured and led away in chains as a slave to a place I had never heard of; Caeria. The travel was long and unpleasant, and after several escape attempts I was kept sequestered away in a metal cage during the travel. I learned from eavesdropping that I was to serve in the court of King Careese. I did not want to serve anyone, I wanted to find Jaaiian and just try to forget, forget everything. Upon learning that I tried many more times to escape, be it when being permitted to relieve myself or to stretch, but was always recaptured. I was beaten and beaten often. The guards who had captured me had decided to start imprinting the fact I was slave; at any cost. The day we arrived at the grand lush lands of Caeria I could not help but feel my eyes widen in shock at their beauty.
As the key was put into the lock of my cage I curled back in the metal box. I was scared and shaking with little idea what was to become of me. I think I did not really wish to know either. I was grabbed by my hair by one guard as another grabbed me by the arm and I was unceremoniousily dragged along towards the main hall of the towering castle. I had never seen a castle before and would I not been dragged along I might have been able to marvel at its opulance and beauty. Eventually I was ushered, which was being generous, into the massive throne room and thrown at the feet of the pudgy looking king. The guards moved ripping from me what little clothing I still had covering me so that the king could take me in fully which only caused me to try to cover myself up timidly. He sneered down at my small wain frame and demanded I kneel and show respect. Timidness gave way to anger as respect is earned not given in my eyes and for his posturing and demands he got one thing in return, me spitting right in his face.
With a growl he lunged forwards and despite being pudgy he was fast. His hand reached out backhanding me fiercly with such force I fell back onto my ass as he literally pressed his nose to mine. I noticed his breath had the stench of too much drink to it as he breathed hard against me, giving warning, "You will learn or it will be beaten into you until you do." With a wave of his hand he dismissed me and moved back to his throne, "Take her away!" He demanded of his guards as he smirked watching them drag me off once more as easily as they had dragged me in before. My naked form was pulled and tugged along over cold stones and steps towards the dungeons. It was all to soon that a key was placed in a lock with a *click* and I was thrown inside hard as the guards sneered at me before locking me inside and going about their duties.
Once the guards were gone I looked around my surroundings. It was a small dark cell and it smelled of damp. I felt tiny within its confines as I inched over rattling the thick metal bars which had no give and were too close together for me to even try to slip between. There was no cot, no bench, nothing at all to sleep on save for a small pile of hay in the corner which also looked incredibly damp and there were also no windows giving the idea I was quite far underground. I wondered would I ever see the sun again, would I ever be free and how was I going to escape. I moved slumping over onto the slightly damp hay and curled into a ball just thinking that maybe when I woke up the nightmare would be over and I would be home again. I could only hope everything was one giant ongoing bad dream.
It was more then a bad dream though, it was reality. I found this out the hard way when I woke up, or perhaps should say when I was woken up. I was woken to the flailing lash of the whip meeting my naked skin as my cries raised hard and fast. The echoing demands of "Will you obey now?!" left the guards lips as I curled up as small as I could as I was able to feel the trickling lines of blood lace down my back as I shook in agony from it all. He would eventually tire and go off to report to the king leaving me trapped within the cold damp dungeon to suffer my pain alone. It was this kind of treatment that went on for almost two weeks before I finally broke down. I was cold, scared and in pain. I was beyond starving and was losing semblance of reality to the anguish that was riddling my mind. Sadly; when you are beaten and tortured and denied food or water eventually you will do anything.. at that moment to simply survive one more day.
Later that day Careese was all to happy to appear before me in the dungeon. he smirked heavily as he looked down upon me there within the cell, small and afraid. King Careese was an obese man with dark set eyes and a bulbous nose His hair looked quite greasy and was thinning badly at the top revealing the bald spot there. He nodded and the guards unlocked the cell as he moved inside with them pointing demandingly in front of him on the cold moist stones. I looked at the finery he was dressed in; rich robes of blue velvet lined with a white animal fur and golden embroidery. I could see his breeches and tunic matched the robe in the same deep ocean blue with white fur as he narrowed his eyes at me. He tapped a black leather, golden buckled foot as he waited as I inched over slowly.
