54 Summer, 1034
Year 11
Madam Brunhilda was waiting for her at the table when Aziza finally clawed her way out of her bed and sleepily walked down the stairs from the upper loft. The girl considered turning right back around and hiding under the straw on the slats of her bed for a moment, but as the older woman's eyes caught sight of her, Aziza quietly huffed and marched the rest of the way down the staircase.
The Madam had become more and more crotchety as the years passed her by, and despite the influx of 'generous benefactors' leaving tidy sums for the establishment's care, her mood continued to worsen with every new wrinkle upon her brow. "Lazy elf wench," the woman muttered as Aziza came within range of her voice, very clearly spinning herself up. "Sleeping all day every day. You should be out, learning a trade. Worthless children are sold to the Underside when they come of age, you know."
The girl stifled a smirk, knowing exactly what 'horrors' were there to be found in the Underside, but had learned better to let her emotions show on her face some years before. Instead, she simply ducked her head meekly and moved to sit at the table in front of the Matron, knowing this was the fastest route to the end of the inevitable lecture.
"It may feel like you have all the time in the world to you now, but you're building habits that will last the rest of your hermetically long life, and everyone knows that your," she spits on the floorboards, " 'people' have ten times the penalties that the rest of us do.
"You do realize that it will take you a decade to learn what a good human girl could pick up in a year, don't you?" She glanced back at Aziza, checking to make sure the girl was appropriately cowed before continuing, "If you don't pick up some craft now, the only thing you'll be good for is lying flat on your back."
Aziza couldn't help but grimace at the old woman's vulgarity, and Brunhilda dove down upon her as she saw the girl's weakness, "If you would wake up at a reasonable hour and ask the markets, I'm certain you can find someone who could make use of someone..." glancing unabashedly at the young girl's pointed ears, "like you. I know chamber pots or washing dishes may not exactly be glamorous work. But it's better than the fate that awaits you as it is, I can assure you!"
The badgering went on for some moments longer. Aziza simply gritted her teeth and accepted it. Once or twice a year the Madam would get desperate and try to have her escorted to do some of the 'honest work' that she always harped on about, but while overpowering the young girl wasn't exactly difficult, the adults soon found that keeping hold of her was another matter entirely. And after a week of hanging out with her friends in the Underside, Brunhilda always found her right back in her state-mandated bed, as though nothing had happened. Whatever adults the woman had struck deals with having by then abandoned the idea of wanting her.
As the children's tutor came in for the afternoon lessons, the Matron's admonishments came to a close. Aziza suspected that the old coot thought of the schooling as punishment for the children who for whatever reason were not otherwise employed. The children never seemed to feel that way though, and she and the other youths crowded around the figure of old Sir Yellenstag as he found his seat by the fire.
As far as educations went, Aziza always felt that this one was almost criminally weak, though she couldn't remember what it was that she could be comparing it to. And yet the old knight was volunteering his time to come in and speak with the orphans on the wrong side of the city, and she felt nothing but gratitude and admiration for the old veteran for his efforts.
He had been coming in to 'teach' for the past six and a half years, she remembered. And as her guardian became more sour and cruel with the passing years, so too did Aziza become more and more attached to the old man and his stories. He mostly taught the children their history, regaling them with tales of daring heroes, cruel kings, and the various intrigues of courtly politics. He had tried to branch out into other things such as courtly dancing, at times before, but he was always quickly admonished and quickly redirected under the cruel glare of the Matron. The woman felt, she had said, that such children had no need to know how to dance like the royalty and should instead be learning how to properly wash a gown or mend a patchwork blanket.
Never the less, the respect that the man commanded as a Knight, as well as being a veteran of a half dozen wars kept Brunhilda from barring him out entirely. Hoping perhaps that some of the man's reputation might rub off on her, she always dutifully provided him with a bit of bread and mead as he sat, offering lectures to the children about how lucky they were to have a man of Yellenstag's stature deign to notice them.
The knight was remarkably closed lipped on the topic of Awakening and the Circles, much as he was regarding any of the terrible details of the violence he had seen during his days of combat. Never the less he weaved a clear picture to the young minds of the ways of power each day, of what noble house was currently in favor and how laws could be made and amended.
"Children!" The man's voice boomed out, still strong and loud after his many years. "Come, listen, I have something special for you today."
