Feye Morgan- I have a track record? All right! So, you thought it started off quickly? Oh, good. I was afraid that it was too slow.
Wink57CS- That was a lot of wows…I must be doing something right. \^_^
blue ice 2- Thank you!
Feathers of snow (Honeypot- Erm…well, I wasn't really planning on making it Dilandau x Hitomi, but I guess anything could happen.
NeverEndingQuest- Thank you!
Burnt Ashes- Thank you! I was worried that Folken was coming off a little too mean. I didn't want it to seem like he was just giving Dilandau to the madoushi.
Mary-chan- Thank you!
DeadlyBeauty1- Yea! A cookie! *Eats cookie* Oishii!
Chapter 2- The Price of a Human Life
Dilandau woke in chains. That, he soon found as he came to full consciousness, was not his largest problem, but it was, perhaps, his most immediate one. That, and the fact that he was sitting on the floor of an iron-barred prison.
No, it wasn't a prison. It was a cage, because it was located outside, in some sort of marketplace. At least, since he could see a merchant selling brightly colored cloth across the street, he assumed that he was in a marketplace. Prisons weren't usually located out in the open, in the view of the ordinary citizens. But the cage, too, was not his largest problem.
He had been stripped. Someone had relieved him of his sword, his armor- of everything, including his clothes. Like the several other people who stood with him, he was as naked as the day he was born. A road-thief had probably found him before he had woken up and robbed him. Even his dog tag and his diadem were gone. He could probably count on never seeing his sword again. But, even that was not his largest problem.
If he stood on his toes in the dirt, Dilandau could see the tops of trees in the distance, over the roofs of what he could only assume were shops and possibly homes. Those trees had turned a brilliant and beautiful gold for the autumn season. Several red and orange leaves fluttered past his bare feet on the floor of the cage. The bright sun that hurt his eyes blazed hot in the sky, but the breeze had a hint of coolness on it. Down the street, he could see a fruit seller ridding himself of the last of his midyear wares- peaches and strawberries and the like- to make way for those that ripened later in the year- apples and oranges and pomegranates. All around him, Dilandau saw the signs of autumn.
It had been the middle of summer back in Fanelia.
"Where the hell am I?" Dilandau muttered, grasping the cold bars of the cage. "Or should I be wondering when I am first, and where later? I suppose this could be somewhere around the Freid-Asturia border, but that would mean that the Sorcerers' drug knocked me out for at least two months. Even they wouldn't do that, and if they had, I would have starved to death by now. I probably wasn't out for more than a day, at the very most."
An ugly, toadlike man in fine clothing rapped Dilandau's knuckles with a stick. "Back, you!" he ordered. "Get away from there! Don't you start getting any ideas!"
Dilandau glared at the man. He would have put his hands on his hips, if the chain that connected his wrists had been long enough to allow such a motion. "Who are you to talk to me like that?" Dilandau demanded. "And for that matter, what the hell am I doing in this cage, chained up like a prisoner? Where am I?"
"Forgetting our place, are we, Drifter?" The man reached between the bars to hit Dilandau in the head with his stick.
"Stop that!" Dilandau snatched the stick away.
"You're a feisty one, aren't you?" Suddenly the stick was back in the man's gnarled hands. Dilandau blinked, stunned. He had not even seen the man reach for it!
The man poked him in the ribs. "You shut up and do what you're told!" he snapped. "You're so skinny I'll have enough trouble selling you as it is, and you do not want to make it any harder!"
"Selling me?" Dilandau reached through the bars to grab the man's collar, but he jumped back and slapped Dilandau's hand with that damn stick again. "You can't sell me!" Dilandau argued.
The man sniffed and drew himself up self-importantly. "Well, of course I can! We couldn't have you Drifters just running around doing whatever you wanted, now, could we? Of course not!" And he turned his back to Dilandau.
The man's words didn't make any sense! What the hell was a Drifter, anyway? And why did he think that Dilandau was one? Shouldn't he have to know what a Drifter was, in order to be one? All of this was greatly beginning to disturb Dilandau.
