FAQ:
- What the hell is this?
= It's just going to be a small compilation of short stories told from different viewpoints, revolving around a certain point in the history of Kemet (which is a country on the planet Torinth). It's for setting a deeper story around the things leading up to the game "Second Sun", which is in development.
- What's 'Second Sun'?
= It'll be an adventure/RPG game I'm developing. It stars an Aurite woman named Nephthys, who starts an order to end the enslavement of her people and her friends' people.
- What's 'Third Sun'?
= It's a novel I'm writing. It takes place 20 years after Second Sun, and involves completely different characters. Second Sun is a "prequel".
- Second? Third? What about 'First Sun'?
= 'Second Sun' is the "first". It's a metaphorical name based on the idea of a new dawn rising, like a new beginning. 'Third Sun' was thought of to be a new beginning to THAT new beginning.
- What are Aurites?
= I won't get into that completely, but basically think of them as humans, with legs that bend backwards and end in paws, like a lion's. They're extremely powerful and fast, and, as of this timeline, are enslaved by the Urucites (called 'Humans' in the stories to avoid confusion).
- What are Inites?
= I won't get into that completely, but basically think of them as humans, with GIGANTIC bat wings that hang off their scapulae and are long enough to reach the floor. They're extremely intelligent, and, as of this timeline, are traded by the Urucites (called 'Humans' in the stories to avoid confusion) for the leather on their wings, or they are enslaved. They cannot fly, but they can glide.
- What are Sanginites?
= I won't get into that completely, but basically think of them as … Vampires, except they eat Urucite flesh, instead of their blood. They don't live very long and are gangly and fanged. They're hunted down by the Urucites and are considered a plague.
- What are Urucites?
= Just … Humans, just think of them like you would a human. There are a few differences, but it's easier to just think of them as humans.
- Where does this take place?
= A planet named Torinth. On Torinth there is a large land mass, which is divided into two countries: Loreat and Kemet. Most of these stories will take place in Kemet.
- I don't get _____. What does that mean?
= Figure it out on your own! I want a lot of mystery so the reader can reason things for themselves.
- Will I see _____ in the game?
= You should. These star characters you may meet in the game, but who probably won't join the party.
These questions may not have been specifically asked, but I assumed they'd be asked at some point.
- What the hell is this?
= It's just going to be a small compilation of short stories told from different viewpoints, revolving around a certain point in the history of Kemet (which is a country on the planet Torinth). It's for setting a deeper story around the things leading up to the game "Second Sun", which is in development.
- What's 'Second Sun'?
= It'll be an adventure/RPG game I'm developing. It stars an Aurite woman named Nephthys, who starts an order to end the enslavement of her people and her friends' people.
- What's 'Third Sun'?
= It's a novel I'm writing. It takes place 20 years after Second Sun, and involves completely different characters. Second Sun is a "prequel".
- Second? Third? What about 'First Sun'?
= 'Second Sun' is the "first". It's a metaphorical name based on the idea of a new dawn rising, like a new beginning. 'Third Sun' was thought of to be a new beginning to THAT new beginning.
- What are Aurites?
= I won't get into that completely, but basically think of them as humans, with legs that bend backwards and end in paws, like a lion's. They're extremely powerful and fast, and, as of this timeline, are enslaved by the Urucites (called 'Humans' in the stories to avoid confusion).
- What are Inites?
= I won't get into that completely, but basically think of them as humans, with GIGANTIC bat wings that hang off their scapulae and are long enough to reach the floor. They're extremely intelligent, and, as of this timeline, are traded by the Urucites (called 'Humans' in the stories to avoid confusion) for the leather on their wings, or they are enslaved. They cannot fly, but they can glide.
- What are Sanginites?
= I won't get into that completely, but basically think of them as … Vampires, except they eat Urucite flesh, instead of their blood. They don't live very long and are gangly and fanged. They're hunted down by the Urucites and are considered a plague.
- What are Urucites?
= Just … Humans, just think of them like you would a human. There are a few differences, but it's easier to just think of them as humans.
- Where does this take place?
= A planet named Torinth. On Torinth there is a large land mass, which is divided into two countries: Loreat and Kemet. Most of these stories will take place in Kemet.
- I don't get _____. What does that mean?
= Figure it out on your own! I want a lot of mystery so the reader can reason things for themselves.
- Will I see _____ in the game?
= You should. These star characters you may meet in the game, but who probably won't join the party.
These questions may not have been specifically asked, but I assumed they'd be asked at some point.
Hey guys.
To get myself (and maybe, others) amped for my game, Second Sun, I've taken to writing some things about it. I'm trying to make it so that these don't cause spoilers, but will rather add a deeper layer to the story of Nephthys's world. I'm dedicating a few posts in this thread to future updates.
This is all a WIP, so check back from time to time, particularly on weekdays (since I can work on this at work).
Please note: Second Sun is set on a planet named 'Torinth'. This world is rated [R]. If you're squeamish or sensitive to adult language/situations, don't read on. This isn't intended for children. Not that all passages are risque, but there may be some that are very.
The game will be much lighter and less overtly dramatic than these passages; I just have a tendency of writing very intense novels. :P
Eventually I think I'll post a lexicon containing all the Kemetian terms for things, but in the meantime, use your imagination
.Each of these stories will be told from the perspective of someone you'll meet in the game, but it won't actually cover any of the player-seen gameplay, specifically.
Alright, here goes.
Danaë.
She was rather small, for an Aurite child, but she was gorgeous. Raven hair that shined violet in the sun, and eyes that matched the color of the vines covering their home in the spring. Her clay-colored skin was flawless, as if she herself had been sculpted by a master artisan. That was how her mother described her to everyone she met.
"My daughter … Nephthys." Arain waxed, stretching out in her wicker cot, smiling nostalgically. She hadn't lost that little nervous twitch around the corners of her mouth, that twitch which let us know that she was still among us, in reality. Her eyes, however: those were gone, off in another time, another life, far sweeter than ours.
It was the same tale that'd been told a thousand times before, but I listened all the same. Sure, we all were less interested in what she had to say now, but we all shared this … Innate respect for Arain, a love for her, a familial compassion. We were all sisters, I suppose. Whether that was by blood or by circumstance, it didn't matter. We'd all lost something dear to us, but despite the uniqueness of each of our respective situations, we all shared one common loss: Freedom. And … that commonality was stronger than any natural familial ties could ever be.
Arain had been dying for days. The rest of the girls wondered if she'd ever move on, and some grasped onto the possibility that she'd recover, but I knew. I knew that these throes of wistfulness were her last. It was easy to see she wasn't long for this world by looking at her--in fact, we all were secretly shocked that the wound hadn't killed her outright--but the doubt, the hope, stemmed from her visage. She didn't look like she was in pain at all. She smiled and sighed like any long-greiving widow would, regailing us with yarns about her travels and, of course, stories of her one beloved daughter.