I looked up at him only to be backhanded hard as before as I knelt there and winced hard as the pain filled my features at the force of the blow. "So, you finally come to your senses girl, perhaps if you are pleasing you may actually be permitted some scraps tonight." I listened as he said to me as I trembled more so just wanting to be away from him. He yelled at his guards to take me to be branded as property before having me cleaned up and brought back to his chambers. As he walked off I stared in shock trying to get my mind around the words and once it cliedk i tried to bolt for it, but his guards grabbed me and dragged me off without a care.
I was hysterical in terror, but then what adult would not be let alone a child? I was clawing and kicking trying to get loose as I was dragged along the dungeons into a small room. One of the guards threw me to the ground and sat on my back holding my hands down while the other moved to grab one of the white hot irons from the fires and then came over to me. "Time to be marked girl, you should be glad the King has taken such an interest in you." The guard said to me and as he presse the branding iron to the back of my shoulder I let out a scream so loud it probably was heard for miles around. The guard held it for a few seconds before reomving it and chucking it into a bucket of water as he looked down at the cooked and charred flesh with a smirk, "time to get a bath before we take you back to the king.. I am sure he will enjoy your body."
I was given no time to recover from the agony as once more I was grabbed and pulled along into a small side room and thrown into a wooden tub of water, which incidentally, was ice cold. The shock of the cold water woke me up and caused me to scream as I was manhandled as they cleaned me with rough clothes and soap to make sure I was clean for the king. The last thing I wanted was to be touched at all and the soap and water only made the brand they placed on me throb and burn even more. I was not permitted time to dry off, I was this time marched along naked to the king's chambers and then thrown inside to wait.
The room was opulant and rich in its design. Fur rugs were laid in front of a fireplace within the room and the furniture looked incredibly expensive with its hand carved ornate designs. I was desperate for a place to hide though and before I could even try to find one the king appeared once more. He gave me not time to talk as he moved dragging me over to his bed and threw me on it. What transpired next I have not the heart to get into detail of, but it would be easier to say he simply took what he wished and had his way with me. His breath one more stank of stale drink and of heavy roasted meats mixed together and his sweat coated me like a coat of rain as he touched me and lay on me when he was done.
That night I was thrown a few scraps of food and I devoured them as fast as one of his hounds might have. I was simply too starved to even care and my need for self preservation over took my own pride. I would learn that things with his wife were strained. Since she gave him little affection or touch he often claimed servants for his own pleasures. I wanted no part of it. His touch was vile to me. I would also soon learn that he seemed to only care for a few things: How much gold was in his treasury, how much land he could own, and how many people feared him. I was little more then a machine to him, someone created to kill and do his dirty work to pave a way for him to get as he wished. If I did not do as he commanded, or refursed him in any way.. I was punished, severely. He made me attack people, hunt them and kill them as they were invited to the Castle for ‘meetings’ of sorts. This was no way to live but there was little choice until the mistake happened, one more failed escape had led to it all.
I had tried to escape and made it almost as far as the courtyard before I was caught and dragged off once more. After days without food or water awaiting yet another beating for a failed escape I felt a power within me. The starvation that was imposed upon me to break my will had instead turned to a fast that had cleared my mind. I again could call upon the magic's that for so long had eluded me. When my jailer returned to drag me off to be punished I summoned his fate swiftly upon him. When my jailer reached to pull me through the door of the cell, I stared deeply into his eyes, sweat began to pour from his face and his entire body burst into flames. I quickly ran to my freedom, unchallenged.
Careese rallied his guards to recapture me as soon as the realization had hit I was loose, but I was now able to use my powers again and now at a level that I had not even imagined possible. For weeks I defeated all that Careese could throw at me, slaughtering his men as coldly as I had seen my brother’s and sister’s lives taken from them. But then one night Careese himself caught me as I slept. I was chained and gagged so that I might not use the utterance or arcane gestures required to invoke my magic’s that I had learned so well to defend myself and to even wage war up the men of this pig that would dare call himself a king. Careese was now consumed with conquering me.
Dragging me to a new cell he would strip me down and chain me keeping me helpless against his movements. He weighed so much or so it seemed against my tiny fragile form. He would hurt me, and went as far as to force himself upon me nightly in hopes of forcing me to bear his child to use as a means to control me. But this was to no avail, for even though I was bound so as to not allow use of my magic’s, either by sheer will or sheer luck my womb would not accept his dark seed.
