Ciara actually say it is good that I now have a personal servant, and don't seem to mind that it is Caecilia. We both now know that Ciara would have liked to be my personal servant, but we also know that it would be wrong as she is my concubine and socially it would be a downgrade. It just slightly annoys Ciara that she didn't think about options before she became my concubine. She is a little jealous of Caecilia, but she loves to be my concubine and to be more important to me, and she is very well aware that I will send Caecilia away on arrends, and Ciara wouldn't like to leave me for what might be several days.
But it's just nice to lie here in my bed to sleep, with my arm around Ciara in her thin sleeping dress and listen to music for a while. Ciara and Iselin are my two red-haired goddesses, and I love them both, but they are so very different.
Ciara is happy and content as long as she can be close to me, and do something she knows is useful, while knowing I am content. She would probably be happy to sit next to me and stare at paint that dries if I myself thought it needed to be done. The world seems insignificant to her. Whether the sun is shining or it is raining, we have good food or eat dry bread, live in a tent or in a castle - it just does not seem to matter that much, as long as she is there with me, and that I am content and comfortable. Drawing a boring map for the umpteenth time, or carefully copying a book does not seem to bother her. It is something to do, it is good it is done and something she can do that is useful and important. Ciara is proud that I only let her copy maps and that I'm proud enough of her craft that I let her mark it with her own symbol. She does not seem to care what the job is, or gets tired or frustrated. She also usually does not care about what I do or to have it explained to her, because everything seems convenient, practical or nice. Crane? Convenient. Oil lanterns? So convenient. Fall protection harness? Very practical. Create games and pastimes? Nice. Firearm? Practical. Plans to take over the world and enslave the entire elf population? How nice - it will make their lifes better.
Even though I have told her not to do anything, the others seem to make sure Ciara isn't around if there are things or news that can make me annoyed or angry. Thank goodness that such news is rare, and they have learned that I don't really get angry, possibly a little annoyed. A few days after the duel, Alith took me aside and was completely honest and serious, when she thanked me and told me that all the guards are relieved that I specifically told Ciara that she should not hurt any of the guards, my sambos or Jane, even if they make me cry, disappointed, pissed off etc. At Iselin and Kari's prompting, I said the names of them all and Alith was of course right there and witnessed it. Ciara was not even annoyed at that. She just listened, nodded and said she understood.
Alith likes Ciara and they are friends who often talk, but Ciara has a dark side that scares them. Ciara is the leanest, lightest and least trained here. She is currently lying with her head on my chest so she can feel me breath and hear my heart beating while she happily lets her hand play with the hair on my chest and stomach, and she scares trained shieldmaidens who have been in battle and killed.
Fu-uck. I have not told her about the others who work in the household.
"Ciara. I probably did not say that, but you shouldn't kill or injure anyone - except in self-defense."
"Okay." Of course, she only responds with a calm 'okay' as if nothing special has happened and does not feel offended or so. Just a calm okay that the directive has been received and confirmed. Several have adopted that word, especially since Jane also use it. The sky is blue, the sea is wet, she shouldn't kill anyone.
"Have you ever threatened anyone in the household?"
"Everyone. And the crew on the ship."
I'm not really that surprised. I think for a while, and self-defense can be interpreted proactively, not reactively; "Have you found the loophole in that if you need to?"
When I have explained what I mean by loophole, she just nods in confirmation and says 'Yes', and continues to let her hand play in the hair on my chest as if nothing special has been said - I havn't even noticed any interruption in her movements. My own little cuddly fanatic who only cares about me. Or maybe she doesn't?
"Is there anyone you would never hurt, even if they hurt me?"
"Iselin." she immediately answers, and after a short pause; "Maybe Kari and Alith."
It feels good that at least Iselins help in Ciaras rescue has made her special, and that Kari as my concubine is on the plus side, especially after being the one who ran the household when I or Iselin couldn't, and Alith who is her friend. But Ciara is still my cuddly fanatic, and there is certainly a 'dere' type who describes her but I don't know which one it is. At least a bit of Yandere.
Sex between us is often short and without foreplay, and wherever we are and do when Ciara thinks we need to have sex, I should have sex, or I need to be distracted. If she sees that I am frustrated by a problem, need to relax or start stretching, she immediately start massaging or in other ways trying to make me relax depending on what I said or what she feels for. She thinks it is good that Caecilia can help with this too, so that I'm as happy and content as I can be. But Ciara prefers to be the one who massage me, and cut my hair and so on.
She knows that I do not appreciate sex in some places or in front of the public, but she does not care at all if Iselin or Kari happen to be around, show up or join us - even if in such cases Ciara almost completely ignores them as her focus is completely on me and her. The sky is blue, the sea is wet, ink needs to dry, food needs to be eaten, we need to have sex. Same same. But I'm happy that Ciara can enjoy sex - really enjoy it - but it's different with her nearby.
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Iselin is wonderful in every way and I love her personality, and how she is positive, smart, curious, charming and sexy as hell without even trying. Seeing Iselin walk around barefoot in a nightgown or tunic with messy hair after she wakes up, is more enticing than Caecilia when she tries to be seductive in some thin fine garment. If that is because I'm still in some pink mist love stage, I hope it lasts.
