Beowulf Fic
Chapter 1
Hello my name is Arietta. I am a fairy common woman, average height and slender with a small frame, and long brown hair that matches the earth that match with a set of brown eyes who has the privilege to serve the mightiest and noblest in the kingdom of the Danes. I work as a wench in the holy Herot mead hall that our honorable king Hrothgar had made as sanctuary from war. Where warriors may relax and forget the trouble of war. I am here to tell the story of nobility, bravery and courage and my family. But this tale is not a joyful one, it is fill with demons of the night and deaths.
69 years earlier
The wooden doors of the mead hall swung open and I turn around seeing men boast as they crowded tables in high spirits. "Mistress!" The men calls banging their empty cups on the wooden tables, calling for the head wench Helena, my mother. I am only seven years young so I am not of age to be head care keeper it is a difficult to tend to. I turn to my mother, her face lined with faint wrinkles from a lifetime of cleaning up after men, but her hands are strong from the hard labor and she is a tough women to brake. With her chin high, back straight and her brown hair tied up on a bun high on her head she rolls up her sleeves to her dress and grabs a nearby tray.
"I'm coming, I'm coming." She says quieting the men slightly. I can feel my lips grow in a small grin on my face, feeling pride in my mother's strength. Hoping one day I can be as strong as her. I pick up a tray as well and walk down pouring drinks into nearby cups and only speaked when to spoken to.
"Aye Arietta!" a nearby warrior called and I hurry to the man's side. "Yes?" I ask. His mail shirt was thrown aside on the floor, his beaten helmet lays by his cup and his sword rests against his leg. The hilt peaking out from the sheath. "Arietta we once again return here with triumph! Do you not think that is not worthy of another round?" He laughs with his comrades and I nod with a polite smile and pour the bittersweet seductive juice of men into the cup. One by one I pour all night long after the moon has reached it's highest peak in the sky.
"All right ladies, it is indeed time to let these men lay peacefully in their drunken glory." My mother says pulling at her lace up bodice. All of us girls nod tiredly, worn out from the rowdy crowd. We shuffle blow out candles, gather cups and plates and toss aside trays till they tower high in sliver tower. We all walk to the back of the hall, our little quarters in a line my mother doing a head count as we all filter pass. I am the last one when our king, Hrothgar faintly calls out to my mother.
"Mistress?"
"Yes my lord?" my mother asks doing a small bow in his presence. The king pulls apart his lips, revealing white teeth that dare challenge the stars, and won. "Thank you for tending to my men, I am glad they are able to be spoiled by the finest care in the kingdom. May the lord, ruler of earth protect you and your girls another night so we may see you another morning." The king says as he says to my mother every night. And just as every night my mother's face redden at his kind words, taken aback by the compliment.
My mother bows, not able to speak and walks away, me trailing after her like a little duckling. That night I live out my routine, I change out of my long blue gather skirt, my white shirt and black vest and hung over the chair in the small square room I share with my mother, as head she received her own quarters. My mother changed me into a long white night shirt and tied the collar tightly around my thin neck. She comb and unknotted my brown hair that at the time only reached my small mid back. Then wrap me securely in the thin quilt as she went off to bathe, all the older women would bathe at night and we girls would in the morning.
That night, long after my mother returned and fell asleep clutching me to her body that I had thought I dreamt up a nightmare of the men not peacefully sleeping in the mead hall, but screaming in terror. But my young foolish mind force myself to believe that excuse.
When the moon had descended from the sky and the chirps of the morning larks rang out we all roll out of our makeshift beds and lay out our attires for the day, our mothers bathe the girls and helped us change back into our gather skirts, white shirts and our vests, weaving our manes into buns, locks occasionally prying themselves from our freshly combed scalps.
That morning, what we all thought would not diver from any other morning that was filled with dusting, washing, beating the rugs, and beating the men to wake. But when I walked out into the hall from the kitchen I came to different sight that I had left the previous night. My brown eyes filled up with tears and I let out a loud pitchy scream that the angels in heaven would wince out. My mother came running out, with the other women and girls and covered my eyes and my mouth with her strong hands trying to comfort me.
Herot was a sea of blood, red splattered onto the walls and the floors covered in a lake of red. Riped up bodies limps thrown about. The men who were usually still asleep gather around, mourning. "No! No! Keep the girls back. Do not let their young eyes gather in such a scene." My mother had ordered, still holding me, making me blind to the world. But I was not deaf, I could hear the moans of the men over their comrades, the gasp of the women and the cries of pain that we all shared.
"Who has done such a thing? Who dared stain Herot with sin?" My mother had asked. Speaking all the females curiosity. Then men's faces twisted into hatred and despair as our king spoke, the fiend's identity ringing out for all to hear of his sinful game.
"Grendal."