Ishani's first memory was a feeling she learned to associate with heaviness in the part of her body that was called her chest when the organs she learned to call lungs struggled to pull in something called a breath. What had happened before that was a haze. In truth it was just an impression of a floating colour with no real memory or reason to it. So she considered the memory of her maker leaning over her, rubbing her chest, coaxing her to relax, to take in a slow breath her first memory.
Her maker relaxed after her creation had been made. After all, Arai's work was done. The pinnacle of being was to draw from the void and to make it life itself! “Ishani,” she whispered into her creation's ear those first few moments, breathing out the desire that she had poured into this thing that lay soaked in alien experiences, struggling with full adult comprehension to understand what a child slowly evolved to through its life. “Ishani,” her creation whispered back, accepting that as her name rather than her reason.
The weeks were exhausting for Ishani as Arai sought to teach everything she thought important, while her doll wished nothing more than to engross herself in the world which surrounded them. “But why?” she asked her maker one day while Arai struggled to slip her into a long flowing loose gown. “Because people do not simply walk around all day that way.” It made no sense to Ishani's mind that clothing should be so important when they spent so much of their day naked, close, touching with nothing to inhibit them. This she seemed to enjoy the most: To be touched and caressed by her maker. Just the thought caused a thrill in her body. “All right,” Arai would finally sigh.
When her maker was busy with other things Ishani would venture through the forest which surrounded Arai's retreat. Like an island they were buffeted on all sides by wide expanses of trees that Ishani enjoyed visiting every day. And though Arai could understand her creation's extra touch to the world around them, often catching her conversing with an willow or singing with a brook, Ishani felt that somehow, in a way she could not understand herself, it was something that her maker could not experience of her own. So she'd return, body coated with drying mud, bits of leaves stuck in her hair, smiling at the twigs she brought, or the water that dripping out of her cupped hands, laughing and singing the songs and words she could hear and understand, spilling her joy into her maker until even Arai was laughing with her.
“Stay out of the forest,” Arai warned her one day. Her voice was hard. It scared her doll as she watched her maker dress and bunched up the sheets that they had lain beneath the night before to her body. “There are humans there,” a concept Ish only understood as an added warning, though she didn't truly understand what a human was.
Arai turned back to see the fear on her Ishani's face. “I will be back in a couple of days, Love,” she said with a brush of her fingers and a kiss on the lips she had molded so softly perfect.
Ish did not know what else to say except to whisper “my Hart” to her before her maker locked the doors that had never been locked, and bared the gate that had never been bared, then vanished through the trees.
But it was not a few days before she returned...it was a couple of weeks before Ishani's nerves (something else that was new to her) were frayed enough with worry (a thing that she had not experienced, and had no one to guide her through understanding) drove her out through that locked door, and beyond that bared gate. Fear gripped her throat as she wondered through the forest, through the trees that whispered but seemed to fear speaking, past the brook that babbled in a way that made Ishani's stomach clench as she followed the strange noises that hurt her ears and disturbed her mind.
From the edge of the forest the humans had been working their way in: Cutting trees, clearing paths, burning the stumps and destroying the land. The sight caused Ishani to scream and her eyes to instantly tear as she rushed from the forest, throwing herself against a man with a raised ax, beating on him wildly as she continued to scream to make him stop the killing that was crying out to her. At first he didn't seem to know what was happening as he ducked himself. Then he heard someone yell “Elf!” Another yelled “Get her!” He dropped his arms, felt her hand bounce off his shoulder, smack into his face, heard her scream more as someone grabbed her from behind, watched the bareness of the lithe thing struggle in the grip of one of the other workers, slipping out of them like a greased eel, dart away again while he stood there stunned, watching the others chasing her.
“This way!” someone screamed as Ishani fled in terror. They were monsters! MONSTERS! Monsters destroying her friends! “Over there!” She moved lithely through the forest, the ease of passage by such common knowledge of her surroundings while her pursuers crushed through and cursed as they tripped. It was only a moment of glancing back, of her long dark hair catching in her face, and suddenly there was a mountain in front of her, arms that gripped her not with the loving embrace that she was use to her from her maker, but a harsh grinding that did not let go as she struggled and cried and was carried back to their camp.
