Rogue: Prelude

P R E L U D E

         A little boy ran through the halls, giggling as he chased after a little girl with curly golden hair.  She sprinted through the pale arches and into the garden and he followed, and they ran circles around an old hawthorn until, gasping for breath, the boy flopped onto the grass.
         "I win!" she chirped, spinning and swirling the petals of her yellow skirt.
         "I'm hungry," he complained, sitting up.  "You smell nice."
         "Ahem--" a man stood at the garden entrance, his dark blue eyes steely.  The boy scrambled to his feet and the girl bowed awkwardly, and he stared at them for a moment, silent.
         "Come here, boy," he commanded.
         He obeyed, eyes trained on the ground, hands shaking.
         "What have I told you?"
         "I was just--"
         "You were not to leave the tower."
         "Aada--"
         "Go back, now!"
         "Sibellye," a soft voice interrupted.  "I will take him."
         The boy did not dare look up at the woman who hovered a few feet away, wrapped in silk and fur that could not hide her sickly figure.  She held out a skeletal hand, beckoning to him.  "Atsya."
         He did not move.  The man glared at her for a moment, a conflict raging behind his angry mask, and then, with a violent whirl, disappeared into the main house.  The woman beckoned again, softly this time, and the boy approached, drawn lovingly into his mother's arms.
         "May," she called to the girl, "please ask your mother to send lunch to my rooms."
         With a quick smile and a nod, the girl darted into the house, and the lady watched her elven child follow his friend with hungry eyes.  Guilty eyes.
         "Look at me, dear one," she said, lifting his chin and brushing back his thin silvery hair.  They were bright green, his eyes, like hers, but with a feral yellow ring bleeding from his narrow pupils.  She opened her mouth, indicating that he should do the same, a frown wrinkling her sallow face as he flashed his tiny teeth.
         "Your father does not understand," she cooed, wearily lowering herself to her knees and brushing back his hair, his small pointed ears warm and flushed under her hands.  "But he loves you, Da-v--a."
         Her arms held him carefully.  He buried his face in her robes so she would not see him cry.

         "I can't hear his name."
         His companion glanced at him, plaiting her long, fine hair.  It was some time before dawn in their camp; the sparse trees were silhouetted in the pale light, and he lay on a bed of moss built up against a rotting log.  She had stoked the fire and boiled water for her coffee while he slept, standing with her eyes on the horizon, fingers working the gray strands.
         "I said I can't--"
         "I heard you," she replied, her stony expression unchanging.
         "You don't care."
         "No.  I don't."
         He snorted bitterly.  "He's the reason you're here, because you wanted him.  But he's gone.  His name--"
         "Davadya."
         "Yes," he remarked thoughtfully.  "He's dead."
         She looked at him and her voice dropped.  "She killed him."
         The birds began to stir--their soft, sleepy warbling rising with the light.  He sat up, hiding behind a messy crop of hair, a disturbed and fanged grin upon his face.
         "I'm hungry."