A Demon's Tale
In a small village called Ruah, nestled near wooded area of
the Artelièn Forest on the Garphen continent, just one land in the wide world
of Medi Varnl, a fight is occurring between two boys between the ages of
seventeen and fifteen.
One boy is a bully by the name of Horac Ahnall, a blue-eyed, blonde-haired seventeen year-old with the build of an ox and all the brainpower of a pea. The other boy is several hands taller than his older counterpart at barely fifteen years of age but has much less mass and even less muscle. Dark of hair with deep, burnished amber eyes that glow with a strange inner light, he is the subject of the bully's ire.
And like most fights or wars, this fight is over something that is a part of one that the other does not like or understand. And very essential part, at that.
Horac swung his fist at Tristol, his knuckles connecting solidly with the younger boy's cheek. Tristol was slung to the ground by the fierce blow, landing face down in the dirt beneath their feet.
When he pushed himself up onto his knees, Horac's booted foot slammed ruthlessly into his stomach. The air knocked out of him by the blow, Tristol collapsed into the dirt with a gasp.
"Bastard," spat Tristol when he regained the ability to breathe, blood and spit dripping from his bruised mouth as he pushed himself on one elbow. "Kicking a man when he's down-"
"MAN?" sneered Horac, hate glinting in his eyes. "What MAN? All I see is some no good half-breed. Damn cat-man scum!" He kicked at Tristol again, this time in the head. The halfling saw it coming out of the corner of his left eye, however, and rolled away from the blow. Horac's foot breezed by his head and he silently thanked the gods that the kick hadn't connected. He'd likely have been left unconscious if it had and gods only knew what the bully would do to him then.
"Who's worse?" Tristol asked as he pushed himself up onto his feet, keeping an eye out for any more blows as he did so. "Me, who was born cursed, or you, who gets his kicks from beating up those weaker than you?"
Horac's face turned purple in rage and he growled, "You'll pay for that you filthy demon scum."
The cat-like, tufted ears that poked out of Tristol's dark hair twitched and he sniffed the air carefully, his heightened senses catching a familiar scent. A slow, sly grin slid across his face and he purred, "I don't think so."
A frown twitched onto the bully's face and he managed a disgruntled, "Huh?"
"The Constal’s coming," purred the halfling in explanation. "And you know he won't be too happy about finding us like this after the last time."
Horac paled a bit at the words and took a nervous step back, vainly brushing at the blood on his knuckles. Like most bullies, he was ready to pick a fight with anyone weaker than him but once someone stronger came along, he immediately tucked his tail between his legs and ran. The Constal - whose job was to basically keep things in a small land area in line for their liege Lord - in their area (who also lived in their little town) was Warrek Baxlell. He was a tall, stockily built man who was an ex-boxer, ex-printer and ex-assassin (though few knew of the latter) who put the fear of the gods into anyone that crossed him and was their gift to sentient beings to anyone who didn't.
Constal Baxlell also just so happened to be the older brother of the late Maeva Baxlell, Tristol's mother. After her death nine years before, he had moved from the home he’d made in the city of Takerruu on the Beldáketh continent with his wife to take care of his nephew. They had moved the six-year-old from his birth-village of Kayàerden and had been living in nearby Ruah ever since.
"Hoorac Aahnall!"
Horac froze like a deer caught in the eyes of a hunting wolf and turned to look in fear as Constal Baxlell stalked towards him. With several scars dotting his face and generally bare arms, shoulder-length mane of dark red hair, and piercing black eyes, Warrek Baxlell was as menacing a sight as an orc bearing down on you with bloodlust in its beady eyes. And at six feet in height, that description nearly fit. If it was a small orc, that is.
His heavily scarred left hand rested on the short sword he'd named Aaerguul as Baxlell stopped before the two youths and cast his piercing gaze from one to the other. Then his eyes fell on Horac after assessing Tristol's wounds and he growled out in a gravely voice, "Whot did Ah tell yeh about trooblin' me nephew eer, boy?"
"N-n-not t-o, s-s-sir," stammered out Horac.
"An' yeht yer here trooblin' 'em," said Baxlell, tapping his index finger against Aaerguul’s cross guard. "Are yeh stoopid, boy?"
"N-no, s-sir!"
Baxlell frowned and asked, "Then whot's yer excuse, eh? Ah'd lick ter 'ear whotevah it’d be."
