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No, this hurts more. I was happy, for the first time in my life. I thought I had found something. I thought maybe I’d discovered my place in the world, between Drazak and Han’zir, my orc and my troll, and the farm was where I belonged. I thought that being with them was being home.
But it was some fucked up, twisted lie.
I slow down when I think I’ve finally lost Drazak. The despair soon morphs into fury as I think of him, of how I knew him, the very first moment I saw him. How he seemed so familiar to me.
Perhaps he’s broken my heart before.
And Han’zir. My troll, out of everyone, has only ever seen me as an animal to do his bidding and warm his bed. All those pats on the head... remembering it makes me seethe in a place I’ve never felt before.
He was the one who gave me that name.
Back at the mansion on the hill, I was a toy to my master, something to pick on when he couldn’t use his wife or children, something to hit and scream at when his own boiling rage got to be too much. I was an object to bear his suffering.
You useless cow.
I did everything for him and his family, and I was little more than a piece of furniture to them.
Then I became a pawn in an even bigger game, a chunk of flesh to be thrown at the enemy, meant to stop the tide of arrows and swords and gunfire.
I will not be someone’s plaything again. I will not be used as a pet, as a body, as a womb.
Finally, at last, I cry. I fall into the forest floor and drop my head to the dirt, slamming my fist into it over and over.
Rather than trying to get up and continue on, I roll onto my side in the needles and branches. This time I do manage to sleep, because it’s the only way to escape how they’ve betrayed me.
Han’zir
She’s gone. I know it before I even see Drazak approaching in the darkness hours later. I went after them, but I was no match for my orc or my girl.
Her soul has left us.
He doesn’t speak as he comes back and sits down on a log.
“We should search for her,” I say.
“I did.” He pokes at the fire. “She’s gone, Han. And she’s not coming back.”
My throat closes. That isn’t right. “She’ll be back tomorrow,” I say, whether to convince him or myself, I’m not sure.
“You saw her face.” He hunches even further forward. “Something broke her. We broke her.”
I drop my head in my hands. Puppy. What a horrible thing, I think now, to have called her. My disgust at myself rises up over me like a monster, eclipsing everything else.
Now we’ve lost her, the third point in our constellation. I wonder what will happen to us without her—and what will happen to her without us.
Our bed feels cold, and though I try to find Drazak’s hand, he curls it into a fist and pulls it away. I know he’s not angry at me. He’s angry at himself, at us, for not realizing how cruel we were.
The next day, she doesn’t come back.
The farm looks dead. The sky is a tepid gray, and neither of us speak as we do what few chores we can. When I stoop down to weed, I can almost imagine Esme next to me, and I fall back on my heels.
She’s far from her own lands out there. She has no weapons, no food, no means of survival. Where will she go next?
I doubt she had a plan when she left. No, she was acting out of panic, hurt, anger. I didn’t know she had the capacity for so much rage.
There had been a fear in her eyes, too—something beyond just nicknames, that had fueled her legs. She was fleeing from us the way a deer might flee from a bear.
I’m consumed with the thought of what might happen to her. My Esme. My gentle, happy girl. She was our sun, warming up the sky, keeping the clouds away.
