A girl wakes up on the stone floor of a crowded room, the sunlight pooling in from the holes in the shutters. She blinks as she comes to life, the first day of freedom yet to come. The ceiling is high and covered in dust, a boy lying next to her stirs and groans. The boy mutters some incomprehensible complaints as she edges away from him, Talora couldn’t remember the boy's name but she knew of him. Creatures of habit as people were they often slept next to one another in the same spot on the floor, so she knew his penchant for swinging his arms just before he woke. Talora had enough of that the first time she was awoken with bruises on the face, without any active thought she slowly started waking up earlier than him to avoid the unwitting onslaught. She didn’t hold it against him though, she understood where they all came from. The storied conflict they were born from, the reason they were here now. Whatever his name was had at least another year in servitude being a year younger than her, poor fool was captured younger and so had to serve for longer. She slowly got her elbows under her and pushed up, drawing her knees in to stand from a stationary position. “Today is the day” she said numbly to herself, the stiff pains speaking of an age wiser than her years. It hadn’t quite set in that her three long years of servitude was finally up, she imagined she wouldn’t feel free for much longer still; emotions often operated on a different time frame than the physical world. She slowly worked her way across the room, carefully avoiding a field of green and brown laying over a dull slate floor. Her kinsmen might be awake or they might be sleeping you could never tell, she knew that most of them pretended to be sleeping even well after waking. Doing so could extend the amount of time you had until work for another whole hour sometimes, which often made the taskmaster's lashings feel worth it. Speaking of the taskmaster that was her next stop before even trying to find food, she had been waiting years for this day to come and she wouldn’t stretch it another single moment. Talora finally reached the door without a lock or a latch; no child would ever try to escape, where would they go if they did? She pushed the door open and stepped through, closing it softly behind her to keep the rouse of sleep for the others. A hallway stood before her, the first of three doors was the mess. She skipped over the door further down the hall, this was the taskmaster’s office. She pulled on the door but it didn’t budge, “fucking bastard of a man hasn’t even woken up yet” she muttered to herself as she changed direction and continued down the hall. To the barracks where the guard and the taskmaster slept, she took a deep breath in and out the calm her nerves for the next step. Talora raised her fist and banged on the door as hard as she could in repetition, then began shouting “wake up you damn fool it’s time for work! Come on then I haven’t got all day”. Talora felt a satisfaction in throwing this back this phrase shouted most commonly by the taskmaster, the satisfaction was dampened when the door opened and a switch hit her right in the face; dampened but certainly not erased.
The groggy man in underclothes stood over the recoiling form of Talora as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. He looks down at her and says “where do you get off? Damn slave should know her place by now”. This settled it, he was really upset now Talora could tell in his tone of voice. Right then she could tell that was absolutely worth the switching.
She grinned as he stepped out into the hall, “oh Chimmy ol’ buddy ol’ pal, but I know my place perfectly well. I do wonder though, do you know my place”?
The look on her face gave him pause as he moved past her, “y-yes? What d’you mean, and wipe that grin off your face”.
She smiled even wider “oh but do you, you old git! Seems you’re giving me orders so you must not know what the date is”.
He looked back at her as his key slipped into the door, “fuck are you on about today? You’re off your chain if you think that-” it was then that he realized what the date actually was. Today was the thirteenth of Hargon, that would mean…
Chimmy looked up and responded in a harsh tone “aah thats it isn’t it, well I have news for you young miss”. Talora felt a pang of anxiety grip her heart as he smiled. “You’re still a slave until the moment I hand you your first week allowance”. He said it softly as if he were savoring each word.
Three hours later Talora eats breakfast with some new bruises to account for miscalculations, they didn’t make it any less worth it. Talora knew that implicitly spiteful as she was, she plops the spoon on top of the porridge in front of her over and over as she thinks about her next step. ‘I need to start looking for an apprenticeship as of today, I need to capitalize on the freshness of the bald head while I can’. Talora is referring to the slave release guidelines decreed by King Donovan after the war between Ga’Ul’Shire and the clans of Shana’Ivari’Momante, the war in which Talora was first captured as a prisoner of war and then a slave. She didn’t notice the sleep brawler sidling up next to her at the mess table, he inched down the bench with each slap of the spoon into porridge. Talora finally notices him as his shadow falls over her bowl, she leans into a relaxed posture resembling a prawn and turns her head toward him. “Oy, what you want boy”? She says now looking him in the eye.