Horac shifted uneasily and Tristol easily smelled the older boy's fear. It smelt of sweat and ruined honey and his nostrils rebelled at the scent of it. He let out a puff of air through his nose and moved a step away to try and keep that smell from getting back in.
"Ah'm waitin', boy!"
The bully jumped nearly two feet straight up and stared at the Constal in fear when he regained his balance. He opened his mouth to stammer out something but Baxlell cut him off with a sharp sweep of his hand.
"Nehvahmin', boy," he growled. "Jus' geh yer arse back ter yer home. Ah'll be by lahtah ter ‘ave ah talk wif yer folks abouh ahll dis. An' doan ye try ter skimp out ohn it, ye 'ear? Or by dah gohds, Ah'll hunt ye doon an let ye 'ave ah taste o' meh soord. Understood?"
"Y-yes, s-sir!" stammered Horac and he stumbled over his own feet in an effort to get away from Baxlell as swiftly as he could. Tristol had a hard time keeping back his laughter at the sight.
The Constal watched him run for a moment then turned critical eyes onto his nephew. He skimmed over the quickly forming bruises that he could see and settled his gaze upon a gash that slashed through Tristol's right eyebrow and was dripping blood down into his eye. Digging into one of the pouches on his wide belt, he pulled out a nearly clean scrap of cloth and extended it to the halfling. Tristol took it in silence and gingerly pressed it to the gash, wincing as he did so.
They stood in silence for a few moments then Baxlell asked, "Yeh ahrigh', lad?"
A burnished amber eye (the other hidden behind the cloth) met the Constal's black for a brief moment then darted away. Tristol gritted his teeth behind his lips, his elongated canines digging into his flesh, and lied, "I'm fine, Uncle."
Baxlell frowned at him and he insisted, "I'm fine!"
"Fine ahn't whot yeh geh when yer bleedin' like tha', lad."
"I'm fine," repeated Tristol, this time with a little bit of a growl in his voice.
The Constal sighed and closed his eyes, lifting his right hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. When he lowered his hand a few moments later, he gazed levelly at his nephew and said, "Yeh've goh tah learn ter stand up fer yerself, Tris-lad. Elsewise one's like tha' Hoorace'll run ahll ooer ye yer 'ole life."
"I know, Uncle," said Tristol softly, his ears drooping a little. "I know."
"Ah doon think yeh do, lad." Baxlell laid a large, scarred hand on his nephew's rake-thin shoulder and continued, "Yer moother woold nah wan' yeh ter let scoondrul's like tha 'un do t’ing's like tha ter yeh. Why do yeh allow 'im ter woolk ahll oover yeh like tha?"
The young halfling didn't answer his uncle, keeping his eyes focused on the dusty ground beneath his booted feet. He didn't want to tell the man standing beside him, the man that had cared for him since his mother's death, that he feared he might kill someone if he fought back. It wasn't that his uncle wouldn't understand killing, he knew he would if no one else did.
It was the fact that his uncle (nor anyone else) had not even the merest inkling of an idea of the bestial rage that Tristol kept padlocked behind the doors of his soul. And he didn't want anyone - not even the uncle who would understand - to see that side of him.
He never wanted anyone to know how much he wanted to let himself go when people threw verbal jibes at him, to hurl himself across the space between them and rip out their throats with his fangs. Never wanted anyone to know the many times he'd found himself walking past Horac and could see himself slicing the older boy up like a butcher did a pig in his mind's eye and enjoying every minute of it.
That was a part of himself that he wanted no one else to find out about. It was a part he was ashamed of and wanted nothing more than to get rid of.
But how could he get rid of something that was a part of his makeup? Something that had come from his father, who had been one of the cat-men - the Feloinain’s - who lived in the Dritilyn Range in nearby Charybd. Their viciousness and sheer brutality was legend all across Medi Varnl but somehow - someway his mother had managed to live through an encounter with one and had loved him somehow. That sheer fact gave Tristol the hope that the legends about the people who were half his weren’t true.
"Tristol? An'ser meh, lad."
His uncle's voice broke through to Tristol's occupied mind and he closed his eyes as he spoke with inflection.
"I'm sorry, Uncle," he said softly, "but I can't tell you that. I'm sorry."