But the one detail that unnerved him the most was that, on his right cheek, beneath his eye, this ugly, overbearing man had a purple, teardrop-shaped tattoo exactly the same as the one that Dilandau knew so well from Folken's face. He had two pink dots on his forehead, too, but Dilandau dismissed them as birthmarks. Did Folken know this disgusting little man? This was all starting to make Dilandau's head hurt. What in the name of Asturia's sea-dragon god Jichia was going on here?
Dilandau examined the manacles around his wrists and ankles. They were only made of iron, but there was no way that he would be able to break them. Even stranger, he could see no lock or any kind of fasteners on them. It was as though the metal had been bent into a circle around his limbs and then welded closed. The cage that he stood in was the same. He couldn't even see a door on the thing! What, had several strong men come and lifted it up and rolled him inside? But even that couldn't have worked, because the cage was a fixed structure, the corner poles rammed solidly into the ground.
Dilandau leaned against the back of the cage, the only thing that he could do. At least the damn thing had a canvas overhang above it, and it was up against a stone wall, and the combination of the two offered his pale skin relief from the sun. He didn't so much mind being naked, a lifetime of community showers had rid him of that kind of modesty. Though, clothes would have made him feel a little more in control of the situation. Not that he had any sort of control at the moment. Come to think of it, that was probably the precise reason that he was naked- to take away any feeling of control that he might have left. The little man couldn't possibly keep him standing in this cage forever. Eventually, something would have to happen.
Eventually, something did happen. Another man broke off from the crowd of people wandering up and down the street and spoke to the ugly toad man. Even if their words had been loud enough for Dilandau to make out, he still wouldn't have listened. This new man made him stop and stare, even more dumbfounded.
This new man had a purple teardrop on his cheek and purple streaks in the corners of his eyes, just like Folken. He wore a purple-lined, high-collared, black cloak that brushed the ground when he walked, just like Folken. He even fastened it with a red spade over his left breast, and gold and red, glass bead ornaments dangled from the corners of the cloak's collar. Was Dilandau still asleep? Was this some sort of twisted nightmare that the Sorcerers had fabricated? If this new man who dressed like Folken had a mechanical right arm…damn, he didn't know what he would do then!
Apparently satisfied with what he had heard, the new man strode to stand closer to the cage. He didn't look quite as much like Folken close up. He had high cheekbones and an aristocratic face, and intelligent eyes of a vivid shade of purple. (Not to say that Folken's eyes weren't intelligent, either; they were probably more so, but Dilandau had never taken the time to observe the Strategos's eyes.) He was not so pale as Folken, but his hair was just as odd and somewhat similar. Such a dark black that it turned blue when the light struck it right, long in the back, it disappeared down the collar of his cloak so that its length could not be determined. The rest of it, probably about chin-length were it down, stood out on end in a manner that Dilandau could only describe as puffy. An exaggerated Folken. He had the same birthmark as the ugly man, those two pink dots on his forehead. Perhaps it wasn't a birthmark after all? He had Folken's passive, stoic air about him, but at the same time there was something haughty and dominating in his face that Folken had never possessed but that Dilandau had sometimes detected in the Sorcerers or Adelphos. Dilandau ventured closer to the bars of the cage, still staring. Who was this new man? Hell, who was the old one, the ugly one, too?
The toadlike man bobbed a bow to the new man. For goodness' sakes, when would Dilandau be able to put names to these people?
"So good to see you again, Lord Shays," the ugly man said, "in the market for another slave, are we?"
Dilandau blinked. Slave? Slave? So this ugly little man was a slave trader? Suddenly the world swam before his eyes. Oh, damn the Sorcerers! Someone must have found him while their drug was still in effect and sold him! Where on Gaea did they still practice slavery? Basram? Daedalus? Cesario? Rampant? No, none of those.
"I am," the one called Shays replied. Well, at least Dilandau didn't have to keep thinking of him as 'the new man.' "A horse kicked one of mine in the face and killed him. I'll need another to replace him, at least for the harvest."
"Yes, yes, of course."
