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title: the Elvin Key (a Violet Key side story)
author: newtypeshadow
beta: Moniquill
notes: This is a keyfic based on the Key Games set up and archived on the Palace of the Keys website. For more information on Keys, see my profile page.
The Elvin Key
His rooms were a forest of blue-green paint and vines crawling up the walls. It smelled of dew, of freshly turned earth, of flowers almost in bloom. The sitting room had Elvin furniture carved to look like swans. Their graceful necks formed armrests, their tall wings spread into backrests. The wooden furniture was unpainted, the silvery color of trees from the enchanted forest from which they were cut. These seats were arranged around the fireplace, a mantle of two carved stone trees growing together and stretching up into the ceiling, their leaves a painted canopy above the Elvin Key’s head.
Maiyrin hated this room for the sad reflection it was of his sylvan home. He could smell death on the plants magically kept alive by the Palace. The rough stone under his feet made him ache for shoes he would never be given, for a carpet of earth or grass in which he could bury his toes. He hated this place, hated the tall windows overlooking the gardens he would never walk, hated the bedroom where unworthy men used his body like so much inhuman clay, hated the bathroom with its artificial waterfall and the rings along the side of the tub where men would chain him down.
He was a pleasure slave now, not the great warrior he once was. The only thing that had kept him from death was his cursed beautiful face. He used to be a death bringer that warriors would gladly see before they closed their eyes in final sleep. Now he was the last thing men saw before their little deaths. It was not the same at all.
Maiyrin bore his new role with stoic grace. He had no choice—his trainer had seen to it that he understood the wealth of power and magic the Palace had at its disposal. Should he ever incur its wrath he would become a slave without a mind, but no less a slave. His memory would be wiped, his pride broken, and his body would remain permanently in chains. He was an Elf, not a fool. He let the men have him, let them overcome their fear of him and the threat that he was. He let them think him beaten, submissive.
The Palace could not last forever. He could. Someday he would no longer be a slave; the magic of this place would wane and fade. When that happened he would leave. He would take the lives of everyone who crossed his path with him.
He sat cross-legged in front of his fireplace, a sorry stone imitation of the forest in which he’d grown up, in which he’d killed. He would be leaving this place soon—he could feel it. The Palace was growing too weak to hold him here. In weeks, maybe days, he would have the power to cut through the door and walk out. He would kill as many as he could during his grand exit. This place would never forget the power of the slaves it held against their will.
He tied the front sections of his dark brown hair into an intricate jeweled clasp given to him by the Palace. They’d taken away his clothes, his plain leather hair thong, his shoes. They had taken away his dignity, for a time, but soon he would get his own back. He wondered how his family was, if they still lived. His defeat must have come as a blow. They probably thought him dead, for no self-respecting Elf would sell another to a human.
The Elves who sold him had been traitors to Elvinkind. He hoped their dead bodies had been left for the birds of the air and the maggots of the earth.
Because men knew nothing of the ways of Elves, Maiyrin had heard no news his kinsfolk from any of his masters. Indeed, each seemed surprised that his ears were real, that his body healed quickly, that he was much older than they and yet looked like a young man. He was four thousand years old, give or take a few centuries—he had lost count after he came to the Palace. Time passed differently here, he knew that. He knew that he should have aged faster than he had. He shouldn’t look like an Elf in his three thousandth year when he well knew that he’d been captured shortly before that mark and centuries had passed. The Palace’s magic was stronger than he, and he had bowed to it…for a time.
But soon that would end.
For two days the old man had not come with food or a change of sheets. Maiyrin’s dirty tunics went down the chute and weren’t brought up again, cleaned. Outside, the garden plants were wilting and the sky was iron gray. Inside his rooms, dust gathered in the corners.
There was never dust in the Palace.
Maiyrin sat in the center of the pit of pillows that made his bed, meditating, waiting, wondering absently if the old man were dead. The Elf’s legs were crossed, his hands resting on his knees, and his head was bowed. Long brown tresses hung down his bare back and shoulders. He sat naked but for his hair. He wanted no part of the Palace on him while he willed away his hunger with memories of his sylvan home: the way the children danced on the branches of trees, calling down through curtains of sun-kissed hair; the way rain traveled down the veins of leaves and picked up speed, gathering themselves for the fall to the distant ground.
Suddenly Maiyrin’s head snapped up. Something important was happening….The magic. The magic binding the Palace together…
It was gone.
It was time to go.
He slipped on a silver tunic and green-blue breeches. The heavy brown riding cloak in the back of his closet—from the one master who’d ever taken him outside—was slung over his shoulders. The hood was left down for vision’s sake. He would pull it up once he was gone from this goddess-cursed place. He picked up his two short blades—used mostly to perform for masters, but deadly nonetheless—and tied the baldric around his waist and brown leather rubbed the silk of his tunic into his skin. Without the magic of the Palace stifling him, he felt ultra sensitized. He could see why humans liked the sensation of this fabric, even if it was utterly impractical. He sneered then. He hoped he saw humans on the way out. He palmed the knives at his waist, gripping them, feeling their familiar weight. Yes, he hoped he saw humans on the way out.
