Digression 1: The Alabaster Princess
38th Day of Ope in the Third Month of Snow's Fall
4633 A.G.G. (Present Day)Castle
North of the Yavan Mountains
The Continent of Kazakoto
1:45 P.S.R. (Pre Suns Rising)
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Aoleon
A tall, elegant woman clothed in a white turtleneck sweater, which hugged her lean, melanin-deficient body, found herself gracefully walking into one of the finest personally owned libraries in the world; the once great Yavan Abbey. Beneath the long black frisco skirt she wore, soft carpeting teased her bare feet. Her left ear jingled with a beautiful cuffed earring which was representative of her family’s House; its thin dangling chains and stones toying with the light as her thick hips and long legs propelled her ghostly aspect forward. Resting on her forehead between her snowy brows, she wore with reverence and pride an honourable ornament. It was a decoration which had belonged to her mother, and her grandmother before her. A symbol of beauty and spiritual focus among her mother’s people, the Dwalli; an exceptional carnelian stone which was suspended by a thin silver chain that ran the center of her head and was suspended from the base of her thick mousy white bantu knots. Knots that were heavily decorated in brass, dangling isilivere ropes, gold and ceramic.
The woman's violet-red eyes fell onto the ground as she moved along and she took closer notice of the thick, plush strip of blood red carpeting that ran down its center she was walking on. Its warmth sitting in extreme contrast to the rough, unfinished stone that comprised the cold floor that jabbed at the souls of her feet as she passed between the two. Dark patterns of roses and leaves could be seen in the carpet and she imagined crushing them beneath her exposed toes as she walked over them. Causing her to randomly wonder how different the lands around her may have been in the time when the original construction which preceded it was founded in ages long past before it sunk beneath the earth; wondering if it resembled the woodlands those designs invoked.
Colloquially known as The City of Light after its founding, the albino's stomping grounds had also been called The Land of Supreme Vision. Other names bestowed during its darker years were far less flattering, such as The Bloody Keep and The Citadel of Tears. Now Castle Įcħor-Nåbįlå, as it was properly christened in more recent times, was now more a proper home and less of a time-lost ruin due in no small part to the great wealth of the castle's lord.
Aoleon loved the castle's unique mix of cultural influences, as did its lord and his beloved queen. And in so loving it, he'd done his best during his reconstruction efforts to keep the castle and the surrounding land mostly as it was during its era; as it was when it was when it was built more than a thousand years ago. The city, especially the castle proper, ran as deep beneath the ground as it was spread wide above it; mostly dwarven with dashes of sunset sensibilities. Same with the land's outlying holdfasts, hamlets and ruins.
This was something rarely seen away from the mountains these days as surface-dwelling dwarves were far, far fewer in number than they were before the Ten and Five Year Wars, and their former surface dwellings and towns were becoming more and more difficult to find unmolested by opportunists, grave robbers or the ravages of time.
But of all of the rooms in all of the buildings of the gargantuan city-estate, this was, by far, her favorite. Understandable seeing as how the royal family was known for its shared love of knowledge and reading. To that end the king felt that nothing less would do than hiring the finest historians and former museum curators directly from the Joined Lands themselves to aid in Įcħor-Nåbįlå’s restoration. And he ensured that the crown compensated them and their specialized teams very well to refurbish, organize and appraise the library’s books and scrolls. And should they have chosen to remain under the purview of the crown, he further offered to house them in his township’s rather luxurious High Town district along with the royal viticulturists, taxidermists, cooks and landscapers. Too great would’ve been the loss had the library, and the castle at large, been allowed to continue on the course of slow decay that it had been on for some two centuries after the city’s “abandonment”.
Because of this gargantuan undertaking, the library was restored to its former glory. Just as it was when it was still used as a repository for religious knowledge by the Purists that once stalked its passages before it fell into ruin. A symbol to the masses. In point-of-fact, one could have been forgiven for thinking they were reading the critique of a chef when skimming material concerning the old athenaeum as it wasn't odd to see words such as succulent, rich, decadent or sumptuous used as descriptors.
