If anyone asked you where the village of Carinda was located, you would be greeted with a blank stare from most people. As it was, Carinda was a small village, more akin to a hamlet than anything, situated a day's ride from Castle Gryffindor and slightly less from the coast.
Circling Carinda was a large forest, full of darkness and evil, according to the locals. On the outskirts of the Dark Forest, a boy of no more than twelve summers sat under a mighty oak tree, eyes closed, ignorant of the world around him. A slight breeze blew through the trees, stirring the boy's jet black hair and lessening the summer heat that clung around the village.
"Sammael!" a voice yelled from the village. The boy wrinkled his nose, refusing to open his eyes as he rested in the blessed shade.
"Sammael!" the voice repeated, this time at a greater volume, disturbing several birds from their nests in the trees above.
The boy sighed softly to himself and lifted his eyelids, revealing eyes of the brightest green. Stumbling to his feet, Sammael, for that was the boy's name, looked down on Carinda and saw Lilith, the village's 'Lady' stalking towards him with her skirts bunched up in her fists.
Rolling his eyes, Sammael walked slowly down the slope to meet the woman. She was no blood relative of his, but Lilith had apparently taken it upon herself to make his life miserable by ordering him to do the most obscure and ridiculous of jobs. Just because he had accidently left the door of her stable open once when he was eight summers old, and freed both of her horses, he thought to himself.
By this time, Sammael had reached where Lilith had apparently decided was a sufficient distance for her to have walked from the village. An angry scowl marred her normally average features, and Sammael sighed to himself as the woman opened her mouth, with a tirade of fury surely moments away. He hated it here.
"What are you doing out here, boy?" she screamed shrilly. "You were supposed to be gathering firewood for the manor!"
"I was gathering the firewood, milady," Sammael replied, wincing slightly at the volume of her voice. "I have made a pile of it just where I was resting before." He regretted those last words as soon as they left his lips.
Lilith's face turned red behind her layers of face-powder, leaving her looking similar to a potato. "Why were you resting?" she bellowed. "Did I give you leave to rest? No I most certainly did not! Rest is not for servant boys! Servant boys do not deserve rest! Do I make myself clear?"
Sammael wiped away several droplets of spittle that had left Lilith's lips during her rant. "Perfectly, milady," he muttered. "I shall get back to my work then."
The woman before him nodded sharply. "See that you do, boy," she said as she scowled at him. "Oh, and I believe that the stables need mucking out again, do that before nightfall. Also, there will be no supper for you tonight. Lazy servants do not deserve supper." With that, she turned away and began walking back down the slope at a leisurely pace, probably smirking in victory, small as the victory was.
Sammael sighed once more. This was the third time this week that Lilith had taken away his supper 'privileges' for no apparent reason. She hated the boy with a passion. Sammael suspected that there was some other reason why the woman hated him, but he could never figure it out. Shrugging slightly, he strode back up the hill towards the forest boundary, intent on making sure that he would be finished with his work before nightfall.
The only stable in Carinda belonged to Lilith, which was most likely why she had all-but declared herself 'Lady' of the village. She owned several horses, all of whom Sammael hated at the moment. Why did these creatures have to leave such large and… fragrant… deposits, he wondered to himself as he scooped up the animal leavings with the old shovel.
Moving to the next pile of excrement, Sammael wondered if all servants had to work like this. Probably not in Castle Gryffindor, a small voice in his head replied. Falling into a daydream (although since night had almost fallen, it could probably just be called a dream), Sammael fantasised about what it would be like to live in the mighty fortress of Lord Godric.
Lord Godric was the local warlord, a mighty warrior and supposed wizard. Sammael shuddered as he thought about that particular myth. In all the stories told to the children of the village, wizards were beings of great evil, capable of raising armies of the dead and going on murderous rampages throughout Britannia, stopped only at great cost of life. Surely Lord Godric wasn't such a person.
It was Sammael's dream to live in Castle Gryffindor, regardless of the myths surrounding its defender. Surely life would be better there for a servant boy than in Carinda, home of some truly horrible human beings.
Sammael had been born in Carinda, but his mother had passed away after his birth, a not entirely uncommon thing during these times. Lilith, as self-titled leader of the village, had taken him into her household, training him almost from the cradle to be a slave to her, as well as anyone she gave permission to (which was pretty much the whole village; she loved making Sammael miserable).
His father, whoever he was, had never met Sammael, nor had Lilith ever told him who the man was. Sometimes, when he was younger, Sammael had often dreamt that his father was a mighty lord, just like Lord Godric, and would come riding in one day on a magnificent white horse to take him away from this horrible place.
Of course, as the years passed, Sammael had begun to outgrow such fantasies, and the cold reality that he was going to spend his whole life in Carinda was beginning to set in. Surely as the years passed, Lilith would eventually stop hating him, he thought to himself, immediately dismissing the idea as ludicrous.
Scooping up the last pile of manure, Sammael washed his hands in the bucket of water near the stable gate and walked slowly to the large house close to the stables that belonged to Lilith (in reality Lilith's house was not much larger than the stable, although still much larger than the other hovels that made up the village).
Waiting inside at the table was Lilith, eating greedily from a plate piled full of food. Food which most of the village worked hard to produce, and would probably kill for if they had the chance. Looking up from her meal, a scowl immediately formed on the woman's face, as if Sammael's very presence ruined her appetite.
"Finished finally, have you?" she grunted. "Go to bed immediately. I have no use for you tonight."
Sammael thanked his lucky stars. Most nights Lilith forced him to stay up and ranted on about how useless he was, why his parents were obviously ashamed of him, and just general horrible comments about him. Being sent to bed was a blessing, one that he was assured to take advantage of.
"Yes, milady," he muttered, turning to enter his room. Sammael's room was no larger than a water closet, and smelt almost as bad for some reason. Sammael leaned back against the wall facing the door and pulled his thin, ragged blanket around himself, closing his eyes and hoping against hope that he would to get to sleep before Lilith changed her mind.