Her Story - Delilah

Chapter 1. Silence... Man what a life..I could start when things got really good but then that would leave out the important stuff. The moments that changed me, I can think about all of the crazy moments in my life, the struggles that brought me to today...and today. I love my life. Let me start at the beginning. Hello, my name is Delilah and I am a pixie. Yes, I know you are wondering what a pixie is doing telling a story. But it’s my story and I have something to tell. Trust me, you will love every twist and turn about as much as I am going to love telling it. Well, maybe not every part of it. But you will find out what I mean. It was a bright summer day and the breeze was calming as the people came from all around. Something called a festival was to be held in one of the neighboring kingdoms. As a pixie, of course I was curious. My long blonde hair blew slightly in the soft breeze. My eyes sparkled of the deepest blue, almost like someone pulled sapphires from the deep mines and placed them in my head as eyes. I wasn’t very tall, a normal 2’5” as any pixie, dressed in the way of the fae; scantily. My top just draped across my neck, sheer that barely covered my breasts. My bottom was merely a clothe that held no substance, just draped around my hips. I wasn’t like a normal pixie, I was curvy and beautiful. My melodic voice carried through the breeze, soft and sweet. Today was the day of the grand festival, one that was held every year on this day. People would come from all around; merchants brought their goods for selling, as did the farmers and their crops. It was the nobility I didn’t quite understand. They came all dressed in their brightest colors and their shiniest metals, gems that adorned their neck, wrists, fingers and even the ladies heads. Strange creature these humans were. I could hear the whispers on the wind, apparently some noble was looking for a wife. I just giggled, strange indeed. I moved through the branches to get a better look when my eyes fell on him. He was dressed in red and black robes, homely looking at best; but I was pulled to him. Almost like he had cast a spell on me. It didn’t take much coaxing from his part, but there I was, right beside him before I knew what I was doing. I dipped low as I had seen the ladies do when they were approached by a noble gentlemen. As I got closer I could see more of his features; soft brown eyes, shaggy blonde hair with pale skin. It looked as though he had worn that robe his whole life. ‘Well, aren’t you a spectacle..’ I thought to myself. I knew there was no way he could have a woman in his life that actually cared for him, if he had one at all. “Hello.” He spoke to me. I just looked at him and waited; a look of dismay across my face. You see, no one can see a pixie unless they want to be seen. He looked right down at me, my head tilted to the side in a form of a question. “Yes, you.” He spoke again, this time I knew he was talking to me. “Uhhh..Hello?” I didn’t mean for it to come out as a question but that is the way it sounded. “I see you can speak.” He said. “Of course I can speak. I know a few different languages; common happens to be one of them.” I responded. “I see, well..I hope you have the ability to learn more, if not it’s okay. I have a fix for that as well.” I just sat there looking at him as though he had lost his mind. I mean, lets face it, he was talking to air as others would see it. But as I looked around no one was paying him any mind. They weren’t looking at him as though he were talking to thin air and come to think of it, I hadn’t seen his lips moving. Wait... How? “Come on.” He began to stand as he began to walk away. Didn’t he want to see what was going on at the festival? “I didn’t come to see the ins and outs of the kingdom, I was here waiting for you.” That arose so many more questions in my mind. Like how was he hearing my thoughts for one. Then he answered that one question. He stopped and turned to me, took a couple steps towards me and then extended his hand. “I will not harm you, to do so would be to harm myself. You see, you are my familiar.” I gasped. “I cast the spell a while ago, it finalized this morning. That was why I was sitting here, under that tree. I was waiting for you.” He smiled at me, it was the first genuine smile I had seen...and it would be the last genuine anything I would see from him. I didn’t know it then, nor would I have ever thought it would turn out the way it did. If I had to think about it now; I would have rejected him. But I was young and curious. So I went. It was great at first, we would spend days learning so many things. What ever he learned, so did I and the same in reverse. We were unstoppable. But one day, we ran across a book. He trampled through some of the worst creatures I had ever seen to get this book...and it emitted an evil presence. I didn’t even want to touch it, but I had to read the name...The Book of Vile Darkness. From that moment on he was experimenting with life, casting dark spells that I didn’t agree with. So he closed off all thoughts to me. Put up a wall. I am actually glad he did that looking back at it now. Because his mind had snapped as he reached for immortality. Splitting his soul