The same grain of stone was hauled from the Yavan Mountains to reconstruct the walls. The same cut and weight of glass filled the castle windows and the random fronts of the library shelves that cradled its more valuable books and artifacts. The same wood was used for all the individual banisters, furniture and accents. The same iron and brass was used to repair the estate’s hundreds of doors with the overflow being repurposed to construct the hundreds of thousands of modern gas powered light fixtures that now lined the roads and the numerous hallways in all of the town’s structures. And the finest possible raw materials were collected for use in constructing all of the buildings’ individual steam works, piping and basement boiler rooms to infuse them with modern comforts.
It was a ten year undertaking, all-in-all.
But, when time has no meaning for you, and money isn't an obstacle, you can invest all the years necessary and spare no expense.
The castle was rich with many a beautiful and luxurious thing. Large, handsomely carved, dwarven styled pillars which seemed spewed from the rough, unhewn ground at their base, rose through the surrounding semi-natural balconies and eventually held aloft the beautifully crafted abbey-like ceilings some five floors above Aoleon's head. Ancient and massive smoking incense burners of solid bronze which had been recently refreshed by the castle's freedmen; its willing footmen, filled the space with the scent of frankincense and sandalwood.
Elaborate glass encased display cases holding every manner of martial or ballistic weapon, antique and modern gearwork alike, sat all about the place alongside suits of armor from every corner of the world, both ceremonial and battle-ready. Iron work which comprised the railings, banisters and covered random shelves was so lovely and intricate that it hardly seemed real. And heavy stained glass and opulent leather furniture abounded by the score.
The library and its sister library-throne room, both of which looked as if they were growing organically from the rough, natural unshaped stone of the world on the below ground floors as was dwarven style, were connected to each other and the main body of the castle by strong and imposing hallways. Hallways which also contained books on top of scrolls on top of maps on top of other books lining their walls. To their entrances were affixed large double doors constructed of black stone and brass accented in rich redwoods; one of such a set of doors being the one which the pale-skinned woman was currently moving away from.
In both, very nearly from floor to ceiling on all five of their open levels, the afore mentioned salvaged and restored books intermingled with more modern texts on stone and wooden shelves. Volumes upon volumes. Some of them were heavy and richly bound with refined or rough leathers. Others were covered in cloth or made of buckram while others were small and paperbacked. There were areas that held scrolls and loose papers of all ages; some freshly scrawled, others yellowed with time.
Unlike in the throne room on this day, however, the library proper showed evidence of being lived and worked in extensively as there were several heavily used tables about on all levels upon which were sprawled papers, maps, open books and hand written notes of every kind.
This type of clutter was far from unusual, as the library was utilized by many. But what was a curious sight was that one of the nine hand-written volumes of the Goddess' Holy Book, the Afua Maisha, that the castle lord kept ever on display, was disturbed. As an original un-translated Drågonesse script on thick volumes of bound papyrus, this collective work was one of only two known sets in existence. The other being displayed at the Library of the Common People in the Joined Lands. This copy had supposedly been bequeathed to the castle lord from his father sometime in the years before the Dįvonësë War.
It was absolutely priceless and only he would've dared to move any of its volumes. The servants were scared to even dust the area around them. Normally they were individually set on their own stone pedestals on the second floor but free of glass encasement and protected from dust and atmosphere by a very subtle and delicate weave of heka. The volume which had grabbed her attention had been moved to the lower floor and was open on a nearby table surrounded by white gloves and specialized handling equipment so that it could be utilized without damaging it.
Sudden movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention from the books towards a massive graywood tree which grew directly from the floor in the center of the room in the midst of an enclosed patch of flowers and mushrooms. Some of which held a natural bioluminescence. All of which were poisonous to humans.
The eluvian and their trees. Aoleon thought to herself. ...And their passions for beautiful, deadly things.
All eluvian, regardless of their sub-race, shared a love for nature and things that grow. The sunset elves especially. Even though they were a largely subterranean people and not a forest dwelling one such as the sunrise or grove elves. Cultivating plants that could survive in the harsh, low light environments of their underground homes was a mainstay for them. And as a result, aside from the castle’s eight internal trees, many of the homes on the castle’s lands showcased their own trees as well; some were always intended as aspects of the architecture, others which were allowed to stay during the reconstruction after growing through or out of the masonry during the long years of neglect if they didn’t compromise livability and could be pruned to be aesthetically pleasing.