"Your selection has been rather thin of late." Shays scanned the slaves standing with Dilandau in the cage. "Is this all you have?"
"Well, it is late in the season." The slave trader rubbed his hands together greedily. "I assure you that you'll find exactly what you're looking for, though."
"I hope so." Shays paced the length of the cage slowly. He stopped at Dilandau. "Is this one the best that you have?"
"Well, yes, Lord Shays, I would say that he is the best that I have at the moment. The others have been ill, you know, and I just got this one in yesterday."
Shays scanned Dilandau up and down. He seemed to know exactly what he was looking for, and he seemed very uncertain that Dilandau fit those standards. "He looks like he's never stepped into the sun once in his life. I've never seen someone so pale."
"I'm an albino," Dilandau growled. "Of course I'm pale."
Shays's eyebrows lifted in surprise. He seemed more taken aback that Dilandau had spoken to him than that Dilandau was an albino. Shays reached through the bars and grasped Dilandau's chin in his hand, tilting Dilandau's face more toward the light. "So he is. That's very interesting."
"Yes, a prize indeed," the slave trader agreed. "You'll never find another like him anywhere else."
"I'm looking for a worker, not a peacock." Shays released Dilandau. "No, I don't think so. He's far too thin. He'll be too weak for me to get any decent work out of him."
"Weak?" Dilandau's eye twitched in irritation and anger, and he gripped the bars of the cage again. "Now, look here! I'm not an animal! You can't sell me!"
"Of course I can!" The trader waved his stick at Dilandau. "Pipe down and don't speak until you're spoken to!"
Shays appeared to be thinking. "He has a lot of spirit."
"Oh, yes, a great deal of spirit," the trader agreed. "He'll work hard, you can be sure of that."
Shays tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowing in consideration. "But I wonder if he won't be a problem. He doesn't seem to have learned his place yet. I don't want a slave who will only give me trouble."
"Oh, but I'm certain that with your talents, you'll be able to break him in no time at all."
"Of course I can."
All right, that did it. This man was about to sell Dilandau as a slave to a man who bore suspicious similarities to Folken. Dilandau had received a high quality education in Zaibach, and he knew that none of the countries on Gaea, not even the smallest, most backwater ones- so, not even Fanelia, which had just in Dilandau's own lifetime switched from chickens to coins as the currency -still practiced slavery. It seemed safe to assume that he was still on Gaea, he could see the moon and the Mystic Moon in the sky. If he ever made it back to Zaibach, Dilandau swore, he would personally hunt down and kill every damned Sorcerer there was! What the hell was going on here? Someone certainly had some explaining to do!
"Hey, you! Shays, or whatever your name is!" Dilandau's knuckles turned white as he tightened his hands around the bars of the cage. "I don't know who the hell you are, but I can tell you that I am not a slave or a Drifter or any of the things that you keep calling me! I am the commander of the Zaibach Empire's Dragon Slayers, and if you don't let me the hell out of here right now, I swear I'll-"
"I've told you for the last time!" The slave trader gave Dilandau a knock in the head with his stick that sent the albino's vision spinning for a moment. Shays fixed Dilandau firmly in his sight, and a very odd and somehow wrong feeling rushed through him. He opened his mouth to protest his treatment once again, but no sound came forth from his lips.
"There. Now we can speak without interruption," Shays said.
"Oh, thank you very much, Lord Shays. I never did master that one." The slave trader bobbed another bow. "It seems that, perhaps, he is not quite right in the head," he continued apologetically. "He may just have had a bit too much time in the sun."
"Perhaps. He is quite pale."
"But even so, wouldn't his condition not make him the perfect choice, considering your order of work?"
"On the contrary, Jay keeps my hands plenty full enough. I don't need another to deal with yet." Still, Shays did not entirely reject the idea. "You do have a point, though."
"Indeed, Lord Shays, indeed."
"And he has a pretty face. Mother would probably enjoy having him work in the house when we don't need him outside."
"Oh, yes, a very pretty face."
Dilandau frowned. Pretty face! Shays should talk! Pretty face!