Baxlell's scarred face clouded briefly with anger then it cleared as he heaved a sighed and squeezed his nephew's shoulder. He then slid his arm about the thin form and pulled the boy into a bear hug.
"I's ahrigh', Tris-lad," he said in his gravely voice. "Yeh c'n tell meh in yer oon time."
"Okay, Uncle," said Tristol into the older man's chest, knowing that he'd never tell the man his reasons for not fighting back.
But his uncle didn't need to know that. At least not at the current moment in time.
Baxlell looked down at his halfling nephew and said, "Le's get oon hoome, lad. Ah'm as 'ungry as a dragon."
Tristol nodded and let his uncle steer him down the dusty streets of Ruah towards their home, reveling in the warmth of the man's arm around his shoulders. But his fears still pecked at him from inside and he made a silent prayer that they would never come to fruition.
-----//-----
"Mama! Mama, lookit whot I foun'!"
A tall, willowy woman with long, dark hair and beautiful sapphire eyes lifted her head and smiled as a small body impacted against her legs. Reaching down to the head pillowed against her belly, she stroked the tufted, cat-like ears atop her child's dark head and laughed merrily.
Her laughter sounded like the soft tinkling of bells.
"And what have you found, my sweetling?" she asked with a smile.
"Lookit!" exclaimed the child, holding up his hands, which were cupped together. He opened them and a tiny dragon-like sprite with black and amber markings on its fragile, crystalline wings fluttered up out of his grasp. "Aw..."
"Beautiful," said the women, her eyes following the winged beasts flight. Then she turned her eyes onto her child and asked, "Do you know what that was, little one?"
"Ah Dwagyte!"
The woman smiled and picked up her little boy, hugging him close to her. His head fit perfectly underneath hers and she rested her chin between his furry ears, their tufts tickling her cheeks.
"Exactly, my sweetling," she said. "Beautiful, wasn't it?"
"Yeth," said the child. He then tilted his head back and asked, "Mama, am I beautiful?"
The woman's eyes sparkled slightly with unshed tears as her only child asked that question. She hugged him closer to her breast and breathed, "You blind me with your beauty, Tris. Don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise."
"Yeth, Mama. ...Mama? Mama, what's wong?"
"Run, Tris," replied the woman, settling her six-year-old son on the ground again. Her eyes were focused on something coming up from behind him and they were filled with fear. "Run!"
"But, Mama!" cried the boy, throwing his arms about her waist. "I doan wanna leave you!"
"Run," repeated the woman, shoving him gently away from her and towards a small copse of trees nearby. She glanced fearfully over her shoulder at the approaching mob, who had murder in their eyes. "Run, my sweetling! Run and hide!"
"Mama! Mama, NO!"
The woman was gone. All that remained of her beauty and grace was a charred corpse tied roughly to an impromptu stake.
"MAMA!"
"Tris-lad!"
Tristol jerked upright suddenly, his breath coming in sharp gasps that did nothing to fill his lungs. He felt large hands on his thin shoulders then and scrambled away, curling his tall body up into as small a ball as he could, whimpering all the while. To his current mindset he was six-years-old again and hands that weren't his mother's could only be those of the mob who had killed her before his young eyes.
"Calm doon, lad," whispered a rough but gentle voice. It was a voice that had comforted the halfling ever since his mother's death. His uncle's voice, not that of one of the mob.
"I's ahrigh, lad. Jus' meh. I's jus' meh."
"U-uncle?" whispered Tristol, lifting his head slightly. His eyes adjusted easily to the darkness in the room and he saw his uncle's familiar form through the blackness that had easily become dusk to his eyes.
"Yeh," replied Baxlell. He slowly eased himself down onto the other end of the youth's bed and sat there in silence for a moment. Then he sighed and said, "Yeh dreamed abouh 'er again, didn' yeh?"
Tristol just nodded in response, his throat too tight to allow him to speak.
"Righ'."
Baxlell nodded to himself and sat there in silence, his fingers nervously picking at the quilt his wife had made for his nephew.
"Yeh goh ter get oover i', lad," he said after a moment. "I's been eatin' yeh up froom tha inside fer too many years."
"I can't," choked Tristol, shaking his head. "I can't forget..."
"Ye mus', lad."