Inside a cage she cried, gripping the bars, then releasing them again, hating the taste the harsh metal left on her palms. As the day went the men found excuses to come by and look at her, look at the nudity that she didn't even bother to cover up, growling things that she couldn't understand to one another, laughing and making gestures she didn't understand.
It wasn't until night fell that the worst they could do came to her. And she stopped struggling, stopped fighting them after that, as they cleared more of the forest, then began truck back the timbers they had collected, leaving the scared ruins behind them as they carried her in her cage, sometimes making her walk with a rope around her neck, loosing interest when she just laid there and refused to speak or fight again. In the city, hustling and dirty, she was sold to a merchant, put on a boat, cast away, feeling the drifting of the water making her head ill. It did not sing the way the brook did back home. The creatures here did not converse the way she was use to. And the wood that surrounded her was dead and lifeless now, which made her cry as in another city she was clothed in material that didn't even hide her nudity, and was traded around like a sack to people who did to her until the pain excited a pleasure that made her weep.
“Put her down!”
A tall woman stood in the door way. “She's mine,” was all the more she said before she jerked Ishani's filthy form from the man who growled and grumbled behind them that he wasn't done yet. Practically being carried by the woman they left the hovel that was considered an inn in some port that Ishani didn't even care the name of. Nearly lifeless she felt the hands that caressed her. Calloused fingers like the men and women which had abused her for so long now, which made her flinch despite their gentleness.
For how long they traveled she wasn't certain. But at last she raised her head and looked at the world around her. “We're almost home,” her companion said from beside her while fingers played across the skin that was soft once more. “I am Tea,” she said. Ishani looked at her, saw the soft smile, felt her body tingle in response to the touch, then jerked when the wagon hit a bump. “Its okay,” she whispered, rising to pull Ishani back as she startled and look about. Turning back Ish allowed herself to be pulled down into the embrace that awaited her, to settle next to the warm skin that was so like her maker's...but still alien because it was not.
The castle on the lake boasted a broad expanse of land that allowed many cottages to rest comfortably beneath its protective shadow. Almost immediately Ishani cold feel a relation in her body as she felt the earth beneath her thrum with life. Around her body clothing had been draw, and she did not fight them this time, but relished in the way they hide her, even as light and airy as they were while she was lead to Tealeaf's cottage.
“This is our home.”
Inside it was nearly empty: A couch and a table, a winding stair to a short tower above that lead from a small bedroom, another room that was curtained off, closed away. “That is my daughter's,” Tea told her, stopping with a hand to keep her from parting them and looking. “Amadine prefers her privacy.”
The days were long and complicated as Ishani struggled to adapt to her new way of life. So use to kneeling either because she was thrown into a small space, or forced for someone's enjoyment, she only slowly learned how to stretch herself out again. So use to the rough touches and heavy assaults it took her a long time to trust the touches that came so softly and coaxed her so gently again, bringing her back from the horrors that would never leave her, but, she was promised, were over at last. It became a happy time for her, of laughter and silly awkwardness as she learned how to be something besides an animal again.
Then it happened. No one knew how...or at least no one admitted it. Tea was found dead, her body hustled off to be taken care of while her daughter clung to Ishani, revolving from broken pain to hatred that her mother would leave.
“You're welcome to stay,” the lord of the land told her when he visited a few days later. “We can find you another home if you prefer,” he said, seeing the hearth filled with only dust and ashes, leaving the room cold and dark. “Anywhere you prefer,” he added with an eye toward Ishani.
“No,” she answered. “This was her home.”
Ama bound back easier than Ishani did. With friends in the castle and the other homes she found distractions and support to help her mend. But Ishani did not. She kept to herself, went through the motions of day to day life, taking care of the girl who seemed to disappear more and more often to become a stranger to her again.
“You can't live like this,” someone said. A voice that she barely recognized anymore.
“Its the only way I can,” she said in one that she recognized even less.
It was months later that the lord came again. Amadine gone with his daughter, his wife out on some excursion, he invited Ishani to the castle, to see a room he had been decorating. A special room that he wanted her to see.