“Scuse me miss, you going to eat that”? The midnight brawler looks meaningfully at her bowl of porridge as he speaks.
Talora glances back at the bowl, then lays her spoon in and pushes it over to him. “Nei, not hungry anymore”.
The boy's eyes light up as he gratefully grabs the bowl, after a few bites he looks back to Talora as she stands and gives his thanks “Thank you miss Karri”!
Talora nods lightly and turns to leave, as she walks out of the mess hall she thinks ‘Karri huh, better than big ‘un I suppose’. Nobody learned each other's names here, no point in it. Kids move in and out as a river flows. You would make friends, learn each other's names, get used to their face, and then they would be sold for independent ownership. Talora had never been sold for independent ownership, she was valuable to Chimmy for all he mistreated her. Talora is the tallest slave in the workhouse and strong too, compounding that with the fact she refuses to do any less than her best and she’s hard to replace. Talora struggled with the ideals her father taught to her every day over that, it’s not that she cares or wants to do good work for the slavers; Every time she’d make a mistake either on purpose or by accident she always feels like something terrible will happen. Just a hook in her brain that makes it hard to try less. Talora realized she had been thinking too hard, because she was very suddenly in front of the taskmaster’s office. She stood and accustomed herself to whatever he would try to get away with.
Three knocks sound on Chimmy’s office as he looks up from his paperwork, he shouts in return “In”! Talora pulls open the door and steps through. Chimmy’s face breaks with a frown “Talora, calmed down from before? Ready to get this through instead of obstructing my process”?
Talora doesn’t show any emotion on her face as she sits down, she’s really had enough of the pleasantries they would usually share by now and she just wants to leave.
He smiles at that “Cat finally got your tongue then? I grow tired of the games as much as you I’d say, let’s just get this through with then”.
Talora sits down in the chair across from him as he pulls up the appropriate paperwork.
He looks up from the papers he just set on the desk and over to her, he pulls up ink and quill and sets them on the desk in front of Talora. “You know how to read, right Talora”?
She does, it was something taught to her by a scribe she was assigned to work with in the city for a time. Old Marlin was kind to her, he was one of the few who didn’t agree with the subjugation of the Hagh Nahn people. He did what little he could to help those who came to him for work. Talora might try to get work with him if he hadn’t passed on last year. She scanned the papers as she thought about him, until she reached a part in the release that caught her eye. Talora looks up to Chimmy and says “what’s this about, the passage on peasantry”?
The taskmaster grins at Talora and replies “that’s the terms of release from slavery here, you will become a peasant in the city”.
This isn’t right at all Chimmy had to be spinning her head somehow. Talora now frustrated spit back “You’re not fucking with me this time Chimmy, give me the real paper”. She had an unpleasant snarl on her face as if she just ate something bitter and stale.
Chimmy looks more pleased than she’s ever seen him as he replies, “That's the rules now Tally, that clause in the treaty expired last year; we won’t be running caravans to border towns anymore”. The treaty had once instated that any person captured as a prisoner of war will be released from slavery at fourteen years of age, or as they have served five years in servitude. The clause below amended that they would be given aid and transport from the crown’s coffers, until such time that they safely arrive in town over the border.
Talora felt something deeper than anger, something past the red heat of rate to something darker. Talora had never had trouble with killing someone, she hated to do it but she could do it at a moment's notice. Everything within her struggled not to grab the letter opener and stab him until the guards came. She realizes she had been far away in those thoughts as Chimmy’s fingers snapped in her face, she looked into his eyes as the boiling cold bubbled in her chest. She could only find the will to say one word “right”. Chimmy’s smile falls to a somewhat confused chagrin as he moved the paper back in front of her, “just sign here and get it over with Talora”. He points at the signature line and pulls the inked quill up with his other hand.
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Talora replies simply “right” as she grabs the quill and jots down a quick line of scribbles, old Marlin had told her it was more professional that way.