into many different fragments, taking his mind with it. “Delilah.” He called me to him one day. “Yes Master?” I responded. “I need you to go find me a cave. Deep if you can, the deeper the better. But it doesn't have to be.” I was a bit confused about this request. My brow raised in a question, but I did as I was told. I went out searching the mountains around where we had been staying. I found one, it was as he had asked. When I entered it, there was no light inside and I had gone about 300 feet into the cave until I had reached the back. So I sent word. “I found one Master.” He looked through my eyes and for a second he unlocked his mind to me. What I saw, snapped my own. “Perfect.” Was the word that arose within my mind, the voice was almost unrecognizable. Raspy, deep, menacing...but it was his. I was on my way out, when a door formed right as I was about to leave, sealing shut. I pressed on it, blasted it with a fireball, and then another. I fought that door until I had tired myself out and dropped to the floor of the cave in exhausted tears. “Master...” I called out in my mind. “Yes?” He answered back. “I’m locked inside of the cave, I have tried everything, it won’t budge.” I was all but sobbing with spent energy. Then I heard the laugh. It started low, and vibrated around me. Then it began to grow until it was all around me, echoing louder and louder. “Master, please!!” I cried out for him to come and set me free, to rescue me from who ever this presence was. The steps grew closer and closer, I didn’t want to turn around and see who was coming for me, not like I could...I’m not a dark elf. I lashed out with my dagger, swiping at what ever was coming near me. No matter what I did, the echoing laughter continued until I fell to the floor of the cave and sobbed. Would I ever see the light of day again? To learn with my Master, or fly in the open breeze? Hands came under me and wrapped me into warm arms, I thought for a moment it was all a dream. But as I opened my eyes, there was nothing but darkness and I knew that it wasn’t but something about the arms holding me, I felt safe. I heard a soft, distant whisper and don’t really remember what happened from there.  I awoke to the sounds of clattering and clanging of glass. Beakers. As I opened my eyes I could see light and it hurt to open my eyes. Slowly, I allowed them to adjust. My eyes were swollen, I could barely open them but I knew why. My body ached and I was very slow and sluggish, had I really spent that much of my mana? I guess so. I mean I was trapped in a cave. But as they grew more adjusted to the light, I could see that I was in a lab of some sort and the clanging was from a man in the distance. “Hello?” My voice cracked and was too faint to be heard by anyone, especially with all of the noise going on. I decided not to speak again. Just looked around the room I was in. Candles were burning to give off a soft light on shelves made of stone and wood. There were small and large beakers sitting on them ranging from the smallest you could find to some of the largest I had ever seen. Those were on the floor. The weight of them couldn’t be held by the wooden shelves. The man that was in the same room with me looked like he was hunched over, I slowly approached closer to get a better look. His hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks, his skin clung to his bones; I could see every outline of them. It was weird how this man seemed oddly familiar to me. Then I saw his face. It was sunken in. His eyes looked like they were hollowed out parts of his skull, I almost screamed at the sight. But something about him seemed very familiar and then it struck me. My eyes grew wide as I looked at the man I once knew, he was void of all life. My voice rose above a whisper this time as he turned to look at me. “Master?” He turned and smiled at me, and it was more than I had feared. His face resembled that of a skull, this wasn't my Master. His teeth were missing in some places, so was his hair. He had patches of baldness and then sprigs of hair that shot out of his scalp in bunches. Dark circles formed under his eyes as though he wasn't sleeping...at all. Boney fingers held a candlestick, entwining the loop. "You're awake." His voice was raspy and mutilated almost as though his vocal cords were pulling as tightly as any ones could be pulled and vibrated through his throat. I slunk back away from him as he approached and just nodded my response. "Come, look at the wonders I have created in just the short time you have been asleep." It wasn't as though he was asking me, more like a command. He reached out his other hand to me and I reluctantly placed mine in his. I didn't think he was going to ask me nicely the next time. I slid off the table of sorts and onto my feet. My legs wobbled and threatened to give out on me, but he pushed some of his magic into me and I could feel the evil radiating through it. Was he trying to corrupt me? I could feel the pull from his hand to urge me further.  