I'd never met Nephthys. In fact, I had lived my entire life in a village several hundred fields from Arain and her family, until fate had drawn us together on this ranch. Our villages were razed at roughly the same time, about seven years ago. But Nephthys and I were about the same age, and I think I really could have been friends with her if we'd ever crossed paths. If she was anything like her mother, Arain, she'd undoubtedly be one of the strongest people I could ever meet.
"Danaë." Arain sighed.
I went to her side, and knelt down so she could look at me better from her cot. Her forehead glistened in the low light and her once-hazel eyes had become as cloudy as her skin. Little blue veins wove patterns along her jaw and crowned her hairline like a sickly tiara. Her expression was tired, but determined, and despite her deathly appearance, her breathing was normal and her nose was dry.
"Please check my dressings … Will you do that for me? I have a terrible itch."
I nodded, but my heart dropped. The last time I'd seen under her dressings, I'd nearly retched. I loved Arain like an older sister, but that love was absolutely the only thing guiding my hand--my brain certainly was telling me to do otherwise.
As I pulled back the sheets, a wave of stench and heat slapped me in the face. It smelled of boiling rot and death. I could barely feign how Arain could endure the torture--her body, rotting, as she still drew breath.
The meager dressings, mostly cloth soaked in oil and saltwater, on top of a wound coated in wax and mur fat, were all we could muster on our own. It had done well to stop the bleeding and infection, but the cloth itself had become saturated in her humours. Wesa took the liberty of preparing new dressings as I worked, but all I could do with the old dressings as I pulled them away was to toss them out the small, pane-less window to my right. That smell of the discarded bandages would linger there for months after that day.
To my horror, a maggot fell from the one of the bandages, onto my palm. It was pale and sweaty, squirming, searching blindly for more flesh to tear into. When I shook it off onto the floor and stomped on it, it left a bilious splatter of white goo.
"If there's one, there's a million." Wesa uttered in my ear.
I shook my head, and bore down as the walls swayed around me.
The naked wound, completely uncovered, was grotesque. Her abdomen had turned corpse-grey, and somehow translucent. Purple veins stood out in every direction, no doubt still weakly trying to supply blood to the dead child in her womb. Last I'd seen the wound itself, it was purple and yellow and slick with infection. Now, it was just grey, riddled with pus, overflowing with maggots, all of it an indistinguishable mess of pallid, squirming rot. The odor filled the room like a cloud in a storm. The other Sisters, nauseated, huddled around the locked doors of the barn, and their young children cried. Only Wesa and I had the strength to stand by Arain as she endured the monster on her belly.
Wesa grabbed a nearby bucket, and I swallowed my tears. Trembling, I dug my fingers into the wound and scooped out a fistful of sick, and was aghast as I easily dumped it into the ready bucket, like a spoonful of bread pudding. No resistance, no solids. I looked down into the cavity of the gash and saw still more of the plague, just a writhing pit of white.
"Is it bad?" Arain asked. Her tone was completely normal, as if she were asking about the weather outside.
Wesa looked to me, and I bit my lip before turning to Arain. She obviously couldn't feel the wound anymore. If this chasm of maggots was only causing her an itch, then it was much worse than anyone thought.
"The … The infection is gone," I replied, choking down whatever was brewing in my stomach. "Just some bile and humours. Nothing out of the ordinary. You'll … You'll be fine in a matter of days."
She rested her head back on the pillow, and gave a faint smile, but her mouth twitched, and that tic told me that she knew. She knew that her leaf was about to fall from the tree. The nervous tic told volumes that her voice did not.
A woman huddled to the barn door, trying to breathe in the fresh, untainted air wafting in through the jamb's cracks, began to sob. And the interesting thing about living with dozens of women and children? Emotions are contagious. A wave of tears began to break out like wildfire through dry brush.
I could have slapped the woman who'd started it, because it was only making the situation worse. Wesa started shifting around nervously, and she dropped the vase full of oily mur fat we were going to reapply. It fell to the dirt floor and shattered, spreading the gooey mess out and over our feet.
"Quick!" I cried, dropping to the floor. "Scoop it up!"
As we fumbled to scoop the gelatanous grease into broken clay shards, I looked up to Arain, and watched as two plump maggots wriggled their way over the rim of the wound they'd been borne in. They lazily rolled down the side of Arain's half-pregnant belly, leaving a trail of slick, and tumbled onto the straw mattress. Women and babies were crying uncontrollably, some in their beds, some in the corner, some by the barn door within eyeshot. The aroma of corpse-flesh was bitter, even when I tried to breathe with my mouth. And worst of all, my friend, my sister, Arain, was quite visibly dying.
It was all too much. All my senses were being barraged with a hammer. I heard my heart pounding in my ears. I felt I was going to break …
When all of a sudden, the sobbing shrieks of the other Breeding Sisters began to lull. One by one, their wails reduced to sniffles and whimpers. My heart was thudding too loudly to notice at first, but I heard the remedy to their cries after I saw Wesa staring up, staring at the dying woman on the cot made of straw.
She was humming.
I didn't know the name of the song, or even any words, but I recognized the tune. It was a lullaby. She hummed it to herself nearly every night, especially after becoming pregnant.
The Ranch Master was about to sell her. She'd spent seven years on his ranch and had never sired a child. Everyone thought she was barren, but from what I'd heard from the Studs, she just never allowed a man to touch her.
"She'd lay with us," Tene, one of the Studs, had told me the other day in the field, "to keep up appearances, anyway. But Arain told me that she'd promised herself only to her husband, and with him gone, she never wanted to be touched by a man again, even if it meant her death." Tene had looked uneasy, and even a little teary-eyed when he said this. "I love Arain, I think all of us do. I don't know why exactly. She just has … A good soul. So we helped her with her lie. Even just to buy her some time.
"I can't believe something like this could happen to such a good soul. But … Perhaps it's best."
But Tene was the man who'd put her with child. It was a shock when she started showing. In fact, I believe she was scheduled to be sold that very month. The pregnancy had persuaded the Ranch Master to cancel.
I, too, was pregnant, at the time her secret was out. I'd given birth to my sixth son shortly before Arain's accident. It was wonderful before the accident--I bonded with Arain so much. We told stories, and even named our children rhyming names--Corian and Orienne. She was there for me when I was in labor. She helped deliver my son, Corian, into the world.
v v v --- Update: Feb 6th --- v v v
About a week after Corian's birth, I had recovered enough to walk around the yard. Arain had gone with me. We gossiped about nothing, and shared a good many laughs, but the entire time, I couldn't help but feel like Arain was distant, somehow. A little sad, perhaps.
As we were headed back, we decided to skirt around the tin-post fence bordering the barn, which was in place to keep the little children from running off into the field. I had begun to talk in length about something, and as I did, I was too wrapped up in what I was saying to notice that Arain had lagged behind. Mid-sentence, I heard a little yelp arise from behind me, followed by … A sickening noise, like a hard punch into a jaw, or like a pick driving into a a hunk of meat. It sounded crunchy, it sounded wet. Following that was a sound I'll never forget: a liquid, screeching wail, a shriek of anguish.