The moons' light cascaded down through a large domed stained-glass window in the ceiling bathing the tree in otherworldly magnificence; sparkling off of the sporadic stained glass lanterns of ancient origin which hung from several of the tree's thick branches via heavy chains of differing lengths. Lanterns that were modified by the castle lord to superheat the small amounts of wicc they held en lieu of candles they once contained which were themselves currently heralding the night with soft blue and white glows. The original fixtures were so old in fact that their chains, which may have been simply wrapped around the branches once, were now completely engulfed by the wood itself; the fixtures and the tree now one beautiful whole.
Surrounding the library tree and its micro garden were all manner of glass display cases which held all variety of small weapons and bucklers. The king having claimed to have dabbled in archeology for a short period once upon a time. Very long ago. All were ancient and well used. Presumably from the early years of Man and Mer's existence in the world. Many of them were blackened and greened with age. The more rudimentary blades and handles, once inlayed with precious metals, bone, iron and ivory now only retained merely the shape of a life-taking apparatus. Some were little more than stones that were sharpened on one end, with the opposing end being fashioned to fit in a palm.
From behind the tree slowly came into view the bodies whose movement had caught her attention. Carefully polishing the display cases were two scullery maids. Freedwomen both. One Balani and one Ma'Jong. Both dressed in excessively traditional servant's clothing; all black, high neck dresses that dropped to cover their ankles and gray-white aprons which covered the entire front of their bodies.
Emblazoned upon their aprons' breasts were tower shields of a triangular design. Supporting them on either side were purple-tinted Drågons reaching up to the Dįvįnë White Tree which sat perched atop a horned helm of seemingly Dįvonësë design backed by a halo which was not unlike those which graced the crown of the Ångëls; the Drågons' fearsome mouths gaped open towards its canopy as if they intended to swallow it whole. The tree's branches and leaves falling down about them as mantling.
The shield itself was split into four distinct quadrants by a cross fleury. One portion pictured three baobab trees backed by a raguly bar of a black colour against stark white. The second portrayed a blood red wyvern sitting against a wall of deep gold. Then there was a Zåståru-Måpånol; the six winged Ångëlįc standing proudly against a backing of burnt orange. And finally, there were three bells of silver set against embattled lines of maroon on a white background. The coat of arms of the royal family.
Beneath it all was a decorative banner which, despite the shield's otherwise idolatry, boasted a phrase in Dæmönic script: "The feast in which we partake shall be upon the bones of our oppressors". Less a credo than a warning the Aoleon often thought to herself.
Gazing upon the clean and relaxed state of the two servants Aoleon found herself faced with, it was easy to see that regardless of what he may have once been, or what he'd indulged in during his previous life, the albino's father now vehemently abhorred the practice of slavery and tolerated none of it within his boarders. He'd purchased many Ma'Jong and Balani over recent years with the express purpose of freeing them all. And free them he did. And here, in his lands, they lived full lives if they wished to stay. Far removed from the misery of their former existence under a cruel master's whip.
Some of whom took to this new life far better than others.
Spying the lady of the castle out of her peripheral, the Balani woman immediately ceased what she was doing and curtsied deep. Blonde haired and blue eyed she was. Thin, but not in an unhealthy way. She wore her long hair pent up into a tight, clean ball covered in a gray-white lace hair piece.
Responding instinctively to her friend’s actions, the fem-fox quickly followed suit and curtsied before even realizing who was in the room.
The ma’jong were a people who were nearly as unique looking as the fauns whom they shared a homeland with. A half fox species, they had full tails, paws for feet on their digitigrade legs, claw-like nails on their hands, large vulpine ears and eyes that were very nearly all pupil; the whites of them making themselves known only when one of the fox-people turned their eyes to their sides in the extreme.
The fur partially covering this particular ma’jong’s body was of a golden sheen, as was her tail, which was respectfully wrapped about her waist in a belt-like fashion. The blonde human-like hair on her head complemented it well along with the green of her slit eyes. Her hair was only as long as her chin, and so she kept it free, allowing it to frame her canine features in its golden colour.
Both of the women were in their early twenties but only Tana was freeborn; the first generation of her family to be born such. Aoleon knew them both well as she worked with all of the staff closely. Far more than much of the nobility thought proper for a woman of her station. It had taken her quite a while to work the idea of them being equal to all other people into their heads. Especially those of the older generation. But now she was on a first name basis with almost all of the eighty and six six castle staff.
