It was midnight as Hael stealthily raced down the hallway, a pack with his belongings on his back.
"Where do ya think you're going?" a voice called from where Hael had just come from. Hael groaned. He had spent the past week planning his master escape, and didn't want it to be ruined by the idiotic being that was Nokeyd.
Nokeyd's idiocy came from having the head of a donkey. He had been one of the unfortunate citizens that had been cursed by the wizard Nec. Nec had been a lower class citizen, not a desirable position in Naul. Lower class citizens had the worst jobs. Digging sceptic holes, doing laundry, cleaning, you name it. If it sucks, it's probably done by someone in the lower class.
Perhaps even worse than the jobs they must take is the fact that those of the lower class can never rise up in the ranks. Born lower class, stay in the lower class. They weren't even allowed to get any kind of education, so even if they were allowed to rise in ranks and get a better job, such as a blacksmith (the profession of Hael's family (usually you had the same profession as everyone of the same gender in your family, with Hael's all the women were seamstresses)) they probably wouldn't even know how.
The people of Norn liked to call this the Staec System. No one really knows why.
Anyway, Nec was a sceptic hole digger/cleaner. Naturally, he was somewhat mad at society for giving him such a horrible job. What made it even worse was that Nec actually had powers of a shaman, and very powerful ones at that, but wasn't allowed to use them.
Just like the rest of the good jobs, being a shaman was only for upper class citizens. You could only have shaman powers if you were born with them. You either had them or you didn't. They were very rare, and when the shaman abilities did appear in someone they were usually just healing powers.
Nec did not just have healing powers. In fact, he had more powers than were ever known in the history of Norn.
And yet, due to the Staec system, Nec was cleaning holes were people excreted their bowels.
On Nec's death day, he decided to curse Norn in revenge. Unfortunately for him (fortunately for the rest of Norn), he died before he could finish the curse it was only inflicted on a select few citizens of Norn, turning their heads into that of an donkey.
In Nokeyd's case, it also gave him the brains of a donkey. Perhaps this was because he had been in the womb when the curse was inflicted on him and his brain was still developing. Unfortunately, due to the extra large donkey head, his mother died in childbirth and his father killed himself shortly thereafter.
Now, because of his idiocy, Nokeyd could not in and of himself thwart Hael's master escape plan. He could, however, alert someone else in his yelling and thus destroy Hael's hopes of escaping.
"Keep it down!" Hael whispered fiercely. "You might wake someone up!"
Nokeyd laughed, a sound that sounded something like, well, a donkey laughing. "So what?"
Hael looked at him pointedly. "You know what happens when you wake someone up in the night."
Nokeyd furrowed his furry brow, then started talking to himself. "Maybe funny man's right... I should... go to..." he turned around and walked back down the hallway. Hael grinned triumphantly, then turned on his heel and continued on.
His destination was the kitchen. A week ago, Hael had been on kitchen duty and had noticed that the kitchen window was left unlocked. Every other window in the building was locked to prevent kids from escaping. It was not a very pleasant orphanage and many escape attempts were made.
Hael had guessed that the kitchen window had been left unlocked so the cook, Vei, could just open it up and throw bad food out. Which happened often due to the small amount of skill the Vei possessed.
Hael reached the kitchen door and went inside. Hael had slipped a few Gerk leaves, an herb that muddled the mind greatly, into Vei's drink that morning in order to hopefully make him forget to lock the door behind him as he went to his chambers for the night. Fortunately, he had.
Stopping briefly to peer around and see if anyone was inside, Hael ventured through the kitchen. He did his best to breathe through his mouth and not his nose, as the distinctive odor of Vei's unique cooking still lingered. By the time Hael reached the window, he had become almost suffocated as the stench was so strong he could taste it when he breathed in. Hurriedly, he unlatched the window and opened it up, throwing his head outside and gulping in the fresh mountain air greedily.
Carefully, as not to make too much noise and wake anyone up, Hael navigated the rest of his body over the piles of expired ingredients and dirty dishes. Unfortunately, in his excitement he realized too late that if he were to go out the window and stick out his head first, he would inevitably have to fall head first. Fortunately, the kitchen was located on ground level and his fall only lasted a second, though his head still made a cracking noise when it hit the ground that could not have been good by any means.
And so, with a possibly cracked skull and the smell of rotten food on his flesh and clothes, began the story of Hael Ieurn.
