Author's Note: Welcome to part two! Bear with the length here... I want to get this story told, so I've been writing like a crazy person and it's a bit lengthy for me. I promise you'll enjoy it if you read it though. Same warnings and disclaimer still apply.
Please read and review!
The first memory I really have is of the slave lines, I guess... probably because that's where I was born. I remember how badly everyone smelled, and how the shackles on my wrists and neck always itched. I was chained behind a women who called herself my mother, but I never saw her face--only the back of her head, but she had horns like me, so I believed her. We walked in a line, slept in a line... marched onto ships and sailed in a line. Sometimes the woman in front of me talked to me in a broken voice; that's the only reason I knew my name. I don't know where my family was from, or even what island I was born on, but her accent was strange. I remember her being sold somewhere in West Blue, but nobody wanted to buy a scrawny little kid who could barely speak. So the hunched figure and matted white hair I'd followed for five years suddenly vanished, and I had to follow an old man instead. I kept going like that, until I was about seven years old and we docked here, in Syrup Village.
The other slaves had started whispering as soon as we landed here, about a man who was well known as a wonderfully kind master. Those of us who could still lift our heads immediately began scanning the crowds for him, earning a few blows to the back and head for being so insolent. It was obvious when we finally did find him; he had gentle eyes that looked a lot like yours do now, Oujousama. Everyone's eyes pleaded with your grandfather, so I assumed I had no chance. But then he stopped in front of me and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Where do your people come from, boy?" he asked slowly, and I suddenly couldn't stand to look him in the eyes.
"I... don't know, sir," I replied in my cracked voice, gazing somewhere just over his left shoulder. I held my breath and waited for a response from him, but all he did was nod to a man who was with him. The next thing I knew, though, the two of them were unchaining my neck from the line and cutting the links between my wrists--leaving the bands, as a sign of my slave status. I stood there in astonishment while your grandfather haggled with the other man, letting the breeze blow against my neck for the first time in my life. Then my new master beckoned to me and I followed him back here, to the mansion.
This place was smaller then--it was your father who added on a lot of the rooms, but it was still like a palace to me. Your grandfather sent me with a gaggle of women servants, telling them to get me cleaned up and dressed for dinner. They gossiped to me about how the master's wife had recently died, and they hoped I would be the one helping take care of his baby son instead of them. By the time I was presentable, I'd heard at least one story about nearly everyone who worked in the house, and a few who didn't.
From that day on, my life was entirely different. I woke up early every morning to help the cook clean vegetables and dishes for breakfast, and then it was my job to feed the baby before I could eat. Your father was an atrocious child, Oujousama--but I ate breakfast with him every day anyway, even when he got older. We were really quite good friends, despite the seven year age difference. And there was a milkmaid named Sera who came by every day, a bit older than I was, who thought it was "just so cute" that I helped take care of a little boy.
Your father laughed at me when she made me blush. He didn't understand at first--he was too young, I think. But I liked Sera, from about as early on as I liked anything about girls. She always looked dirty, but I didn't notice; I looked the same, anyway. We never talked much, but it was enough for me to decide that I adored her. Or maybe that was because I never saw any other girls near my age.
In any case, your father never had to worry about girls. He was arrange to marry your mother early on.
You didn't know your parents' marriage was arranged? Ah... it was, but they loved each other anyway. And he knew he was going to marry her, so he didn't deal with other women very much.
One day, Sera came by to find the mansion dark and dreary. The old master had passed away in the night, and your father was in too bad of a state to even decide whether or not he wanted to buy the milk for the day. So Sera sat on the front steps with me while the older servants tried to calm down our new master.
"So the little kid is in charge now?" she asked me, tossing her hair over her shoulder as if she were a snobbish, wealthy girl.
"Mm," I grunted in a failed attempt at manliness, adding, "but he's seventeen. He's really old enough to start handling things here... but I'm sure he's really sad over losing his father."