Tana raised herself from her curtsey so that she could speak properly in a fashion that the albino woman could easily understand. “My Lady Aoleon. Are you in need of anything?” the human girl asked as she simultaneously used hand-speak to communicate; her thick Assamian accent pouring from her mouth like molasses.
“No. And please, there’s no need for all of that curtsying and such. It’s just us here.” Aoleon insisted through full, thick lips as she also, in turn, used her hands to express herself; her hand-speak flowing from her limbs with all the grace of a dancer. “There aren’t any nobles about for all of that pomp. Our guests won’t be arriving until the morning’s ninth hour at the very least.”
“Or the tenth if they feel like being ‘fashionably late’.” Tana retorted sharply.
Aoleon and the girl broke into a snicker much to the horrid dismay of the fem-fox, Ta’Esuini, who raised her head and perked her ears slightly in her fellow servant’s direction. Her green eyes were widening with fear. “Evgj ozs fzcbm?!” she whispered angrily. “Ozs fzb’j jgyw kz tlqq-ycwq jz jvq Ugkjql’k fgsmvjql dzsj’ vql ghzgyh tzzy! Ozs ck bzj jvqo qasgy, bz ugjjql evgj jvqo kgo! Please forgives my lady.” Ta’Esuini said aloud in rough common and even rougher hand-speak as she returned to a proper curtsey, her accent riddled with a culturally overly pronounced s, making her sound almost snakelike. “Tana means no harm. She just talking some foolishness now.”
Aoleon had long since childhood been taught how to read lips by her mother…long before her deafness overtook her. Her mother had always known that one day her ears would fail her. The physicians told her as much when she was born. And neither she nor her father would allow their beloved to face such a future unprepared.
And given Aoleon’s level of intelligence, she’d taken it upon herself to transfer that skill to different languages as she could.
Knowledge was an asset…and a weapon. And Aoleon liked to be flush with both.
The albino found herself shocked out of her laughter by the servant’s whispers in slave speak. Ta’Esuini had to have been scared out of her mind to risk chastising her friend so brazenly in front of her in their shared tongue regardless of her deafness.
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On the Subject of Slave Speak
Much of the Balani culture was lost to them after slavery took hold within the larger world. The Ma’Jong as well. And as the law didn’t extend to either of them as people, but as property, they were treated rather poorly.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Actually, to say that both peoples were treated poorly is a gross understatement.
It was illegal for a slave to learn to read or write for fear of organization, rebellion or attempted escape. The same was true of large gatherings, such as religious services. They were also forbidden from speaking openly concerning anything that had to do with their former “inferior” cultures. Both peoples, in fact, had been forced to speak common for so long that their original languages were all but lost and utterly forgotten generations ago.
Slaveholders themselves are famous for spreading that “…erasing one’s individuality and ‘humanity’ is key in creating a mindset of subservience in a dog ear or gump/mupp”. Gump and mupp referring to the fair skinned Balani. Dog ear, of course, being a slave master’s term for a Ma’Jong.
Disobedience was swiftly punished by any number of travesties. Branding, isolation, shackling or hot-boxing awaited those on the fortunate side of things. However whipping to the point of bleeding, raping, hanging, beating, burning and all manner of mutilation were some of the more preferred forms of discipline for the cruel at heart. Slave owners had become quite adapt at dreaming up unique forms of punishment. Especially as it involved pregnant slaves. Practices such as belly-burying prior to beating were sadly commonplace. After all, you didn’t want to hurt an unborn child if you could help it; that’s an extra laborer that you didn’t have to pay for.
That’s your money working for you.
In response to all of this, many slaves began to shape their own collective language in order to pass on what they could remember of the stories of their people, and for general communication in privacy or planning escapes.
This “slave speak” wasn’t often used around non-slaves however. Songs concocted by slaves were more often used as a means of communication regardless of the fact that many slave owners had gotten it into their heads long before to flog slaves for singing songs that they felt linked them in any way to their previous culture.
It was also widely speculated that slaves had developed a series of markings, or a written language, to that effect as well. But it was even rarer to see that than to hear slave speak itself. So rare in fact that it was suspected to be a conjecture or a rumor by some.
