A Mess of a World: the Etched Stone

1.2) Alessida

Her stomach growled loudly, giving away her hunger. If she continued with her feigning, she would probably starve herself to death. How long have I been here?

A few hours?

Longer probably.

Days?

She was shoved in the stomach as someone shook her. "Oh please wake up!"

Who is that?!

Alessida couldn't last any longer and gave into the urge of opening her groggy eyes. She began to sit up- before smacking her head on something.

She ducked her head down instinctively and she rubbed her bruise.

The same youthful voice from before laughed in approval and said, "Yes! Finally, she lives! I was starting to worry that you'd never wake again. You'd had a fright earlier... so I s'pose I could understand why you wanted some extra beauty sleep."

Alessida turned in her direction just as her eyes were starting to register her surroundings.

"Oh! Oh, look! You have eyes! They're such a pretty jade color."

The person who had been speaking was a girl, not much older than a child, with freckled brown skin and bushy brown hair. Her almond-shaped eyes sparkled with amusement at Alessida's perplexment when she saw that the girl was wearing an outfit that seemed to be fashioned out of scraps of fabric wound together into a dress by knots and patience.

"Who are you? What the- Where am I?" Alessida asked, eyeing the odd surroundings of a closed-in 'room'. She was sitting on a pile of blankets right next to brick walls thick with discolored grime. A steady stream of who knows what drained from the ceiling into the corner across the room, and a short table directly to her side carefully suspended the food on top of it.

The reason for her current headache was an overhang directly above her, and her main source of heat was from the fire that the girl was sitting beside that illuminated her features with a rosy tinge.

Alessida found her voice again. "Are you working with those men? What happened?! Answer me!"

"Hold it there, Jade! Etiquette tells you to allow the other person at least a few seconds to answer. I'm Sama, and I saved you. We're in Mabso right now." Sama told her. "Er... the, uh, sewers."

The sewer?! Alessida frowned, now knowing why the atmosphere was so clogged and humid. Ewwuruffdfgghh!

"Wait, you just said you saved me? Wh-How? I mean, why?"

"Not half as dead as you were a few hours ago, I see." Sama said, putting her hands on her hips. Her merry voice turned somber, "I don't know who those brutes upside were, but I know trouble when I hear or see it. If not for me, they'd've dragged you off to Badorn knows where."

"What were you doing here? What happened? Who were they?"

"Pfft, like I know. You were up by the Swenton mansion though... and judging by your frock you were in there. Might've lived there too."

Alessida looked down and realized that she was in a creamy nightgown, with initials sewn into her sleeves. AG, they said, crocheted in elaborately. "You said I lived there?" She asked.

"At a guess. What all do you remember?"

"Lots of yelling... a woman... men..." she rubbed her scabby forehead. "And blood. Oh, and a fire. I think... I think it was started by magic."

Sama's eyes gleamed with contemplation. "So that's what all of the commotion upside was...

"I heard a loud ruckus, and took a gander to see what was going on when I saw thug one, two, and three-" She put up her fingers. "-dragging blood-covered you. The thugs meant trouble, you needed help, and I did my good deed for the day- er, well, night I s'pose. But magic. " She let out a low whistle.

Alessida didn't know too much about magic, but she had a feeling that it might have been the thing that had saved her life. "And what about you? Do you live down here? In the sewers?"

"Well that tends to happen when you're an orphan who doesn't want the king's guards to drag you to the orphanage."

Alessida furrowed her brow. "You're an orphan?"

She had suspected as much, but was hoping otherwise.

Sama rolled her eyes and used a stick to pick at the fire.

Alessida stood up carefully, feeling a rush of nausea to her head once she was on her feet. She greedily helped herself to some of the food in the basket and Sama made no move to stop her.

"How do I get out of here?" She asked with her mouth full. "I need to leave before those men find me again." And figure out why they were hurting me in the first place.

Truthfully, she believed the only ones with answers were the ones out to imprison or maybe even kill her.