"When I woke up the next morning my family was dead and my hair and had started to turn white," I kept my eyes closed as I told him my story. I was almost able to watch the events happen again like a movie in my mind. I only opened my eyes when I he...
Small water droplets fell off the orange leaves and onto my face. It slowly woke me from my sleep and I groaned as I raised a hand to cover my face from the icy liquid. I opened my eyes and the surrounding area was still dark, but everything had a light coating of dew.
"Helmingur?" I called out softly, groaning as I sat up. My back ached, but there the agony which made it hurt to breathe was now gone. Even my head felt less fuzzy, but I still had a pounding headache.
I looked around in the dark and placed a hand on the grass behind me to steady myself. The grass which was once soft and cushioned felt dried and dead. "Someone?" I called out, now a bit more concerned.
"M'Lady, Someone hasn't returned from his walk last night. Master Dimma went to go find some food, said you would be hungry when you woke up." A gravely voice explained as a short, shadowed figure waddled over to me.
It was Helmingur. "Master Dimma?" I questioned knowing Dimma was Erik's last name. "What did Master Dimma look like?" I asked planning on asking why he called him Master afterwards.
Helmingur came over to me and sat down in the grass. "Tall, red hair, creepy blue eyes."
I took a deep breath and my hands started to shake as I attempted to come up with a logical answer. Erik was dead, there was no question in that matter. I remembered his death as clear as day. The feeling of his body pressed against mine, the root from the evergreen tree digging into my back. I had wanted to stop, I wasn't ready to give him want all guys wanted.
I closed my eyes and I could feel the same feeling as I did then; my heart racing against my chest and my breathing becoming erratic. I started to panic both then and now.
With Erik on top of me, I started to scream. I put a hand to his chest, right over his heart and that when he froze. He went as still as a rock and became as white as snow. He didn't move and I couldn't feel his breath on my neck or his chest rise against my hand. His eyes were wide in shock and that's when we heard the howl.I had attempted to shove him off of me, but he was too heavy and I was too weak. The white wolf appeared, Someone, and I laid helplessly under Erik. I screamed, I tried to pull out from under him, but all I could do was watch.
Erik tried to rape me and I convinced myself he deserved it, but I could never unsee what happened. I thought Erik was already dead with how still he was, he didn't even blink. Not even when Someone bit down into his throat and I started screaming. Blood poured out of his neck and onto me, some splashing into my mouth and I fought harder to get free. If there was any reserve about Erik being dead before, it was gone as every drop of his blood fell onto me and I couldn't do anything about it.
By daybreak I had managed to get free. I had been covered in blood from the man I loved, and I ran. That's how I ended up at Winter-Hawking, I wanted to understand why Erik died and what I had done to him.
The idea of him being back from the dead was impossible. I fought for hours to get his limp body off of me, I felt his warm blood cool against my skin. "M'Lady?" Helmingur asked as he placed a hand to my shoulder. I had gone quiet for too long.
I clenched my shaking hands into a fist and did what I did best; I buried my feelings. "Ya, sorry, I must still be tired." I forced a smile, but even I knew it was unconvincing. "Helmingur, do you have nickname? Yours fullname is kind of mouthful." I asked, changing the subjects. Maybe Helmingur did see a ginger who happened to have the same last name as Erik and the same haunting beautiful blue eyes, but that didn't mean it was Erik.
"I do not have a name, M'Lady. Helmingur is my species." He explained and I looked at him confused. I couldn't take much more of this, of change. "I'm a Halfie, a Changeling; part elf, part human. I was brought here about a century ago by Master Venlana."
My head was spinning. I groaned as I brought my knees to my chest and buried my face in it. "If you are a Helmingur, what's your name? You can't not have a name?" I pointed out before I added in. "I'm a Changeling too, but you were brought back here?"
Helmingur ran his clawed hand along my back in attempts to be comforting. "I have no name, Changelings are not given one. We're slaves, we don't matter. But M'Lady, you are not a Changeling."
At this point I'd almost prefer to be back in the castle with Roman and Kieran. At least they left me alone when I needed it. "You can't tell me that I am not a certain species." I raised my voice at him, sitting up straight.
Helmingur didn't react to my raised voice, he didn't even pause before he replied. "Changelings have deformities. We are either a half species or from a poor race who has been banned from matting. You are beautiful M'Lady, you cannot be a Changeling."
I had known one fact about myself, one answer in the puzzle which was my life. A half-elf was now trying to take that away from me. I jerked back from his touch and stood. "Stop calling me that!" I screamed, finally losing it. "My name is Tasnia now, not M'Lady, not anything else. Don't you get that? I'm a Changeling... I have to be." My screams in anger flattered to a mere whisper as my world slowly collapsed.
Helmingur stood as I did, taking a few steps back as I began to pace in a small circle. I kept my fists clenched and the air around us became cold. "M'L- Tasnia, you are not a Changeling nor should you want to be. You're a full Fae, beautiful and powerful. I am sorry that I have upset you, but it is the truth." Helmingur attempted to convince me, failing to realize that it wasn't what I needed to hear right now.
No words could describe the void which I felt in my heart. I had spent almost 300 years looking for answers and I had only found one. I knew I was a Changeling and now that was uncertain. My legs started to itch as my heart raced and I knew I couldn't stay here. "I'm sorry..." I whispered as I stumbled back, frost appeared on the dead grass under my foot. "Go to the castle and ask for Kieran. Tell him I sent you and that you need a home." I whispered, tying up my last loose end before I sprinted off into the forest. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't care, as long as it was far from that pond and the castle.
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Hey everyone! I know this is a lot to digest in one chapter, but I hope you all thought it flowed okay and wasn't too much of an information-dump.
As always, if you liked it, drop a vote and/or a comment!
P.S: These next few chapters aren't completely edited, so if you notice more mistakes than normal in this chapter and the next, that's why.