Shays looked away from Dilandau to the slave trader. "How much do you want for him?"
Dilandau shook the bars. They couldn't sell him! They couldn't sell him! He was a person, not a piece of merchandise! He wasn't that white bolt of cloth across the street! He wasn't that yellow apple up the road!
The slave trader grinned. "Fifty thousand," he answered.
"Absolutely not. That price is far too high for a slave of questionable quality."
"A man has to make a living."
"I'll take him for twenty," Shays told the trader.
"How about forty, then?" the trader argued.
"I'll not pay you any more than thirty. If you will not lower your price, I'll take my business elsewhere."
The slave trader shook his head. "You drive a hard bargain, Lord Shays. Thirty thousand it is, then."
"Done." Shays produced a pouch from somewhere beneath his cloak and counted out the gold-colored coins into the trader's greedy hand.
Dilandau's mind reeled. For once, he couldn't act, couldn't even think save for one sentence that ran through his head over and over. The man had sold him. The man had sold him. The man had sold him.
"Thank you, Lord Shays. Always a pleasure doing business with you and yours." The coins in the slave trader's hand disappeared into some hidden pocket. "Do give my regards to your father."
"I shall." Shays turned to Dilandau. "You, slave." Dilandau looked up at him. The man's voice had suddenly turned icy cold and taken on a tone that left no room for argument- not that it was exactly warm before. "In a moment I'll give you your voice back. I don't want to hear any more of this nonsense that you've been spouting. I don't see any sort of kismet marks on your face at all; therefore, you are a Drifter and by the same token a slave. I've had difficult ones like you before and it will not be a problem to break you just as I have broken them. Do I make myself absolutely clear?" Dilandau nodded. Considering the current situation, what else could he do? At present it seemed the wisest to cooperate for now, and watch, and wait.
The strange and wrong feeling filled him again, and he had his voice back. Not only that, but he was suddenly standing outside of the cage, wearing pants and a tunic of a rough, brown cloth. Where had they come from? How had he gotten out here when the cage didn't even have a door?
"He had these things with him when he was captured." The slave trader passed a canvas bag to Shays. "Nothing of value, really, but a few interesting little objects."
"Is that so?" Shays opened the bag, gave its contents a cursory inspection, and reached in. "These are fine things for a Drifter." He held up Dilandau's sword, still sheathed. "Probably all stolen."
"Stolen!" Dilandau retorted, "I'll have you know that every single thing that they took off of me belongs to me!"
Shays fixed him with a cold stare. "Shall I take away your voice again, Slave? You do not need it in order to work."
Dilandau's cheeks flushed in anger. He needed to play along for now, he reminded himself. "If I am to be a slave, at least let me keep some of my dignity. I'm not a liar and I'm not a thief."
"Slaves have no dignity or honor." Shays pressed his lips together in a thin line and lifted his chin haughtily, perhaps trying to check his own temper. "We'll see about this. If I find that these things really are stolen, do not expect to avoid punishment." He dropped the sword back into the bag and reached in again, and held up Dilandau's diadem. The lavender stone sparkled in the light. "This is an odd piece of jewelry. I can't imagine where it came from." He tossed the diadem into the bag with the rest of Dilandau's things, pulled the drawstring shut, and handed it to Dilandau. "You'll carry this. I need not tell you not to open it."
Dilandau bit his tongue to keep from snapping back at Shays. "How about unchaining me?"
"No. I don't think so. Not yet. And you will address me as 'Master' when you speak to me."
"Yes, Master," Dilandau spat out. If looks were swords, Shays would have died with a hundred stab wounds by now.
Shays sighed tolerantly. "You will come with me. Walk behind me."
"I can't walk with my feet chained together, Master," Dilandau told him acidly.
Shays tilted his head to the side. "Look down at your feet, Slave. It would do you well to be more observant." Dilandau looked down. The manacles had vanished from his bare feet. When had that happened? He just might go crazy for real in this place, with all these things disappearing and reappearing and changing places. Dilandau looked back up at Shays.
