stl: dave matthews band, 'eh hee'
He went unnoticed; that much he knew for sure.
He was no more than a figment of anyone's imagination, a formidable wraith, a whisper of the bogey man. As soon as he spoke, the carefully constructed sentences were forgotten by those around him, left them wondering if he had spoken at all. When he departed, they would be unable to recall his face. It had been this way all of his life-- it was an oddity he had grown accustomed to and was, truth be told, quite fond of. On many, many orders he would mysteriously appear and be gone again, the seedlings of gripping terror firmly rooted in the souls he sought without memory of what was said or who had been by their side.
His king and consorts knew his name and that was enough for him.
What they failed to recollect was his Haitian descent, his native tongue and magic that boiled beneath his skin. This, of course, left him with the element of surprise when the time would come. He longed to be a free man; having no master, no chains that cinched tight around his wrists was the life he longed for. He had never tasted freedom a day in his too-long existence. Soon, he soothed the pacing demon in his mind. Soon, he would light the fire, pave the way to his emancipation with the dead and dying bodies of his captors as his ancestors had.
Their voices, thousands of them, sang to him.
He allowed himself to be overcome with the white noise of their chants, see the priests and Queens dancing around, faces masked and painted. He permitted the eons old witchcraft to vibrate through his decrepit veins, filling his body to the brim until it spilled from his lips. This Houdou satiated his thirst more, no better, than any warm trickling of blood. All he had to do was bide his time as a shadow.
Soon he would be a free man.
He would never bend his knee in surrender again.
There would be king left to surrend to.