It was funny, really, how angry the sight of elven slaves made her. If you’d asked her two months ago what she thought about elven slaves, she would’ve said it was just a fact of life. There were human slaves, there were elven slaves, there were slaves of all races. Why should she care about any of them?

The difference, of course, was that a human slave could earn their freedom. There were laws in place to protect them. They were the same as anyone else, they just happened to be slaves. 

Elven slaves… could technically, de jure, earn their freedom. It would just cost them five times as much, since they had to not only pay for themselves, they also had to pay an additional ‘unshackling tax’ to become people in the eyes of the law. And it would be a lot harder to gather that money, since they had no rights to any property whatsoever. Which meant that, de facto, they were slaves forever. Sometimes, you had people like her father, who would buy an elven slave and then pay for their freedom… but even her father had only done that once. The same was true for most other non-human species, of course. 

But Sionann was mostly concerned about elves. Whilst Sionann’s mother hadn’t actually done much to instil any direct sense of camaraderie with her brethren, ironically it was Fírinne (whilst she was Vestia) who made her identify much more with her elven heritage. In playing up how ‘elven’ she was to torment Vestia, Sionann had apparently tricked herself into adopting a more elven-sympathetic mindset. 

Mind you, deciding to consign all of Reme to oblivion may have had a part to play as well, by carving away her ‘human’ identity. And in a way, Kin-Galud’s seemingly genuine desire for willing servants made the idea of slavery worse- when even an eldritch horror would rather not, it had to be bad. 

Anyway, the point is, seeing the cart of elven slaves roll by lit a spark of anger in her. A convenient spark, given she had been looking for motivation to kill. She deliberately fanned the flames, by imagining the abuse those elves had been and would be subjected to; imagining herself locked in that cage, never to escape. 

She tailed the cart, anger building minute by minute. Eventually, it pulled up- to a gladiator stadium. Oh. Even better. These elves were consigned to being slaughtered in front of a cheering crowd. 

Her target appeared. She hadn’t known he was her target, but the second she saw his face, she knew she was going to kill him. He was wearing an ostentatious toga, which marked him as an important figure (it wasn’t a senator’s toga, but it was fancier than her father’s), probably the sponsor of the games in which these elves were to be an attraction. But that wasn’t why she chose him. No, there was just something about his face that she didn’t like, and she was angry enough that he had to die for the sin of having an annoying face. 

There were guards around, handling the unloading of the elves, so best to wait. The annoying man was talking to the cart driver, eventually handing over a few coins- presumably just for driving the cart, with the elves paid for at some earlier juncture. 

The last elf was dragged into the building. The cage was closed, the cart started to move. The guards went inside, while the annoying man watched the cart leave. It was now or never.

Ah, fuck it. 

She strode forward, still wreathed in shadows, until she was behind the man. Feeling her presence, the man turned, confused- all he saw was a mass of darkness. And a knife. 

Sionann stabbed him. She was an amateur, stabbing vaguely in the stomach region, but missing any vital organ. Had she used a regular knife, all she would’ve achieved is a cry of pain that would summon the guards back outside. He might’ve died from an infected wound much later, but she’d be dealing with a gaggle of alert guards, while she had little more than two weeks of swinging a wooden sword around in terms of combat experience.

Fortunately, she stabbed him with a blade infused to the brim with eldritch energy, that bore the relentless hunger of an eldritch horror that hadn’t had a good meal in centuries. The instant it broke his skin, his soul started to drain out of his body and into the knife. His cry of pain never even made it past his lips before his body fell unconscious, doomed to die within the hour no matter the injury. 

…huh. That was easy. 

And it felt pretty good. Really good, actually. In fact, Kin-Galud required one victim, but never said anything about not killing more.

Going inside would be pretty stupid, though. But she could easily catch up to the cart driver. 

Which she did. 

The last thing the man saw was a shadow jump up onto the bench beside him, then a knife plunging into his side. 

There was a gasp behind her as she pulled the knife back out. She turned quickly- a young man, perhaps on his way home from a night out drinking with friends, was staring wide-eyed in her direction from the mouth of an alley. She was still cloaked in shadow, but probably best not to leave any witnesses regardless. 

Unfortunately, the man turned and ran as soon as she started towards him. She was able to catch up and stab him in the back, since the man was stumbling drunk, but his cries for help alerted a baker, who stepped outside to see what was going on.

She used shadow tendrils to prevent the baker from getting away, then-

(...)

-through the throat, which finally concluded her killing spree. 

Um. Hang on. How many people had she killed, again?

Seventeen, the blade informed her.

Oh. Welp, better head back and get some sleep. 

“Did you hear? Apparently a crazy person with a knife killed a dozen people last night! Just random people on the street!”

Sionann wasn’t listening. She was just mechanically pushing food into her mouth as she stared off into the distance. 

“I know! There was an Aedile here first thing in the morning- they think the killer might have used dark magic!”

Seventeen people. Sure, maybe the first one deserved it. Arguably the second. Maybe she had an excuse for the third and fourth. But the fifth, sixth, ninth through thirteenth, and sixteenth- she could’ve just… left alone. 

“There’s going to be a special announcement after this meal, I heard!”

But then again, was it her fault that people kept showing up in front of her, or that it was apparently ridiculously easy to kill people with a knife? It was so effortless, she didn’t have time to stop and th- 

“Hey, Sionann. Sionann. Hey, you awake?”

Sionann was literally shaken out of her stupor by Helvia, who was sitting next to her. 

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t sleep well last night either. I think I might go to the infirmary for more of that tea.”