When Iselin found out about the universe and I showed her the Pale Blue Dot and Hubble Deep Field, something awoke in her, and she is on a journey of discovery to learn everything. It seems like it anyway. Its like she sees the world with new eyes, and she knows that with science and technology you can get so very far, and she has become deeply interested in everything technical. She asks so many questions about everything, and we have talked about light, the laws of physics, flying, life under the sea surface and the most diverse areas. When others have seen my camera, mp3 player or tablet as amazing magical things, Iselin wants to know how they can work, and with her ability to absorb information, remember and ask follow-up questions, I have lost track of what she knows. I have just learned that she has a phenomenal memory and a mind for figuring things out, and nowadays she has plenty of time to think things over. Most people here have a very good memory.
Had Iselin grown up in my world, I think she would be a nerdy girl in chemistry or physics, and she would definitely have had hobbies and built things, because she wants to experience and do things; not just read or understand them. We have discussed why the monoculars work, why the sextant's monocular are different from the prism monocular. She knows why there is color separation in them, and why surfaces have color, and it is not just a learned memorized knowledge. She seems to test and understand it, and it is damn impressive to be able to absorb knowledge like that considering shes not had any real education, and lived in a primative world.
Yesterday I found her huddled on the couch, staring at a rainbow on the wall created by oblique light through the window, and looking at it through colored pieces of glass, and she wanted me to confirm that there are no real steps in the colors of the rainbow, it just seamlessly change from color to color no matter how closely she look at the colors. She wondered how to decide what names different colors have and were to draw the border and say it is no longer yellow and instead green? So I told her about color standards, palettes and charts. What light gives pink? So I explained; all the colors of the rainbow except green, and I think it is now her favorite color after a nice blue or green - because pink is different optically, not for the color itself. She just sat there contentedly watching the rainbow and playing with her fingers in the light until it disappeared as the sun moved on.
Then she asked me why a black raven feather can shimmer in different colors, so it became a short lesson in what I guess is microstructure in relation to the size of the lights wavelengths, a bit like a diffraction grating. Her world does not lose its mystery when I explainit with science, because the more she finds out, the more magical her world becomes and the more amazing the Gods have made it. And they never knew or appreciated it.
She becomes more amazing to me in how quickly she absorbs information, not to mention music, and I have given her okay to customize the MP3 player's content for the songs she likes and use it whenever she wants. Given how often I see it lying charging, she has to use it quite a lot in her room when she weaves or just philosophizes in there. She likes to just be able to lie and think about life and how amazing the world is, or really listen to music even though she don't understand the lyrics. She really wants to build both an astronomical telescope and a microscope.
She has designed her own sundial, which impressed me greatly, and her design is a sundial with a spike instead of a bar because you should then be able to determine the time of year as well and not just the time of day. Which is true, there are models like that in Midgård. By opening the window in my study and using a fixed metal point to cast a shadow, we have a references. So we can continue to plot how the sun's 8 shaped analemma will be over a year, and determine the change day by day. I really need to calculate the time equation for sundials and the right tables for the sextant, and will need to do it really thoroughly in a year or so, as errors accumulate and I need to make everything with as little error as possible.
I was proud of Iselin when she showed a calculation she made and wanted me to confirm. A calculation I myself had made similarly once, but in my case for seconds. How large a radius of a sundial is needed for the shadow to sweep about 2mm per minute at the edge? To read the time more carefully? That is quite a lot she has to understand as how to calculate that. We sat on the cliff at the top of the mountain to the south and looked east in the afternoon, and we could see our blurred shadows in the meadow below when we had the sun in the back. Which became a lesson in why the shadow was so blurred, that it was impossible to see that it was us except when we moved, while the shadow up close is much sharper.
I have started to involve her in all my constructions, and this winter we will try to build a pendulum clock together, or other clocks, and she wants to make parts for it herself. Iselin really likes the idea of building a thing that measures something she has never really thought of before as something you can measure exactly. Time is not a weight, volume or distance, and she loves that the playing time is shown on the MP3 player for each song, and she can say how many tempo beats there are in a minute in 'Ich will' which is 3 minutes and 37seconds long. Iselin firmly believes that accurate measurement of everything is a measure of how advanced a civilization is, and accurate time measurement is very important. A lot of science use time as part of the equation, especially physics that is math describing how the world works. She loves the whole concept with placement based numbers, and powers of ten, because it gives such an enormous scope and precision with just a few numbers. She rejects the number system they have here as something incredibly embarrassing to forget.
Had I never met her and she continued to be a servant in Kambsnes, this world would have never appreciated a wonderful mind. Its tragic I don't have a lot of books she can read, and I should translate and write down the ones I have during the winter, because Iselin absorbs information like a spunge and also gets better and better at writing and reading, and we are all approachin Karis skill, a bit at a time. If only my documentaries on the tablet were not all in English. I have not shown them to her yet, but we will get there this winter.
How many other people are living tiring simple hard lives when their potential is so much more?
The Academy needs to find these people, and educate them for Alfheimrs future. Both will be hard.