"Where did the chains go? I know that nobody unlocked them."
Shays's face seemed to soften just slightly. "You really have no idea?" he asked Dilandau, in the same voice that he might use to speak to a child.
"I really have no idea what the hell is going on here," the albino told him. "Really."
Shays thought a moment. "You're right, perhaps destiny did send this one to me," he mused. "No. He's a Drifter. If he were mad he wouldn't have lasted this long. I'm sure he's only had a trauma to the head, or perhaps he has been out in the sun too long. I'm sure he'll remember everything in a few days." Shays re-focused his attention on Dilandau. "Let me jog your memory, Slave," he said coldly, and pointed to the marks on his face. "Since you seem to have forgotten what the kismet marks mean, these tell you that I'm a High Artisan. That means that you belong to me now. You are my property. You will do exactly as I say without hesitation. Do you understand me?"
"I'd understand you better if you'd answer my damn question," Dilandau retorted.
Shays's face hardened, if that was possible. Dilandau had already frustrated him enough. He had impressive patience. "Your feet are no longer chained because I willed it that your fate was not to remain chained. If you're playing ignorant in hope of getting lighter work just because I wear the violet cloak, it won't work. I don't need a mad slave. If you don't straighten your mind out soon, I'll kill you and buy another to replace you. You were cheap. You'll hardly be a loss if I throw you away. It will do you good for the future to remember that you're disposable."
Dilandau looked Shays straight in the eye, aware that the action lost some of its effect due to the fact that he had to look up to meet the taller man's gaze. "I'm not afraid of you," he said evenly.
Shays lifted his chin again, his cheeks flushing pink, violet eyes flashing with anger. "I care not. Your opinions mean absolutely nothing. Now, follow me." Shays spun around neatly and walked with long strides away from the slave trader and the cage. Dilandau fell into step beside Shays. It seemed wise to do as he said, until Dilandau learned more about where he was…or at least until he learned where the hell on Gaea he was in the first place!
Shays stopped. "You will walk behind me, Slave," he told Dilandau, his voice hinting at irritation and anger.
Dilandau smirked. "If I'm behind you, how can you be sure that I won't run away? Master," he added.
Shays struck Dilandau sharply in the cheek, the force of the blow causing the albino to stumble backwards. "I have not willed it that you should be able to run away. Your fate, until I see fit to alter it, is that you should serve me. You will obey me, and consider yourself lucky that I don't take a whip to you right now and let you drag yourself all the way home."
Pressing a hand to his stinging cheek, Dilandau took a quick glance around. Nobody had even looked in their direction. If this scene happened in Zaibach or Asturia, a crowd would be gathering. But here, nobody noticed. There was nobody that could help him. He was alone.
He was alone.
"Yes, Master," Dilandau mumbled. Shays's temper seemed to cool a bit.
"Very good. Now, follow me."
Dilandau trailed along behind Shays. The man couldn't punish him for fuming. Well, Dilandau supposed that he could, if Dilandau really was a slave now, but that would require Shays turning around and noticing that Dilandau was fuming, and he was now paying absolutely no attention to Dilandau whatsoever. Dilandau considered an escape plan, but rejected it. That would probably be just the thing that would catch Shays's attention again, and, for now, it would probably be beneficial to be on his good side. For now.
Well, Dilandau mused, this Shays seemed to be in either good standing with or a good deal feared by the community. Nobody shot looks in Shays's direction or any such disrespect as he passed, and they did clear a way for him to move by. Dilandau looked carefully at the faces of the people that they passed, and, with the exception of the crudely dressed number that were clearly other slaves, every single one had the purple teardrop on the right cheek, under the eye, just like Folken. A few also had the streaks in the corners of their eyes and the black cloaks, and on them the lining of the cloak changed colors. Shays wore purple, but Dilandau also saw red, green, blue. The color must mean something, then, he thought to himself, but he saw no other consistencies that would clue him in as to what those colors meant. Everybody, except for Dilandau, had the birthmark, the two pink dots. Maybe they all had the same ancestors, or something. He would investigate that later. They clearly weren't important. Shays had pointed to the purple marks on his face, not the two pink dots.
