I groaned softly as I heard the booming bells chiming out, it was only the first of six 'wake-up' calls for the prisoners here. But, it was the one I always chose to wake up to so that I couldn't be called out as 'lazy' by the guards whom already hated me. My eyes fluttered open slowly, finding the rough, rocky ceiling of the cave that was my prison. There were thousands of other cells indistinguishable from mine. Yet, mine was unique in one singular way. I was kept at the deepest point of the caves underneath Arcadia. One of the most wanted criminals in history, left down here to rot as I dug away at a never ending hell underfoot.
Sitting up slowly I heard the cot I was forced to call a bed groan, not from my own weight, I couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds. After all we were barely given enough food to live down here. Looking around a sighed softly. Bringing my arms around, rolling my shoulders slowly as I heard a constant string of pops. It felt like every bone, every muscle fiber, and every inch of my skin was bruised and sore. And honestly, it probably was, today I just happened to notice it more than most other days.
I didn't even flinch as I felt my bare feet touch the stone underfoot, it was honestly nice and warm thanks to how deep this section of the cavern was. Yet that same heat was the bane of my existence when it came to working. It took only a moment for me to slowly push myself off of my cot, food had already been delivered hours ago. I was lucky today, if I had to guess one of the few guards that had some level of mercy towards me were on shift. Meaning today would be a slightly easier day than most others.
Looking over I grabbed my food, if it could even be called that. It was just a bowl of rice, a single strip of dried meat that already had mold growing across parts of it, and a large bowl of gruel that was some unholy mixture of milk, water, grain, and whatever garbage the cooks decided to sprinkle in any given day. But, my taste buds were effectively reduced to nothing these days. Leaving me to simply tear off the rotting pieces of meat, tossing them to the side to be cleaned later whenever a guard came to claim the plate back. After I forced the dried meat down my throat with some of the gruel and set the bowl back down I found myself looking into the reflection, taking in my distorted face from within the container.
My face was covered in soot and ash. My eyes sunken in, no longer having their shining red glow, instead looking like charred embers barely keeping alight. My hair was as black as ever, it was impossible to tell that at one point in my life it had been a brilliant white. Granted, that was because I preferred to simply dye it back when I was still free, and now I just never bothered to clear the soot and ash out of it leaving it a horrible, messy black curl of knots accenting my face.
My body had exactly nothing to look at, malnutrition so extreme that one couldn't even tell whether I was male or female, granted the rags I wore covered everything important for a woman. My pale skin had only grown paler in these dark confines, and eventually I found myself loosing interest in my food all together. Instead I walked over to the corner of my cell, grabbing a single rock sharpened over the many months of use, and scraped it against a wall.
Four years, seven months, and eighteen days. Today marked the nineteenth. Only two days until I spent another birthday in this hell, and I would be considered a legal adult and become fully capable of being put on trial. Arcadia saw the legal age of adults to be sixteen, an oddity to most of the world that saw it as eighteen, or in some more detached parts with longer living species, forty to sixty. Meanwhile us measly humans barely lived half that long under the best conditions.
I looked up as i heard the next booming ring of the bell, two out of six. If I had to guess each one would be about five minutes apart, and each one was substantially louder than the previous. The sixth bell was rarely rung, however when it was it could be felt even far down into the deepest parts of the prison.
To my knowledge this prison was just one of many inside of Arcadia. Nearly any crime, be it simply assault, petty robbery, or outright murder, saw a person sent into the mines, working until a trial could be scheduled. Although I was quite an oddity inside of these prisons, as unless someone had committed something regarded in the highest level of crime in Arcadia, such as illegal use of magic, murder, or espionage, children below the age of sixteen could not be sent to prison.
Yet, I had committed the worst crime of all. I had the audacity to be born under the name 'Vulender', a name considered so vile it was an insult. All for a crime so heinous it was wiped from history itself. To my knowledge only the people who gave the final sentence to my father knew the crime he committed. And all I knew of it was that his death sentence wasn't considered enough. It took them two years but eventually they found where I had been living in the woods, and old cabin just barely inside the territory of Berinia, and I was dragged into this mine as punishment.
The third bell began to ring, finally snapping me from my musings, I decided to go over to my food, forcing down all that I could before I used the remaining gruel to try and wash my face. It barely worked, but it at least didn't make it any worse.
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And now it was just time to wait, my mind had long since ran out of things to amuse itself with. I had counted the rocks on the ceiling so many times I knew the exact number in an instant, I knew which guards were on shift just by the sound of their footsteps, and I knew which prisoners were causing trouble any given day just by the sounds of shouting in the distance. I let out a shallow yawn as the fourth bell rang, my gaze shifting upwards as I saw a familiar face. One of the only things that could get me to smile, Darek, one of a handful of kind guards in this prison.