Arain had tripped and fallen onto one of the tin fence posts jutting out of the ground. It had skewered itself into her protruding womb. I could only turn and gape in horror as the weight of her pregnancy slowly pushed her further down onto the stake, as she flailed to grab onto the ground, as the soft sucking sound nearly overshadowed her moan of pain.
There was no way of knowing how deep it'd gone, but I was able to stop her descent before the thing completely impaled her. Blood went everywhere, and after I'd pulled her up off the post, a great preponderance of fluid dumped out of the wound, as if she were a balloon full of liquid that'd popped. Crimson and brown and yellow soup poured onto my feet, onto the ground, was absorbed by the soil. It was a wonder I was able to keep above fainting long enough for others to run over to help.
One of the Sisters, who had been a midwife in her life before capture, examined Arain, after her wound had been patched enough to ebb the hemorrhaging. She returned to Wesa and I shortly after the examination. She was wiping her hands on a cloth and averting her gaze, and when she approached, all she could do was glance up, shake her head, and move on.
"I didn't allow her to remove it." Arain said out of the blue, as if reading my thoughts.
I'd snapped back into reality. To my surprise, my hands had done my work for me while my mind was away. The maggoted wound had been resealed with fat and I was in the middle of re-bandaging it. She had stopped humming, but I'm sure that song had calmed me enough to have drifted off.
A hazy glow had washed into the room. Out the tiny window to my right, I saw dawn's thin, blue veil wafting over the sill, crumpled onto the foot of the cot. The night had passed, and the light brought me some inner relief. That is, until I realized what day of the week it was.
Inspection day.
They would trot us out to inspect us, to line us up and deem who was fit, who needed medical attention, who needed to go to market, who was with child, who was ...
"Danaë," Arain whispered, "I need you to know something, I need you to know before it's time."
All I could do was peer down to acknowledge her, into her milky eyes, as I tried to choke back the utter terror boiling under my skin. It was inspection day and there was nothing I could do--what could I do--what could I do! And somehow I had to process what my friend, who was in danger--who was in mortal danger--had to say, and--
"It wasn't an accident."
Wesa had been busy wiping up the mess on the floor, but she ceased at that moment to look up at the dying woman. She glanced at me for support, but it was difficult for me to even feel what expression I was making. It felt like my face had been frozen solid and I could only perceive what was happening from the back of a long tunnel. The other Sisters in the barn were minding their own business, dressing their children and shuffling about on their routines, so there was a murmur just loud enough to make Arain's very strained, slight voice, a secret outside our little circle.
"I didn't …" Arain continued, but her speech was briefly punctuated by a grimace of pain, " … I didn't want Orienne to live. I killed her."
Suddenly, the light coming in from the window was too bright. The air was acrid and thick. I was able to finish bandaging my friend, but as I was re-covering her with the sheet, I was struck to my knees with the worst migraine of my life. There was a buzzing in my ears and the colors all around me had become too vivid. And when I looked to the floor, eyes bulging, head in a vice, my vision fell upon the dried splatter of the maggot I'd stepped on earlier. It looked like a droplet of pus. It taunted me, pulled me back. I couldn't process everything that was going on, but that dab of white on the grey, packed dirt forced me from running. It bound me to that spot.
"What are you saying, Arain!" I finally cried out, but my jaw felt rusted shut and my speech could only come out as a slurred utterance.
"You can't mean that." Wesa pleaded, getting to her feet, holding the bedding around the dying woman.
"I loved Orienne, that was why I killed her." Her breathing had finally started to become labored. I suppose there is a point at which not even the strongest person in the world can cross and still remain strong. "I was scared. I felt a love for her that I'd felt for my dear Nephthys. I cannot bear to lose another child …"
That day, Arain had lagged behind. That day, she had seemed somehow distant, as if mulling something over. Had she really been plotting her own demise? Had she really been thinking about killing her unborn child as she was strolling with me, that day, that day she was just chatting about the weather, she was …
"I don't understand!" Wesa exclaimed, echoing my own thoughts.
"Is it really so difficult?" Arain sighed. There was a tinge of sorrow in her exasperation. "Look around you! Look where you are! You know what happens to the children they send off to market! You know! How could I possibly bring a child into this horror?!"
I did look around, kneeling from my spot above the small, off-white splatter. There were pregnant women everywhere, sleeping on beds of hay and straw. There were children, none of the boys any older than thirteen, dressed in rags, holed up in a floorless barn. The doors were locked. The only window was the melon-sized one above the sickbed Arain occupied. We were all prisoners, populating for nothing. We were cattle, being raised to die.
Dear Syquarre, mother of time … Arain was right. She was right.
My oldest son was eight. What would happen to him when he reached adolescence? My oldest daughter was nine. When would she be forced to bear a child of her own? ... Or worse?
"You don't think about it," Arain continued, in her clairvoyant way, "You don't because it's easy to lie to yourself. You think that the boys and girls they're sending out of the farm are just going to be slaves for someone else but you do realize why we're here? Why we have to meet a quota? Do you really think it's all for slaves? You know why we are here, Danaë! Just as you know that today is the day I am going to die."
Tears steadily began to stream down her cheeks, and I'll admit, it was contagious--to me, as well. Empathy, the feminine condition.
" … Orienne …" I could barely hear Arain now. Her voice was so far away in her throat. " … And … Nephthys. What has become of my dears … I hope I will meet them. I hope I can find them, someday."
Arain's eyes closed, and all Wesa and I could do was stare at her, waiting for the inevitable. We watched her eyelids, studied her chest as it very slowly moved up and down. Minutes passed, and although my migraine ebbed, my pulse was so strong I could see my heart's rhythm in the corners of my eyes.
Wesa finally turned to me, and whispered: "I like to think, that when we die, we go to a field. And everyone's there. Everyone you've ever lost. Everyone who was tied to you, who loved you. And …" A swollen tear escaped, rolled down her cheek, and was wiped away. "… And you don't hurt anymore. There … There is no more pain."
v v v --- Update: Feb 7th --- v v v
Arain didn't wake up by inspections, but she hadn't passed yet, either.
Wesa and I couldn't think of anything to do. We'd considered trying to carry her out to the line, and try to prop her up as if she were standing, but if she moved, her bandage would come off and she'd bleed out. She was also to heavy to hold up, and too sickly to pass for just being tired-looking. We also considered covering her up with a dozen things to hide her, but it didn't really matter. If they went looking for her, it'd be quick work to find her anyway.
So when we were commanded, we just left her lay there, and filed out of the barn, tight-lipped and nervous.
Inspections went rather normally. They checked us for maladies and pregnancies, and counted the children, inquiring about their age. The ranch hands went about their business gruffly and quickly, as the ranch Master looked on, leaning against the Corvala tree, sipping his morning coffee nonchalantly.
After all the checks, Wesa looked to me with hope in her eyes. It seemed as if we'd succeeded--perhaps they wouldn't even notice that Arain was missing?
