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Yri finds a little Faith in Emea

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Yri G'hanna
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His eyes opened to a dusty light filtering through a window. It seemed strange to him, that window. So high and open, lettings the suns' light come through and illuminate the bedroom. Hanging in the air next to his head was a small white feather, floating against the beam of light as if held aloft by it. It had come from his pillow, he knew, but that seemed strange as well. Feather pillows, high windows, wooden floors and warm beds? This was not his cot in tge barracks. This was a lavish joke, probably played on him by Strenn and Kalff and the others.

'Make him think he's some lord now!' He could hear the jests in their voices, even in the silence. He smiled against the sunlight that hurt his eyes. In truth, it was a good prank. He was so warm and comfortable in the bed, covered with a heavy maroon blanket that trapped in the heat like a furnace. He dared not move, because when they realized he had awoken, the ruse would come to an end, and he was not ready for that. Just a few more moments of solace...

But eventually, he had to move. He shifted gingerly in the fluffy mattress, swinging an onyx-black foot over to place his bare feet on hard wood. Wherever they had moved him, he was in a house of luxury. One he didn't recognize. He pushed himself slowly to his feet. For the first time in arcs, he didn't hurt. His lower back wasn't sore, his muscles didn't ache, his head actually felt normal. It was strange, but Yri didn't feel like he'd been fighting his whole life. He felt like he lived in this lap of luxury, like he belonged in this house.

And so he proceeded to open the heavy door, which was slightly ajar. The smell of cooking meat greeted him, and he realized he was famished. The sweet scent of pork made his head swim, but he braced himself against the doorframe. What had happened? How had he come to be here? He tried to call out to Strenn, to Kalff, to Lirea even. But his voice was trapped in a throat drier than the deserts. A coarse whisper, like the wind through sandy dunes, was all the emerged. He pushed himself from the door and clambered to the stairs, ornately carved wooden spirals that led straight down to where the smell of pork was coming from. He slowly put his foot on the top step, then the next, and the next until he was at the bottom of them. It felt like it took an eternity.

Sitting on a carved table of black wood was a flagon, presumably of wine. He rushed to it and took three massive gulps. The sour red made him squint his eyes, but his throat now felt lubricated and in working order. He looked around, dark eyes scrutinizing the surroundings. Had he been captured? Or was dead? That could explain everything.

The iron pan in the fire sizzled and sputtered, and the bacon in it was blackening quickly. Water rushed to his mouth, and he pulled a hot strip straight from the pan, swearing at the pain from the heat. But it was muted enough that it was a knee-jerk reaction, and not one of actual pain. He crammed the bacon in his mouth and chewed, savoring the fatty grease as it dribbled down his chin. He could barely taste it, but that didn't matter. He could imagine the taste. That was the important part.

From behind him, he heard a shuffling. Grabbing an iron cutting knife, he spun and crouched into a defensive position. What he saw was a small girl, holding what looked like a radish. He snarled at her.

"Who are you?" If he didn't like the answer, the bacon wouldn't be the only meat that would be burned that trial.
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The floor that she slept on had never seemed so much like a feather mattress as it did at the moment. Every bit of her ached, rather like she had spent her trials in the fighting pits, fighting each and every trial for her life. Her shoulders screamed in pain as she slowly and carefully cut the red onion just like Master liked it. The bacon was sizzling in the pan and she was sure that he would be awake soon. She had not slept at all last night, he had been unhappy with her because ... why was it, she tried to remember, why was it that she was being punished this time? She frowned, but she did not remember and she shook her head, gently. Maybe that was why her back ached, she considered. Had she been flogged again? She thought so because she ached so. Yes, that was right, she had been flogged because she had wanted. She had wanted something...
no, that wasn't right.
She wanted some*one*
Malcolm's face flittered in front of her, briefly....
was it him?
What was it that she had wanted? She didn't remember. There was not time to ask such questions, though, Master would be awake and would want his bacon, his wine and to be greeted by his dutiful slave. By his property who lived to serve him and only him. Bought and sold, owned completely, she was his, his property. His chattel.

Because that was, more than anything, what she was.

