Mikki’s first day at his new home was a
rather overwhelming experience. The morning bath was for Mikki something
unnecessary; when being a slave at the Forty-five district he could only dream
of a bath. But since Aniania insisted, he felt he shouldn’t disobey. The
breakfast experience was something that frightened him though; Yerili had quite
a hard time to even get the boy into the kitchen. Mikki had learned in very
young years that a troll, especially not a slave troll, didn’t belonged in a
kitchen and should be punished when being seen there. Eventually, after both
Yerili’s and Aniania’s insisting, Mikki managed to carefully get himself into
the kitchen. Getting him to actually eat the food that he was offered was also
a pretty hard task, but eventually that solved itself as well. Mikki would
probably not be able to get used to this kind of treatment in a long time
though.
Yerili couldn’t get over Mikki’s panicked behaviour in the kitchen. Her
mind told her that Mikki probably had a snobbish attitude and that he didn’t want
to mix himself with elves or something. Not more than once she gave the troll a
slightly irritated look when eating breakfast. After breakfast, when Yerili was
supposed to show the newcomer around in the household, Yerili didn’t seem too
eager to spend the day with this boy. She rushed out to the back yard before
Mikki had thanked Aniania and Hûni more than enough for the breakfast. Aniania
saw this and frowned at her daughter’s, in her opinion, bad behaviour. She then
looked down at Mikki and showed him the way to the back yard as well. Mikki
knew this would probably be a slightly tough day.
The back yard was well taken care of, and looked like a place that
invited you for adventure. Yerili sat on one of the swings her dad had made and
had a pretty irritated look in her face. Mikki’s appearance didn’t make her
irritated face any difference. The two kept silent for a while, Mikki standing
in the entrance of the yard and Yerili in the middle of it. Yerili then started
to look straight into his eyes, still keeping quiet. This made Mikki quite nervous;
he had never felt comfortable seeing straight into someone’s eyes.
The tone in her voice sounded quite demanding, which told Mikki’s mind
to do as he thought the girl meant. He turned around to leave her alone, which
made Yerili even more irritated.
“Oh, so you think you’re too special or something to stay in the same
area as me, huh?”
Mikki turned around and stared at Yerili, who obviously was very upset.
She jumped off the swing and started to walk quickly towards Mikki, who was too
nervous to do anything. Yerili stopped frighteningly near the troll and looked
up at him, her eyes pierced into his.
“Just because I am not an elf to the fullest and you aren’t treated
like how a slave should be treated here, you don’t have any rights to be
snobby.”
Before Mikki could talk back to that sentence, a pretty strong punch
for a 110 year old elf girl hit him in the stomach. He yelped and quickly bowed
like a slave should, making parts of his clothes and his face dusty. Yerili was
now the one to stare at the other. Her mind couldn’t make out what this boy was
thinking at all. She was a bit worried that they’d be in trouble for looking
all dirty, so she pulled Mikki’s hair a bit, trying desperately to get him on
his legs again.
“Hey, stop that! You’re looking ridiculous!”
Mikki quickly stood up when those words hit him, looking a bit
embarrassed. Yerili sighed and started to dust off the dirt on his clothes and
his face while he stared at her.
“I don’t understand you at all!” she said while dusting off his cheeks.
“You aren’t supposed to need to understand me.” Mikki replied silently.
Yerili looked at Mikki and sighed, looking a bit irritated at his
answer.
“You are like you don’t want to be here at all, or all embarrassing
with your…bowing and practically having your tails between your legs and such.
Can’t you just be like a normal boy?”
“What is being normal?” Mikki answered, looking into Yerili’s eyes.
“Well…” she said, looking stunned at the look he gave her, “not being
like you, for example.”
Mikki’s eyes turned away from Yerili and went down to look towards the
ground. This made Yerili irritated yet again and she slapped him. Mikki yelped
and was about to bow down, but a small hand holding his left arm made him
hesitate. Yerili, still holding Mikki’s arm, looked at the troll, now having a
softer expression.
“Don’t bow. Don’t think you’re not worthy. Sure, when you’re walking
around in public, you’d need to have some special manners, but in private you
should be more relaxed.”
Her grip around his arm loosened and she actually gave away a faint
smile. Mikki looked down at her, looking pretty confused.
“Would you stop slapping and hitting me if I did?” he eventually asked.
“Well, I could at least try to”, Yerili replied.
“Well, then I can try to change myself a bit.” Mikki said quickly.
Yerili looked at Mikki, looking like she had achieved something with
this.
“Hey, Mikki, let me show you something neat!” she said suddenly,
grabbed his hand and started to walk towards the forest that the yard was
connected with. Mikki could have stopped Yerili easily, but something told him
that he should follow her, so he did.