He approached his door with careful steps. It had always repelled him before, as if knowing he would try to break it down with his magic if he ever got the opportunity to touch it. This time, however, the painful electric tingle was not there. There was nothing that pushed against him like fiery glass. There was nothing there at all. He reached for the silver handle, gleaming so innocently in the light filtering in from the garden windows. It was noon, roundabouts, and his room was lit like a forest clearing. He turned to look at the cursed place one last time. He took in the vines trailing from floor to ceiling. They were wilting now without their magical upkeep. He took in the painted silver trees and their leaves of green and muted gold. He took in the chairs, silver swans gracefully arching and bowing in submission. He took in the floor of polished stone, so hard on his bare feet. He was glad to be rid of this place. His soul would be free at last.
Maiyrin heard the click of the latch as his magic slithered over it, and then the door was open and he was standing on the carpet outside. The carpet was red and short, like spongy moss. The outside of his door was embossed with vines and leaves. Two silver trees, just as with his fireplace, grew on either side until they joined at the top of the door. He surveyed the hallway with hooded brown eyes. No sounds came from the closed doorways on either side of his own. He heard nothing but the beat of his heart in his ears and his breath stirring the air. He would have expected to hear something, someone else, but there was only silence. He clutched his knives uneasily, turned left, and started walking.
He soon reached a large stairwell. It curled out at the top and bottom like an unfurling flower, and was carpeted in the same soft red. Crystal chandeliers flickered from the ceiling, and columns from the first story to the ceiling stretched up and up and up. It appeared there were only two floors. There was a desk on the bottom floor that he could see as he began descending the stairwell. Sitting on it was a black laptop with a mouse attached. It was covered in a light film of dust.
At the bottom of the stairs the floor was made of marble tiles connected with gold designs. Large statues of naked men in provocative positions stood in each corner of the room. The double doors before him beckoned, and he went to them. Pushing on the golden bar, the door slowly opened and sunlight poured in.
He found himself on a busy road. Large metal animals screamed passed him and humans in scraps of clothing paraded by smoking cigarettes and talking loudly. The road was black and hard under his feet, hot. He quickly stepped back onto the cream-colored walkway where people rich and poor scuttled past him with nary a strange glance, but one or two of appreciation. He turned back to the door through which he’d come, but saw only a brick wall.
He felt no magic, only desperation and expectation. He longed for his forest home. He ached for someone who could tell him how to get there.
“Excuse me, are you lost?” A kind-faced man with a briefcase and suit in a bag slung over his arm touched his arm. Maiyrin was so startled he nearly knifed the man in half. As it was, the left knife was halfway out of the sheath under his cloak before he schooled his reaction and asked, clearly and with no sign of impending panic, “Can you tell me how to find the Silver Woods?”
The man shifted awkwardly. “I’m…not sure what—” Then he saw Maiyrin’s ears. “Is this some kind of joke?” With an indignant sniff he ripped his arm away and stalked off.
The smell of trees was faint under all the smoke from the metal beasts. Maiyrin followed the crowds of people until he came to a large intersection, and then another. Finally he saw what he was looking for: a low stone wall surrounded a small forest of green grass and trees. The Elf was nearly hit by one of the monstrosities as he ran to reach it. Loud noises blared from the beasts as he jumped over them, clearing each that neared him in a single vault. He made it to the wall to the astonishment of the people around him, and jumped over. At last, trees. It was not home, but it would show him the way.
He came to a small clearing over many hills where the people lay out in the sun with their children and frolicked with small, tamed wolves. There he lay on his back and stared up at the cloudy blue sky. The cool breeze soothed him. The grass under his body and bare feet made him feel connected to the earth. He closed his cloak over the knives, pressed his hands into the manicured grass, and let the earth speak of him of his missing family.
Left these shores…left these shores…left these shores…left these shores…
“Excuse me, sir, but Central Park is now closed.”
Maiyrin’s eyes opened with a snap. It was dark, but a bright light was shining in his face. The Elves were gone, the Palace was gone, and now he was being told to leave. “I have nowhere to go,” he whispered into the cold. And then suddenly he knew—his life was gone. He had nothing, no way of rebuilding, no way of making his way in this world.
The two men in blue uniforms, the silhouettes of close-cropped hair and silver glinting at their sides, were the last things the Elf saw.
Maiyrin’s heart broke. His spirit fled.
-The Elvin Key (Maiyrin)-
So named for his ethereal Elvin looks, this Key is never wanting for masters and is well renowned for being as deadly as he is beautiful. In fact, his name means “death-bringer.” He was a warrior before being captured nearly dead and sold to the Palace. He has adjusted to his station with stoic grace, but it is oft wondered whether or not he is simply biding his time.