Apart from the presence of slaves, this could have been any Gaean town. By the large trees around them, Dilandau would have sworn that they were in Fanelia had he not just burned it to the ground. Wherever this town was, it was a good distance inward, Dilandau decided. He smelled no salt, seaweed, or fish, and he heard no cry of seagulls or the crash of waves that would indicate an oceanside city. He saw no animal-people, either, but that was not so odd. There were none of them in Zaibach or Freid, either, and few in the former Fanelia; they mostly lived in Asturia. He had a faint memory of having met a Zaibach dog-man once, as a child, but his accent had been Asturian, so he didn't count.
The sunlight had taken on just a hint of the gold that it turned when it set, and Dilandau guessed that they were nearing the edge of the city- they had not walked long, but the day grew late -when Shays, finally looking back to check that his new slave still followed him, led Dilandau up onto a platform raised only a step above the ground. The tile felt smooth and cold under Dilandau's bare feet, and he looked down in interest at the pattern picked out in the rainbow colors. Did the swirls and patterns have meaning, he wondered, or was it simply an attractive design? More of that art that he had just relayed his hatred of to Folken only a day ago?
When he looked up, the scenery had changed. The platform that they stood on was the same, yes, excepting minute differences in the alignment of the colored tiles that Dilandau attributed to human error. Clearly someone had made a lot of these things and intended them all to be the same, but these people did not mass-produce things by machine as Zaibach did.
He seriously wondered if he was not somewhere in Asturia, perhaps on the outskirts. If that were the case, he might be able to get some help. The kingdom kept manned outposts along even its farthest borders. In the case of their failure to capture the Dragon, Folken had already made plans to stop at one- Castelo, he thought it was called, in the charge of some Knight Caeli named Allen Schezar- for supplies.
A break in the trees gave way to plains for a distance, and beyond them Dilandau could see purple mountains. Those mountains surrounded them, eventually, on all sides. The Floresta Mountains had never been fully explored, not yet, Dilandau remembered. Perhaps this country was located someplace in the middle of the range where no one had yet mapped. But, if he was the first person from Zaibach to ever see this place, then why did Shays remind him so much of Folken? And why did every person, besides the slaves, have a purple teardrop on his cheek?
"Slave!" Shays's voice broke sharply through Dilandau's thoughts. "You will follow me!"
Dilandau slung the bag over his shoulder again and trailed after Shays. They stepped down off the tiled platform, and Shays led him down a dusty, dirt path as the sun sank farther, staining the air a full gold.
Dilandau found himself wishing that he had shoes as he followed after Shays. He did not mind that he had to walk everywhere in this place. So far it was nothing compared to the distance he had to travel on foot daily on the Vione. But unlike in the city, this path was not clear of stones, and one had already cut his foot. He left dark spots in the packed dirt as he walked. He tried to pick his way around the sharpest-looking ones and still keep up behind Shays. Yes, surely they were somewhere concealed in the Floresta Mountains.
Except that, even to one as ignorant to the subtleties of architecture as Dilandau, it was obvious that the structure that they approached was not of Asturian build. It rose before them, a black blot against the bright sky, all turrets and spires and stone as dark as Shays's cloak. He had never seen a castle before. The thing was gigantic, in Dilandau's opinion, as large as the palace in Asturia, though it helped that his eyes had nothing to compare it to but the wide sky and the rolling land and forest. A shudder passed through Dilandau. This place reminded him too much of home, now, at least in color. Of course, no builder in his right mind in Zaibach would make a structure such as this. He would hardly call it functional.
Now they approached the main gate to the iron fence that circled the castle. It stood far taller than Dilandau's head, shut. He could only assume that it was locked- why bother closing it, otherwise? -but Shays produced no key or even slowed as he approached.
Dilandau blinked hard. He shook his head. Those gates were just shut, he knew it! But now…now they stood wide open! How had that happened? He looked up at Shays, who continued through the gate as if nothing were amiss.