"You can't blame him," she said. "And he's probably scared. That's a lot of responsibility... I'm glad I'm not rich." She smiled, and I had to turn my head away to hide my blush. but she only laughed and said, "You're too cute," and I knew my face was on fire.
We talked well into the afternoon, and by the time she left, we had both long forgotten about the milk. I was completely smitten with her, and--
Oujousama, don't giggle like that. It's hard enough to tell you this as it is.
...Did I what? Oujousama! You're getting ahead of the story...
Sera and I grew closer, with the increased absence of your father after that. He was constantly busy, although he still found time to talk with me over dinner. He had truly become a man with the sudden responsibility of the house, the money, and the servants, and there was such a rift in our social positions that I began to feel more and more awkward trying to keep our friendship going.
But... not nearly as awkward as I felt a few months later, when he opened the woodshed to find me and Sera--
...Oh, honestly, Oujousama, it's not that surprising, is it? We were in love, I'm sure you understand.
Your father was furious at me--he said anyone could have walked in there, and we were lucky it was just him. I probably would have been in trouble for a long time, if not for Sera...
Oh, Oujousama, she was really a lovely girl. Dark brown hair, deep eyes, and a full figure... very beautiful for someone of her status. I don't know what she saw in me, really. I was even below her at the time... just a slave, still wearing those wrist bands and everything. But getting caught made our relationship somehow even stronger, and a bit exciting, too--even if your father wouldn't speak to me for weeks afterward. He was still such a child at heart.
But he became a lot more mature when I told him that Sera was with child--and so did I. (Don't give me that look, Oujousama...) He called me to the parlor one day, sat me down, and told me something I never thought I'd hear.
"Merry... I want to start paying you."
"Paying me?" I asked incredulously. "Please, don't joke."
He smiled at me, and I knew he was serious. "You've been nothing but wonderful to this family. One of the best servants we ever had, according to my father, and I agree. And I know that you and Sera cannot raise a child on a milkmaid's salary."
"The others will hate me," I blurted, "if I'm getting paid and they're not."
"I'm going to pay you all eventually, but you're first," he grinned, and I forgot for a moment that he was only a teenager still--making such hefty decisions about his family's fortune. So I hugged him, which I'm sure was against the rules somehow, and thanked him, and even cried a little.
He was so involved with everything for me and Sera then. He spent long evenings chatting with us under the stars out in the garden, asking Sera what she wanted to name the baby, asking me if I thought I could build onto the mansion for him. (I told him no, of course--I studied ships, not houses, in my spare time.) And he was the first one to notice that Sera was looking pale and sickly, actually losing weight the longer she progressed in her pregnancy.
When he pointed it out to me, I denied it completely, but by the time the baby was due, she could no longer walk and was having a difficult time even breathing. She couldn't get to the midwife, so we had to put her up in a spare room in the mansion and get the female servants to help until the midwife could reach us. The women pushed me out of the room, and so I sat in the parlor and waited.
And waited, and waited, and panicked, and waited some more.
The head maid stepped into the doorway at one time and beckoned your father over to her. They stepped out for awhile, and I was on the verge of smoking for the first time when he finally returned.
"Merry," he said, and the tone of his voice was... heartbreaking. Truly... truly heartbreaking, Oujousama.
I jumped to my feet and grabbed his hands and asked wildly, "What's happened? Tell me, tell me what happened!"
Your father was calm enough, but his being calm made things even worse for me. His eyes were dark, and he struggled with what to say... but I knew it had to be something horrible. I sunk onto the sofa and stared out blankly, my mouth hanging open.
"Merry," he said again finally, but I didn't bother to move. "The baby's fine. It's a girl."
"So Sera...," I stammered. "What... what about Sera?"
He turned his eyes from mine, and I needed no other answer. I must have cried out somehow, because he was shushing me one moment, and I was frantically trying to pry open his father's gun case the next.
"Merry, what are you doing? Stop it, stop it right now--" He was always stronger than I was, and he managed to wrestle me back to the couch before I could get to the guns. I sat there in silence for two days.
