Bound By Madness

1. Planting A Seed

I was just a small child, barely even old enough to play outside with the other local children, when I lost my ability to speak. I can't really remember how it happened, the whole day nothing but one big blur of colors and sounds, all ending with a scream and then silence. I didn't even know if the scream had been from me or someone else.

Father never could find any sign of damage to my throat and no matter how many priests he took me to, all the prayers to their Gods and Goddesses did nothing to bring my voice back to me. Not that I really understood at the time, other than one day I had been able to make words and the next, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't make even the faintest of words pass my lips.

I was blessed though, even in my mute state, for my father had learned enough of his letters that he spent time each day teaching me how to write and read. Mostly it was forming letters on the dirt floor of our home with sticks or sometimes on small slabs of damp clay that would then get used to make dishes to sell in the market. But once in a while, he would bring home a piece of parchment. It was rare that he could afford such a luxury, most of our money going to food and what little cloth we could afford for my mother to make clothing from.

Because of this, the parchment was usually used for him to show me how to spell important words, like the names of people and places that were important. He would then keep that parchment and teach me about those whose names were listed. This is how I learned the names of Emperors, both past and present, the cities of Cyrodiil, important cities in other lands across Tamriel, even which Guilds were safe and which to be wary of.

The Mages' Guild was considered mostly safe, along with the Fighters' Guild so long as you knew how to defend yourself, while the Thieves Guild was unsafe but not deadly to deal with since they had the policy to avoid killing their targets. The Dark Brotherhood and Morag Tong were both to be avoided at all costs since they were assassins that knew no pity, and if you were their target, you would be dead as soon as they found you.

According to father, it was as bad to be their target as it was to be one of them since they only recruited the most deadly of all murderers into their ranks. And the Brotherhood was the worst of the two since they killed for money, as well as in the worship of their dark god Sithis. A murder cult is what father called them, one to be feared by any with a brain, even if they had become quieter over the years.

Father always said that one should be most cautious of a predator when it was wounded, for that is when they were most dangerous. And as soon as they were healed enough to hunt again, they would strike fast and with utter lethality.

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I was eight winters old when I began digging through trash piles, trying to find enough cloth to wrap my hands and feet in as the weather grew even colder than it usually was. I'd tried to be content with just huddling under blankets but they had gotten so threadbare over the years, they just weren't enough to bring warmth to my chilled toes and we couldn't afford proper boots this year.

I'd tried making my old boots work, but they were just too small for my growing feet and even though mother tried to mend and alter them as much as possible, there was only so much she could do with the few scraps of cloth she could find. It was beyond useless hoping for gloves to wear.

It took a few nights of cautious digging, praying to whatever deity was listening that I would not get caught rummaging through peoples' trash, but I finally had enough scraps of wool and old worn bits of leather to wrap around my feet and my hands when needed. It was the only way I could protect them from the coming icy chill that the end of the year always brought. I didn't even want to think about the snowstorms that always seemed to want to bury the town before the cold season ended.

Memories of seeing beggars with missing toes and fingers frightened me enough that I was desperate. I didn't want to be in pain when I wandered about town, as my mobility was one of the few freedoms I had in life. I had very little to look forward to, being the only person in town who did not have a voice. The only jobs I would likely be considered suitable for would be among the most menial ones that could be found in this town. And so far, the only skill that my mother found me not sorely lacking in was sewing.

I also did not want to lose my only way of communicating with those precious few people who could and would read what I wrote. This is why extra cloth for my hands was in many ways more important to me than cloth for my feet. I could live if I was unable to walk freely, but to lose my ability to write would be devastating. Death would be more of a kindness than taking away my fingers, writing being my most reliable way to "talk" to people since only my father had ever shown the desire to learn how to read lips over the years. It was the only way we could communicate without needing something to write on, as well as the most secretive as I also learned the skill bit by bit over the years.

The secrets we had, ones that only he and I knew of, always brought a smile to my face and warmth to my heart. Childish secrets perhaps, but still something that only he and I shared. It was enough to make things more bearable when coin grew scarce and it was more common to go to bed still feeling hungry, to help ignore the chill as I shivered under too thin blankets at night.

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When I was ten, I stole food for the first time, the ache of my empty stomach too much to ignore any longer. Not that I blamed my parents, just as I could not blame my baby brother. It was not his fault that he was born, just as it was not my parents' fault. Mother had been taking the potions to keep herself from bearing a child into this harsh life, but for one reason or another, they had failed.

I'd heard her crying one night, my father telling her that things would be okay, he would find more work somehow and for her not to worry. It had hurt, watching him become more and more worn down with each passing week as he worked himself to exhaustion. Seeing how thin my mother's arms and face became even as her stomach had swelled from the child growing within had made my heart ache with worry, leaving me pushing more and more of my own food towards her each day as my eyes begged her to eat what I would not.

It was only after I'd nearly passed out one day, not too long after my brother was born that I realized if I didn't eat more, then it would not be long before I was too far gone to survive. And then who would be there to make sure mother was eating enough to keep my brother fed? Who would make sure that he learned his letters and how to read lips so we could share stories as we grew up?

So I stole an apple that had fallen to the ground, wondering when I would get caught and dragged shamefully home by guards who would tell my parents what a bad child I was. But as I held the apple to my chest and hurried into the nearby alleyway, I heard no shouts of "thief" behind me. As I lifted the bruised apple to my lips and took a bite, shivering in delight at the taste of its sweetness as the juices ran down my throat, there were no hands grabbing me. And when I tossed the core into the nearby pile of trash, I looked up to see nothing but an alleyway that had only me standing in the shadows, unnoticed.

When I slipped out of the alleyway, nobody even looked at me, their eyes passing over me the same way they never really looked at the stray dogs or the random beggar. To them, I was as unworthy of notice as the weeds that grew up through the cracks in the pathway they walked upon.

It was at that moment that I decided, let them ignore me. I would cultivate that visual avoidance of theirs, train myself to be even less noticeable than the weeds. I would become as invisible to them as the very air they breathed. Until, like the air, I would be able to go anywhere without them ever seeing me.

And I would never want for food again. Nor would my brother ever need to feel the pangs of hunger I had. I would make sure he grew tall and strong, not small and weakened from too many years of never getting enough to eat. He would not grow up going without, not like I had.

Even if it meant I had to become one of the rotten, dirty thieves my father had warned me of.