Chimmy, somehow already bored of trying to rile her, simply stands and gestures as he walks out the door. Talora follows silently behind him as they walk to the shop across the street from the workhouse, the barbershop door open. With the recent revolutions in glass production from Xurx glass is cheaper than ever, many buildings are getting glass windows as the city grows. The barbershop was one of many successful businesses in the city that had readily adopted the open sunlight of a large window, all salon chairs facing the window. Talora sits down in one without following Chimmy to the counter, she gazes out the window as some passerby’s stop to look at the Hagh Nahn girl sitting in the chair. The barber sets his tools on the table beside Talora and begins to work, he wets her hair with warm water and begins brushing the clumps and tangles out. Talora continues to gaze on through the window, the people who stopped to watch weren’t leaving and her stomach began to turn, this is her least favorite feeling. She feels like a spectacle as more eyes fall on her, her anger begins to turn into something quieter. The barber bites into her hair with his scissors cutting off large clumps, the still somewhat matted hair falls to the floor around them. She no longer feels anger, it’s twisted and turned inside of her mistaking friend for foe. Talora felt ashamed, she knew she shouldn’t, but she felt ashamed at this moment. Nearly a dozen people stood in front of her as her head became barren, judging the child that sat on the other side. If you listen closely you can hear them whisper, slave, rebel, terrorist, fool. Words of spite from a mind that knew nothing of her, but she still felt the pain. Talora was anxious as well as embarrassed now, she felt cornered and claustrophobic. Her heart beating faster in her chest she considered making a run for it, glancing side by side. Talora grimaced as the razor nicked her scalp, turning her head careless to the barber's actions. The crowd began dispersing as the last bits of hair fell to the floor, but the feeling that had gripped her heart still lingered. She heard Chimmy say something to her and he ushered her from the chair, back across the street to the workhouse.
Chimmy pushed her out the front door as she came somewhat back into her senses, feeling awful now. The pain in her back from sleep now apparent once again, her aching legs and fingers from yesterday’s work assignment, her sweaty palms making the pile of coins in her bowled hands slick and-. ‘Money?’ She thinks to herself as she glances down at her hands, filled with coins worth a week of food as per general slave release guidelines in Ga’Ul’Shire. “OH SHIT MONEY”! Talora is suddenly very aware of her surroundings, the street is nearly empty and no one is looking out at her, except for one Hagh Naan boy. He’s leaning slightly out of the alley looking right at her, she shuffled to put away her coins. The pockets on these work pants are loose and wide, so the coins jingle violently as she speedwalks down the street. Talora as it stands could stay next to the workhouse because of it’s guard barracks, but there’s no food to be had around the workhouse now. She jingles and jangles down to the end of the street and turns left, this is a long road that eventually merges with another. As soon as she loses sight of the alley that boy slipped into, she bursts into a dead sprint. Hand in her pocket keeping the gold from clinking, the dark alleys pass by in a blur. Talora frantically glances at every open door, every errant man standing on a corner, every alleyway. Halfway down the street now she hears a shout from behind her, two young men step out of a door in front of her. This door was exquisite, clearly a center piece for the homeowner here. It was painted a vibrant red, real paint not just a stain. The door was carved with decoration on both sides, perhaps it was made by the artisans guild? It even has a doorknob! A real brass doorknob only slightly worn out from use, the color has changed in two places. As two young men step out of this exquisite doorway Talora barrels straight through, the two men knocking off their feet. Talora slams into the door right at the doorknob, it catches her abdomen and she folds as she tumbles to the ground. Hand still in her pocket she falls onto her right shoulder and rolls a few steps, failing to recover from the roll she stumbles onto her hands and one arm. Scrambling upright she breaks off into a sprint once more, she finally pulls her hand away from the pocket. As she sprints she can hear them gaining on her, but she just continues to speed down the road. As soon as she turns that corner to merge onto main street she’s safe, nobody will start a brawl on main street. Stumbling and feeling a slight ache in her shoulder, Talora moves through the invisible barrier separating each street in the mind’s eye. A chorus of shouts from behind as she continues in a walk, she’s safe now but won’t take chances.
Talora walks for some time on main street, she can feel eyes pass her on the street. ‘Far too many people out today’, she thinks to herself as she begins moving to a poorer part of the economic districts. Sparse flea markets and shabby buildings surround her, Talora sits up against a wall on one side of the street. She absently rubs her shoulder as an aching pain has started, Then she spots what she came here for. Talora steps into the nearly empty common room of the inn. Curses and shouts come from the other side of the door but the footsteps stop coming, Talora breathes a sigh of relief as the innkeeper moves toward her.
“Oh my dear look at you, all covered in bruises and scratches”. She says as she looks over Talora.
Talora startles at the sudden proximity and steps away as she says “no miss I’m just fine, please give me my space”.
