Where the Dark Thoughts Lie

Hard to believe bread could taste good after stealing a stale loaf from a bakers store, especially a small bag full of bread that could easily last him some time. Dorian could never understand why shems would throw away food that wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t care. More for him. Tearing into the crusty ‘flesh’ and softening it with some water he’d also nicked from a stall, he enjoyed his lunch.

It had only been a few days since he’d up and left the orphanage, hanging around in the dark alleys in the shemlen areas of Denerim and just preferring his own company over anyone else’s. Being alone felt less lonely than being around others to him, though he did admit he missed a pair of twins who would bug and pester him. The routine felt broken and for some reason he missed it. He shrugged, shaking the thoughts from his mind as he continued his meal. At least until he heard shouts from the entry to the alley.

“Where are you knife-ears gone? Come have some fun with us!” one shouted out loud, his laugh echoing through the alleyway. He sounded young, perhaps only a couple of years older than Dorian himself.

“Sheesh, you think you knife-ears don’t want to sit on our laps, since that’s all you’re good for!” another boy shouted, his loud laugh more shrill than his friend’s. Their voices however were getting closer, making Dorian’s spine tingle as he reached for his bread bag.

“Oh hey Lanis, look at this! We found a knife-ears!” a very dopey sounding boy shouted, Dorian turning to see him staring right at him, “I think it’s that cripple one your Da was on about!”

Dorian stood frozen as three more shem boys rounded the corner, each one looking at him with evil smiles only shems could possess. “I think you might be right George, an arm and an eye missing. Looks just like what my father said. Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise. We come here looking to fuck some elf girls, and we come across this dog.” The one apparently known as Lanis said, definitely the first voice Dorian heard only moments before.

He glanced the opposite end of the alley, hoping to see an exit magically appear from nowhere though had no such luck. He was stuck with four shems staring him down, the looks in their eyes clear in what they intended. Shem’s were predictable like that. “Shame, I thought I was doing him a favour. Making sure he couldn’t afford to fuck some whores, though it seems my good charity failed.” Dorian said, knowing he had no chance to just walk away, “Then again that’s how he met your mother isn’t it?”

The intended effect from the insult was instant, Lanis lunging forwards and throwing the first punch. Dorian dodged, but didn’t expect the foot coming up belonging to one of the other boys. It caught him across the chest, knocking the wind from him and allowing Lanis to catch him across the back of the head with another punch, one that actually landed that time.

“Shut your hole knife-ears, you don’t get to talk to us.” Lanis said, gripping Dorian’s hair and throwing him backwards, smiling as the elf hit the hard stone, “So, where’s my father’s money?”

“Why not ask your mother? I paid for a good time... and I was utterly disappointed.” Dorian spat back, earning himself another kick to the stomach. In desperation he tried crawling down the alley, his blue eye darting everywhere to find something to fight with. A broken wagon was nearby with some rusted metal bars scattered across the ground. His sight was broken from it once more with a kick to his face.

“I said shut up you piece of shit. You speak when spoken to like the dog you are!”

“You’d know all about that wouldn’t... wouldn’t you, considering the amount your mother had to fuck to make you...” Dorian laughed loudly to mock him, cut off by a second kick to the face that broke his nose and caused blood to start pumping freely.

“Hold his legs. I want to make sure he fucking suffers for this...” Lanis growled softly as he reached into his pocket and produced a pathetic looking knife, “I’m taking his tongue.”

Two of the boys took a firm hold of Dorian’s ankles, dragging him back towards their group while Lanis prepared his knife, chuckling as the George shem tried to grab Dorian’s wrist. “Stop struggling, the more you do, the less fun for me this is. It seems it’s very long overdue that you learned your place knife-ears. Not like the word of a cripple means anything anyway. ”

 Dorian froze for another reason as the shem used his disabilities in such a way, the surge of anger rising up inside him. He’d been called cripple for years; by shems and by other elves in the Alienage and the orphanage... yet somehow this one boy’s venomous voice and his shit-eating grin put Dorian’s anger over the edge.

The shem named George screamed in agony as Dorian lunged his hand forward and lodged his fingers into his eye sockets, gripping tightly and twisting his wrist to do some serious damage to the boy’s eyes. Lanis jumped in shock as his friend fell to the floor clutching his face, his and his friend’s join hesitation offer Dorian the chance to escape. Kicking the two boys in the groins, Dorian scrambled towards the end of the alley and quickly gripped a metal bar, swinging around immediately to hit anyone or anything.

Lanis was struck in the arm not holding the knife, crying out loudly as pain surged through him. The shem’s pain only made Dorian smirk, as well as drive the bar down onto Lanis’s right wrist to shatter it and cause him to drop the knife.

The two boys attempted to protect the leader of their group and paid dearly for it, with Dorian smashing one over the top of his head with the bar and instantaneously reducing him to the human equivalent of a twitching vegetable. The second had his left knee smashed, followed by a few ribs as Dorian stomped on his chest once the boy was down on the ground. George stood only to receive a smash of the bar across his face, crushing the bones of his nose and around one of his sockets, allowing one of his already damaged eyes to fall out and hang painfully from the tendon.

Dorian watched three of them writhe in agony, letting the sounds of their pain fill his ears and make him smile. He’d never hurt anyone this badly before, not even shemlens, and how it felt so good...

“You fucking shit! You fucking shit! How dare you!” Lanis screamed at him, the shem boy’s face red with rage. When Dorian turned to look at him with a large, evil smile Lanis’s face turned pale.