"Dismissed!" A ranch hand called out, and then we were free to go back to the barn.
I nearly jumped for joy, but repressed the extreme relief, and put on airs of boredom as I slowly trudged back to the barn. My 4-year-old daughter, Jeane, grabbed me around the leg and held on tight. I patted her head and went inside with her. Perhaps everything would turn out alright? Perhaps Arain could go in peace?
What I hadn't noticed, however, as Jeane was dividing my attention, was that one of the ranch hands had taken his inspection notes to the Master. I hadn't seen them conferring, and I hadn't seen the Master becoming angered about what his worker was telling him.
"Oh, I haven't slept since night before last!" Wesa exclaimed inside the barn. "Perhaps I can get a wink or two?"
"Sure, you deserve it." I replied, picking up Jeane. The girl went immediately about braiding a clump of my hair, and a smile broke between my lips. I carried her over to our area, which was walled off with cloth strung on clotheswire.
Jeane had a terrible knot in her hair, so I quickly set about combing it out before I'd determined that I'd go back to Arain.
That was when I'd heard it.
That distinctly masculine voice, booming and stern, with a funny Loretian accent: "She must be around here."
My heart dropped, and Jeane instantly knew why. Her visage went from playful to frightened in a single breath.
"Stay here," I told her, " … And tell your brothers, if you see them, to keep quiet." One of the Sisters was watching Corian while I cared for Arain, but my other boys would undoubtedly come running in any moment to beg for something.
My joints stiff with fear, I pulled back the curtain, and headed for the sickbed Arain was occupying.
It only took a few paces to see the ranch Master, in his jacketless suit, rapier on his belt. He was once a soldier, I'd heard, and he carried his war blade with him everywhere. It was not only for show, however. We knew that all too well.
The farm hand, still holding his clipboard, entered my view, and ushered the Master into Arain's area.
There were many things I could have done then. Most of them, I presume, would have turned out very badly for me.
I could have begged the Master to let her die in peace, but I'm sure he would have struck me down.
I could have tried to attack the man, to stop him somehow … However that most assuredly would have ended in my death.
I could have made a scene, to perhaps distract the Master away from Arain for a moment … But then, what?
So I just watched, quietly, hiding like a coward, behind a nearby curtain squaring off someone else's living area.
I just watched, and the Master inspected Arain. He conferred with the farm hand. Is it alive? He probably asked. They referred to us with a genderless "it" pronoun whenever they could. Then the farm hand nodded, and there was a moment to think.
Arain was my friend. She was my sister. She … She had loved me like a sister in return. I had known her for seven years, and we had shared many days and nights together, just talking, just reminiscing. She was there for me when I was in hardship, she was my shoulder to cry on, she held my hand when I had every child; she was a dear friend to anyone who spoke to her.
Long ago, she had told me, in a field, with the wind ripping through her pure black hair, with the sun shining on her clay-colored skin, that she didn't care if she was alive or dead, so long as she was free.
The Master pulled his rapier out of its sheath, and raised it above his head.
She had told me that freedom was more important than living, because it was the only thing that truly belonged to you. She said that the gods owned your soul, and the soil owned your body, and your family owned your love …
And I could swear that, as she lay there, grey and sleeping, with the blade plummeting toward her chest …
… I could swear that she was smiling.
She didn't say a word in protest. Because freedom was finally hers to own, again.
She was rather small, for an Aurite child, but she was gorgeous. Raven hair that shined violet in the sun, and eyes that matched the color of the vines covering their home in the spring. Her clay-colored skin was flawless, as if she herself had been sculpted by a master artisan. That was how her mother described her to everyone she met.
"My daughter … Nephthys." Arain waxed, stretching out in her wicker cot, smiling nostalgically. She hadn't lost that little nervous twitch around the corners of her mouth, that twitch which let us know that she was still among us, in reality. Her eyes, however: those were gone, off in another time, another life, far sweeter than ours.
It was the same tale that'd been told a thousand times before, but I listened all the same. Sure, we all were less interested in what she had to say now, but we all shared this … Innate respect for Arain, a love for her, a familial compassion. We were all sisters, I suppose. Whether that was by blood or by circumstance, it didn't matter. We'd all lost something dear to us, but despite the uniqueness of each of our respective situations, we all shared one common loss: Freedom. And … that commonality was stronger than any natural familial ties could ever be.
Arain had been dying for days. The rest of the girls wondered if she'd ever move on, and some grasped onto the possibility that she'd recover, but I knew. I knew that these throes of wistfulness were her last. It was easy to see she wasn't long for this world by looking at her--in fact, we all were secretly shocked that the wound hadn't killed her outright--but the doubt, the hope, stemmed from her visage. She didn't look like she was in pain at all. She smiled and sighed like any long-greiving widow would, regailing us with yarns about her travels and, of course, stories of her one beloved daughter.
I'd never met Nephthys. In fact, I had lived my entire life in a village several hundred fields from Arain and her family, until fate had drawn us together on this ranch. Our villages were razed at roughly the same time, about seven years ago. But Nephthys and I were about the same age, and I think I really could have been friends with her if we'd ever crossed paths. If she was anything like her mother, Arain, she'd undoubtedly be one of the strongest people I could ever meet.
"Danaë." Arain sighed.
I went to her side, and knelt down so she could look at me better from her cot. Her forehead glistened in the low light and her once-hazel eyes had become as cloudy as her skin. Little blue veins wove patterns along her jaw and crowned her hairline like a sickly tiara. Her expression was tired, but determined, and despite her deathly appearance, her breathing was normal and her nose was dry.
"Please check my dressings … Will you do that for me? I have a terrible itch."
I nodded, but my heart dropped. The last time I'd seen under her dressings, I'd nearly retched. I loved Arain like an older sister, but that love was absolutely the only thing guiding my hand--my brain certainly was telling me to do otherwise.
As I pulled back the sheets, a wave of stench and heat slapped me in the face. It smelled of boiling rot and death. I could barely feign how Arain could endure the torture--her body, rotting, as she still drew breath.
The meager dressings, mostly cloth soaked in oil and saltwater, on top of a wound coated in wax and mur fat, were all we could muster on our own. It had done well to stop the bleeding and infection, but the cloth itself had become saturated in her humours. Wesa took the liberty of preparing new dressings as I worked, but all I could do with the old dressings as I pulled them away was to toss them out the small, pane-less window to my right. That smell of the discarded bandages would linger there for months after that day.
To my horror, a maggot fell from the one of the bandages, onto my palm. It was pale and sweaty, squirming, searching blindly for more flesh to tear into. When I shook it off onto the floor and stomped on it, it left a bilious splatter of white goo.
"If there's one, there's a million." Wesa uttered in my ear.
I shook my head, and bore down as the walls swayed around me.