She did not know quite why, but this trial she was wearing a long red skirt, full and flowing around her. It was belted tightly in at her waist with a corset which pushed up her breasts. The top of the dress was black, wrapping around her in a feather pattern. Her long black hair was loose and around her neck was her slave collar. The chain from it dangled between her breasts and attached to the chain around her ankle, tinkling gently as she walked. She felt her hips swaying as she walked and she knew that she shared Master's bed when she behaved herself.When she deserved to be treated like a person, then he took her to his bed. He did not, of course, ever treat her like a person, but there at least the pain was pleasurable too.
And there, the manacles.
Why had Master kept those?
What did he want to do with them?
In to the room where Master's food was cooking, Faith's dreaming mind filled in each and every detail so that it made sense to her. There was Master, standing and he turned to her, knife in hand. He had drunk the wine that she had placed, so carefully, on to the wooden table and he was eating some of the bacon. He must have taken it from the pan and Faith cursed herself for failing to prepare for him properly. She had to serve him, to serve him better. To be the best slave and that meant not this. Not this shambles. The slices of onion in her hand fell, tumbling between her fingers and falling to the floor. She had failed and that meant that she could not even be a good slave. What was there for her if she could not serve others?
But she was a treasure.
Master had told her so...
Malcolm had not said that, he was not Master, but ..
.. should she put up places for the manacles to hang?
Did Master want that? She should ask him.
Who are you, he asked, and it was what the Owners in Athart had asked her, every trial. It all slotted into place in her mind, fitting together like the simplistic and yet complex jigsaw of her life. It was Master and he had asked The Question. She responded without thinking, her aching body (which ached because, ironically, in the waking world the young girl slept on a mattress for the first time in her 19 arcs) falling into position. Thoughts of Malcolm and Tristan fled from her mind as she realised that this was Master and so the two of them fell into shadows, although their faces looked in at the window, watching her as she fell to her knees. She caught sight of them, nudging each other and chuckling, pointing at her.
What was she doing wrong?
Why didn't they want her?
"This slave is no one, Master" she replied to The Question "This slave is wothless without your direction, yours, completely, to do with as you will. How may this slave please you, Master?" she asked. In the training room in Athart, that question had been asked each trial and that had always been the answer. For seventeen arcs she had referred to herself only as 'this slave', answered The Question each trial and she knew this. It outshone everything else, the men in the window, the mattress on which she slept. All of it. Because it was so very known. So, she spoke as she fell to her knees before him, hands out in front of her as though ready for him to manacle her wrists together (which of course was exactly what it was) - although one hand held a red onion in it, which had somehow appeared there again. She bowed her head and looked down at the floor, not speaking again until Master answered her.

Because she was here, with Master. In Athart, of course (which was outside) and in Master's home. She was his slave and he was angry with her, so she knelt, held out her hands and awaited her punishment.
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Yri G'hanna
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As he turned to the girl who was no-one, the knife fell from his hand. The iron clanged on the floor as it bounced and spun, coming to a rest with the razor sharp tip facing Faith. Yri’s jaw clenched tightly, stifling an urge to yell at her for scaring him. What truly scared him, however, was his gut reaction to scream at the slave girl. Yri was a slaver, not a slave-owner. He did not have a slave, he was no Master. His confusion quickly turned to anger and another emotion he couldn’t quite identify… Horror, it was horror.

He was horrified at the girl’s prostration, Yri rushed forward to lift her from her knees. He grabbed her hands gently and lifted her to her feet, using his strength to do so. He looked into her eyes and saw something… Shame, he thought. He could not believe what he was seeing, or how she was reacting to him. He wasn’t a Master, wasn’t a Master, wasn’t a….

And the world was spinning. Suddenly, the smells of the kitchen were making him nauseous, and he thought that he might be sick at the slave girl’s feet. He lurched to the left, crashing into the set table and sending the finery to the floor. The wine seeped down into the wooden floor, dripping through the slats to the dirt below. Rather than stop, he leaned forward and barreled through the door, bursting out into the brightest light he’d ever seen. As he stopped outside the door, he tried to let his eyes adjust and focus, but he could not. It was so bright that he was forced to close his eyes to stop the brilliance from burning his eyes out of the sockets.

He fell backward, back into the house. His head bounced off the wooden floor and stars danced before his eyes, sending everything in the room into a blur. He tried to mutter something, tried to get the girl to help him, but a woozy grunt was all that escaped his thick lips. His eyes rolled back in his head, and all of a sudden, clarity cut through the confusion and pain: The girl.

