Dust is such a strange thing.
It appears seemingly from nowhere, layers building over hours and hours. A small nuisance, perhaps, though it stuck to everything. Hours sweeping, cleaning every little surface, every table, chair, cabinet that it fell upon, careful not to inhale. It stuck onto hands, the grime building up as it mingled with the sweat that came with the exhaustion. It would find its way into the oddest of places, the darkest of corners, unrelenting in its spread throughout the buildings. And yet, when it seems as if all of it has dissipated, brushed into the cool rigid wind of the Tevene winter, the night would pass, and it would appear again, as if it was mocking the world.
She accepted long ago that dust did not intend to mock her, ridicule her hours of cleaning, of service. The dust simply was, it existed, it didn't mean to be a nuisance to her. It knew nothing of the world, or at all. And besides, it was as much a prisoner to the wind as she was in this world.
Her thoughts were abandoned as she finished brushing off the dust on the cabinet, a small inspection following before she was satisfied. She looked around the room, carefully inspecting each surface, the smallest details accounted for. Her sharp eyes missed nothing, the smallest specks of dirt, nearly invisible, brushed away. It was a skill she had relied upon for the longest time, one she had needed.
It was one all the slaves needed.
She was shoved back into her room, the door slammed behind her with the clang of the physical locks and the soft invasive hum of the magical locks following shortly after. Slumping against the wall on her makeshift 'bed', she stared back at the blank space which had always greeted her at the end of the day's work around the mansion. She had been here for over ten years, and had shared this space with several others. At one time, there were four other slaves in the cramped, tiny cell. Escape plans were whispered around at night, the others usually ignoring the tiny girl sleeping on the hay. And sometimes, sometimes in the mornings they would be gone.
Down to the basement, their wails and screams penetrating the walls as she went about her duties. There was never any escape. And as she grew, the stream of slaves that trickled into her cell had all but vanished. Now all she had in her cell was a larger list of duties and the whistling of wind through the tiny gaps in the wall.
Her dinner was waiting for her after an entire day of household duties; a small piece of stale bread. Just enough to keep her from starving, but her stomach was always gnawing at her from the inside. She picked it up, inspecting it carefully for any signs of mould before chewing through it slowly. She stopped when she bit into a small raisin, a slight curl at the edge of her mouth. The baker must have dropped it in accidentally, and she cherished what little flavour it had to offer.
The luxury of taste was one she did not experience often.
On a good day, she would be left alone by the magister and any guests that he may have had at the time; Left alone to clean the mansion from top to bottom, to glance out the windows at the fading sun that signalled the end of the day and to curl up cold, lonely, but alive on the stone floor of her cell. On bad days, the magister would take out his frustrations on her. The pains, aches and bruises, she was numb to them all by now. Blood lingers for longer than pain, and the type of blood the magister worked with was more unpleasant to think about than the bleeding.
When she was jolted awake with the feel of cold metal latched onto her limbs, a blindfold over her eyes and senses assailed with what was unmistakably blood...
She wasn't entirely sure what this would be listed as, but it was very quickly turning into disaster.
'...ations are complete.'
'A hundred aren't cheap you know. Are you sure this is worth it?'
'That is just a drop in the ocean compared to what this could accomplish. Ready the slaves.'
The screaming began.
She wasn't sure what to expect when she woke up on the floor- disregarding the thoughts that she wouldn't wake up at all. Her eyes stayed sealed, wishing herself to fall back into the inky darkness of unconsciousness that would envelop her, keep her from thinking at all. The room was quiet, yet with her hearing slowly becoming clearer, sound slowly seeped into her surroundings. The occasional drip of liquid falling to the floor in a maddeningly inconsistent rhythm, and a muffled, sharp noise that she couldn't quite place- small reinforcements of her desire to return to slumber. She had a terrible, terrible feeling about whatever the sound was, and despite all of her common sense screaming at her to move, she lay still on the floor, almost childishly willing it all to go away.
As expected, it didn't.
The fog from her slumber finally dissipated, the increased clarity in her mind slowly turning to what had happened. Her Master's face, blood splattered across his face, spluttering as his last breath escaped him.
He wasn't her Master anymore.
He was dead.
The nausea, before unnoticed, suddenly hit her unprepared, her dulled senses finally returning when the smell of blood and death overwhelmed her and she tried, unsuccessfully, to hold off the vomit that was forced out of her. She rolled over clutching her knees to her chest, trying to ignore the pounding in her head as she tried to think...