Aoleon always supposed that, in this instance, the widely held belief that slaves were intellectually inferior to the “master races” had worked to the slaves’ advantage. No one ever suspected in these modern times that slaves, especially Ma’Jong slaves, were smart enough to have a real language outside of what was allowed to them…
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While slave speak was very rarely used around her, Aoleon still had a desire, however well-meaning and possibly misplaced, to learn the language. But because there was an understandable secrecy-born-of-fear atmosphere that permeated slave culture, Aoleon had never gotten the chance to truly assimilate the language of the castle servants. And regardless of how well received as she often was, there were none that were fully willing to speak of it or teach it to her. Even the free born servants like Tana or the ones who’d earned their relative freedom fighting beside her father in the war would tell her that they didn’t feel it was something that was meant for her, for lack of a better phrase.
The albino however was an exceptionally quick study. And while the young language had some odd nuances that were managing to throw off her ability to swiftly drink it in, she’d come to be familiar enough with it over time from simply being around the people to pick up on something along the lines of “why are you talking” and “not equal” from the Ma’Jong’s angry rant.
“Please, don’t curtsey. I mean it. You needn’t bother with such things anymore.” Aoleon pleaded guiltily even though she’d done nothing. “Cj zwqo.” she said clumsily in slave speak; the flat tones of her voice filling the air. She’d hoped to comfort the fox-girl, but she failed to do so.
Ta’Esuini looked as if she could’ve died from panic; she started shaking so badly. Her fox-like ears had folded backwards. Her massive pupils, now fully dilated with fear and confusion, begged the question “How much did she understand?” She knew Aoleon spent a fair amount of time in the servant areas, but it wasn’t hard to see that she had no idea that she’d been learning their language.
And since she was mostly deaf, Aoleon figured that she likely couldn’t comprehend how she even heard her in the first place. It’s never really dawned on her that I could do these things. Aoleon thought as she watched Ta’Esuini clutching her swollen belly ever more tightly in dread.
Turning her head fully to one side, Aoleon pointed to a small circular device attached to her skull with a wire running to a second device tucked behind and under her ear; a sister apparatus to the one she had connected on the opposing side of her cranium.
“I hear.” She held her pointer finger and thumb close together to indicate ‘just a little’. Then held her hand level and rocked it to-and-fro to indicate ‘sort of’. She then pointed to her lips. “Can read some.”
If she’d the ability to sweat as Men could, the she-fox would’ve been wholly drenched. As it stood, her mouth fell slightly agape and she started to pant; tongue in as was the way of her kind.
“It not they fault they be born like this.” she suddenly pleaded painfully. She had as long of a way to go to learn proper hand-speak as Aoleon had to go to learn the tongue of the slaves; more so than even her common. And the inadvertent difference between what she spoke and what she signed always tickled Aileon. But in this moment, with her fear and shaky hands driving that discrepancy to extremes, she was failing to see any cuteness or humor in it. And she focused solely on the fem-fox’s lips and voice. “Not they fault I speak too much. Don’t takes my cubs from me! Please. Please.”
Ta’Esuini was fairly new to the castle. Recently acquired by Aoleon’s father but a scant few months ago. It was obvious that she had yet to shake her fear of others outside of the slave caste. And given what the albino knew of her past, she probably never truly would.
The fem-fox stood there looking down fearfully at her belly, which her declawed hands started cradling protectively against the foreseen wrath that her friend’s folly would bring upon her. It was plain to even a blind man that she was going on about her seventh new moon with child.
From what her father had told her, Ta’Esuini was in a very bad way when he found her and her kin in a slaving town that had sprung up far too close to his lands for his liking; sitting roughly at the foot of the Yavan Mountains two hundred miles to the south.
Weeks had he spent living amongst the small town’s people under the guise of a slave owner, a mask he knew how to wear all too well, when he lucked upon her among a small grouping of cobbled together shacks in the ownership of a “befriended” local several miles outside of downtown proper. As Aoleon recalled from what she was told, the auction block had been abuzz during the time as nearly everyone was attending the weekly sale. And the man in question, drunk off of his ass one afternoon, agreed to let her father sample the quality of what he could acquire should he decide to purchase from the local market.
And what he saw, he couldn’t let stand.
Ta’Esuini and another milk-skinned human female had apparently been held there in the cold and the damp for quite some time; having been victims of their own prettiness and the towney’s lust. As well as the lustful inclinations of any the owner deemed to expose them to. Just as he had the castle lord.
