Once we exit the staircase, he stops and takes many deep breaths as if he is about to collapse, and says, “Why?”

“It’s because-.” My tongue starts to feel tied, and I lose the ability to say anything.

So Ferdiad says, “I didn’t even know we had an area like this. You had to have had it custom built, and you used it, for a man like that! A man who hates you and beats you, he is a demon wearing human clothing!”

“NO! That is not true, your father didn’t do anything wrong I did.”

“DID HE BEAT THE SENSE OUT OF YOU! Mother, he tried to kill you, kill me, kill Minagrain? Does this not make sense to you, he is a coward who allowed his brother to use you like a tool and then complained about it!”

“How do you know about that?”

“I wasn’t a fool Mom; I watch and listen to see why my parents started hating each other. I know Mom, I know about Minagrains birth, and I am sure she does as well.”

“It was my fault for sleeping with that man.”

“That doesn’t explain him trying to kill both me and Minagrain. If he hated you, he could just leave! But instead, he chooses to destroy you and us every day!”

Grabbing him, I say, “Ferdiad he isn’t like that, you really got to listen to who he really is.”

“You know what, I don’t care. It isn’t like you own this house anyway, it is my home, and I get to choose what happens with the money I built and he won’t be buried anywhere on my land.”

Ferdiad moves and starts to head to the storage house, and I chase after him saying, “Ferdiad what are you doing?”

I put my hand on him, but he swats it away, and says, “Get off of me!”

He quickly grabs a spade and then moves at speeds I can’t keep up with back into the house, so I start to run.

“No, no, no, no! It’s my fault so please don’t hate your father!”

I reach the underground, and there I see with a furious expression on his face Ferdiad is digging up his father, and soon he reaches deep enough to drag out his skeleton.

But as he reaches to touch the skeleton, I push him out of the way and hug Cambell, which causes Ferdiad to say, “Why mom, just why?”

“Because I love him.”

“But, I love you.”

“But what you give me, and what he does are different, the only reason I get to do anything is because of him, and I ruined him. So Ferdiad I simply can never allow myself to part from him. If I do, I would be the most fiendish demon in all of existence.”

Ferdiad grips his fist tightly and raises his spade as if he is going to throw it at me, so I close my eyes and hold Cambell but I soon hear the spade drop, and Ferdiad says, “Mom, you truly disgust me.”

Looking at Ferdiad, I see he is just a mere moment away from tears, and his face mirrors Cambell's despair to such an extent that I feel like I am thrown into the past.

“You know I always wondered why you ignored my requests to flee, and the answer is simply because you are self-serving, you care so much about what he gives you that you don’t care about who else gets hurt. You pretend to love me as much as it benefits you.”

“That’s not true!”

“IT IS! And no matter what you say it will always be, because the fact that you should choose to be with that man shows you're nothing but a coward who asks her children to be stronger than her, instead of being a mother.”

Ferdiad cries, and says, “I just wanted someone to rely on, someone who I knew was working in my best interests. But I couldn’t even find that from you, before or even now.”

“Ferdiad, tell me what’s bothering you, I will always listen,” I say desperately trying to get my feelings across.

“It doesn’t matter Minabród, because I can never trust someone like you. Bye.”

Ferdiad runs away, and I go after him, but he is so fast I can’t keep up, and eventually, I fall onto my face.

As he runs away, I reach out, and say, “PLEASE COME BACK!”

I know I am weak; I know I am a coward, I know I can only live through underhanded means. But Ferdiad at the very least I want to be there for you, I didn’t ever want you to know what it means to be alone in this world.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Φ No one, not a single person truly believes in me. Even my own mother would rather choose him over me, can I not have one truly fair relationship in my life?

Behind me, I hear my mother cry and say, “Ferdiad I couldn’t have left with you, because if I did a monster like me would have put you through even worse! I am sorry, but please trust me, because I LOVE YOU! So please don’t leave me, please stay with me!”

I stop for a moment, then I grip my fist and keep running directly into the distance until I fall to the floor and punch the ground yelling from the depths of my soul.

But then I feel someone hug me from behind, and a voice I truly didn’t want to hear says, “It will all be alright.”

And she rubs my head again, and again. At that moment I feel no different than when I was a child.

-Break-

Φ I have always felt inferior, ever since I was a little boy. When me and my people were locked up and kept in cages, I couldn’t fight back to protect my family from being separated, but worse than that due to my physical condition I couldn’t even work, so they tossed me aside like garbage.

