I know I have been inactive recently. Just read this if you want. Updates about my other stories are at the end. Thanks all for being patient.
Enjoy!
A week after Morgorath's defeat at Hackham Heath, a child was born in Skandia. His mother was assigned to kitchen duty so she could take care of the child. When the boy was three years old, his mother died from starvation, the cold, and hopelessness. Another kitchen slave was assigned to taking care of him; she never treated him fairly, it could have been from the harsh climate, or the fact that she had had a son who had died at birth. Either way, the boy was not treated fairly. When he was five, the maid who took care of him, sickened and died; so once again he was left to himself, this time however, no one was assigned to help him grow up. So from five to eight he lived on his own as a kitchen slave. Then when he became eight, he was given as a gift to a friend of his master. For two weeks the boy was used as a yard slave to this Skandian, then the man went off looting and died in a storm at sea; so this boy and all the Skandian's other slaves, were taken by the late Skandian's friends. The boy was unfortunately taken by one of the man's less nice friends. For the next seven years of his life, he was used in bad ways to please sick Skandians. He was only eight for two weeks when his inocence was taken from him, since then he became a hard-hearted young man. When he did what his masters thought wrong, he would be punished. To him, the world was a cruel place, one where no good was possible.
When he turned fifteen, he was taken by his master to his master's ship. His master was to fight in some war somewhere. The boy did not care, he was simply a slave. His master took him to his cabin and directed him to stay. The young man did as he was told. About an hour after he had entered the ship, he felt it moving and knew it was leaving the harbor.
For the next two months (For they hit a large storm which took them far off course), they sailed down the coast heading to some land, Araluen, where a man had hired them to help to fight a war. The young man shared a bed and room with his master. The day before they would leave the ship and continue to their destination on land, the man was packing. When he finished, he left the cabin and went up on deck, then went to the bow. It was night, a light breeze ruffled the man's brown hair, his lifeless, pale, blue eyes stared out over the land he would soon be traveling on. So far his life had been miserable, he was a slave, simple as that. Born to it, and as far as he knew, so were his parents; although, when his mother was still alive, she would-when she wasn't dwelling in her misery-tell him of migical people who could disappear into the land, how these people lived in trees. When his mother was alive, he had imagined himself being magical, he had thought of these stories, and hoped; but now, now he was out of hope. It was useless really, you hope, and your hope is shattered, all it does is disappoint you, so he gave up, simple as that, he was a broken man.
The next day they left, the man carrying his master's belongings. They traveled for a week. Then stopped, meeting up with a friend of his masters, a Jarl(1) named Erak.
"Darhak! Good to see you!" Erak bellowed in the typical Skandian way of speech.
"Erak! How are you?" Darhak responded in kind.
"Good, good! What took you so long?"
"Ah! We hit this mother of a storm! She bashed us around for ages! The waves were huge! Almost felt like a storm from the stormy season!" (2)As the Skandians settled down to share their stories of recent troubles, the slave began to set up camp. When he finished, he noticed a young, blond girl for the first time. He nodded to her and went to make dinner, when he was finished serving the Skandians, he glanced at Jarl Darhak. Who seeing his glance at the girl, spoke to Erak about her, "Hey Erak! My slave wants to know if she can have some dinner?" Erak glanced at the girl and nodded his head vigorously.
The slave, seeing this, gestured to the girl, and handed her a bowl of soup. She grabbed it and looked at him, "Thank you." she said, unfortunately the slave couldn't understand her; so he just shrugged his shoulders and muttered in Skandian. He then turned to listen to the Skandians' conversation.
Erak was speaking, "Yeah, so the bridge he had been building was burnt, so we're heading home. His plan seems like it'll be a failure, that's what happens when you plan too much." Erak shook his head, "We found this girl, here, at the bridge, she was trying to burn it down, well, she succeeded. I gotta admit, she's got guts."
Darhak glanced over at the girl who obviously didn't understand their language; and when she saw his glance, stared back at him resolutely. He chuckled, "Heh! You're right!" Then he stood up, "Looks like time to turn in. I'll be seeing you in the morning." Again he chuckled, then gestured to the slave to come over to him. Darhak led him towards his bedroll, then stopped to whisper in his ear, "Boy, I want you to keep an eye on that girl, she smells like trouble. Got that?" The slave nodded slightly. "Good! Now tonight I'm a bit more tired than usual, so tonight I'll be sleeping on my own. Now, sleep!" Sighing inwardly, his slave went to go sleep in a ball underneath a small sack of his, it barely kept the cold out, but since he was used to this, and the fact that it was warmer here than in Skandia, the slave was comfortable.
The next morning, found the two friends deciding to head back to their ships together. Unfortunately, along the way, they ran into none other then Morgorath himself, the man who hired them. "Ah, Captain, where, may I ask, are you heading?" He said in his weasily little voce. (3)
"Sir, I am a Jarl." Erak corrected, emphasizing the 'sir', mocking him, "And we are headed for Three Step Pass."
"Indeed?" Morgorath seemed skeptical.(4)"I'll be seeing you there then." With that warning, the evil man left, cackling, evilly. (5)
Yes, I know this is a sucky ending. But deal with it, I wrote it ages ago, found it a few moments ago and I wanted to get this out real soon. I haven't exactly been writing a lot lately, so take this as an apology. Whether this story will be continued or not remains unknown. I guess it depends on whether or not the bunny that attacked me all those months ago comes back or not. However, reviews on this story would be appreciated.
Updates about 'Dead or Alive?', well let me think. My ideas for that story seem to have gone kinda flat. I still know what I wanna write, but not how. So while I'm figuring that out, I advise you to not hope too much about that story being updated soon.
'A Letter' Has been updated. Third chapter, is from Alyss Mainwaring. Please check it out.
(1) Can't you just imagine them going 'Arghy matey!' and 'Shiver me timbers!' right now? I can. (2) With a capital J. (3) Can't you tell how much I love him? (4) Okay, around this part I started searching and searching and tearing my room up, to find the second book so I could reinact their meeting. But I couldn't find it, so please bear with me? (5) EVILLY