It scared her.
It scared her more than the pain that was inflicted each week, her growling stomach screaming at her to be satiated... It scared her more than her tormentor. After all, pain was temporary. Stable, constant, yet temporary. She could deal with it. She had done it for seventeen long, drawn out years. She could continue doing that for the rest of her time. She could continue being a slave, easily. She could... She could...
She realised that this was the first time she had really thought her life through.
She realised that she was completely and utterly broken.
Strange. She thought the tears had stopped years ago.
But now...
What was going to happen to her now?
If- when they found her, they would see a crying slave covered in blood next to an assortment of corpses- including a magister. They wouldn't ask questions, and she would be off to a painful death. Could she escape? Through the back entrances of the mansion, through the poorer districts of the city, and out to the open roads? She knew there was a forest somewhere beyond the city limits, but she had never seen it herself. Would she survive there?
Of course she wouldn't. An elf running through the streets in rags away from a mansion? The common folk may hate the magisters, but they weren't stupid. There were bounties upon the heads of escaped slaves, and she knew that they wouldn't hesitate to pounce on a single elf...
Muffled noises roused her out of her thoughts; she focused upon the sound, a small distraction. The multiple walls of the mansion did an admirable job at keeping the sound obscure, until the loud squeal of an un-oiled door rushed into her ears, and voices began to shout out loud. She couldn't make out exactly what they were saying, but she didn't need to know that to figure out what was happening. They were trying to find the magister. And when they did...
She closed her eyes and prepared for the inevitable.
'...Get up.'
The thought sounded in her mind, but she didn't want to obey it. It sounded foreign, a sultry, mysterious tone to it, like it shouldn't belong...
'Your mistrust is... justified, I suppose, though the pressing issue of escape is still at hand.'
Wait... That...
Her eyes rushed open, hands pushing her back against the wall behind her as she sat up... and yet the silent, still room stared back at her.
'Wh..where are you-' She stuttered, glancing around the empty room, hoping that her suspicions were off, that there was another explanation... And yet, the voice made a small sound of annoyance, echoing inside of her mind.
'Well, I would have thought that to be obvious by now. I'm slightly disappointed.'
She dug her hands into her face as the tears started to fall again, her damp hands failing to distract her from her thoughts. She was an abomination. Despite keeping control, at least for now, a demon resided within her. She didn't even know how such a thing was possible with her limited grasp on magic, picked up through the years from what little she could understand of the magister's ramblings. Even if she managed to get herself to a safe haven, somewhere the magisters wouldn't, or preferably couldn't recapture her, nobody would accept her- if she was lucky, they would lock her up again, with even more chains and security than she had as a slave, constantly watched over for any sign of danger. If not...
Compared to such a fate, death almost seemed like a nicer option.
And that was before even considering the implications of holding a demon inside of her! What if the demon wanted to hurt her? To take control, lock her in metaphorical chains tight enough to relinquish all control? Would she take control whenever it would be convenient to.. to... She didn't even know what demons did in this world, or why! Why did they try to possess bodies? Why did they try to cross to this world! How was she meant to know if she could trust the demon?
Only her discipline stopped her from screaming.
A small sigh resonated through her mind, before the demon started to speak again, a low, firm tone rushing through her.
'Look. I know you're scared right now,' the voice purred, 'but you're going to have to trust me. At least for now. The others are about to break in, and I am very certain you do not want to be here for that.'
She closed her eyes for a second, breathing deeply for a second before slowly standing up.
If the demon hadn't hurt her yet, taken control when she was so vulnerable... Well...
It was already better than slavery.
'O..okay.'
Two hours of stumbling through the forest, and the voices finally ceased.
Two hours of her legs burning as they clipped every small rock, every root in the ground, the cuts and scrapes starting to bleed.
Two hours of questioning who she really was any more.
She finally stumbled across a small hill, with half of it forming a roof of sorts. It was the best cover she had found, and the sun was about to set, so she went to gather a few small logs, stacking them like she did in the fireplace, and striking the small sparks to light the flames. She allowed herself a small smile before she took out a meal for herself from her bag; just a small portion of bread and meat, although small would imply that this wasn't the largest dinner she had eaten in years. She didn't have the luxury of any cooking utensils, so it would take a few minutes of carefully handling the food over the fire. Staring into the flames was a good way to calm herself, and calm was exactly what she needed. She needed the calm to think, to plan, to... decide.