The naked wound, completely uncovered, was grotesque. Her abdomen had turned corpse-grey, and somehow translucent. Purple veins stood out in every direction, no doubt still weakly trying to supply blood to the dead child in her womb. Last I'd seen the wound itself, it was purple and yellow and slick with infection. Now, it was just grey, riddled with pus, overflowing with maggots, all of it an indistinguishable mess of pallid, squirming rot. The odor filled the room like a cloud in a storm. The other Sisters, nauseated, huddled around the locked doors of the barn, and their young children cried. Only Wesa and I had the strength to stand by Arain as she endured the monster on her belly.
Wesa grabbed a nearby bucket, and I swallowed my tears. Trembling, I dug my fingers into the wound and scooped out a fistful of sick, and was aghast as I easily dumped it into the ready bucket, like a spoonful of bread pudding. No resistance, no solids. I looked down into the cavity of the gash and saw still more of the plague, just a writhing pit of white.
"Is it bad?" Arain asked. Her tone was completely normal, as if she were asking about the weather outside.
Wesa looked to me, and I bit my lip before turning to Arain. She obviously couldn't feel the wound anymore. If this chasm of maggots was only causing her an itch, then it was much worse than anyone thought.
"The … The infection is gone," I replied, choking down whatever was brewing in my stomach. "Just some bile and humours. Nothing out of the ordinary. You'll … You'll be fine in a matter of days."
She rested her head back on the pillow, and gave a faint smile, but her mouth twitched, and that tic told me that she knew. She knew that her leaf was about to fall from the tree. The nervous tic told volumes that her voice did not.
A woman huddled to the barn door, trying to breathe in the fresh, untainted air wafting in through the jamb's cracks, began to sob. And the interesting thing about living with dozens of women and children? Emotions are contagious. A wave of tears began to break out like wildfire through dry brush.
I could have slapped the woman who'd started it, because it was only making the situation worse. Wesa started shifting around nervously, and she dropped the vase full of oily mur fat we were going to reapply. It fell to the dirt floor and shattered, spreading the gooey mess out and over our feet.
"Quick!" I cried, dropping to the floor. "Scoop it up!"
As we fumbled to scoop the gelatanous grease into broken clay shards, I looked up to Arain, and watched as two plump maggots wriggled their way over the rim of the wound they'd been borne in. They lazily rolled down the side of Arain's half-pregnant belly, leaving a trail of slick, and tumbled onto the straw mattress. Women and babies were crying uncontrollably, some in their beds, some in the corner, some by the barn door within eyeshot. The aroma of corpse-flesh was bitter, even when I tried to breathe with my mouth. And worst of all, my friend, my sister, Arain, was quite visibly dying.
It was all too much. All my senses were being barraged with a hammer. I heard my heart pounding in my ears. I felt I was going to break …
When all of a sudden, the sobbing shrieks of the other Breeding Sisters began to lull. One by one, their wails reduced to sniffles and whimpers. My heart was thudding too loudly to notice at first, but I heard the remedy to their cries after I saw Wesa staring up, staring at the dying woman on the cot made of straw.
She was humming.
I didn't know the name of the song, or even any words, but I recognized the tune. It was a lullaby. She hummed it to herself nearly every night, especially after becoming pregnant.
The Ranch Master was about to sell her. She'd spent seven years on his ranch and had never sired a child. Everyone thought she was barren, but from what I'd heard from the Studs, she just never allowed a man to touch her.
"She'd lay with us," Tene, one of the Studs, had told me the other day in the field, "to keep up appearances, anyway. But Arain told me that she'd promised herself only to her husband, and with him gone, she never wanted to be touched by a man again, even if it meant her death." Tene had looked uneasy, and even a little teary-eyed when he said this. "I love Arain, I think all of us do. I don't know why exactly. She just has … A good soul. So we helped her with her lie. Even just to buy her some time.
"I can't believe something like this could happen to such a good soul. But … Perhaps it's best."
But Tene was the man who'd put her with child. It was a shock when she started showing. In fact, I believe she was scheduled to be sold that very month. The pregnancy had persuaded the Ranch Master to cancel.
I, too, was pregnant, at the time her secret was out. I'd given birth to my sixth son shortly before Arain's accident. It was wonderful before the accident--I bonded with Arain so much. We told stories, and even named our children rhyming names--Corian and Orienne. She was there for me when I was in labor. She helped deliver my son, Corian, into the world.
v v v --- Update: Feb 6th --- v v v
About a week after Corian's birth, I had recovered enough to walk around the yard. Arain had gone with me. We gossiped about nothing, and shared a good many laughs, but the entire time, I couldn't help but feel like Arain was distant, somehow. A little sad, perhaps.
As we were headed back, we decided to skirt around the tin-post fence bordering the barn, which was in place to keep the little children from running off into the field. I had begun to talk in length about something, and as I did, I was too wrapped up in what I was saying to notice that Arain had lagged behind. Mid-sentence, I heard a little yelp arise from behind me, followed by … A sickening noise, like a hard punch into a jaw, or like a pick driving into a a hunk of meat. It sounded crunchy, it sounded wet. Following that was a sound I'll never forget: a liquid, screeching wail, a shriek of anguish.
Arain had tripped and fallen onto one of the tin fence posts jutting out of the ground. It had skewered itself into her protruding womb. I could only turn and gape in horror as the weight of her pregnancy slowly pushed her further down onto the stake, as she flailed to grab onto the ground, as the soft sucking sound nearly overshadowed her moan of pain.
There was no way of knowing how deep it'd gone, but I was able to stop her descent before the thing completely impaled her. Blood went everywhere, and after I'd pulled her up off the post, a great preponderance of fluid dumped out of the wound, as if she were a balloon full of liquid that'd popped. Crimson and brown and yellow soup poured onto my feet, onto the ground, was absorbed by the soil. It was a wonder I was able to keep above fainting long enough for others to run over to help.
One of the Sisters, who had been a midwife in her life before capture, examined Arain, after her wound had been patched enough to ebb the hemorrhaging. She returned to Wesa and I shortly after the examination. She was wiping her hands on a cloth and averting her gaze, and when she approached, all she could do was glance up, shake her head, and move on.
"I didn't allow her to remove it." Arain said out of the blue, as if reading my thoughts.
I'd snapped back into reality. To my surprise, my hands had done my work for me while my mind was away. The maggoted wound had been resealed with fat and I was in the middle of re-bandaging it. She had stopped humming, but I'm sure that song had calmed me enough to have drifted off.
A hazy glow had washed into the room. Out the tiny window to my right, I saw dawn's thin, blue veil wafting over the sill, crumpled onto the foot of the cot. The night had passed, and the light brought me some inner relief. That is, until I realized what day of the week it was.
Inspection day.
They would trot us out to inspect us, to line us up and deem who was fit, who needed medical attention, who needed to go to market, who was with child, who was ...
"Danaë," Arain whispered, "I need you to know something, I need you to know before it's time."
All I could do was peer down to acknowledge her, into her milky eyes, as I tried to choke back the utter terror boiling under my skin. It was inspection day and there was nothing I could do--what could I do--what could I do! And somehow I had to process what my friend, who was in danger--who was in mortal danger--had to say, and--
"It wasn't an accident."
