Journey of the Half-Elf - Book 1

Chapter XVIII - Walls Warmed By Love

"Osgar mentioned there were rats here, right?" Guinevere asked her father as she stepped into her new bedroom.

"Yep. Try and kill 'em when you see 'em, alright?" He loudly said while sweeping, wiping and scrubbing the mess left behind — a clean house meant a clean mind.

Meanwhile, Guinevere was closely observing the contents of her new bedroom.
As expected for a house in the Shir Shikrog Outskirts, the coarse brick walls were worn and unpainted, accentuating her distaste for the place. She looked up and saw that from the flat roof above her head, a strange line of frayed string loosely hung from one side to the other. Initially, she thought it was some sort of indoor washing line, but there was no washing basket lying around. She did however, see a narrow line of grass outside the house, and considered for a moment that a washing basket was there.

The door behind her, like the rest of the house's features, was old and weathered, peeling at the edges. On either end was a faulty latch-lock; how the former residents managed to live here was a true mystery to Guinevere.
Beneath her ill-suited shoes were thin square tiles of dull gray stone, scuffed by all manner of soles and heels over centuries. Most of the white scratches ran beneath the dusty wooden cabinet, which currently stood in the southwest corner. When she knelt down to prise open the stuck door, Guinevere reeled when her face was struck by a rancid wave of air, instinctively shielding her nose with her forearm. After a few seconds, she leaned back in to seek the source of the searing smell, discovering an abandoned plate of shrivelled black meat, too rotten and fly-slathered to be identified.

"Disgusting. What fool thought this was a good idea?" She asked herself, slamming the cabinet door shut, intending to deal with the problem later.

Like all other homes in the Four Cities, this belonged to the Elves. Where their wealthy once looked down from their lofty gold abodes, their poor were once content in simpler gray houses, making do with what they were given. By the end of the Great War, the same hierarchy remained when the other four races took over: The rich in the Centres; the ragged in the Outskirts.

As Osgar had informed them already, the North-facing window was boarded up, barely letting through a few razor-sharp lines of light.
"Who boards up a window? And why?" Guinevere thought to herself, peering at the rotten wood planks.
Based on what Osgar had told her about the last resident overdosing, the 16-year old assumed that she had made enemies of people, that she might have comprised her own safety. At first, the Half-Elf sought to remove the boards to bring light and air into the dingy and stuffy room, but remembered what she was, why they were better left alone.

Guinevere ended her observation of her new bedroom with the narrow, unmade bed. Slid right up against the unpainted brick wall, the worn wooden frame sagged in the middle, causing the yellowed layers of blankets to sink slightly. Unlike her former bed, this one was neither tall nor wide, and lacked a dense, firm mattress as well as a headboard. But of course, a peasant's bed was better than a sheet of ashes.
Half-buried under the unwashed bedsheets was a single cloth pillow. It was light brown, thin and crumpled, imprinted over centuries with gray stains so intense, they'd sicken a dragon.
As Guinevere bent over to pull the pillow out, she let out a shriek when a mangy rat leapt past her face, scurrying across the stone floor, under the short bed.

"What happened?" Gastan burst in to ask.

"Rat," She replied breathlessly, clutching her necklace, "An ugly one, it's there under the bed."

"Oh," He chuckled, "I thought you were fine with 'em?"

"Not when they look so hideous, Father."

"Alright, alright. Move, I got this." He instructed her, unsheathing his blade as he lifted the light bed up. Then, when he jolted the fearful rodent and sent it sprinting away again, the man booted it to the wall before quickly stabbing it's head.