'Perhaps now would be a good time to talk.'
She almost burnt her hand as the voice startled her.
'Okay...' she replied, eyeing the flames with slightly more attention.
'I understand that my kind may not be the most... trustworthy, correct?'
'Yes...'
'I believe the mage was attempting to discover if the inhabitants, for the lack of a better word, of the Fade were able to be pulled into the physical realm.'
'Isn't that simply summoning a demon?' she asked in confusion.
'Demons are... naturally attracted to summons, as summoning weakens the barrier between the realms. The taste of this realm is ever so sweet.'
She wasn't sure whether to be frightened or intrigued by that statement.
'This mage, however, was trying to forcibly bind a demon against its own will. Keep in mind that demons are not trapped by a mage when summoned; they chose to cross the barrier, they hold the power that the summoner wants. It takes a remarkably strong mage to gain what they truly wanted from summoning demons.'
'So he managed to bind you to... me?' she asked, confusion still etched across her face. 'Even if it had worked properly, I don't see how that would have benefited him...'
'You see, this was not his final goal. If he had not died upon his own magic, and I was still bound to you, you can be certain that he would have been able to contain us with magic. If he could pull a demon across against their will, then he could find ways to manipulate even the strongest of any of the spirits.'
A small thought occurred to her over the crackling of the fire and the aroma of her meal. 'How do you know all this?'
'It is not the first time a mage has attempted this; and I could feel the ambition radiating outwards.'
'But now you're trapped within me.' She said, taking her meal out of the fire before gingerly taking a small bite, the heat almost burning her mouth before she swallowed,
'I underestimated the mage's power; I suppose this is the consequence. Which brings us back to the question of what you are to do now.'
'I... I suppose escaping Tevinter would be the first thing to do.'
'And which way exactly?'
'Well...'
She hadn't thought that far.
She knew she had to start making these decisions... But there was so much to consider, so much to plan, so-
She forced herself to calm down. There was a large map framed in gold hung above the main fireplace in the mansion... Tevinter was at the northern end of the land... So she would travel south. South to... To...
The other escaped slave. Escaped to the Free Marches...
They had said that they had been searching for two years... If the other slave had lost the magisters there for years...
She could do the same.
'Conviction is always a good first step...'
She didn't know what to make of that.
The small cave was fairly unassuming. It dug into the mountain, like most caves would, and the inky darkness was all she could see. Apart from the rats. And the cobwebs.
It was hard getting a lead, but she had eventually cornered one in an alley who was all too eager to spill his secrets. She had observed the smugglers for a few days. Contraband arrived from all over, legitimate trades blending in with those done behind the counter. And it all lead back to Kirkwall.
From the outside view she had, Kirkwall made Tevinter look bright and cheerful. A remarkable feat, really.
'They're coming now.'
Nodding slowly, she ducked her head behind a large pile of rocks, peering at what she could through the cracks as the shipment of goods was delivered. The leader of the smugglers checked the packages over, the collection of various poisons, potions and assorted 'goods', before nodding in approval as the men hauled the packages inside.
And then the elf stared directly at her through the rocks.
'So, why are you here?'
Her legs ached from the hours spent kneeling behind the rocks, but she managed to slowly push herself up off the ground with a slight groan.
'How-'
'None of my men have footprints that light.' The smuggler stepped towards her, her voice lowering. Dangerous. 'Now again, why are you here?'
'I suppose we'll have to remember to cover our tracks better next time.'
'Yes, best of plans, really. Follow a smuggler into a cave, it will be fun. Perhaps even antagonise a blood mage.'
'Kirkwall. I want in.'
The smuggler stared her down for a bit, eyes narrowing at her voice. 'You're from Tevinter, aren't you? How long have you been running?'
'She's more perceptive than I thought a smuggler would be. Interesting...'
She hesitated before the words tumbled out. 'Three years.'
The smuggler smiled.
'Three years? Nice. I would have settled for six months at this point. Hard to come by people who can work without announcing it to the world.'
The smuggler rummaged through her pockets, then threw a small badge over to her; she caught it before she could overcome her surprise.
'Name's Athenril. Lucky for you, I've been hiring. Strict no slave-policy, a roof over your head and a share of the coin we earn. So, what's your name?' The smuggler asked.
'...Vivian.'
A/N: Updated to fix some grammar issues, should all be in past tense now. TBH I think I still want to change a few things in here but it'll do for now.