Wesa had been busy wiping up the mess on the floor, but she ceased at that moment to look up at the dying woman. She glanced at me for support, but it was difficult for me to even feel what expression I was making. It felt like my face had been frozen solid and I could only perceive what was happening from the back of a long tunnel. The other Sisters in the barn were minding their own business, dressing their children and shuffling about on their routines, so there was a murmur just loud enough to make Arain's very strained, slight voice, a secret outside our little circle.
"I didn't …" Arain continued, but her speech was briefly punctuated by a grimace of pain, " … I didn't want Orienne to live. I killed her."
Suddenly, the light coming in from the window was too bright. The air was acrid and thick. I was able to finish bandaging my friend, but as I was re-covering her with the sheet, I was struck to my knees with the worst migraine of my life. There was a buzzing in my ears and the colors all around me had become too vivid. And when I looked to the floor, eyes bulging, head in a vice, my vision fell upon the dried splatter of the maggot I'd stepped on earlier. It looked like a droplet of pus. It taunted me, pulled me back. I couldn't process everything that was going on, but that dab of white on the grey, packed dirt forced me from running. It bound me to that spot.
"What are you saying, Arain!" I finally cried out, but my jaw felt rusted shut and my speech could only come out as a slurred utterance.
"You can't mean that." Wesa pleaded, getting to her feet, holding the bedding around the dying woman.
"I loved Orienne, that was why I killed her." Her breathing had finally started to become labored. I suppose there is a point at which not even the strongest person in the world can cross and still remain strong. "I was scared. I felt a love for her that I'd felt for my dear Nephthys. I cannot bear to lose another child …"
That day, Arain had lagged behind. That day, she had seemed somehow distant, as if mulling something over. Had she really been plotting her own demise? Had she really been thinking about killing her unborn child as she was strolling with me, that day, that day she was just chatting about the weather, she was …
"I don't understand!" Wesa exclaimed, echoing my own thoughts.
"Is it really so difficult?" Arain sighed. There was a tinge of sorrow in her exasperation. "Look around you! Look where you are! You know what happens to the children they send off to market! You know! How could I possibly bring a child into this horror?!"
I did look around, kneeling from my spot above the small, off-white splatter. There were pregnant women everywhere, sleeping on beds of hay and straw. There were children, none of the boys any older than thirteen, dressed in rags, holed up in a floorless barn. The doors were locked. The only window was the melon-sized one above the sickbed Arain occupied. We were all prisoners, populating for nothing. We were cattle, being raised to die.
Dear Syquarre, mother of time … Arain was right. She was right.
My oldest son was eight. What would happen to him when he reached adolescence? My oldest daughter was nine. When would she be forced to bear a child of her own? ... Or worse?
"You don't think about it," Arain continued, in her clairvoyant way, "You don't because it's easy to lie to yourself. You think that the boys and girls they're sending out of the farm are just going to be slaves for someone else but you do realize why we're here? Why we have to meet a quota? Do you really think it's all for slaves? You know why we are here, Danaë! Just as you know that today is the day I am going to die."
Tears steadily began to stream down her cheeks, and I'll admit, it was contagious--to me, as well. Empathy, the feminine condition.
" … Orienne …" I could barely hear Arain now. Her voice was so far away in her throat. " … And … Nephthys. What has become of my dears … I hope I will meet them. I hope I can find them, someday."
Arain's eyes closed, and all Wesa and I could do was stare at her, waiting for the inevitable. We watched her eyelids, studied her chest as it very slowly moved up and down. Minutes passed, and although my migraine ebbed, my pulse was so strong I could see my heart's rhythm in the corners of my eyes.
Wesa finally turned to me, and whispered: "I like to think, that when we die, we go to a field. And everyone's there. Everyone you've ever lost. Everyone who was tied to you, who loved you. And …" A swollen tear escaped, rolled down her cheek, and was wiped away. "… And you don't hurt anymore. There … There is no more pain."
v v v --- Update: Feb 7th --- v v v
Arain didn't wake up by inspections, but she hadn't passed yet, either.
Wesa and I couldn't think of anything to do. We'd considered trying to carry her out to the line, and try to prop her up as if she were standing, but if she moved, her bandage would come off and she'd bleed out. She was also to heavy to hold up, and too sickly to pass for just being tired-looking. We also considered covering her up with a dozen things to hide her, but it didn't really matter. If they went looking for her, it'd be quick work to find her anyway.
So when we were commanded, we just left her lay there, and filed out of the barn, tight-lipped and nervous.
Inspections went rather normally. They checked us for maladies and pregnancies, and counted the children, inquiring about their age. The ranch hands went about their business gruffly and quickly, as the ranch Master looked on, leaning against the Corvala tree, sipping his morning coffee nonchalantly.
After all the checks, Wesa looked to me with hope in her eyes. It seemed as if we'd succeeded--perhaps they wouldn't even notice that Arain was missing?
"Dismissed!" A ranch hand called out, and then we were free to go back to the barn.
I nearly jumped for joy, but repressed the extreme relief, and put on airs of boredom as I slowly trudged back to the barn. My 4-year-old daughter, Jeane, grabbed me around the leg and held on tight. I patted her head and went inside with her. Perhaps everything would turn out alright? Perhaps Arain could go in peace?
What I hadn't noticed, however, as Jeane was dividing my attention, was that one of the ranch hands had taken his inspection notes to the Master. I hadn't seen them conferring, and I hadn't seen the Master becoming angered about what his worker was telling him.
"Oh, I haven't slept since night before last!" Wesa exclaimed inside the barn. "Perhaps I can get a wink or two?"
"Sure, you deserve it." I replied, picking up Jeane. The girl went immediately about braiding a clump of my hair, and a smile broke between my lips. I carried her over to our area, which was walled off with cloth strung on clotheswire.
Jeane had a terrible knot in her hair, so I quickly set about combing it out before I'd determined that I'd go back to Arain.
That was when I'd heard it.
That distinctly masculine voice, booming and stern, with a funny Loretian accent: "She must be around here."
My heart dropped, and Jeane instantly knew why. Her visage went from playful to frightened in a single breath.
"Stay here," I told her, " … And tell your brothers, if you see them, to keep quiet." One of the Sisters was watching Corian while I cared for Arain, but my other boys would undoubtedly come running in any moment to beg for something.
My joints stiff with fear, I pulled back the curtain, and headed for the sickbed Arain was occupying.
It only took a few paces to see the ranch Master, in his jacketless suit, rapier on his belt. He was once a soldier, I'd heard, and he carried his war blade with him everywhere. It was not only for show, however. We knew that all too well.
The farm hand, still holding his clipboard, entered my view, and ushered the Master into Arain's area.
There were many things I could have done then. Most of them, I presume, would have turned out very badly for me.
I could have begged the Master to let her die in peace, but I'm sure he would have struck me down.
I could have tried to attack the man, to stop him somehow … However that most assuredly would have ended in my death.
I could have made a scene, to perhaps distract the Master away from Arain for a moment … But then, what?