After the space of a month’s time, I had begun to realize that it even though I was bound, I still had a means of exerting my powers. When Careese arrived to once again force himself upon me, I stared deeply into his eyes, at first he was unmoved, but soon he could not tear his gaze from mine. I then began to paint in my mind an image of what he was to do, and he was unable to resist, he un-gagged my mouth, and with that fatal mistake I then was able to recite an ancient spell that twisted his will to mine. He stared back at me in sheer terror as he found himself removing my restraints. He the great King Careese began to cry as he saw in my mind what I was about to unleash upon him and his house. Careese himself handed me the dagger that I then slipped slowly, very slowly into his belly. He fought to gain control of his own body, but his will was mine, he could only endure the pain as I brought the dagger up through his body to rest against his ribs. He fell lifeless to the floor at my feet, like the dog he truly was. Darkness was consuming me more by the day and I found I welcomed its embrace.
This was now not enough to satisfy my lust for vengeance, for his family one and all knew of his plans for me, yet did nothing, so now they would all pay the same price as he. A river of fire and ice flowed through my veins, and as I walked at will through his private chambers slaughtering his entire family and the few pitiful guards that dared stand in the path of the fires I burned at will, I sneered coldly as if taken over by another entity or presence. For Pandora`s dark soul had awakened in me, and now I was coming into control of all my powers. It was intoxicating, the magnitude of the power now unfolding at my beck and call. Again I began to wonder, but this time not as a frightened child, this time I was the hunter, not the hunted. I slew a multitude under the influence of Pandora`s dark soul. But even in the ecstasy of victory I inwardly longed for peace.
I fought off the darkness of my unseen prison and ran in fear to search for my surrogate father Jaiiaan`. That in itself seemed an eternity to me before I had found him once more. Falling at his feet my hard heart was broken and I began to tell him of all that had happened since last I he had seen me. After I had told him all, withholding nothing, Jaiiaan` asked if I had a place to stay. I then told him that I had tried to gain shelter at the house of my father’s brother. My Uncle Sylvr but that he had kindled up a hatred of me. Sylvr feared my great powers and had in some way blamed my mother and me for the death of his brother. I wept as I told Jaiiaan` that now I was truly alone. Jaiiaan` looked tenderly into my eyes and then softly brushed back the rivers of tears streaming from them and said in a warm voice tender voice, you are home my daughter, rest and we shall talk again in the morning. And with that in an instant, I again belonged, he cared not about the things I had done, he accepted me back unto himself.
In time Jaiiaan` began again with my lessons. He had even persuaded and old friend who was an expert swordsman to instruct me in the ways of the blade, and in all things I grew. There was one thing that now began to trouble me. I was searching to remember my past, my Mother, father, siblings, and even Balzariae who had destroyed my life. But it was to no avail. Finding me weeping alone at the edge or the forest Jaiiaan` put his arms around me and asked, what troubles you daughter? After a long silence I confided in him the reasons for my current heartache. Jaiiaan` quietly bid me to stand and then led me to a still pool of water in a peaceful meadow where he had found me. He began to pass his hands over the waters, and as he did the surface became silver as a mirror. He dipped the tip of his finger into the waters and as he did the ripples of the water began to take form, and then I was shown images from my past in its reflection. All the things I dared to remember were played out before my eyes. Even a long forgotten memory of the Dark Mage appearing to me one night after he had murdered my mother and telling me that it is my punishment, that that I would see all whom I loved die, and that my brother’s punishment was to never know his true parents. He also told me that the mark of blame he had sealed upon us bound us forever to the curse.
Then a special image, one of a boy and a girl appeared, they looking so happy, so full of life and joy. The boy stood so proudly and protectively beside her as they walked along a wooded path. This image warmed me, but at the same time it swelled my eyes with tears, for I used to dream of having someone that loved me that way, I prayed for it, and in my deepest being it was only the hope that it would come to pass that would always gave me the strength to go on.
After a time I again grew restless and wanted to set out upon my own again. Jaiiaan` understood and bid me good travel, and held my head next to his heart as he said to me, my door was always open to you, my daughter. So I again gathered together my belongings to travel from Jaiiaan`s home. I silently remembered all those years ago how as a child I prepared for my trip to see papa and my siblings. I remembered the great joy I found in that meeting and tried not to allow the images of terror that had so soon after followed. I had no way to know what lie ahead of my on the journey, but come what may, I was going to face it. This time before I left, I looked down at Legend, whom Jaiiaan` had saved so many years ago and warned him to take good care of father and with a turn of my heels I hurried off before I could change my mind.