Everin

Irador kisses the back of the hand of the daughter of Lord Dain. She blushes profusely and curtsies deeply, “My lord, I am honored by your affections.”. “And I am honored by your presence.”, Irador looks at her seriously from beneath his dark eyebrows, “My lady, I wish you a good day.”. Irador strides away from the flustered nobleman’s daughter and smiles to himself. Presentation had been postponed two days, all the nobles were taking advantage of the extra time to play at intrigue and try to ingratiate themselves with the ruling family. The reason for the delay the heir was on route to discover. He passed down the corridor to his father’s study. Pausing to give a cursory knock, he lets himself in. His father sits leafing through reports behind a moous ous desk on a dais. Looking up briefly he noticed Irador enter, ”Yes son, what is it?”. “Father, why has presentation been postponed? If it delays too long I’ll be able to use noblemen’s daughters as a blanket.”. “Rather lively aren’t they. The postponement is for my brother, we received word that they ran into a storm and have been delayed, and as you know ALL royal persons must be present at presentation.”, his father placed a seal on a document and handed it to a young page who sprinted out the door. “So son, just be careful, if they get to forward knock them down a few notches.”, his father winked and went back to his stacks of paper. Irador sighed and left. Outside the door Madlin leaned against the wall. He could tell she had been arranging herself waiting for him to come out. He took a moment to appraise her work. Her red hair framed her face and fell softly off her shoulder. The deep green iridescent dress she wore barely clung to her shoulders, threatening to plunge to the floor at any moment. Irador shook his head, “Madlin, I wish the old coot had given you a sense of propriety.”. “Cats don’t have propriety.”, Madlin tossed her head in a calculated gesture used to flip her hair stunningly and at the same time allow the shoulder of her dress to slip further. “Madlin, pull your dress up.”, Irador commanded. Madlin pouted as she pulled the straps into place, “Why do you keep me around, you don’t even let me do my job.”. Irador sighs and takes her by the shoulders, “Madlin, you do your job, you entertain me to no end, honestly. Your very beautiful but I simply am not amused by recreational sex.”. Madlin pouts again and looks away as tears well up. “Please don’t cry, would it make you feel better if I got you some sweets?”, Irador smiles at her hopefully. Madlin looks up at him from beneath her lashes, “Well, alright master.”. “I think the magician was mistaken to make a cat into a person, I’m not really sure who the master is.”. Madlin slips her arm into Irador’s and leads him out of the corridor, “You are, Master.”.

Everin walked through the woods whistling to herself. She smiles as a bird lands on her shoulder. The woods seem happy, the sun shines, the animals play. She stops at a stream and drinks deeply, she sits beside it and removes her tall black boots. Then she struggles out of her black cape, pants, and tunic. Naked, she bathes in the hidden stream. The cool water feels wondrous on her tired body. After a long soak and a good swim she lies on the soft grass along the bank. She traces the scars on her flesh as she lies there contentedly. A line down her leg where a villager with a sickle had sliced her. Then on small cuts along her arm from when some mob had tried to stone her to death. A deep scar in her side where her mother had tried to stab her for being a hell spawned evil sent to curse her. For she, Everin, was evil and therefore her mother had tried to undo the horror she had wrought. Everin had had no choice. Now depressed, once again she dressed and continued her journey. A bit before night she reached a town. She looks every bit a suspicious character, dressed all in black with her face hidden in the hood of her cape. She brushed a strand of her black hair out of her face. Fate must have thought it funny, everything on her was black. Everin pauses and begins to laugh. She clutches her sides as she laughs at fate’s joke. She laughs until she can’t breathe, gasping and clutching her cramping sides. A mother pulls her child close and hurries on, two men by a carpenter’s shop watch her carefully. Everin wiped tears from her eyes as she stumbles toward the inn. As she walks in, the air tenses. The tables close by stop their conversation and stare over the rim of their mugs at her, as if expecting the ceiling to cave in on her before them. Everin slowly places coins on the counter and asks for a room. The innkeeper, who’s job it is to be aware of her clientele, squints up at her then takes the money with a grunt, passing her a key. Everin nods her head and goes upstairs to the room. It’s sparse but manageable. A small bed below a tightly shut window, wash basin and towel. She leans her staff in the corner and goes to the center of the room. She sits on her knees and draws a circle around herself. Slowly a chant rises in her, these words…I know them, but I don’t, she thinks to herself as the alien language flows from her lips. The circle around her glows softly. For now she waits, the villagers always come. Finally a knock at the door. Everin stays inside the circle. “Let us in girlie! We’re going to knock you down a notch!”. They begin pounding at the door. Thud. Thud. Finally the door breaks. In the doorway stand the two men from in front of the carpenter’s shop. “Come on then, you’re a creepy one and we don’t want you here.”, one of them says. Everin looks at them from inside the circle, “Every time, without fail, when I stay in a village, someone comes to prove their stuff, or run me out, or cleanse the world of evil.”. Everin sighs dramatically, “I can never be left alone to get a good nights sleep.”. One of the men approaches her, as he reaches the circle he cries out and jumps back. His arm is burned where it touched the circle, the flesh crackles a bit as the man cradles his wound. “I just want to be able to stay somewhere without having to do this.”, Everin sighs. The other man walks up and cautiously sticks out a finger. Everin mockingly pretends to jump at him and he falls back. She looks pitiably at the man who fell, “You, you’re going to die soon. Make sure you have a will or your wife will lose everything to the city officials.”. Shaken, the two men stumble over one another to get out of the room. Everin lets out a deep breath and leaves the circle as she walks over to the bed and falls to sleep.