So I just watched, quietly, hiding like a coward, behind a nearby curtain squaring off someone else's living area.
I just watched, and the Master inspected Arain. He conferred with the farm hand. Is it alive? He probably asked. They referred to us with a genderless "it" pronoun whenever they could. Then the farm hand nodded, and there was a moment to think.
Arain was my friend. She was my sister. She … She had loved me like a sister in return. I had known her for seven years, and we had shared many days and nights together, just talking, just reminiscing. She was there for me when I was in hardship, she was my shoulder to cry on, she held my hand when I had every child; she was a dear friend to anyone who spoke to her.
Long ago, she had told me, in a field, with the wind ripping through her pure black hair, with the sun shining on her clay-colored skin, that she didn't care if she was alive or dead, so long as she was free.
The Master pulled his rapier out of its sheath, and raised it above his head.
She had told me that freedom was more important than living, because it was the only thing that truly belonged to you. She said that the gods owned your soul, and the soil owned your body, and your family owned your love …
And I could swear that, as she lay there, grey and sleeping, with the blade plummeting toward her chest …
… I could swear that she was smiling.
She didn't say a word in protest. Because freedom was finally hers to own, again.
Seti.
My name--well, atleast the one my mom gave me--is Setizimanaten. I don't expect anyone to remember that. You can call me Seti. Set-Tee. Now we're acquainted.
So you can call me Seti, and as you can see, I'm in a fucking jail cell.
They're about to hang me on the old, gnarled lynching tree on the outskirts of town. But you know, I don't give a dick.
Why, Seti? Why don't you care that you're about to be strangled in front of a crowd of assholes just interested in seeing something's eyes pop while they shit themselves?
I'll tell you why. You've got a good face.
It's because I got her back.
I got her back! Revenge, babe! It's sweet as that glass-candy they sell at the bazaar a few blocks down. Not the licorice-flavored crap, I'm talking about those sugardrops that're clear like glass and filled with some incredibly delicious red goo of some sort. That's the shit, right there. Sweet as that.
You seem to have some time, you want to listen to my sad tale? Sure, why the hell not. Not like you have to be anywhere, right? Ha.
There was only one girl in my life I ever liked. I'm not talking about the chick I got revenge on, I hated her ass. This one was the polar opposite. Chicks are like desert storms, you know? They're small at first, a light drizzle. Then, they pick up momentum. They're gorgeous, but they're crazy as hell. Eddies and flooding and lightning. They may pop off a few clouds that go west. Then they start to die down, and it's just humid and grey and ugly, until it fizzles out completely.
Not this girl, though. She was just beautiful. I can't say I loved her, because I was ten when I knew her, and she was eight. Her name was Coriander. She was blonde and had perfect alabaster skin and eyes the color of toumalines. Northie, of course. But she didn't have that hoity-toity accent that make dudes sound lavender and chicks sound like pretentious bitches. She'd been taken from her parents before she'd even learned to talk.
Coriander had a bum rap. She was stunning from a young age, and had wings with a light blue tinge that went from her head, to spilling onto the floor. Prime specimen, you could call her. Alpha rank. Whatever the shit they call us high-quality Leatherhides. Yeah, I'm one, too. Or, I was, at one point. That doesn't matter, especially now.
Anyway, she was a gem, is my point. And all the pedophiles wanted a piece of her, I assume. She looked older than she was, acted older than she should have. She was a proper lady, reserved and shy, always blushing over something. And that blonde hair, it was golden. Not like the tarnished, gold-plated stuff you can find in some antique shoppe, but newly-poured, virgin metal.
I was bought by a slimy high-end salesman, named Icaro Kin, when I was six. I know, generally, they buy 'em at puberty. But this guy liked to get 'em young as possible. Did some things I'd rather not remember, certainly things I'd never tell someone in a situation like this.
Anyway, I guess he decided that he preferred girls, so he bought Coriander a few years later, when she herself was six. I took backseat as just his errand boy. Let me tell you, that was much, much better. Still not fun or anything, but way better. But the unfortunate thing about that: Coriander took my place.
I guess she'd had a kinder master before, but they'd passed away. Private owners can't sell an Inite until they reach thirteen, so she basically just was possessed by the state for a little while, then Kin, who had some lofty connections, was able to get her for a steal.
Despite all the terrible things that wenchdick, Kin, did to her, Coriander was strong. Whenever we had the chance, we spent every minute together. She still would laugh and play--she'd just sober up and grow solemn whenever Kin decided to call on her.
We shared a room together in the basement. Her side of the room was always amazingly tidy, and dried flowers were everywhere. She had a habit of picking them whenever she was in the garden out back. The matron always tore her a new one over it, but all she did from being scolded about it was become more secretive.
She was the girl I'd first kissed. It was in our room. She'd had a nightmare and crawled into bed with me. (--Don't be a dipshit, I didn't touch her. I was nine and she was seven, for crying out loud.) She just gave me a peck on the lips before falling asleep next to me. But it's one of the happiest memories of my life.
... There I go, getting all sentimental.
Anyway, the older she got, the worse Kin would treat her. At first it was all dolls and candies to stop her from crying. Eventually, I guess he got bored with pretending to woo her, and just treated her like any other slave, just with "benefits". Every week, it seemed like she added a new bruise to the abuse library taking shelf all over her back. He was the type to go for the kidneys--didn't want to seem like a jerk to any of the clients he had over to entertain. So there were never any shots to the face or limbs; that'd be too noticeable.
Well, the consequence of being hit in the kidneys over and over is a weak bladder. The girl had to go every ten minutes after a while. Half the time I had to myself (outside chores) when I was ten, was spent sitting outside the downstairs bathroom door, talking to her. Eventually, it was too much for even her to bear. She became violently ill, and Kin didn't have any choice but to get a doctor.
Maybe you don't know, but doctors who'll soil their hands by working on Inites aren't cheap. I suppose the guy cost Kin a few Deben too many, because Kin flew into a rage the second that doctor left the house. He went batshit, just throwing things, breaking shit--he even ran out into the street, drunk off his ass, to, erm … Voice his discontent. I don't know what he did exactly, but I think he pissed off the wrong person when he was running wild in the alley. He pissed off the wrong person at some point anyway, even if it wasn't that particular event.
I only had limited access to Coriander after she'd gone ill, but I remember some strange things happening after the day the doctor came. For one, Kin went dead silent. For another, a man in a giant black robe paid a visit, and demanded that he see Coriander. I was able to only briefly avoid the maids and matron enough to sneak into Coriander's sick room, and she basically said:
"The man in the black robe … He told me that after tomorrow, I wouldn't have to suffer anymore."
Sure enough, that night, I was awoken by a clamor from upstairs. It wasn't loud--it wasn't even a clamor, really. Sounded more like a brief scuffle. When I went up to see what was wrong, I caught a gimpse of the man in the black robe, as he was carrying Coriander, out the front door, out of my life entirely. All I saw of her were her bare feet and a mat of golden blonde hair, sticking out from either side of the robed-man's back ... but I like to think she was still alive.
