Chapter Text
“Your honor, I object!” That god damn baldy just had to interrupt, rambling on and on about nothing important. Why was he here again? Probably just so that bastard wouldn’t feel any guilt about it. I don’t understand… I thought, looking at that baldy's shoes. I never wanted that bastard's help anyway.
Hell, I still don’t know why he is so adamant in helping me. Going to any kind of prison or torture chamber made from these lowly beings is already ten times better than staying with this asshole. All these humans, thinking they’re better because they fight with brutality and theft instead of honor and tradition. “The defendant is clearly not right in the head! Look at him! He’s clearly not in the right mental state! He’s just staring into space! Thus, this concludes that instead of punishment, what he really needs is rehabilitation!” This is bad…
Seriously? How would I not be right in the head? Or better yet, just how would I be right in the head after days in a cold, damp prison cell with little to no food and water?
I look up from the cuffs holding onto me, clutching me from my wrists all the way to my elbows, from the magic runes engraved into the metal, preventing me from using my magic. To look at the back of this bald guy's head. After the man speaks -Calling me crazy of all things?- the entire court room falls into chaos. To my right, I can see the victims of the destruction that I caused earlier. Human wives and unmarried daughters holding their skirts and clutching “their” pearls from my people around their chests, crying and wailing in outrage about how their innocent and loving husbands, sons and yada yada had died cruel and early deaths and all the extra stuff.
Were they stupid or blind? Probably both, but hey, life for life I guess. I used just enough energy to crack a small smirk to myself. Clearly, they all saw it because they got louder, screaming and crying about this and that and blah, blah, blah.
Bored with looking at them, I take a glance to those on my left. I can see the human “politicians”, as they call themselves -back home we just called them “war-bringers”, bad omens to be around or even speak of- sneering down at me as if they weren’t the one to create that damned trade that brought me here. I see the human mages that have been created from the abominations that came from the merging of one of us and them. They look at me in pity, either because they know of the cruelty that I’ve been through, or because their ancestors had been treated the same. Well, at least until they decided to abandon our ways for the barbaric and lowly ways of the humans.
Finally, I can see that god damn traitor. The man who abandoned me for dead all of those years ago. That rat bastard. How dare he? He came to this hellhole with me on that slave ship, did he not? So why? Why did he have to abandon me for these cruel beings?
I know he can see me. Hell, this bastard is staring me dead in the eye. And of course, obviously, he’s the one who hired baldy over here to come and “defend” me so I'm not given the sweet release of death or anywhere else that isn’t with the damned humans. I continue to stare at him even after we lock eyes. There’s something in them.. What is it? Sadness? No, impossible. Anger on my behalf? Ha ridiculous.. Guilt? No... Relief maybe? Is he actually happy to see me dragged so low? Chained up, starving, having my very being dragged so low that I would even think to stoop to even think of asking for his help? Damn bastard.
All of a sudden, the entirety of the room falls into silence. I look around, tearing my eyes away from his. The judge, I notice, is staring right at me. What’s with all of these damned bastards looking at me? I know I’m attractive, but still. It gets to a point where it just gets creepy… Ha… they must be obsessed with me or something… as if I’d even consider one of them. “Quiet, quiet please! The panel and I have come to an agreement as to where to put this criminal.” He grabs his tiny hammer-looking thing. It looks a little like a small toy mallet. I muse, giving myself the smallest smile. He speaks just as loud as before. “The prisoner, name utterly unimportant, species, unhuman. Which is all that matters.” He mutters that last bit under his breath. Painfully loud enough for everyone to hear, but quiet enough that it’s not considered an official statement. “Is to be assigned to the house of Sylvan for the next 84 years. It is not to be allowed to be freed from its shackles until it has been entirely tamed and becomes an upstanding citizen of this kingdom.” He looked at me like I was less than dirt. “Consider this a mercy… filthy thing.” He sneered. With that, he slammed his wooden mallet on its wooden circle.
Wait… it? Did this lowly human call me of all living beings an it? Me? Wait... Tamed? What? Hah??
How utterly ridiculous!...... Wait, that last bit…… HOUSE ARREST!
The court room goes back into utter chaos. Probably more than before. The females and their miniatures on the right screeching like I murdered their husbands and fathers…ha ha. The politicians yelling for my banishment into the ocean to drown or be put to public death. Or at the very least, the quiet execution I was promised…. Fuck... I refuse. I will NOT be living with that traitor for that long.
“Just kill me!” I shout. I make sure to move and shift a little so it seems like I’m trying to break free. “You call that mercy? You disgusting bastards! You killed my people once before! You filthy pieces of shit destroyed my home and killed my family for existing! So what’s just ONE more?” I yelled as loud as my vocal cords could go in this weakened state. I think... the thought comes to me distantly as my vision starts to double and blur. I think I yelled so loudly that I ended up using just a little too much energy… Maybe I’m finally dying.. This thought comes just a little after. It would be best after all. Yes, maybe that's it. Finally...
Because I can hear them again. All of them. The laughter of the younger children with flower wreathes in their hair. The gossiping of the village elders. Finally... No... I don't want to remember this... The screams of the men and women. Their cries and begging to spare their innocent children. I can see them too. The women… my mother, my sisters… I can still see them, dead on the ground and paths to the emergency tunnels. My mother, trying to drag her half-dead self to shield my new infant sister from the cruel, bloody hands of the humans. I remember now… I remember how I screamed and cried when they found us. Dragging me by my hair, took me from my elder Cici’s arms and decapitated her right then and there. I remember, when I looked around I saw them all. My uncles, aunts, cousins,, my brothers and sisters... the warriors and healers.... our respected Nimue. Dragged through the mud as if she meant nothing. Being tortured after her magic was sealed. And Healer Mai, Healer Mai lost her head ……
It’s too much… my vision went black, limbs numb and too heavy to move like I swallowed a fluff bug. Falling to the ground, as the guards try to detain me. “A shame… truly.” I mumbled and chuckled as the earth beneath me began to shake from the footsteps rushing to grab and haul me away. “Healer Mai… She just had a child. Ha.. Ha… You cruel bastards…” I chuckle with the last of my strength.
The last thing I heard before even my hearing left me too was that rat bastard saying something unimportant about bringing me to some carriage...