Dilandau stopped to stare at the gate for a moment. It had snowflakes between the black bars, and not one looked the same as another. Someone had taken a lot of time to create such painstaking detail. What was something so beautiful and delicate as a snowflake doing on this gothic building?
"Slave!" Shays snapped. Dilandau whirled around, the canvas bag slapping him in the back. "I did not give you permission to stop, nor to stare at the gate!"
Dilandau set his jaw stubbornly, his eyes glittering defiantly, and trudged after Shays. At least now the packed dirt road gave way to smooth, gray stones and soft grass, still green. He thought that they would go inside, but Shays led him around the side of the building and out through another set of gates.
They went to what must, for the most of the year, serve as flower beds in a probably beautiful garden. At the present they only held the dry, brittle, brown skeletons of beauty, leaves and seed pods clattering together in the wind. It took Dilandau a moment to notice the brown-clad man stooped over the dead flowers, down on his knees in the soil.
They stopped walking. "Arias," Shays said. The man on the ground jumped immediately to his feet, the way the Dragon Slayers always had at the sound of Dilandau's voice.
"Yes, Master?" he asked.
Shays gave Dilandau a push forward. "This is the new one. He'll help you for the rest of the day, but I want him in the vineyards come tomorrow."
"Of course, Master. As you wish." Arias bowed to Shays.
Dilandau looked back over his shoulder, but Shays had vanished, along with the bag and the manacles around Dilandau's wrists. "How the hell does he do that?" Dilandau muttered.
Arias looked at Dilandau as if he had just asked how to breathe. "Why, the Master simply willed it that it was not his fate for him to remain here, or for your hands to still be chained or for you to have the bag," he answered, as if it were the most simple thing in the world. He approached Dilandau, limping, Dilandau noted, favoring his left leg. Was this the one who had gotten kicked by the horse? No, that one had gotten it in the face and died. "My name is Arias," he said, offering Dilandau a callused hand.
Dilandau did not take it. "Arias what?" he asked.
Arias dropped his hand, his dark eyes confused. "Only Arias," he answered. "Drifters don't have surnames."
Dilandau sighed in frustration. "And what the hell is a Drifter?" he demanded.
"You don't know?" Arias asked him, genuinely puzzled. "Why, you are. I am."
Dilandau clenched his hands into fists and tried to control his temper. "I'm not from around here," he said slowly. "I don't know how your society works."
Arias gestured for Dilandau to come and limped back to the dead flower bed. "We shouldn't stand around too long, or the masters will get angry. Here, it's easy. Pull off the seed pods and toss them in this basket here." He wiped his hands on his rough, brown tunic and reached for the dead flowers.
Dilandau knelt across from Arias to keep an eye on him. The slave could, he supposed, be considered handsome, more so if he were not so dirty and the elements had not weathered his skin. His dark, chin-length hair hung in his face as he worked, constantly causing him to have to push it back behind his ears. Dilandau decided that he might like Arias. He was clearly older than Dilandau, but still young. He had a mild, submissive quality about him that Dilandau had come to find that he liked in his subordinates. And he didn't have a teardrop on his cheek, though he still had that strange birthmark. "What's your name?" Arias asked.
Dilandau made no move to touch the dead plants. "Commander Dilandau Albatou," he answered.
"Albatou. That's a powerful name," Arias told him, a note of respect entering his voice. "Commander? You really aren't from around here, are you?"
"I'm from the Zaibach Empire," Dilandau told him.
"Zaibach? I've never heard of that place before. How did you get here?"
"I don't know." Arias didn't find this tale at all strange? For a slave, he seemed awfully cheerful.
"Is Zaibach a very different place?" Arias asked.
"Like night and day."
"You must have some questions, then. Master Shays lets me show the new ones around. I'm not good for much else, not anymore." Arias looked up. "Ask, but please, work. The masters will know if you haven't been working, and they'll punish you." He scraped a dark lock of hair back behind his ear.
Dilandau reached for a plant and took a deep breath. He planned to get as much out of Arias as he could. "What's a Drifter?"