The forest was rather big, but thanks to the little road the family had
stepped up during their travels, you were assured that you wouldn’t get lost
there. Well, as long as you kept on to the road anyway. Yereli seemed to have
another plan ready for her and Mikki though. Firstly, to not make Mikki too
worried, she followed the road, but as they went deeper into the forest, Yereli
started to walk further and further away from the road. Mikki suddenly started
to notice what was going on and stopped.
“H-hey, where are we going? This isn’t where the road goes!” he said,
almost a bit stricken by panic.
“Calm down, don’t you think I have been around these parts of the wood
before?” Yereli replied with such a secure voice that Mikki’d be able to
actually believe her. “And besides, if you only follow the straight road all
your life, you’ll end up being quite a boring type, right Mikki?”
“Eh, r-right…” Mikki mumbled.
They had walked for a very long while; the only time Mikki had walked
this far and this long, he remembered, was that time when he escaped his
slavery life. The surrounding started to get darker and darker around them and
Yereli’s secure face got exchanged to a more scared and insecure face. Mikki
actually noticed this change, but decided to keep quiet. A wrong-placed comment
was nothing you wanted to hear in this situation, he thought. Suddenly, Yereli
stopped and glanced up at the troll. She gasped and jumped when she saw him,
because the dark made him look quite gruesome with his tall appearance, the
dark skin, the eyes that somewhat shimmered every now and then, and those sharp
teeth that almost glowed against the rest of his dark face. Mikki noticed this
and since he could quite guess why Yereli reacted like she did, he turned his
face away. Yereli bit her lower lip, looking pretty ashamed of her reaction.
Eventually, she broke the rather tense silence that had been around for quite a
while.
“Mikki, I…actually, I lied to you. I have no clue where we are, and I
don’t know the way home. I’m so sorry, I should have known better…”
The sound of something crawling around in the bushes near the two made
Yereli scream in fear and cling on to Mikki, who seemed to be more scared of
Yereli’s behaviour than the sound. He struggled to get away from the girl’s
grip, but failed, and so, the two stood there until Yereli seemed to have
calmed down. She then looked up at Mikki, looking pretty taken by this whole
experience.
“I-I’m so sorry…I didn’t mean to get us in such a situation!”
Mikki looked down at Yereli, being very confused over her behaviour,
but he looked like he had a plan.
“Well…we can’t be that far away from home. If I climb up in a tree, I
could probably see were we should go next.”
Yereli quietly agreed and as soon as Mikki saw a good tree enough, he
quickly started to precede upwards it. Yereli waited patiently down on the
ground while thoughts wandered around in her head. She was pretty impressed by
Mikki’s calmness in a situation like this, but in some way, it also scared her.
The way he behaved, like if he was overly concerned about her but not wanting
to be anymore than her simple servant, also made her mind wrap it up in itself
more than necessarily. Eventually, Mikki came down from the tree, jumping down
the last few meters and landed on his two legs securely, like he was a feline
creature.
“I am pretty sure” he said “that if we walk in that direction…” he
turned to his left side and pointed “we will be home before the sky gets dark.”
“You mean that it’s still light out there?” Yereli asked.
“Yeah, I guess this is the dark part of the forest…” he scratched his
left arm “If I get a bit secure about the direction, I’ll just climb a tree
again and find it.”
Yereli nodded and a slight smile crept up in her face.
They walked towards the direction Mikki had pointed out as the right way
to their home, and to both, the forest starter to get lighter and less scary
again. Something bugged both Yereli and Mikki though; that rattle in the bushes
that they had heard seemed to follow their every move. Yereli wasn’t really
amused with this and soon enough, she stopped.
“You hear that sound too, right Mikki?” Yereli asked.
“Yeah.” Mikki said and nodded.
“It’s starting to get on my nerves…” Yereli said.
She walked to the part of a large shrubbery where she had heard the
sound come from the last time, frowned and pushed aside some branches. Nothing
was there to Yereli’s surprise and she turned to Mikki again. When she did
that, she did not only see Mikki, but another person right behind him. She
gasped and pointed at the person. Mikki blinked and turned around, to gasp as
well. This person looked a lot like an elf at the first sight but something
wasn’t quite right anyways. His skin was firstly in a very bleach shade, almost
making the person look dead. He was also tall, way too tall for an elf, Yereli
measured. This person had blood red hair and pale blue eyes, looking dazed but
yet you got this feeling that he could read your soul. Both Yereli and Mikki
felt that this person would bring trouble.
“Well, well, well…two youngsters too far from home, eh?” he said with a
calm and soft voice before he grinned.
