Mercy & Fire

7. A Survivor By nature

Adelia 

Without fail, war and conquest always left a trail of blood and grief. I'd never experienced it myself, but government tyranny was always the same. There were countless times when officers would barge into my mother's shop in Dhernon and demand she enroll me in the new, corrupt schools where children regularly went missing. Or they'd demand she pay her additional taxes to the queen. We had knives, swords, and arrows pointed at us countless times, and so, my mother had always instilled me with the cunning to survive these situations.

That's how it was in the capital city of Dhernon. Women and men both worked to the bone just to survive after the new monarchy of Dhernon took over. Women especially were pushed to the very edges of society, being forced to sell their own bodies just to have food on the table.

My mother was a humble fabric seller, and she always made sure that I was well dressed even if we didn't have much else. When the new sanctions came in that we were required to practice magic, my mother was the first to refuse. I never fully understood why, but my mother always said that magic pulls a blindfold over the eyes of the user and makes them do things they wouldn't otherwise do.

Magic also welcomed the presence of other... beings. And if you weren't careful, they would take over. It wasn't common, but some people willingly came into agreements with these beings - I think they called them familiars - for power, money, and success. Not many people understand how it works but my mother somehow did.

She herself had practiced magic for a long time but stopped when it became too difficult to control. She did teach me some magic that I could use, but only in emergencies. Thus far, I never had to use it. Never had a reason to, and the one time I did have a reason, I was too paralyzed to utter a word.

I still daydreamed about setting that wretched man's head on fire.

I shifted uncomfortably in the near empty, silent house. Having been under house arrest, I had a lot of time on my hands and spent most of it plotting a plan of escape. The chatty guards at the corner of the shop were very helpful in formulating this plan. Thanks to them, I knew there wouldn't be strong security measures in place until the high mages arrived to set up magic powered boundaries. I knew these boundaries all too well.

They were good at detecting unauthorized movement and were the reason I was almost caught when my mother smuggled me across the land of Dhernon into Bermillia to escape the tyranny and corruption of the nobles.

She sent me with a map to get to a land far off. My hand reached for my necklace where I knew a map was hidden away by magic. 

At the time, I was too afraid to make the journey by myself at 10 years old. So I followed the people who helped us to Bermillia where I met Roselena.

I pressed my ear to the window across from the printing press and typewriter.

"They should arrive by the end of the week. Then most of us will be dismissed to the palace." Soldier 1 said.

I smirked as another puzzle piece fell into my plan. It'd been two days since I was left on house arrest after questioning. We spent the whole day outside, no food, no water, with the hot sun beating down on us as they questioned the whole town one by one.

It was a tiring process, and every once in a while, crying and sobbing would echo around the street. 

I watched the guards much of the time. They either bullied the men, or they spent too much time showering attention on the women. Every time I caught a glimpse of a man groping and touching one of the women, I could only clench my fists and grit my teeth.

I was so exhausted, leaning on the wall when a guard walked up to me, looking me over. My skin crawled as he reached out and pulled the bandana out of my hair, making it fall down over my shoulders.