Settling into his seat, the knight reached over to pull out some scrolls from his travel bag, laying them out on the floor in front of him. "These are official proclamations issued by the king himself," the man lectured, "and you can tell by the seal stamped into the bottom there, you see. One does not need to be able to read at all, not to be able to recognize an official seal when it is presented to them."
The man nodded to himself, pointing it out for the children who huddled around the papers, "Now, if you see that seal there," he pointed, "That is the seal of our king and is a proclamation of the highest authority. Note the depth of the impression and the way blue and red waxes merge in the middle there, yes?"
The children oooohed and awwwwed appropriately as he continued. Aziza, kneeling primly to the side of the cluster, craned her neck to see over the rest of the youthful heard, skimming over the words on the parchment. "If someone hands you such a letter, younglings, you best do exactly what they say, no doubt about it! For disobeying a written order from your king carries with it an immediate sentence of death."
A tiny hand raised up into the air, as the little boy known only as 'Rat' asked his question, "But how can we know we are following the order if we can not read what it says, sir knight?"
Yellenstag nodded wisely, meeting the boy's eyes, "Now, don't you worry about that at all. Whoever presents such a document to you has the full blessing of our King, have no doubt! And they will certainly share with you the details of the proclamation when issuing you a dictate. After all, it would be fool-hearty to have a government of letters when only the highest nobility even knows to read, for sure The king must always have great faith in the recipients of his proclamations to go and spread his word!"
As he spoke, Aziza busied herself with the body of the document. The spelling, she noted, was somewhat atrocious, but also close enough to convey the proper meaning she supposed. The signature down at the bottom, it was clear, was also written by a completely different hand than the body of the document. The letters of the name shook as if written by a child, taking their time with each digit, but unsure of how the final product should look. The blocky signature stood a stark contrast to the practiced, smallish letters that were... mostly... in the right order throughout the rest of the document.
Aziza kept her mouth shut as she read, knowing that displaying gifts that outshone the others would less likely result in praise than in beatings. Even still, her heart warmed as she pieced together the fact that the parchment the good knight had brought was none other than his very own elevation to the knighthood. It made sense, when she thought about it, as likely the kind old man had no other examples of the king's seal to show them, and considering the ability to recognize that seal when it was presented to them could someday be the very actual difference between life and death for the little ones, the knight had risked much to bring it along for their benefit. She couldn't even imagine what would happen if such an important parchment were to be somehow lost or damaged.
Thankfully, the importance of the seal itself was enough to convince the other children to treat it with the utmost respect and reverence. And despite their crowding around to see, she could smile to herself as she also felt their absolute reluctance to draw too close to the document.
The knight took back his parchment, soon continuing on to explain how the good King Ricter was getting on in years and would soon be succeeded by his son, Prince Talis. The man spoke well of the prince, telling the children of battles they had fought together back when the boy had served as a general, and assuring him that the man was not the type to squander lives without very good reason. He also paid some small lip service to the Emperor Yis, who ruled the various human kingdoms across the continent. There wasn't much to say, they all knew, being a small kingdom so far from the capital, but the knight knew his duty and would never forget to pay his proper respects to the empire of men.
A bit earlier than usual, Sir Yellenstag slowly rose from his seat, taking his feet. "Well, that is enough for today I should think!" his voice boomed with a jovial rumbling. "I have an errand to take care of now at the docs and must soon be off." He looked around at the children his eyes widening with an exaggerated curiosity, "Now, I wonder, would any of you little ankle-biters like to come with me? See the city in the care of this grizzled old veteran?"
All of the children's hands shot immediately in the air at his offer, the younger ones standing up and jumping up and down in their excitement. Aziza was absolutely no exception, twisting her hand back and forth and shining her very best impression of cuteness up at the Knight. The old man guffawed, smiling warmly at all the excitement shining around him and shook his head happily, "Now now, I don't know that I could get along all that well with a dozen or so of you ankle-biters dodging at my heels. Let's see now, I could probably manage... three." He nodded with a finality, "Yes, three!"