As I looked around I could tell that there was more to this place than what met the eye. There was magic radiating from the walls, blending into the floor. I gasped. This wasn't natural magic. It was vile and evil magic. The same that was forming around him. He stopped for a moment and studied me. Then shook his head as though he was disappointed in me. "Delilah." That was the name my mother gave me when I was born and it used to hold so much joy, but it was thick with disdain when he said it now. "Yes, Master?" I tried to hide what I was thinking, but he pushed into my mind. There was no place I could hide from him, especially in my own mind. "I wanted you to be happy with me." His face dropped to a scowl. "But it seems that you will never be happy with what I have done." He shook his head and let go of my hand. "But I..." I tried to think of the best way to make the words that he would approve of, but in the end, I failed miserably. "You what?" His face grew dark as though a shadow had cast upon it. "I..uh...I don't understand." I really wanted to know how I offended him with a simple phrase. "You wouldn't." He turned away from me at that moment and began to walk away. My last stretch, and trying to regain the connection we had. "Please, I want to understand. I want to..." My words trailed off as he continued to walk away from me. "You will never understand. Do you know why?" Here it was, my moment to show I was interested in what he was going to tell me. "Why, Master?" Just as the words left my mouth he moved so quickly across the room, his fingers laced through my hair and he jerked my head back. He face was completely visible now and the deformities etched across his skin. He was cutting away at him self. But why? "Because Delilah, you are too good." My eyes grew wide as the acid dripped from his words. He whispered under his breath, it sound like a spell but the words I had never heard them before and then he threw me across the room. I hit the wall and was knocked completely unconscious. I don't know how long I was drifting in and out of consciousness, I just knew my head was hurting more and more every time I was about to come to. One time I cried out in the pain, the others I just whimpered. I wasn't coherent for long, each time he would speak strange words and I would be knocked back out. This went on for a while, how long; I have no clue. But one day when I woke, he let me. My eyes opened slowly as though I was going to be knocked back out again. Much to my surprise, I wasn't. "Master?" It was soft, but in a cave you don't have to speak loud to be heard. He turned and looked at me. "Good. You're awake." I just nodded, expecting him to say those words and I would be right back out. "Come to the looking glass and see how I have made you better." I didn't even want to know how he may have mutilated me. As I looked down at my body, it was still the same. I almost jumped for joy. Was he coming back to me? I slid from the table, wait...how did I get on the table? Last I knew I had been slung against the wall. A shiver ran through my spine at the thought. I inched over to the looking glass as I was instructed. Closing my eyes before I stood in front of it. I didn't want to know. Did he do something to my face? Was I horribly disfigured now? The anticipation was killing me and I had to open my eyes. At first, I was amazed. I still looked the same. A bit on the pale side, but that was to be expected with dwelling in a cave..wait, how long had it been? "Master?" I tried to be soft with my words. He just grunted in response. "How long was I asleep?" He placed his fingers to his chin, and rapped them across it a few times as though he was thinking. I could hear the bone hitting against bone as my eyes drifted up towards my face. "Years." I gasped at the image I saw. Black hair, just as long as mine. Her face was sunken in just like his, however it still held beauty. High cheek bones that sharpened to an edge, lips black, her eyes held no light in them and for a moment, I though he had changed everything about me to suit his wants. I screamed out in protest. How could he do this to me? How could he mutilate and change my entire image. I started to cry softly, stumbling away from the looking glass. I searched my body. My hair was still blonde, my skin was a bit paler but not like hers. My fingers didn't look like hers. I breathed out a sigh of relief, he was toying with me again. Then I heard the voice. It started dull at first, like a far off thought that kept repeating over and over again in my mind. Then it grew louder, louder, until I couldn't stand it any longer and screamed for it to stop. There was silence, and then laughter grew again. I screamed and pulled at my head. "Stop sniveling you little piss ant." My breath caught in my throat. It was my voice I heard, but it wasn't my voice. "Who said that?" Something inside me pulled me back to the looking glass where she was, a smirk twisted the features. The once beautiful face was twisting and contorting into something I now longer recognized. This could be real. Tears streamed down my cheeks as the laughter continued over and over again. I screamed out trying to be rid of the sight, but there was nothing I could do. He had split my mind in my sleep, creating and evil version of me; one that would understand him. He closed the gap between us as I cried, whispered something and I was out again. Then there was nothing. Just silence.