Hanging from the ceiling by their wrists which were tied to iron bars, the two women stood painfully upon the tips of their toes…or, in Ta’Esuini’s case, pawed feet; their heels barely touching the dirt floor as their legs were kept spread by secondary iron bars which were secured to their abraded and swollen ankles. Only a bloody and torn undershirt, which was little more than a rag covered the fem-fox’s malnourished body. Ellie, the human girl who was strung up with her at the time, hadn’t even been given that much dignity.
They were constantly being violated to the pleasure of their owners. Both in point-of-fact apparently having just been recently…used, as milky semen could still be seen soaking into their hair; sliding down their battered faces over dried tears were it had all been haphazardly discharged. And traces of it were still slowly leaking out of the center of the poor fem-fox; streaming down her inner thighs. And as if all that weren’t enough, apparently the whip had also been taken to them both on several occasions as was evidenced by the open scars on their sides, legs and backs.
Although he had, at first, intended to simply buy and free all of the slaves he could while working out a way to undermine and dismantle the township, this depravity instead caused him to visit the full extent of his wrath and fury upon every evil soul in the town that very day. Sanahdemn, the castle lord, had for the most part become a good and caring man as the years slid by; always wishing to be a better man than he had been. But that new-found goodness was all but abandoned whenever his ire was struck. And Goddess help you if you were the focus of his anger afterward.
That being said, after the ensuing carnage had ceased, and the Drågon within him had calmed, all those responsible for Ta’Esuini and Ellie’s state of being, and the ongoing slave auction along with all of the slave owners in attendance lay dead. The auction block was torn asunder and if there was a standing structure in spitting distance, it was razed to the ground. He then brought the two girls and all the other hundred and fifty slaves back home with him; bills of sale in hand all signed with forged signatures. Needless to say, no one left alive dared to stop him or spoke a single word of the gruesome massacre. And from all accounts, the town never recovered.
From Ta’Esuini’s own admission after she was well enough to speak, while she’d been kept there by the one who’d bought her, no less than six or seven other men “visited” her and Ellie on a regular basis. Sometimes singularly, sometimes in groups. How the man had come by the coin to buy she and Ellie was beyond her knowledge. But it was likely that the other men were paying her master for the privilege of seeing them. Regardless, it seemed that for more than a fortnight insofar as she could tell, they desecrated their bodies again and again in every conceivable way while feeding them just enough food and water to them to keep them alive.
It was painfully obvious that they hadn’t been intended to live too much longer. And even if they had managed to continue living, the men would have most likely killed the litter Ta’Esuini now carried from their abuse. Few were the slavers that would suffer a mutt to live, let alone an entire litter of them. The little beings were spurned by slave owners when they were born between slaves in general; usually taken to be sold if they couldn’t be supported by the owners or utilized at some capacity. But when cubs were born between a slave and their owner, it was considered akin to being an abomination.
A child-cub was too much of a reminder that not only did the owner bed a slave, (a high social taboo but not an illegal one) but it was also an acknowledgement that they lustfully took a woman or man who was, to most humans at least, more animal than humanoid. This was regardless of the fact that it was well known but not outwardly acknowledged that the majority of Ma’Jong purchases were conducted out of the desire to own a sexual subservient. The veritable legion of mixed breeds that could be seen around nearly every plantation attested to that fact. Yet few and far in between was the slave owner who openly admitted to being one of “those people”.
Despite all of that, here she was. And so were her soon-to-be-born cubs. Alive, healthy and among friends and kind people. Fortunate for her in the grand scheme of things. She’d even managed to survive the ordeal with the prettiness of her face mostly unmarred after her bruises healed.
“Don’t worry Ta’Esuini.” Aoleon stated after a moment in her most reassuring voice with her softest possible hand motions. “Nobody here is going to hurt you or your litter. I swear to you, not another man shall harm you again. Not one. Not so long as my family holds sway over these lands and holds company with the Ångëls.”
Ta’Esuini was calmed a little by her mistress’ passion, but not much.
Aoleon moved over to her slowly and placed a hand on top of the girl’s stomach. “I know you don’t fully trust us. And that’s o.k. But trust in Tana. She knows us well, and she wouldn’t lie to you.”
Ta’Esuini glanced over to her fellow servant, and Tana nodded to her with a reassuring smile.