“Oh... how long I’ve wanted to do this. To kill a bunch of you fucking human parasites. Living pieces of shit that can’t seem to ever shut the fuck up and die.” Dorian said, his voice drenched in hatred as he slowly advanced on Lanis, “Doesn’t matter to me who you are. You’re just another shem, and you’re the first I intend to kill. Don’t worry... I want you to suffer...”

Dorian began striking the boy over and over again with the bar, breaking a new bone or more with each swing and enjoying the sight of the boy’s blood. He didn’t care, all his pent up emotions coming out in such a satisfying way.

“Dorian stop! Stop it!” a familiar voice cried from behind him, a pair of feet rushing towards him. Dorian did stop for a moment, though as that moment ended he struck Lanis once more.

“Fuck off Eve.” Dorian spat, turning his head a little to see one of the Lyn twins. With Marilyn following just behind, the comment from before said by Lanis as to why the shems were even there made even more sense.

“I said stop this right now!” Evelyn shouted again, stopping only a few feet from him. It appeared from the loud gag in her throat she didn’t notice the damage he’d already done, though now she was surrounded by it. Her eyes widened a little too from the blood flowing from his nose.

“Stop? Why? A few more corpses never hurt anyone, and besides... you two are the reason they’re here.” He spat once again, turning to face the twins. His eye was alight with rage, though his smirk told of a sadistic pleasure he took from it all.

“...We... we didn’t know you were here. Just please stop...”

“Why should I? Still not hearing a reason for you to.” He eyed Marilyn who was looking to the boys, curious as to what she whispered to her sister.

Evelyn seemed to shrug away whatever her sister had said, her eyes returning to Dorian once more. “Because... because it’s not you! This isn’t what you do, Dorian...”

Dorian allowed her words to sink in for only a moment before his head was thrown back for a loud, manic laugh. “What would you know?! The only time of day you give me is when you and your bitch sister talk about me like I’m less than you! You don’t fucking know ANYTHING about me, so don’t even fucking try!”

“That’s because you never let anyone in you fucking idiot!” Marilyn shouted back at him suddenly, “You bitch about everyone not giving you a chance, yet you do the exact same thing! Drop the damn bar already”

“No... I won’t, and leave me alone. Neither of you have something worthwhile to say to me, after all you two act like you’re better than me because of stupid shit. Better than me because you have friends, people who give a shit about you... hell, you act better than me just because you’re not deformed like me. So you two can fuck right off and leave me alone!”

“We’ve NEVER acted better than you because of your arm or your eye! You just keep making shit up to make yourself have a shitty reason to hate anyone! You kill them, you’re going to bring the shems you hate too down on the entire Alienage! We have it bad enough already, we don’t need YOU doing this to make it worse!” Marilyn practically screamed at him, her face red.

“Why should I give a shit? We all know that once this is done you’re just gonna run back to that shem you and your sister love so much. Nothing like two beautiful girls walking with an old shem bastard to keep your own lives safe huh? All for a few nights a week of sweaty disappointment.” Dorian spat back, his voice just completely filled with anger, every word laced with a venom to try and wound them.

Marilyn tensed up, her hands curling into fists and looking she just wanted to punch the boy. She held herself though, biting her lip and turning to Evelyn. “Let’s go Eve... there’s no point. This idiot’s going to get us all killed because he thinks he suffers more than anyone else. What’s the point in helping someone who doesn’t even try?”

“...Dorian, please...” Evelyn said softly, trying to get closer to him, though Dorian’s grip on the bloody bar tightened, “If you keep doing this, you only prove you’re as bad as they are... and it only gets worse from there. We’re trying to help you... please.”

It took several minutes for the twins words to get through to him, his eye moving away from them as his mind raced with conflicted thoughts. Thoughts of “They’re trying to help YOU Dorian...” and “They’re only out for themselves” battled on in his mind, with an eventual victor in the one pleading to his heart.

His expression softened slightly, culminating in him violently throwing the bar away and pushing past the twins. “Leave me alone.” He said darkly, though he couldn’t hide the tremble in his voice as he did. After a few steps he broke out into a run, disappearing into the crowds and headed towards the Alienage.

He’d exploded and nearly killed a group of humans, and had snapped angrily to the closest things to friends he’d known, not that he could actually even call them friends. The twins, despite having lead the boys to their fate at Dorian’s hand, had tried to stop him from making not just his own life, but the lives of hundreds of elves in Denerim worse. The heavy weight starting to form in his heart as his mind remained focused on what had been said. Evelyn and Marilyn tried to help him and he shoved it back in their faces, all because he couldn’t contain the hurting and the pain he’d endured for so many years.

That sense of freedom he felt only a short time ago was now replaced with a loathing self-hate, and all he wanted to do was fall away into the darkness that filled him now. The matron of the Alienage scolded him for being gone so long, scolding him even while his nose was looked at by a doctor for ‘a fight with some local boy’.

He was aware that Marilyn checked on him sometime before nightfall, though neither of them exchanged anything more than a look.

Her eyes fixed on his, not saying a word at the sight of his reddened cheeks from constantly wiping them with his sleeve. She simply left him alone, just as he asked... and yet, it only made that void in him larger...

                                                                                   

Falling back against the pillow he stared up at the ceiling, just wallowing in his own self-hate. He was alone... and he’d proved why he deserved to be.