Annabele gingerly slides off the bed. She walks over to the washbasin mirror and looks over the bruises running down her back and legs, she runs her hand over them and winces at the sharp pain. Annabelle slowly pulls on her dress as carefully as she can and walks stiffly to the dining hall. Her mother sits at the head of the table the the Master Consort to her right. Annabele winces as she sits in one of the cushioned chairs. “Very good, she can still walk. Were you appropriately punished?”, her mother asks over her spoonful of soup. “Yes Mother.”, Annabele looks into her soup seeking escape. “Very good Xaon.”, her mother sips the spoonful. Xaon beams, then looks at Annabele and winks. Annabele shudders and digs into her soungrungrily. After breakfast Annabele secretly follows Xaon. Mother has gone into the city to shop, that leaves a few servants, her, and Xaon. Xaon goes into his study and pulls out a pipe, he pours himself a glass of brandy and sits in the chair puffing away. Annabelle squats outside the doorway unseen. Her legs begin to cramp, and her foot falls asleep as she watches unmoving from the hallway. After a while, she hears snoring from the room. Peeking in, she sees his miserable being sleeping in the leather chair, pipe smoking on the table. She has to do it now. I can’t take his abuse anymore. I have to stop this, her mind screams. Silently she slips in. She pulls a white packet from her dress pocket, the apothecary’s man had said it could kill a hundred rats. She had held onto this packet, thinking of using it on herself. Now though, she only wished to have some kind of revenge on Xaon. Annabele prays silently as she tip toes toward the desk. His breathing remains calm and even as he sleeps away. Every creaking floorboard makes her heart jump, if she’s caught the punishment was too great to even consider, she would swallow the contents right here. Eons later she reaches the desk and pours the powder into his drink. She stirs it a little with a quill from the desk. The poison, her hope, dissolves clear into the drink. Annabele slips out of the room as slowly as she entered and returns to her own room calmly. Her fingers twitch with excitement as she picks up her stitching, then she smiles softly. She begins to hum as she stitches a flower border onto the hem of one of her dresses.

Later that evening, a scream reverberates through out the large inn. Annabele grins a moment before she rises and goes as quickly, as her sore muscles and bruises will allow, toward the sound. The scene is perfect, she couldn‘t have lain it out better. Her mother watches with a furrowed brow as two men carry Xaon’s body out of the room, frothy spittle drips from his ashen mouth onto the wooden floors. A maid lies unconscious beside the desk in a faint. Her mother looks at Annabelle with a fearfully questioning look. Annabelle walks into the room, looks around, and calmly asks, “What happened?”.