"NO!" shouted Tristol, lurching into a sitting position. His eyes burned holes into his uncle's face as he snarled, "You weren't there! You didn't see them advance on her, didn't see them grab her and call her a filthy whore - a lover of beasts. You didn't see it when they dragged her over to that tree and lashed her to it. YOU DIDN'T HEAR HER SCREAM AS SHE BURNED! And she didn't scream your name out as she died! IT WAS MINE! I was there and I saw everything! WHERE WERE YOU?! Where were you when they took her from me?!"
The two of them sat staring at each other in the dark for a long time after he finished. No sound broke the silence between them except for the harsh sound of the youth's breathing.
After a moment, Baxlell said, "I knoo Ah wasn't dere, lad. An' fer tha Ah'm soory. Soory yeh 'ad ter see tha."
"I'm glad you weren't there," hissed Tristol impulsively in the next instant. "I wouldn't have seen the bounds of human cruelty if you had been there."
Baxlell gave his nephew a sad look for a long moment at those words. He then reached out a hand to touch the youth's shoulder but Tristol jerked away from it like it was a hot poker. The rattling hiss he uttered as he did so rang in the Constal' ears for a long while afterwards.
"Ahrigh, lad," he said wearily then. "Ahrigh. Jus' remembeh i' ahn't MEH yeh need ter be mad a'. I's dem animals tha burned yer moother."
"I can be mad at whoever I choose to be mad at!" shouted Tristol. Tears he had held back since he'd woken up welled fiercely at the corners of his eyes now and he closed them to keep them in. "Whether it's you, them, Horac Ahnall or the whole damn world!"
"Aye, lad, yeh c'n. But jus' remembeh who i' really is yer s'poosed ter be mad a'. 'Cause when yeh ferget tha, yeh've gooh noothin' ter be mad abou'."
The halfling just glowered at the older man in response to that. After a moment or two, Baxlell sighed and rose to his feet. He stood by the bed for a moment then moved towards the door and said, "Ge' some more sleep, lad. An' remembeh whot Ah said."
There was silence until the door eased shut, leaving the room in darkness again. Then a pair of vaguely glowing eyes opened and a cat-like hiss echoed through the room.
"I'll remember, Uncle," hissed Tristol, his voice only just loud enough to be heard by himself. "I will remember and I will get revenge for all done wrong to me and my mother. On that, you can be assured."
One boy is a bully by the name of Horac Ahnall, a blue-eyed, blonde-haired seventeen year-old with the build of an ox and all the brainpower of a pea. The other boy is several hands taller than his older counterpart at barely fifteen years of age but has much less mass and even less muscle. Dark of hair with deep, burnished amber eyes that glow with a strange inner light, he is the subject of the bully's ire.
And like most fights or wars, this fight is over something that is a part of one that the other does not like or understand. And very essential part, at that.
Horac swung his fist at Tristol, his knuckles connecting solidly with the younger boy's cheek. Tristol was slung to the ground by the fierce blow, landing face down in the dirt beneath their feet.
When he pushed himself up onto his knees, Horac's booted foot slammed ruthlessly into his stomach. The air knocked out of him by the blow, Tristol collapsed into the dirt with a gasp.
"Bastard," spat Tristol when he regained the ability to breathe, blood and spit dripping from his bruised mouth as he pushed himself on one elbow. "Kicking a man when he's down-"
"MAN?" sneered Horac, hate glinting in his eyes. "What MAN? All I see is some no good half-breed. Damn cat-man scum!" He kicked at Tristol again, this time in the head. The halfling saw it coming out of the corner of his left eye, however, and rolled away from the blow. Horac's foot breezed by his head and he silently thanked the gods that the kick hadn't connected. He'd likely have been left unconscious if it had and gods only knew what the bully would do to him then.
"Who's worse?" Tristol asked as he pushed himself up onto his feet, keeping an eye out for any more blows as he did so. "Me, who was born cursed, or you, who gets his kicks from beating up those weaker than you?"
Horac's face turned purple in rage and he growled, "You'll pay for that you filthy demon scum."
The cat-like, tufted ears that poked out of Tristol's dark hair twitched and he sniffed the air carefully, his heightened senses catching a familiar scent. A slow, sly grin slid across his face and he purred, "I don't think so."
A frown twitched onto the bully's face and he managed a disgruntled, "Huh?"
