Internalized

“Mother, did you love Father?”

The question was answered with a vicious slap that left a trickle of blood at the corner of the child’s mouth.  “Stupid, foolish girl!  Where did you get such ridiculous notions!”  Each word was punctuated by a tug of the hair or a pinch of the skin.

Remembering what was expected of her, Thiralis punched her mother in the arm, determined to make it look good.  She then affected the haughtiest stare that one of her young years could muster.

And Mother nodded and swept out of the room.

*********

“Put that painting away, you are wasting your time!”

Thiralis inwardly flinched at Mother’s harsh tones, but she raised her silver eyes.  “I am good at it.  Why should I not do it if it will bring me prestige and money?” she evenly questioned.

“Stupid, idiotic thing!  You may think that you are good at it, but you are nothing compared to the masters.  You will waste all of your time trying to be something you are not, and for what?  You are a weak, emotional girl.  Go study your magic so that I will not have to make excuses for you.  Perhaps then you will not bring shame to this family.”

*********

“But where is Father?”  She knew better than to allow any sort of tremble to enter her voice.

“He is here to do his duty every eighth day as was agreed.  Why do you ask of him?  We have given you everything you desire, you ungrateful wretch, and all you can do is whine as if your heart were bleeding.  Leave me to my own pleasures, I have no time for you.”

*********

Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, and she could not hide it.

The look on Mother’s face was a mixture of stupefaction, revulsion, and pity.  Her dark eyes were dull, honed to razor-sharp shards of black ice.  “You are out of control.”

*********

The still-painful memories flowed through her mind as surely as the water flowed through her blue-black hair.  Thiralis knew that she was safe under the waterfall.  She knew that tears would never be discovered here, and so she allowed them to silently fall.  And then, stepping out of the spray, her muscles tightened, and her head snapped up into a proud position as she rejoined the rest of the regiment.  The only thing that belied the young Druchii’s complete mastery of her body was the slight limp in her gait.

Strangely enough, the limp disappeared when she was deep within the Dhar winds.  She was out of her tortured emotions and crippled form, and her soul soared as it coiled around the chaotic power.

And the quiet, mousy, frail yet exquisitely obedient young elf was never thought to be anything other than the promising Sorceress that she appeared to be.