Kendall's Story II- Short Story

Kendall's Story II

8- October 2004

Based on the writing challenge:
Write 400 words including the phrase:
"Okay, I'll try. But only because you're asking."

The pallet she had been given to sleep on was uncomfortable, and if she lay really still, Kendall could hear vermin chewing at it in the dark. The room was dank due to being underground; sunlight rarely touched the room through the one small window that was at street level.

The group her captor belonged to had taken up residence in this large storeroom several months ago. The shopkeeper was willing to keep their presence a secret, her captor had explained, because he had lost his youngest child to the temple of Darou.

Kendall thought she knew the girl in question, who was three years old and was brought to the temple several months ago. The high priestess introduced the wide-eyed child as her future successor, as handed down by the word of Darou through a shared vision had by the High Priest and the High Priestess. The last she had seen of the young girl Kendall thought she had looked happy.

She shifted on her pallet and brought her face near the musty cloth that acted as a partition between her and the rest of the room. The blonde stranger had insisted she take what was considered the prime spot in the room, which was full of mostly men. One of the few girls in the group had complained at the special treatment the newest recruit was receiving, when she had always had to make due with a pallet in the main room like everyone else.

Her captor had stepped in and entreated with the girl, whom he called Richelle, that Kendall had been enslaved in the temple until only earlier in the day, and had been most likely for all of her life. Since it was the only life she had ever known she would probably feel safer in her new freedom being able to conceal herself as much as possible. Could Richelle please understand that it was out of consideration of this fear of being captured and returned to the temple that they had decided to let the new girl have that particular spot in the room? Couldn't she, Richelle, have some sympathy for the temple slave?

Richelle had looked over Kendall at this point, clearly skeptical. Kendall met her eyes with as much determination as she could muster. Richelle snorted, then turned to the young man that stood between them. "Okay, I'll try," she said with a pout. "But only because you're asking, Trenton." She shot one last glare at Kendall, pivoted, and bounded off across the room to where a group of giggling girls waited.

That was the first time Kendall had heard her captor's name. Now, as she peeked out from beneath the musty curtain, she could see the back of his head. Trenton had insisted he take the pallet nearest her because, as he had explained to others, he was the first member of the group she had met, and since that had been when he had rescued her, she already knew she could trust him.

Kendall believed he meant to guard her not from the other people in the group, as he had reassured her, but to prevent her from leaving. She did not think it a coincidence the "best spot" in the room was also the furthest from the door. Kendall shifted her gaze from the mass of blond hair and tried to discern the best route to the door. Even if she were careful, any path she chose would take her by at least twenty sleeping people. It was unlikely she could make such a trek without some incident. She sighed and lowered the cloth again. While it had been a nice thought, she knew she had nowhere to go, even if she did make it out of the building.

Kendall sat up and, pulling her hood over her face, settled into the meditation position. Even if her rank allowed her to pray directly to Darou, she would not insult the god by doing so away from the consecrated ground of the temple.

She was uncertain she should even be meditating out of the temple's walls but, she reasoned, if she were outside the temple, it must be Darou's will that she was. Kendall had been faithful to the god all of her life, at least all of it that she could remember. She knew his scriptures better than some of the Brothers, though she could never admit it. She had memorized them as the High Priestess, the only woman in the temple to be allowed access to the holy words, recited them to herself as part of her nightly ritual.

She never doubted her god loved her. It was evident by how quickly she had made it through the ranks at the temple. She had achieved the highest rank of servant from the very bottom in only twelve years. Most women only advanced two, maybe three, levels, and those that rose to the top as she did usually took forty years to get there.

So, if she were now outside the temple and Darou's sanctuary, it must be because he willed it for her. It was clear that Trenton believed he had freed her. He said as much to everyone he had run across in his group. Kendall did not know where he got the notion she had been enslaved at the temple, but it was clear that in removing her from the temple, he must have been guided by Darou's hand. Trenton's reasons behind taking her were irrelevant now she realized it was done as an action of her god.

Kendall settled back down on her pallet and closed her eyes. Trenton had mentioned going to meet with the group's leader tomorrow. She now knew she must stay with this man who had been sent by Darou until her god sent another messenger to guide her way.