The castle was large, white, pristine. Inside everything was light and airy, welcoming as with open arms. Balls were held here, banquet feasts that everyone was invited to. It was not merely the lord's home, but a place built for everyone to enjoy. She had seen it often in the time she had lived here: From its tower and its grand bedrooms to the balconies that circled the upper floor. But as he lead her down a secret set of steps she realized she had never been this way before. A weird sense of excitement at being some place new shrugged off the melancholy that had wrapped itself around her, choking her off from the world. “Close your eyes,” he told her as they came to a door. She could hear it creek ever so softly as it was pushed open, felt him guide her in and close it behind them, smell the candles burning...along with something else that was familiar to her that she couldn't quite place.
Suddenly he was behind her, his hands on her shoulders, caressing her, his lips brushing through her hair to her ear, telling her she could open them again. The touching felt so nice, so welcoming in a way she hadn't felt for months that she realized it was a need that had grown deeply inside of her, and for a long moment she refused to open her eyes while she turned her head and allowed his lips to caress her smooth neck, and his hands to pass away the simple clothing she was wearing. When she did they were blinded by the candles, hazed over while he turned her around, pushed her backwards, his body blocking her view this time as he pulled her arms up and attached them to something over her head.
“I knew you'd enjoy it,” he said, taking her long silence and lack of reluctance to mean her eyes had taken in the view of the room. As he backed up and began to remove his own clothing he continued. “Your Mistress enjoyed this room, too. Enjoyed it willingly and veraciously, so I knew you would as well.” He was naked, his body ready, pointing at her stunned form as he walked back again and her eyes darted about the space before it was blocked again from view: The whips on the wall; the padded bench across the way; the chains that hung down, and other things she did not even recognize as he blocked her view for a moment and his head lowered down, caressing her body again, making her shiver and tighten.
“That smell...” she whispered.
“Yes. They enjoy it, too,” he muttered against the flesh of her shoulder. “Like mother, like daughter,” he said as his hands caressed her body.
“Let me go,” she whispered. When he didn't stop she said it again, and began twisting her body to get him to stop. To him it was a game as he pierced her and listened to her scream, thinking her body couldn't betray what she was really feeling. Through her tears she saw the devil that he was this time, and felt him abuse her in a way that she had been promised would never happen again.
When he was through he released her, smirked as he watched her escape only half clothed.
At the home she found Ama again. “We're leaving,” she said as she began to pack things.
“Why?” Once that question has been so common to her own lips, but now she thought how frustrating it must have been to her maker.
“Because I know what he's done.”
“What?”
Ishani stiffened. She didn't want to stay it, even as she didn't understand how. Didn't to turn around while she spoke. “I know what he's done to you.”
“Who did what?”
Finally she did. Slowly. Looked at Amadine standing there with a mixed look that Ishani couldn't read, but didn't like at all. Dropping the things she held she crossed the room, knelt and wrapped her arms around Ama's slender form, held her the way she wished someone could hold her now.
“I know what the Lord did to you.”
“What?” Ama's body stiffened in Ishani's hold. “He hasn't done anything to me!” she said.
“But he said...” Ishani pulled back, wanting to see Ama's face, and saw the lord's daughter standing half wrapped in the curtain that closed over Ama's room. “We're all leaving,” as she realized what the man had really said.
She tried to tell everyone before she left. But it was useless as she bundled up Amadine for a journey she wasn't sure how they would take, and was forced to leave the other girl behind. “We'll come back for you,” she knew Ama had said. But they couldn't...and never did.
In a new city the world seemed to have changed. “Its just temporary,” Ish said when she mistook Ama's sulkiness for the small space they were now living in: A modern building that felt too cold and lifeless for her while she found a job and did what she could to support the two of them. “Its not much,” she admitted when things were skimpy, but was felt relieved when, at last, the girl was adopted by a friend. “She'll be better now,” she thought to herself.
“You need a good night out.”
The voice came from one of the girls she worked with. It had been a while that Ish had been here, hiding her ears the best she could in long loose hair, making it work with her career as best she could so no one knew she was an elf.
“Come on,” Titanna said, when Ishani declined. “Afraid we'll bite?” she winked. That wink made Ishani laugh. “Well, maybe we will...if you ask nicely,” she teased.
But as Ishani walked into the ballroom she could feel an energy that was oddly familiar. It welcomed her, enveloped her, pulled her into it and refused to let go, and she thought this was where she could be happy again, then new it when she found her Hart again. A life time apart and they were together again, dancing in each others arms in a family that she had gone through Hell and back again to find.
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