Written: 4/16/24
Word Count: 1,343

c/w: violence

Resinee's voice turned hard, hard as the stone gray of her skin. "That's unnecessary, Beckett. We've been nothing but kind to you since your arrival. I even gave you my lunch! Is it so hard to ask for a little respect from you, or is that too much to expect of a pampered little High Elf?"

Sensation started to return to my legs, so I used that as leverage to raise myself to my knees. My back was turned to Resinee, but I knew she could hear me. Of course she could hear me. It was her job to keep tabs on even the depth of my breathing, wasn't it?

"What does being a pampered elvant have to do with my aunt's murder?" I asked, tonelessly. "You let me walk in here without warning me about the blood. You took her food, supplies. Rifled through her stuff. Kept her here when she was alive for your own purposes. How am I supposed to believe you didn't kill her, and that I'm not next?"

There was a pause, but I didn't muscle up the effort to turn. There was a window behind the kitchen sink that looked out on the foliage stacked up against the sheer fall down the mountain. This was the northernmost edge of the oasis, then. This kitchen. The light played tricks against the leaves, more patterns to blind me every time I blinked.

"People get killed all the time." Resinee waved off each and every accusation.

"Not in the Capital."

"Why should I care?" Resinee chuffed, a quick expletive of shock stuffed under the ruse of a laugh. "Your naive misgivings have nothing to do with me. With us. With this mountain. You have no idea what's at stake if we don't keep the dragons out of our way. You don't know anything about me or my folk, but you can still call us monsters at the first sign of blood."

At last, I shuffled around on my knees to peer at Resinee. Now, added to the polka dots of her dress, the leafy shapes of the foliage joined in, further distorting the elva's face from clarity. Her hands had moved, though, to prop themselves against her hips. This Dark Elf was the slim and petite shape that all elves were prided to have.

Too bad that body was wasted on a snake.

"You have a funny way of excusing murder. If I'm supposed to be laughing, you'll have to wait for me to give a yewing shit about your Goddess-forsaken problems. All I see is a liar, a murderer, a thief, and a tyrant. If not a monster, then what in the naga should I call you?"

Resinee sighed. For the first time, I noticed something beyond her legs, hidden behind the swishing material of her bouncy dress. A basket. Ah. The first food delivery for their unwitting prisoner.

Now, that was hilarious.

I slipped and slid in the sticky blood and my puke, swiping my ruined poncho against my chin to wipe off the slime beneath my mouth as silent laughs shuddered through my shoulders. My stomach had settled, for now, but not on the calm waters of peace. No.

These familiar waves were the farthest thing from peace.

One hand clawed out at a different basket sitting primly on the middle of the island caked in my aunt's brain matter. My claws wrapped around its wooden handle, and flung it toward the elva with every bit of strength within my noodle arms. Exhausted from the attack that had riddled through their muscles, the throw was weak, but paired up with my inherent leanness and strength, it was enough to make an impact.

The basket missed its target, papers fluttering through the kitchen in a flurry of demolition. I'd thrown the thing with such strength that it crashed into the entryway, upending an entire table. One tottering lamp took the plunge, shattering against the ground. But I wasn't done.

With a guttural roar reeling through my scalded throat, I upended the next thing on the kitchen island, a weighty marble cutting board. With both hands, I swung at the elva-shaped blob I took for Resinee.

"Goddess!" Resinee screeched, her delicate, tinkling voice crashing in a chorus of fallen cymbals. Alarm made her voice turn shriller. A bubbling sensation filtered down my limbs, skittering along my arms, raising them in gooseflesh.

A smile erupted across my face, her fear acting as my motivation to wreak as much misery and havoc as I possibly could.

The Resinee-shaped blob dodged to the side as the next object I found flew toward her. Glass shattered, the bolstering sounds propelling my feet over the blood spray on the dark wood and careening toward the light-carpeted hallway at the edge of the kitchen.

The Dark Elf ran, just as my vision began to clear.

My feet smashed into the basket of food, some dingy little thing braided with dried grass. The splintering crack as my foot sent it spiraling was music to my ears. My senses had calmed, settled, all focused on the rage pulling in every ounce of tension, vibrating across my skin in a tight buzz.

I gave chase. I bellowed at the hapless elva, my voice colored in the deep cadence of an elve as it ricocheted down the white walls of the hallway. Resinee fled to the door, but she was clearly rattled. She hadn't expected her powerless captive to fight back.

"Get your Goddess-damned ass out of my house!"

"What in the blazing hell is wrong with you?" Resinee screeched, all those delicate tones of her voice gone like the screeching of the wind writhing above my little oasis. "Calm down!"

At the entryway, Resinee fumbled with the long handle, making a gaudy racket that sent birds scattering away from the bushes beneath the raised porch. My hearing was back in control, illuminating the world instead of slamming me into it. Every instinct joined as one for one explicit purpose.

Violence.

The Dark Elf's knees trembled, her polka dotted dress swishing in frightful judders. Clawing the door open at last, she flung a gray-toned leg through, using the hidden force within her skinny thigh to propel it to move.

I dodged the door, grabbing hold of its weighty frame. She may not look it, but she was still elven. Resinee was strong.

Stopping at the entryway, I began to hurl shoes hidden under a little bench next to the door. Boots and slippers, sandals and high heels all took flight, turning into deadly projectiles as my jagged nails aimed and propelled them to follow Resinee. My muscles started to really burn. I hadn't actively tried to use my enhanced strength in so long...maybe not since the last time I'd lost control.

Long gone was the Beckett who cowered and whimpered, cried and simpered, scared of the big and burly Dark Elves, terrified to step one foot out of line.

Calm down. Resinee had told me to calm down.

Who the blazing hell was she to tell me to calm down?

"You better think twice before denying me anything in this Goddess-forsaken stewhole you call a town," I threatened once the final shoe had left my hands.

I pointed at the panting elva, hands clasped on her knees as she heaved into the cloud of gravel dust she'd kicked up in her desperation to flee the vet clinic. "How dare you? How dare you talk to me? How dare you spout your yewing garbage at me, at me?!?" Each word that left my mouth was coated in the ringing, stinging sensation of puke. My throat was utterly wrecked, but it only fueled the violence writhing deep in my gut. My vision began to darken at the edges, tunneling so that I could only see the elva in front of me.

I didn't see a Dark Elf, a young elva with her own life, her own goals. I didn't see a fellow folk at all.

All I saw was an enemy.