Blood and fire. That was the farthest he could remember before the emptiness began. There was a certain point where he just couldn't remember anything and an utterly dark void of blankness began and there was nothing beyond that.

He couldn't remember his own name; maybe he didn't have one; not to anyone and never. Until that void where he hit a wall in his memories, he'd been an 'it.'

(maybe he'd always been an 'it')

That was the first thing he could remember. He was an it, a thing; not a person; and he would never be more than an it.

Work, eat, sleep. Work, eat, sleep. The routine never broke save when he exchanged owners. Work, eat, sleep. Work, eat, sleep. He was just a run-down piece of property; helpless against any type of onslot. Or so it might seem. There was that one, tiny part of him that would sometimes surface that refused to comply blindly with being a piece of property to be thrown out to whoever might take it when one grew tired of it. A proud, selfish part that insisted that this wasn't what he was meant for; that he was royalty and shouldn't be treated like this. It always made that argument, but whenever he had the nerve to question what it meant by that, it never had an answer for him.

Somehow it knew, but it didn't know how it knew. It wouldn't be so bad if he knew he was going to die someday, but it he had learned one thing (and only one thing) about his past, it was that he had been born immortal. That didn't mean he would never die, but it also meant that those who owned him tended to be a bit more careful to avoid killing him from the punishments he received because he could die no other way. Even the luxury of fading that he somehow knew he should be privy to was denied him.

At first, he remembered egging different masters on; trying to get them to lose their cool and beat him to death without intending to. But they did and as the years progressed, the punishments became more and more creative until he finally stopped resisting and gave into his lot in life. Still, he looked for the death of one master or his selling on the off-chance that he might fall into the hands of someone who would kill him. The thought of a kindly soul who might release him never once crossed his mind. All he looked for was freedom in death. He felt that was the only way he would ever feel peace.

Most of the time.

But there were those times every hundred years or so when his long smothered and forgotten pride awoke. It would take one look at what he had become and burst into a rage. Than he felt an echo of what he must've once been and his soul ignited with fury. The embers glowed long enough for him to escape - maybe kill a driver or two - and then they would die out. They always found after that. Without that fierce pride, he had given into slavery. Without it, he wanted nothing, but to serve. He had no drive for freedom. He breathed, and his heartbeat, but no spark ever lasted long enough to start a flame - his flame - back up to its former glory. He took his imprisonment as his due; he felt he must have deserved it somehow, why else would he not be able to escape?

Long ago, he accepted the fact that he would continue to change hands and suffer this darkness until the world was destroyed. Maybe then, he would find solace; peace. Maybe there, he would find true nothingness. Sleep forever.

The only desire of his heart - if it could be called a true desire - was to embrace nothingness and never look back. To be one moment and to not be the next. He endured for that and only that.

Than something changed. He was sold to a young man after the death of yet another owner - an elderly woman who had received him from her son by marriage as her body began to grow older. He had been the only slave she had ever owned and would ever own, and she had been undoubtedly the kindest master he had ever known. He had been treated like an equal; like a human being, not an animal; and it had been strange. Like waking up from a horrible nightmare.

He couldn't remember his name, and no one had ever bothered to grant him something more than 'elf' or 'you' or insulting titles, so she had given him a name. Fëa, for 'spirit' in the elven tongue. She had been the only one he had ever mourned. She had spoken of freedom, freedom forhim, and though he hadn't truly believed her in his heart; it had been a nice daydream. No longer. The man her son by marriage had sold him to after her death couldn't have been more different. He was a horse breeder and owned large areas of land. He had nearly 400 slaves and beat them regularly. Fëa managed to stay out of his way for 3 years.

Then, his life was changed yet again.

He was in the stables when a 5-year-old girl slipped up; letting recently caught (and promising) stallion loose. Her sentence was to be lashed 50 times or until she died. Fëa watched her mother off to the side begin to weep. Something told him than that he couldn't stand by and watch something like that happen to a 5 year old.

Right as they brought her up to the whipping block, he stepped in. He had never felt so rebellious (not even when he was running, killing; for now he was doing without that voice in his head) in his life as he pleaded with the master. The final sentence was out. The girl would be whipped 50 times unless she died before, or the elf would be lashed in her place 100 times.

He almost backed down then, but the fear in the girl's eyes and the hope in her mother's hardened his resolve. He took the 100 lashes. He kept silent all until the 95th blow. Then he cried out something that seemed so familiar and passed out.

This is a weird idea I had a whole ago and I'm finally writing it. Lol