Ida

I prepared to tell my story, one I'd already told many times. It wasn't so much that I minded, just that it was personal. Even then, I sort of wanted this Justin to know. He was a bit odd, but seemed to be genuinely kind, at least so far, and I didn't want him to think badly of me.

“There's not much too it. A few decades ago there was a rebellion in a couple of the villages against Atal's rule,” I began.

“Oh, I heard of that, didn't go too well for them,” the boy, nearly a man interrupted. I stared at him, waiting. “Sorry, continue.”

“Really there was little fighting. Our villages just refused to keep acknowledging Atal as their master. Refused his summons, refused to send him the things he told us too. The elders thought that together they could stand against him. They were wrong.”

My new master Justin leaned back, eyes fixed one me as I spoke. He waited, waited to hear all the details.

“I don't know how he would have ended up responding, not as badly as he did but... One of the envoys he sent, the elders killed him, sent his head back to Atal. If only they'd known what they were doing, maybe they did and didn't understand, I don't know.”

Justin continued to watch. “What happened,” he finally asked.

“The envoy was one of Atal's children, his youngest. He sires them periodically, not often, but often enough.”

“Oh, shit,” Chien said to the side.

“Atal came himself, slaughtered the elders, slaughtered the warriors they'd gathered to protect them, the hunters, the gatherers, every man, every woman. He burned the villages to the ground. Some of the children though, he spared. Not even he likes to kill the young.”

“You were just a kid?” Justin asked.

“Yes, I was three. I still see it in my dreams sometimes, Atal ripping through my parents and family, then pulling apart the little tree I'd gone to hide in. I thought I was going to die, I was so afraid. Then he threw me to a couple of his men, told them to 'keep me with the others' until he was done. They made me watch as the ancient marched alone through our village. He didn't even spare those who surrendered or begged,” I told him as a shiver ran down my spine.

“You're safe here. Well, as safe as I can make you,” Justin assured me as he gently touched my shoulder. I really wished I could believe that.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Thank you. Um, I'll start cleaning up if that's okay,” I offered, we'd finished with dinner before the story, and I didn't really want to keep talking. Hopefully he'd agree and let me have a few moments.

“That's fine, it's getting late anyway and I've got to clean the workshop up too,” he told me before rising. “Isn't it time for you to get going home as well Chien?” he asked the boy.

“I suppose, see you two tomorrow. Have a good night,” he said with a smirk, the jerk.

I was left alone again. In fact I'd been left alone almost the whole day. Justin didn't seem to know what to do with me during the day, and had sent me to see the house. There wasn't much too it, a few workrooms I had no business in, a small cooking and eating area. I found the bedroom, singular, that too made my skin feel tight.

It was clear what Atal expected. He'd had me since I was a child and refused any woman he'd known as one, so he'd never done anything. Once I even heard him tell someone that he couldn't have interest in one, he always saw them as kids. None of the other men around the palace had either, mostly because none was foolish enough to touch that which belonged to this city's master. Still, I knew the basics of what to do.

Maybe Atal was hoping that I'd produce a child for him, someone hopefully like his new favorite Justin. As I rubbed my belly I thought of that, would it be too bad? At the very least nobody would hit me for a year or two, and at best Justin would treat me better because of it. I steeled my resolve, because I could do that, and I got the feeling that this odd man wouldn't even be bad to me.

“Need help?” I heard eventually.

“Oh, no, I'm done,” I said.

“Alright, I'll show you the bedroom. I've only got the one for now...”

I nodded, “Yeah, I saw.”

He led me up the little carved stairs and into the room with the boughs built around. It was nice, cozy. Justin even made a small magical light to hover near the ceiling so I could look around.

“So... I sleep over here, and the few times Chien's stayed he's slept there,” he pointed to a couple of sections. “You can sleep anywhere else you want. If you need anything let me know.” With that he turned and began to settle down.

Slowly I moved toward him, maybe he wanted me to approach him? As I reached out he spoke again.

“Everything okay?”

“Y-yeah, um, no, I... Should I just...” I tried to figure out what I should do.

“Anywhere else really,” he told me with slight firmness.

Carefully I went over to one of the empty sections of boughs and sat, looking over. He was going to sleep, to sleep? Was he alright? Did he not like me? I'd seen him looking at me at Atal's palace. Maybe he didn't like women? Really I didn't know.

The light faded long before my questions did. Those nagging worries kept me up well into the night.

The next morning when young Chien saw me he began to laugh uproariously. He even took time to point at my face like he knew this was going to happen. I'd already decided that I couldn't stand him, but this was a bit much.

“You knew what would happen,” I accused.

“Your face is amazing,” he said between bouts.

“Does he like guys?” I asked.

“Oh decidedly not,” the boy answered.

“Then why is he?”

“Sweetheart I've known him for years and I still don't get it. If you start to understand why he is like he is you let me know because I'd really love to.”

Over the next few weeks I discovered that Chien was right. Justin seemed to have some kind of moral code, but I didn't understand the whys of it and he didn't seem to want to explain too deeply. He didn't care about a lot of things people really cared about and did care about things most ignored. One day he got all excited about something but when I inquired his explanation made no sense.

Then there were the tasks I was sometimes given. He had me doing a lot of things with fur and plant fiber, making very thin ropes, almost too thin to even hold together. Then I had to do all these other things with them like looping, and doing a weird column and row thing, it was easy, if tedious. He told me his fingers were too big and clumsy and using his power to do it was a pain, so it was now my job.

In the end though my new master was nice. He treated me like I was not his possession but a person, making sure I had plenty of food and nice clothes, somewhere safe and warm to sleep. There were even some beads set aside for me to buy the things I wanted. All together it was a pretty good life, odd, but good.