"The Constal’s coming," purred the halfling in explanation. "And you know he won't be too happy about finding us like this after the last time."
Horac paled a bit at the words and took a nervous step back, vainly brushing at the blood on his knuckles. Like most bullies, he was ready to pick a fight with anyone weaker than him but once someone stronger came along, he immediately tucked his tail between his legs and ran. The Constal - whose job was to basically keep things in a small land area in line for their liege Lord - in their area (who also lived in their little town) was Warrek Baxlell. He was a tall, stockily built man who was an ex-boxer, ex-printer and ex-assassin (though few knew of the latter) who put the fear of the gods into anyone that crossed him and was their gift to sentient beings to anyone who didn't.
Constal Baxlell also just so happened to be the older brother of the late Maeva Baxlell, Tristol's mother. After her death nine years before, he had moved from the home he’d made in the city of Takerruu on the Beldáketh continent with his wife to take care of his nephew. They had moved the six-year-old from his birth-village of Kayàerden and had been living in nearby Ruah ever since.
"Hoorac Aahnall!"
Horac froze like a deer caught in the eyes of a hunting wolf and turned to look in fear as Constal Baxlell stalked towards him. With several scars dotting his face and generally bare arms, shoulder-length mane of dark red hair, and piercing black eyes, Warrek Baxlell was as menacing a sight as an orc bearing down on you with bloodlust in its beady eyes. And at six feet in height, that description nearly fit. If it was a small orc, that is.
His heavily scarred left hand rested on the short sword he'd named Aaerguul as Baxlell stopped before the two youths and cast his piercing gaze from one to the other. Then his eyes fell on Horac after assessing Tristol's wounds and he growled out in a gravely voice, "Whot did Ah tell yeh about trooblin' me nephew eer, boy?"
"N-n-not t-o, s-s-sir," stammered out Horac.
"An' yeht yer here trooblin' 'em," said Baxlell, tapping his index finger against Aaerguul’s cross guard. "Are yeh stoopid, boy?"
"N-no, s-sir!"
Baxlell frowned and asked, "Then whot's yer excuse, eh? Ah'd lick ter 'ear whotevah it’d be."
Horac shifted uneasily and Tristol easily smelled the older boy's fear. It smelt of sweat and ruined honey and his nostrils rebelled at the scent of it. He let out a puff of air through his nose and moved a step away to try and keep that smell from getting back in.
"Ah'm waitin', boy!"
The bully jumped nearly two feet straight up and stared at the Constal in fear when he regained his balance. He opened his mouth to stammer out something but Baxlell cut him off with a sharp sweep of his hand.
"Nehvahmin', boy," he growled. "Jus' geh yer arse back ter yer home. Ah'll be by lahtah ter ‘ave ah talk wif yer folks abouh ahll dis. An' doan ye try ter skimp out ohn it, ye 'ear? Or by dah gohds, Ah'll hunt ye doon an let ye 'ave ah taste o' meh soord. Understood?"
"Y-yes, s-sir!" stammered Horac and he stumbled over his own feet in an effort to get away from Baxlell as swiftly as he could. Tristol had a hard time keeping back his laughter at the sight.
The Constal watched him run for a moment then turned critical eyes onto his nephew. He skimmed over the quickly forming bruises that he could see and settled his gaze upon a gash that slashed through Tristol's right eyebrow and was dripping blood down into his eye. Digging into one of the pouches on his wide belt, he pulled out a nearly clean scrap of cloth and extended it to the halfling. Tristol took it in silence and gingerly pressed it to the gash, wincing as he did so.
They stood in silence for a few moments then Baxlell asked, "Yeh ahrigh', lad?"
A burnished amber eye (the other hidden behind the cloth) met the Constal's black for a brief moment then darted away. Tristol gritted his teeth behind his lips, his elongated canines digging into his flesh, and lied, "I'm fine, Uncle."
Baxlell frowned at him and he insisted, "I'm fine!"
"Fine ahn't whot yeh geh when yer bleedin' like tha', lad."
"I'm fine," repeated Tristol, this time with a little bit of a growl in his voice.
The Constal sighed and closed his eyes, lifting his right hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. When he lowered his hand a few moments later, he gazed levelly at his nephew and said, "Yeh've goh tah learn ter stand up fer yerself, Tris-lad. Elsewise one's like tha' Hoorace'll run ahll ooer ye yer 'ole life."