"Awake already?" Darek's soft voice rang out as he got his keys out, undoubtedly to bring me to my daily shift in the mines. He was an older man, easily into his forties judging by the graying hair he held. He was a pure blooded Arcadian, yet he was probably the kindest man in the prison. Almost certainly because he had been down here with me as long as I had been here. His armor, like most Arcadians was plated with an odd golden metal, no one outside of the forge masters who made the Arcadian's armors and weapons knew what the material was, and probably the High Nobles did too.
"You know I'm always awake at the first bell... Sometimes the second if they really work me." I sighed a little, pushing myself to stand. My voice was hoarse, I probably only talked a few times a month when Darek or the few other kind guards were on shift. Leaving it to grow hoarse and rough, hardly helping anything down here.
"Yes, I know, I know. No need for the sass." He gave a teasing grin, one I couldn't help but return for a moment. I didn't know much about Darek, other than he had at one point seen an active battlefield where he lost his right eye. Leaving a single pristine glowing green eye in his left socket, yet he never missed a chance to tell a joke. Not unlike a father would to their own child. "Now, if I remember correctly someone has a birthday coming up." Her reached up, scratching his beard quizzically as he looked at me, pushing the door open slowly.
"It's not exactly something to celebrate..." I mumbled in return, waiting for him to step out of the way so that I could exit the cell. I reached my hands up, using the far more open pathway tunnel to stretch further now that the barely five foot tall roof wasn't directly above me. "Sixteen... Something I've been dreading for years honestly. At least maybe they'll finally just kill me instead of leaving me down here to rot."
"Now that is no way for a young girl to talk!" Darek boomed out, leaving me to jump a little from the sudden noise, he rarely ever raised his voice. "Never wish for death! Even in the face of death itself straighten your spine and scream your war cry, for there is no worse crime than solemnly accepting your own fate." He continued as he looked at me, his single eye felt like it was burning into my very body, it felt like it was trying to dig through my very spirit, yet he softened and that pressure fell away.
"Did you hit your head or something? You never seem to care when I wish for an end to this normally." I fell silent, my eyes falling to the ground as I walked behind Darek, with him leading me out towards the main pit. The chimes of dull picks hitting stone could be heard already, with many workers already beginning for the day.
"No, I simply notice it more when you are soon to become an adult." He sighed out. Beginning down the spiraling staircase, I knew each step easily so I instead turned my gaze towards the pit.
There were hundreds of layers, each one was constantly expanding outwards. This particular mine was outside of Arcadia, the capitol city of Berinia by about thirty miles. Walking down the stairs I found myself standing on the bottom layer, a few other prisoners were around the place, each one in the deepest levels had a guard specifically assigned to them for the day. Darek just happened to be mine, so he guided me over and stopped before a cart and pickaxe.
"I don't know why you think things will suddenly change in a few days. I'll either be given a death sentence, or I'll be sent to work in this pit for the rest of my life. No one wants me to live, and I don't even know why." My voice couldn't really convey the emotion, coming out as monotone as I gripped the pick. Taking a first swing to soften the rocks before slowly getting into a rhythmic motion, albeit a slower one than usual. Each strike saw some rubble shifted, yet I heard a rumble that cast my gaze upwards. Clouds were moving in, a storm would be here by tonight.
"No one knows for certain what their fate holds, Kirin. Keep that hope up, who knows, maybe the world could turn on its head overnight." Darek tried to cheer me up, but I couldn't bother to force a smile. I just kept striking the stone underfoot, the rhythm I hit the stone with accelerated slowly. Why did I even bother? Why shouldn't I just turn this blade on myself and end it all? I felt so much bottled up anger, bottled up hate for these people that despised me just because of a stupid name. I felt it boiling across my body, yet I couldn't do a single thing with it.
Yet, that anger left me to ignore the stares I was getting from all of the guards on the bottom floor. Each strike of my pick sent sparks flying, more than should have been there, it felt like my body had strength I didn't know I still had left in my frail muscles and bones. It was only when I was forced to a stop, heaving for breath as I fell to my knees that I realized... How had I made a crater around myself? The blade of my pick was glowing red and warped from the force I slammed it into rocks with. My gaze traveled around slowly, and Darek only smiled.
"Kirin, do you know what you just did?" Darek spoke softly, crouching in front of me as his smile only widened, hope shining in his eye.
"N-no... W-why am I so tired?..." I coughed out slowly, my voice was even more hoarse than normal, I could feel blood stinging the back of my throat, likely having been shredded open by inhaling all of the dust.
"Kirin, you just used magic. You have mana in your blood." Darek continued, yet it didn't register with me, not entirely.
"What?..." I returned, my gaze meeting his.
"You're an Arcadian Kirin." He stated firmly, a grin plastered on his face. He offered a hand to me, helping me up slowly while I just tried to fully register what it all meant. What did that mean? I didn't know, yet for the first time in almost five years I felt a smile on my face.