Makings of a Monster

Winski tucked Sarevok in and stood guard, holding his hand until the boy fell asleep. Sometimes he was half-ashamed and protested these childish tucking rituals he and Jelena were in habit of, but mostly he was pleased. Sleep tight, and dream a beautiful dream of a place better than this, Winski thought, his eyes full of sorrow. Sometimes he daydreamed of screwing everything, just taking Sarevok and travelling with him as a mercenary mage. But that was all it was, a dream. He was almost forty now, frankly drank too much, and all his professional and intellectual life was collected in his laboratory and library. He couldn't very well take the life on road any more, and then what kind of life would that be for Sarevok?

Unfortunately, most of the damage had already been done. Feeling like a dark guardian angel, fallen from grace by his inability to protect the child better, Winski vowed never to leave him, no matter what. With Sarevok's shattered psyche and the violence that came so easy to him, it wasn't unlikely at all that Winski'd one day end up dead himself. Winski found that he didn't much care.

He had murdered many, not out of malice, but felt no great remorse for that either. He knew far too many of Reiltar's darker secrets, and the growing tension between them was only held in bay by the fact that both knew far too much of those incriminating deeds the other has committed. Reiltar would easily find them both, and as he regarded Sarevok as a part of his empire, indeed as property, he would be after them until they were caught. A natural born warrior still so very young, and a brilliant, but bitter mage who was not so young any more, drank too much and never had been in the habit of making allies... what match could they be for Reiltar, the Iron Throne, and its tentacles reaching everywhere?

And then there was the most puzzling thing. Winski felt reluctant to leave Jelena with her misery of a life. Obviously the woman would only be trouble on the road, if she even would join them. It would be most natural to just not think about her, after all what significance did she have? But even though Winski couldn't come up with an intelligent answer to that one, he felt, completely in instinctual level, as if Jelena was significant indeed. Winski had grown fond of her lovely, blonde hair and blue, gentle eyes, the way she gave her love to Sarevok so effortlessly. She had such a gentle sense of humor, uplifting and mischievous, completely different from Winski's own cruel, withering remarks, which regardless made her snigger. Every time Reiltar brutalized her in way or other Winski felt such a fury he could only hold in bay by knocking himself off with a serious overdose of cheap brandy, so that the aftereffect would be bad enough to preoccupy him from any further thoughts. He had concluded that it was about the effect it had on the boy, but there seemed to be another element to it as well. How puzzling.

Content that Sarevok was asleep, Winski quietly retreated. The smouldering, barely suppressed rage he had felt had changed into utter, looming depression, a strangling feeling of hopelessness. Would Jelena still be awake? Probably she was, anxious to hear what he had found out about Sarevok. He knocked her door, which was near to Sarevok's. Winski couldn't help thinking that the sleeping arrangement was like that for a purpose. Probably Reiltar WANTED Sarevok to hear how he raped his mother, stole her hard-earned spirit and sense of identity away with his cruelty.

As expected Jelena was wide awake, wearing the beautiful blue robe, face anxious and puzzled. She just looked at Winski, pleading and expecting.
Winski sat next to her, and held her hand as he often did nowadays, very unwilling to stop to think about why exactly.
- "He's growing up, Jelena. That's what it is all about. And that's why he snapped at you. He feels mortally guilty about it."
- "He's so tall already, all right. This is something a boy would need a father for." Jelena bit her lip, realizing that he technically had one.
- "I did my best. Look, this is really hard to me, but I suppose you want to know. He is... developing into a man and... his natural processes regarding that are disturbed. " Winski wouldn't have believed that a cynical man of his age would be capable of blushing this deep.
Jelena understood perfectly without Winski having to elaborate. In mortal shame she looked away, averting her eyes into her lap, her blush matching Winski's.

Winski wanted to hold her ever so gently, but dared not intrude her moment of shame and pain.
- "Jelena. It is very hard not to hear, you know that. I have been wondering what possessed a lov... umh, a woman like you to marry Reiltar."
She glanced up, darkness in her weeping eyes.
- "Ha! You make it sound like I sat reviewing possible suitors and took the best one there was. No... I always only thought of being a wife, and a mother. I didn't think I would be good for much more, and my father always said that I wasn't, anyway. But I didn't mind. I wanted children. I wanted to see them grow, and play with them, and tell them stories..." she smiled a little at her shattered dreams.
- "I believe being a mother, a good mother, can be a gift as well. Like my magic, or Sarevok's skill as a warrior."
- "Really?" she looked surprised and just a little bit proud.
- "Sure." While it was certainly a novel idea to most Sembians, Winski actually believed it after having observed it for years.

- "Anyway, I was very young still when Reiltar courted me. He was kind of handsome then, and he seemed so determined and ambitious. He made a very good impression in my parents, and he treated me well then. And I thought maybe he wasn't like my father, until..." she suppressed a sob.
Until his fists first time crushed your hopes and dreams, thought Winski, his chest aching.
- "I take it your father beat you as well."
- "Not just that." Voice flat, she averted her eyes. "I thought it happens to everyone, he coming to my room and using my body, saying that he'd teach me what I need to know when I get a husband of my own..." now she was bawling. She had never revealed it to anyone.
Winski couldn't help curling up next to her, holding her shaking shoulders as gently as he could. He was afraid to touch her at all, after all he also was a man. Had she ever known any pleasure, had she ever felt moist and dizzy and pleasant, wanting to make love to a man? Was all she had ever experienced cruelty, cruelty form petty, brutal men who took advantage of her gentle nature and that she had been cruelly misled from beginning?

And why, oh why, did it hurt him so much? Why did he feel a wish to show her how it really could be, to make her feel good, appreciated, wanted... Winski blushed in shame and despair. The god of cynical and evil wizards wouldn't probably even hear his prayers anymore.