Enslaved pt 1

~ a story ~



They held me in chains, naked, the cold concrete floor no comfort to my flesh or bones. The bars of my cell were not within my reach. Little light filtered into my room, but I could see well enough. That is, until anyone one of them came to see me.

Few believed the tale. Fewer dared to glimpse the sight: a beautiful woman manacled to floor in the basement of a county estate, tucked in the hills of the high country.

I knew why they kept me, had come to accept my fate. Though they kept me chained, it was they who were enslaved.

I didn't realize my power til I was nearly thirteen. I was quiet growing up, and often stayed on the edges of others' lives. I watched, I listened, and enjoyed seeing the drama of those around me unfold.

But then, on my last day of youth, before I would become a lady of the country, I grew bold.

There was a boy. His name was Taren. I wanted to kiss him. I knew he fished out on the low lake afternoons after studies, so I eased my way down the valley looking for him. As always, he sat on the edge of a mound of land that hung out over the blue water.

Barefoot, with moist earth between my toes, I sat down next to him. He turned and looked at me. I was nervous, having barely spoken in the twelve years of my life, but I decided to be bold.

"Kiss me."

His eyes bugged out and he coughed, having lost his words for a moment.

"You don't talk," he wrenched from his hoarse voice.
"Kiss me."
"No one knows I come here. How did you find me?"

This wasn't going as I imagined it at all.

And then I remembered seeing the old Mage trying to coax sick children to sleep. The sing-song of her voice. The way it calmed them, bent them to her will.

"Kiss me..." I emulated the tone, the vibration, the music of her words.

At once the boy sway, as if an enchantment had come over him. He leaned forward, his lips leading, and softly graced my mouth with a kiss.

But then he didn't stop. He kept leaning into me, would not let his lips off me, til finally I pushed him away, and yelled, "Stop!"

At once, he changed. He looked confused. He said his head felt fuzzy. He asked me what I was doing at his spot on the lake, how I had found him. No memory of our kiss lay in his mind.

I ran away, hoping the boy would forget I had ever visited him at the lake.

I too was confused, didn't understand what had happened. But I had a hope and a wish for what I wanted to believe.

I stayed quiet again, holding my tongue through my studies, growing into my womanhood in the background of my dwelling's lives.

Until I decided I wanted more again. I wanted something only my influence could achieve, if it really did exist.