She looked back to her master; Aoleon’s words likely not quite feeling real to her slave-mind. Yet for the briefest of moments, she seemed to soften; her shaking lessening once the albino’s hand lay gently on her belly.
But then, as if she’d not noticed them before, or at least, just remembered them, Ta’Esuini focused on what appeared to be heavy gauntlets of silver adorned with beautiful embossment that reached from the albino’s fingertips and vanished underneath the sleeve of her left arm while the opposing one seemed to merge with the skin above her elbow on her right. Then the fear returned. For she knew, as did all those within the castle-town’s walls know, that these were no quirky ostentatious fashion accessories on her arms. These were her arms. Complex mechanisms of gears, tubes and wires covered in a “skin” of pure isilivere; the beautiful silver-like metal shining in the glow of the hearth with ever the faintest shimmer of onyx-like darkness when the light was reflected in a certain way. The palms and finger tips of her hands padded in the finest white pigmented leather that coin could buy; leaving them resembling something akin to the padding of a cat’s paw.
Having mostly lost the original appendages in her youth, they were replaced through a delicate combination of the most modern technologies from the Hesijuan continent. One of the few places in the world where the Oratory’s religiously imposed technological sanctions held no sway and her father’s coin could find its way into the pockets of the specialists who could design the apparatuses. This was done in concert with some ingenious knowhow from master craftsmen within dwarven society; the only people who could properly smith the almost otherworldly properties of isilivere. Properties which ensured that their weight remained manageable while retaining a toughness that was matched only by the Drågon scales of legend. In point-of-fact, isilivere was robust to the point of being nearly imperishable. Ensuring that the limbs would likely endure long after Aoleon’s bones returned to the dust from which they came.
So prohibitive were their cost and ongoing maintenance that it made any other such devices wholly unobtainable to any others similarly suffering from missing limbs save for those who were among the upper reaches of the financially elite. Not to mention that the nature of their power source kept them from being properly utilized by any other than joined Swalii anyway.
They needed an Amalgamate.
Exposed but sheathed cables connecting the right appendage to her body through ports under her armpit ran directly to their living internal power font. Giving the apparatus the energy it needed to properly function since it didn’t connect internally like her left one did.
Wholly singular and unique they were. And wholly singular and unique they’d stay.
To Aoleon, they were extensions of her body. A part of the normalcy of her life. But to the commons and the ex-slaves, for all intents and purposes, they were nigh on monstrous despite their beauty. Blasphemy incarnate.
“Yes. I’s understand my lady.” Ta’Esuini said fearfully as she curtsied and backed away slowly.
Aoleon’s father always made it a point to be far kinder to his servants than was normally acceptable in modern society. Even among other folk who didn’t own slaves. It was a state of mind shared by her mother and siblings as well. And it led to them being very well loved by the staff in general as well as the legion of freed men and women who lived comfortably within the confines of the castle-town’s high walls.
Yet, despite this familiarity, generations of living under the oppressive whip of society had imbedded an irremovable timidness into them as a whole. There stood the pervasive fear of the idea that her father would one day turn against them violently for freely responding to the royal family with any familiarity despite Aoleon’s best efforts. This was compounded by their ingrained religious fear of all of the sacrilegious technologies integrated under their roof by the king himself.
It was an unfortunate group of circumstances that kept a divide between her family and them that would likely take lifetimes to be circumvented. Five centuries of oppression isn’t so easily erased. And it was all Aoleon could do to keep that same fear from overtaking the freeborn youths, as she loved to loaf around with them in between their shifts in the servant’s quarters in the castle’s deeper levels.
Fortunately, despite the fact that her arms scared some of them nearly to death, they mostly knew her to be of a grand heart. Nothing like the unholy creatures that the Oratory taught were tied inexorably to such technological contraptions. A step in the right direction.
It also didn’t hurt that her snow white skin and hair made her presence a much more acceptable one among the former slaves than anywhere else among what should’ve been her fellow dark skinned masses.
“We were just about done here my Lady.” Tana said in a transparent effort to pull focus away from her friend as the fem-fox attempted to make herself appear as small as possible.
“I see.” Aoleon signed in return with an accompanying nod.
And sadly, there was nothing more to be said.
