"Ahem, happy birthday to you happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Eli... Happy birthday to you!" It was Xavier and his lyre. He extended every vowel of his song for an inconsiderate amount of time.
"Woah nice knife you've got there Eli, that a birthday present?" He pushed past me, unfazed by the 9 inch blade I was wielding. I was dazed and Xavier didn't give me time to answer before asking his next question.
"Where's mrs Mum? She told me she had a huge surprise for you birthday."
"She's gone." I said, it was better to be straightforward than to beat around the bush.
"She left me to go back"
Xavier looked confused, he was like a second son to my mum after his mum died when he was about 14. He didn't say anything, which was weird. He had a remark for everything. He took a bite out of an apple he had grabbed form the wooden fruit bowl on the table in living room that he had barged into.
"Come on, I need to get out"
I sighed in an exhausted manner. Xavier didn't protest and followed me out of the door.
My house was just inside he outer wall of the kingdom. This was where all the misfits and immigrants lived. Crowns guard were constantly prowling the paths around this part of the city. They had a prejudice against us, thinking we were all criminals and barely deserved to live where we did. It was a rough area where the sewage systems often flooded the houses and rats ran rampant everywhere. This place was kindly nicknamed Shitscreek. I hated it.
As me and Xavier wondered the streets of Shitscreek I thought about what I was going to do. The tax collector would be coming in the evening and I was left with nothing. The tax collector was a stout balled white man who had it nearly as bad as me. He would walk around the city going door to door in stolen clothes and a yellow hat to cover his bald head. Fondly, we called him professor eggs. On many occasions he would be defaced by a shower of various eggs, one time a woman dropped a whole basilisk egg (no one knows how she got it but we didn't question it, it was funny seeing prof eggs get almost knocked out)
Anyway, we walked absentminded through the streets in silence for almost 30 minutes before Xavier piped up.
"So what are we going to do?"
It was at this moment that I noticed the dark purple ring around his eye and the scratch that street he'd from the top of his eyebrow all the way down to his cheekbone.
"Was that her again?" I asked firmly
Xavier reached up and hid the bruised left side of his face.
"Xavier, tell me. Was it her?"
"I think you know the answer to that Elijah" said Xavier in an almost threatening way.
After Xavi's mother died, he was cared for by his father and for a few years it was just the two of them. Xavier would often say those were the happiest years of his life. His father remarried after 3 years being alone to a dominant woman who controlled and manipulated both of them. This woman was 7 years younger than Xavi's father and only 10 years older than Xavi. She was a tall woman with dark brown hair and green eyes. She was notoriously mean and many believed her to be a witch, which would explain why Xavi's father fell for her. She often beat Xavier knowing that he wouldn't fight back. This was the last straw
"Come on Xavi, enough is enough. If you're not going to stand up for yourself, I will."