A Fyre Within

A Fyre-ey Lesson

Fedrel Ran sits up from his reclined position, his brows pinching together in thought. "Were you aware of who your captor was at the time, or did you learn later?" he asks the mage sitting across from him.

Her shimmering orbs focus on him, her slitted pupils bouncing as she alternates her focus on Fedrel's left then right eye, and she smiles knowingly. She waits before starting her tale again, and Fedrel grows uncomfortable under her maniacal scrutiny. Finally, she speaks again:

Hobgoblins are generally not stupid, but I had always been brighter than most, and I had learned to read quickly. The shamans had books on the different species of sentient creatures, so I knew immediately that my captor was a drow, or dark elf.

He suspended me over his head, and I hung there, upside down, looking into his red eyes. Gripping my skull, he twisted my head left and right, appraising his new catch. Terror fluttered through my stomach, but the little flapping moths and I had been acquainted before, and I had learned to respond with friendliness.

I gave him a big toothy grin, and said, "Helloo!" As expected, he rewarded me for my efforts. He smacked me across the face with much more enthusiasm than I deemed necessary, and I began to snivel, which rewarded me another smack across the face; this time, my untouched cheek met the back of his hand. After this treatment, I held my sobs inside, but I couldn't stop my tears. My maniacal pretense had obviously had little effect on him.

His condescending sneer, which had thus far been his only feature, transformed into a predatory smile, and he said to me in a broken goblin accent, "You will speak only when I let you, and you will cry only when I let you." He lifted me to the window, where I observed more of his kind throwing my kin onto a roaring bonfire. "Speak out of line again, and I will toss you in that fire. If you can't follow instructions, then I have no use for you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," I responded, as I had been taught to respond to the shaman.

His smile twisted into a smirk. "Very good," he said, and then carried me out of the building. All around me, I noticed my people piled, unmoving, into carts. The elves shackled the conscious ones to each other with heavy chains and solid steel collars and cuffs. He carried me to a cart with a cage over the top. The iron door squeaked in protest as he opened it, and he tossed me into its gaping mouth. It squealed again as he shut me in.

Many of the other children squatted in there, hugging their legs. Their eyes, widened with shock and fear, peered out over their knees. I shuffled to the back next to Mulzun, my half-brother. "Have you seen Daddy?" I whispered to him.

"Shut up, Aila!" he whispered back. He was a little too loud though, and the door screeched open again. The drow reached in, grabbed Mulzun by the collar, and yanked him out of the cage. Mulzun shouted in protest, kicking and punching futilely at his captor. The dark elf carried him back toward the fire. We could no longer hear Mulzun's protests over the rest of the din, but we gazed out as the drow tried to toss him into the fire.

My brother maintained a death grip on the elf's wrist, temporarily saving himself from the flames. However, the disproportionate size and strength difference offered my brother little to no advantage, and the dark elf grabbed Mulzun's top knot and yanked him off of his arm. My brother hung there, feebly thrashing against the air.

The drow used Mulzun's top knot as a fulcrum and tossed him underhanded into the flames. The moths in my stomach took off in flight, and I vomited. Although my brother had been cruel and violent toward me, I still lamented his loss, and I couldn't help but to feel partially responsible for his violent end.

The drow stalked back to the cage. We all shuffled to the very back of it. He gifted us with that predatory grin again. "Anybody else want to talk out of turn?" he asked. I was the first to shake my head, and soon, we all silently answered his question, our heads swiveling back and forth on our necks.

He slammed the gate shut and shouted something to his comrades. The cart lurched forward.