The gray and black lioness twisted and writhed in her sleep, wordless groans and cries of anguish, sorrow, fear torn from her maw as she strained unconsciously against bindings both mental and physical. Thick ropes of vine lashed her paws together tightly, and held said paws to an outcropping of stone only feet away. The shallow pit the pitiful thing thrashed in was little more than a natural dip in the otherwise unembellished stone floor. No pelts lined it to keep her warm or comfortable--no bodies crowded close to give her peace.
But she was a slave, and owed no better.
Her fur was dull from lack of grooming--though the remaining sheen along one stripe of her side claimed that was not for lack of desire. Exhaustion had broken the pitiful creature, and her own fur became neglected in exchange for a better night's rest. In her fitful, tossing, turning sleep she mumbled prayers amid her cries. Prayers to nameless gods, to the wind and rain and mists that crept over the land in the cool of night. To any being that might hear, and come to spare her at last from this life of torment at Blackbeard's savage claws.
And a being heard. And a being came.
But the beast that came to the side of the slave was not a being of wind or rain or creeping mists in the dark of night. He was a demon of fire and rage, and darkness that crept in the hearts of mortals and the shame of gods above. He was a wretched, melting, seething thing, and he was Hatred, and with blazing pits that had once been and were his eyes, he gazed down at the slave as her dreams grew fevered and turned to darker torments at the merest breath of his presence in the small and shambled cave.
Within the slave the god-creature sought; through memories and dreams and wishes and curses, for that feeling that was both name and essence and sustenance for the God. The slave cried out, but when did a slave not cry piteously? No one came. No one cared. His mental probe was not gentle, and he felt with relish as her mind caught and tore in places as he forced his way in. Not enough to ruin, oh no, and perhaps not even enough to change her, as far as the dull eye of a mortal might see. But it was damage none the less, and the God relished in it.
A third cry tore through the panting parted lips of the slave, and at last the beastly thing found what he sought. The tiniest kernel of Hatred, so small that it came as a surprise even now to the God who had seen years and centuries and eons. It was a tiny thing indeed, barely fit to nurture, and not nearly ripe. With a soundless snarl the god poured his energy into the seed, breathing life into the dull ember that would ripen in time into a burning flame for his harvest. The ones who had stolen her away. The pride that bent her back and subjugated her; treated her like dirt and worse. Herself, for not being worthy of being saved. Ah, he could work with these things.
At last, as the ember (glowing, glimmering with wicked brightness tucked down deep in her heart, far from sight but ready to burst into bloom) began to swell ever so slowly, the God stepped back. He tore free his mind from hers with a final shredding of the poor creature's dreams, and flowed from the den on the breath of her slumbering sobs. His work was done, and he would feast in time on this lioness. Nothing would stop him--nothing would dare. She was, after all, only a slave. A source of labor, and pleasure, and at last fertilizer for the ground when she had outlived her usefulness. The perfect source of food for a raging God.
And down below in the dark cold cave, the slave woke with a gasping moan, seeing the glow of burning eyes as an after image in her own sight. She shook and trembled in the pit that was her bed, and whimpers of fear were bit back only out of fear. Not of the creature that had crept into her nightmares, but of mortal terrors wrought by mortal claws and fangs. Her throat was sore and scratchy from crying out, and she lay trembling for a long while, afraid of a swift revenge from the masters who's sleep she feared to have disturbed.
Only the slowly growing light of dawn filtering through the cramped cave opening gave her brief respite--for no more sleep found the slave that night. But with that blessed light came the bark of the order and the lash of the vine, and endless toil for beings that were beasts and only pretended to not be monsters. Pain and work and humiliation walking paw in paw. And the ember of hatred inside the lioness felt her sorrow and anger, and it breathed it in as air, and it began to grow and burn, ever brighter, ever hotter. And if the slave's head hung lower, or back bent further, no one would notice or care to see, because she was only a slave in the end.
And if over the coming days the slave prayed less, and without conviction, no one was there to hear. Her gods had abandoned her long ago--all but one that came with burning eyes in the dead of night. And in the weeks to come the lioness' prayers fell all but silent, and her back was bent, and her eyes raised no higher than her master's paws. And the ember in her heart grew, and flamed, and burned.
And the slave at last was broken, and bent to the will of two masters, the neither of whom knew the other. And late at night she cried into her bound paws, wishing that she had been good enough, worthy enough to be spared this fate by her gods. She had only wanted to please them. She had later only wanted to please her masters. The burning pain in her heart was not for her, and she willed herself to die, or become strong enough to make her masters proud, pleased with her. She would serve them, bite back her pain...her...hatred for what she'd become...if only the burning pain would stop.
And the ember glowed, and it grew.
((Words: 107 cool )