Suddenly, his eyes snapped back open. Still on his back, he craned his neck to see her. She was still on where he’d left her, and as he rolled slowly, he held his obsidian hand out, palm flattened. When he was standing, towering over her, he showed her his hand. In his other hand, the iron kitchen name gleamed in the fire that had burned the bacon, sending acrid smoke backwards away from them in the breeze from the door. He dragged the blade across his palm, making a small incision into it. Blood swelled at the cut and then finally dripped down, landing amongst the wine and hiding.

“I am no master, little one. When you cut me, I bleed, just as you. So I will ask you again, who are you?” He wanted a true answer, a name to call the girl so that he could figure out how he found himself in this strange place, playing master to a girl who was confused as to who he was. She was a small thing, looked fragile to Yri. Pretty, but not overly made up. She had the looks of a noble, but the mannerisms of a slave girl. Such was the way of the world, he supposed. He’d captured and sold many pretty women in his time, but he’d never owned one. He’d never desired to own a human girl.

Seeing her made his reality so much more painful. This is what he was creating. He was allowing a girl much like this one to be put into the same position, into a life of servitude. He clenched his jaw again, this time stop stem the flow of tears that were welling into his eyes. He had to be strong in front of her. She looked to him as a master, but if he looked weak, she would not know what to think of him as. A friend was already out. Perhaps he could convince her that he was something other than what she thought he was. Or perhaps she would be as confused as he was.
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The knife fell from his hand and it was beautiful as it spun and landed, the lights glittering off it as it bounced. But she didn't have time to consider that as he grabbed her by the hands and lifted her up. Lifted her so that she stood and, he would realise no doubt, he didn't need to do more than indicate, she went with him. Of course she did. He was instructing her.

But then he stumbled, off to the side and he fell on to the table, sending the contents crashing. Was he falling or furious, she wasn't sure and she could not help the fact that she winced in fear as the crashing noise cacophanied louder than it should have. But then, he threw himself out of the door and Faith wondered, briefly, what she should do. Should she follow him, or did he do that so that she would clean it up? She knelt down next to the broken crockery, starting to wipe at the mess there, when Master came back in. And promptly, without warning, passed out. Faith was utterly confounded by this and she watched, wide eyed as he rolled over, stood up and then held out his hand. Which he cut with the knife. "Oh, Master, no!" she blurted out before she could stop herself. He was hurting himself? Why would he do that? Why?

He was not a master? She shook her head, confused. "This... this slave..." she whispered, her voice shaking as she stood, eyes held transfixed by the blood.
Slaves are people
It was foolish to think of anything else.
She was not a chair.
Master told her so
"M...my owner gave me my name" she said, the memory flooding back in. "Master.. Master keeps that name. This... this slave does not know it. There have been so many names" every trial, sometimes more than once a trial, she was given a new name. "Everything this slave has is given by the Owners, by Master. Even this slave's name... Faith. This slave... I am Faith" she said and she put out her hand, which was shaking violently, to touch his, to feel the blood which blossomed there like a rose.
A rose?
That is the symbol of Venora
I am slave to Venora.
"If you are not Master... who... who are you?" she asked, softly, unable to take her eyes away from his hand, where his mortal blood trickled.

As the drop of blood fell to the floor, she felt the knife stab into her arm and she cried out in pain. What was happening? Where did it come from? She did not know and fear gripped her even as her breath left her. Clutching at her throat, Faith woke up to find that the damn cat was fast asleep, laying across her throat. She flung it off and turned around to go back to sleep, frowning as she thought that she was sure that she'd been dreaming, but could not remember what of
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Wendell
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Dream a Dream of You and Me

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Faith


Knowledge:
Faith: A slave even in dreams
Nightmares: History in Athart
Malcolm: Doesn’t treat you like a slave
Philosophy: Slaves are people too

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Fame: N/A
Magic: These points cannot be used for magic

Story: 4/5
Collaboration: 3/5
Structure: 4/5

Comment: A little confusing, and a lot of time spent in the character’s head also which makes it tricky. I didn’t feel like there was much interaction between the two characters. Couple of funny sentences and I feel like the story might have been cut off at the end? No full stop, have I missed a scrollbar? A little under the word count but partnered with my confusion, and that fact that it was cut a little short, I feel it's a fair grade. I did, however, enjoy the insight into Faith's thoughts and I feel like she is slowly coming to the realisation that she is worth more than what she has allowed herself in life.
word count: 172
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