…
Aisling was hiding under her own bed. She was just a slave, but she was here with her master, the duke. If she was found in a place where normal slaves worked the workers might get blamed for forcing her to do things she wasn’t supposed to in a misunderstanding.
She sat on her side and wrapped her arms around her legs, which were tucked to her chest. In this way, she could somewhat hide from his highness. That was the point of the game, right? It was honestly so long since she actually played a game that children played that it was kind of shocking.
Her mind was set on the mindset of a slave and worker so much that being the person she was just a year ago felt alien to her. Those thoughts that soon began to run up and around her mind started to send a chill into her.
It was as if she was dreaming a nightmare of the events that brought this color to her neck. That burn on the side of her thigh. The taste of the man with the brand on her tongue. A strange feeling soon began to creep up on her.
She wanted to grab something, something to ground her in the present. Her wings, she grabbed at them ruffling the feathers on the top. She felt the warmth of them on her hands, and the tingles that came from her brushing her fingers into the ruffles and folds of them.
Her mind began to clear, her thoughts then began to cloud, the stress of her past having decided to rear its ugly head. Her mind thought that this was the best time to sleep. The warm coldness, if that phrase even suits this, closed onto her mind like a blanket.
…
She was tired of the faces that looked onto her like one would an angel of death. She was tired of cutting who she recognized down. Who she knew from her past, the young faces overlapping with those of the now.
The sword that had chosen her pulsed with unrelenting fury, unrelenting contempt. He was angered by the shackle on his chosen’s one’s neck. Yet the power he held was bound by it. The shackle was telling her to kill; to maim and slaughter.
Blood painted the magic ruins of her plate armor. The veins of Mythril forge welded to her high carbon steel pulsed with both mana and chi. The spirits of the dead lingered for but a moment on her face, on her gaze.
The fins on her shoulders that blocked both the blows of maces and blades were bent. Her insides wanted to see what the air that her lungs breathed felt like. The armor made for her was cut apart, the blows of a beast thought to be extinct having pierced it. The segmented plates that held them in were only being held in place by her will alone.
Her left arm was long lost, her wings had been clipped. Her sword still wished for his rage to be quenched and tempered by the blood around them and the blood hiding in the tent she defended.
Her right hand rested on the pummel of the blade that was heralded as an angel or demigod of both new and old gods. The magic that held her together funneled into her by the blade.
She looked at the sword, the source of her new power, and the bane of many kings. The calming throb of the blade’s heartbeat kept her mind on track. In front of her lay an army; she was supposed to fight this army.
Yet when she looked past the angel of death and fury that was her duty, she only saw her people, the Irish. She was born there, yet she did not remember much other than the faces that were in front of her now.
She took in a deep breath; the king had told her to kill, to murder and skin. She was just a tool for his will. She dearly wished this to be a dream. For this reality to be fiction. Simply the wandering mind of a young brain. This was not so.
She took yet another deep breath and stood. It was as if the world had lowered. That was what her mind and instincts were telling her. She was so low on blood that her sense of depth and distance was starting to fall away.
Yet magic flowed into her body once more, it also flew into the ruins of her plate armor. The enchants forged into the Mythril itself glowed and she could feel warmth flood back into her body. The cold of death that had been creeping into her limbs fell away and she could walk once more. But that meant she could kill once more.
The steel knitted back together, her flesh started to flow like oil and meld together like putty. Her broken and dangling wings gently rose back into place as if a puppeteer hand grabbed them and glued them back on. She was mostly hole once more.
Her arm refused to move back into place into her socket. That was no matter, her true lord and the one she wielded grew her a new one made of green diamond and black crystal. The ball joints filling the entirety of her elbow and shoulder, it made her look like that doll of war she was.
She took a step forward and…
…
Tears streamed down her face; there were many. The salt water streamed out of her like a river. Her sobs could be heard even from outside the room. That was how the young prince had found her. He was confused at first.
She was a crying girl under her own bed. He had never heard that people did that, let alone slaves and beastkin. But then, beastkin weren’t so different from humans or elves or the like.
He closed the door to her room behind him as he walked in. It was peculiar in all honesty. He crouched down, bending his knees in a Russian squat. He often heard of them; the ground was cold where they lived so they often sat like this.
Her wings were wrapped around herself, her legs pulled tightly across her chest. her own hands gripping her wings till the feather that made them up seemed to have been pulled out.
It shocked him to say the least. She was so stoic with him before. She was like a statue, or a noble woman. Her back straight, her waist stiff, her wings at ease as if they were simply supposed to be there on everyone.
Yet she always acted submissive. Her gaze never lingered on him for too long. It was as if he was going to hit her, or rather that she feared that. That was what drew him in. Whenever he looked at her from afar, she acted with confidence, even more so than his dad.
But when a free person looked upon her, she withered. He was mightily confused by that as well as drawn in. He pulled his hand to her, like he wished to pet her.
She then struck; her hand cut through the air. It was as if she was an actual cat. The sharp nails raked across his face. His senses screamed to back away from the girl. He did so, scooting on the floor on his behind.
She stopped crying. Her face slowly came away from the shelter that was her wings. She looked upon the first prince, then to her hand and back once more.
Her gaze was of a doll. Lifeless and bleak were her eyes, and dull and blank was her mouth. Her face was covered in tears, and soon it was covered in even more salted water. Her eyes soon started to tear once more.
Augustus’s mind was that of shock, but not sadness, nor pain or the urge to cry. He simply wished why she had clawed him. This new side to the woman that seemed like a mask of utter doll-like and blank emotion was pushed aside.
She then spoke in a voice filled with much more emotion than ever before. Like she wasn’t the slave he had started to know.
“I am so sorry my lord; please don’t cry… I don’t wish to be killed or punished… I didn’t mean to slash at you like that… please don’t cry…” she started to say.
The prince looked at her with a rather perplexed expression. It was as if the cuts across his face weren’t even there. He responded to her crying voice.
“I don’t really care. In fact, I didn’t even know that you had claws like that. I just want to know though, why were you crying?” he asked.
When he had asked, she was in the middle of casting a healing spell upon him. It was at this point that she realized how long she had been dreaming, how long she had been in her own mind.
“I- I simply had a bad dream my lord. Worry not for me. Just, please don’t tell anyone of this, please?” she asked in response.
It was at this that he smiled.
“Of course, but can we stay this close for a bit? You still seem a bit nervous,” he responded.
She soon put on a genuinely relived expression. He wasn’t mad or crying. Nor was he seemingly scared emotionally or physically. Her gaze seemed warmer to the young boy.
“Of course, my lord,” she answered back.
…