The older woman slaps her forehead and moves back a pace “ah dear so sorry, excuse me my eyesight is going out”. She was certainly older, but Talora thinks she looks closest to forty. ‘Is her eyesight really going already?’ Talora questioned herself, as the older gestures towards an open booth near the back of the room. “Apologies young miss, might I make it up to you? I’ll get you your first drink for free”.
‘Free’? Talora thinks to herself as she absent mindedly follows the bar owner to the seat, reclining back on the wooden bench. ‘I never got anything free before’ her mind resolves, now relaxing in the bench seat. The tavern mistress comes back to the table with a mug of something, she sets in front of Talora as she slips into the bench opposite her.
“You poor thing, look at all the bruises and switch marks on you, what happened little dove”? The warm grandmotherly tone in her voice set Talora at ease, suddenly some tension she didn’t know she was still holding melted away. This opened the door for her aching shoulder and still fresh bruises to ache and burn again. The tavern mistress notices her wincing and gestures to the mug with a smile, so Talora reaches down and takes the mug in her hand.
“It’s truly no trouble miss, I’ve had worse and I bet I’ll have worse again”, Talora says as she brings the faintly bready smelling liquid to her lips. She takes a small sip and, well it’s quite strange. It tastes like the water in the city, but more somehow. It’s got the bitterness and faint bread aftertaste that the water does, but exaggerated somehow. It’s somewhat overbearing and quite bitter, but she does enjoy it so she takes another sip.
“Please love, call me Modestra. How’s the drink”? Modestra tilts her head as she asks.
Talora takes a big swig, and looks back to Modestra as she replies “It’s alright, say are you charging for water”?
Modestra, suddenly taken aback, recoils her head and says “what? What d’you mean dove”?
Talora takes another swig, the mug near half empty now “well this just tastes like the water but, it’s far more d’you know what I mean”?
Modestra blinks a few times and then pauses, for a moment leagues away. Then she bursts out into ruckus laughter, you could call it a crackle really. “Oh my sweet sweet girl, you mean the ale yeah”?
Talora lost on why she found this so funny replies “wait do you, wait what”? She looks down into the amber liquid in the mug, “is that, Ale? I’ve never had something like this, but it tastes just like the water here”.
Modestra slowly comes down from her explosive laughter, waves her hand as Talora speaks. She places her hand on the table and leans back, “well dear you know they put ale in the drinking water, makes it safer to drink”.
Talora had never heard this before, why hadn’t she heard this before? The ale was settling in her stomach now, subtly beginning to alleviate the aches and soreness from today’s trouble. “Well whatever it is I like it, it’s nice and old Chimmy’s lessons don’t hurt quite so bad”.
Modestra smiles softly at Talora as the young Hagh Nahn woman finishes her drink, “that’s good to hear little dove, now it’s two penny’s for an ale. Would you like another”?
Talora mulls this over for a moment, ‘two pennies, that’s not half expensive I think’. Talora wasn’t so good on the numbers; they didn’t have a common currency used between clans in the steppes, and Marlin never did teach her any maths. She finally resolved, if she was to have her first experience drunk she would make it a good one. “Yes please miss Modestra” She finally replied, pushing her now empty mug toward Modestra.
“Of course little doll, I’ll have that right over” And she stands up and moves to fill another mug.
Chapter: a song of home
After an hour Talora finally pulled herself from the tavern, a pleasant warmth filled her body and her pain was lessened by far. She steps out into the street and walks toward the city center, she will use this as her staging ground for what comes next. The air is cool and the wind picks up as she saunters down the road, and music from the fountain down the road. Quite lovely music in fact, a soft sad song bellows and reverberates off the building. The whaling viola strings tickling her ears just the faintest it, ‘this will be Darrio’ Talora thinks. He’s a popular bard in the city, he’s lived in the capital for as long as Talora has been here at least. Talora leans back, relaxing her arms in her work pockets looking up to the clouds. The song reminds her of home, you could hear her father testing instruments most days. Her favorite pastime while not playing herself, was to go fishing on Crocato lake as her father played. He wasn’t a great musician that they would tell tales about, it wasn’t truly his passion. His passion was to make the instruments that truly great artists would build their stories on, but she loved it nonetheless. Nearly dreaming with visions of home she stepped out from the road the inn was situated on, and moved toward the musician. She sat down on a public bench near the fountain listening to the soft strings, the staring from strangers had lessened since the start of the day. People still occasionally stopped to look at the recently freed child, but they never lingered long. The song ended with a soft dragging resolution.