Looking about awkwardly as she searched for words, Aoleon became acutely aware of every sound in the library. The distant creak and groan of the supports of the super structure. The sounds of leaves sliding against the graywood tree branches as they shed and fell to the floor. The quiet hum of fans from small dolly mounted contraptions that were scattered all about the space; moving back and forth along thin railings via mechanical arm-straddling contraptions which seemed to follow the albino’s movements within their strange spheres of influence.
She moved a few steps away in silence; leaving the duo a bit befuddled and waiting for guidance. Looking back toward the girls and the display cases, Aoleon busied herself inspecting them.
“Beautiful work, as always girls.” she said to break the tension. An earnest smile beamed from Aoleon’s face. “Both here and with the hearth furniture.”
Beyond the closest of one of the library’s several curbed grand staircases, stood the room’s massive stone hearth of which she spoke. The grandest of the six in the room. Large enough for eight broad shouldered adult men to walk into upright while standing next to one another. And within its gaping maw was a mighty fire roaring away fighting to warm the airy space with its ambient heat. Beside the blaze, in a large stone nook, was a goodly amount of weighty logs to keep the flames fed.
The freshly cleaned and richly appointed stone furniture which Aoleon was praising them for cleaning that appointed the space, was cushioned with rich brown leather in dwarven fashion. And Drågon laden coffee tables rounded out the atmosphere. The crackling and popping sound of the flames within, combined with the image of the sitting area conspired to create a very inviting distraction indeed.
“Thank you my lady.” they responded in unison; dragging her attention away from the flames’ cozy grasp.
“I assume my father is-”
“No.” The fair skinned Tana informed her. “He was at his desk behind the...boxes that show writings and the floating words for a long time. Before we came in. Then he went into the red room.” The ‘tone’ of her handspeak was very as-a-matter-of-fact. Heightened by what sounded to be a twinge of…personal interest in her voice.
Aoleon always believed that Tana favored her father as much as she feared him. Indeed a number of the freedwomen did. However they never spoke on it openly. Partly because they never would’ve believed that a man of his race and status would return such favor…which, at this point in his life, he wouldn’t. And partly because they believed that Aoleon’s mother would likely kill them for the offence…which, with her temper, Aoleon sometimes believed that she would.
“Thank you Tana. Don’t worry about anything else here tonight. Everything looks fine. You two take off early and grab some sweet bread and honey from the kitchens. And if you run across the butler, Mr. Joseph or his shadowy peer, the manor-keep, Ms. Katherine, be sure to let them know that I said it’s fine.”
Both of the freed women curtsied curtly with approval and Tana returned Aoleon’s smile. Ta’Esuini allowed herself to follow her friend’s lead, but not nearly as comfortably. “Will you be coming down to the servants’ quarters tonight my Lady? Mi’Joun has been working on his card playing and he’s serious about winning back the twenty zachar that you won from him last week.”
Aoleon laughed hardily at Tana’s question concerning the second footman. “He did seem distraught didn’t he? Of course I will. I wouldn’t miss it. In fact, I may actually let him win it back.”
“Let him, my lady?”
“Of course! If there’s one thing that you should learn about men when it comes to games of chance Tana, it’s that they’re always willing to believe that they’re better than the womenfolk. And sometimes, it’s good to feed that ego.”
The two servants looked at each other unsure, then back to the albino.
“That way,” Aoleon said with a wink, “you can turn around and take him for three times as much later. That’s how you fleece ‘em!”
All three laughed together. And to Aoleon’s glee, Ta’Esuini’s was seemingly falling quickly into slightly more ease with each chuckle.
Without bothering them further, the princess took her leave and everyone continued along their respective ways.
As the sound of the library’s massive doors closing behind the servants filled the room, Aoleon found herself casting her eyes upward towards the impressive office-like mezzanine where sat her father’s intricately carved limestone desk on the third floor; empty she assumed. The immediate area was flooded with soft lighting, which she presumed to be mostly from her father’s computer’s still active screens, but between the height of the balcony and how far back from the edge the open-air office was, she couldn’t actually see the desk itself.
He didn’t lock down the system before he left.” She whispered to herself. “Typical.”
She then cast her attention back to the hearth, the wood storage nook, and the rather unassuming door that stood beside them. An old and heavy door of scarred and fading maroon. The so-called “red room”.
“I’ll take care of it.” she affirmed to no one but herself. “I’ll lock it down, then I’ll go see him.”