"I know, Uncle," said Tristol softly, his ears drooping a little. "I know."
"Ah doon think yeh do, lad." Baxlell laid a large, scarred hand on his nephew's rake-thin shoulder and continued, "Yer moother woold nah wan' yeh ter let scoondrul's like tha 'un do t’ing's like tha ter yeh. Why do yeh allow 'im ter woolk ahll oover yeh like tha?"
The young halfling didn't answer his uncle, keeping his eyes focused on the dusty ground beneath his booted feet. He didn't want to tell the man standing beside him, the man that had cared for him since his mother's death, that he feared he might kill someone if he fought back. It wasn't that his uncle wouldn't understand killing, he knew he would if no one else did.
It was the fact that his uncle (nor anyone else) had not even the merest inkling of an idea of the bestial rage that Tristol kept padlocked behind the doors of his soul. And he didn't want anyone - not even the uncle who would understand - to see that side of him.
He never wanted anyone to know how much he wanted to let himself go when people threw verbal jibes at him, to hurl himself across the space between them and rip out their throats with his fangs. Never wanted anyone to know the many times he'd found himself walking past Horac and could see himself slicing the older boy up like a butcher did a pig in his mind's eye and enjoying every minute of it.
That was a part of himself that he wanted no one else to find out about. It was a part he was ashamed of and wanted nothing more than to get rid of.
But how could he get rid of something that was a part of his makeup? Something that had come from his father, who had been one of the cat-men - the Feloinain’s - who lived in the Dritilyn Range in nearby Charybd. Their viciousness and sheer brutality was legend all across Medi Varnl but somehow - someway his mother had managed to live through an encounter with one and had loved him somehow. That sheer fact gave Tristol the hope that the legends about the people who were half his weren’t true.
"Tristol? An'ser meh, lad."
His uncle's voice broke through to Tristol's occupied mind and he closed his eyes as he spoke with inflection.
"I'm sorry, Uncle," he said softly, "but I can't tell you that. I'm sorry."
Baxlell's scarred face clouded briefly with anger then it cleared as he heaved a sighed and squeezed his nephew's shoulder. He then slid his arm about the thin form and pulled the boy into a bear hug.
"I's ahrigh', Tris-lad," he said in his gravely voice. "Yeh c'n tell meh in yer oon time."
"Okay, Uncle," said Tristol into the older man's chest, knowing that he'd never tell the man his reasons for not fighting back.
But his uncle didn't need to know that. At least not at the current moment in time.
Baxlell looked down at his halfling nephew and said, "Le's get oon hoome, lad. Ah'm as 'ungry as a dragon."
Tristol nodded and let his uncle steer him down the dusty streets of Ruah towards their home, reveling in the warmth of the man's arm around his shoulders. But his fears still pecked at him from inside and he made a silent prayer that they would never come to fruition.
-----//-----
"Mama! Mama, lookit whot I foun'!"
A tall, willowy woman with long, dark hair and beautiful sapphire eyes lifted her head and smiled as a small body impacted against her legs. Reaching down to the head pillowed against her belly, she stroked the tufted, cat-like ears atop her child's dark head and laughed merrily.
Her laughter sounded like the soft tinkling of bells.
"And what have you found, my sweetling?" she asked with a smile.
"Lookit!" exclaimed the child, holding up his hands, which were cupped together. He opened them and a tiny dragon-like sprite with black and amber markings on its fragile, crystalline wings fluttered up out of his grasp. "Aw..."
"Beautiful," said the women, her eyes following the winged beasts flight. Then she turned her eyes onto her child and asked, "Do you know what that was, little one?"
"Ah Dwagyte!"
The woman smiled and picked up her little boy, hugging him close to her. His head fit perfectly underneath hers and she rested her chin between his furry ears, their tufts tickling her cheeks.
"Exactly, my sweetling," she said. "Beautiful, wasn't it?"
"Yeth," said the child. He then tilted his head back and asked, "Mama, am I beautiful?"
The woman's eyes sparkled slightly with unshed tears as her only child asked that question. She hugged him closer to her breast and breathed, "You blind me with your beauty, Tris. Don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise."
"Yeth, Mama. ...Mama? Mama, what's wong?"
"Run, Tris," replied the woman, settling her six-year-old son on the ground again. Her eyes were focused on something coming up from behind him and they were filled with fear. "Run!"