"You there," he pointed at a small boy in the crowd, "and... you. And... yes, you too girl. Go ahead and ask permission of your Ma'am there and get yourselves ready." He continued on, with that, to point at Jame, Rat and, finally, Aziza herself. None of the children were able to contain their excitement. The three of them jumped up in a flash, lightning quick and ran to swarm around their matron. Aziza's hesitance to approach the Madam was momentarily forgotten in the sudden joy of being picked, and the girl stood right along next to the others, bouncing and begging for permission to go.
Brunhilda waved a quick, dismissive hand at the two boys beside her, sending them toward their bunks to pull their travel boots and jackets from their drawers. As her eyes fell on Aziza however, not uncharacteristically really, the old woman's head shook no. Razing her voice to a much shriller octave, her 'command voice' as she called it, she turned toward the good sir knight, "I'm sorry, Sir. This one can't go. The docks are no place for a young girl - and anyway, this fey-wild beast should be out looking for work, not taking field trips to places she has no business to be."
The old knight simply nodded a quick acknowledgment and chose again, this time picking up the older gnomish boy Bune. "What about this one here then, I could use a young, strapping lad there to keep watch on the others!" He winked at the boy conspicuously, ignoring the child's smaller stature.
Bune did not jump like the others but he did give a brief pump of his fist in excitement, as the older boys would tend to do, and run off directly toward his bunk without bothering to check in with Brunhilda first. Aziza frowned, wishing that she had shared a similar thought and not bothered to ask permission, but it was too late now she realized, and the idea of disobeying the knight had never even crossed her young mind.
. . .
Aziza dutifully spent the afternoon helping with the cleaning. She scrubbed the tables and walls with a dirty rag, stopping only long enough to dodge the backhands Madam Brunhilda would send her way when she was caught daydreaming about her future. It had been years since the old woman had managed to land a blow, and she preferred being the target of her wrath over some of the younger demi-humans in the orphanage, so she soldiered on regardless.
She dreamed of what it would be like when she finally Awakened. In her mind, she was able to pull Toby right out of her dreams and ride him around town, waving magnificently at the people below. She was so sure that Awakening would give her the same powers familiar to her friends in Underside, as it was known that each circle came with progressively more powerful abilities and a greater potential for growth of a person's standard attributes. Someday, she felt certain, she would be strong enough to stand side by side with Morrison... or perhaps his children, she decided, after she had taken some time to think about the timeline. Someday, she could be their right hand, shadowing through the city with her friends always a step ahead of the watchful nobility. It was a dream, but it was her dream and she refused to give it up.
Admittedly, when she had first come to the orphanage, she had had different dreams by far. She remembered that she had dreamed of being a blessed knight of the Twilight Queen, trotting through the countryside on her unicorn and helping those in need. In the end, such things were the innocent dreams of youth; she came to realize this far too soon, for the Madam, even then, had wasted no time in explaining to the children how things were.
Daydreams aside, soon enough it was time to start dinner. And even as the children crowded around the stove with their Madam, the wayward field-trippers made their way home. Sir Yellenstag had not bothered to stop inside, but the quick skurrying feet of Rat, Bune, and Jame sounded in the entry even as the stew bubbled and shook.
Setting the table, the children brought out the stew and unleavened loaves of bread. All knew better than to try to reach for the food before the matron had her say, and they sat impatiently, trying very hard not to squirm, as the woman cleared her throat.
"Thank you, Ra, for this meal," the woman began her 'blessing', as she did every night. "Thank you for the brilliant rays from above that birthed and nourished our crops.
"Protect us also from the whimsical courts, who seek to divide your light selfishly between their seasons, respecting not your rule of true law." She continued the prayer in the standard way, blissfully unaware of the rock that always sank low inside Aziza's stomach as she spoke, "In your name, we allow mercy to the children of those demons, the demi-humans, in hopes that they one day are reborn in your light! We pray that they may someday find the strength to cast off the animistic flaws of their form and are reborn in spirit as true and proud human beings - forevermore standing tall under your brilliant sky.
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"Protect us and allow us to serve you, our gracious and loving caretaker, and forgive us for our own sins and imperfections, as we work to emulate your perfection. In your love and your light, we follow." Lifting her head, her eyes shot toward the children of the demi-human races purposefully before she took the first bite of her stew, signaling the children that it was finally time to eat.
