Born the second son of an Elven lord, he should by all rights have been sipping wine in the Palace, not thick ale in a common tavern in the city. But he had never been favored by his lord father. Mordikar's mother had died birthing him, a rare event in Elven families, and his father had blamed the newborn child. In his father's eyes, Mordikar had begun his life by taking his mother's. He had lived with that blame all his days. As a child, he had been unwanted, handed off to a nursemaid and all but forgotten. All he had ever wanted was his father's approval, a smile, a nod, a pat on the back for a job well done. But what Mordikar fought tooth and nail for and never achieved, his brother Tyrmen received effortlessly.
To Tyrmen went the best tutors, the finest robes and silks, the choicest invitations to court functions. Oh, they had allowed Mordikar to attend as well, but more as a servant than a son. He held their cloaks and fetched them wine while they talked politics and danced the nights away. At last he had given up. He began to spend his days and nights in the streets and alleyways of the city and even darker places beyond it's walls. If his father saw him as a killer born, then that was what Mordikar would be. He studied poisons and all the ways to kill quickly and silently with Nightshades in moonlit groves. He stalked rooftops and shadows and he imagined his father's face on every man who's life he took.
And then he had met Lyceria. The daughter of a poor fletcher, she was the most beautiful thing Mordikar had ever seen. A kinder, gentler, more loving girl he had never imagined existed. She had made him feel a real person. They had fallen instantly in love and for the first time in his life, Mordikar had been happy. Lyceria had become the only light in his darkness. It had taken little time to realize that they wished to wed. He could remember the day they went to his father's estate to tell him the news but it seemed someone else's memory. They had arrived and been greeted at the door by his brother. Tyrmen had seen exactly what Mordikar had in Lyceria, a beauty beyond compare. And as always, what Mordikar desperately wanted, Tyrmen received instead.
The next days blurred, Tyrmen had their father speak to Lyceria's family, offered them land, gold, whatever it took to entice them to marry their daughter, not to the man she loved, but to Tyrmen. It all seemed to happen so fast, Mordikar could feel it all slipping through his fingers and could do nothing about it. With tears in her eyes, Lyceria had told him how she had to marry Tyrmen for her family's sake. Had it only been three days ago she told him that? Three days since he had run as far as he could? Three days of violence and blood that had still not quenched the rage that still blazed inside him like a fire to burn the world. Now all he thought about was revenge. Revenge against all of them. "I would do anything to have power over them..." he muttered, his fist clenched around his empty ale mug.
A hand fell on his shoulder and an amused voice replied, "Anything? 'Anything' could open many, many doors, my friend."
(edited for formating and rewording the last line) [ 12-03-2001: Message edited by: Mordikar ]
