A Naughty Elf: Evia's Begining
-
A Naughty Elf: Evia's Begining
The product of two household slaves, Evia was born into bondage. For the first seventeen years of her life, she toiled in the kitchens of a wealthy bureaucrat’s house. The politician started giving her lewd looks around this time and Evia knew what was to eventually occur. However, Evia had never been the pacifist. On numerous occasions she had brawled with other house slaves that had tried to quell her fiery ambitions. Such fights were common among the house slaves; it was their way of establishing a hierarchy. At this very young age, Evia had established herself near the top of this hierarchy. The last slave she fought with died from a stab wound to the throat when Evia had thrown a knife from across the kitchen. Every slave knew who had committed the murder, several witnessed it. Yet, when the slave master took his whip to every slave in the house for information on who had done it, none answered. “Better to be whipped than stabbed,” was a common phrase whispered between the slaves. The lord of the house, not concerning himself with slave affairs, had no comprehension of Evia’s deserved reputation when he began casting fond looks her way.
~***~
The house was utterly silent as Evia crept through the upper hallways, past two unaware guards, with a five pound meat cleaver clenched firmly in her fist. One door was open, allowing moonlight to interrupt the long dark hallway. If she crossed, Evia knew she would be spotted. For a good ten minutes she stood there, perfectly still, considering turning back and trying another night. Then the thought of that old man giving her unwanted looks flashed in her mind, and her resolve strengthened to dangerous levels. Up she jumped, like a cat, latching onto a torch bracket set into the wall ten feet high. The door had matching torch brackets on either side of it. They were higher than the door so passing hallway traffic would not be bothered by bumping into them. Her heartbeat soared with the delicate predicament she had put herself in. She had successfully scaled up the wall without making a sound, but she sincerely doubted she could jump across to the next torch and then down off the wall without a loud thump. “There is no turning back,” was the thought she repeated in her mind. Again she leapt, soaring high over the moonlit doorway, reaching for the other torch bracket so she might swing from it to land quietly. Her finger scraped against the metal bar and slipped, she had missed! Crashing loudly, Evia hit the floor with a thud.
The guards behind Evia both sat up and one began his quiet march down the hallway directly towards her. Evia rolled to the side of the floor and put her back up against the wall and straightened her body as best she could. The guard halted beside her and looked in the open doorway momentarily before continuing on past her. She sighed a moment of quiet relief. The guard turned around at the end of the hallway near the master’s chambers and headed back towards Evia. She had always been cunning, to the dismay of several slaves in the house, and those quick wits helped her at this moment. The instant the guard passed her on his return march, Evia sprang up and began matching her strides with the sound of his boots hitting the wood floor. She could walk twice as fast to her destination without being heard. A sly grin crossed her lips as she approached the double doors at the end of the hall. Before the guard had even sat back down, she had slipped inside the master’s chambers and shut the door quietly behind her.
~***~
Dawn came with a buzz of commotion on the street. Thirty faces all staring upwards towards the highest window on Lord Nothian’s house. Two large paned windows of exquisite design, were flung wide open. A rope hung down from the window. It suspended the noble’s severed head for all to see.
In the back of the crowd, Evia stood for several minutes, admiring her work before she walked calmly down the street.
-
deleted