"But, Mama!" cried the boy, throwing his arms about her waist. "I doan wanna leave you!"
"Run," repeated the woman, shoving him gently away from her and towards a small copse of trees nearby. She glanced fearfully over her shoulder at the approaching mob, who had murder in their eyes. "Run, my sweetling! Run and hide!"
"Mama! Mama, NO!"
The woman was gone. All that remained of her beauty and grace was a charred corpse tied roughly to an impromptu stake.
"MAMA!"
"Tris-lad!"
Tristol jerked upright suddenly, his breath coming in sharp gasps that did nothing to fill his lungs. He felt large hands on his thin shoulders then and scrambled away, curling his tall body up into as small a ball as he could, whimpering all the while. To his current mindset he was six-years-old again and hands that weren't his mother's could only be those of the mob who had killed her before his young eyes.
"Calm doon, lad," whispered a rough but gentle voice. It was a voice that had comforted the halfling ever since his mother's death. His uncle's voice, not that of one of the mob.
"I's ahrigh, lad. Jus' meh. I's jus' meh."
"U-uncle?" whispered Tristol, lifting his head slightly. His eyes adjusted easily to the darkness in the room and he saw his uncle's familiar form through the blackness that had easily become dusk to his eyes.
"Yeh," replied Baxlell. He slowly eased himself down onto the other end of the youth's bed and sat there in silence for a moment. Then he sighed and said, "Yeh dreamed abouh 'er again, didn' yeh?"
Tristol just nodded in response, his throat too tight to allow him to speak.
"Righ'."
Baxlell nodded to himself and sat there in silence, his fingers nervously picking at the quilt his wife had made for his nephew.
"Yeh goh ter get oover i', lad," he said after a moment. "I's been eatin' yeh up froom tha inside fer too many years."
"I can't," choked Tristol, shaking his head. "I can't forget..."
"Ye mus', lad."
"NO!" shouted Tristol, lurching into a sitting position. His eyes burned holes into his uncle's face as he snarled, "You weren't there! You didn't see them advance on her, didn't see them grab her and call her a filthy whore - a lover of beasts. You didn't see it when they dragged her over to that tree and lashed her to it. YOU DIDN'T HEAR HER SCREAM AS SHE BURNED! And she didn't scream your name out as she died! IT WAS MINE! I was there and I saw everything! WHERE WERE YOU?! Where were you when they took her from me?!"
The two of them sat staring at each other in the dark for a long time after he finished. No sound broke the silence between them except for the harsh sound of the youth's breathing.
After a moment, Baxlell said, "I knoo Ah wasn't dere, lad. An' fer tha Ah'm soory. Soory yeh 'ad ter see tha."
"I'm glad you weren't there," hissed Tristol impulsively in the next instant. "I wouldn't have seen the bounds of human cruelty if you had been there."
Baxlell gave his nephew a sad look for a long moment at those words. He then reached out a hand to touch the youth's shoulder but Tristol jerked away from it like it was a hot poker. The rattling hiss he uttered as he did so rang in the Constal' ears for a long while afterwards.
"Ahrigh, lad," he said wearily then. "Ahrigh. Jus' remembeh i' ahn't MEH yeh need ter be mad a'. I's dem animals tha burned yer moother."
"I can be mad at whoever I choose to be mad at!" shouted Tristol. Tears he had held back since he'd woken up welled fiercely at the corners of his eyes now and he closed them to keep them in. "Whether it's you, them, Horac Ahnall or the whole damn world!"
"Aye, lad, yeh c'n. But jus' remembeh who i' really is yer s'poosed ter be mad a'. 'Cause when yeh ferget tha, yeh've gooh noothin' ter be mad abou'."
The halfling just glowered at the older man in response to that. After a moment or two, Baxlell sighed and rose to his feet. He stood by the bed for a moment then moved towards the door and said, "Ge' some more sleep, lad. An' remembeh whot Ah said."
There was silence until the door eased shut, leaving the room in darkness again. Then a pair of vaguely glowing eyes opened and a cat-like hiss echoed through the room.
"I'll remember, Uncle," hissed Tristol, his voice only just loud enough to be heard by himself. "I will remember and I will get revenge for all done wrong to me and my mother. On that, you can be assured."