Master, my Master | boyxboy | [alternate happy ending]

II - Seven Years Later

Brimonhive, England

May 1834

Eli cradled his baby sister in his arms as he listened to his mother and father argue. The walls were thin in their home, so he could hear every word going back and forth. They had been yelling at one another for almost an hour about how moving out of Brimonhive was likely going to be an option, since the cost of goods was going up, and father no longer had his position as a blacksmith. Eli didn't like the sound of it. Brimonhive had been his home since he was born, he enjoyed the good mates he had, the neighbors and marketplace, but he knew his parents were right. If money became a problem, they'd have no choice but to move to a different area. All his life, since he got his first job at the age of five, he'd done nothing short of help provide money for his family, so he was more than sure if his father started to panic, things were not going so well.

"Shh," Eli rocked Ava in his arms. He was feeding her from the only sanitary bottle she had. "Just a bit more," he smiled down at her, and his heart swelled when she opened her eyes to stare up at her elder brother. Ava was just ten months old, a bubbly bundle of joy that only seemed to stop smiling when she was being fed, and Eli loved his sister with his entire being.

Looking up when the yelling of his mother and father died down, Eli waited a moment for the silence to break.

His mother, a beautiful voluptuous woman with fiery red curls, opened his bedroom door and peered inside. She had a faint smile on her heart-shaped face as she eyed her children. "Elijah, darling, your father and I would like to have a word with you. Come," she waved for him, "bring Ava with you to the front room."

He fixed Ava in his arms, still feeding her, and followed his mother. The front room was undersized in width and length, but was fair nonetheless. There wasn't much to it other than a rocking chair sitting before a crackling fireplace, an old wash bucket, and a bench pushed up under a low window draped with rags. Light from the fireplace danced against the dull wooden walls, and the dark kitchen area off to the rear was filled with shadows.

Eli looked up from Ava when his father came in from the back bedroom. A man with darkish-blonde hair and a scruffy handsome face, he was built well from all the hard work he'd done since his son was born eighteen years ago, and now that his family had grown with the arrival of his daughter, it was obvious, just by the look on his face, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to provide for anyone for much longer.

"What's going on?" Eli asked, "Has something happened?"

His father said nothing for a moment as he paced before the fireplace, frustration clear as day in his body language. "Son," he said, stopping finally, "Your mother and I have come to the decision that you must begin looking for another form of employment. I can no longer afford everything on my own with the pay cut going around, and everyone seems to have gotten the idea to raise their prices on wheat and dairy. I know you've worked hard in that cargo position you took down at the ports, but it's no longer enough to help around here. I need you to come with me to town to search for new openings."

The news would've shocked Eli a lot more if he'd been younger, but he was eighteen now, so setting out for another job was something he was sure he needed to do anyways. It was true the captain of his shipment boat was pinching his purse a little too hard these days. Besides, he wanted to make sure his family was cared for just as much as his father. When he had turned twelve years old, he'd gone from cleaning chimneys to working in a butcher's shop, and then to the cargo ship when he turned sixteen. So, Elijah Goode was no stranger to working in different places. This time around, he only wondered where a new position would take him.

With a nod, Eli said, "I understand, I'm sure I can find something that'll pay well enough."

Eli's mother offered her son a smile. She knew how much he loved them all. He already did a good job keeping their home safe from dangers that strayed around their property. Her son was a strong boy, and now that he was older, he was surely going to become an honorable man.