I spent my days laying in the rest of the animal waste they had packed away to be disposed of, and looking onwards at the humans who had control of our people, I cried to myself as I wished more than anything to be able to do something, to help my people, to help myself.

But I was a man who couldn’t even walk, to the humans I was scum, and to my people I was baggage. So, all I could do was cry my tears away day, after day, until my eyes got infected by my surroundings.

I had lost all faith in myself, and in my mind, I was no different than the animal waste that covered my body, but still, someone reached out to me someone grabbed from that waste, a human.

He dragged me to his house, he wiped my body of all the rotten substances on it and fed me food. So, I asked, “Why?”

It was a stern old man who had taken me, his face looked opposed to the idea of happiness, and the words he said reflected that, “All of the slaves I needed were too expensive, so I will be taking you instead.”

“But for what reason do you need me?”

The man picked me up and flung me over his shoulder, then plotted me on a chair in a different room, and said, “I need you to help me with this.”

Looking around the house I see different kinds of jewellery and other types of decorated objects, and within the room are many different humans and beastkin working.

So, I ask, “Did you guys make all of this?”

“Yes, we did. And we are short-staffed, so you're joining us as well.”

A Tuatha Dé Dannan then shouts, “We aren’t short-staffed, your goals are just too damn big.”

“Shut the hell up or I will come over there and kick your ass.”

“TRY IT INVADER, LET’S SEE WHICH ONE OF US ENDS UP IN THE GROUND.”

“No respect.”

Looking at him, I say, “But how am I going to help?”

“With your hands obviously.”

Lower, my head, I say, “But just look at my body, my legs don’t work, my muscle mass is almost non-existent, and the only thing I know how to do is talk, I couldn’t ever make anything like this?”

“This dramatic nonsense is why I hate kids. Listen up, the only thing that matters here is your ability to work and help me accomplish my dream, the rest of your nonsense can go fuck itself. I don’t care for anything other than your determination to learn skills and the creativity in your mind, so if you doubt yourself based on any other reason, I will smack you, got it. You can do this.”

I don’t know why but those words my me cry again, and he said, “What this now, can’t you just behave?”

“Sorry, I just can’t stop.”

From that day I worked for him, a human known as Konrad.

He spent months on end teaching me how to work, and was stern whenever I messed up, yelling, “AGAIN!”

So many times, that I thought it might be the only words he could utter from his mouth. He had a mountain of expectations for me and wouldn’t allow me to fall short of them, but I loved that my existence could receive such expectations.

I practise, and practised, and practised some more until the day I finally finished my first project a ring, and said, “It’s done I finally did it!”

I jumped for joy of my seat, and quickly fell to the ground as I couldn’t use my legs, and after being brought back onto my chair, I say, “Now we just need to engrave your initials, Konrad.”

“No, we will engrave yours.”

“But aren’t we working for you?”

“It doesn’t matter if you did it for me, you were the one who made it and anyone who ever holds it should know that. So, enough talk and just take it for yourself.”

Konrad engraved my initials into that day, and said, “This is your first completed work, so keep it on your person at all times Culainn.”

Holding it tightly I say, “I WILL!”

The days continued on, and I learned lots of things from Konrad and my fellow workers. I had always thought working under the humans would be hell, but everyone always had a smile on their faces.

We would spend hours making up designs and putting them to practice and talked about how we were going to make something so beautiful that the world would turn upside down.

Though some days, Konrad would say, “You’re all working too hard, go take a break!”

And we would go to the nearest river and play, and on one particular day, I asked him, “Why do you do this?”

“Huh?”

“I mean it pays well; I believe, but I don’t know why you work like this.”

Konrad rubs his chin, and says, “Down in the south around the middle of Terrafide, there is this mural known as the sept perfections. It is a beautiful piece of craftwork that distorts the world around it.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Apparently, it was so beautiful that the human god, the messiah blessed it with a miracle. To each eye that views it on each day, it looks different. It is a piece of work that transcended the very laws of the world, and simply laying eyes on it will increase one's soul, or at least that’s what Cordum passed down in my village.”

“So, you don’t even know if it exists or not?”

“I don’t, but I believe the words of Cordum. I have a dream, and it is to make something that will receive the same blessing as that piece of artwork did. And for that ,I need many different perspectives and masteries to do it.

Just like all the other empires that humanity has built,t I am sure this one we live in will fall someday, so I have a dream to pass on this desire and one day I hope one of my students or their descendants will keep the dream alive, and we will one day build it.”

“Then I will keep that dream alive for you.”

“Thanks for that.”

Picking me up, he says, “Now it is time for you to go and play with everyone else.”