Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Alfild stood, her tiny form broken down and quiet. Her eyes rested on the ground as she wandered nervously. She fiddled with her fingers, a nervous habit she'd developed long ago.
"Is that all mother?" She asked shyly, noticing the new man her mother entertained.
"Is that all mother?" The woman repeated scornfully as she glared down at the girl. "I am not your mother and I never will be, slave!"
Alfild knew she was an unwanted pregnancy, her mother could never let her forget. Every day she was reminded of how she ruined her mother's life. She often sat alone, wishing that she had never even been born. Perhaps that would've been a better fate than her current situation.
"I'd like a drink slave." Her mother's lover requested, less than politely.
Alfild looked up at him slowly. She wasn't sure what had possessed her, she just did.
"Alfild! What are you looking at him for? I told you to keep your eyes to yourself." Her mother fumed, soon turning to the man beside her. "If she offended you any way, I pray you teach her a lesson."
The man nodded, "Im sure a whipping wouldn't hurt."
But Alfild knew this came from a man who had never been whipped. Once, Alfild had spent her day out in the meadows to avoid her mother. When her mother found her, she was whipped raw until she barely had any skin left on her back. The scars still remained, she doubted they would ever go away. So the idea that a whipping wouldn't hurt? Well that was utter crap.
"Mother, no! Please!" The girl begged as she was dragged to her post. Her arms were bound above her head and slowly, her mother approached that old familiar enemy. The whip.
"No more flowers for you girl." The woman yelled in a drunken rage before lashing the girl across the back. Alfild screamed out in pain, the familiar sting ripping through her skin. "No more walks in the meadow!" Again, her mother yelled and the whip hit the girls tender flesh again. "You will submit!" The woman whipped her again.
The next day, Alfild took a special trip to the meadows. It was dangerous, and her back still ached and bled from the night before, but she continued anyway. Deep into the meadows she ventured before eventually finding what she was looking for.
She filled up her pockets with Deadly Nightshade, her hands aching in the cold winter as she washed their remains off her hands. She wasn't exactly sure what she was going to do with them, she just felt anger rush through her and take over. She was cold, though tears of emotions still ran down her cheeks. Before, she had screamed and cried for hours in pain and sorrow. Now her tears were drying, and only hate remained.
She hadn't always been like this. She was a sweet girl, a happy girl. The entire town talked of how her smile lit up every room. She used to dance through the town, singing away to herself and handing flowers out to passers by. She wasn't allowed in town anymore. She wasn't allowed anywhere. It felt as though she barely lived. Those days were gone now, and all she had left was pain. And so pain, she would give to others as they had done to her.
Alfild approached her mother, her eyes dead and cold. No hint of emotion lingered on her face now. She held the food, her hands steadier than they'd ever been before.
"It took you long enough!" Her mother snarled, snatching the bowl of food from between her hands. Greedily, she took a bite. Alfild saw the berries enter her mouth, she watched as her mother swallowed them down. She did not feel regret. This was not some heat of the moment spark of rage. Alfild planned it.
Slowly the colour drained from her mother's eyes as she watched the little girl and clutched her throat. She couldn't breath.
Alfild grinned wickedly, pushing her mother back so that she lay down. "I am not your slave, mother." She whispered. "I belong to no one. And when you are dead, I will make it all look like a poor little girl defended herself from her abusive mother in the heat of the moment. But I want you to look into my eyes. I want you to see the rage within them. I want you to know that I was the one who made you take your last breath. That this wasn't an accident. That it feels good."
Once more, her mother choked with a face of horror. As her eyes began to glaze over, Alfild took out her axe and buried into the woman's chest again and again. She wanted her mother's last moments to be agony. And that they were.