Yereli suddenly went pale and stiff as a stick. Mikki noticed this and
gave her a confused and panicked look.
“Those fangs, that skin…he’s a demon, Mikki!” Yereli squeaked.
“Oh? A smart youngster you are…” the demon continued, licking his lips
and stroking Yereli’s cheek. “You see, I have been wandering around lately in
these woods…I was sent to live here for 20 more years actually for a little
thing I did, and I’m cursed, so I can’t get out of here, even if I knew the
way…and I haven’t really eaten anything nice in ages.” he presses his hand on
both of Yereli’s cheeks and smiles maniacally “And I’ve heard that elfish meat
does have a delicious taste!”
Yereli squeaked at these words, looking more scared than ever. Mikki
stared at the demon and felt that he was needed in this situation. He frowned
and poked his arm.
“You are not allowed to eat her…at least not as long as I am alive!” he
said while trembling.
The demon grinned and stood up, showing that he was probably more than
two heads taller than Mikki.
“Well, well, little one! You are brave enough to challenge a demon, eh?
You will probably suffer more than your little mistress over there.”
“I rather risk my life…t-than being a coward!” Mikki stuttered, being
pretty sure that this probably would be the last day in his life.
The demon looked at Mikki before he bursted out laughing a maniacal
laughter which made the two youngsters to tremble in fear. The demon looked
then back at Mikki with a demonically grim face as two wings appeared on his
back.
“You trolls are all the same brain washed fools!” he snarled and lifted
Mikki up with a hand on the troll’s head. “You know why you are being treated
as slaves? Because you have no brains! No free will! You are like big, green
cattle!”
The demon threw Mikki hard into a rock and Yereli screamed, scared
beyond belief by this demon. Mikki himself didn’t feel much of the pain though.
Something was slowly flowing out from his body, but it was nothing he cared
about. Something made him feel stronger and quicker than before. His eyes
glanced at Yereli, who looked at Mikki with the fear she looked at the demon a
couple of minutes ago, but he didn’t mind it that much, and his glance
continued to go to the demon where it stayed. The demon looked at Mikki and
said something, the speech went too slow for Mikki to concentrate to listen on.
Mikki slowly got up on his legs again, getting the feeling that he was at least
a head taller than before his body met that rock. He growled lowly when
noticing that his clothes seemed to have been ripped a bit before he looked up
at the demon again, really glaring at him. He looked back at Mikki, not looking
as cocky as he did just a while ago. He didn’t got time to think much more
before Mikki quickly ran up to him, jumped up in the air, clang on to him and
bit him real hard on his shoulder. The demon screamed and fell to the ground,
trying to push away this troll from him, but it was a way harder task than he
could have ever imagined. A troll going berserk doesn’t only get quicker and
stronger during this phase, but it could also get bigger. And if a troll is
getting angry at someone, he won’t give up before he has done some serious
damage. So Mikki continued to bite on the demons shoulder, harder and harder
while ignoring all the attacks his opponent made, until something cracked. The
demon screamed out and Mikki got off him and stood up, looking at the demon’s
squirming with a sadistic look in his face while licking up the blood he had around
his mouth.
“Just you wait, you sick little bastard!” the demon screamed out “Next
time I see you, you will wish that you never were born!”
Those were the last words the demon said before he vanished from the
area, just as quickly as he had appeared. Mikki blinked while seeming to sink
down a bit. He glanced over to Yereli who looked scared beyond belief before he
went cross-eyed, like he totally lost control over his situation. He slowly
closed his eyes and fell to the ground, all passed out.
Yereli had suddenly seen the road back home again, and measured that
there was only a minute back to their garden. About ten minutes later, she had
brought her father, Hûni, to the place where Mikki had dozed off. Now, he just
lied there, breathing heavily. Just a while ago he had looked so fierce, like
he was about to kill all humanity. Now, he looked pretty miserable with his
ripped clothes and blooded body.
“It’s my entire fault, father!” Yereli insisted “Do you think he will
survive?”
“He will need a lot of rest…I am amazed that he’s still alive.” Hûni
muttered.
He lifted up the troll, which wasn’t an easy task, trolls seem to
always have some extra weight hidden in their feet or something, and the
journey went back to the Fangilano household. Back at home, Mikki started to
slowly gain consciousness again, but he could just make out big blurred objects
moving around when he looked. The pain from all the hits and his body growing
bigger when going berserk started to give in and made the troll to pathetically
squeak in pain. A soup made of some special elfish herbs made the pain go down
a little bit, but in much, Mikki quite felt that he was still alive. In this
way, lying in bed and feeling pain, was how Mikki would spend the next few
days.