There had been a time, long ago, when Aziza had first come to this place that she had tried to argue. The idea of a superior race of beings sounded so unfamiliar and somehow wrong to her young mind that she had not been able to keep shut her mouth. She quickly learned her lesson afterword, during her days in the cellar, as each day the Madam came to spend hours explaining the flaws in the girl's thinking. And once Aziza was able to recite back the Ra's curse on each sub-human race word for word, only then was she allowed to rejoin her fellow children.
She had been sad to learn that the curse placed upon the elves was the greatest of all, being that of immortality. For never would they be allowed a rebirth in the perfected form of the human, unless first their fey bodies were shredded in the machinations of violence and war. And while the whole ideology still rung somehow false to her, grinding against a half-remembered core of her being and ideals, she had to admit that her lifespan was something of a curse. For even if someone did deign to adopt her, to raise her as their own, they would be adopting a child for the entirety of their lifespans. Her intended parents would grow old and die, likely before she even had reached her own adolescence.
Chapter 3: Epilogue
As Aziza danced through the streets that night, shadowing potential marks through the city and darting through shadows and alleyways, back at the orphanage all was not entirely well.
In the morning she would find that another child, yet another of her siblings of happenstance, had disappeared in those midnight hours. Though she had begged the other children to wait for her, to say goodbye before they left, still every year there was some fewer orphans being housed in the Northwest district. Matron Brunhilda stood by her claim that they were runaways, hiding elsewhere in the city as they abandoned their duties and abandoned their gratitude to her specifically for housing them and keeping them safe.
Brunhilda, as always, claimed that the missing would soon find their way back, and those who did not must have been taken by the Underside for whatever nefarious and deviant purpose the thieves and murderers would have them for. And it was accurate enough that the missing would indeed occasionally find their way back, appearing out of the city again with the changing of the seasons to regale their peers with epic stories of their daring exploits.
The second part of that claim though was a lie, as Aziza had discovered so very early on. As she had made her way into the sewers and the caverns beneath the city to confront the truth of the Underside for herself. It was easier than she had expected, in retrospect, to stumble upon the dens of scum and villainy that collectively answered to 'Underside', for not three seasons had passed in her search before she found herself face to face with Mad Morrison.
When the rogues found her, deep in those caverns beneath the buildings above, she had assumed that she was lost, that she would be sold or used or worse as the ground-siders had always warned her. And if she was older, perhaps, or weaker then she may have been right to worry. She cared less about the danger back then, however, than she did for the truth. She wanted to find her missing friends, to strike out toward the villains on her own, rather than sit in the darkness of night waiting for them to come claim her.
But her fears, drilled into her by the Matron, the knight, and even the other children in her home, turned out to be unfounded. For as she stood before the ramshackle throne of Morrison, shaking her fist defiantly and demanding that he give her back her missing friends, something twisted in that old bastard's heart.
Instead of taking the girl and selling her, or whatever else it is that Undersiders were said to do, instead, he merely fed her and introduced to his lieutenants, laughing at her bluster and her demands. The food was good, better even than any she had before tasted in her memory, and the following night she made her way back under the city to demand, instead, more of the cakes and wine from the night before.
Years passed, and though the girl never managed to find her friends, she was thoroughly distracted in finding a place where she could belong. And while she could never bring herself to leave the familiarity of her home above, neither could she by any stretch of her will stop returning to the dank and foul corners underneath the city and the friends and tutors who waited below.
Such it was then that even as Bune did disappear out of his bed in the dead of night, as so many children had done before him and as so many would do after him as well, Aziza barely even noticed the loss. So focused instead was she on dodging the Matron of her home and sneaking off to her friends in the darkness, that she no longer even felt the loss of the missing until much, much later in our story.
In the years that followed she couldn't help but wonder whether, if she had investigated sooner, if she had not allowed herself to become distracted with her new friends, with the new place she belonged, but had instead followed up on those early disappearances, she wondered if things would have gone differently. Maybe if she could have then struck away the fate that awaited her while it was new, before the madness Perhaps, she would soon come to dwell on the thought that she could have prevailed before the ax had its chance to fall.
We all have our regrets when looking back on the days of our lives, and I can easily tell you my own. It was not the theft, nor even was it my association with thieves and murderers in those early days of my life. No, instead it was my own heartlessness, my own distraction in the face of what I had known from the very beginning. That is what I regret. And that is what I blame for these scars across my body and across my soul.