Sigh …
Well, anyway … Turns out Icaro Kin, legendary salesman and wenchdick pedophile, was dead. Stabbed, right through the neck. I saw the scene after the matron had had her fit over it. Blood everywhere. But I tell you, it was the strangest thing … Not the blood, or the fact that Kin was dead in his bloodsoaked pajamas, but how his left hand was missing.
Looked like it had been sheared off, like … With some kind of pocket knife. Or as if a pack of wolves had ripped it off.
*** To be Continued ***
My name--well, atleast the one my mom gave me--is Setizimanaten. I don't expect anyone to remember that. You can call me Seti. Set-Tee. Now we're acquainted.
So you can call me Seti, and as you can see, I'm in a fucking jail cell.
They're about to hang me on the old, gnarled lynching tree on the outskirts of town. But you know, I don't give a dick.
Why, Seti? Why don't you care that you're about to be strangled in front of a crowd of assholes just interested in seeing something's eyes pop while they shit themselves?
I'll tell you why. You've got a good face.
It's because I got her back.
I got her back! Revenge, babe! It's sweet as that glass-candy they sell at the bazaar a few blocks down. Not the licorice-flavored crap, I'm talking about those sugardrops that're clear like glass and filled with some incredibly delicious red goo of some sort. That's the shit, right there. Sweet as that.
You seem to have some time, you want to listen to my sad tale? Sure, why the hell not. Not like you have to be anywhere, right? Ha.
There was only one girl in my life I ever liked. I'm not talking about the chick I got revenge on, I hated her ass. This one was the polar opposite. Chicks are like desert storms, you know? They're small at first, a light drizzle. Then, they pick up momentum. They're gorgeous, but they're crazy as hell. Eddies and flooding and lightning. They may pop off a few clouds that go west. Then they start to die down, and it's just humid and grey and ugly, until it fizzles out completely.
Not this girl, though. She was just beautiful. I can't say I loved her, because I was ten when I knew her, and she was eight. Her name was Coriander. She was blonde and had perfect alabaster skin and eyes the color of toumalines. Northie, of course. But she didn't have that hoity-toity accent that make dudes sound lavender and chicks sound like pretentious bitches. She'd been taken from her parents before she'd even learned to talk.
Coriander had a bum rap. She was stunning from a young age, and had wings with a light blue tinge that went from her head, to spilling onto the floor. Prime specimen, you could call her. Alpha rank. Whatever the shit they call us high-quality Leatherhides. Yeah, I'm one, too. Or, I was, at one point. That doesn't matter, especially now.
Anyway, she was a gem, is my point. And all the pedophiles wanted a piece of her, I assume. She looked older than she was, acted older than she should have. She was a proper lady, reserved and shy, always blushing over something. And that blonde hair, it was golden. Not like the tarnished, gold-plated stuff you can find in some antique shoppe, but newly-poured, virgin metal.
I was bought by a slimy high-end salesman, named Icaro Kin, when I was six. I know, generally, they buy 'em at puberty. But this guy liked to get 'em young as possible. Did some things I'd rather not remember, certainly things I'd never tell someone in a situation like this.
Anyway, I guess he decided that he preferred girls, so he bought Coriander a few years later, when she herself was six. I took backseat as just his errand boy. Let me tell you, that was much, much better. Still not fun or anything, but way better. But the unfortunate thing about that: Coriander took my place.
I guess she'd had a kinder master before, but they'd passed away. Private owners can't sell an Inite until they reach thirteen, so she basically just was possessed by the state for a little while, then Kin, who had some lofty connections, was able to get her for a steal.
Despite all the terrible things that wenchdick, Kin, did to her, Coriander was strong. Whenever we had the chance, we spent every minute together. She still would laugh and play--she'd just sober up and grow solemn whenever Kin decided to call on her.
We shared a room together in the basement. Her side of the room was always amazingly tidy, and dried flowers were everywhere. She had a habit of picking them whenever she was in the garden out back. The matron always tore her a new one over it, but all she did from being scolded about it was become more secretive.
She was the girl I'd first kissed. It was in our room. She'd had a nightmare and crawled into bed with me. (--Don't be a dipshit, I didn't touch her. I was nine and she was seven, for crying out loud.) She just gave me a peck on the lips before falling asleep next to me. But it's one of the happiest memories of my life.
... There I go, getting all sentimental.
Anyway, the older she got, the worse Kin would treat her. At first it was all dolls and candies to stop her from crying. Eventually, I guess he got bored with pretending to woo her, and just treated her like any other slave, just with "benefits". Every week, it seemed like she added a new bruise to the abuse library taking shelf all over her back. He was the type to go for the kidneys--didn't want to seem like a jerk to any of the clients he had over to entertain. So there were never any shots to the face or limbs; that'd be too noticeable.
Well, the consequence of being hit in the kidneys over and over is a weak bladder. The girl had to go every ten minutes after a while. Half the time I had to myself (outside chores) when I was ten, was spent sitting outside the downstairs bathroom door, talking to her. Eventually, it was too much for even her to bear. She became violently ill, and Kin didn't have any choice but to get a doctor.
Maybe you don't know, but doctors who'll soil their hands by working on Inites aren't cheap. I suppose the guy cost Kin a few Deben too many, because Kin flew into a rage the second that doctor left the house. He went batshit, just throwing things, breaking shit--he even ran out into the street, drunk off his ass, to, erm … Voice his discontent. I don't know what he did exactly, but I think he pissed off the wrong person when he was running wild in the alley. He pissed off the wrong person at some point anyway, even if it wasn't that particular event.
I only had limited access to Coriander after she'd gone ill, but I remember some strange things happening after the day the doctor came. For one, Kin went dead silent. For another, a man in a giant black robe paid a visit, and demanded that he see Coriander. I was able to only briefly avoid the maids and matron enough to sneak into Coriander's sick room, and she basically said:
"The man in the black robe … He told me that after tomorrow, I wouldn't have to suffer anymore."
Sure enough, that night, I was awoken by a clamor from upstairs. It wasn't loud--it wasn't even a clamor, really. Sounded more like a brief scuffle. When I went up to see what was wrong, I caught a gimpse of the man in the black robe, as he was carrying Coriander, out the front door, out of my life entirely. All I saw of her were her bare feet and a mat of golden blonde hair, sticking out from either side of the robed-man's back ... but I like to think she was still alive.
Sigh …
Well, anyway … Turns out Icaro Kin, legendary salesman and wenchdick pedophile, was dead. Stabbed, right through the neck. I saw the scene after the matron had had her fit over it. Blood everywhere. But I tell you, it was the strangest thing … Not the blood, or the fact that Kin was dead in his bloodsoaked pajamas, but how his left hand was missing.
Looked like it had been sheared off, like … With some kind of pocket knife. Or as if a pack of wolves had ripped it off.
*** To be Continued ***
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Copyright (c) L. Reid, all rights reserved. Do not distribute without permission.
(L. Reid is my penname.)