Pig

The birds were softly calling out from the branches of the familiar oak trees. Laughter could be heard echoing a little ways off to the east. She smiled, picking out the loud guaffaw of her brother Ash and the tinkling giggle of her sister Willow. Her mother had pulled the large table outside earlier this morning, enlisting Ash and Cedar to help her. It was sure to be a glorious summer afternoon, the promise of good food and even better company beckoned. She turned to walk towards them, excited-

"Pig! Wake up! PIG!" A swift kick to the midriff jolted Larixi and she gasped awake. "Quit lazing about. There's work to be done!"

She sighed heavily, and pushed herself up on one elbow. Her measly excuse for a bedroll, no more than a heap of rags tossed into a corner of the small, cold cave, had not kept her warm or comfortable. As usual, she woke up still tired and achy.

"Pig! What did I say? Get up!" barked the angry goblin. He was old and his green skin had long turned a sickly brownish hue. He was missing a few fingers on his left hand. Larixi had never asked why - Stinzurg was hardly the kind of fellow who inspired questions.

"I'm up, I'm up," Larixi muttered, pushing herself to her feet. She was tall, almost 7 feet, and the top of her head brushed the roof when she stood up straight. Her long red hair was bound up and back. As she stood, she picked up a battered set of spectacles and perched them on the tip of her wide nose. She had a significant size advantage on the goblin, and at first glance it made no sense that she would stay in such a poor position at his behest. But Stinzurg was a master of manipulation. He held all the power, and he knew it.

"Make my breakfast suitable, and perhaps I will be sure your family eats today. Otherwise..." he trailed of with a meanacing grin, his putrid breath wafting. She knew he meant it. She also knew that he would be near impossible to please, though that never stopped her from trying.

Larixi bowed her shoulders and made her way over to the small fire on the opposite side of the room. Time was hard to track here - she was never allowed outside - but she guessed it had been several months since Stinzurg ordered several miners to build a small chimney and fireplace in this cave. His reasoning, he told her, was to make sure she never had to leave this room again.

She knelt, stacking wooden sticks on eachother to relight the days fire from the still glowing coals. She could use a bit of magic to ignite the fire, but she had learned long ago that Stinzurg expected her to save her skills for the tasks he had for her at the work bench. Last time he caught her using magic for any other reason - well, the sound of her mother's screams still taunted her in her sleep.

As the flames caught, Larixi balanced the cast iron pan on the holder, suspending it above the heat. She cracked three eggs in the pan, and watched them with blank eyes as the clear liquid began to whiten. She would not get eggs for breakfast. There was a gruel pot nestled in beside the fire. She would scrape what she could out of there for her own breakfast once Stinzurg left to supervise the workers in the mine below. Her stomach grumbled.

When the eggs had been cooked as close to perfection as she could manage, Larixi brought them over to Stinzurg's work desk. It was strewn with papers. Some were orders for the metals and precious stones his workers pulled from the hard rock of the mine. Others were correspondances, notes, and shift schedules. Larixi had gone through them on more than one occassion, and never found anything she could make use of. Stinzurg gestured for her to put the plate down next to his mug of ale. "You have a busy day, Pig. I've left designs on your bench," he barked, not even looking up at her.

Stinzurg never called her by her name. Never. Since the day his slavers had attacked her family, not a single person in a position of power had called her Larixi. It was always some variation of pig, slug, idiot, or something equally inhumane. She had to remind herself sometimes that she had a name. She was afraid if she lost sight of that, she would lose her last remaining bit of self.